Well that's good! Sounds posh actually. My lil bro's dorm room at a private college sounds like that. DH and I went to visit him when he first moved in and we were quite jealous.
Yay for good things
These are AMAZING dorms! Quite posh in fact. The towels are tiny though. LOL!
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Originally Posted by RunnerGirl88
Just want to say that I really enjoy your log. I find your goals and accomplishments inspiring.
Hey howdy and welcome to the log of the ex-runner (but can't quite get it out of my system)
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Originally Posted by Bytsi
I dunno why this made me think of you...
LOL! Girl that is sooooo funny. I often wondered about that actually with the guys. HA HA HA
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Originally Posted by NYC_Native
I'm very late to your log, but I can soooooo relate to you on that. Amen!
Yesterday I logged 330 grams of protein. I was attacked by Sashimi
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Originally Posted by gregl515
So are you doing anything fun, like short sheeting anyone's bed?
Nah.. Greg... this is actually a pretty serious event for us attendees. That said I am completely and totally at peace now. I am hanging with an amazing group of people who happen to also be pretty damned good musicians. I have no Intel work pressure anymore and no rental property pressure. I can just focus on my mission which is to perform tomorrow and have fun!
Today's master class was awesome!!! It is the day before the big performance and so we all had to perform alone in the big hall for each other. This is the day when everything goes wrong and that is a good thing becuase it puts pressure on us for tomorrow. The saying goes that "a bad dress rehearsal = a great performance". I had multiple things going on in my head when I was on the stage. For one thing I had broken a fingernail and so hitting the strings was somewhat an issue... But even more distracting was that I busted my ass over the past 2 days trying to bring that really hard piece up. I kept working and working and my buddies were all in empathy with my plight. Nobody could understand why the maestro would ask me to do such a diffulcult thing. I was already stressing about the original repertoire I had brought in.
Today as I sat on the stage and failed miserably at the new and hard piece he had assigned to me, he says, "So let's not play that one tomorrow night" "Let's go to the original plan instead" I was noticably happy and played the originals with ease after that. I asked him after class why he had made me go through that torture. He asked me how I felt about my repertoire now and I replied immediately that it was easy. It then hit me. I had NO STRESS whatesoever about these big pieces and putting them to performance for the first time. I smiled big then because that is EXACTLY why I pay this guy. He is one of the best teachers I have ever had for any subject in my life. I am lucky to have him in my life.
I got another mini-lift in the gym today. These college kids are soooo funny. They leave a loaded bb sitting on one of the stages (just 135lbs mind you) and they all just stop by and do deads. So I thought, he when in Rome.... I did deads with the big tire plates and some nice ATG squats and some db presses and some tricep pulls. All fun stuff and in a great gym. I avoided the running track today but might have to see it tomorrow for a little bit... We'll see...
Gonna read a few logs and then get to practicing... Tomorrow is the big day!
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The BIGGER I get the smaller you look
HA HA! Sorry guys... Just sort of savoring the events of last weekend still and not wanting to switch back to "normal" life even though I have been back for nearly a week now.
The performance was beyond my wildest dreams. Scott (the teacher) put me as the last player and had me playing the Sarabande (slow piece) first and then finish the program off with the wild and very happy/loud Prelude. The first and last spots of a show like this are paramount as they set the show and set the ending. My peers likened the last spot to the leg man of the relay. The pressure was really on me with such a major work and in such a major spot.
The program was setup so that there were 4 of us on the stage at the same time in the last set. We all had Baroque pieces to play. For me this worked to my advantage as I was able to get nervous and work through those nerves while my peers did their solo pieces. The man who made my own handmade guitar was on stage with me and played the third spot. When he finished his pieces, I launched into mine. I felt calm and the Sarabande just flowed. Then came the "money" piece... Guys... I nailed it. I had a tiny memory slip with an easy recovery in the middle but that was the only place I even faltered slightly. That piece just came out of my instrument like a pro and that final chord was HUGE and I could not help but grin ear-to-ear as it set sailing from the strings.
The audience exploded with applause... I counted to 3, stood up (then the others on stage stood up following my queue as instructed), bowed and exited the stage. We had only a few seconds backstage before we had to go back out for more bows but in those seconds other performers all congratulated me and some of them lifted me in the air. It was like sinking the ball for the winning point from the half court. All 10 of the performers then walked out for a final bow. One of the performers forgot to come up stage and ran on late. He later said he was so captivated by my performance that he just got swept up with the audience and forgot to come backstage again.
After the concert we all went back to the dorms and we partied our asses off! The serious part of the week was finally over and we got to relax and just be loose finally. This is always a very special week for me because I actually founded and fund this weeklong event. Many years I play a strictly support role but this year I got to participate and two of my biggest guitar dreams came to pass. I got to play onstage with the builder of my instrument (I so admire his playing) and I got to perform some of the Bach suite I have been working up for nearly 5 years.
Needless to say, coming back to real life has been somewhat strange for me. Back to training and daily reporting and work. I am now just 12 weeks away from my photoshoot and getting a little bit emotional about all of this too now. My physique has changed drastically in the past 3 months. These pics show more of a difference than I saw in a year before. Nobody is questioning anymore if I am on a cut. I lay in bed at night and can feel mucles in my abs and my ribs are so prominent. It all feels weird. Size 3 jeans fitting me just fine, boobs disappearing (along with bf) and whole shape changing. For some reason this sort of drastic changing is always very emotional for me. It is like I am no longer me.
But this is it... the final 12 weeks to 10% bf. The Make-or-Break time. The weird thing is that this diet is really not hard at all. I read all the time about how people in their final 12 weeks have such a hard time and have to do hours and hours of cardio. I still am doing no extra cardio and the food is actually pretty easy to keep up. In fact while I do get the munchies sometimes and even get occasionally really hungry, I am most of the time force feeding to keep UP the calories. The hardest thing about the diet so far has been accepting the performance decreases in the gym and NOT changing things all the time to "optimize" things. Alan is pretty strongly against changes if things are working overall.
I believe it was in Wendy's log where I read that she opted to not do fitness due to the fact that she found such distaste with all the diets and the exclusion of foods, etc. Interesting that because I am finding nothing to complain about with my diet. I eat what I want to eat within the confines of my macro allotment. I exclude nothing and eat pizza, chocolate, or whatever. Stupid dieting is stupid dieting... doesn't matter what sport you do it in. For fitness and bodybuilding sports we have a great number of resources here for non-retarded dieting.
Through all of this process so far I have learned SO MUCH that it is hard for me to sort and write it all out. I feel like I could write a book. Main take aways so far...
* finding balance between deficit and workout/life and how to do that
* How unpredicatble ALL forms of measuring bf% are (how to rely on the eye)
* How significantly different this way of loss is from previous (look at those 3 mo pics) You can see amazing bf% changes. There is only 3 lb scale weight change in those pics but look at the cuts in the abs and back even with a plain flash picture. Incredible....
* It doesn't have to be hard or painful... just consistent... (Hint:consistency is hard)
It must have felt like being on top of the world at the end of your performance!
Congrats on the progress and yep, your hard work & dedication is definitely showing.
Too bad about loss of strength but it was to be expected that it'd drop off a bit one moment.. it's a surprise you kept it up for so long and were even improving.
Consistency is reallllly hard if you haven't got the prize/goal fixed within your head or people holding you accountable. There's plenty whom I know that put pix of people they want to mimick on their fridge.
If you and Anne are the queens of consistency I'd be the queen of inconsistency (except for dutiful reporting)
It all feels weird. Size 3 jeans fitting me just fine, boobs disappearing (along with bf) and whole shape changing. For some reason this sort of drastic changing is always very emotional for me. It is like I am no longer me.
I can totally relate to this. I am continuing my identity crisis and it is a roller coaster of emotion. Your pics look great--really a huge difference. I am looking forward to your progress in the next couple of months!
Thanks for the great concert description. I felt like I was there--are there videos to post? Sounds like an amazing event.
You're a real inspiration, on the fitness and creative fronts. I used to study and play guitar, and stopped doing so in college. So I'll have to get a new six-string and start it up again. I would've loved to see you performance as well. That is so awesome of you - what an accomplishment.
And your pics... Wow!!!! But that is exactly what happens when you work consistently towards a goal.
Oh my.. a lot of people are terrified of flying all for the wrong reasons.. instead, I've got to admit that nearly all of my long-distance flights I've had a knot in my stomach for the right reason: bringing a custom-built bicycle and being terrified it wouldn't survive the handling.
One more company I'll never ever use: Greyhound.. they make you wrap up a bicycle in a huge box (so you can't actually cycle to the bus station defeating the entire purpose of taking a bus when travelling by bicycle anyway (acquaintances brought me there) and then more or less thrashed it as the bike box is so huge they put it on the bottom of the 'stack' and pile up all the other luggage on top of it, which guarantees something will get hurt. Fortunately it was fairly easy to repair..
After that it was either cycling or hitch-hiking .. much much safer for the bike!
US trains are pretty decent though as long as you bring a foldable bicycle.
Yeah, WTF. We have video of Nick singing but not you playing guitar?!
I have posted videos of me playing guitar already so you do have them. As far as this concert goes, there was a person filming and he has promised us all copies of the content. I haven't seen it yet. When I get it, and as I get the time, I promise to post for you. I may never be a concert level sort of player, but for a rank newb parttime guitarist, this girl kicked serious ass! All we can hope for is improvement from year to year and this year marked a huge improvement for me!
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Originally Posted by gregl515
Luckily you didn't fly on United with your guitar!
I have flown to India (and subsequently all over India), China, Israel, West Virginia, Tx, CA (numerous times), PA, Washington DC, Chicago, Arizona, etc... with my precious (to me) and pricey > 10K US Dollar guitars. My guitar has ALWAYS flown above me in the bin or was gate checked due to the plane being too tiny to hold the case in the bin. Even if I did have to check my guitar, I always pack the headstock very tightly so that it doesn't snap (that is what happened in the video btw) if it is thrown AND I invest in very strong lightweight cases for my guitars so they can withstand airline abuse. Not only can I jump up and down on these cases without damage to my instrument but they are seal as well so they can sit in the rain and otherwise protect my investment from humidity and temp changes. You cannot prevent all accidents from happening but you sure can head off most of them....
Okay... An update on where I am. I am sort of in a training pickle right now. I am realizing that I have to cut back on volume in the gym due to the fact that I keep running into general overtraining issues. Alan and I are communicating about this right now and he is deciding on course of action for me. Of course if overall volume changes than cals will have to be lowered to keep the schedule I have for riptitude. I have a ton of questions on my mind but am trying to just chill out and wait for guidance on what to do.
I spent the entire 4th of July weekend busting my ass on the farm. I logged around 20 hours of actual heavy duty physical labor over the three days. (lifting heavy rocks, pulling out shrubs, lifting and dragging large limbs, shoveling and hauling dirt, etc) I realize that this sort of activity probably plays some part in the general equation too. Just trying to figure out how to balance it all. I have given up the hope of trying to feed my bike riding goals while getting ript.
I have hit the "money" part of my training where everything seems to fall down for me. Usually I just drop a ton of scale weight without dropping bf% so much at this time. It will be inetersting to see if we can somehow avoid this and still keep the timeline I have for the shoot. I still have 10lbs of overall weight from my lowest point last time and am already very close to the same bf% that I was then so I am hopeful that I can keep 7 or more still of LBM from this year.
On other news, I have begun researching photographers and am going to do a couple of interviews over the next month. I have to come up with clothing and shoot ideas and then lock down a date.
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The BIGGER I get the smaller you look
You're a smart cookie Karla (re the indestructable guitar case)
Sounds like it is going to be easier to drop volume a bit and either keep calories same or drop those too.. but srsly, you've done the equivalent of a week's worth of workouts on your farm!
I love how you describe cutting back because of overtraining and then describe all of your herculean feats around the farm. Good job on the resting thing, lady. Someone should just tie you down.
And the Hulky-poo dumbass award goes once again to me... Just had dinner with David. I went to him to see if he could help me figure out the right plan to rehad my bicepital tendon. He basically just fussed at me the whole dinner. Said that bbers with very low body fat cannot be fucking around and doing 20 hours of intense physical labor and that doing that sort of thing is really unfair to my plan and to Alan. He would not give me any rehab plan and told me to ice and rest. Also suggested I sit around and play my guitar while I watched a crew do the farm work until I am done with my 10% bf goal.
On the positive side of things he did say I am coming in nicely and laughed at me because I was cold when it wasn't cold in the restaraunt to him. He said that was a low bf% thing too. He welcomed me to the final weeks phase and helped me adjust my mentality to be kind to myself during this time.
Have not yet heard what Alan thinks I should do. I am going to just rest until I hear back from him.
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The BIGGER I get the smaller you look
On the positive side of things he did say I am coming in nicely and laughed at me because I was cold when it wasn't cold in the restaraunt to him. He said that was a low bf% thing too. He welcomed me to the final weeks phase and helped me adjust my mentality to be kind to myself during this time.
Have not yet heard what Alan thinks I should do. I am going to just rest until I hear back from him.
Oh - look - positive reinforcement and a plan to rest....who would have thunk it?
I am going to just rest until I hear back from him.
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"Time and patience are the 2 elements that most people don't include in their plans."
-Alan Aragon
"The scale simply tells you how much the earth loves you on a particular day."
-Ogedei (Keith)
Just checking on you. Maybe you should also pick up a bottle of tryptophan.
Poor sleep is a sign of either overtraining and/or undereating (carbs). I'm sincerely hoping Alan will order a nice & big refeed for you, but in the meantime tryptophan can work wonders.
Nooooo... rest? Really!?!?!? Where did you get THAT idea??????
Okay kettle...
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Originally Posted by TomK
Oh - look - positive reinforcement and a plan to rest....who would have thunk it?
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Originally Posted by CloveApple
Okay... okay... I swear it just did not seem that obvious to me. To be fair, I asked Alan about refeeding farm work and he said I did not have to do it. David has worked with me on the farm and said last night that if I am feeding my bike ridiing and not my farm work that Alan really does not understand the work that I am doing. He thinks it is far higher intensity than riding. He thinks I probably burned through most of the 1800 cals I was eating on those days and by the third day my body just tore down.
I also did not really feel anything but a little bit body sore on Tuesday. I had good enough energy throughout the weekend but I slept for 10 or more hours each day. My shoulder was swollen enough on Tues that I knew it was not okay. My joints where all cracking too. In my defense I did not go to the gym and I wrote to Alan suggesting that I need to lower my volume in the gym. So... I was blaming the volume of the program instead of the farm work.
Okay... so now here is the REALLY stupid thing. I counted those three days as Rest days in my log. That is how convinced I was that they were not such a big deal. Of course this is all David's theory and speculation. He is probably right though because each day this week I feel like I am getting a bit better.
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Originally Posted by chaddukes
Congrats on the concert. It sounds like an awesome experience. And congrats on the fatloss. 10% BF is amazing!
If I don't kill myself first, I will be at 10% by the fall.
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Originally Posted by Espi
Just checking on you. Maybe you should also pick up a bottle of tryptophan.
Poor sleep is a sign of either overtraining and/or undereating (carbs). I'm sincerely hoping Alan will order a nice & big refeed for you, but in the meantime tryptophan can work wonders.
That and esp laying off the caffein at night ...
It was 100% the caffeine. I really don't have problems sleeping for the most part. In fact I have been getting more sleep lately than ever. Alan is supposed to come back with a steeper cut for me not a re-feed. I have not done any re-feed on this diet but I am on such a small deficit that I think it is all good. Actually the diet itself is not hard at all. I am rarely hungry and most of the time am working to get the food in ALA bulk. I am still doing nearly 2K a day average and still dropping bf%. No stalls or anything like that. My only problem seems to be that I push too hard in the gym/life.
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The BIGGER I get the smaller you look
Remembered the caffein at the end but wasn't bothered enough to change my mind.
Boy, the first thing Alan needs to do is spend a day at the farm with you.. I'm betting he'll be pooped at the end. It may not be as intense as a single exercise in the gym but you are working all day long and it all adds up in the end.. you really should have had such a GWF/BodyBugg thing on you. Or at least a Polar HRM that tells you what output you had.
It is quite important to keep your intake aligned with your output. In some ways it doesn't always work the same way as apparently (according to what I read in GWF threads) walking burns only marginally less calories than lifting (normally) does, but if you are continuously working your ass off outside the gym.. first the houses you were fixing up & now the work on the farm you have to raise your intake.. or burn out or.. get sick. Neither of those 2 situations are desirable.
I don't know Espi... Wouldn't it be the case that I am dropping scale weight if I am not sufficiently nurished for the work I am doing? I am actually pretty confused and the work/food balance thing. Leigh has stated on multiple occasions that I can do the work I want to do if I feed it correctly. So far that isn't really holding true. When I rode my bike the 52 miles recently, it took me nearly 5 days to recover from that and I got a stupid infection too. I fed the ride as prescribed so not sure what went wrong. My suspicions are that I can burn through carbs WAY WAY faster during workouts then I am putting them in right now. I cannot test that theory out right now though. Too much at stake and not at the helm any damn way...
__________________
The BIGGER I get the smaller you look
While using Poliquin's saying (there's no overtraining , only undereating & vice versa) it's only true to some extent. After a certain point feeding a workout (or farm work or a bike ride) just won't work as you've reached your maximum 'volume'..you are indeed at such a low bf% that you won't recover from too much work.
But one thing is certain, your farm work was frigging intensive and so was what you did in the houses you worked in.
Yesterday I logged 330 grams of protein. I was attacked by Sashimi
Just had dinner with David. I went to him to see if he could help me figure out the right plan to rehad my bicepital tendon. He basically just fussed at me the whole dinner. Said that bbers with very low body fat cannot be fucking around and doing 20 hours of intense physical labor and that doing that sort of thing is really unfair to my plan and to Alan. He would not give me any rehab plan and told me to ice and rest. Also suggested I sit around and play my guitar while I watched a crew do the farm work until I am done with my 10% bf goal. 
Linear Mode
