Chillicat's journal

[Sakura]

Wow, your weights are starting to make me feel bad. Slow down!! :pfft:

Nah, seriously, awesome work!

[rimma]

Good stuff, especially squats, even if the last sets were a bit gymrat stylez :pfft:

[Chillicat]

Thanks all!

Managed 85kg on the deads today. Nil points for elegance, but I got it off the ground and got myself upright, so it counts :pfft: I might have managed two in a row if I hadn't been so shocked at lifting the first one. Did another just to make sure, and nailed it (in an equally inelegant fashion - but I never did have much style ).

[teamfatboy]

Don't sell yourself short CC, you would easily have nailed the second one if some clown hadn't distracted you :grin:

Seriously, that first one went up so damn quick I nearly missed it altogether! The second one was fine too... so too right they count! :salute: :clap:

[runveerun]

Good stuff CC! :grin: Lifting isn't meant to be elegant you should see my facials when doing Deads, no wait it's best not to!

As long as it went up it counts :clap:

[Chillicat]

Don't sell yourself short CC, you would easily have nailed the second one if some clown hadn't distracted you :grin:

you should see my facials when doing Deads

Yeah I have some pretty severe grimacing going on when I'm benching :nod:

[Chillicat]

Wednesday - push (no PBs to report, but a great workout all the same)

Thursday - pull (as above)

I think I'm going to start reigning in my eating a bit, and start working on stripping some of the old body fat. I wasn't going to do this til later in the year, but when I thought more about it, I was concerned that leaving it later would be more similar to crash dieting, and I'd prefer a slower and maybe less painful approach.

For the last 6 months I haven't been overly concerned about what I've been eating, and I'm about 5kg up on my Christmas weight (but carrying it a lot better than I carried the extra 7kg I was carrying prior to starting lifting with any kind of seriousness - no sign of a spare tyre at all, so all good!). So I'm not feeling all fat and flabby and vile or anything - I feel nice and strong and can see that I've got a much better overall shape than I did this time last year, or 18 months ago. But there's that layer of flabbage that I'd like to shift, so I'm going to get cracking on that from next week on. Well, probably after Monday, since we're making a bit of a morning of the World Cup final and having a nice pub breakfast - one last eggs benny before the fat stripping begins!

Last year when I did a mini cut I had lots of suggestions about how to calculate maintenance calories and weightloss calories - and each calculation gave me a different base number to start with for maintenance, so this time I'm just going to start with a nice round 2000 and see how I find that for a few weeks, then drop to 1900 for a few weeks - and so on if necessary.

I've worked out a general eating plan that is about 15% carbs, 40% fat and 45% protein at 2000 calories. I did a trial run on it the other day and it was easy enough to do, only required a few tweaks of my general daily eating to up the fat and decrease the carbs, and is very doable I think.

I'm not going to keep a food journal in here though. I just thought I'd say that I'm starting it next week so that I feel slightly more accountable for having said I'm going to do it! But as I say, I'm not doing anything major and drastic, as I my target date for looking all hot and buff is 23 whole weeks away - and it's not for anything like a competition or anything major like that, just for vanity, so I figure that if I ease into it, and drop calories slowly, I'll barely notice it. That's the theory anyway

[VampireChick]

OOooh good stuff CC! Let me know how you go I've come to another standstill after I made progress so the trainer has suggested more tweaks (splitting my lunch in half/eating pumpkin/more fat).

Also let me know how you go with eating up the mountain. I'm trying things like homemade wraps but might try a hot soup or beef and veg in a thermos. Did that a couple times last year and lots of wanky skiers would give me funny looks. Although one random chick saw me preparing a lunch once and she was amazing, and said "It's just so beautiful." It was hilarious.

[Chillicat]

Last year I took lots of peanut butter wraps up the mountain with me (just plain tortillas with PB rolled up) since they're easy to put in my jacket. I guess I'll just make snow days high carb days since I'll probably need the energy and that kind of food is easier than tuna or salmon based foods - I'll just have a higher fat/protein breakfast to balance things out. I'll also bring up my home made oaty bars, which are pretty much just oats, protein powder and peanut butter.

[Chillicat]

Pushing on Saturday - squats, and tried out 80kg with very little grace and ROM (about 75%)

Pull today, and almost couldn't do any deads due to a plethora of Saffa rugby players hogging all the spots. One moved though so I jumped in while I had the chance. Couldn't quite manage 2x 85kg today. Was probably too busy looking a the eye candy.

Muchos eye candy :nod:

[Chillicat]

Push today - bench press. Didn't do very well, due to being watched by a big burly Bok while I was doing my 47.5kg - got all flustered and almost couldn't rack it after only 3 reps, so decided not to attempt the 50kg. Should have asked him to spot for me - but he wasn't one of the hot ones, like that one Drizzt was nohomoing over yesterday - mmm now he had very nice arms. Would've liked a spot from him :pfft:

[teamfatboy]

Does this mean you'll be there tomorrow too ? :grin:

I'm kinda hoping it's their recovery day, daunting for us mere mortals :pfft:

[Chillicat]

Nope, rest day for me tomorrow. Kinda hope they're not there on Thurs and Fri though - the novelty factor is over now, and they're hogging all the space. There wasn't a single spot over at the stretching/abs area when I went over at the end of my workout, floor was crawling with them. Managed a quick stretch, but not the abs and pressups I was hoping to do. Did hear the hot one with the lovely arms singing along to 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' that Lorna the instructor had playing in the class downstairs though - that was amusing

[morattigirl]

Should have asked him to spot for me - but he wasn't one of the hot ones, like that one Drizzt was nohomoing over yesterday - mmm now he had very nice arms. Would've liked a spot from him :pfft:

Lol I like your thinking CC :nod:

[Chillicat]

No juice in the tank today, and no hot rugby players to spur me on! Did a few bits and pieces, but it was all over in half an hour and I was exhausted for the rest of the afternoon.

Got free tickets to Saturday night's game though, so that perked me up!

[morattigirl]

No juice in the tank today, and no hot rugby players to spur me on! Did a few bits and pieces, but it was all over in half an hour and I was exhausted for the rest of the afternoon.

Got free tickets to Saturday night's game though, so that perked me up!

Free tickets! Oh mean \:D/ I got a couple mates flying down for the game too, it's gonna be a good one :nod:

[Chillicat]

Been a bit slack with the journal the last week or so, so it's time to have an update.

Started on the dieting just over a week ago - last Tuesday, since I did a breakfast World Cup final session at the pub on the Monday, so took the opportunity for one last eggs benedict before cracking down on my bad eating habits.

So I'll be honest and let you know the shocking truth my scales told me when I jumped on them last Tuesday: 63.8kg (up from around 59kg at Christmas). That wasn't a big surprise - I've jumped on the scales sporadically over the last 6 months just for a quick look, but I wasn't overly concerned about what the weight was because I knew it was going up as I was eating heaps and getting stronger and making really pleasing progress with my lifts.

But one thing that I didn't look at on my sneaky looks every now and then on the scales was my body fat - I jumped right back off before it got to the b/f measurement bit. At the end of the year it was somewhere around the 20% mark (on the scales) and I guess I expected it to be higher - but I was quite shocked to have it tell me 26.8% :oops: That was around about what I was this time last year when I first bought the scales, and BEFORE I switched it to athlete mode. I knew I had put on weight and I can see that I'm a bit on the flabby side, but I'm a wee bit surprised it's that high given how hard I've been working. Guess I've been eating hard too :pfft:

As a reminder, when I switched from normal to athlete mode in about October my bodyfat figure suddenly switched from something like 26 to something like 22! But I double checked and the scale hasn't reset itself - it's still on athlete mode, and I'm a big fatty :nod: So it's good thing I've decided to work on my weight for a while I guess - especially since my main motivation is vanity - kinda pointless getting all strong with a giant layer of blubber if my focus is looking buff :?

So anyway, I've been keeping a food journal (not going to bother putting it up on here - I keep a spreadsheet which I find the most user friendly way of working, and it's just a pain having to double-do it). Initial aim is to stick at the 2000 calories per day mark and see what that does for me, as I want slow safe weight and fatloss. So far so good. Averaged just on 2000 cals per day last week and lost .6kg and it's looking like the same again this week. B/f has also gone down (marginally), so all good.

Mentioned earlier that I was having trouble fathoming the 'correct' maintenance and weightloss calories, since there seem to be so many calculations. So I just decided to pick one and try it for a couple of weeks and go from there. Chose 2000 calories based on a calculation that told me that 2000 calories is about 100 calories over my maintenance calories. I knew I was eating more than that because although I've been eating lots, I've still been pretty aware of what I've been eating - same brekkies and meals during the day as normal, just lots of extras (like some biscuits here, wine there...etc), so I thought to start with I'd just pick a figure that was around the maintenance mark so that it wouldn't be too much of a shock suddenly dropping a ton of calories. So go figure that I've actually lost just over a kilo, which is exactly the pace I want to be losing the excess at.

So for the next week I'll stick with the 2000 average, then possibly look at dropping 50-100 calories a day in the following week, and do what I have to do from there. As long as I'm losing between .3-.6kg per week I'm happy, as I'm not in a great hurry and want to keep what little muscle I have :pfft: So I want to make sure I keep the balance of eating enough to have energy for workouts, but low enough so that I steadily lose a few kgs over the next few months (and more importantly, B/f).

[VampireChick]

I'm quite suprised with that bf% too CC, considering how hard you work (not that its that high or anything!). But of all people you can certainly get back on track with that and you'll be sweet as in no time Good luck with this!

[Chillicat]

I had my second weigh in this morning and the bf has gone from 26.8% at the start then 25.6% last week, to 25.1% today, so I guess I'm doing something right with my carb/fat/protein proportions in my new eating plan!

You not boarding this weekend VC? We're hoping to go up next weekend - can't wait!

[VampireChick]

Nice work CC! Didn't take you long at all to come right

Not heading up although my bf has gone up with a few mates. Sounds like they had a few patched of powder AND blue skies! He's competing in the Nitro Jib Nats today so I hope he does well.

We'll be up there next weekend (fingers crossed for good weather). Keep an eye out for a red jacket and white helmet

[Chillicat]

Will do! I'll be in lilac jacket and silver helmet and generally stand out due to my appalling board skills :pfft:

Will definitely say hi if I see you now that I know what you look like (and there's plenty of pics of me on FB so you can see my stunning good looks too :pfft: )

[VampireChick]

Haha sweet! Will def keep an eye out

[becbec]

I had my second weigh in this morning and the bf has gone from 26.8% at the start then 25.6% last week, to 25.1% today, so I guess I'm doing something right with my carb/fat/protein proportions in my new eating plan!

You not boarding this weekend VC? We're hoping to go up next weekend - can't wait!

What time of day are you taking your body fat?

My PT says that it reads a lot higher than it acutally is at the end of the day and around your time of month.

[Chillicat]

First thing in the morning, after a wee, and before eating or drinking anything.

I don't have a time of the month, thanks to the miracle that is depo-provera!

[morattigirl]

Oh man I fully wanna know what my bf is?? Right thats my mission next week!

Yours tells you on your scales aye CC?