Back in training, 22 Feb 09

You sure know you've had a break from gym when you stay super sore all week.  But its a great feeling to feel the aches and tiredness from a good workout. You get the satisfaction of knowing you've put in the effort which hopefully will lead to some muscle growth.  I haven't got any comp plans right now so I'm just training to train, but will decide around June to see if I'm happy with my gains before competing. There's plenty later in the year and I'm no rush to diet!  weighing 57.5kg and feeling lean (on a good day!).  Just to put things in perspective with the story I have about Gina Aliotti.  Gina and I are the same height but she's 58kg on stage! now that girl has muscle.

Since returning to training I'm continuing to train each bodypart twice a week, which is pretty strenuos.  Day 1, its chest, delts, tri.  Day 2. Legs, Back, Biceps (although haven't done biceps for a while as I got elbow problem so I can't actually put too much stress in the curl position). Day 3: rest.  Day 4: repeat day 1. Day 5: repeat day 2.  Day 6 and 7 rest. On Day 1 and 2 my weights are heavy and since I'm trying to train maximally to stimulate the muscle rather than wearing it out I only do 2 exercises, 8-10 reps and 3 sets of each.  Initially I found combing the chest and delts really tough to train together but I'm finding that I love the pump I get across my upper body and I feel I'm growing. Since triceps are involved in the chest and shoulder exercises I only do 2 tricep exercises to build mass.  Not that I need much bigger triceps!   The second chest/shoulder day I train at 80% and try not to push too hard and do more shaping exercises such as flyes and higher rep lateral raises.

I'm just working on putting some mass on my legs.  They're naturally pretty lean anyway but would be nice to get some size.  I've given up on my calves.  They haven't grown after all these years so I doubt if any extra calf work is going to help me now.  Reckon calves are one of those things people have or haven't - well that's my excuse!  Still continuing to work on thickness on my back and doing heavy seated rows and one arm rows.

I've been experimenting a little bit with my food regime.  I'm so bored with rice and kumera for my carbs so for the past few weeks I've added more variety into my carb plan and eating more 'vegetariany' type carbs.  It all started about a month ago when I had to cook dinner for a couple of friends, one was vegetarian and the other didn't eat that much meat.  Not being the greatest chef in the world, I really had to put my thinking cap on to put something together to feed them instead of just lettuce and tomato!  You should've seen my kitchen bench, it looked like a vegetable patch.

I managed to put together a green salad with grilled peppers and eggplant, quinoa salad and cooked some falafels.  My friends were quite impressive with my effort knowing what a meat eater I am.  But I actually enjoyed the vegetarian stuff too so I thought I'd add more into my diet and its been great for my system.

So instead of rice and kumera, I'm getting into cous cous and quinoa.  Both of these are low in carbs for their volume. For example a 1/2 cup of cooked cous cous has only 18g carbs and is very filling and visually it looks like you're eating heaps eventhough you might be on a diet you feel normal.  Quinoa is the grain with the highest amino profile so mixing that with tuna makes it quite a high protein meal.  1/2 cup Quinoa gives you 50g of carbs and 12g of protein. I've also been eating more falafels.  I buy the ready made falafel mix and then just cook it myself.  This is also a great value food because one small falafel pattie contains only 10g of carbs. So 2 of these at lunch and/or dinner makes you quite full when added to your normal protein intake.
	Talking about food and nutrition.  I finally got the chance to meet Stacey Hancock in the weekend.  We spent lots of time nattering over coffee, well I had coffee and she had tea, about all sorts of nutrition and food topics.  Then she went off to Iron Maiden concert - rock on!! Well that's all from me this week, happy training everyone.
Lisa, Go Figure 22 Feb