Don't laugh at grave-diggers. The grave-digger on survivor has just about the hottest body I've seen on a guy!
Oh, James. He is so beautiful. I'd watch him carry a load any day! Jillian Michaels could totally kick his butt though. She scares me a little bit in a good way.
And Thursday and Friday would be a whole different set of exercises.
I remember suffering just as much as during Alwyns workouts, but I don't think I was progressing in strength as quickly. It was definitely an ass-kicking workout and I was exhausted after. Took me about an hour.
So 4 days of lifting, no HIIT, and 1 hour of high-intensity steady state cardio once a week. I was only doing it for a week or two, so I can't really judge the results. She does have you count calories and calorie cycle, so her biggest focus is on weight loss, I think.
Whereas Alwyn and Lou and Cassandra just want to make you into some sort of Amazon cyborg mortal goddess. Which is okay with me.
__________________
"Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths." - Lois Wyse
I just finished your entire blog (yeah I am avoiding work )!
Are you starting Stage 3 tomorrow? I can relate to a lot of your posts. I am halfway through Stage 3 right now (I started on Jan 7) and I've also been struggling to find the right calorie intake (I am 5'7", 174, 30% BF according to Omron); I started at 2400 and 2000 but now am back to 2000 and 1800 and the scale is moving a little. I also did BfL last year (3x!) and really enjoyed it, so I stick to the protein+carb rules at every meal.
Anyway, I am really looking forward to hearing how you like Stage 3 Workout A. I think you are going to LOVE it! The bodyweight matrix at the end is a real killer but after 2 sessions now I look forward to it. Btw plan on about an hour for the Stage 3 workouts (minus HIIT), they are not near as fast as the previous two stages.
Great progress so far! And thanks for the recommendation on Tosca's cookbook. I've been kicking around that or GN v2.0 but I think I will go with Tosca because she is probably cheaper (hubby and I are on a budget right now ).
I read Jillian's book because I really love her on Biggest Loser. But I don't know, the stuff she was saying kind of made me like her less. Maybe because it seems like the focus is more on weight loss than getting strong, and I always pictured her as wanting people to get strong on the inside and out. I think it was the very last chapter of the book where she writes about some crazy 1,000 cal a day week to look really good for something that made me just put the book down. It just felt kind of disappointing.
I just finished your entire blog (yeah I am avoiding work )!
Oh my gosh, seriously! That's some dedication. You must be my new best friend.
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Originally Posted by Cynthia
Are you starting Stage 3 tomorrow? I can relate to a lot of your posts. I am halfway through Stage 3 right now (I started on Jan 7) and I've also been struggling to find the right calorie intake (I am 5'7", 174, 30% BF according to Omron); I started at 2400 and 2000 but now am back to 2000 and 1800 and the scale is moving a little. I also did BfL last year (3x!) and really enjoyed it, so I stick to the protein+carb rules at every meal.
Anyway, I am really looking forward to hearing how you like Stage 3 Workout A. I think you are going to LOVE it! The bodyweight matrix at the end is a real killer but after 2 sessions now I look forward to it. Btw plan on about an hour for the Stage 3 workouts (minus HIIT), they are not near as fast as the previous two stages.
Yeah, I'll start either tomorrow, Saturday or maybe Monday (depending on how much rest I feel like taking). I can't decide!
That bodyweight matrix is intimidating but I want to TACKLE it, you know? It's like gearing up for a fight or something. My workouts in Stage 2 were stretching to between 50-55 minutes, but I'll admit, I was taking slightly longer rests when I needed them. The low rep/heavy lift/long rest combo probably won't take me any longer. I don't think I'll need any extra rests...it's mostly the endurance stuff that gets me - like step ups, squats, etc.
The calorie thing can be sort of nuts. What bugs me is that according to my calipers, I've lost fat pretty steadily, from 32% to around 27% right now, but my waist has only gone down 1" (and the scale hasn't really budged, naturally). So I've lost 10lbs of fat, but I can hardly tell. It's either a miscalculation or mismeasurement, or this program is affecting my body differently than BFL. Because when I did that, I lost 11lbs of fat in a month, gained maybe 2-4lbs of lean mass, and saw my waist drop every week. This time I've lost 10lbs of fat, gained around 7lbs of lean mass, and the measurements are coming off very slowly.
I was also doing some reading this morning about PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) which several women on the boards here have. I've always had these niggling doubts that I have PCOS - I've always been chubbier, I started getting hair on my upper lip, chin, and neck in puberty, I had crazy painful periods before I went on the Pill. I was reading this morning that girls with PCOS have higher amounts of lean mass because of the higher proportion of male hormones in their bodies. And here I am pushing 140lbs of lean mass. It's nuts! Really crazy. But it could explain why the scale has hardly changed in 10 weeks of hardcore workouts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cynthia
Great progress so far! And thanks for the recommendation on Tosca's cookbook. I've been kicking around that or GN v2.0 but I think I will go with Tosca because she is probably cheaper (hubby and I are on a budget right now ).
Yes, I would LOVE to get the Gourmet Nutrition cookbook...it looks so pretty! But $40 is a lot to spend on any one thing...definitely go for Tosca's books. Her recipes will blow you away.
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"Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths." - Lois Wyse
The bodyweight matrix WAS intimidating the first time. I just wanted to get through it, and I did. The jump lunges were pretty pathetic that first day, they were more like scissors, there wasn't a lot of lunging going on, LOL. The second set was better than the first. And when I did that workout again yesterday it seemed easier.
You are gonna dig the whole workout, I can tell based on where you've had fun with your past workouts. The one armed DB snatch is a blast!!
Rixa,
Why is it that eating more makes you hungrier? You and others have told me the same and I'm pretty sure that it's true but I wonder why.... I always read that being hungrier was a response of the starvation mode kicking in. So, what gives?
I have been eating at maintenance all this week and taking a break from Fat Loss I.
I already stopped shivering and I'm in a really good mood all the time. I'm so looking forward to continue my Fat Loss series with the higher calories.
Rixa,
Why is it that eating more makes you hungrier? You and others have told me the same and I'm pretty sure that it's true but I wonder why.... I always read that being hungrier was a response of the starvation mode kicking in. So, what gives?
It depends on what you're eating. If you're eating a lot of stuff like rice, bread, pasta, cereal, oats, luna bars, fruit.. your blood sugar is going way up, then way back down. And that drop in blood sugar causes hunger cravings. Eating protein with those blood-sugar-spiking foods will help reduce the severity of the spike and minimize hunger after eating. Like gumbo. or beans & rice. Or spaghetti and meatballs. Or pork & roasted sweet potatoes. etc.
__________________
"If 'toning' is the goal, strength is the method." ~ Mark Rippetoe
Thank you! You wouldn't BELIEVE how exhausted I was last night - a day after lifting. The BF and I went to Barnes and Nobles after a dinner out and my whole body was just shutting down. I think I slept in the car on the way back home. At 9:30. Haha.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ciao
Rixa,
Why is it that eating more makes you hungrier? You and others have told me the same and I'm pretty sure that it's true but I wonder why.... I always read that being hungrier was a response of the starvation mode kicking in. So, what gives?
I have been eating at maintenance all this week and taking a break from Fat Loss I.
I already stopped shivering and I'm in a really good mood all the time. I'm so looking forward to continue my Fat Loss series with the higher calories.
Well, a lot of us here are Dr. John Berardi fans. And he has this principle called G-Flux. The basic principle of G-Flux is that eating less and less will slow your metabolism down (you'll be less energetic, and then burn fewer calories just moving around because you're tired), while eating more calories and moving more will raise your metabolism.
So it's not necessarily that EATING more will make you hungrier. It's that eating more (which for women, is usually maintenance, because I think most of us would be inclined to eat fewer calories than we really need) and exercising more will make you hungrier. Take Alwyn's NROL4W workouts, which create a huge energy demand, not only during the workout, but afterwards, when your muscles are healing. I think a lot of us saw our hunger go through the ROOF when we started. Which was basically a sign that our metabolism was revved and our bodies needed more calories.
The standard dieting advice to slash calories and exercise more doesn't always necessarily apply. When you're doing a demanding weight lifting workout, you need to fuel your body to heal your muscles.
That being said, I went up to maintenance and evaluated the effects for a while, and then decided to cut my calories since fat loss is a priority. However, I am making sure to zig-zag calories so that my body doesn't adapt to this newer calorie level quickly, and I'm doing re-feed days at maintenance every few weeks.
I'm glad you're eating more and feeling better. Shivering is probably not a great sign. I also noticed an improved mood when I was eating at maintenance - almost a GIDDINESS I was so happy.
I guess the thing we all have to remember is that our bodies are functional, not just decorative. If you were starving on a deserted island, hunger would get old pretty fast. You'd eat less, and your body would slow down in an effort to keep you alive. And you would want your body to slow down and keep you alive.
But when you're trying to lose fat and fit into a smaller pair of jeans, you don't want your body to slow down. If your metabolism slows down, it's the classic yo-yo diet scenario - hormones will kick in eventually and tell you to eat! Your body is hungry! Suddenly you're eating everything in sight because your body doesn't know you're not really starving, and then you're right back where you started. So you kind of have to trick your metabolism into burning fat.
So you shouldn't be afraid to eat more. It serves a good purpose. Your hunger has evolved over thousands of years as a human. At some point you have to trust it, and feed your body what it needs.
__________________
"Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths." - Lois Wyse
Thank you! You wouldn't BELIEVE how exhausted I was last night - a day after lifting. The BF and I went to Barnes and Nobles after a dinner out and my whole body was just shutting down. I think I slept in the car on the way back home. At 9:30. Haha.
I know what you mean - there have been days after a hard workout where you just HAVE to take a nap - there's no way to fight it!!!
NOTE TO SELF: Don't go into the dressing rooms at the mall again until you've lost more weight/inches. You just get depressed and down on yourself.
My bodyfat % has gone from 32% to 27%, the scale has barely moved, and I've lost about an inch in my waist. (Which today, while on my period, is NO inches on my waist. Don't you love being a woman?) I'm so impatient.
I have read somewhere that when your body is burning fat, your fat becomes really jiggly and loose, like Jell-o. More circulation in your fat equals a greater chance that it will be used for energy. So I guess that's good. But man, does loose, jiggly fat ever look icky. Hurry up and burn off!
I didn't end up going to the gym this morning. I'm trying to make it tomorrow, Saturday, but I'm also going to a photo shoot for work tomorrow an hour away for most of the day, so if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. It'll just be my break between stages.
My diet has been good. I'm at 93% compliance for the week so far, but I have been sneaking a piece of a new chocolate bar I found - Mo's Bacon Bar.
This may come as a shock, but it's delicious! Like a big, syrupy pile of pancakes with bacon. I don't even particularly like bacon anymore, but the pairing of salty and sweet is incredible.
That being said, I'm glad I keep it at work, where I can control myself. If it was with me at home while I'm on my period, it would be gone in a day and I'd feel terrible.
Ohh, chocolate...
__________________
"Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths." - Lois Wyse
I read that jello thing to about fat, I have to find that again. I post these things on my blog so I can remind myself between my rants. It helps, a little.
I read that jello thing to about fat, I have to find that again. I post these things on my blog so I can remind myself between my rants. It helps, a little.
Yes! I keep reminding myself of that article. And I keep chugging along. The calipers are going down. I have to focus on that. Because if I use just my eyes, it's easy to convince myself I haven't changed. When I use my hands and my body, it's easy to feel that I have changed. I can poke my harder muscles, feel my smaller belly, and this is going to sound silly, but in the car with my BF recently, we drove past a HUGE graveyard recently and I hold my breath (like kids do) for at least thirty seconds and wasn't even slightly winded. Which could mean a better lung capacity. Or yeah, I guess I could say it's not as hard to climb the stairs at work. Whichever.
It's so good to have friends on this forum! I'm glad we're in this together. I'm working up the courage to post pictures soon. Um, AFTER my period, because I'm not crazy.
I think the Jell-o thing came from Hussman...yes, here it is:
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Lastly, if you've been sedentary for a long time, your fat probably hasn't seen an ounce of circulation since high school. This causes your fat to turn thick and hard, or "blubbery" (yes, Scrabble fans, that is a word). Marine animals have this sort of fat deposit, called a "blubber lay". When you start working out consistently, some of you may find that your fat or cellulite becomes more like Jell-O initially. In whales (forgive me - this is not personal), increased activity also forces a change in circulation strategy so that there is increased blood flow near the body's surface. I suspect that this occurs in humans as well, so you may be a little "pink" for even hours after a good workout.
In some strange way, that Bacon Chocolate Bar actually sounds appealing!!
I know, right?! At first I remember being VERY skeptical. It got a lot of press around Christmas. When I found out there was a local restaurant carrying it in its shop, I was curious. They told me they kept selling out of them, and suddenly I wanted one. Yesterday when I went there for lunch, I bought one. And it's great! Definitely one of those things where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
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"Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths." - Lois Wyse
This may come as a shock, but it's delicious! Like a big, syrupy pile of pancakes with bacon. I don't even particularly like bacon anymore, but the pairing of salty and sweet is incredible.
ITA. It's fantastic.
If you like that, you might look for smoked salt caramels. They're absolutely wonderful - sweet, salty, and dreamy.
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"If 'toning' is the goal, strength is the method." ~ Mark Rippetoe
Avg. Cals This Week - 1,794
Avg. Protein This Week - 133
This is going to slow down eventually, right? The lean mass gain? Because I'd really like to see just the fat dropping and the lean mass staying the same. I don't need another ten pounds of it. I'm feeling good with what I've got. Yikes! I just keep reminding myself, it's blood, it's water, it's glycogen...
Slow but steady progress...I'd like to see another 20lbs gone. At this rate, it'll take another 4 months. Slooowww but steady...
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"Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths." - Lois Wyse
Wow! Great progress overall and especially this week. Slow and steady is definitely the best way to guarantee you'll keep the new body you worked so hard for.
Hey great progress! I know you want it to happen faster, but the bottom line is, it is happening!
That bacon bar is crazy. Its funny you say you can control yourself at work but not at home. I'm the opposite, I get stressed and pissed off at people at work and I would eat anything I could find in my desk drawer until its gone! I can't even have singles or change at work or I might go to the vending machine, although luckily its in another building, so I don't see it that often.
Wow! Great progress overall and especially this week. Slow and steady is definitely the best way to guarantee you'll keep the new body you worked so hard for.
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Originally Posted by LWilson212
Hey great progress! I know you want it to happen faster, but the bottom line is, it is happening!
That bacon bar is crazy. Its funny you say you can control yourself at work but not at home. I'm the opposite, I get stressed and pissed off at people at work and I would eat anything I could find in my desk drawer until its gone! I can't even have singles or change at work or I might go to the vending machine, although luckily its in another building, so I don't see it that often.
Thanks, you guys. =o) And marygrace, you're right. Slow and steady means less chance of rebounding. Finally all that work at getting my habits straight is paying off, and what do I do? Wish for something else!
Leah, I know what you mean about vending machines! My desk is closest to the Coke machine. And Coke is my favorite - I'd gladly take a can of Coke over a piece of cake, any day. Luckily, our old Coke machine broke, and the one they replaced it with costs $1.35. I almost NEVER carry cash, especially to work, but when it was only $.75 for a can, it was too easy to scrounge it up or borrow it from someone. Plus I think it just doesn't taste as good out of a plastic bottle. Ha, I'm such a Coke snob. (My favorite way to get it is from the Mexican grocery store, where it's smuggled up from Mexico in big glass bottles, and it's made with sugar instead of corn syrup. I hear Coke does this for Passover, too, in bigger cities.)
But the chocolate I can handle pretty easily. When I'm at work, all my meals are on a schedule so I don't get too hungry, or I'm too busy to remember the chocolate, or I can just distract myself with talking to a coworker for a while. I keep it in a drawer, so out of sight, out of mind. And I have a hot pot on my desk for boiling water and making tea, if I need a stress-relief ritual. But at home, it's like...if no one can see me eat it, does it count? Haha. We do dumb things late at night, when we're hungry or bored or upset or hormonal.
Although I'm not going to lie, I wish I had that Bacon Bar right now...but I'm too lazy to drive into work and get a piece. So score one for diet strategy.
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"Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths." - Lois Wyse
Just wanted to pop in and say GREAT JOB!!! I'd be so stoked to see those numbers coming down. Keep working like you are.......You'll drop that 20 pounds!
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"Become better than you used to be, not better than someone else." ~ Leigh Peele
Avg. Cals This Week - 1,794 Avg. Protein This Week - 133
This is going to slow down eventually, right? The lean mass gain? Because I'd really like to see just the fat dropping and the lean mass staying the same. I don't need another ten pounds of it. I'm feeling good with what I've got. Yikes! I just keep reminding myself, it's blood, it's water, it's glycogen...
Slow but steady progress...I'd like to see another 20lbs gone. At this rate, it'll take another 4 months. Slooowww but steady...
Fantastic results!! You are kickin' butt!!
And I'm right there with ya on the 20 lbs - and another 4 months. But we WILL GET THERE!!!
Thank you everyone for all your congrats and encouragement! It means so much to me to have people rooting for me to succeed. Sometimes it's easy to downplay your own accomplishments.
Today I spent most of the day at a photo shoot out of town. Yes, working on a Saturday! So not my style.
We were shooting models in underwear for a business pitch we're doing. There was a young guy running around in boxer briefs and tight little tank tops - YUM! He wasn't totally ripped, but he definitely worked out (Me: "How much do you bench?" Haha). He was like Average Plus - the Idealized version of Average Guy. Not too tall, not too thin - muscular, but still compact - softer definition, but still flat abs. I totally ogled him. Why the heck not? We're paying him to sit around in underwear so people will look!
The girl we chose was a total string bean, but with breasts. She was SO slight. 5'9"-ish and a size 2. Her thighs were a mile apart from one another. Her arms were twiggish. She came across well on film, but the whole time I just thought, "She looks so weak!" She was like a baby bird, sort of delicate and vulnerable looking.
My coworker, who's 5'11" and a size 4, was like, "Ugh, god hates me or I'd look like that, too." She also made comments before we went to the shoot about how she was sure the model would be a bitch (because she was skinny? because she was a model? both?).
You know, I may be 5'5" and 190ish pounds. I may wear a size 12 jean and have plenty of junk in the trunk to spare. But I will say this - I was not even remotely threatened by that model today, and that's more than I can say for my friend. I'd much rather be the size I am now and confident about myself, my body, and my strengths than obviously insecure about a perfectly adequate body.
She's a size 4! And she complains all the time about how she used to be a size 2 - when she was grief-stricken and wasn't eating. Oh, to be a size 2! At 5'11", a size 2 plants her firmly into the Underweight category of the BMI chart - and we know how slanted those things are toward people without muscle to begin with.
Yeah, I'd like to improve my body. But I think I've got a pretty good handle on the mental part of it. My self worth is not equal to my dress worth. (Possibly it's closer to my squat weight...wait...no, that's not a good idea, either. )
I've spent some time this evening giving the critical eye to NROL Fat Loss I, and I think I'm going to do it for three weeks (that would equal four workouts a week - M, T, Th, F). I like the higher rep, lower rest time pairing, and I'd get to go back to squats, as well as add the incline dumbbell bench press. Reading the Fat Loss section, Lou talks about the effects of cortisol on fat loss, and it sounds like the lower rest times and higher reps are going to be more conducive to fat loss than the low-rep, high rest times of NROL4W Stage 3.
That said, I may do Fat Loss I, then Stage 3, then Fat Loss II. We'll see what my results are. But since I seem to gain lean mass rather easily, I'm less inclined to go to the 6-rep, 105s rests of Stage 3, because it seems to promote more strength building than fat loss. And while I'd love to do both, I know what a mistake it can be to chase two goals at once. So I'll focus on losing fat for now. I'm really looking for a 2lb/week fat loss. I know I can do it. I've done it before. Four weight workouts a week could help.
And it's only three weeks. Just enough time to determine whether I'm getting the results I want.
I'll start Monday morning.
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"Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths." - Lois Wyse
Have you seen NROL4W Stage 7? It is 15-20 reps and targeted toward fat loss. I am planning to complete all stages in succession but am looking forward to that one.
Once I am done then I am going to pick up hubby's NROL book and start. I am really NOT excited about traditional squats because for some retarded reason our gym got rid of the squat rack! We have 3 smith machines and ZERO squat racks?!
Have you seen NROL4W Stage 7? It is 15-20 reps and targeted toward fat loss. I am planning to complete all stages in succession but am looking forward to that one.
Once I am done then I am going to pick up hubby's NROL book and start. I am really NOT excited about traditional squats because for some retarded reason our gym got rid of the squat rack! We have 3 smith machines and ZERO squat racks?!
That sucks! If you complain now, maybe they'll bring one in before you get to stage 7.
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"Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths." - Lois Wyse
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We have 3 smith machines and ZERO squat racks?!
Linear Mode
