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.

An unexpected night off…

This week could be monumental for bonus money. I’m picking up an ungodly amount of time available the rest of this week because of the need in the area right now, including the couple of hours I did tonight, a couple tomorrow, a couple Friday, a monster Saturday, and about 4 hours Sunday. Unfortunately this might limit what I can do at the gym. I didn’t get home until 8:30 tonight and I was beat. I nearly got myself to change and get going but of course right after I had a shake I bailed.  I did eat healthy today, so as long as I keep that up this week, the amount of money I can make in the next few days will be worth whatever I miss at the gym.

My ABSOLUTE favorite song right now is the leaked “Circulate” off of Young Jeezy’s The Recession. It has a real “Roc Boys” feel with the horns and everything. I can’t hold still when I put this song on. It’s a flat-out hit.

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 = Back..sort of

I did get to the gym last night after a long (though good) day of work to do back, but it didn’t really go the way I planned it. I hopped on the pullup bar and did a set of 7 reps and while I was resting and writing in my notebook, some other guy put a couple of handles on the bar and started doing hanging leg raises. He asked me if I was on it but with his headphones on apparently misunderstood me when I was said it was in use. I didn’t feel like arguing with the guy lest I look like an ass, so I scrapped pullups and did Hammer Strength rows before doing some other stuff. The workout was as follows:

low iso rows:

• 225 x 10 x 2
• 245 x 8 x 1
• 255 x 6 x 1
• 265 x 5 x 1

T-bar rows: (I LOVE these)

• 135 x 12 x 1 (warm-up)
• 185 x 12 x 1 (warm-up)
• 225 x 10 x 1
• 275 x 6 x 2

So other than the set of pullups at the beginning and a couple sets of close-grip chinups at the end, that’s really all I did. I wasn’t feeling great either, and the guy who took my pullup bar just through me off. I still did a few good heavy sets and my back is sore today, so some progress was made. I have to say though, I wish I could get more than 7 pullups at this point. That’s 3 weeks and I’m still stuck on that.

I’m not going to the gym tonight. I worked 11 hours today and I’m exhausted, not getting home till almost 8. I don’t have to go to Falmouth tomorrow (though I will pick up a few hours of bonus on Saturday. BTW I won the Genesis summer raffle for June, a $100 gas card!) so I’ll be able to do something at the gym tomorrow night. That leaves me with potentially Saturday afternoon as the time to get in my fourth workout of the week.

I really have to stop doing these 10- and 11-hour days soon. The new therapist is starting to get a little more settled but the workload is still pretty big, plus the paperwork is still overwhelming.

Anyway, that’s about it for tonight. I’m going to read and go to bed.

Chest + Rambling

Yesterday at work actually went pretty well. I did the new evals while giving the new therapist most of the treatments for the day, which left me by myself most of the time and I got a lot done. So while not perfect, the work week is off to a good start.

Chest last night was really good, too:

inclines:

• 135 x 12 x 2 (warm-up)
• 170 x 3 x 1 (easy)
• 195 x 3 (4 with spot) x 1

declines:

• 135 x 12 x 2 (warm-up)
• 185 x 6 x 1
• 215 x 2 x 1 (actually pretty hard, but I left a couple reps in the tank)
• 230 x 3 (4 with spot) x 1 (surprised I got that much)

flat dumbbells:

• 65s x F x 5

incline Hammer Strength machine:

• 135 x 12 x 1 (warm-up)
• 185 x 7 x 1
• 185 x 6 x 1
• 185 x 5 x 1

dips:

• bodyweight x F x 3

Numbers went up on the major stuff, though I still don’t know if I should be doing more volume, which is why I threw in some more incline stuff at the end. At this rate, in a month I should be done 215 for sets of 3 on incline and 245 for sets of 3 on decline. Not quite my old form of 245 on incline and 275 on decline, but it’s getting there.

Other News and Notes:

• I’ve been coughing my lungs out since Friday despite physically feeling better from the weekend. I don’t know what this is but it doesn’t feel like a regular cold. A lot of people at work have been sick. The cough is brutal.

• Jaylynn called in sick Sunday, so later on that day we saw Dark Knight. Definitely a very good (not sure I want to call it ‘great’) movie and Heath Ledger was awesome. The more time that passes from seeing it, the more amazing his performance was. All I can talk about right now is Batman and Batman villains. I sound like a child. “…and Batman did this and this and this, and he can do this and this, and he has the Batcycle which does this and this…” Molly and I have been hypothesizing and reading rumors about the next movie in the series and who could be the villain. The two I’ve read so far are Daniel Day Lewis as The Riddler (not happening) and Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin (brilliant!). Despite that it’s all I want to talk about, I still think I’m in the camp of the movie almost living up to the hype.

• Some trailers I’m excited for: Watchmen and The Day The Earth Stood Still. Definitely in a sci-fi mode.

• I don’t think I’m going to go into work till 9:30 today when I have a patient scheduled. I just want to relax for a bit.

• Listening to so much Lil Wayne recently, both Carter II and Carter III. It took me a while to buy him as a great rapper, especially since my only real exposure to him since “Tha Block is Hot” and “Get Off The Corner” were his garbage verses on Kanye’s “Barry Bonds” and Jay-Z’s “Hello Brooklyn 2.0.” However in anticipation for my New Orleans trip I figured I’d get reacquainted with Lilweezyana, and man is he good. I still don’t quite get why Time is writing features about him and I don’t know how he sold 1.1 million albums in a week, but I’m now in the Pro-Weezy community.

• I’m about 50 pages away from finishing Jared Diamond’s Collapse, a book I’ve spent the better part of a month trying to get through. It’s about this close to reading a textbook, but it’s still pretty interesting. It makes me feel smart.

So that’s about it in my recent world. As you can see, nothing earth-shattering. Back and a little biceps tonight.

Perfect Week, Part II

Last Monday’s attempted “perfect week” was pretty good and got me back on track for a few things, especially working out, eating, and reading.  The only downside to last week was work.  With our new speech therapist (who I really like), I spend more time orienting her and answering questions than seeing patients and doing paperwork. I enjoy answering her questions and I’m certainly not going to turn her away, but it takes up so much time.  My productivity is way down, I’m not getting all my minutes with every patient, I’m leaving paperwork to pile up for the next day because after 10 hours I can’t stand to be there anymore. Our caseload right now is frustrating because we have patients who will only be seen at meal times and refuse snacks, so we have to rush around at breakfast and lunch, and then I stay for dinner. I know (hope?) that this tough stretch will end at some point when she gets more comfortable with the job and we get some better people to treat, but it is slowing me down big time and It’s not very fun to go to work right now.

In any case, I have to bear down, lock in, and get the work done, or else it’s just going to keep piling up.

Here’s to starting a good week. Chest tonight.

Tuesday

On my way back from work today around 7:00 PM, I narrowly avoided skipping the gym. I worked over 10 hours including 8 hours of direct treatment and the couch was calling me.  Coming up on Exit 3 where I get off to come home, I made the last minute decision to drive by, persevere, and get a workout in.  I stopped at the store for a chocolate milk and one of those Monster energy drinks and slammed them both in the car, which turns out isn’t a good idea.  My head was spinning by the time I changed and headed towards the squat racks, and the gym was packed so there wasn’t any room for me to do any of my normal starting exercises.  I didn’t feel like waiting or throwing up, so I hopped on the treadmill and did 30 minutes of cardio before heading out of there. The evening was not a total loss, but not what I had planned either.

One more day of work before my trip. Work has been so-so lately. I’ve had a lot of patients (which should make Genesis happy since I’m being productive), but the more patients I have the farther I get behind on paperwork. I’ve taken a chunk out of it the past couple of days, but tomorrow might be 12 hours. I don’t want to leave any loose ends.

I went to the Apple Store in Natick while Jaylynn was dress shopping on Sunday and I have thought about not much since. I am struggling to fend off my urges to buy the new iPhone 3G when it comes out later this summer. Earlier today I was 70% sure I was going to buy it, but right now I’m down to 40%.  My plan ends in August and my now-archaic Blackberry isn’t cutting it anymore. It might as well be two sticks rubbing together to make fire compared to the glorious iPhone. It really is everything they make it out to be. If Jaylynn and I weren’t planning on doing the family plan with Verizon, I would buy it in a heartbeat.  The $199 price for the phone itself is nothing compared to what it’s really worth, and the monthly rate isn’t that bad compared to what I’m paying now.  I personally think the satisfaction of owning one would be worth it by itself. My job is to either convince Jaylynn that we need AT&T for a carrier despite all of our friends and family having Verizon, or to convince myself that I don’t need such an extravagance at this point in my life when I’m trying to save for a house.  I’m afraid that I’m going to balk, get the Verizon touchscreen knockoff and then immediately regret it.  We get new stuff at the end of August, so I’ve got about two months to make a decision.

Cavities and Workout

Went to work for 4 hours today before leaving to get a cavity filled this afternoon, not the greatest experience. I’ve only had a couple cavities before these two and I remember them being less painful.  This dentist I go to now is one of the most impersonal people I’ve ever met. He literally walked in, said hello, shot me with the novocain, drilled and filled, and said “we’ll be seeing you” and left without much else. I don’t need a Johnny Carson, but someone who doesn’t make me feel like I’m wasting his time would be nice.

Watched the 2004 version of Dawn of the Dead and was sort of disappointed.  It wasn’t really scary or suspensful, and it was too cartoonish (as anything with Ving Rhames usually is) and it felt too modern (as most remakes do).   I don’t like zombies that can sprint ala this film or 28 Days Later.  I prefer the classic shamble.  But I’m a purist.

I also think I’m reaching critical mass for zombies lately.  I’ll probably try to find Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead on demand, and after that I’ll take a breather until the WWZ movie.

Upper body workout tonight: incline bench, pullups, barbell push press, heavy barbell shrugs, incline dumbbell curls, diamond pushups. Pretty good, though I kind of crapped out at the end.  I did some extra sets of inclines and shrugs with some heavier weight than last time, so some progress there. It’s hard to tell how much I should do on upper body day because I’m just going to do chest and back Wednesday anyway and shoulders/arms Thursday. I guess I’ll stick to the basics for now and just do 4-6 sets of 4-6 reps like I’ve been doing.  Jimmy Smith’s Physique Formula comes out in a week or two, so depending on the price I might pick that up. I read Jimmy’s blog and I subscribe to the same workout philosophy as he does, so I think it would be a great addition to my library.