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!

breaking news..

We now interrupt the regularly scheduled silence to announce that bicep curls are up to 4 reps * 40lb before failure..

Bro do you even lift - weak two

Week 2 weigh in!
I can now do 12 reps of...

Bicep curl: 30lb ... lifting 40lb * 2-3 reps before failure
Assisted pull up: 65lb ... can do a few reps with 60lb before failure
Shoulder: 10lb each - SO WEAK, I can barely do 10lb with proper form. Seems like I am regressing??
Tricep: 10lb each (up from 8lb)
Chest fly: slacked off this week :(
Hip adduction: 270lb (up from 250lb).. 2 more increments before I max out the machine >:D
Hip abduction: 230lb

What cat can you lift?

I can bicep curl an ocelot. Clouded leopard up next!

Bicep curls: free weights, barbells, curl benches, oh my!

I've been using free weights since eternity, and have never thought to try barbells since they are essentially the same thing, but connected in the middle.

Barbells

Free weights

One problem I've always had with free weights is that my left bicep would tire before my right. With the barbells, my right can compensate for the left when it begins to weaken, and I can complete the set without feeling like I had robbed my right arm of its full training, or feeling like my left is being left (lol) far behind. Using barbells is akin to using two Pokemon of unequal skill level in the same battle so that both get XP.

Yesterday I tried the curl bench:

It apparently makes it so you only use your biceps to lift. Instantly a million times harder, since you can't cheat and use other muscles!!

I will be switching to barbells for bicep curls, but I think I'll pass on the curl bench for now, since I think I do want to train my stabilizing muscles etc along with my biceps..

Arctic zero - a low calorie protein bar disguised as ice cream

The other day I was in the kitchen with two of my roommates, one a zumba-teaching vegetarian, the other a nurse who once dead-lifted me - picture a mouse deer lifting a walrus - and Mousedeer was eating this oddly-named ice cream, Arctic Zero. The other goes, "oh you eat that too?"

If both of these super fit, healthy, hawt girls are into this, I had to check it out.

"There can be miracles... if you believe..."

The first thing I saw was their clever pitch that one tub of Arctic Zero is 150 calories*. But wait, not one serving, ONE PINT. THE WHOLE TUB.

Ok, that's great, but surely it's just 150 empty calories that will do nothing for your bod, right?
Curious, I asked my roommate what it was made of. Concentrated Aspartame?

No!! No artificial sweeteners, except Monkfruit. I googled it, and Monkfruit is another name for Luo han guo, which I see in Chinese medicine halls and markets all the time, which means it does not violate the "Don't eat it if your great grandmother did not recognize it as food" rule.

Working down the ingredients list, the first ingredient is water (great), the second is....

WHEY PROTEIN.

Each serving gives you 3g of protein. If you eat the pint, that's 12g of protein for 150 calories, which is better than a lot of protein bars. WHAT?!



Furthermore, this is fat-free, gluten-free, and "lactose-intolerant friendly" (lactose-intolerant friend confirms eating the entire tub without lactaids and surviving).

Also, it has fiber. What ice cream gives you fiber??? Maybe this ice-cream also fights cancer and contains the tears of angels??

All sounding too good to be true, I finally caved and bought a tub from Safeway.

The first bite was meh - it was way less sweet and fatty than other ice-cream. But after the first few spoonfuls, I quickly adapted and it started tasting great. It was actually creamy, not like a sorbet, with an actual ice-cream-like texture.

I started hungry, and managed to go through 3/4 of the tub before starting to feel full. All that protein and fiber must have been doing its job!

TL;DR:

Pros
- ICE CREAM
- PROTEIN
- Fiber
- Very low calorie
- No artificial sweeteners
- Relatively filling
- Many flavors
- Fat free, gluten free, "friendly" levels of lactose

Cons
- Not as rich or sweet as normal ice cream
- Premium ice cream price ($4.59 at Safeway per pint)


Yeah so it's not exactly Haagen Daz, but hey if it prevents me from eating 1400 cals of sugar and fat when I have an ice-cream craving (and supplies proteins to the guns-in-training), yes please. Will probably be trying more flavors in future!


* There was a report that this may be off by as much as 68%, but that is still only 250 for the whole tub, which is less than a half cup serving of Haagen Daz.

Bro do you even lift - Week one progress

Five days ago I came across an amateur bodybuilder's 16 week training plan, and decided to see how far I could go in the same amount of time.

Week one isn't quite over yet, but here are the weights I am currently lifting:

Bicep curl: 30lb (up from 24lb)
Assisted pull up: 65lb (down from 70lb - this number should go down with improvement. The lofty goal is to be able to do a pull up by the end of this!)
Shoulder: 10lb each
Tricep: 8lb each
Chest fly: 40lb (up from 30lb)
Hip adduction: 250lb
Hip abduction: 210lb (down from 230lb. Sad! And mysterious!)

Fat-encased baby gunlets --- 16 weeks ---> Mama guns

Saying no to the SugarFat Motherload

Today the mother of all leftover-meeting-food stashes appeared on the table outside my office.

Bread? Deli ham? Cheese slices? Trader joe's cookies? All of the above, AND, one of those monster bulk treat boxes:

... except beyond being a ton of fat and sodium, this was some unholy mix that had rice krispy treats, and other sweet temptations.

If that wasn't enough, there was also 2 metric tons of mini chocolates.

Much calories! Such fatty!

There was an endless stream of people milking this goldmine all day, one guy threatened to make it rain milky ways all over me. But I managed to avoid all of this!

JUST SAY NO

Such willpower!

Dried sweet potato

Dried sweet potatoes are the lazy person's dream healthy snack. 

Here is the necessary preparation: 

1) open bag, 

2) shove in your mouth.

One cup sets you back about 100 calories, which I guess is the equivalent of a whole sweet potato. Sweet potatoes are good for you!!!

So many styles!

For some reason, I've only found these in Asian supermarkets (Chinese, specifically). 

Actually that's a lie: these show up fairly often in mainstream supermarkets, but as dog treats.

Asians and doges got it right: Dried sweet potatoes are awesome.

Pros: 

- Cheap, 

- delicious, 

- healthy,

- portable snack,

- no preparation required,

- lasts forever (where forever means several years).

Cons: 

- Addictive (not healthy if you eat the entire bag at once)

- Some varieties have a lot of added sugar and other crap.

Wow.