Mama Said Knock You Out - Rixatrix's Training Log

[Amblus]

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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.

[rixatrix]

Originally Posted by missjane

check it out!
Survivor: China - James Eye Candy!!

HELLOOO James.

Originally Posted by jesca

People still manually dig graves in the US? I thought they had big yellow machines to do that. Crazy!

Yeah, I couldn't remember the name of the diggy machine either. Not Bulldozer, that's the pushy one. Could it be "The Claw?"

Originally Posted by jesca

Oh, and I freaking love Jillian Michaels. Haven't read her books or anything tho, I wonder if they're any good.

Originally Posted by ledove

Skwigg's review of Jillian's book starts off: "It's not your imagination: Jillian Michaels is trying to kill you."

I was doing a Jillian workout sort of transiently before I picked up NROL4W and really went for it. Here's what she had me doing:

4 days of lifting, each day is different. 3 sets of 15.

Monday - Pushups, squats, chest flyes, sumo squats, bench dips, leg extensions, lateral raises, jumping jacks (1 min.), basic crunches, tricep extension, jump rope (1 min.), scissors

Tuesday - Wide-grip lat pulldown, stiff-legged deadlifts, medium-grip cable row, static lunges, back extensions, hamstring curls, dumbbell curls, jumping jacks (1 min.), bicycle crunches, concentration curls, jump rope (1 min.), russian twists

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.

[GinaKina]

I read Jillian's book before starting this too. I never did her program though, some of the exercises she had in there just seemed silly to me.

[Cynthia]

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 ).

[marygrace]

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.

[rixatrix]

Originally Posted by Cynthia

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.

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.

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.

[Cynthia]

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!!

[dillytl]

CONGRATS on your PR's yesterday! That's AWESOME

[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.

Thank you for time,
Olga.

[DirtyMartini]

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?

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.

[rixatrix]

Originally Posted by dillytl

CONGRATS on your PR's yesterday! That's AWESOME

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.

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.

[dillytl]

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!!!

[rixatrix]

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...

[MuscleMom23]

Looks like you need to read this too... The Paper Towel Theory

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.