Hey, our local brewpub has the Duchesse on tap as well. That is a fantastic beer - delicious!
Thank you! I'm proud of all the progress I've made (and that John's made - he is looking fantastic!). It's something I truly feel proud of; I've worked hard for this and have achieved this while really pushing myself. I haven't done this half-assed, which seems to make the results even more rewarding.
Follow-up to the beer last night - I cracked open a 2nd beer and couldn't come CLOSE to finishing it. I got about 1/4 of the way through and started feeling nauseous. Prior to this year, I would have probably ripped through 3 or 4 bottles of it and felt buzzed but not ill. John was in worse shape than I was last night.
We shared our amazement this morning at how tolerant we'd actually become. Beer is a shared passion of ours and we drank a LOT (a couple every night, several on the weekend), trying new varieties and seeking out novelty beer. It wasn't uncommon for each of us to go through a 6-pack or 2-3 bombers on a friday evening... amazing! I don't even want to think of what I was doing to my body - drinking 4-5 pints at the bar on a friday night and downing a bacon cheeseburger & fries. Every weekend.
When I lived down under, wine was one of the cheapest things to drink (a 6-pack was $20+, a 750ml bottle of mid-shelf gin was $45, and a bottle of fantastic local wine was $9 - guess which one I was going to pick). I would go through a bottle on friday & another on saturday... and sometimes 2-3 bottles during the week (drinking half per night).
I'm actually kind of surprised at how easy it was just to give up alcohol (in many ways, it's been easier than giving up some of my favorite carbs, like scones). But more amazed at my actual volume of consumption and how much money I spent on it. Yikes.
I know what you mean - I'm starting to get on the cutting down/out alcohol bandwagon. While the beer I had last night was certainly tasty, I'm sure that on the whole it isn't good for my body.
What's your local brewpub? We've got a newish one here that is offering its first cask-conditioned ale today. It's One Guy Brewing, and that is exactly what it is - Guy (yes, that's his name) owns, brews, and cleans up the place and does everything else in between. The beers though are always fresh and tasty.
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Tom
No "happy hours" makes for a lot of miserable days. - Mahler
That's cute! One Guy... it was probably a good thing for us to get out of Portland - so many small breweries with damn good beer. It's so tempting to go and see what's new on tap, to see what they've come up with this time. One of my my favorite breweries in Portland (amnesia) made a fantastic christmas porter - Sleigh Jerker. It was so good - appropriately hoppy and malty and chocolatey and very alcoholic. It was one of those beers where you'd tell yourself you'd only have one, then before you knew it you were contemplating a third pint. Dangerous. And then there were the beer bars... if you ever make it out to Portland, check out Higgins' bar. The food is fantastic (being one of, if not "the", birthplace of NW cuisine) but the beer list is excellent. Many belgians on there to choose from.
The brewery near us is called 75th Street Brewing. It's KC's oldest brewery. Their beers are decent, but nothing to write home about. Every once in a while they come out with something above par. Their new APA is quite good, as is their irish red. The rest... I've had better, but I can't complain... the place is a 1/2 mile walk from our house.
In other news, we went on a bike ride today to the community farmers' market (not the big city one) and it sucked. There weren't very many vendors there (maybe 6? 7?) compared to last time, and neither the beef nor the egg lady was there. It was almost all people selling potted vegetable plants. I'm sure it will get better in the coming months. It was nice to get out for a ride, though. I haven't been on my bike in about a year.
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"If 'toning' is the goal, strength is the method." ~ Mark Rippetoe
Well, my weekend of rest went pretty quickly. John and I are doing exercise 6 days a week now, which we were doing earlier this year. Today I did 45 minutes of biking:
5 min w/u
15 min HIIT (1 min hi/2 min lo, levels 7/4)
25 min steady-state level 5
It's been so long since I've done anything endurance-related; that 45 minutes was tougher than I thought it'd be. Felt good though.
I start stage 5 tomorrow - yay! I'm excited to get to stage 6. I was looking at it again tonight and it's a lot of my favorite exercises. While I like lower body workouts, I think I just enjoy working out my upper body more. I love my back feeling so strong, my shoulders feeling strong, my arms... I love that I can actually do 3 sets of 8 pushups on the floor now. It's only going to get better!
We started Precision Nutrition last week but it was more like a "ramp up" week since we didn't do any Post-Workout meals & stuck with Anytime instead.
Tonight, we did our first P-W meal and it was all I imagined.
Protein pancakes, baby. Except we forgot the protein powder, so we had small protein shakes with dinner. :P These babies were delicious. We also had a salad prior to the pancakes, but that wasn't worth noting.
So, so good.
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"If 'toning' is the goal, strength is the method." ~ Mark Rippetoe
yeah, after I posted that, for about an hour I was dying for something sweet. I had a piece of gum & was drinking green tea but all I could think about was something sweet. A doughnut, scone, chocolate chip cookie… I had a can of coke zero, thinking that would help. I think it made it worse. I was supposed to be working on my meeting recaps & design stuff from this morning but all I could think about is how I wanted something sweet.
I never used to crave sugar like this. Sometimes I’d want something sweet, but not usually. Carbs were my craving – scones (those are sweet, but not like cake or cookies), chips (cheetos), salty pub fries, crackers (wheat thins!), pringles, nachos.... I guess now that I’m not really getting the sugar from those salty carbs anymore, I’m reduced to craving sugar period.
It totally sucks.
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"If 'toning' is the goal, strength is the method." ~ Mark Rippetoe
Girls, you can get rid of the cravings in two ways. One is to get your macros right for you. But that is hard. The other way is to make cheater sweets that are good for you. Right now my favorite is cottage cheese chocolate pudding. I know it sound gross but blend non-fat cottage cheese until it is smooth and like pudding. Add 100% coco (I use dark chocolate) and stevia (or your favorite sweetner). It has a bit of aftertaste from the sweetner but it works against those cravings and what isn't great about the macros in non-fat cottage cheese?
ok YUM on the portland beer. our girl tri group raced in portland last year--blue lake in july. it was the same weekend as the brewers festival. I bought those little wooden coins to purchase what I thought were "tastes"--except some of them were 9 percent alcohol. haven't been that drunk since college, and it wasn't on purpose! was in the porta potty trying to remember how to zip my jeans. fun times. did a 10 k PR that weekend, sub 60 min!!!
Girls, you can get rid of the cravings in two ways. One is to get your macros right for you. But that is hard. The other way is to make cheater sweets that are good for you. Right now my favorite is cottage cheese chocolate pudding. I know it sound gross but blend non-fat cottage cheese until it is smooth and like pudding. Add 100% coco (I use dark chocolate) and stevia (or your favorite sweetner). It has a bit of aftertaste from the sweetner but it works against those cravings and what isn't great about the macros in non-fat cottage cheese?
Yeah, unfortunately, I eat that stuff too and it doesn't seem to help. We make super-shakes with sugar-free pudding mix, I eat cottage cheese with blueberries, I eat dark chocolate, I put sugar-free flavored syrups in my coffee..
When it comes down to it, I just seem to crave stuff. I did when I was eating whatever I wanted, and I do when I'm managing my food intake. I don't know if it's mental or what. Most of the time I can just roll my eyes at it and ignore it and be satisfied with tea or a peanut butter protein bar or what have you... Sometimes they come with a vengeance and nearly break me. But given a little time they pass.
I did have a dream about eating cake, though. I was eating some sort of glacee with cake that had a custard filling. And there was a festival outside my house, and someone gave me a free The Doors sweatshirt (and I don't even like them). And the city set up snow-making machines so you could ski on our street.
That was fun.
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"If 'toning' is the goal, strength is the method." ~ Mark Rippetoe
ok YUM on the portland beer. our girl tri group raced in portland last year--blue lake in july. it was the same weekend as the brewers festival. I bought those little wooden coins to purchase what I thought were "tastes"--except some of them were 9 percent alcohol. haven't been that drunk since college, and it wasn't on purpose! was in the porta potty trying to remember how to zip my jeans. fun times. did a 10 k PR that weekend, sub 60 min!!!
I grew up a couple of miles from Blue Lake Park Seems every other year they were shutting the lake down due to bacterial overgrowth.
That brewers festival is interesting. John and I went last year and were disappointed. It was SO crowded and everyone was falling over drunk. We were expecting something more like a "get to talk to the brewers about making beer" type of thing. Not a bunch of frat boys yelling WAZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP across the portapotty lines. Should have known.
But yeah, I echo your YUM on the portland beer sentiment. I miss it. A lot. But it's probably better I don't have constant access to it.
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"If 'toning' is the goal, strength is the method." ~ Mark Rippetoe
Today's workout. I do like this one, minus the bodyweight matrix. I tried to do all more weight on this workout than I did on my Stage 3 A4 workout. Almost made it!
Your weight increased a lot - you did great!!! I'm liking 3A more than 3B (so far - scheduled to do 3B for the 2nd time tomorrow)... I can see why the BWM was tough - you did a LOT before it!!!
Yeah and I think the cardio from Monday wore me out a little too. My muscles were a little weary Tuesday morning but that dissipated later on in the day (till my workout :p)
Cardio scheduled for tonight on the bike... I am going to stick to the bike this week and figure something out to add in some variability. I like the bike because I can read my book when I finish my intervals.
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"If 'toning' is the goal, strength is the method." ~ Mark Rippetoe
hi, i just have a quick question for you...I have read your log a lot and im doing TNT...just curious, did you use flax on plan A?? It's ok, right?? since all the carbs come from fiber....
Yes, I used lots of flax on plan A!! There's a muffin you can make in a coffee cup... 1/4 cup flax, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 egg. Mix it all in a coffee cup, nuke for 80 seconds and voila - muffin. Perfect for an egg mcmuffin type sandwich!
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"If 'toning' is the goal, strength is the method." ~ Mark Rippetoe
When it comes down to it, I just seem to crave stuff. I did when I was eating whatever I wanted, and I do when I'm managing my food intake. I don't know if it's mental or what. Most of the time I can just roll my eyes at it and ignore it and be satisfied with tea or a peanut butter protein bar or what have you... Sometimes they come with a vengeance and nearly break me. But given a little time they pass.
This is true for me - it's all mental! I crave snacky stuff MORE when I'm actively trying to be really good. I can't think of a single reason other than that its psychological. It also usually means I'm hungry and need to eat a meal, so I try to do that and then if I am still craving a sweet I'll have a little.
Yesterday I rode the bike -
5 mins warmup
6 intervals (1m hi/2m lo)
20 mins steady state
Today:
Barbell Romanian Deadlift/Bent-Over Row
4x4x85
Assisted pistol squat
4x4xbw
These were interesting. I am trying to train myself to do pistol squats so I put my non-working leg on a bench and did pistols that way. It was hard to keep my weight on my working-leg's heel, so I think next time I'm going to keep my non-working leg in the air and have the bench behind me for my ass to touch. Seems that's a more common training approach and I'll give it a whirl.
Wide-grip lat pulldown
1x4x80
3x4x70 bleh. Thought I could do better on these.
Swiss Ball Back extension (feet on baseboard, ball at waist)
4x4
Thanks Leah, I'm excited about it. I hope I can master them over the next few weeks. I should get some monster quad strength from it.
In other news, I've stopped getting teased at work for my food & have had several people talk to me about eating healthy and working out. A couple of people have told me recently that they're trying to eat healthier because they see what I eat and it looks good and healthy and better than what they normally eat. Totally random and out of the blue, which is pretty cool. And a woman at work asked me about what I was doing to work out so I let her borrow my NROL4W book for the next week or so. She said she started reading it last night & really likes what she's reading so far. She hates cardio and loves lifting weights (her experience is on machines & with lighter dumbbells); she just isn't sure where to start. She'd talked about getting a bowflex and we got to talking about power racks, so now she plans on getting one with her surplus check.
Even if no one follows through with any eating improvements or changes in exercise, it's neat to me to see the 'ripple effect' that has taken place without me ever initiating any of these conversations. AND, that it's gone from being teased to sought out for information. Well, plus, I stopped eating lunch with the idiots who were teasing me. :p
There was a baby shower here at work on wednesday, where they had cake, ice cream, and hawaiian punch. I passed on all 3 and the woman sitting next to me (who started the same day I did and was really into the fitness thing for about a month and we talked about it a lot during that time) said, as she accepted & ate the cake & ice cream, "I shouldn't be eating this." ... "I don't need this, but I feel bad turning this down." "Oh man, I shouldn't have eaten that. I don't feel good." "Working here is making me fat."
I didn't say a single thing to her, mostly because i didn't know what to say. (I did feel like telling her that working here was making me lose weight, but I'm not sure she'd get that it has nothing to do with where you work.)
What was she expecting me to say? Did she want me to tell her what the cake & ice cream were doing? Did she want me to tell her not to eat it? I don't know... it was weird.
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"If 'toning' is the goal, strength is the method." ~ Mark Rippetoe
What was she expecting me to say? Did she want me to tell her what the cake & ice cream were doing? Did she want me to tell her not to eat it? I don't know... it was weird.
I never get that kind of talk either. I mean if you want it, take it, and enjoy it. Or if you don't want it, don't take it. But to take it and then talk about how bad it is just seems pointless and self defeating, doesn't it?
Agreed. I figure if you're going to have something that's bad for you, at least enjoy it. I have some friends coming next week, and we'll have ribs and alcohol, and although I've already planned for an evening that will blow half my daily calories in one sitting.... and probably 10% of my daily cals from alcohol. However, I'll enjoy every minute of it. Also, wow, my protein will still be at the level I aim for on a daily basis.
do you think flax should be limited to 1 serving a day? Im eating 4 servings of veggies, and am still having such a hard time getting my fiber right...I have a tendancy to be (*warning*TMI) a little constipated...well a lot actually.
But flax just seems so carby...ya know? I just started having it yesterday (great recipe BTW), and im just paranoid that it will slow results for me....
sorry to beat the subject...but you seem to have pretty good results so im just asking you opinion
do you think flax should be limited to 1 serving a day? Im eating 4 servings of veggies, and am still having such a hard time getting my fiber right...I have a tendancy to be (*warning*TMI) a little constipated...well a lot actually.
But flax just seems so carby...ya know? I just started having it yesterday (great recipe BTW), and im just paranoid that it will slow results for me....
sorry to beat the subject...but you seem to have pretty good results so im just asking you opinion
oh really??? for constipation reasons...?
ok, so i thought that was right, but i went to my doctor and i talked to her about that and she say no....but i know that a lot of times, doctors don't neccessarily have a whole lot of experience in nutrition and dietetics....but that works for you??
I have gone as long as 6 days...without even an urge...i have gone to a doctor about it and they say, take this, eat more fiber, and come back in two weeks, but taking a laxative isn't exactly something i want to do...it's not to pleasant.
i have been trying to increase my fat but i will make it even a more conscious effort
It was one of those beers where you'd tell yourself you'd only have one, then before you knew it you were contemplating a third pint. Dangerous. And then there were the beer bars... if you ever make it out to Portland, check out Higgins' bar. The food is fantastic (being one of, if not "the", birthplace of NW cuisine) but the beer list is excellent. Many belgians on there to choose from.
!!! Not food porn on your log too 
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