Day 5

Quads still tight, but most of the muscle hurt now is in the front of my armpits.. from the chest presses yesterday? Have to find out what muscle that is..

Did standard cardio again today, going for Ignition later

Virgin Active

Several years of no updates, oops..

This one warrants an update though:

For the first time ever, I've joined one of those fancy pants gyms with classes and gym clothes and stuff.

I joined Virgin Active this week after a devastating month abroad where there was no scale, tons of dinners with colleagues, thanksgiving, and then my birthday back home... Was miraculously only up 1-1.5kg from when I left (when I was doing pretty good and losing somewhat steadily, reaching a half decade record of 55.2kg), considering how much I ate.

Day 1: Cardio on elliptical + Grid Fit class. Quads were on fire after. Unfortunately this was followed by a crazy binge with home team, so the next day I was actually up 1.4 kg, hopefully some of that from the water weight from all my muscles retaining water from the torture of Grid Fit. 58.1kg

Day 2: Did normal elliptical, and also tried yoga for the first time. It was awkward at first but at some point it started getting pretty trance-like, with time.. slowing.. down.. No change in weight today because I overate again.. 58.2kg

Day 3: Did an epic day of 4 classes cos Benj was visiting on a one-day pass and I wanted him to experience as much as possible. Did reduced cardio (250 cal instead of 300), BUT did four cool classes - aerial yoga, hot yoga, bodypump technique, and pop pilates.

Had lunch in their grab-and-go cafe, salmon + egg quesadilla was surprisingly good. I like that they have nutrition info in their menus too.

P.s. they have a free flow of free apples, woohoo.

Tried a full body scan to find the devastating news that not only am I fat, I am also seriously obese in terms of body fat :( My Withings scale has been lying to me so sweetly..

Some of that muscle torture water weight is coming off. 57.6kg, 35.4%bf (gym scale) SCREAM.

Day 4: Went to Benj's gym (not VA) and did normal cardio and some pansy weights. More water weight off, but some muscles still hurt a bit from the four class marathon. 57.4kg (Withings says 28% bf but I don't trust it anymore..)

Week 5.?? update, week 1.2 of diet

After a week of reasonably dieting and a weekend of cheating, I am down a kg!

- M through F, 1500 cal limit on top of normal 300 cal cardio
- Sat/Sun, two cheat meals, then eating only when hungry (because the cheat meals were so huge I really didn't need anything else). I also ate as many carbs and other bads as I wanted as long as I was below 1800 (maintenance with 300 cal cardio), though this meant eating really healthy filler foods at other times to make up for it.

In short, last month when I put on weight, I was telling myself I could eat as much as I wanted as long as I exercised the extra calories off. Either those machines lie like dogs, or that's not a good strategy.

I guess it really is 80% diet 20% exercise!

Chin ups versus pull ups

Startling discovery of the day: For most people, chin ups are WAY easier than pull ups, and also work your biceps and lats, while being less psychologically discouraging because you're so freaking bad at them.

Differences:
Chin ups: palms face towards you, hands shoulder-width apart. Use more bicep strength vs lat
Pull ups: palms face away from you, hands wider than shoulder-width. Use more lat than bicep strength

I'm gonna switch to hanging from chin-up position to work my lats till my back gets stronger!

NuGo protein bars

I just tried a NuGo vanilla yogurt bar . For something that tastes like a large (50g)  rice krispie treat drenched in white chocolate, it's actually less calories than the average protein bar (170 cals), and has a whopping 11g protein, which is almost as high a protein:calorie ratio as a Clif builder's bar, and is better than the smaller (40g), more caloric (190 cal), less protein-loaded (10g) Nature Valley Greek Yogurt bars.

The Slim range pack even more protein per calorie. Like the Slim Brownie Crunch contains 16g of protein for 190 calories, and the Raspberry Truffle flavor has 17g protein for 180 calories! What! (Bonus, they are also high in fiber)

They seem to have something for everyone (some of these have less protein):

Diabetic? Try the sugar-free Smarte Carb range (higher protein and lower carb!!).

Allergic to gluten, soy, or milk? Vegan? There's the NuGo Free for you!

Only eat organic food? Surprise surprise, there is an organic range as well (which is also vegan).

Flavor-wise, there is seemingly endless variety: Peanut Butter Chocolate, Dark Mint Chocolate Chip, Dark Chocolate Pretzel, for chocolate haters there's Orange Smoothie, Carrot cake... Omg.

we(a)k 4.3 update

Improvements:
Bicep curls - 35lbs
Hip abduction - 315lbs (Maxed out the machine! RAWR)

Need work:
DIET. These few weeks have been a disaster
Pull-ups. Been slacking off.



Discovery of the week:
I found it really hard to progress from 30lb bars straight to 40lb for bicep curls. Fortunately, I learned how to make my own 35lb-ers by putting on 2*5lb weights to a 25lb olympic curling bar, or 2*2.5lb on a 30lb, even though the latter looks extremely lolz because there are two wimpy-ass weights on this macho looking bar :P

DAE think it's weird that the weight of the bar is seldom specified? Am I just blind? Isn't that like extremely important??

we(a)k 3.2 update

Good:
- strength gains
- tried many new exercises that work muscles I never knew existed
- Body fat down 2%

Bad:
- weight gain (doubt much of it is muscle!)


I blame the bad diet. This month is going to be dedicated to eating clean!