Chillicat's journal

[autechre]

I'd train at lunchtime, except half of the Terrace likes to go then as well.

I try to escape work at little early ( :smackbottom: ) in the afternoon to beat the evening rush :grin:

[Chillicat]

My favourite time to train is the middle of the day, as it gives me a really nice break to the day. As long as my work is cool about me taking a long lunch (and starting work earlier to make up the time), I'll keep doing that.

I'd like to do lunchtimes - and my boss is cool with it, even if it amounts to two hours...but the team that works for me reacted badly to it - apparently it was disrespectful to them not to be in my office during lunchtime! WTF?

Interestingly, my team didn't seem to be so perturbed if I went for an hour's run on the waterfront at lunchtime - that was acceptable, but spending the same amount of time training weights wasn't.

That's so dumb. I am generally at work at about 7.30-7.45 each morning, so that's a good hour earlier than everyone else, so before I started taking 1.5 hour lunch breaks I used to finish an hour earlier than everyone - 4 or 4.30. That was no problem.

But if I skip my lunchtime gym session, I don't have any need to take any time off in the middle of the day (other than to eat, but not to just sit about in the tea room, I can't bear timewasting!), so I finish work at 3.30 instead and go to the gym then.

The problem with after work gym sessions is that even though technically I've worked an extra half an hour (by not taking a lunchbreak and finishing at 3.30 rather than 3 which would be the time I should finish if I start at 7.30 and work right through), I feel really bad leaving that early - disppearing a whole hour and a half or two hours early seems worse to me than taking that exact same time at lunchtime.

It's all about perception - at lunchtime the perception is that you're only taking an extra half an hour, but as everyone knows you're in an hour early and you're finishing at 5 like everyone else, they're happy. But if you leave at 3.30, the perception of leaving 1.5 hours early is a lot greater than an half an hour at lunch. People (especially in our other offices) wonder where you are when they're trying to contact you and why you're not getting back to them until the morning. At least with a slightly longer break in the middle of the day people just assume you're at lunch possibly followed by a meeting. But you still have a presence in the office between normal office hours, which is key.

That's very waffly, but it's what I've been trying to grapple with the last couple of weeks since we moved and I'm trying to work out what time suits me best to train.

[Chillicat]

I'd train at lunchtime, except half of the Terrace likes to go then as well.

I try to escape work at little early ( :smackbottom: ) in the afternoon to beat the evening rush :grin:

I've started taking lunch between 12.30-2 so that by the time I get to my gym the lunchtime group class is just about over so my ipod doesn't have to compete with shrieking Pump/Step instructors! The big rush seems to be over at my gym from 1pm, so it's pretty nice.

[Chillicat]

Still feeling my butt from Tuesday!

Back and biceps today:

Started by attempting a pull up and failing miserably yet again so did 3 chinups to make myself feel better.

Decided I'm getting nowhere with doing pullups by doing pullups approach, so did some assisted: 20kg 1x5, 25kg 8/6/5

Bent over rows: 22.5kg 3x8, 25kg 1x8

Seated cable rows: 35kg 4x8

Lat pulldowns: 35kg 4x8

One arm rows: 10kg 4x8

EZ bar biceps curls: 5kg 4x8

Bicep curls DB: 6;g 3x8, 7kg 1x5

Arm curl machine: 15kg 4x8

Food:

1. Oats, PP, yogurt

2. Tuna and chickpeas on 3 ryvitas

3. PS

4. PS

5. yogurt and PP

6. Beef stew which I'll have on a bed of spinach and with some beans or other mixed veges.

7. Um, probably yogurt and PP

I've decided to have both a pre and post workout shake when I do lunchtime gym sessions - I have got a bit too used to the PB wraps, but really they were supposed to be a convenience food for if I go after work - something to keep me going til I get home for dinner, as there's at least an hour between finishing my workout and getting home if I go after work.

But since I've mostly been going at lunchtime, it's really not necessary to have all that extra fat on a daily basis (regardless of it being good fat, it's still fat) - so extra protein shake instead from now on on lunchtime workout days.

My body fat will no doubt plummet as a result!

[rose]

Decided I'm getting nowhere with doing pullups by doing pullups approach

Try one every day. More than once a day. Grease the groove. It's the only way chick. Trust me.

Linky

"If it is important, do it every day. If it's not important, don't do it at all."

The_Gable_Method.pdf

[autechre]

Decided I'm getting nowhere with doing pullups by doing pullups approach

Try one every day. More than once a day. Grease the groove. It's the only way chick. Trust me.

Linky

"If it is important, do it every day. If it's not important, don't do it at all."

I suck at pullups too and am also trying the do at least 1 a day.

The other alternative is negative reps. ie. start at the top of the pullup by using a bench or chair to get yourself up & let yourself down slowly. Jump back up to the top position, let yourself down slow. Rinse, repeat.

[Chillicat]

Decided I'm getting nowhere with doing pullups by doing pullups approach

Try one every day. More than once a day. Grease the groove. It's the only way chick. Trust me.

Linky

"If it is important, do it every day. If it's not important, don't do it at all."

Oh don't worry, I'm not going to give up - but I am going to keep up with the chin assist as well - but only after I've tried it on my own.

[runveerun]

Here we go, found it http://thebuffgeek.com/blog/exercise-hi ... te-bridge/

aaaa OK! I do those with a swiss ball, my trainer calls them swiss ball leg curls which confuses me coz they aren't to do legs but to do the abs and glutes.

[teamfatboy]

I think there's actually two different exercises in there... the video is about abs and glutes - but a swiss ball leg curl should really move the emphasis off glutes and onto hamstrings...

I'd be surprised if the move in the video really worked abs too hard, tho...altho I'm not about to road-test them back-to-back!

[autechre]

I think there's actually two different exercises in there... the video is about abs and glutes - but a swiss ball leg curl should really move the emphasis off glutes and onto hamstrings...

I'd be surprised if the move in the video really worked abs too hard, tho...altho I'm not about to road-test them back-to-back!

The one on the buffgeek site is also known as a supine bridge. It mainly works your glutes as you have to squeeze them hard to lift & hold yourself up.

I've been doing them this week & they seem to do the job :pfft:

I have done the swiss ball ones too and they're definitely all about the hammies & core. Do em both I say!

[Chillicat]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by the swiss ball one - though I do a hamstring swiss ball thingy, where you stick your feet on the ball, and raise your body up so just your arms and top of back/shoulders are on the floor, and roll the ball towards your butt and back out again - is that what you mean?

The glute bridge thingy seems to be good. Though to be honest, I added 3 glute excercises last week and this week, so I'm not sure which one in particular is making my glutes ache - probably all 3!

[runveerun]

I think there's actually two different exercises in there... the video is about abs and glutes - but a swiss ball leg curl should really move the emphasis off glutes and onto hamstrings...

I'd be surprised if the move in the video really worked abs too hard, tho...altho I'm not about to road-test them back-to-back!

The one on the buffgeek site is also known as a supine bridge. It mainly works your glutes as you have to squeeze them hard to lift & hold yourself up.

I've been doing them this week & they seem to do the job :pfft:

I have done the swiss ball ones too and they're definitely all about the hammies & core. Do em both I say!

ah so that's why they are called leg curls! Of course they are for hammies, I have them in my ab workout section that's where the confusion was!

[runveerun]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by the swiss ball one - though I do a hamstring swiss ball thingy, where you stick your feet on the ball, and raise your body up so just your arms and top of back/shoulders are on the floor, and roll the ball towards your butt and back out again - is that what you mean?

The glute bridge thingy seems to be good. Though to be honest, I added 3 glute excercises last week and this week, so I'm not sure which one in particular is making my glutes ache - probably all 3!

they like this:

But my trainer makes me go almost vertical.......

[Chillicat]

Cool - that's what I thought you meant. I just call them swiss ball hamstring thingys!

[Chillicat]

Shoulders today:

Seated shoulder press: 9kg 2x10, 10kg 8/5

Dumbell upright rows: 7kg 1x8, 8kg 3x10

Lat raises: 5.7kg 2x8, 5kg 2x8

Shoulder press machine: 20kg 10/10/8/8

Raised leg press ups: 3x10

Food:

1. Oats, yogurt, PP

2. Tuna/chickpea wrap

3. PS

4. PS

5. Fishy soup

6. Going to movies with a friend at 6pm, so will pop some tuna in my bag and nosh on that just before the movie starts

7. Yogurt probably

[Chillicat]

Rest day today, so time for a bit of a summary of progress over the last couple of weeks.

I'm pleased with how my eating is going, and I'm managing to stick to a relatively clean diet. I've made a couple of positive changes in the last 2 weeks to clean things up further: I'm mostly having plain tuna now, rather than Thai chilli tuna, which is divine but has a bit of extra carbs that I don't really need.

The other positive food change I've made is that I've managed to lower the amount of milk I have in my protein shakes. In the past I've always had milky shakes, rather than water ones, even though I know you're supposed to have water ones pre-workout. I'd tried them in the past and they were so gross that I just couldn't face it. So I decided to try to wean myself off the milk gradually - started with 50g water and 150g milk and to be honest it tasted really watery and yuk. But then the next day I went for a 50/50 split of water and milk, and then down to 75g milk and 125g water and now I'm used to the taste and happy with drinking them that way. Now I'm down to 50g milk and 150g water, so I'm pretty pleased with that. I'll try again next week to lower it further, but even if I don't manage to get it right down, green/yellow top milk is practically water anyway, so all good!

I also mentioned that I'm going to lower my PB wrap intake. That's still something I'm planning on doing rather than actually doing at the moment I ended up having them for my pre bed snack the last two nights, rather than yogurt and protein powder as intended. But I'm definitely knocking out the post workout PB wraps if I go to gym at lunchtime, and will allow them if I go to gym after work.

So now for an update on body fat...drum roll! All issues of scales not being fully accurate aside (and comments all noted), I've been weighing every day and decided that taking a weekly average might be a good approach to seeing how I'm going with dropping the fat. I'm a data analyst for a living, so naturally I had to make a graph of my daily bf % :roll: What I've ended up with is a very zig zaggy looking graph, hence the idea of doing a weekly average. The graph is definitely showing a downward trend though, and that's what matters \:D/ So here is how it's been looking so far:

Week 1: 29.9%

Week 2: 29.5%

Week 3: 28.2% (still have tomorrow to include on that, but it's not going to change too much)

So woohoo, my bodyfat has dropped by a fairly decent amount in a few weeks :clap: . I actually have no clue what a sensible approach is in terms of working onlosing body fat, so be happy for any comments. I know it's taken me 6 months to lose 6kg this year, and I'm happy with that slow approach, as I'm confident that it's going to stay off. I guess that losing body fat works on the same/similar principles? Like the tortoise, slow and steady wins the race.

I'm going to make a couple of switches in my normal daily food plan too. I find myself struggling to eat at 9am, but need to so that I can eat again (or drink) before my lunchtime workout. Currently I've been having something with tuna, then the PB wrap after gym (2pm), and yogurt for 4pm snack. So I think I'm going to switch that around a bit and go with:

1. normal oaty brekkie

2. yogurt and PP (instead of tuna wrap)

3. PS (as normal, but with more water than milk)

4. tuna wrap/ryvita (post workout, makes sense, as that is when I need the carbs)

5. yogurt and PP (or perhaps a wee bit of PB on a ryvita)

6. dinner

7. cottage cheese ryvita/wrap

Will see how it goes.

[teamfatboy]

So woohoo, my bodyfat has dropped by a fairly decent amount in a few weeks :clap: . I actually have no clue what a sensible approach is in terms of working onlosing body fat, so be happy for any comments. I know it's taken me 6 months to lose 6kg this year, and I'm happy with that slow approach, as I'm confident that it's going to stay off. I guess that losing body fat works on the same/similar principles? Like the tortoise, slow and steady wins the race.

Hooray for bf loss - well done!

Comments: yes, slow and stead is better. Folks who crash-diet tend to be far more prone to yo-yo, often ending up worse off than they started.

Haven't seen any guidelines on %bf, but one rule of thumb has been that a loss of not much more than 1kg / week is sustained - ie the person keeps the weight off.

What really matters is that:

a. the diet is delivering the results you'd expect for reduced cals/carbs/ etc; and

b. you understand why it's working - ie you're learning how to fine-tune your body/metabolism/diet.

Keep it up!

[Chillicat]

Pull up progress report: managed to get up as far as my nose today. And that's genuine nose height, not lifting my head up meercat style (as my husband suggested I might be) to say I got higher than I actually did

Chin up progress report: New personal best = 4 chin ups, followed by 2x3. Have to admit that some of them were a bit ropey though, but that's just something to work on.

Back and biceps today:

Bicep curls EZ bar 2.5kg (heavy bar at City Fitness, so lower weight than I use at Bodyworks): 12/12/20/20/8

Bent over rows: 22kg 12/12/10/10/10

One arm dumbell preacher curls: 6kg 12/12/10/10/10

One arm rows: 10kg 12/12/10/10/10

Seated rows (machine): 60lb 10/8/8/8

Lat pulldowns: 60lb 2x12, 75lb 2x8

[autechre]

Pull up progress report: managed to get up as far as my nose today.

Chin up progress report: New personal best = 4 chin ups, followed by 2x3.

Nice work! :clap:

[Bazza]

You're heading in the right direction Chilli..well done! Slow and steady on the bodyfat % is definitely best....but also remember to have those lil treats every now and then just to make sure that its not all pain!

[teamfatboy]

Nice work Chilli - esp with the chins :clap:

[Chillicat]

More effort on fewer excercises in yesterday's workout:

DB Chest Press 12kg: 15/12/8/8/6

DB Flyes 8kg: 12/12/10/10/10

Tricep kickbacks 6kg: 12/12/10/10

Tricep Pulldowns 15kg: 12/10/10/8/5

My face was red from the effort for a couple of hours afterwards

Food:

1. Oats/PP/yogurt

2. Yogurt/PP

3. PS

4. Tuna wrap

5. PS

6. Chilli (mince/beans), wee bit of rice, mountain of veges

[rose]

My face was red

Nice, Chillicat gets a flush going on

[Bazza]

More effort on fewer excercises in yesterday's workout

Thats what its all about Chilli! Well done.

[Chillicat]

More effort on fewer excercises in yesterday's workout

Thats what its all about Chilli! Well done.

Thanks. I'd done mostly 5x5s in June, then so far this month I've been dropping the weights a bit and doing either 5x5 (and taking better care on form) or 4x8. Decided it was time to mix it up a bit and surprise my muscles and have a bit of a change.