Think I'm back on track

Lovely gym on Friday.  I did try to use the 30kg bar-bell for my clean and press now that I'm nearly comfortably doing 10x3 with 25kg but, well, it didn't work very well.  Not even one :oD  Maybe Monday!

Today I had a reasonable cardio/intervals session with a teensy bit of core work, plus having a go at pull-ups on the easier (where I can get my hands closer together) apparatus and if I jump into it a bit so I'm not starting from completely hanging down, I can actually do it.  Nearly there!

Nice foodz and dinner on its way:- rose veal escalope in garlic and lemon sauce with roasted sweet potato wedges and mushrooms.

Rest day tomorrow I think; my shoulders are saying Hello! quite a bit still from yesterday.  Hope youse are all having a great weekend, lots of (interesting) sport on now with Wimbledon and Le Tour :o)  Who's following and who do you want to win?  I'm rooting for Bradders (Wiggins) for sure!

Mmmmfeeesh

Monday's dinner; tilapia fillets with baby new potatoes and broccoli tossed in olive oil and toasted flaked almonds.  A nice, light dinner after a rest day with some quite impressive DOMS right through my core muscles that I could still feel just as strongly today.  Sunday's gym session was quite clearly a bit different and worked them all nicely.  I do suspect the negative pull-ups as the hand position I can use at the local gym compared with the one near work is different (I think a bit easier, so I can get better results so I tried even harder).  I'll just be happy when I can actually do one positive one, you know?  Sometimes it feels like I'm almost there and then... I can't do it.

B - greek yogurt with 1 scoop MP Max, fruit compote and flaked almonds
S - banana
S -  smoked almonds
L - salad; lettuce, celery, cherry tomatoes, beetroot, sweet peppers and a chicken breast in a Discovery wholemeal tortilla wrap
S - carrots and houmous
S - greek yogurt with fresh mango and chopped mint
D - baked tilapia fillet with baby new potatoes, broccoli, flaked almonds and olive oil

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1545 1790]
Protein (g)	131.0 (34.8%)
Carbohydrate (g)	155.3 (38.7%)
Fat (g)	44.2 (26.5%)
Fibre (g)	30.7
Fruit & Veg	13.6

Great day; really great day

Gorgeous brekkie today of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on toasted wholemeal, seeded bagel with lashings of tea.  Bit of mooching about the house and getting ready, along with a banana just before gymming.  And a very pleasing gym session it was too.  Mr TOTKat was with his trainer, so I had a bit over an hour to fill with my current routine plus a bit extra.  I added in some tricep pull-downs and bicep curls at the end after my intervals on the cross-trainer and I can really feel the burn in my arms now!  I also managed to squeeze out 8, 8, 10 with the 25kg barbell with the clean and press, so that's more progress.

Mr TOTKat's trainer was really positive about my "negatives" (negative motion pull-ups), which was nice.  He did think I should be able to do a full positive pull-up if I'm doing 12-15 4s negative ones.  I just never think to try a positive one until I've already done 10 of the negatives, so I have no juice left!

What really made me pleased today was trying on a couple of shirts that were too tight last time I tried them (about a month ago).  And they fit -exactly- now!  The last time they fitted like that, I was 3kg lighter than I am now.  Which just goes to show you that the scales are -definitely- not the only or best measure.  I have dropped 0.3% body fat over the last 2 weeks, despite being well over maintenance last week and only just 500kcals under it this week.  On average across the 2 weeks, I was 90kcals over maintenance, so I shouldn't have lost any weight, but I have definitely done so even according to the scales.  So it looks like I am actually gaining muscle somewhere as well as losing body fat.  My BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) is for sure higher than WLR thinks it is for my lifestyle setting of "moderately sedentry" (i.e. I do walk about a bit, but my job is mostly sitting about all day and I log proper exercise separately).

Off now to have a warmed sultana scone with cherry jam and mascarpone with lots more tea!   (and dinner is going to be kangaroo steak with couscous, peas and sweetcorn *dribble*)

Weird mix

Monday was excessive.  Really.  The race was good and then we went out for Mr TOTKat's birthday celebrations and I had far too much beer.  And ate my own body-weight in pistachio nuts at the pub.

So.  Yesterday I felt horrible all afternoon and evening.  Totally my own fault.  And, of course, the only way to fix feeling that kind of horrible was to eat lots of bad things, like takeaway pizza.  The result being that this morning I weighed the same as a walrus.  Yes yes about half of it is just transit pizza and will go away again, but the weekend was just over the top in general and I'm going to have to pay the price for that now.

This morning I felt better but still not great.  2kg up vs. Friday morning and feeling rough.  11am gym seemed like a ridiculous joke as it approached, but I went and did it anyway; tanked in a really good warm-up row, upped the clean and press from 3x10 17.5kg to 8, 8, 10 at 20kg.  And it was good :o)  And my trainer was around so I told him about the great triathlon result and the fact I'd upped the clean and press, and that I've hit the point on the assisted pull-up machine where the assist doesn't work any more and the platform just drops away, so he showed me an extra exercise to add in at the end of my current routine; 2x5 4 second negative motion pull-ups.  I reckon after a few goes at that I might actually be able to do a whole pull-up unassisted now.  *beam*

So now I feel a weird mix of great and rough, though the rough is starting to win again.

• warm up - 1km L7 on the rower
• squat and swing - 12kg dumbbell - 3x10 SUPERSET A
• pendulum swings - bodyweight - 3x10 x2 SUPERSET A
• lunge with cable row - 12.5kg - 3x10 x2 SUPERSET B
• side plank with row - 4kg dumbbell - 3x10 x2 SUPERSET B
• lunge with single arm swing opposite arm to knee - 4kg dumbbell - 3x10 x2 SUPERSET C
• planks - 3x 60s - SUPERSET C
• clean and press - 20kg bar bell - 8, 8, 10
• negative motion pull-up - bodyweight - 2x5 at 4s count for the drop
• 3x 30s sprints - cross-trainer L6
• cool down on the cross-trainer and stretch

B - greek yogurt with 1 scoop MP Max, blueberries and flaked almonds
S - banana
*gym*
S - 1 scoop MP Max in skimmed milk
L - salad; chicken, cherry tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, celery, beetroot, sweet peppers
S - carrot and houmous
D - salad; chicken, eggs, new potatoes, lettuce, sweet peppers, grapes and cherry tomatoes with honey, mustard & cider vinegar dressing

Exercise - 53 minutes gym

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1531 2259]
Protein (g)	158.4 (42.0%)
Carbohydrate (g)	144.3 (35.9%)
Fat (g)	37.1 (22.1%)
Fibre (g)	24.8
Fruit & Veg	14.0

Pleased for all of 5 minutes

I dragged myself to the gym today, unexpectedly as I hadn't planned on it. Did the nasty current routine that I'm not keen on (but have modified - changed the dumb bell flyes for pec flyes on a machine 'cause my arm doesn't work right/I can't get my form right) and added in some assisted pull-ups 'cause I like those. I started doing assisted pull-ups about 2 months ago, with a couple of weeks break in there somewhere, at an assisst of 45kg. Today I did 3 sets of 8 reps at 30kg assist. :)

Woooo! :D

And then I looked it up in the Internets. Apparently beginners are supposed to start at 50% assist (which would be 33.5kg for me) and work up from there. Meh. I only managed 44.8% assist today. So that's not as cool as I'd thought. Way to bust my bubble.

Still, I did do 3x5 full press ups, upped my lunge dumb bells to 9kg each and managed to burn 465kcals (normally I get 445kcals for this routine), so I must've been working it harder. Small victories.