After taking a few glorious days off from the gym I was back at it this morning a session with Kyle. As you know from reading this blog, my work schedule rarely allows for regular exercise with my trainer. I am heading to Halifax next week for work so it was important that we trained three times this week. I was away on Monday and Tuesday so we have our sessions scheduled in a row on Wednesday, Thursday & Friday.
Today was also our first workout of the week even though it is already Wednesday. I didn't realize we were going to be shaking things up, until I realized we were. lol.
As I am writing this I am also prepping breakfast for dinner. Isn't this just about the greatest thing ever? It's so simple. We are having spinach and feta eggs, gluten free protein raspberry pancakes and of course bacon. My old friend bacon (the candy of meats) isn't a food item I spend much time with at all these days, so you can bet I'm going to enjoy it!! Also it should be noted her that the only person who can prepare my breakfast exactly to my liking is my best friend Kim. Here are a few pics to prove that we are friends:
Where was I? Bacon...Kim...bacon...delicious...sizzling...oh yeah my workout, sorry I was distracted.
Workout: 4 rounds
chest press w/ bar 6 rep
elevated push ups 12 reps
dumbell chest press 25 reps
1 minute rest
glute ham raise 6 reps
swiss ball leg curls 12 reps
leg curl 25 reps
We also had a little bit of time at the end to do some shoulder work.
Also today was day #8 of Operation Write Down Everything And The Times That I Eat It I Eat Into A Notebook. If I could summarize how the whole food journalling process is going in one word it would be: medium. It's going well in the fact that I am actually writing everything down, but not well in the fact I am not doing it exactly when I eat it. So I have to go back at the end of the day and write everything in. I need to take it with me. I am posting todays entry to that you can all see that I had chips today. I don't want to give anyone the impression that I am not normal. Yes I choose to eat healthy and prepare awesome unprocessed meals most of the time, but I also love to live a little and I have my indulgences (pizza, wine, Mcdonalds, chips, chocolate, nachos...you get the idea?). It's called balance. I have also adopted a highlighting system. Whenever I eat something really top shelf, I highlight it in yellow, so it's like a little reward. Then I can flip back and see all of the yellow and congratulate myself! Yay me! ;)
Food Journal: Day 8
My Trainer:
Tara's workout this morning was a blast ! For starters, she was on time to do weigh-in, pinched with calipers (down almost 2% BF in one week !!!) catch up with Nigel - those that know him, like him (sounds like a beer commercial) - and get a good warm up in. With her half marathon coming at the end of September, it's going to be important for her last 3 weeks before the run to be pure strength work (remember the stronger push off = faster athlete from before) so now is time to build up her strength endurance in the gym (she's still going to run to work on her "cardio" outside the gym) so we started 6-12-25 training that I learned at my PICP 1 course. It consists of a tough/demanding lift for 6 reps, 10 seconds off (pretty much go to the next one, breath, and ready to go again), 12 reps on a secondary lift, 10 seconds off, then 25 reps on another lift. After all that you get 90 seconds for nervous system recovery. For example, this morning Tara did 6 reps on a flat biacromial bench press, 12 reps on a ... Wait a minute. She wrote the entire workout down (almost correctly) so I'll spare the details, but she did great. Afterwards she looked at me with a worried look and said "are we doing this every morning this week ?" (meaning wed/thurs/fri) to which I kindly responded "yes". She's going to get a chance to really impress herself in this training phase, and that's going to be fun to watch ... partly because she's so hard on herself.
It was cool getting Tara's blog about today emailed to me (that's my reminder to do the damn thing) because she opened up a little more about her food journal. I'm really proud of her, and another client of mine getting great results by doing the same thing, because it's not as easy as some think, but at the same time, very doable and therefore rewarding. I'm excited to flip through the pages in her book and dole out some high fives for all that highlighted! It's a little weird because I assume she'll read this at some point (she may even proof read/spell check mine for all I know), but I really want Tara to succeed in her goals, like badly, and I know she has it in her. There's no doubt. This is the fun time for a Trainer to clamp down with their client and get things done. No excuses. I showed up and worked hard today or I didn't. I ate well today or I broke. These times make for results in the gym. Looking forward to tomorrow.
Ps - I like the proof of your friend :). She must be pretty cool to get to spending drinking at night, ball game on weekend, and putting things up noses time with you!
Happy Reading,
Me + My Trainer
