Last night, John & I went out for dinner @ the local brewpub (75th St brewing) and I had a turkey burger with sweet potato fries, a brown ale, and a pale ale.
Then we walked down the street to a little beer bar where I ordered a Rogue Imperial IPA and john had a Sinebrychoff porter. He also helped me finish the IIPA (750ml bottle). We sat & played Connect Four (I lost every game, psshh) and talked to the bartender who was about our age and just as much of a beergeek as we are.
It was great and just what I needed. I got so dehydrated and carb-puffy that my muscles & veins were popping out all over my arms. I loved it. I have really needed this mental and physical break. We're doing Office Olympics today at work (opening ceremonies begin shortly). Among many other games, there's a blind beer tasting event (Name That Beer, basically). I hope to at least medal. Then we're going camping for the weekend. I should have some pretty badass workouts next week after this fantastic and replenishing break. YEAH, GO ME. And I'm going to start letting myself have more beer, starting next week.
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"If 'toning' is the goal, strength is the method." ~ Mark Rippetoe
There were 6 beers to taste & 15 to choose from. I either wrote the numbers down wrong or someone read my paper wrong (I'm leaning toward the first) because the 2 guys who got bronze got 3 right and I KNOW i got 3 right. Oh well.
The beers they had were:
1. coors light
2. Heineken
3. Leinenkugel berry weisse
4. Killian's Irish Red
5. Something I forgot
6. Guinness.
I got 1, 3, and 6 right. I thought Heineken was Bass (oops), I thought Killian's was Dos Equis, and I can't for the life of me remember what that other beer was.
I can't say I've had Heineken more than twice in my life, and the last time I had it was around 2002. The berry weisse was a total guess; they had 2 berry beers on the list to choose from so I picked one. Guiness was easy even though I haven't had it in a while (the only 2 dark beer choices on the list were Guinness or Boulevard Porter and it was pretty clearly NOT the porter). Coors Light was a total guess too - the list had Bud Light, Coors Light, and Michelob Light. I DON'T KNOW! I know Coors Light is probably the wateriest of all those, so I picked that one since the one we tasted was pretty damn watery. Adjunct water, yum.
I'm hanging on to my beer geek card for dear life because the beers they had there were crappy and it's not my fault for not knowing what all of them were. So there.
Oh well. It was fun. I also played a rubber band shotput (shoot the rubber band into concentric circles for points) and a paper airplane javelin. I sucked horribly at both of those so I just sat around & talked to people instead. Good times.
__________________
"If 'toning' is the goal, strength is the method." ~ Mark Rippetoe
There were 6 beers to taste & 15 to choose from. I either wrote the numbers down wrong or someone read my paper wrong (I'm leaning toward the first) because the 2 guys who got bronze got 3 right and I KNOW i got 3 right. Oh well.
The beers they had were:
1. coors light
2. Heineken
3. Leinenkugel berry weisse
4. Killian's Irish Red
5. Something I forgot
6. Guinness.
I got 1, 3, and 6 right. I thought Heineken was Bass (oops), I thought Killian's was Dos Equis, and I can't for the life of me remember what that other beer was.
I can't say I've had Heineken more than twice in my life, and the last time I had it was around 2002. The berry weisse was a total guess; they had 2 berry beers on the list to choose from so I picked one. Guiness was easy even though I haven't had it in a while (the only 2 dark beer choices on the list were Guinness or Boulevard Porter and it was pretty clearly NOT the porter). Coors Light was a total guess too - the list had Bud Light, Coors Light, and Michelob Light. I DON'T KNOW! I know Coors Light is probably the wateriest of all those, so I picked that one since the one we tasted was pretty damn watery. Adjunct water, yum.
I'm hanging on to my beer geek card for dear life because the beers they had there were crappy and it's not my fault for not knowing what all of them were. So there.
Oh well. It was fun. I also played a rubber band shotput (shoot the rubber band into concentric circles for points) and a paper airplane javelin. I sucked horribly at both of those so I just sat around & talked to people instead. Good times.
Turns out I had more of a diet break than I'd planned, but it was great and I don't care. I "gained" 3 pounds this weekend but most of it will come off (if not all or more) in the next few days as I've done a massive increase in carb intake. Thursday was the turkey burger, sweet potato fries, and beeeeer. Friday I had eggs, 3 big slices of pizza (1 all-meat and 2 cheeseburger), a couple of alco-pops & a homemade burger + bun. Saturday I had cereal, a turkey sandwich, a hot dog + bun, sushi, and cherries & grapes. Today I've had cereal. I'm living it up. I'll probably start going back to my healthy eating here this afternoon & do a workout as well. Whee!
That's ok - I'd not be able to know the difference (if any) between 1 and 2, 3 I've never had, but heard of it (as being a decent beer), 4 and 6 I probably would've gotten. But I think the most distressing thing to me would be that I actually spent calories drinking 1 and 2. You should hold your own tasting with good beer and see how that goes.
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Tom
No "happy hours" makes for a lot of miserable days. - Mahler
Turns out I had more of a diet break than I'd planned, but it was great and I don't care. I "gained" 3 pounds this weekend but most of it will come off (if not all or more) in the next few days as I've done a massive increase in carb intake.
Thursday:
eggs
salad & veggies
lunchmeat & veggies
turkey burger, 2 pints & 375ml IIPA
some kashi go lean crunch
Friday:
eggs w/spinach & mushrooms
pizza (1 slice all-meat (even bacon!) and 2 slices cheeseburger
1/2 protein bar
plain hamburger w/ ff cheese on ww bun
2 alco-pops (bacardi peach)
carrots, pea pods, cherries
kashi go-lean (plain, no milk, just munched on it)
Saturday:
Barbara's Bakery multigrain shredded spoonfuls (kind of like wheat chex) & ff milk
turkey breast lunchmeat on Ezekiel bread (plain)
soy dog (SmartDog) w/bun & mustard
cherries
sushi (mmmm!)
more cherries
So what seemed like a gluttonous weekend really wasn't that bad.
I told John on our way back from our Thursday night adventure, it's funny how that seemed like a MAJOR unhealthy evening (and, really, it was!) but we used to do that EVERY weekend. Burgers, fries, and lots of beer at least one if not two times per weekend. And then this camping weekend seemed like SUCH a bad weekend since it was a far departure from my normal eating habits. But really, we didn't take a lot of food camping this weekend and what we did take was pretty healthy - no chips, no candy... the unhealthiest thing outside the bacardi stuff was probably the white hot dog buns.
I really needed this diet break. i feel completely refreshed & well.
__________________
"If 'toning' is the goal, strength is the method." ~ Mark Rippetoe
That's ok - I'd not be able to know the difference (if any) between 1 and 2, 3 I've never had, but heard of it (as being a decent beer), 4 and 6 I probably would've gotten. But I think the most distressing thing to me would be that I actually spent calories drinking 1 and 2. You should hold your own tasting with good beer and see how that goes.
The berry weisse was horrible. It was SWEEEEET and it took me forever to get the taste of it out of my mouth. More than 3-4 sips of it would have been nauseating. It was like a really sweet wine cooler. YUCK.
I agree, it was distressing knowing what i was drinking, and that it contained calories. At least they were only 1-2oz tastes and most of them I just took about 2 sips and dumped the rest out.
I told one guy there (who's kind of a beer head) that we should do our own tasting with beers that are actually good, and he said "yeah but then no one would know what they were"... I asked him what his point was. At least my approach got us drinking good beer.
Oh and the guy who won (got 5 out of 6) wears beer t-shirts to work a lot. Probably the one he wears the most is Hale's Troll Porter. I felt better about him winning than some frat boy jock who thinks Heineken is the epitome of fine imported beer.
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"If 'toning' is the goal, strength is the method." ~ Mark Rippetoe
I'd heard of these but never seen one in person. They're about the size of a softball and about as hard as one. They're inedible and weigh a ton. Pretty damn cool fruits. AKA hedge apples.
Honey Locust tree:
and
The thorns on this tree are about 4" long on average - many of them longer. I've never heard of or seen anything like this in my life & had to look up what it was when we got home
Playing with b/w filtering in picasa. once I finish my digital photo book I'm going to read my GIMP book & figure out how to use this in GIMP. b/w filtering is pretty cool from what I've done with it so far. this is with a cyan filter. The original picture was taken at dusk with a shutter speed of 1/2s.
This was a completely different camping experience for me. The campgrounds were like big grassy areas and I'm used to lots of trees & bushes to separate the campsites (you can see the people camping behind me; that was about 3 campsites away from us). It reminded me a lot of European camping, only a bit more spread out.
We went swimming in the lake on Saturday morning (me, john, john's sister) and had a complete blast. It was raining but the lake water was SO warm - another new experience for me since I'm used to mountain lakes in the PNW. I've been looking forward to doing this since last summer and hope to go camping at least one more time this year. I was really disappointed that it rained us out yesterday (after about an hour of rain, we packed up & left; it wasn't supposed to rain until Sunday night). We camped without our rain flys on the tents, the first time I've ever done that. It was so wonderful to go to sleep looking up at the stars in the sky.
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"If 'toning' is the goal, strength is the method." ~ Mark Rippetoe
Barbell Squats 2x12x100
1x10x100
TRIPLE DIGITS, CAN I GET AN AMEN
Seated Row
3x12x85
Explosive and solid
Supine Hip Extension
3x12
Dumbbell Push Press
1x7x25e, 1x5x22.5e
2x12x22.5e
Rotating Lunge
3x12x25e
Swiss Ball Crunch
1x12x15
2x12x20
ETA: DB one-point rows, left arm only
3x12x30
I forgot to mention this and I have a question - the imbalance between my right & left side is increasing (see my lats & delts in my most recent pic, or here). What's the best way to minimize this? I realize my right side will probably always be stronger than my left, but I want to minimize the difference as much as possible. Any ideas/suggestions?
Some of the PRs are a combo of weight + reps (most reps at that weight); others are weight period (most weight regardless of reps).
Also did about an hour of yardwork today (weeding & edging).
__________________
"If 'toning' is the goal, strength is the method." ~ Mark Rippetoe
I'm back down in the 141's today just in case anyone was curious. Very glad I took my moderate diet break as I feel refreshed and renewed, strong, and rearin' to go again. And with minimal impact to my goals and, hopefully, acceleration of them due to increased motivation and disruption to my hormone levels & metabolic rate.
__________________
"If 'toning' is the goal, strength is the method." ~ Mark Rippetoe
I was talking to another weightlifter at work today (he was skinnyfat, then just skinny, now building muscle). I talk to him a lot about work stuff & every couple of months about workouts (last we talked about working out he said he hadn't done deadlifts but was curious). Anyway, I noticed a couple of weeks ago that his shoulders were a lot more angular and i wanted to say something but kept my mouth shut because I wasn't sure how to not come across as "hey your shoulders look great wink wink nod nod"
Anyway, so today I was talking to him about some scripting stuff for a project and I told him that his shoulders were looking strong and that I didn't want to sound weird or inappropriate, but that what he was doing was making noticable changes. He took it the right way (phew!) and started telling me about his new trainer he'd been seeing and a new diet that he was on (which sounds like at 40/30/30 diet the way he described it) and how great he felt. He said he started doing deadlifts and just did 185. I bet he could lift more. I shared my success in my 100 pound squats (and he shared squatting 135) and we got to talking about how hard they are in going parallel and he started talking about ankle flexibility and how it's limiting his squat form... it was fun.
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"If 'toning' is the goal, strength is the method." ~ Mark Rippetoe
So nice to have someone that shares your enthusiasm and is knowledgeable. I was really sore last week and one of my co-workers said something about the way I was walking. He asked me about it and I told him what made me so sore but he just looked confused. Kinda like "why would you ever want to lift weights?" Sigh.
I just thought of something, for those people at your work who say you shouldn't eat a low-carb diet, you should respond with "I asked myself 'WWJD?' And Jesus told me, 'Eat Low Carb.' "
Hope they've stopped teasing you about it (I think that was back on page 11). Still working through the log, but I've gone off on the John Berardi articles and I quite like how he writes. In his neanderthal #2 story, I love how that morbidly obese guy can hunt from the comfort of his own computer... Unbelievable!
Barbell flat Bench Press (sub for incline bench)
1x12x75
1x12x65
1x12x70
(trying to figure out the right weight for those reps, bah)
Focused on form and they wore me out even at these low weights. Felt disappointed.
Bulgarian Split Squat
3x12x20e
Mixed Grip Lat Pulldown
3x12x85
Romanian Deadlift
3x12x100
Lateral Roll
3x12
Good workout overall; my core feels really strong today.
__________________
"If 'toning' is the goal, strength is the method." ~ Mark Rippetoe
Barbell flat Bench Press (sub for incline bench)
1x12x75
1x12x65
1x12x70
(trying to figure out the right weight for those reps, bah) Focused on form and they wore me out even at these low weights. Felt disappointed.
Bulgarian Split Squat
3x12x20e
Mixed Grip Lat Pulldown
3x12x85
Romanian Deadlift
3x12x100
Lateral Roll
3x12
Good workout overall; my core feels really strong today.
Hey, I was psyched I did 55 lbs the other day, so those weights are ANYTHING but low to me!! Nice job.
Thanks ladies. I feel like I should be pressing about 85 but I guess I just need to work on it. I'd been doing dumbbell presses and I think that working more with barbells will help.
John suggested focusing on barbells to help with my left/right imbalance so I'll give that a shot & see how it goes.
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"If 'toning' is the goal, strength is the method." ~ Mark Rippetoe
I can always press more with a bar than with db's, cuz the bar doesn't require as much stabilization... Try not to get caught up in "should" - press what is heavy, max out in the number of reps you want to max out in, and you'll make progress (wow, that sounds so simple, doesn't it? LOL!)
Yeah, I can definitely lift heavier with barbells. So, I did a barbell bench press last workout instead of the incline bench with dumbbells and I enjoyed it a lot more. I'm going to stick with that from now on.
NROL Fat Loss I, A5
Ahhh lower reps, I love you.
Barbell Squats 3x10x100
Seated Row
3x10x90
Supine Hip Extension
3x10
Barbell Push Press (instead of DB push press)
1x10x55
2x10x57
Rotating Lunge
3x12x30e
Swiss Ball Crunch
3x10x20
Good workout. We also went on a walk for about 45 minutes after dinner.
Today's eats:
1. egg white omelet, ham, veg
2. salad with ham & chicken & calorie-free ranch (Walden Farms)
3. 3oz baby carrots, 6oz snow pea pods, 1/2 cup cottage cheese with 1/4c blueberries
4. precision nutrition hawaiian pizza & giant salad (mixed greens with Drew's Romano Vinaigrette)
5. 1/2 cup cottage cheese & 3oz carrots
1200 cals 40/27/33 p/f/c
Tomorrow is my birthday so I'm having a cheat meal tomorrow night. We're going out for steak and I'm having whatever I want, including dessert!
__________________
"If 'toning' is the goal, strength is the method." ~ Mark Rippetoe
I have really needed this mental and physical break. We're doing Office Olympics today at work (opening ceremonies begin shortly). Among many other games, there's a blind beer tasting event (Name That Beer, basically). I hope to at least medal. 
Then we're going camping for the weekend. I should have some pretty badass workouts next week after this fantastic and replenishing break. YEAH, GO ME. And I'm going to start letting myself have more beer, starting next week.
and 
Linear Mode
