Breakfast

Breakfast today is a cinnamon mocha latte protein shake:

• 12 oz. double-brewed coffee
• 1.5 scoops chocolate whey protein
• a little milk
• a little half-n-half
• a shake of cinnamon

Blend it up in the Magic Bullet, not quite Starbucks quality (I had a no-sugar cinnamon dolce latte yesterday, it was really good, I wish the pumpkin spice lattes had less than 38 grams of sugar) but not too bad. I should buy some instant espresso and see how that works.

A TT workout Monday, intervals and some treadmill walking Tuesday, and some rest yesterday. I’m planning on another TT workout tonight and some more intervals or light treadmill tomorrow.  The XBox 360 hasn’t completely thwarted my gym routine yet, so small victory for me. However, I did buy the original Halo yesterday only to discover that I need the hard drive to play it, but considering that Halo is the flagship game of the XBox, I should probably play through the series. In the past year or so I’ve had big time feelings of guilt for being lazy in any fashion, so I’m definitely still in super-compensation mode for buying and playing this thing.

Quick Workout

My head was pounding earlier from a lack of caffeine during the day (at least I think that’s what it was, my coffee this morning was 75% decaf) so I didn’t go to the gym, but I did get a quick squat/pushup Tabata workout in along with a 45-minute walk around the neighborhood. Tabatas are 4-minute protocols consisting of 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest, completed 8 times. They are a really intense form of intervals and while these could have been harder, it’s still better than nothing and I raised my heart rate for a bit and got a sweat going. I’m going to dig deeper into Turbulence Training to get another good 10-15 minute bodyweight circuit going on nights when I can’t (or don’t want to) go to the gym.

Ate pretty well today, though not as many vegetables and I’ve been using pre-packaged frozen meatballs too much as a protein source. I need to start baking some more chicken. I’m also at that terrible point again when I realize I should count my calories for a while to see how much I’m really eating compared to what I think I am. I hate that point so much.

Early Day

A good workout last night. I did the same TT intermediate workout that I did last week (again, nothing else last week) plus 20 minutes of treadmill intervals and I felt good. Invigorated, not sick. Tonight I’ll just go and do some light cardio to stay active. I’d go for a walk but it’s pouring here right now and more storms are on the way.

My eating has been pretty good. I had a couple of cheat meals during the weekend (steak and potato at Outback, English muffin and homefries with my eggs and bacon at breakfast, and chicken parm/beer/chocolate cake at Jaylynn’s bridal shower), but I wasn’t too bad. My usual cheat meals involve chicken wings and fries, and at least I had some brocolli with the steak. I’m right back on the wagon this week. A great day of eating yesterday with much-increased vegetable intake.  TNT has been good so far minus those cheat meals. I do miss the sugary post-workout shakes I was having, but I’ll get back to those in a few weeks.

Work is getting very slow. A wave of discharges and no admits or referrals has left me with less than 3 hours of treatment a day. I hope some patients head my way soon, because I was bored to tears today. Granted I left a couple hours early, but still, it can’t be like this all the time.

I also might have found a loophole in buying an XBox: Jaylynn said I can’t buy one until we’re married so we have our wedding money, but if I charge it and pay it off when I get my statement after the wedding, that should satisfy her. She’s helping her sister move in to her new apartment this afternoon so when I call and ask hopefully she’ll be too distracted to say no. I’m sorry, I went to GameStop today to buy last year’s Madden and they didn’t even have that. I can’t take that anymore. With Brady gone for the year, I need to escape from reality.

Branch Chain Amino Acids Taste Terrible

No other workouts this week. I became bogged down with stuff, got home later at night than planned a couple of times, and was just hot and lazy yesterday (However I did go for a nice walk the other day). I’m not too upset, I’m supposed to take a week off between switching programs anyway, so at least I got to focus on food and get some rest.

The TNT Diet is going well so far. I’ve upped my vegetable intake via celery, spinach, and broccoli (though still not nearly enough to really be compliant), I’ve cut out basically all starchy carbs (though I did forget corn, I ate 1.5 ears of it last night. Whatever), and I’ve been keeping full with meat, cheese, and nuts. I feel good, though I started to drag a little yesterday. My mom brought home pizza for the family but she made me a steak instead, which was very good. I didn’t feel too left out and I didn’t sneak anything at night, either. Another challenge tonight if we go out to eat, plus lunch at Charter Oak Country Club tomorrow before Jaylynn’s bridal shower.

I stopped taking beta-alanine a couple weeks ago after deciding it wasn’t doing much for me other than making my skin tingle, so I bought some BCAAs, which are far more reputable. A lot of pre-made recovery drinks have BCAAs in them to stop muscle breakdown, so this is a way to improve while being cheaper. I’m having some in the morning, some with a shake during the day, and some right before bed. Unlike creatine, this stuff tastes pretty disgusting. Whatever, all I do is slam the shakes anyway.

Off to work on another Saturday then up to Berlin for the rest of the weekend. I keep telling myself the paycheck will be worth it.

Changing Gears

No blogs since Wednesday, but my week finished up pretty decent. I got another workout in Thursday for arms, which got me to 3 for the week. I ended up working 59 hours last week, and I realized on Monday when Brenda called me into work to do all the paperwork I had left on Friday that I had overextended myself for the week. Granted I made an entire paycheck’s worth in bonus money, but I’m going to take some time off before I do any more extra time like that (well except for this Saturday).  I’m still pretty drained.

Starting yesterday, I put the Physique Formula on hold for a while so I can concentrate on fat loss for the wedding. I’ve got 6 weeks to get as lean as I can, so I decided to use Turbulence Training and get back on the TNT Diet to get that ball rolling. Turbulence Training is regarded as a great program by the fitness community, and it focuses on hard, efficient workouts using basic exercises with short rest periods and interval training. Tonight I started with the intermediate program which consisted of dumbbell split squats supersetted with incline dumbbell press, hamstring curls on the ball supersetted with pushups, and Swiss ball abs supersetted with rear delt raises, followed by 15 minutes of incline treadmill intervals. Workouts like this always look so easy on paper, but I came close to vomiting on the drive home.

A great thing about Turbulence Training is it almost always has 3 workouts a week, and as much as I love doing Jimmy Smith’s workouts, I’ve had the hardest time getting 4 workouts in with my schedule. I just jump around too much. I definitely enjoy adding size with the PF and I can’t wait to go back to them, but with my limited time and fat loss goals taking priority over almost everything, it has to take a back seat for now.

The TNT Diet is going to be the biggest challenge to stick to. It’s a good diet and I agree with it’s principles, but to really set myself up for success I’m going to have to be strict for 4 weeks, preferably without a cheat meal. The first 4 weeks of this program really set up the body to gain muscle without gaining fat (something to do with how we control insulin, I don’t know), so after this initial period I can relax somewhat. I’ve stocked up on high-protein/low-carb foods like deli meats, eggs, string cheese, cottage cheese, and unsalted cashews, and I’ve prepared some vegetables I’ll actually eat (roasted brocolli spears…yum), so I’ve at least done the prep work. The good part about this diet is it contains foods that I actually enjoy and I can eat them until I feel full (I lost my 30-40 pounds last fall/winter on a variation of this diet). The major-league difficulty I’ve had and will have in the future is resisting ordering the pizza at a restaurant even though I could eat a delicious steak and still be on the plan. As usual, we’ll see.

New Phase of PF and other stuff

Tonight started the next phase of the Physique Formula and the workout tonight was hard. Switched from incline chest exercises to flat and decline, the back exercises switched to pullup-focused instead of row-focused, and it was heavy on the triceps. Looking at it on paper I thought it would be much harder than it was, but I still felt like vomiting afterward. I got it done. Tomorrow is legs and as usual I am not looking forward to it. I can never get myself to do the final rep that really causes growth. Burning legs are so painful.

I’m getting even more calories immediately after lifting by almost doubling the amount of Gatorade powder in the shake. It’s getting incredibly sweet, but from all I’ve read about post-workout nutrition, it’s necessary. The strawberry protein and blue Gatorade is a pretty good flavor combo.

I simplified my gym playlist today and stuck with some good rap. Tonight I bumped:

• Lil Wayne “I’m Me” and “Best Rapper Alive”
• Young Jeezy “Put On” f. Kanye West
• 50 Cent “What Up Gangsta?”
• Eminem “Lose Yourself” and “Till I Collapse”

Definitely got me up for it tonight.

By the way, I started a Twitter account for some reason.  I know about 2 or 3 people who use it, so it’s not as practical as the Facebook status updates, but whatever (another BTW, if we aren’t Facebook friends, add me already). If there is a trend, I will be roughly 6 months late to the party.

TGIF

A long day at work. Donna’s last day so I run the yard again. I’m back with the full caseload and I had over 7 hours of evals/treatments today. I did not take a lunch or eat a damn thing all day until I grabbed a protein bar (again) on the way home. Not exactly great nutritional advice.

When I look the tiger in the eye, my diet is atrocious. I eat enough calories and protein to gain muscle, I’ve learned more about post-workout nutrition that I’ve seen some good gains there, but overall I do not eat very healthy when I’m trying to get bigger.  I rationalize almost anything including junk. I eat so few fruits and vegetables and so much of what I have is processed. Sure I’m not eating ring dings and drinking soda all day, but microwaving frozen meatballs for protein every night and drinking coffee and Lo-Carb Monster drinks isn’t much better. Ironically I found it easier to be compliant with a less-enjoyable restrictive low-carb diet than what I’m doing now. I got into a good routine of cottage cheese/spinach/almonds/turkey/ommelette in the fall and I had great success with that. Right now I’m just eating like shit and I haven’t been able to bring myself to buckle down. Mom brought home pizza Wednesday night and Jaylynn suggested The 99 last night when I/we could have chose better options.  I’ve bitched about this before but my insistence on eating these things more than I should is what will keep me from my goals.

Money hasn’t quite been hemhorraging lately (though it’s about to once some of the wedding/apartment stuff needs to be paid for) but it has bleeding slowly from my wallet the past couple of weeks. I keep stopping at the convenience store or coffee shop during these big travel days and paying 5 or 6 bucks repeatedly. I’m not going to go broke over two weeks of little purchases, but I was doing so well with not spending any money on the little stuff during the week. Hopefully being in a set schedule for a while will help plug that hole.  I really hope (there’s that word again) that once Jaylynn and I get married, move in, and don’t have to travel all the time that these little annoyances will go away or at least be cut down.

I’m not going to the gym tonight (not eating being the biggest excuse) but I am going to use this time to organize my work stuff. I am supposed to have 3 workouts left this week, but what I might do is divide up the fourth one and add it to the second and third.

In any case, I’m going to throw on some music and start sorting before I get any lazier.

Tuesday: Chest/Back

Back on the gym track this week with a really good workout tonight. I realized I have a free weekend coming up so I can get all four workouts in this week, just not on their regular days. I did the normal Monday routine tonight with incline bench (up to 200 x 3), supersets of barbell rows/dumbbell flyes, incline skullcrushers/cable rows, and Swiss ball crunches/twists, I went up in all my weights despite having a rough weekend of eating. I could have had another rep on a few of those exercises but given my current state, I’m happy.

I’m going to commit to eating more real foods in the future as opposed to protein bars and powders. I’ve been relying on those too much lately, and granted I’ve been driving all over creation and not preparing anything ahead of time, I’ve been going to Tedeschi’s too much to buy a Big 100 bar.  They are certainly better than fast food but a man cannot live on MetRx alone.  I’ve already prepped a bunch of smoothies and I’m currently cooking a ton of chicken as I write this. Combined with some almonds/apples as snacks, I’ll be much better off and more energized.

PF, Arms & Shoulders

Did a relatively short arms/shoulders workout according to the PF manual. It wasn’t like much I had done before. Rather than doing non-competing supersets (one set of chest followed by one set of back), these were two consecutive variations of the same exercises of the same muscle back to back. I had to change it a little just for comfort, but it was very hard:

A1) reverse curls, outside grip: 70 x 6 x 4
A2) reverse curls, inside grip: 40 x 6 x 4

B1) skullcrushers to forehead: 70 x 8 x 2, 60 x 6 x 2
B2) tricep pressdowns: 60 x 6 x 4

C1) seated side delt raises: 25 x 10 x 2, 20 x 8 x 1
C2) standing side delt raises: 12.5 x 15 x 3

D1) hanging leg raises: 15 x 3
D2) cable crunches: 10 x 3

All were done with 30 seconds of rest. The slight differences in the exercises made them extremely fatiguing. For the tricep pressdowns I was actually supposed to do skullcrushers to the nose, but I didn’t really see the difference so I did the pressdowns instead. My forearm are throbbing and weak from the reverse curls, I can barely type this. The narrow grip on those was brutal to my wrists, they didn’t hurt but it was so hard to keep them straight. I also can’t see the difference between the seated and standing delt raises, but whatever. I was very tired for an arm/shoulder workout.

I’m eating a bowl of oatmeal, peanut butter, and chocolate protein that’s a pretty good bedtime snack. Good night.

Legs

Just got back from a very hard but incomplete workout. I decided to do more sets of deadlifts at 5 reps, so after 8 sets of those I was already really tired:

deadlifts:

• 135 x 10 x 2
• 225 x 8 x 2
• 245 x 5 x 4

bulgarian split squats:

• 30s x 8 x 2

Aaaand that’s about it. I felt nauseous and didn’t want to puke on the gym floor (it must have been that energy drink I’ve been needing to drag myself there on leg day), but at least I got a lot of volume in on the major lift of leg day. My plan is to do 4 or 5 sets of 5 reps on deadlifts and try to add 10 pounds a week (245, 255, 265, etc.) rather than go up to sets of 2 and just keep adding weight. I’m sure my form isn’t perfect, especially as I go heavier and heavier on the first rep. After the wedding I might do a structured program to just focus on getting stronger for a while. I would ultimately love to deadlift 405 pounds.  That’s a pretty legit number.

I learned of a side effect of beta-alanine: serious skin tingles.  On my workout days I take 2 pills before and 2 pills after, but on my off days I’ve been taking all 4 pills at once.  Last night my skin had such pins and needles it made me feel like I was wearing wool pajamas. I did some research and it turns out it’s not an allergic but a normal reaction with beta-alanine, but I think I’ll space those pills out throughout the day to avoid that.