Standing Calf Rises – 135/15 x 3 

My diet was as follows: 

9:30 – 2 cups oatmeal; protein shake in skim milk 

12:00 – ¾ cup basmati rice; 8 egg whites 

workout 1:15 – 2:15 

2:15 – Post workout shake (30 g protein; 15 g dextrose, 5 g L-Glutamine) 

3:15 – 8 oz FF smoked ham with mustard 

5:30 – Bean / Rice / Extra Lean ground Beef Stew – 2 cups 

7:30 – Decaf coffee; 1 bag of light popcorn; 4 oz red wine 

So my last meal wasn’t exactly the cleanest but again, had to finish the leftover wine from the holidays… So now all the junk has been eliminated from my house and I will no longer have any excuses for slipping…

Jan 05, 2004
I got over eight hours of sleep last night but yet I had a difficult time getting out of bed this morning. In fact I was so tired I decided to skip my morning cardio session and visit the sauna instead. I'm suspecting my weakness might have something to do with yet another flu, so I thought I'd sweat it out before it gets to me... 

This is what I had to eat so far: 

6:00 - 1/2 cup 1% MF cottage cheese 

7:30 - 1.5 cup oatmeal; 6 eggwhites 

at 11:00 I still felt lazy so I deliberately cheated by having 3 chocolate truffles in order to give my brain some motivation to go to the gym today... 

12:00 - 1 cup of plain green beans, 1 cup of bean/rice/extra lean ground beef stew; 6 baby carrots; 2 cups of coffee (black) 

In about half hour I will be going to the gym to do some serious cardio to compensate for those truffles...

Tue Jan 06, 2004 
Next time I will wait a whole day before posting anything... So here is the rest of what I should have posted with my yesterday's entry.... 

CARDIO – 1:00 – 1.45 – 45 minutes run on a treadmill. I have successfully killed those 11:00 a.m. truffles… I should have had my 12:00 o’clock meal at 11:00 because I could feel the beans bouncing a bit in my tummy as I was running. I don’t know what I was thinking eating one hour before training. At least it wasn’t much… 

3:00 - 1 cup of bean/rice/extra lean ground beef stew 

5:30 – 85 g can of tuna, 1 Atkins protein bar - I don’t like using protein bars because they are high in calories and low in volume which means they do not make me feel full even though I just swallowed down almost 300 calories, but I was at the mall so I had to improvise a meal. 

7:30 - 1 cup of bean/rice/extra lean ground beef stew

Wed Jan 07, 2004 

I slept surprisingly well last night even though I was forced to sleep on the couch and only got six hours of sleep. I’ve been suffering from insomnia on and off through my entire life. I’ve tried about every remedy available but my body is just not receptive to anything. It will fall asleep when it feels like it and stay awake when it feels like it. 

I bought a new pair of running shoes so I tested them out this morning. I couldn’t help feeling very self-conscious of those darn runners though… I felt like everyone was looking at them and automatically assuming I must be one of those new year resolutioners who invest hard cold cash into their gym gear and stop working out by the end of January… But after reminding myself that the entire morning crew recognizes me as a regular I ended up having a great workout. For the first twenty minutes I walked on a high incline with two 5-lb dumbells in my hands… For the remaining twenty-five minutes I just jogged at a relatively high speed. 

For breakfast, at 8:00 a.m. I had a cup of oatmeal with 1 oz of almonds and 6 eggwhites. 

At 11:00 I had 10 baby carrots, medium sweet potato, 6 eggwhites, 1 tablespoon low fat cream cheese (after micro-waving the whites I mixed them with the cream cheese and potato – YUMMYLICIOUS); 1 tablespoon of flax seed powder in H2O; 2 cups of green tea 

I’ve carbed up a bit before lunch because at 1:00 p.m. I’m heading back to the gym for some abs and shoulders action! 

Worked out between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m. 

Abs: 
Basic Crunches – 3 sets to failure 
Twisted Crunches – 3 sets to failure 
Leap frog Crunches – 2 sets to failure 
Swiss Ball Crunches – 4 sets to failure 

Shoulders: 
Shoulder Press: 20 lb x 15 – 3 sets 
Lateral Rises: 12 lb x 10 – 3 sets 
Front Rises Using aBarbell: 20 lb x 10 – 3 sets 
Reverse Flys: 10 lb x 10 – 3 sets 
One arm cable pull to the side: 15 lbs x 8 – 3 sets 

2:00 p.m. – post workout shake (30 grams protein, 10 grams dextrose, 5 grams L-Glutamine); multivitamin and mineral pack 

3:00 p.m. – 2 cups of bean/rice/extra lean ground beef stew; 1 cup cooked spinach 

7:00 p.m. – 1 cup 1%MF cottage cheese with ¾ cup frozen berries (I usually stary away from fruit altogether, especially at night, but I was craving something sweet so it was either berries or hot coco, so I went for the berries)

Thu Jan 08, 2004 10:10 
My ex husband gave me an HMV gift card for my birthday so last night I bought a couple of CD’s. This morning when I went to do my regular cardio workout I was not only sporting spanking new runners but also new music… Ten minutes into my jog I accidentally hit the stop button. This really pissed me off because I seem to be doing this a lot lately and I hate having to start over. Not only does this interrupt my pump, but also am forced to start looking at a low number of minutes again… Anyway, I was determined not to let this bother me. I grabbed two 5-lb dumbells and resumed my work out. The music was really good and fast, so I decided to jog after 15 minutes of high incline with the dumbells… Next thing I know my treadmill stops again! I was getting ready to spit out a very disturbing swear word when it occurred to me my treadmill stopped because I just completed a whole 60 minute session on it, so it stopped on its own! All in all, I got 70 minutes of hard core cardio thanks to my new CD and my shiny new runners  Wooo hooo! 

My diet so far: 

7:30 – 6 eggwhites, 1 cup plain oatmeal; 2 cups black coffe 

11:00 – 6 eggwhites, 10 baby carrots, ½ sweet potatoe, 1 tablespoon flax seed powder in water, 2 more cups of black coffee with 1 teaspoon of natural coco (good antioxidants in natural cocoa, but it doesn’t taste good without sugar and cream); 1 cup 1% MF cottage cheese 

2:30 – 2 cups green tea, ½ sweet potatoe, 6 eggwhites, ½ cup boiled green beans 

4:30 – I went out for a very fancy dinner with an old colleague of mine. We had over a year worth of catching up to do and we ate and drank for four hours straight!!!!! This is what I had between 4:30 and 8:30: 

2 pcs of bruschetta 
2 pcs of french bread with butter 
1 cup seafood pasta (YUMMY) 
8 oz Atlantic salmon with roasted veggies 

I’m hoping no one will notice this last line where I confess we shared two bottles of red wine… so technically I drank a whole damn bottle… I felt so guilty for drinking so much wine I might have also lied to my boyfriend that I only had a glass when he casually confronted me about the amount of wine consumed. … I think I will call him and tell him the truth now so that he can give me the scolding I know I deserve for cheating myself…

Fri Jan 09, 2004
This week couldn't have dragged any darn longer. First full week in the office following the holidays is always brutal in my industry and I've just been going nuts all week long. But it's finally Friday and that's all that matters!

I haven't gone to the gym yet today and I don't exactly feel like going either. In fact, I might just take a day off since I haven't taken one this year yet and hit it hard again tomorrow. But then on the other hand I found out some girl was hitting on my man all week at my home gym and I feel like going there today under a pretext of working out but really just to steak out my territory... Nah, I'll go next week. I'm not dressed up enough to go to the gym today. To face the enemy I need full make up, professionally styled hair, new workout clothes. I got new runners, so I'm covered here, but without all the other essentials I can't possibly go. I need to show the byatch who she is working against right? Man, whom am I kidding.. I'm not jealous, I'm just attempting to give myself motivation to go, but knowing I have nothing to fear I think I'll just head home instead. Ha ha. lucky me!

As for my diet yesterday, I don't exactly remember what I had, but it was definitely a very clean day with balanced meals and everything. Yesterday should have been the day I posted my diet because it was simply perfect!

My workout yesterday was as follows:

A.M. - 30 minutes treadmill (running at various speeds)

P.M. Bi's and Tris

Alternating Dumbell Curl: 25 lb x 12; 30 lb x 8; 25 lb x 12
Barbell Curl: 50 lb x 8 - 3 sets (total barbell weight was 50 lbs)
Hammer Curls: 20 lb x 15 - 3 sets

Overhead Dumbell X - 25 lb x 15 - 3 sets
Close Grip Bench - 45 lb x 10 - 3 sets (total barbell weight was 45 lbs)
Tri Pressdowns - 70 lb x 10 - 3 sets
Cable Pressdown - 40 lb x 8 - 4 sets

Sun Jan 11, 2004 
It's Sunday night and I'm feeling beaten up following my massive leg workout yesterday which was as follows:

Warm up - 10 minutes on stationery bike (I actually broke a sweat!!!!)

Leg Press -
4 45lb plates on each side - 12 reps
5 45lb plates on each side - 10 reps
6 45lb plates on each side - 8 reps
7 45lb plates on each side - 6 reps
7 45lb plates on each side - 6 reps
5 45lb plates on each side - 10 reps

Barbell Squats -
135 lbs (total barbell + plate weight) - 12 reps
135 lbs (total barbell + plate weight) - 12 reps
135 lbs (total barbell + plate weight) - 12 reps
135 lbs (total barbell + plate weight) - 12 reps

Smith Machine One Leg Lounges -
35 lb plates on each side - 12 reps
35 lb plates on each side - 12 reps
35 lb plates on each side - 12 reps

Seated Leg Curls -
90 lb - 15 reps
120 lb - 15 reps
120 lb - 15 reps
120 lb - 15 reps
120 lb - 15 reps

Leg X -
120 lb - 10 reps
120 lb - 10 reps
120 lb - 10 reps
120 lb - 10 reps

One Legged X -
45 lb - 10 reps (each leg)
45 lb - 10 reps (each leg)
45 lb - 10 reps (each leg)

Angled Seated Calf Rises-
160 lb - 10 reps
160 lb - 10 reps
160 lb - 10 reps

Reverse Calf Rises -
Body weight - 30 reps
Body weight - 30 reps
Body weight - 30 reps
Body weight - 30 reps

Smith Machine Calf Rises (using a box)
35 lb each side - 15 reps
45 lb each side - 15 reps
45 lb each side - 15 reps


Today my legs are dragging..... I was going to train back this afternoon but my lower back is very stiff from slow squatting yesterday, so I decided to do some abs and cardio instead.

For abs I did the following:

Decline Leg Rises - 3 sets to failure
Hanging Leg Rises - 3 sets to failure
Swiss Ball Crunches - 3 sets to failure
Vertical Bench Crunches / Mercy Chair - 3 sets to failure
Basic Floor Crunches - 3 sets to failure

*I don't count my reps for abs because they vary from as many as 50 to 8...
I usually try to focus on quality as opposed to quantity and stop training abs when I can no longer maintain proper form.

I ran for 30 minutes at 6mph with no incline, then for the remaining 15
minutes I used maximum incline (15) and walked at a speed of 3.2 mph while pumping 5 lb weights in each hand.

My diet was actually very clean, but I ate a lot in lieu of my leg performance :):)

I was planning to learn about various shocking methods this weekend in order to maximize my workouts, but I didn't have enought time... I will have to make some time this coming week though because a lot of athletes seem to be raving about the effectiveness of such workouts, so I'm curious to find out for myself...

I will probably do a lot more cardio this coming week because I have a photo shoot on Thursday... I hate shooting when I'm on the bulk, but I have to do what I have to do....