Hello Gym Rats! First off, I'd like to apologize to
my loyal readers for being MIA for so long. My excuse? Outrageous
busyness to the point of literally not having enough hours in the day to
do everything that I need to. Even my training and diet have suffered
as of late. These 4:30 am daily wake-ups in order to be on the gym floor by 5:00
are seriously killing me. Not because it's "too early" but because by
the time I get everything done for the day and settle down to sleep,
there's just not enough hours left for a decent slumber between then and
when the alarm goes off again! I am someone that has and probably
always will require AT LEAST a solid 7 hours in order to function
properly. When I list out my major priorities at the moment, training is
still numero uno. I just feel like I'm rushing through things in order
to get in-and-out in the measly hour I can devote each morning and
letting equally important things like stretching, cardio, foam-rolling
and ice bathing fall a bit to the wayside. I know…no excuses right? So I
keep trudging and working on some workarounds.
I
decided to call this post "Lately" because some of my favorite bloggers
are always posting "Lately" posts of their week's recent events (OK, month
in this case). I don’t even know where to begin though! The biggest
life change (and consumption of time) for me is something I can't share
here yet but I promise as soon as I can, I will! It's officially Fall
here in Maine and that alone brings many changes in our day-to-day
lives. Do your training and eating habits change with the seasons? Mine
sure do! I've been freezing my ass off here (as usual) and have been in
full-swing with the Fall baking. As clean and protein-packed as possible
of course LOL. So far I have made two separate batches of pumpkin apple
protein muffins, yum! I don't really have a recipe for them to share
with you guys. Basically I just googled a simple pumpkin muffin recipe
that included chopped apple chunks, did my usual swapping-out of butter
with apple sauce, lowered the sugar, added-in a couple scoops of
protein powder and doubled the baking powder to offset the denseness
brought on by the protein powder. This is a great baking trick a friend
told me about. If you find that your recipes get too dense and don't
rise enough when you add-in protein powder, just double the baking
powder/soda (whatever is in the recipe). Works like a charm!
Last Sunday I finally had a few free hours of "me time" so I met up
with a couple of friends and went apple picking. I try to go apple
picking every year. Store-bought apples just aren't the same. Nothing
beats a bite into a crisp Macintosh just plucked from the tree! I also
picked up a small jug of fresh apple cider. Sooo good; especially when
heated-up! Here's a pick of me doing some necessary orchard
taste-testing.
.JPG)
I have no idea what I was laughing at but apparently it was a riot. Sunday
night I whipped-up a delicious apple crisp with a protein crumble
topping. I've been having a small bowl of it for breakfast each morning
with my eggs. Great pre-lifting fuel! I think this weekend I am going to
try making a pumpkin bread with dried apricots and sunflower seeds. I
found the recipe while sifting through my recipe binder last weekend. I
think I cut it out of a magazine last year and never made it. I'll post
the recipe here if it comes out as good as it looks!
As
far as training goes, nothing really changes for me in the Fall but I
am being a bit less strict about calorie control (i.e. I may or may not
have had pizza and wine for dinner last night). My favorite fitness
idol, Pauline Nordin (check out FighterDiet.com if you aren't already
in-the-loop) posted a good point the other day when she said something
like "you can always loose an extra few pounds of fat so use those added
calories today for greater muscle gains!". Well she said it much better
but anyway my point is that I'm feeling like I'm making great progress
on my "problem" areas thanks to added carbs/calories in my diet so if I
my abs aren't quite so visible right now I don't really care. It's not
bikini season, right? Plus, a guy who I constantly avoid getting into a
gym convo with because of his highly critical nature actually went out
of his way to compliment my progress the other day so I figure it's not
totally in my head LOL.
As
I mentioned before, I really haven't been doing much cardio at all
other than my one day per week where that's all I do in the gym. My
shins haven't been bothering me at all lately but that's probably more
due to lack of cardio than it is true progress on my skeletal
imbalances. I am still trying to get-in a 10-minute ice bath post Sunday
morning leg training because it really does make a HUGE difference in
my recovery. There's just no time for it any other day of the week
unfortunately. Outside of the gym I did get out for a beautiful pre-Fall
hike a couple of weeks ago from which I was literally crippled for a
good 3 days afterwards. Maybe doing legs the day before wasn't my best
idea ever LOL! Here's a pic of the miles and miles of Maine woods you
could see from the top of Burnt Meadow Mountain in Brownfield.
.JPG)
