Lift, eat, speak, run

[Robzilla1983]

Title says it all. More details later when I have the to do a proper write up. Just want it out there that I start tomorrow

[Robzilla1983]

Workout: following the dumbbell division of the rebel strength guide. I want to make sure on my last set for everything that I push to failure. So even if only 5 reps are called for, if it takes 15 before I can't finish then I'm doing 15. The rest I will try to get the right weights son do the appropriate number of reps.

Eat: eat like a mo'fo. I'm actually sticking fairly close to what Spezzy does (as mentioned in her awesome NF article). I've been slowly moving in this direction for months so hopefully it won't be to bad. But the rule of thumb is everything I eat has to have protein, be a fruit or vegetable. I eat a lot of the yogurt cups and plan to keep doing so. It helps with sweet cravings

I expect a typical day to be: protein shake and yogurt for breakfast, with apple or banana when I have some

Chicken sac a snack

Left over suppers lunch and a yogurt

Chicken as a snack

Workout. Shake as post workout meal. A protein bar and milk for now while i still have a few bars left

Supper of meat and veggies. Cutting potatoes out and doubling my meat portion size. And a yogurt

Shake if I get hungry in the evening

It's going to be a busy few days but if I have time I'm going to track everything through Daily Burn. I want to be in the 2500-3000 calorie range. Last time I tracked I was 1800-2300, but I ate abnormally well that week and I think realistically I eat 2000-2500 typically

They diet and workout go hand in hand and I'm trying to really see food as a fuel for my workouts. Last month I saw some muscle gain which I felt was odd because I focused on running. The only things really changed was eating protein bars and milk after a meal. So I hope to see a lot of gain this month by upping he strength workout, upping the calories, and upping the protein intake

Speak: long story short, I want to speak French and I've been putting it off way too long. Going to just jump I n and start talking it this week. Luckily my wife is fluent and awesome teacher. I hope after 6 weeks to mostly speak French athomein the evenings. Can't really at work.

Run: this will depend entirely on how I feel from week to week, but keep running on the off days. Probably stick to the 5k distance don't plan to really push this. I just want to be moving

[Mama T]

sounds like you've got a pretty solid plan! and if you're pushing your weight workouts to failure for each last set, eating for fuel will most likely not be a problem at all. i have to stop myself from being all un-lady-like and scarfing down breakfast most mornings after an awesome workout. good luck buddy!

[nightlight]

great goals. good plan. go get 'em!

[Robzilla1983]

Thanks guys

Thank god I decided to track food intake with daily burn. Looking at what I've already eaten today, and knowing what I plan to eat for the rest of the night, I'm way under my calorie goal. Like probably by 500. Looks like someone is going to drink a lot of milk and eat a lot of almonds. Hopefully that'll bring it up some. So already readjusting

Tonight's supper is apple stuffed porkchops wrapped in bacon. Good god ihopeits as good as it looks. Cooking it as I type.

On the plus side the workout was awesome. Can definitely see this getting the job done. Feels good to be hitting the weights again.

[Hannibal]

Great goals and good luck! The French goal is a cool one. I wish you the best on that.

[Xtina]

Bonne chance! I live in a French-speaking country, and I still struggle to sound remotely coherent.

[gugi9000]

I should make an effort to finally learn French too. I've tried half-heartedly several times.

Good luck.

[Robzilla1983]

Another good workout tonight. Robs got the shakes! Legs are rubbery. Front squats are limited by how much my arms can handle, but it was an awesome core exercise. Planks were killer. Tried to do a minute. Got 40 seconds

At about 2300 calories so still under. I'm thinking squeezing a few eggs in will do the trick. I might try to just mix in with a protein shake just because I don't love the taste.

Started on the French

[Mama T]

the shakes! the shakes! awesome

also, just a question - when you do planks, do you keep yourself occupied? a lot of times, if i'm doing that at home, i'll try to make sure i'm watching something super entertaining, or listening to an awesome podcast, to stop from psyching myself out about time. sometimes the mental wall gets you before the physical one.

[Robzilla1983]

the shakes! the shakes! awesome

also, just a question - when you do planks, do you keep yourself occupied? a lot of times, if i'm doing that at home, i'll try to make sure i'm watching something super entertaining, or listening to an awesome podcast, to stop from psyching myself out about time. sometimes the mental wall gets you before the physical one.

The shakes are my favourite

Does watching the timer on my phone count as being occupied? haha. Actually I don't do that until near the end when I'm struggling. I tend to close my eyes and focus on the breathing.... long slow inhales, long slow exhales. I've always got music on, but usually when I get focused on the breathing like that I don't notice it.

It sure makes me even more in awe of Loren Wade's 10 minute one though. I'll be thrilled if I can get 5 minutes after 6 weeks. I can probably get 3 after some practice

[Robzilla1983]

http://runkeeper.com/user/robzilla1983/activity/57670853

Really happy with how the run went, especially considering I had planned to take a rest day today. It's amazing how motivating a hyper dog is though. He needed it more than me

Didn't really have a plan in mind for it. Just thought I'd go and take breaks as needed. Wasn't even sure about how far I would go. Ultimately I went just a little bit further than usual. And it was at a good speed. If I had started Runkeeper when I actually started to run, and not the warmup walk, I think I could've hit 5k in 30 minutes, which was my main goal last challenge. Nice to know I almost hit it without trying. I may give it another attempt at some point, but the running is really secondary for this challenge

[Robzilla1983]

Really great workout tonight. I don't know if I just had an awesome day or if eating like crazy is already paying off but I felt great today. I got 16 pull ups in 5 sets, vs 8 in 3 sets on Monday. I had a really tough time progressing in pull ups last challenge so it's nice to see a big gain already. (for comparison, today I had 12 in the first 3 sets)

I did handstand pushups the right way. I've done them before, but I don't like being upside down, and really don't like flipping upside down, so I used to start with my chest facing the wall and sort of walk my feet up until I was vertical. Thanks to one of the group challenges last time I was able to flip upside down and not lose my mind. My first set didn't have great form, but for sets 2 and 3 I made sure my head hit the floor. It felt great.

For anyone who has done inverted rows, does it bother your neck? I know it's a back exercise, but I find I really feel it in my neck as soon as I'm done. Nothing too major. Just wondering if it's normal.

Also added 10 seconds onto each side plank.

EDIT: and just topped the evening off with a really peaceful 3.5 walk with my dog

[Robzilla1983]

Didn't workout yesterday because I was sick, kept my eating on track though. I'm getting better as the week goes on for getting 3k+ good calories. The only not great thing I had yesterday was a buffalo chicken sandwich. For a Friday that's pretty good for me. No wings or fries. No beer. Ordered a salad on the side. Didn't eat half the bread.

I will struggle on the weekends for eating since I don't really have a good routine like I do in the week. So right now I just want to minimize the damage and so far I'm doing well.

Had a good workout this morning. Def need to buy more weights though. I'm tapped out at 50 pounds a dumbbell and that's just not enough for the dead lifts.

Good lord I hate lunges. Tried at 40 pounds and almost fell over. Tried 30. Little better but still bad. Ended at 20. I really thought I could do more, given my dlifts and squats. Balance is a big issue now. Hopefully that'll improve in time andicanadd weights later.

[Lauri-b]

I can relate to struggling with diet on the weekends, especially since my husband always wants to eat out. It gets easier and easier though every time I make a good decision. There is an app on your phone that tells you the calories in foods at popular restaurants and just reading that often deters a bad decision for me. Congrats on the progress in pull-ups, hopefully in another week I will be able to manage one!

[Robzilla1983]

I can relate to struggling with diet on the weekends, especially since my husband always wants to eat out. It gets easier and easier though every time I make a good decision. There is an app on your phone that tells you the calories in foods at popular restaurants and just reading that often deters a bad decision for me. Congrats on the progress in pull-ups, hopefully in another week I will be able to manage one!

I find the both of us often want to eat out on weekends. Sometimes it's every meal from Fridays supper till Sunday.

Today's eating actually went quite well. We did go out to eat. Had nachos which weren't great, but at least there were veggies. I did however pass up dessert and there were two delicious looking ones on the table. Just have to keep reminding myself that restaurant dessert portions are huge and I usually feel like crap after

I'm so excited, I found a magic beer. Rickards Dark. Somehow it has 11 grams of protein and 1 gram carbs. I checked about 6 different sites online and they all say the same thing so it must be true. Still trying not to drink much, and the only reason I had that was because there were two left in my fridge from last week. Still. When I crave one I know where to turn

I've been using daily burn to track calories. Not great for looking up foods. I find its a bit slow by times. But I really like it. It's been handy for days like today when I saw my protein intake wasn't as high as during the week so I topped it off with another shake in evening. I was only planning to track the first week but I might keep it up

[Robzilla1983]

Weekly checkin

LIFT: Didn't miss a workout. On Friday I was sick and I ended up just doing that one on Saturday instead (where normally Saturday and Sunday would be rest days). Felt like I established a good base line. The first time I did deadlifts I forgot about pushing to failure on the last set, but other wise I managed to do it every time.

EAT: Couldn't have gone better. I feel like I've been slowly building up to this, so it's not a really drastic change. The chicken snacks at work help a lot, and the almonds have been doing the trick. I find I've been snacking so often, trying to get 3000 quality calories in, that I'm not as tempted to eat sweet things as I thought I would be. I'm seriously never hungry, I just eat all the time. It's great. I might actually stick it out this time. Cracked a little bit on the weekend, but only had dessert once, which is good because we were out to eat 3 or 4 times. I stayed away from deep fried wings and fries. The only beer I had was actually not as terrible as most, and I kept that to two. And, no potatoes. For a freaking week. I don't know if I've ever gone without potatoes in some form for a whole week.

SPEAK: Eh, not so great. My wife and I spent about 15 minutes one night and that's what it. But hey, it's better than nothing.

RUN: Went for one run this week and it was awesome. I had no plan in place, and ended up going further and faster than what my typical runs are.

All in all, I couldn't be happier with how the week went. I actually took 'before' pictures this time. If things keep up the way they are I think I'll actually notice a difference in the 'after' ones

*pats myself on the back*

[Mama T]

awesome job, Rob! seems like strength is treating you well - and maybe even helping the running? also, lunges DO suck, ugh. and i'll be on the lookout for this magical Richard's Dark beer you mention. sounds promising.

[macnip78]

Nice work! Way to get a solid start in on the first week.

[Robzilla1983]

awesome job, Rob! seems like strength is treating you well - and maybe even helping the running? also, lunges DO suck, ugh. and i'll be on the lookout for this magical Richard's Dark beer you mention. sounds promising.

OMG. I feel like a light bulp just went off above my head. Some how I never made the connection about the running. I'm guess it's more to do with the food than the strength, since that's the biggest change. I clued in that I have more energy throughout the day, but someone didn't make the connection when I had more energy running. I feel dumb. And also want to go run again to see if it's better

[Robzilla1983]

Quick update: some Halloween snacking last night but not near as much as previous years. Great workout yesterday. Lunch thing at work and I choose not to eat potatoes, bread, and desserts. I had lots of greek salad, cooked red peppers and onion, and pork and chicken skewers. They were quite yummy

[Robzilla1983]

Well I let a crappy end to the work day get the better of me. No workout pigged out on Halloween leftovers. Greasy supper and a few beer

So. Let's hope tomorrow goes better

[Mama T]

Well I let a crappy end to the work day get the better of me. No workout pigged out on Halloween leftovers. Greasy supper and a few beer

So. Let's hope tomorrow goes better

it happens, no biggie. was mega craving a nice autumn beer last night, then was craving a mcdonalds cheeseburger (?!) while reading about their advertising for a class. might just let myself indulge for a night, then dust it off and move on. what's a challenge without a few setbacks, right?

[Robzilla1983]

Eating back on track (cept for two cookies at lunch). Workout back on track. Now I'm sweaty and sore but a helluva lot better than yesterday

[Robzilla1983]

Really great workout tonight. I feel like a million bucks compared to how I felt on Tuesday.

On my third set of hand stand pushups I fell over. Then when I was finished I threw up a little. I think that officially counts as pushing as hard as I can right

Going to start throwing numbers in here because the progression is already awesome and I feel like sharing. Tonight:

Pullups: 7, 3, 3, 3, 1.5. That's up from 5, 4, 2.5, 2.5, 1

Handstand Pushups: 4, 3, 2. That's up from 3, 2, 1

Inverted row: 40 pounds x5 reps, 40x5, 45x7. That's up from 35x5, 35x5, 40x6. That's with dumbbells, and amount of weight in each hand.

Side planks: 54 seconds, 60, 60, 60. That's up from 40, 40, 40, 40

I stopped tracking my calories through Daily Burn. Never meant to keep it up for the whole challenge. I did it for a week and a half, just to get an idea on how much I need to eat to keep going, and I think I've got it figured out now so no more tracking. It helps that I'm a man of routine.