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Monday, December 10, 2012

It's Monday and the start of week #4...

...of my body transformation through strength training.  It turns out that a little rest can go a long way.  Yesterday was my rest day and I really needed it.  I was starting to feel run down, but as I got going on my  workout at the gym this morning, I felt more like my normal self.


After a brief running warm-up on a treadmill, I did my usual Monday leg routine: leg press, hamstring curls, barbell reverse lunges, leg extensions, standing calf raises and bench lunges with hand weights.  When I finished with all of my sets, I also threw in 4 sets of 10 dead lifts, just for good measure.  I'm still not too sure my form is that great when I do dead lifts, but I'm working on it using just the bar without weight.  At the end of my leg routine, while my legs certainly felt fatigued, I realized that I didn't have much trouble getting up to 10-12 reps on each exercise.  I think that means that next week it will be time for me to increase my weights.  (Either that, or I'm doing it wrong.) ;)

After I finished with weights, I had just enough time to eat some almonds and raisins while waiting for spinning class to begin.  As if spinning isn't hard enough, it's a little harder after a tough leg workout, but I guess that's why Misty has me doing weights first, cardio second.  When you lift, your body uses up glycogen as energy, so any cardio exercise you do after that point burns fat.

And speaking of nuts...I have been doing really well, 'keeping it tight' with regards to my fuel intake.  In fact, I would venture to say that in the 3 weeks since my first session with Misty, I have been about 95% (or higher) clean with my diet.  I've been staying focused on making everything I put in my mouth count for something, even my clean "treats" like my homemade protein bars and balls.  The awesome thing is, I haven't felt deprived at all.  My cravings for some of my (old) favorites have been replaced with cravings for the healthy stuff.  This week I will be going with my husband to his work Christmas party where there will be some food indulgences and I am looking at it as a test.  I know that it would be okay for me to have those little splurges every once in a while - even Misty told me to make allowances for myself - but I'm so happy with how it feels to finally be in control of my diet.  I don't want to mess with that.  How do you all make "allowances" for yourselves?

3 comments:

  1. My motto has always been to eat whatever I want, but less of it. If I want ice cream, I eat it, but I eat less. Depriving myself of what I really want makes me crabby and then I snack snack snack on other stuff to try to fill the void.

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  2. I really needed that. You are such an inspiration to me. I have been able to tell such a difference in my workouts this week after eating whatever I wanted over the weekend. I couldn't do this without your words of advice and encouragement. I can't wait for our Saturday run so that we can chat about clean eating and exercise.

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  3. To answer your question- I will eat 86% dark chocolate or other clean treats. When I eat anything with processed sugar, I have a hard time limiting it to just one serving.

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