I just spent the past hour lazily sprawled face-up in an awkward yet surprisingly comfortable bridge position over my ottoman which I pushed-up against my patio doors. While it may not be the hottest of days outside, the afternoon sunshine was blazing through my living room and baking me to my core. The sun is so good for my soul.
It's just a lazy Sunday afternoon here. I finally got up to heat my 5th meal of the day, veggies and chicken breast which I seasoned with some delicious Montreal chicken seasoning, and boot-up my laptop so I could take advantage of this downtime by writing a blog post. I've had a rather productive weekend and it's so nice to have the rest of the day to just do what I want with nothing left to check-off on my to-do list.
Friday was my recovery day from training so I met up with some friends to see American Hustle after dinner. Nothing like a little Bradley Cooper action to start my weekend right! Then after work yesterday I hit up the gym for a tan followed by a back and chest lift and then a little posing practice. I'm not sure how useful posing is when I don't have anyone there to advise and critique me but at least it helps to break-in those terribly uncomfortable plastic pumps! Last night I was beyond exhausted and went to bed around 9:00 pm. All week long I had had lousy sleeps despite experimenting with Melatonin, Yogi brand Bedtime tea (which BTW is delicious and I highly recommend), and Tylenol PM. I think my brain was finally relaxed last night after the long, exhausting week though because I slept for a good 9 hours! I did still get up once to pee but luckily I was able to get back to sleep this time. This morning we actually lost one hour due to Daylight Savings Time but thanks to my fantastic sleep this luckily had no effect on me. I woke up and had some delicious pumpkin pie oatmeal and coffee for breakfast and then hit up the gym for my weekly glutes, core and cardio workout.
I started off a little tired and stiff but once I got in the rhythm it became easily the best glute burn I've had in a while! As always I began with BB squats and then went into a superset routine of Romanian deadlifts (which I'm quickly learning to love) and BB hip thrusts. The hip thrusts just aren't working out for me as I cannot find a weight that is both heavy enough to make it difficult but also light enough for me to lift onto my hips. The 25 lb plates would have been ideal because then I could just slide right under the bar but my first set with this weight (I'm guessing the bar is 20 lbs which would make total weight 70 lbs) proved too painful to rest on my hips so I dropped down to the 10 lb plates which really weren't heavy enough but at least I could still feel a burn by the 12th rep. I'll call these sets "active rests" between my much more difficult DLs. After the superset routine my plan called for Donkey Kicks. I've been changing-up my method of doing these and this week I tried them facing backwards on the assisted dip/pull-up machine. I really liked this as I could set the weight really heavy and just concentrate on my glutes since I didn't have to use any stabilizing muscles. My routines this month all call for 4 sets of everything rather than my usual 3 so just these 4 exercises took nearly an hour to get through. Next came core for which I did SB tee-pees (with balancing in between sets) and incline crunches. For cardio I did something I've been enjoying a lot this past week which is 30 minutes on the treadmill set at a moderate pace of 3.0 but beginning at the steepest incline of 15.0. This is really difficult to start but every minute I reduce the incline by 0.5 so by the time the 30 minutes is up I am at zero incline. This really hits the entire back of the legs (calves, hamstrings, & glutes) so it's a fantastic way to end a glute sesh!
Today was also my weekly weigh-in where I'd been anxious all week to find out if my recent fat cut would spark any scale change. I did drop 1 pound this week which is better than nothing but still means I've got to stay focused and continue the slow cuts. This week I am cutting my fruit intake from 2 servings to 1 as well as cutting out dairy and thus supplementing my morning Greek yogurt with some type of meat, probably chicken. This obviously won't yield a caloric change but will just serve to avoid any potential dairy-caused bloat as well as be another "shock" to my system. I'm keeping my protein intake at my usual 6 servings per day though because when I look at my intake for the past week I only managed to hit the 7 servings per day mark on 2 of the 7 days and both times I felt sick from chicken overload. I may re-try this approach again if I do a carb cut somewhere down the line but for now I think 6 is suitable for my goals. It's possible I have not plateau'd yet from my fat cut so maybe next weekend I'll see a drop of greater than just one pound. Crossing my fingers anyway!
I'm loving that it's almost 5:00 pm and the sun is still beaming through the glass. It really serves to improve my overall mood! Tonight for dinner I'm making a stir-fry with brown rice, tilapia, sweet onion, yellow bell pepper, baby bok choy, and celery all sauteed with a little low-sodium teriyaki sauce. Yum! I'm so not looking forward to starting another work week tomorrow but hopefully my Monday will start with another restful sleep and end with another epic lift. I think my plan calls for shoulders which are always a good time! 'Til next time, happy gymming! xo
It's just a lazy Sunday afternoon here. I finally got up to heat my 5th meal of the day, veggies and chicken breast which I seasoned with some delicious Montreal chicken seasoning, and boot-up my laptop so I could take advantage of this downtime by writing a blog post. I've had a rather productive weekend and it's so nice to have the rest of the day to just do what I want with nothing left to check-off on my to-do list.
Friday was my recovery day from training so I met up with some friends to see American Hustle after dinner. Nothing like a little Bradley Cooper action to start my weekend right! Then after work yesterday I hit up the gym for a tan followed by a back and chest lift and then a little posing practice. I'm not sure how useful posing is when I don't have anyone there to advise and critique me but at least it helps to break-in those terribly uncomfortable plastic pumps! Last night I was beyond exhausted and went to bed around 9:00 pm. All week long I had had lousy sleeps despite experimenting with Melatonin, Yogi brand Bedtime tea (which BTW is delicious and I highly recommend), and Tylenol PM. I think my brain was finally relaxed last night after the long, exhausting week though because I slept for a good 9 hours! I did still get up once to pee but luckily I was able to get back to sleep this time. This morning we actually lost one hour due to Daylight Savings Time but thanks to my fantastic sleep this luckily had no effect on me. I woke up and had some delicious pumpkin pie oatmeal and coffee for breakfast and then hit up the gym for my weekly glutes, core and cardio workout.
I started off a little tired and stiff but once I got in the rhythm it became easily the best glute burn I've had in a while! As always I began with BB squats and then went into a superset routine of Romanian deadlifts (which I'm quickly learning to love) and BB hip thrusts. The hip thrusts just aren't working out for me as I cannot find a weight that is both heavy enough to make it difficult but also light enough for me to lift onto my hips. The 25 lb plates would have been ideal because then I could just slide right under the bar but my first set with this weight (I'm guessing the bar is 20 lbs which would make total weight 70 lbs) proved too painful to rest on my hips so I dropped down to the 10 lb plates which really weren't heavy enough but at least I could still feel a burn by the 12th rep. I'll call these sets "active rests" between my much more difficult DLs. After the superset routine my plan called for Donkey Kicks. I've been changing-up my method of doing these and this week I tried them facing backwards on the assisted dip/pull-up machine. I really liked this as I could set the weight really heavy and just concentrate on my glutes since I didn't have to use any stabilizing muscles. My routines this month all call for 4 sets of everything rather than my usual 3 so just these 4 exercises took nearly an hour to get through. Next came core for which I did SB tee-pees (with balancing in between sets) and incline crunches. For cardio I did something I've been enjoying a lot this past week which is 30 minutes on the treadmill set at a moderate pace of 3.0 but beginning at the steepest incline of 15.0. This is really difficult to start but every minute I reduce the incline by 0.5 so by the time the 30 minutes is up I am at zero incline. This really hits the entire back of the legs (calves, hamstrings, & glutes) so it's a fantastic way to end a glute sesh!
Today was also my weekly weigh-in where I'd been anxious all week to find out if my recent fat cut would spark any scale change. I did drop 1 pound this week which is better than nothing but still means I've got to stay focused and continue the slow cuts. This week I am cutting my fruit intake from 2 servings to 1 as well as cutting out dairy and thus supplementing my morning Greek yogurt with some type of meat, probably chicken. This obviously won't yield a caloric change but will just serve to avoid any potential dairy-caused bloat as well as be another "shock" to my system. I'm keeping my protein intake at my usual 6 servings per day though because when I look at my intake for the past week I only managed to hit the 7 servings per day mark on 2 of the 7 days and both times I felt sick from chicken overload. I may re-try this approach again if I do a carb cut somewhere down the line but for now I think 6 is suitable for my goals. It's possible I have not plateau'd yet from my fat cut so maybe next weekend I'll see a drop of greater than just one pound. Crossing my fingers anyway!
I'm loving that it's almost 5:00 pm and the sun is still beaming through the glass. It really serves to improve my overall mood! Tonight for dinner I'm making a stir-fry with brown rice, tilapia, sweet onion, yellow bell pepper, baby bok choy, and celery all sauteed with a little low-sodium teriyaki sauce. Yum! I'm so not looking forward to starting another work week tomorrow but hopefully my Monday will start with another restful sleep and end with another epic lift. I think my plan calls for shoulders which are always a good time! 'Til next time, happy gymming! xo
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