Phase 1's Leg Day

Accurate representation

I apologize for the lack of update yesterday. I have been so busy that there is barely time to actually rest on my "rest days." If you don't know what a rest day is, it is simply a day off from the gym, to give your body time to recuperate and the muscles time to heal and grow. It is not, however, a day off from the lifestyle. I suddenly cannot binge on 6,000 potato chips or whatever my heart (or stomach) desires, just because I'm not in the gym. No, I must still continue on with my frequent and healthy meals.

I wanted to write about my first leg day of the year. I did not go to the gym, and that was fine, since at home I have a nice good weight to work with for my legs.. my 4-year old son. He is about 45 pounds. In my glory days, I could squat 50-60 hoisted atop my shoulderblades. Since I'm picking back up the weightlifting habit after a long hiatus, it is only right to start with less weight. My legs are definitely my strong points.

Like I mentioned before, I am only following Jamie Eason's LiveFit Trainer loosely as a guide, so for leg days I pretty much have a variety of workouts I am seasoned in doing, and like to do. I no longer need a guide on how to train that part of me. Unfortunately, without gym equipment, I was not able to do leg presses, but below is a guide of what I accomplished with my little guy sitting above me as a cute, cooperative weight:

Squats - 3-45X12
Lunges - 45X10, 45X10, 450X8
Hip thrusts - 3-45X10
Standing calf raises 3-45X10

To describe this in a few words, these workouts were gruesome. If you are a man scoffing at me right now that I only squatted 45 pounds, GTFO right now. It may not seem much for legs, but I needed to do a weight that I could repeat in numerous exercises, with multiple sets containing  8-12 repetitions. I am going for hypertrophy, real results, not some show-off game of who can hit the heaviest steel. You try doing it, put a child of considerable weight on your shoulders and do this. I wanted to do more, but my legs grew wobbly and unsteady, and for the sake of everyone's safety, I stopped.

It must have been very hard work anyway, because I have been very sore for 2 days and have been doing the trademark penguin walk that comes when you push extra hard on leg day. Stairs hurt like a B. I am grateful for "rest days." LEG DAY IS SERIOUS BUSINESS, FOLKS. It is not for the faint of heart, or the weak, or for the lazy. I respect all of you out there who train the crap out of your legs.

Boromir is right

As for diet updates, since this day, and since I have started exercising again, my appetite has grown voraciously. I can no longer go by with 5 meals a day, I have to make them 6 now. I really can't wait to get my food scale in the mail so I can start perfecting my nutritional intake.

It has only been a week, and Phase 1's Week 2 is about to start, yet I am irrationally impatient that I am not seeing results. Yes, you guys can call me crazy. You guys can tell me I'm being ridiculous. I know I am. It's only been a week. And not doing any form of cardio is not helping that botched mentality either. I just keep reminding myself that with patience and discipline comes reward. I see girls with perfect bodies without even trying, and I admit it still gives me a pang of envy when I see them, because I have to work so hard just to be in a healthy shape. Thanks to genes, unfortunately, If I were to not work out, weight train, or eat healthy, my body would revert to a state of blob. The women in my family are not shapely at all, they are just shapes. And that is majorly attributed to their poor lifestyle choices.

So, as you can see, I still have days where I nitpick my body, and not like what I see in the mirror. I am working on this every day. This nitpicking usually happens when I see other girls. It is a confession that is slightly difficult to accept about myself, but it is truth, so it must be told. On a positive note, I am becoming stronger inside day by day, even if by just a little sliver. Worthwhile progress never occurs just overnight.

Quick update before tomorrow's post!

hi everyone, i just want to inform you that i do not have computervdesktop access on the weekends, hence the crappy mobile status updates. i am still pursuing my fitness goals and i am still being diligent about eating my meals and completing my workouts. i unfortunately did not get to work my shoulders this week, and my meal timing on the weekends have gotten thrown off. but tomorrow, i will write in detail how i managed to crunch in my workouts while having a hectic life, completing leg day without gym equipment, and other things that came up this week. i will enjoy two days of rest to give my muscles time to grow, then resume with phase two on tuesday.. yaaay. :) stay tuned

Sick. AGAIN.

disclaimer, i am typing from my mobile and its not letting me use symbols, or capitalize my sentences.. or start a n.ew paragraph for that matter. shit... well anyway, i just wanted to update on my progress. i am sick again, this will be the third time this winter. i really need to keep up on my meals and get legs, shoulders, and abs done by sunday. but i guess when youre sick with possibly another flu, youre not supposed to trai n. http://bodybuilding.about.com/od/injurypreventiontreatment/a/trainwhensick.htm im upset about this, because i want nothing more than to move forward. im just very upset in general. hope the next post is much more informative..

Why are you doing this, Jen?

I have yet to take some real "Before" shots, but this is the last of me from 2012. Many will tell me that I am not fat, which is true, I'm not fat at all. And that is definitely not what this is about.

You see, I grew up all my life being force-fed very negative things about myself. I won't mention any names, but those who know me know who I'm talking about. Despite being a nice kid, and being very smart, enthusiastic, and studious in school, there was not one moment of any day where someone wasn't talking smack to or about me. Being made fun of was part of the repertoire, so to say. Jenina is ugly. Jenina is chunky. Jenina is plain-faced and is a dork. Jenina's too smart for her own good. Jenina is a nerd, Jenina is too short. Blah, blah, blah. I was always an outcast - and, while blessed with a few friends here and there, I mostly felt comfortable only in my own company. I was the only one who could live with my strange interests and my quirky tendencies.

But when you're a little child, and you're hearing from everyone around you how horrible you are, you feel bad. You tend to believe them. I cried a lot. I still excelled in school, but I started to see no point in it. Instead of socializing with others, I kept to myself to prevent others from having to deal with the blister of an existence that was me. Needless to say, my childhood sucked.

So let's fast-forward to my teens. I was still getting trampled on by these stupid people. Some family, some I considered my friends, some people who didn't even know who the hell I was. My mom always pointed out every "physical defect" I had - my face, my stomach, my little boobs, etc. It didn't help that I was thrown into a high school in a brand-new neighborhood. And the neighborhood was infested with rich brats and really physically conscious snobs. I was further alienated! At this point, my self-esteem was at an all-time low. I got into a bad crowd. I got involved with people that further eroded what little confidence I had. (And it took a long time and a few lessons to get rid of those people, might I add.)

With that said, my life was one big ball of self-hatred, confusion, sadness, and really poisonous people. It was always so hard for me to say anything good about myself, because in the past people would be quick to correct me. But one thing's for certain, I am and always have been a nice, loving person, who definitely did not deserve any of this.

But now, and for a very long time now, I have gotten sick of feeling sorry for myself. I have gotten fed up with letting others trample me. The hell, I have many good qualities! And I shouldn't be afraid to speak up and be proud of them! That warrants an entirely separate post though.. These days, I've developed a "F*CK YOU" attitude and this year I'm really beginning to embrace it. If people want to leave my life, or betray me, or treat me poorly, then they can get out. I will not try to keep you in my life if you do not want to be part of it. I will not fight to keep you if you are sabotaging my life and/or hurting my feelings deliberately, or acting in such a selfish manner as to negatively impact me.

I've been putting it off for the longest time due to fear, anxiety, and worry. But now, I'm ready to be confident, I'm ready to reclaim myself and embrace what makes me, me. I'm ready to push myself to limits I have never before crossed, and just become better at anything and everything. Because that is how I thrive. No longer will I rely on other people or their shallow, petty opinions. No longer will I cry over those who did not deserve my time in the first place. I have spent the 2 decades of my life worrying about others, always shoving myself off to the side. But this time, for my sake and those I love around me, I need to love myself. The real me needs to come out.

And all this, what I am setting out to accomplish and do, this is what empowers me.

Phase 1/Day 1 - Chest/Triceps

So far so good. I am proud to say I did it. I was almost tempted not to go to the gym, but I just told myself to go do it anyway. The only reason for that was, work was so damn long and I am so tired after every boring day, and by the time I get out it looks so gross and dreary outside. But I did it. Go me.

I ate all my meals. I felt like I was going to burst though, with all the water I was drinking. I had to get up to go to the bathroom every 10 minutes. But the benefit of that, I find, is that this morning and the whole day today I have no bloat.

All but one of my meals consisted of turkey meatloaf muffins, broccoli and brown rice. I just eyed the proportions, and I will be eyeing them until I get my food scale in the mail. For dinner, my boyfriend and I had pork tenderloin, which was so rewarding after a long day of eating the same thing 4 times during the day.
I also realized that I'm coming down with yet another cold. My apartment is so damn cold, and I guess we found out that it is only our apartment that is suffering in the heat department, due to faulty radiators or something. Every day I'm freezing, to the point of immobility, then I go jump in a scalding hot shower and go back out into the 60 -degree apartment. F**K THAT, no wonder I'm sick!! I'm stuffy and sneezing.. AGAIN... but it's not bad enough to stop me from going to the gym.

And when I did go to the gym, I saw a woman wearing an INBA tank top. She had what looked like a posing coach AND a personal trainer by her side, guiding her every step of the way. So, I thought, she will be competing too. And guessing from the top, she has probably competed before. I wonder if I'll see her on competition day. But seeing her showed me just one example of the type of competitors out there. This woman was mixed-race, 6 feet tall, obviously augmented in the front, and already in perfect shape. I mean, this lady had the whole T & A thing going. And to think I'm doing this all by myself. No coach, no trainer, no implants.. total newbie. I must have looked like a child compared to her. It was kind of daunting to think about, but surprisingly I wasn't all that bothered by it. We wouldn't be judged in the same class anyway, seeing as I'm a whole foot shorter than her. It kinda makes me a little proud of myself that I am undertaking this process almost entirely by myself, without paid help. That fact alone will just attest to my dedication and hard work on that special day.

As for the workouts, I had a total of 6 exercised to complete. 3X12 of each, but since the gym was busy as hell last night & a lot of weights were being used (and there were assholes hogging certain stations), I had to use heavier weights for some exercises, so their reps were smaller. The following sets are written in this format - [WEIGHT (LBS) X REPETITIONS]:

1. Wide pushup 3-12 (bodyweight only)
2. Dumbbell bench press 15X10, 15X8, 15X12
3. Flat bench cable flyes 15X7, 15X7, 15X7
4. Overhead triceps dumbbell extension 15X10, 15X10, 15X10
5. Triceps pushdowns 20X12, 20X12, 20X12
6. Narrow pushups (did not do, too sore & wobbly at the end of all above heavy reps)

I'm not happy that my body wasn't able to do that final exercise, but I also didn't want to overtrain. Besides, if I tried to do a narrow pushup I think I would have fallen and crushed my hands. It was that bad. It also did not help that a lighter weight was unavailable to me at the time. And the only reason I completed those workouts at higher weight/lower rep format is because I already have previous experience with weight training, so lifting heavy is not unfamiliar terrain for my body. It just got kicked in the ass, reawakened, reminded that it used to lift all these heavy things before.

I went home and I could barely lift my arms up. Driving was very shaky and my muscles twitched every time I used them. On a good note, the gym must have had good lighting because I noticed how nicely my body maintained its muscles during my post-surgery (precancerous cervical cells) 7-month hiatus. Last year I weight trained/did cardio/ate healthy for 3-5 months from March-May, and had to stop for the aforementioned reason, and never quite got back into it until this year. But I was able to maintain a good amount of muscle I had built, for my triceps were visible, my biceps remained sturdy, and I could see hints of my arm muscles moving under my skin as I lifted. It was a good feeling, and I cannot wait until I get deeper into my phases and begin cutting/cardio because that will only uncover all the beautiful muscle I worked hard to build. :-)

I gotta clock back in, but this is the sum of my first day. I'm currently on Day 2 and so far this day has been majorly trying my patience and sanity, not to mention there is so much crap to do today, so I hope (no, i NEED) to fit in my back/bicep workout in sometime today.

Oh, and on another note, my best friend has asked me to help construct a nutritional plan for him. He has good fitness goals for this year as well, and I will help him every step of the way. :-)

Peace out!

I FOUND IT!!

I believe I have found the place to compete:

2013 INBA NATURAL UNIVERSE
Chicago, IL | August 31, 2013

This makes me so freaking scared now!! Truth be told, I am shaking right now. I am going to register as soon as I come up with the money. I will compete in the Bikini division. AAAH!!!! Why am I insane enough to wanna do this again? Gah!! Just finding the competition event just makes it all the more REAL now. So, very, real.

I am panicking, but this just means that I have about 8 months to prep.. which is great! This also means I have to get into overdrive... and every day must count. STARTING TODAY. I've already eating Meal #1, and #2 is going to be consumed at 10:15 AM. Then #3 at 1:15PM, then gym time at 3:45!!!!, then meal #4 at 4:30 or as soon as I get home. Then meal #5 @ 7pm. Tomorrow I will eat as soon as I wake up so I don't end up eating so close to my bedtime.

Guys, this is f**king scary. I am insane, I am insane, I am completely and utterly insane.

..SO IT BEGINS!

I was going to start on JAN 1st, but I should have known better. I went to a small house party with my boyfriend, my best friend & his girlfriend, thinking that I was only going to have a drink or two.. hell, I even mentioned it on here (I think) that I was only going to drink a few. Well, the small house party turned out to be armed with more liquor than I thought. And people who, while very nice, were very competitive and... encouraging... drinkers. Hell, the first 3 drinks alone [on my part at least] consisted of Irish car bombs. And I was already drunk within the first hour of being there, at 9pm. So yeah, one thing led to another, and 4-5 Coronas, some dozen shots of rum and whatever else was given to me, 3 rounds of very aggressive Flippy Cup, and some champagne at the end of the night... I can't remember it in order! It was that kind of night. At least the night ended in tamales...

But the next morning, the first day of the new year, I was still slightly drunk and majorly hungover. All the events of the previous night came flooding in like some bad flash-back-filled teen party movie. And I dry-heaved twice and swallowed some mouthwash by accident (your gag reflex tends to be messed up after all that toilet non-fun). It was NOT good. But it taught me something, and demonstrated well: I'M NOT GOING TO DO THAT EVER AGAIN. I'm 23, and not getting younger, and will no longer bounce back from a night of heavy drinking as I used to when I was 21 or younger.

Most importantly, I have gotten those days out of my system. It is now time to have my head on straight and focus, focus, focus. Time for new changes. New, GOOD changes.

So far, it's still extremely difficult to get up at 5 in the morning. I have to do it for work every day, but that doesn't help me get used to it. It's cold in my apartment (the bathroom window was covered in ice!! DAFUQ!), I don't wanna leave the warmth, I hit the snooze frequently, and my boyfriend begins to cuddle me in his deep slumber, which makes it almost impossible to leave bed. If it wasn't for my sense of duty and responsibility, I would have been out of a job long time ago due to the sheer fact that I HATE GETTING UP BEFORE 8AM.

I did have enough time this morning to start the car, get my kid ready for school (he's sooooooooo slow to get ready, lol) and prep the majority of my meals for the day. 4 tupperware containers, all containing turkey meatloaf muffins, brown rice, and broccoli. I also packed my gym clothes and shoes. Gotta prepare, it saves so much crisis and time lost in the end!!!

I am loosely following the structure of Jamie Eason's LiveFit Trainer for ease of tracking. I have created my own nutrition guide based specifically on my macros, but I will do the workouts based on the training split she has laid out, and even add some of my own preference. For instance, I will add glute-specific exercises. Because believe it or not, just training with squats and lunges is not really going to activate your glute muscles primarily, but your legs will be ripped as hell. Just ask Bret Contreras if you must doubt.

Today is also my Day 1 of Phase 1. Which means I am going to work my chest and triceps. These will consist of various 3x12 sets using weights. I am to do NO cardio during this phase, which will be weird, because as a woman of today's society, it is drilled in our heads that we somehow have to run (and run only) to get in shape. So hopefully this will change my mindset on that stupid myth. Besides, I hate running like a hamster on the treadmill.

I'm checking out for now, but this is only the beginning! So you will see more of me in the future. Figuratively, and literally. :-)