daySEVEN | May 3dP

Day seven. Lucky number seven. It was quite a dream day! Such that it deserves a post. Where do I start?

CBL Status Update

I weighed myself after training to see where I was at. I know that I'm not relying on solely the scale to monitor progress, but I cringed, knowing that the night before, my boyfriend and I came home from the local Mexican restaurant carrying food

babies, and passing out shortly after. I also drank about a gallon of water during the first half of the day.

Stepped on the scale and.... 118.2? YES!!

That's AFTER back-loading mucho the night before and drinking lots of water.. AND I'm at that time of the month where women's weight is usually at their all-time high from bloat!

I've also been eating much more with my back-loads. Delicious, dirty carbs.. and some clean, nutritious carbs too!

I've been slowly - but surely- fine-tuning my daily intake so I find things that fit exactly my macros, to have the whole diet work in my favor. It's making me quite happy how everything just.. fits. More of my actual food to be detailed in a post dedicated solely to contest prep.


Training

It was leg day #1. I usually do 2 every week, but #1 is heavy duty - which means all out - heavy load, explosive lifts. No HIIT, pure hypertrophy, all strength. If I'm not still sore in a few days, I will have leg day #2. But I'm not sure that this week will have a #2..

Due to the little mishap I experienced on Thursday, I decided to be much more cautious of my every move. The following were my exercises for daySEVEN, all preceded by warmup sets (with the exception of hip thrusts):

Barbell squat - 45-2x10 (warmup); 65x10, 55x10*
Lying leg press - 2x10 warmup close & wide stances; 2-50x12 wide, 2-50x12 close
Smith machine lunges - 45x10 (warmup); 65x10, 75x10, 75x12
Barbell hip thrusts - 3-50x12 with 5-second isometric holds per last rep
Seated hip abduction - 50x10, 40x12
10-minute incline walk @ 6.0%, 2.8mph

*Notes: I can still feel my right glute muscle being pulled - but only when I do squats. This means I will only be squatting once a week, at half my max, until that sensation completely goes away.
Notice that my weights were reduced by about 20-30%, for all sets. This is due to the right glute problem. Fortunately, that problem did not occur for the other workouts.

I also began doing lunges again - and I haven't mentioned it before, but boy do I hate lunges. Walking, static, reverse.. I hate them all. I always feel out of balance. Which is exactly why I did them. The final set, I was only going to do 10 reps, but mentally I pushed myself to do 2 extra reps. "Jen, you need that growth," I told myself. Not sure if it was in my head, or if I really did say it - since the guy next to me was giving me a strange look. He needed to work anyway, he was just sitting there like a douche hogging a station - because that's exactly what he was doing.

Glutes get worked on both days as well, and glutes also get worked on deadlift days, for a total of 3 glute resistance days - in addition to the lower body plyo/Tabata circuits I sprinkle on non-lower-body-resistance days of the week. Hence the hip thrusts and abductions. It's the biggest muscle in the body, and when it gets work, calories are definitely burned.


Amazing Day!

It was overall a great day. I had a wonderful evening with my precious son. He got to play with his friends, and he even brought some over to play. He picked up all of the toys they used afterward, AND ate all of his dinner with me - including his green beans. He got an eclair and a story as a reward! It was a really good Mom and Kaeden day :)

As for post-workout, I've discovered the best way to have my post-workout protein is in fluff form. See proteinpow.com for a plethora of delicious protein powder recipes! My post-workout CBL shake is 24grams of vanilla whey, 1 frozen sliced banana, and 1/4 cup of milk of my choosing, 5g creatine powder - and that's it. Blend it, whisk it up until it becomes fluffy - and it's super, duper tasty. I'm not even kidding. I get really sad when I finish it all. Great for protein content, and that insulin spike much needed for CBL to work. It also fits my macros perfectly.

I had medium grain calrose white rice, and tilapia & green beans sauteed in coconut oil, for dinner. It was a pretty clean back-load, which made me happy. Not to mention coconut oil makes everything taste ten times more delicious. Good thing for my clean dinner, because I had room to stuff 5 apricot kolacky's, 3, some Cadbury chocolate caramel squares, and my half-cup of Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey Ice Cream pre-bed. My body temperature was up the roof by the end of the night - and I gloriously went into a carb-induced coma shortly after.


All In All..

Is it really a coincidence that carb back-loading is making me lose weight, feel happy about my food choices (and life in general), and have me improve my physique all at the same time?

The inner skeptic in me keeps trying to say so, but I gotta say, I really love carb back-loading. And I love working out regularly. I love making healthier and wiser choices in general. I'm enjoying life and I really don't need a weekend party or a night of clubbing to do that for me.

I feel so perky lately, and greet each day with enthusiasm. Maybe I could do this for the rest of my life. Have my Ben & Jerry's and pastrys, and bacon, and still get lean & strong and be able to prep for competition? I think I just will.

All in all, daySEVEN was a success.