seriously, YIKES, for real

today's weigh in: 180. Nuff said.

YIKES

This is bad. I've totally lost control of my eating habits. Again. I've been working out a lot, doing this four day split weight routine. The workouts are about an hour long, not counting any abs or cardio work. When I do abs and only 20 - 30 minutes of cardio, it pushes two hours. I've been eating like a maniac, pastas, greasy things with melted cheese, cream, loads of red meat. I've blown up again. My latest weigh ins have me at 173 / 22%. This is bad. I'm hardly gaining any muscle, if any, but have definitely gained fat. I'm stronger from all the weight training, that is a real plus. But I have to curb the fat gains. I have to eat cleaner, and yet still ingest enough food to give me the energy i need to keep up with this strength program. CHICKEN and TUNA. No more beef.

Eating

I'm having a lot of difficulty keeping with the low-glycemic diet. It's very hard to follow. The hard part stems from the fact that I don't really see it produce immediate results. I have lost some fat over the last month. My last weighing shows me at 167.5 / 19%, from 165 / 20%, which would mean I've lost about 2 pounds of fat, and gained some muscle. I should probably stick with it, I would hate to go back to full bore carbo addiction and puff up like I did a year and half ago, even though I was not working out at all and eating multiple donuts for breakfast then so it probably wouldn't be as bad... I just need to buckle down. The hardest part is on weekends when I'm eating out with Dianne, because we love pasta and stuff.

good news / bad news

I worked out last night for what seemed to be the first time in a long while, when in fact I've been going about 5 days a week. I need to keep track of every workout, not just the weight training ones I've made my fancy charts for. But I digress. I felt rusty and weak, especially when doing my bench press. I haven't been doing the push up challenge every morning as I promised. I'll get back on that tomorrow. Anyway, my wrist hurt and I wasn't able to do as much as I felt I could have. This morning I weighed myself, and to my surprise, came in at 167 / 19%. Considering that every time I've weighed myself, it's been at the same time (around 8am) and having not had anything to eat or drink yet, and having used the bathroom, and every time I've been at 20%, this seems however small, at least real. Could It be that I'm gaining muscle weight and losing fat? I hope so. Very encouraging. I've got to stick with it.

hunger dreams

I have to stop having these dreams. It's exhausting and I have to wonder if it's bad for my health, or a sign of something bad going on. I am no hypochondriac, and I don't like to worry about things I don't know anything about based on the meager information I've read here and there (I'm not a doctor). So if it persists, I'll go see the doctor. I think it's all about eating enough, especially since I've been working out so much more, and more consistently. I should have eaten some brown rice with dinner last night. That, and my heavy workout, I'm sure that's the reason why it happened again. So, from now on, on nights when I've worked out hard, I HAVE to eat some good fibre loaded carbs, including white bread if it's good quality, and pasta, especially the barilla plus. I'll see if I can rid myself of these dreams this way first, I think it pretty certain to be the reason.

pushups

I did 32 this morning. -02-07-07

34 today -02-08-07

38 -02-09-07

40 -02-10-07

41 -02-20-07

43 -02-21-07

43 + 10 -02-22-07 -- barely sqeezed the 43 out, so I did an extra set of ten. From now on I'm doing a total of 100 no matter what, dividing up the remainder into sets of 10. So, if tomorrow I do 43 in the first set, I'll do 5 sets of 10 and then 7.

46 + 9 + 5 -02-25-07 -- almost did 47 in the first set. I haven't been sticking to the new 100 rep thing, I will try to get on it from now on. I also haven't been keeping track of every day on here. I think it was Saturday that I did 46 + 20 +20. I'm doing chest tonight at the gym, but I'm feeling pretty optimistic that I'll get up to 50 later this week.

50?!?!?! -02-28-07 -- I think I did 50 reps today. I was countingout sets of ten, so maybe I only did 40, but, I'm pretty sure it was 50. I'll try it tonight or tomorrow morning, I would be pretty psyched if it was true. Halfway there???

50 -03-01-07 -- Yup, I'm up to 50. A little shallow and fast, but it's 50. I will work on doing them slower and having a longer range of motion, going down lower and squeezing up higher.

push up challenge

I want to be able to do 100 push ups without stopping. I can barely do 100 push ups in sets of 20 with 1 minute of rest as it is. It can be done though. If any grunt can do 200 push ups after 5 weeks of basic training, then I should be able to do it eventually. Doing it first thing in the morning is tough because muscles are still sleepy, but that will be the standard. Yesterday, I squeezed out 25. I've done more than that before, albeit not at 8am. I didn't do it this morning, my triceps are sore from last night's workout. This isn't bootcamp after all... Tomorrow morning, 25 minimum, shooting for 30.