Lately

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.

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.

Gorgeous, eh? I hope to get in at least one more hike before it gets too cold (i.e. two months ago LOL). Maybe go somewhere with some good foliage viewing! Alas, I must cut this short so I can check more items off of my Thursday "To-Do" list. Side note: it's not too bad with only about 386,206,173 tasks to get through today! So, that's it for my "lately"…How does your life change with the changing of the seasons?

TGIF!

Hey y'all! Happy Friday! Just a quickie post as I sit here sipping a glass of delicious Barefoot Refresh Summer Red wine. I've never been a red drinker but I was recently in a position of compromise and decided to give this sweet version a try. Guess what? I LOVE it! This could get dangerous LOL!

Anyway, it's the start of the long Labor Day weekend and I was happy to work from home today to make for a semi 4-day weekend. Being plugged in all day isn't so bad when you are in the comfort of your own home, not being frozen to death by the arctic A/C and in comfy gym clothes to boot!

Despite not having to get up as early as usual I decided to rise at 5:00 am today to do legs. This month I am changing my rest day to Saturday (from Friday) so since I didn't want to have 2 rest days in a row I did a little switch-up. Sunday will basically be an ad-hoc day since I won't want to do legs again and since my sister is coming to visit I am going to take her to the gym for an introductory lift sesh. She's either going to love it or hate it; I'm so excited! I think I'm going to do a total body circuit of my favorite exercises for each muscle group so she can get a feel for what lifting is like.

So anyway, today was the start of my September lifting plan which I created a few days ago. I've been having some success with keeping the shin pain at bay lately so I'm going to try to hit legs 2x per week again and see how it goes. Today's plan consisted of the following:

BB front squats
Romanian DLs
Hack squats
BB stationary lunges
Calve raises

I was ticked when I arrived at the gym and found all of the squat racks taken (seriously, taken at 5:30 am? FML!) so I started with the hack squats. Luckily one of the racks opened up quickly so I was able to stay put and get the squats, DLs, and lunges all done in the same spot. It actually made for a much more efficient workout, not having to move around all that much. When I was through with my planned lifts, I finished-up with some hanging leg raises and some stretching and foam-rolling on shins and quads. No matter what I do I just cannot loosen-up those areas but some stretching/rolling is better than none! I think it might be time to splurge on a serious deep tissue massage in the near future.

Anyway, it's Friday and I'm being a total anti-socialite as I have to get up early tomorrow to attend a course I am taking (details at a later date). It's the reason Saturday is now rest day! Alas, I'm signing off now to go prep for tomorrow and finish my wine :)

Happy Labor Day weekend everyone! Be safe and stay active! xo

August Update

Good Morning! I realize it’s been a while since my last post but I promise I haven’t been slacking in life; I’ve just been outrageously busy (in a good way)! First things first; yesterday I officially became an ISSA certified Sports Nutrition Specialist! I crammed through my studies in order to finish the 8 month course in just over two. In all I found most of the material quite easy since I already had a pretty solid base of knowledge but I definitely learned a lot. I got a 94% on my exam so I guess that leaves a little more learning to be had in my future J

I don’t even know where to begin with my workout / life / competing updates so I’ll start on the competition front. After going back-and-forth for a stressful few weeks on whether or not I should compete one more time this year I’ve pretty much decided to hold off for now, continue to build, and return to the stage in 2015 bigger than ever! It’s not that I don’t want to get back on stage right now (I’m dying to!) but I know that in reality it makes more sense to keep building since I will inevitably lose some muscle mass the next time I cut and I want to be sure I can take that risk and still show visible improvement on stage. The main reason I am putting it off though is because my schedule this fall is going to be nothing short of a crazy hectic whirlwind (more on that at a later date) and I’m just not sure I’ll have the time to devote to expanding my existing training schedule with increased cardio sessions and posing practice. It could be done; I’m just not convinced it should be.

Physique-wise I have seen and felt great improvement ever since I changed my macros a month or so ago by decreasing the added fats in my diet. By doing so, I’ve leaned out a little bit due to a small caloric decrease. While I haven’t made an effort to take in extra carbs, the decrease in fats has caused my diet to consist of a larger percentage of carbs which I think is a better ratio for my mostly anaerobic training. I have been a little more lenient on my fruit intake though which hasn’t seemed to hurt me and definitely makes me a happier camper LOL. Macros over the past week have been 42% carbs / 36% protein / 22% fat. Definitely not 100% consistent day-to-day but I feel good so it’s all good. The funny (sad) thing is that while my fats are at 22% (kind of high for a bodybuilder) I am barely taking in any additional fats other than a few almonds or avocado in my salads and a teeny tiny bit of olive oil when sautéing veggies. Most of the fat is just what is inherent in other food sources like eggs and meats. Kind of a pisser if you ask me!

On the training front, it’s safe to say that I am now an official morning gym rat. My body just decided that it was going to continue to get up at the crack-of-dawn whether I wanted it to or not so I’ve been hitting the gym by 5:00 am most weekdays. Training before work means that I’ve got to get in-and-out in about an hour / hour-and-a-half so I do the occasional double-session when I need more time to fit in cardio. Most days the early morning is very enjoyable with few distractions, equipment-hoggers, tools or chatty Kathy’s so when I do return to the 5:00 pm time slot I am easily irritated and leave more overwhelmed and angry than when I got there. That’s not what’s supposed to happen at the gym!  

Injury-wise I haven’t been in too much pain lately. I’m sure this is mostly from not doing a lot of cardio but even when I have done it, I’ve managed to keep the swelling at bay by sitting in a bathtub full of cold water and ice for 10 minutes post-workout. It’s actually not as torturous as it sounds and being able to walk and go about the rest of my day without constant pain makes it worth it. I haven’t been back to the PT in a few weeks because even with insurance it was costing me an arm and a leg but I have been doing my recommended exercises at least a few days per week and while I’m still skeptical of their necessity I can’t deny my improvement. I’m also no longer popping Ibuprophen like they’re Skittles so that’s definitely a plus!

Anyway, it’s time for me to scoot off to work here. I was up way too late last night so I’m not looking forward to the inevitable mid-morning head-bobbing and mid-afternoon brain drain that will most definitely require an extra strong coffee to battle through. Looking forward to an early bedtime tonight! I hope all you gym rats are enjoying these last few weeks of Summer (or extended Spring here in Maine). ‘Til next time, happy gymming! xo