Food Hangover
So today I have a major food hangover. YEP a major food hangover.
Major food baby last night.
Yesterday I ate:
At home:
Half a large pizza
Half a large bag of salt and pepper potato chips
Half a bag of chocolate covered pretzels
Bowling Alley:
2 Cherry Vanilla Coke alcoholic beverages
1 shot – Buttery nipple
Fried Mac and Cheese Balls
French Fries
Cheesecake Factory:
Buffalo Blasts
Crab dip
Nachos
Fried Mac and Cheese
One very large slice of Red Velvet Cake Cheesecake
Everything comes to at minimum 5,000 calories on the day. I mean the cheesecake alone was over 1,000 and between the 1/2 bag of chips and pretzels I got easily another 2,000.
Looking at all the nutritional information about what I ate yesterday is actually kind of scary. People eat some of the things I ate yesterday on a regular basis. I’m not trying to say they shouldn’t enjoy these foods, but they should at least fully understand what they are enjoying!
Anyway, I’m glad to be back to the grind of healthy eating for the next few days. I’m looking forward to my strict diet of meat, vegetables and nuts.
Stepping off the Scale
Scales can seem mean.
So with the slow carb diet in the 4 hour body, you are supposed to do one cheat day each week where you pretty much eat everything and anything you want.
WHICH IS AWESOME!
BUT the one hard part for me is not getting down on myself when I step on the scale tomorrow and see that I’ve gained about 10lbs from water weight (yes it is very possible for a 120lbs woman to gain 10lbs of water weight from one day of bad eating).
Usually when I see massive gains from cheat days, I freak out even though I know 90% of that is probably water weight. That number on the scale sometimes even governs how I feel that day about how I look.
Sometimes you just curse it or cry.
And it is just plain stupid that one silly little number that can vary up to 10lbs should govern how I feel I look.
I know I’m not the only woman who does this, but I think it is something that has really hurt my dieting in the past. I get so focused on reaching a number that I lose sight of what my true goals are. I look at day-to-day fluctuations instead of weighing only once in a while to sort of get a feeling for where I’m at.
I mean if I just wanted to lose weight then the number on the scale should be of utmost importance. BUT I DON’T. I don’t want to end up 110lbs again with no muscle and be “skinny-fat.” I want to maintain the wonderful muscle I have now and just lose fat – I want to change my body composition.
Since I just want to change my body composition, the number on the scale may never change OR may even go up! Muscle does weigh more than fat!
So I’m challenging myself and every woman out there who focuses too much on the number she sees on the scale – STEP OFF THE SCALE NOW!
Some days you just don’t have it
There are just some days that no matter how hard you try, your workout just isn’t up to par. You can’t lift the weight you lifted last week; you can’t row that 500m as fast as you did the other day.
And that just sucks.
And it frustrates you. And you get down on yourself. And then you carry that bad attitude throughout the rest of the workout, which prevents you from really getting the most out of your workout.
But don’t let it! Stop those negative thoughts in their tracks!
Everyone has workouts that aren’t as good as they would like them to be. You can’t make progress every single workout, which sucks but is true. You are going to hit plateaus or have days where you are just worn out and your muscles don’t want to work.
But you can still get a lot out of those bad workouts. You just have to change the way you think about them. Instead of seeing them as not a good workout, think positively about the fact that you even worked out at all. Most of the time when I’ve had a bad workout, I didn’t want to workout that day anyway. I was either super tired that day or stressed or even worn out from the workout the day before.
So instead of getting down on myself about the workout, I think about the fact that I managed to push through an intense exercise session even though I would rather be eating ice cream on the futon in front of my TV.
Don't give in to the laziness!
I like to think that I’ve only had a bad workout if I didn’t give it everything I had that day. And the only time I seem to slack off is when I have a negative attitude.
So drop the attitude and just enjoy the workout! If you give every workout your all, you should never be disappointed!
This post was inspired by Judy Fleming. Thank you Judy for the post suggestion!
My Man Bicep Sister
So Candy has her blog up and running. Check out SoontobeManBicep! I must admit I’m flattered and in love with her first post. 🙂 Thank you Candy!
Also, I must repeat…Candy’s biceps are definitely TRUE MAN BICEPS!
12 hour Spin-a-thon
“Models and Mortals”
So I love watching repeats of Sex and the City on TV. I don’t have to focus on them because I’ve now seen them all, but they are also ALWAYS entertaining. The episode I caught last night really grabbed my attention. It was called “Models and Mortals.” It discussed women having to measure up to the beauty of models, a beauty that didn’t seem attainable (which after my post about body image was really fascinating to me).
At one point Miranda, Charlotte, Carrie and Samantha were all sitting around eating and discussing what they hated about their bodies. Of course Samantha said she liked everything about her body (GO SAM! I’d love to be able to include a comment right now about how she lifts weights in the show…but….at least they show her at the gym in a few episodes…).
Carrie’s monologue then says something along the lines of “How can three otherwise rational women be made so self-conscious and insecure just because they looked at a model?”
My question is why does this happen?
What is it about models that makes us feel so insecure about ourselves and seek out the latest and quickest fad diet? Is there a way to stop it?
I think there is….it’s called living a healthy lifestyle 80% of the time – eating well, sleeping enough, exercising and PLAYING! Of course I included sleeping enough in there when I definitely haven’t been BUT it is a huge part of healthy living! If you live a healthy life (with cheat days of course!) you will feel better about yourself in general…at least I’ve found this helps.
When I know I’m eating well and lifting heavy, I’m more confident in how I look because my body feels good. It feels like everything is working in harmony. Of course, sleep also helps…partly because if you get enough sleep, you have less of the stress hormone, cortisol (which can hinder you from losing weight) and partly because if you get enough sleep, you have the energy to get a truly good lift in. As Fitbomb repeated says in his blog…if you don’t get enough sleep there may not even be any point in working out at all!
And now you may be wondering about why I said PLAY. Because play is active and another form of exercise? Yes! But also because you relieve stress when you play. This summer get out in the sun! Go run some sprints. Go swing on a swing. Go paddle boarding! Find something active and outside that you love to do and get those endorphins going! While I love weight training and think it is probably one of the best thing you can do for your body, playing is right up there! So don’t skip your lift but maybe play instead of doing cardio today! 🙂
As my sister loves to quote from Legally Blonde, “Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don’t shoot their husbands, they just don’t.”
Women’s fitness blogs – where are the weights?
Hmm....
So yesterday I set out to find some fitness blogs by, for and about women. What I found was not what I expected when I typed in “top fitness blogs for women.”
While I did find a few blogs I liked, I found a lot of blogs that really had nothing to do with what I consider “fitness.” There were posts about loving your body; posts about eating well for healthy hair; post about body dysmorphia (which was actually one of my favorites!). BUT there weren’t really any posts about women lifting and working out to develop beautiful lean, toned muscle. There weren’t very many posts about what women did to workout and improve their health.
I found a website called the 100 Must Read Blogs…By Women! and found that of the fitness blogs with descriptions only one had anything about resistance training in the blurb about it (and that blog was almost specifically for athletes). That is sort of sad don’t you think?
What do women have against resistance training? I mean I’ve heard the “I don’t want to get bulky excuse”, which is total BS. I’ve also heard women complain that they feel uncomfortable when they are in the weight room because all of the men are looking at them and judging them. This is BS too. I’ve stood and watched people in the weight room. The people who get looked at are the ones either doing something that looks absolutely silly OR people who lift an incredible amount of weight (which means…MOST OF THE TIME MEN ARE ONLY WATCHING OTHER MEN LIFT!).
Most female trainers who blog should know that women won’t get big from lifting weights. Most female trainers also know correct form so they shouldn’t be intimidated or worried about lifting in front of men or encouraging their clients to do so. So why are so few writing about weight training!?! I mean you female trainers who don’t promote weight training are part of the problem. I mean we can recommend that women experiment with their diet to find out what works for them, but no one seems to recommend that women experiment with all forms of exercise!
We want women to love their bodies and not be discouraged by the women in the magazines. I whole-heartedly believe that if we can get women to see weight training as something beneficial and not something that will make them manly that we will start to chip away at women’s body dysmorphia!
YES! I want this shirt!
No Coffee :-(
I NEED CAFFEINE RIGHT NOW!!!! BUT I can’t drink coffee black, and I’m trying this new slow carb diet from the 4 hour body, which doesn’t allow you to really indulge in artificial sweeteners.
No more than 16 oz a day of diet, artificially sweetened anything!
Yep, Splenda and such can have a negative effect on fat loss. I didn’t believe it at first. I mean how can something without calories keep you from losing fat? I mean I know losing fat isn’t simply about calories in vs. calories out and is affected by the quality of calories you eat, BUT STILL! I WANT MY MORNING CAFFE VANILLA LIGHT FRAP!
But no! I will exhibit some self-control, which is difficult when I haven’t gotten much sleep and was up at 4:30 a.m. again. I just keep reminding myself that I can have a Frap on Saturday since on the 4 hour body diet you are allowed one cheat day each week! YAY for Saturday! Just another reason to look forward to the weekend!
On a different note, box squats are really really good. What a great way to increase the amount you can squat! Yesterday the man bicep group did them. It is really tough sitting down past parallel, pausing and then standing back up with the weight on your back. Candy and I managed to do box squats with 165lbs. Not too shabby! 🙂
Today we will be doing the Filthy 50, which is always a tough one. You try to complete all of the reps and exercises as quickly as possible.
Filthy 50:
50 Box jumps
50 Jumping Pull ups
50 KB swings
50 Walking Lunges
50 Knees to Elbows
50 Push Press (45lbs)
50 Back Extensions
50 Wall Ball
50 Burpees
50 Double Unders
Give it a try!
Why do Cheat Days seem like a better idea BEFORE you do them?
I don’t think it is possible to ever get used to waking up at 4:30 a.m. Humans weren’t meant to be up before the sun! And to make matters worse today, my stomach isn’t feeling too hot…Chinese food, chips, dips, cupcakes, ice cream, burritos, bread and candy all make for a nice little stomach ache.
A cheat weekend sounded like such a good idea on Friday…and today…well today I’m paying the price. Usually I only do a day, but for some reason I just let myself go all weekend. A nice little relaxing weekend with no stress – no stress even about what I was eating.
Why do we want to cheat on our healthy diets? Why does junk food sound so good when it really just makes us feel super crappy?
Today, I don’t remember how good any of the food tastes – all I can think about is how bloated I feel and how irritated my stomach is. All I can think about is how bloated my abs look and how much I set myself back (and my abs were just starting to look so wonderful!!! :-)).
So really, why do we cheat? I mean sticking to my healthy diet really isn’t painful – actually the reason I chose to do it, aside from health reasons, is because it is so easy to stick to on a day-to-day basis. I mean I’ve done low-fat, low carb diets. And I get why I can’t stick to them. But a diet full of flavorful foods that just requires you not eat processed crap? That should be easy! I mean dark chocolate is even allowed occasionally!
Yet sometimes I just crave certain foods. I mean sometimes I just want those bad for me carbs that I can’t have everyday. And so I eat them, never remembering or thinking about how crappy I’ll feel afterwards.
And then the day after I cheat, I swear I’ll never cheat again, but a few weeks down the road, my pain is forgotten, and I’m again giving into temptation. WHY!?! SERIOUSLY….WHY!?!
I guess if you need to cheat, the only reason to cheat would be to enjoy life and to then reaffirm your dedication to the healthy lifestyle you maintain at least 80% of the time. As most people who’ve been successfully eating healthily for any length of time will tell you – the 80/20 rule is key.
Anyway, here is my usual day after promise, “I will never cheat again….ok so at least not until Ryan’s birthday on September 13th!” Back to eating healthy!
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus
Men and women may seem like they are from different planets at some times but we are all the same species. And since we are all the same species don’t we all have the same basic physiological make up? If our bodies still basically work the same shouldn’t we both need to exercise them in basically the same way? I found a great article about this on Mark Sisson’s blog. I suggest anyone who thinks women shouldn’t lift weights click here.
Corsets, Foot binding and…Cellulite?
You are probably looking at the three words in the title and thinking one of these things is not like the others…But are they really so different?
Corsets and foot binding were used to control women. They made women have to buy different clothing products; they made women have to pursue an unrealistic body. Those two things made women feminine and not manly. Those two things made females the delicate sex and unable to pursue occupations and such in a man’s world (those two things definitely kept women from reaching their genetic potential).
Cellulite was a term first used in the 1920 (hmm about the time that women started wearing more freeing clothing and began to try to become more independent). In the 1960s, the term appeared in English language publications, first appearing in Vogue. Vogue huh? Not exactly a mecca for medical information. More a mecca for advertising and women’s fashions. Vogue is more of a place where women are presented with an unrealistic body image which is supposed to be beautiful and attainable (which it is if you starve yourself).
So why would Vogue use the word cellulite? Because cellulite is supposedly a condition that only women suffered from with no easy cure. It is supposed to a “lumpy deposits of body fat especially on women’s thighs etc.” It is a word that could make them lots of money – a word that would keep women coming back for cures and keep women reading for the next way to lose fat.
It didn’t allow women to think about manly pursuits…such as weight training. It kept women thinking they are different from men – a fairer sex with a “disease” that only they can have. Their fat couldn’t be cured the way men cured theirs.
Ok so maybe now you are starting to see the connection – control of the market over women. Women thinking they are different – a fairer sex with problems different from men’s. Yes, corsets and foot binding are way more extreme, but each of these things in their time and place serve to control women – they serve to make women pursue a female form that just simply isn’t realistic instead of a female form that they can attain.
I mean if women really want the best body that they can realistically have, why wouldn’t a magazine tell women to lift weights like men do? Lifting weights helps men reach a beautiful body…wouldn’t it do the same for women?
Right now you are thinking about the doctrine of women magazines…magazines that want to sell women something (exercise equipment FOR WOMEN; diets FOR WOMEN). You are thinking that lifting weights would make a woman big and bulky NOT beautiful. But really…answer me how this will happen? How will women get huge when they don’t have the testosterone that men have? How will they get big? Steroids? haha well that isn’t NATURAL…those to me are on the same level as corsets!
So right now you are thinking about all those articles in women’s health and fitness magazines and HOPEFULLY you are starting to realize that all they are trying to do is sell something. They are trying to create a market for women’s fitness products. A market that wouldn’t be there if women started working out like the other part of our species.
I mean this is how women who work out like men look…women who don’t buy special products or pursue unrealistic body images…
Girls that lift like men!
And another one…
No weights but simple agility athletic training.
These women look pretty great to me and they didn’t have to spend lots of money finding out about the latest craze or buying the newest women’s product. They didn’t worry about getting big and bulky. They have developed beautiful, healthy bodies.
Even if you don’t agree with anything I’ve written above, I hope at least you start questioning things you read about women’s health and fitness. I hope you start thinking about the motives behind why things are written and reported.
Man Bicep 
