Off-day post. Only slightly tangentially related to any of the stated topics of this blog.

I am attending a 90 minute lecture on post-grad loan management this afternoon. I'm expecting to graduate with a (quite frankly terrifyingly) large amount of student loans. Going into physical therapy was always about changing my quality of life for the better and being able to do something that I love every day instead of something I found torturous and terrible (sitting at a desk answering emails and attending endless meetings) and never about the money, which is something I definitely need to keep in mind for the next few years as I try to tackle this mountain of debt. I am hoping to get some guidance in this lecture on which of two debt-paying plans I should pursue: 1) pay it all off as quickly as possible by taking whatever PT job pays the most and continuing to live like a student (though let's be real, I live pretty well for a student, so would probably need to make some adjustments in my spending if this is really my plan) or, 2) accept the fact that student loan debt is a part of life and make the minimum payments needed to stay in good standing but with the idea that I'll be paying it off for the next 25-30 years or however long it takes.

Quite frankly, option number 2 makes me slightly nauseous as I hate the feeling of being in debt and being committed to making a steady salary just in order to stay ahead of my loans/debt (I mean, what if I decide I want to take some time and go work on a farm in Costa Rica and make no money and pursue non-material wisdom and happiness, or something like that . . .)

Regardless of the debt-reduction method I decide to pursue, with the upcoming arrival of my first paycheck in over two years (I get PAID for my upcoming year-long clinical - whoo hoo!), I do want to start being a bit better about my spending. So, with that in mind I have made this list of Things I Am Definitely NOT Allowed To Buy Any More Of For The Foreseeable Future:

1. Sneakers (I have 5 pairs of gym-specific sneakers, 3 pairs of non-gym sneakers that are decent-looking and 4 pairs of kick-around/beat-up/commuting on my bike sneakers. Yeah.)
2. Workout clothes (Until I wear some out and have to throw them away because they're falling apart, I really cannot justify continuing to buy gear to get sweaty in.)
3. Headbands (Same as above.)
4. Regular clothes (I went on an appropriate and needed shopping spree this summer but I need to actually wear all the clothes I bought before I continue to add new ones.)
5. Gluten-free carby snacks for post-workout (until I eat through my current stash, which at 50g carb/post-workout snack will take a while.)
6. Compression clothing for recovery (I now own three compression shirts and two pairs of leggings. It is unusual, though not impossible, to wear more than one at a time, so really, I have enough.)

Training: Off. Because I'm at school from 7:45am - 7:30pm.

Intellectual Laziness

I have a bad habit of being intellectually lazy at the gym. When something starts to hurt (usually my knees but also sometimes my shoulder or back) I tend to immediately 1) panic, 2) panic some more, 3) tell Chris about it in excruciating detail hoping for a magic answer to make it go away, and 4) continue panicking. It's very productive.

Today was deload squat day, and I was a little apprehensive going in since my left knee has been bothering me since my squat session last week when I was frustrated, not moving the weight well and fully aware that my mechanics sucked. I've been able to bodyweight squat past 90 degrees for the past couple days without pain, but when I started squatting this morning with just the bar on my back, my left knee immediately started hurting as I came up from the the bottom of each squat. I spent some time watching my form in the mirror (they are helpful at times) and could see I was having trouble distributing my weight evenly, tending to shift to the right at the bottom of each squat with my left leg taking less weight and also rotating in. I took a video of myself from behind (I love my iPhone for making this so easy) and it told me the same thing, basically that my left glute wasn't firing and my left tibia was rotating in every time I came out of the hole. This is all pretty easy analysis, especially since I've spent the last two years in PT school and biomechanics are (or at least should be) our bread and butter, and I've also spent the last 20 months training with Chris almost every week applying those biomechanics and learning a bajillion other cool tips and tricks on top of that.

Chris had given me a mini-band to wear around my knees while squatting to help work on firing my glutes more and keeping my knees out. Surprise, surprise, with the addition of the mini-band and extra concentration on driving and keeping my knees out at the bottom of each squat, I was able to squat the bar pain-free, and eventually work up to 155#x5 pause squats, with a 2-3 second hold at the bottom of each squat. Pause squats are, in my estimation, 583% harder than regular squats, so I was pretty pleased with this result.

Though I continue to be really bummed about Chris and Emily moving to Providence, I do hope that it will help make me more of my own coach in the gym, and encourage/force me to actually apply all the PT-school and training knowledge I have accumulated over the past couple years.

Training:
Squat: 7x5 sets of pause squats working up to 2 sets at 155#x5, supersetted with core stability work
Accessory: modified pistol squats and snatch grip deads
Finishers: kettlebell complex and jump rope

Deload Week Again

It's deload week! Considering I slept in recovery compression gear Sunday night because I still felt sore from lifting on Saturday, it's probably a good thing it's here. I deload my lifting every 4th week with the 5-3-1 plan, meaning that I don't go above 65-75% of my 1 rep max for my main lifts (bench, squat, dead, overhead press/split-jerk) and I drop my accessory exercise weights by 20%.

When deload week rolls around, I am often tempted to skip it, or to not really do a full deload because it always seems like maybe I can just push through and keep adding weight/progressing without the deload. This is, of course, dumb. And also reason number one-million-and-sixty-three that I am happy that Chris writes my programming instead of me, because I would probably have myself deadlifting 3 days a week and deloading every three months for about two days. It would be terrible.

So, as usual on deload week, even though the weights were lighter, they still felt pretty heavy because, as usual on deload week, I am a bit tired and beat up from three weeks of heavy training, even if I don't want to admit it to myself. But it was a good day all in all. I couldn't row on the erg again because my knee is still acting up, so I finished with 100 kettlebell swings with a 16kg bell. It did the trick.

Training:
Warmup: Is, Ts, Ys
Split Jerk: 6 easy sets working up to 72#x5, supersetted with inverted rows
Accessory work: bench pressing and single-arm rows, floor pressing and mid-back work
Finisher: Kettlebell fun.

But what do you eat for breakfast?

I think that's the most common question I get after people hear that I eat 2-3 cups of vegetables and 3-7 ounces of protein at every meal and currently am not eating dairy or gluten, which takes away my Greek yogurt/oatmeal standby breakfast I loved so dearly.  Sometimes the answer to that question is something decidely non-breakfasty, like quinoa salad or chicken breast with hummus and a side of veggies. But it IS possible to eat very breakfasty things on this nutrition plan, and currently this is one of my favorites. It's super easy, very flexible/adaptable and delicious.

Zucchini (Or Any Vegetable You Want) Egg Scramble

Ingredients:

• 1 small onion, roughly chopped 
• 1-2 cloves garlic, diced (totally optional, I tend to add garlic to everything)
• 1 zucchini, roughly chopped into bite size pieces 
• 1-2 eggs and 4-6 egg whites (I like the cage-free egg whites in a carton from Trader Joe'), roughly blended together in a bowl (I use a fork and just try to incorporate the egg yolks and white together)
• salt and pepper
• salad greens

Recipe:

• Saute onion and garlic in a nonstick pan over medium heat with a little bit of olive oil, coconut oil or chicken/veggie broth until the onion is a little soft (the last is a good option if you are watching your fat intake, or want to spend that fat intake on more delicious things like homemade pesto!)
• Throw in your chopped zucchini and cook until beginning to soften, about 3-5 minutes (I like mine with a little crunch left in it, but you can cook it all the way down til it's very soft if you prefer.)
• Toss in your egg mix and salt and pepper, stir occasionally with a spatula, scraping up the browned egg bits and letting uncooked egg hit the hot pan to cook. (You can take an omelet approach here and let the eggs sit and cook basically all the way through without touching them, or do what I do and make more of an egg/zucchini scramble. Both work and both are delicious!)
• Serve over a big plate of salad greens (I like to squeeze a little lemon and sprinkle some kosher salt over my greens, but this is not necessary.)
• EAT.

I do not know how to photograph pesto so that it looks like anything besides clumpy green-ness, but trust me, it was tasty.

Notes

• This is delicious on its own or topped with fresh herbs (basil, dill, cilantro), fresh sliced tomato, salsa, or pesto (as pictured, recipe below.)
• You can use pretty much any vegetable you like, or combination of vegetables, I am using zucchini these days because it's that time of year, and I love zucchini in every possible form. Your cooking time might change a little depending on your vegetable, but basically just cook the veg to the texture you like to eat it, as the eggs take about a minute to cook total once they hit the pan.

Rachel's Mom's Easy Pesto Recipe:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups (firmly packed) basil leaves
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 4 TB pinenuts or walnuts
• 1/4-1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil (just depends how oily you like your pesto)
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan (totally optional)

Recipe:

• Combine all ingredients in a food processor and process the crap out of them until you have pesto! You can taste and adjust salt/pepper/garlic/olive oil as needed.
• Makes about 1/2-3/4 cup pesto depending on how much basil you packed into those 2 cups you started with.

No expectations.

It was deadlift day today, and even though I am not currently using 5-3-1 for my deadlift because I'm still getting used to my new form, I knew that I still wanted to try to test my 1 rep max or get close to it. I know that getting my weight total back up will take time, but as with all things lifting-related I tend to get a little impatient.

As a sort-of compromise for myself, I figured I could test my 1RM as long as I went in with no expectations. I have recently started attending meditation sessions at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center (as well as trying to sit for 5-10 minutes a day on my own), and last night got some excellent advice from one of the teachers there that I should sit with no expectations (so not expecting myself to be able to not have thoughts, or to be able to focus on my breath, or to "get" anything out of sitting.) I love this concept as it really helps move me away from the achievement-orientation that pretty much guides everything else in my life.

I figured the same concept might work well today with my deadlift 1RM and it did. Last week I got 221#x1 with a lot of difficulty and questionable form, but today I was able to get 221#x2 and 236# for two singles, all of which felt good. Throughout my lifting I tried to just focus on the current set, rather than planning out the next 3 or 4 and how much weight to add for each one and whether I'd be able to get them and if not then what I would do, etc, etc, etc, path to crazy-town.

Training today:
Kettlebell "warmup" (I don't know if it still counts as a warmup if it's 200 reps in total and I've already sweat through my headband and my heart is pounding when I'm done.)
Deadlift: 133x3; 155x3,3; 177x3,3; 199x3,3; 209#x3; 221#x2, 236#1,1
Single leg squat work (without knee pain! Whoo hoo!)
Totally bailed on uphill treadmill sprints because I was TIRED and also didn't want to push my luck too hard with my L knee still acting up randomly and also because they are terrible, obviously.

Almond Butter Banana Pancakes

On my current nutrition plan I get one off-plan meal a week, when I can eat essentially whatever I want. The general guidelines are that it needs to be eaten within 60-90 minutes and should not be a gigantic binge, but instead a nice break from my regular structure and a chance to have something I'm craving. The purpose of the off-plan meal is to increase compliance with the rest of my plan, and also allow for life to happen (nice dinners out, birthdays, parties, etc are all great ways to use an off-plan meal.) I like having this flexibility in my plan and hoped I could manage myself well, but my first couple off-plan meals both involved A LOT of ice cream and both dairy and gluten (neither of which I am currently eating regularly) and the last one was definitely more of a free-for-all binge than a meal per se.

Falling into the I-can-eat-whatever-I-want-but-just-for-a-little-bit-so-OMG-imma-eat-everything-I-can-imagine-and-then-some-and-then-some-more trap is a potential hazard of having an off-plan meal in the first place, and also something that after my first couple attempts at it I knew I'd need to be better at avoiding. This week rather than torture my digestive system with dairy and gluten and repeat my bad habits from previous weeks, I decided to satisfy a pancake craving I've been having and at the same time keep my off-plan meal to just a meal, no more and no less.

These pancakes from Carrots 'n Cake fit the bill perfectly. I basically made them exactly as she does, but my explicit pancake cooking instructions are below, because this is pretty much the first time I have ever made pancakes successfully and perhaps I am not the only one who has struggled?

Ingredients:

• 3 bananas (the riper the better)
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 cup almond butter
• 1/4 cup almond flour (any flour works here)
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 - 1 tsp cinnamon (my addition, I think everything is better with cinnamon)

Recipe:

1. Blend the bananas, eggs, almond butter and almond flour in a food processor or with a stick blender (what I used) or in a regular mixer (you could also do it by hand, but mashing up the bananas and getting the almond butter incorporated will take A LOT of mixing.)
2. Heat up your nonstick pan or griddle over medium heat (I think this is why these pancakes were successful for me, non-stick is magic, especially if you don't want to use any extra butter/oils.)
3. Blend in the baking powder, vanilla and cinnamon (I like to add these at the very end because as soon as the baking powder hits the batter it starts to bubble and you want to get cooking ASAP once that action begins.)
4. Scoop 1/3 cup of pancake batter at a time onto your griddle or nonstick pan.
5. Let cook until there are lots of little bubbles visible on the pancake (3-ish minutes depending on how hot the pan is, when in doubt keep it lower then your pancakes won't burn.)
6. Flip and cook for 1-2 minutes on the other side. (If your pancakes are resisting flipping, they probably are not ready yet, so give them another minute. If they are burnt before they are flippable, turn your heat down.)
7. Continue process with remaining batter and then CHOW DOWN.

I got 10-ish small pancakes out of this recipe, and yes, I ate them all. Next time I should probably make a half or 2/3 recipe for my off-plan meal, or share some, but it's a work in progress and they were delicious.

I ate a couple with almond butter and jelly and the rest with strawberries, whipped cream (just a little bit of dairy . . .) and maple syrup. OMGAMAZING.

On strength

This trainer/weight-lifter/writer, Alexander Cortes, over at elitefts.com, has written several articles that really speak to me as a woman powerlifter. He writes frequently and passionately about how important it is for women to train for strength, not to achieve an absurd (and likely unachievable) ideal of what female beauty is supposed to be. It's the "train because you love your body, not because you hate it," idea with a heavy-weight-training emphasis, so obviously I am a fan.

My favorite piece of his is this one "Women - Be More Not Less."

His most recent article was also good, my favorite part is excerpted below, you can read the whole thing here. 

And everyone starts at the same place—with an unloaded bar. You decide how much you’ll add to it.

Beyond the physical benefits, strength becomes entirely mental. How far, how hard, and how long you progress is a personal process that makes anyone, man or woman, a tougher and more complete human being. You can’t be mentally strong and physically weak just as you can’t be mentally weak and physically strong. At a certain point, these two qualities will intersect and intertwine with each other. They will become the same path and the same process. Absolutely none of this is dependent on whether you have a Y or double X chromosome. That doesn’t matter. It’s never mattered, and it never will matter.

Physical strength is born in the mind and achieved through the body. Man or woman, we all have the means to possess it. We all have the means to build it, and we all can come to know it. Strength is a human right, so claim it.

__________________

Strict Press Set. Mostly here to show off my color-coordinated self.

Positives about training today:
1) I hit my 1 rep max with a split jerk of 104#x2 and followed it up with another single.
2) I sported a coordinated red headband/tank top/BRIGHT red shoes outfit. This always makes me feel good.
3) I added 5# to my last four sets of speed bench so the complete set ended up being 105#x3x4 and 110#x3x4. And I squeezed out a 4th rep on my last set, which felt great. Considering that my competition max on bench is 105# I am taking this as excellent progress.
4) New post-workout snack - Glutino's strawberry toaster pastry. (terrible brand name, delicious product) It. Was. Delicious.

This trap shot is for Eric.

Negatives:
1) My knee valgus on my heavy split jerks is horrendous. I have been hitting my glutes and glut med hard for a while, but my mechanics under heavy load are still pretty embarrassing in terms of how much my knees fall in and how spazzy I look. Yet another sign I suppose that Olympic lifting is not in my future.
2) I effed up my left knee. I think during my not-so-great squat session on Tuesday. It hurts coming up from a body weight squat and with any sort of loaded movement not in a completely straight plane. It hurt enough to keep me off the erg for my finisher today (which, admittedly, was sort of ok with me.) It feels a lot like what happened to my right knee last fall, and that sucked and lasted for weeks and weeks, so I am hoping maybe this is different/will go away faster. Time will tell, until then I have to be a little smarter about my mechanics. Boo.

Positives: 4 vs. Negatives: 2 = WIN.

Super Spicy Raw Kale Salad

Kale is one of those "super foods" that I have read about why I should eat so many times that I just do, even though I can't remember it's specific health benefits. It also shows up in my CSA a lot so that helps too. I often saute it with some onions and garlic, and there are some killer cheesy kale lasagna recipes out there, but in the summer I love this recipe because it does not involve turning on the oven or stove and it comes together in less than 5 minutes (especially if you buy chopped up kale in bags from Trader Joe's.)

The first version of this recipe I tried was from Eric Cressey's website (yup, a strength and conditioning coach), but I like the quantities listed below better than his original version. It's also nice with some olive oil but totally not necessary if you are watching your fat intake/calorie count.

Ingredients:

• 10-16 oz kale, roughly chopped, thick stems removed (you can include or omit the thinner stems, I like the crunch but they can be tougher to chew through)
• 4 TB balsamic vinegar
• 2 TB dijon mustard
• 1 tsp crushed red pepper
• 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• Optional: 1-2TB extra virgin olive oil

Recipe:

• Put chopped kale into a large bowl.
• Whisk together vinegar, mustard, peppers and salt (and olive oil if using.)
• Pour over kale and massage into leaves with your hands (this is the fun part!) for 1-3 minutes. Really work the dressing into the leaves and don't be afraid to squeeze them and break up the kale some more; as you do so your giant mound of kale will reduce in size and increase in deliciousness exponentially.
• Let sit in the fridge for several hours to several days - the longer it sits the more the vinegar "cooks" the kale leaves and the tenderer they get!

Notes:

• This is very spicy, so if you like less spice cut both peppers in half.
• I am sure this would work well with other vinegars and seasonings, experiment and have fun!

P.s. In case you're curious, I googled why kale is so good for us, here are some awesome kale facts, courtesy of WebMD:

• It's part of the cruciferous family which also includes cabbage, collards, broccoli and brussel sprouts (which, come to think of it are all sort of super-foods.)
• One cup of chopped kale has:
• 206% RDA vitamin A
• 134% RDA vitamin C
• 684% RDA vitamin K
• It's a good source of copper, potassium, phosphorus, iron and manganese
• Fiber content helps bind to bile acids and lower blood cholesterol and reduce risk of heart disease (kale is better at this when cooked.)

Keeping perspective

Keeping perspective is a constant struggle for me. Part of it is the desire to always be improving, which is one of the things I love about weight training and power lifting. Up until a point that most people don't achieve (because it's almost impossible without dedicating yourself exclusively to training 24-7), it is always possible to lift more weight if you put in enough work. That constant possibility of progress is like a prize just slightly out of reach, something to always keep striving for. Although this same thought process makes it difficult at times for me to be happy with my own progress, because it's never quite enough to satisfy me, I think in general it's a fine and healthy attitude to have regarding weight in the gym, as constantly striving to lift more is part of the point.

This constant striving gets trickier though when applied to scale weight. For one, it's not desirable or practical to always be trying for a lower scale weight. Although this was my standard measure of progress for many years (and appropriately so for a long time), at this point it's not terribly helpful and mostly serves as a way to make me feel worse about myself. I realized recently that I will probably never reach my old goal weight of 175#. I don't even remember where I got that number from, but it's always been in my head as my "perfect weight." Perfect for what, I'm not sure. I know at this point it would be far from perfect for my ability to lift heavy and train hard, as to achieve and maintain that body weight I would either have to drop muscle mass or get to such a low body fat percentage that I wouldn't be able to eat enough to have enough energy to lift heavy.

A lot of this reflection was prompted by looking at progress pictures from earlier this year, about a month before my comp, when I was at 190# and still feeling pretty good (though certainly dieting hard.) I remember at the time not being that impressed, all I could see was my saggy belly and floppy arms. Looking at them now, I can see that I looked good. Yes, I have some extra floppy skin from a decade+ of being obese, but I was also lean and looked strong and fit. I remember clearly thinking that I was still fat and being discouraged by that as 190# seemed pretty good to me scale-weight-wise. I know now that it is pretty good, and I wish I had felt better about myself and my progress at the time as perhaps it would have prevented some of my post-comp binge eating (which was, in part, due to the fact that I "didn't even look that good so what was the point." So. Dumb.)

I have been really down on myself recently for gaining so much weight post-comp. I am sitting around 208# these days. I haven't hit this high a scale weight since January 2012, and that sucks. What I need to keep reminding myself is though, that 1) there's a lot more muscle in that 208# now than there was in January 2012, 2) 208# is still an incredible achievement coming from 300#, and 3) I will get back to my "happy weight" of 195# or thereabouts in due time. I say it was "easy" to put so much weight back on post-comp, but in reality, I did a lot of seriously crappy eating and serious self-hating for that crappy eating over those few months. There wasn't much "easy" about it.

___________


Training today was a good reminder of the importance of perspective. My heaviest lift of the day was supposed to be a 221# squat for 1 or more reps, but on the set before which should have been 197# for 3 I failed on the 2nd rep. I re-racked the weight and failed again. This. Was. Frustrating. Laying on the gym floor post-fail I considered crying but then figured my time and energy would be better spent getting whatever strength training I had left out of my legs (my stupid, stupid legs which would not squat for me!!) I texted Chris to ask his advice and he recommended singles at a slightly lighter weight, which I was able to do at 177# for 5 reps.

Getting back to the apartment today and checking out my newly created progress calendar-tracker-thing which sits above my desk and where I record my max lifts each week, it was comforting to see that two weeks ago I hit 195# for 5 and last week I got 197# for 3. I know I am not suddenly dramatically weaker than last week, but am probably instead feeling the cumulative effects of a long weekend without a lot of sleep, three weeks of a pretty intense new training program and honestly probably still adjusting to my new nutrition plan (though I think this is probably affecting me the least of the three.)

At this moment still working hard to keep that all-important perspective. And I'm definitely looking forward to drop-in meditation class tonight.

x1 week

It's my x1 week this week on the 5-3-1 plan, meaning I am trying to hit my heaviest weights this cycle for single reps or more. I love x1 week because it can show how much progress I have made over the past month, but it can also be a bit of a heartbreaker.

This morning was bench day, and I went in feeling good. My form felt on, I think I have developed a solid pre-lift routine and am able to stick to it easily and it helps set me up with a tight back and decent amount of leg drive. 100#x5 went up pretty easily, 115#x3 required a little more effort, but I still felt good. Eric showed up in time to spot me on 115# and 130#, which was good because 130# wouldn't budge off my chest. My butt came off the bench and I still couldn't get it moving, so Eric had to help me pretty much the whole way up. I followed that fail up with a very slow eccentric to at least get myself adjusted to the weight, and that actually went better as I was able to control it the whole way down, even the last few inches before it hit my chest. Still, I am bummed to not be able to record 130#x1 in my book.

Training:
Warm-up: Landmine press and band pull-aparts
Main lift: Bench and cable rows
Accessory: Band chin-ups and triceps work.

Weekend recap

I've read a lot about the cumulative effect of healthy, positive choices, and specifically how over time a pattern of choosing to do the healthy thing actually will make it easier to make that choice again in the future. I feel like I am experiencing this effect in a very real way this weekend, and I am really enjoying it.

Willpower research indicates that the more decisions you make of one kind (healthy or not), the easier it is to continue to make those same decisions or kinds of decisions. Essentially, your brain likes patterns and pathways and will fire off neurons more easily in previously known/decided-on pathways.  (If you're interested in reading more about willpower and cool neuroscience and psychology research explained a lot better than I did just now, Willpower: Rediscovering The Greatest Human Strength is a pretty great read, and entertaining too.)

(Side note #1: it is also true that it is challenging at first to make a lot of healthy decisions when you are very tempted by the unhealthy ones, and that exercising willpower to choose the healthy option actually does decrease your available willpower for subsequent decisions. This is one reason it's so helpful if you make the healthy choices the easy one to make. Once you are more in the habit of choosing the healthier option, the cumulative effect is supposed to kick in with a sort of snowball-effect.)

I just got back from an annual weekend-long lake house party with an incredible group of really amazing, wonderful human beings. This is the 11th year in a row that I've attending this friend-fest, and I feel incredibly fortunate to have this tradition in my life. That said, it has also been somewhat a source of anxiety for me for the past several years because it usually involves eating a lot of junk food, drinking a lot and generally trashing my body for a few days with not enough sleep, etc, etc.

This year I really wanted to be able to enjoy the weekend and connect with my friends and savor the relaxation and beauty of the party without ending it feeling bloated, gross and like a total failure for having spent 2-3 days directly counteracting all the hard work I usually put into my body keeping it strong and feeling good. I also didn't want to gain 5# in one weekend, which I have definitely done before (YAAAAAaaaayyyyyy . . . . not so much.)

Long story short, I went into this weekend with a specific plan from my nutrition coach (don't worry about meal timing and portions, just focus on eating protein and vegetables and some dietary fat, enjoy some drinks but try to make sure they're only consumed with protein/veg/fat because drinks+carbs = fat storage) and it worked out splendidly. Having some structure to guide me helped me eat well and not wanting to sleep terribly and wake up feeling worse gave me some incentive to moderate my alcohol consumption. It wasn't necessarily easy to change my behavior from previous years, but it also wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Keeping my own long-term goals in mind was definitely helpful throughout the weekend (i.e. would I rather eat that brownie or easily make my weigh-in for my October meet?)

I closed the weekend this morning by swimming across the lake and back with a couple friends, something I've always been too scared to do in previous years.  I think I was able to make that swim partly because I was feeling strong and empowered and confident from the previous two days worth of positive decisions (and also because I wasn't nursing a wicked hangover.) Since coming home I have enjoyed a totally moderate and reasonable planned "off-plan" meal and felt good doing it. In past years I would have binged my way through this evening, figuring I had eaten so terribly all weekend, what could one more evening of bad behavior do? The snowball effect of decisions definitely plays out in my life, and for now I am enjoying the positive side of that effect, rather than the negative.

(Final side note, I made these sweet potato fries from Joy the Baker as part of my meal this evening, using a touch of coconut oil spray instead of olive oil to cut down on the fat, and without the egg white because I am lazy like that sometimes. They were delicious.

Also, I ate them with ketchup, not the lovely yogurt/cumin sauce that Joy makes, because sometimes I am a culinary heathen like that.)

Worse than burpees

Well, Chris successfully programmed a finisher for me that is worse than burpees --> pullups in terms of making me want to die/throw-up/throw myself on the ground and have a temper tantrum because I feel like I'm breathing so hard my lungs are going to turn inside out. (Obviously, I love/hate this feeling in equal measure.)  Turns out 1/10 mile uphill treadmill sprints are actually worse than burpees. Who knew? In my program I am supposed to do 6-8 at a time, but today I managed 4. Each one was brutal, and I was only working at incline 7 and "sprinting" at 7-7.3mph (my flat treadmill sprints were climbing to 9-9.5 mph.) Fun.

Training today:

Warmup: Kettlebells

Deadlift: 8x3 sets of deadlifts. Max at 221#x1. Supposed to be hitting reps of 3 for all sets but my form was questionable on my single at 221# so I backed the weight back down and finished with a couple sets of 199#x3. All supersetted with core stability work.

Accessory: single-leg squats

Finisher: Uphill treadmill sprints. It doesn't get any more real.

Easy day

Training today felt good, and almost easy. Although by almost easy, I mean I was able to complete my entire program without thinking about whether or not I needed to shorten it in order to not completely fry myself for the rest of the week. Chris wrote me new programming last week and it is exactly on point for what I need right now (as per the usual), and also pretty intensely exhausting. Getting new programming is one of my favorite training times, but I always forget that even if the muscles/movements targeted by the exercises are similar to my old program, the newness of it takes some getting used to.

I think it helped that I was lifting with both Keith and Eric, so probably took longer rests between sets than I would usually, and I know my vanity/pride usually compels me to work extra hard when they're around, which maybe is why today felt easier.

But regardless of the reason, it was nice to have an "easy" day.

Training:
Warmup: Is, Ts, Ys
"Overhead Press": 6 sets of split-jerk working up to 99#x5. Strict OHP 65#x7.
(I popped myself in the chin with the bar on my second rep of my last split-jerk set, so was happy to be able to pull it together and finish the set.)
2 super-sets of accessory work: Speed bench and lat work; single-arm floor press and upper back work
Finisher: 1000m Erg

Jen's Cookie Dough Balls

These things are really delicious. Not just delicious with a caveat that they're all whole foods and gluten/dairy-free and full of good things and none bad (though all of that is true.)  They are just plain delicious.

This is the recipe from my nutrition coach's website. But I also copied the whole thing below with a couple notes on putting them together that I think make them extra good :)

Ingredients:

• 1 TB melted coconut oil
• 1 TB honey
• 1 scoop chocolate or vanilla protein powder
• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/4 cup nut butter (I used almond. YUM.)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• smidge of water to wetten the mixture
• 1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Recipe:

• Combine all ingredients except the chocolate chips in a food processor and process the crap out of them until you have a nice doughy consistency. (Note that your food processor has to be pretty strong to do this, if it is wimpy like mine, see variation below.)
• Stir in chocolate chips or pulse them in with your food processor if you don't mind some of them getting chopped up (which is actually a good thing, I think.)
• Form into 10 little balls and try not to eat them all at once.

Recipe for wimpy food processors:

• Put oats into food processor and pulse until they are ground up somewhat (not a total floury powder but chopped into smaller pieces with some amount of floury-ness)
• Add coconut oil, honey, protein powder, vanilla, water to ground up oats and blend until everything is combined nicely.
• Stir in nut butter forcefully by hand while wishing you had a real food processor that could do this for you.
• Stir in chocolate chips.
• Form into 10 little balls and try not to eat them all at once.

Macros (also from Jen's website):
Per ball: 4.7g protein, 9.9g carbs, 6.5g fat, 117 calories.

Patience and Belief (two things I need more of, in spades)

This morning at the gym was . . . important. It was squat day, and I was feeling good. Confident and well-fueled and positive about some tweaks I have made to my stance and generally feeling ready to hit my heaviest lift for the day, which was supposed to be 207#x3. During my warmups and first few sets, I felt good under the bar, which I haven't for a while, and felt very much in a groove, all the way up to 197#x3, where I struggled a little on my 3rd rep, but they were all well below competition depth and I was able to push through my sticking point (which has shifted from the bottom of the hole to a few inches out of it.) All in all it was shaping up to be a kickass day.

Then . . . I'm not sure what happened, but I know it has to do with thinking too much. All of a sudden my brain was in overdrive and I was thinking about everything except what I needed to be, that being to get low and drive my knees out on the way up. I was distracted by the other people in the room (even though they'd been there the whole time), my music didn't seem to fit so perfectly any more, my pre-lift routine rhythm felt forced and false. I don't know, but I couldn't get my head on straight and failed at 207#. It sucked. I haven't failed at a weight that light since mid-May, and I have felt like I've made some pretty solid progress in the last couple months, having dialed down my weights as I adjust to Olympic lifting shoes and hitting comp depth every rep. I unracked the weights, got the bar back up, and tried again. And failed again. That sucked more.

Serious reality check time: I've had this article by Paul Carter in the back of my mind since reading it yesterday, and I know it applies to my training today. (To summarize, it is about relying on patience and belief in training to allow yourself to continue to make progress over long, loooooooong, periods of time. It is also about not being an entitled brat in the training room.) I get frustrated so easily when a weight that I think I "should" get doesn't come up. This "should" is the issue as I often feel that I deserve the weights to go the way I want. That is a problem. Thinking that I deserve a weight to go up just because I've been following my program and putting time in at the gym is bullshit. I am privileged to be able to train hard and enjoy it, and I don't deserve anything. The training is its own reward, and being able to come back every week and try again is enough.

Progress is earned and it is earned slower than I want it to be. I need to dial down the entitlement and dial back in just loving moving the weight, even if it doesn't always move the way I want it to. I also need to cut the "getting down on myself" crap, because it is really just another way to express my own disbelief that I am not getting what I deserve.

Training today:
Squat: 6 sets working up to 197#x3 and 207#x2 fails. Supersetted with core stability work.
Accessory: Snatch grip deads and single leg work.
Finisher: Jump rope.

P.s. Apologies and much gratitude to my absurdly patient trainer/coach/endless-question-answerer, Chris, who has repeatedly told me the lessons of patience and belief, in so many words, and also patiently reminded me that I am but a newbie-babe-in-the-woods-beginner at all this (and so shouldn't get so down on myself) and has also never been the slightest bit snarky or annoyed at my absurd entitlement in the gym.

Go-To Summer Salad

I first made this salad after seeing a recipe for Four Herb Tabbouleh in a Food and Wine email. I didn't have Israeli couscous, or lovage, or chives, or a jalapeno, but I did have massive amounts of really delicious parsley from my CSA and a little bit of mint hanging around the fridge so decided to try it out. It was delicious, even with many substitutions and without any olive oil. I've probably made it five or six times since and have deviated further and further from the original recipe every time, so at this point it's pretty much just my go-to summer salad of the moment, and not really Four Herb Tabbouleh at all (especially because the last time I didn't even use parsley, which I'm pretty sure means it isn't even tabbouleh.)

Here's what I consider the "base" of this recipe:

• 1 cup cooked quinoa (I've been using red but white would work just fine.)
• 1-2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved, salted and peppered (I like seasoning these before they hit the salad.)
• 2 cups(-ish) chopped cucumbers (I usually leave the skins on, but that's up to you, yo!)
• 2-5 green onions, diced, white and green parts both included
• 1 garlic clove, finely diced
• juice of 2-3 lemons
• salt and pepper to taste

And here are various add-ons I've used, all delicious: (you can include some or all of these, seriously. I put cilantro+dill+zucchini+sweet potato+chicken into my last version of this salad pictured below and it. was. great.)

• parsley, chopped (as much as you want, up to 2 cups!)
• fresh dill (probably no more than 1/4 cup?)
• cilantro (about a 1/4 cup? or maybe go crazy, depends how you feel about cilantro)
• cooked sweet potato, chopped into bite-size pieces (1 cup or more! adds a nice sweetness and creaminess to the salad)
• chopped raw zucchini (go crazy! this is basically filler and can just stretch your salad out to feed more mouths)
• chicken, diced (as much as you need to meet your protein needs)
• chickpeas (or other beans I'm sure, up to 1-2 cups)

I realize this not really a recipe proper, but it is crisp and summery and flavorful and delicious :)

I am fairly hopeless at photographing the food that I make so it looks good in any way, but since this is a "recipe" for which I can't provide you with a link and a lovely, professional, tasty looking picture, I felt compelled to provide my own. (Personal pet peeve: recipes without any reference as to what the finished product might look like.)

The biggest PR I haven't achieved yet

Actually has nothing to do with powerlifting, it's the blessedly simple and infuriatingly impossible body weight pull-up (though I'll settle for a chin-up to start.) It's a goal I've wanted since I started training with Chris 20 months ago and though I've made some significant progress towards it, it's still definitely in the long-term goal category (more then 3 months out.)

I can pull more of my own weight than I used to be able to, but I'm still using a pretty industrial-size band to help with my neutral grip chin-ups, and only repping out 2-4 at a time. I know my pterodactyl-arms don't help my leverages and that pull-ups can be challenging for women in general, but these explanations do not do much to quell my simmering resentment at my own inability to just pull my own body up to a bar. It seems so simple, yet so far it has not been. The struggle continues.

Training today:
Warm-up: Landmine presses and band pull-aparts.
Bench: 6 sets of bench working up to 120#x4. 2 sets of low-weights to failure (65#x22 and 75#x15, I need to up my low-weights just a bit as 22 reps feels like cardio and also is probably setting me up for an overuse injury in my rotator cuff.) All super-setted with seated pulley rows.
Accessory: Triceps work and band pull-ups.

Zucchini Turkey Burgers >>>>> cooked ground turkey in non-burger form

Having gone the route of just cooking up a bunch of ground turkey and throwing it in/under/on top of things last week to meet some of my protein needs for my nutrition plan, I wanted to do something a little more interesting this week to make sure I am not running myself into food-boredom too quickly (which my nutrition coach warned against, and as someone who likes to cook I should be able to avoid pretty easily.) This Spicy Turkey and Zucchini Burger recipe popped up in my The Old Reader feed (Google Reader, I miss you so.) I decided to give it a try, omitting the ingredients I didn't have on hand and baking the burger for 30 minutes at 350 degrees on parchment rather than frying them. What actually went into my burgers was:

• 2.2# ground turkey 
• .75# zucchini, grated (1 medium and 1 small zucc)
• 1 small yellow onion, chopped
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp cumin
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
• 1 tsp cayenne
• 1-2 TB egg whites (I just splashed some out of the carton to help hold everything together. Egg whites in a carton from Trader Joe's are pretty awesome, they're one of my new recent favorite finds.)

I got 8 good-sized burgers out of this, but that could probably have been stretched to 10-12 smaller ones if you wanted (but I did not, because I eat a lot of meat and also because I am lazy :)

And seriously? These are REALLY GOOD. I'm sure they're even better if you make them as the recipe calls for with the extra herbs. But seriously, really, really good.

UPDATE: I have found that depending on the size of the burgers they may need closer to 45-55 minutes to be cooked all the way through. Use a meat thermometer or just cut one open - you shouldn't see any pink! I would err on the side of over-cooking these, as the zucchini really does a great job of keeping them moist and delicious!

Solo deadlift day

Gym time felt classic today. It was just me (pretty much literally, I love the Y on Saturday mornings), my music (old school Phat Beetz) and the weights. I had planned to go to Cambridge Strength and Conditioning for my deadlift session but when I woke up this morning I didn't want to wait to work out (Cambridge S&C doesn't open until 10 or later), and I also sort of wanted to lift alone. I have really enjoyed lifting more with other people (friends from school mostly) and the camaraderie and friendly competition it creates, but I also really enjoy the solitude of working through my program alone and getting to the peaceful blank space in my head where all I can feel is my muscles burning and all I can think about is counting down reps. It was a good morning.


Training:
Kettlebell warmup
9 sets of deadlifts working up to 214#x3,2,1 (my new stance is slowly, slowly coming along)
Single leg work and core stability work.

In the beginning . . .

. . . God created deadlifts. Seriously. If you made THE WHOLE WORLD, wouldn't you just have to try to see if you could pick it up (you know, get the whole world in your hands? . . . . no? just me?  . . . sorry.)

What I'm talking about here is the beginning of the Era of Fitness Insanity, as a friend of mine has dubbed it. To call it 'the beginning' is a little bit (or a lot bit) inaccurate as the Era of Fitness Insanity is only the second part of the story, the first part being how I ended up needing an Era of Fitness Insanity in the first place, but that story has about 15 parts of it's own, and most of them are predictable and depressing and looooooong. This part is long too (and predictable? hopefully not depressing), but less so. But I digress (there will be a lot of that, apologies in advance for all the times it happens. You can place bets on how many times I do, or keep count if you want. There will not be a prize.)

In the beginning . . .

. . . It was November 2011.

. . . I was 29 years old, and felt like I was running out of time. I wanted a big change before my 30th birthday but I didn't know how to get there (I had made a "30 by 30" goal for myself to lose 30# by my 30th birthday and I had made zero progress on it, losing and gaining the same 5# over and over for about 5 months.)

. . . I had completed Couch to 5k the previous summer and was proud of that, but had never run an actual 5k because I still didn't think I was "ready." (I think somewhere deep inside me I still feared that if I showed up to an actual 5k race wearing a racing bib and my workout gear that every single person in attendance would turn simultaneously, point and call me fat and make fun of me for thinking I could be "one of those people who runs 5ks." This entire fear is both wildly narcissistic - nobody cares that much about what I look like/run like/act like - and obviously impossible. Still, it kept me from running an actual 5k race until March 2012, more than 6 months after I ran my first 3+ mile run on my own.)

. . . I had a years-long exercise history composed primarily of hours on the elliptical and Stairmaster and occasional bouts of Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper DVDs (I still mean to go back and put myself through one of them just to see how it feels. Did I always feel like dying because I was so out of shape, or are they really just designed to make you feel like dying so you feel accomplished at the end? I'm pretty sure that Jillian's 30 Day Shred is the latter.)

. . . I weighed around 225# and though proud that I was no longer monstrously fat, I still felt like the very first word I would have to use to describe my physical appearance would still be "fat."

. . . I was in outpatient physical therapy for a chronic, achingly painful shoulder that had been bothering me for years. Literally YEARS. I was 29 years old and my body was falling apart. And it took being in PT school to realize that oh yeah, duh, maybe a PT could help me. (I had seen a chiropractor for a while when I lived in DC, and that worked, but only while I kept seeing him.)

. . . the rehab was working. For the first time in years I could type and read and cook and do all sorts of terrible repetitive motions with my right arm and NOT have searing pain up and down my neck and back and shoulder.

. . . I had hope. I had the inkling of an idea that my physical therapist, Chris, also trained people, and told him of my plan to hire a trainer, asking him how I should go about finding a good one. He said I already had (in a much more humble and subtle way), which was exactly the answer I wanted.

[I would like to take a break here and thank the cosmos/God/planets aligning/karma for my blind, random physical therapy referral to Chris. It changed my life. Seriously. If he ever reads this he'll be all "shut up, Rachel, I did not change your life, YOU did." But between you and me? He changed my life.]

. . . I had so much DOMS during the first three weeks of training with Chris I could barely sit, stand, walk or even straighten my elbow without my muscles screaming at me. And. I. Loved. It. (My friends? Maybe not so much since pretty much all I said for three weeks was "ow" and my face was in a perma-wince.)

. . . I was pushed to my physical and mental limits. I had never been pushed to my physical limits before, and so I didn't even know what they were. I had very little concept of what it meant to just keep going in the face of fatigue and burning muscles. But Chris held my hand and no-nonsense'd me into doing whatever I was supposed to do that day. And provided me with the confidence to do it on my own the rest of the week. (I am almost jealous of myself then, because every new training day was SO EXCITING. Every day I learned what things I could do and what things were miles beyond my reach. (I say almost because I had to deadlift off plates because I couldn't deadlift 135#, so yeah, not jealous enough to want to go back there. I digress.)) <--- double end parens, woot!

. . . I made progress every single day.

. . . I had priorities. For the very first time in my life, they did not revolve around other people (getting them to like me, pleasing them, being surrounded by them so as to avoid myself, ok let's stop going down this road, it gets very dark there), food or getting drunk. My priority was getting to the gym and training. The clarity of purpose this provided me still brings me to tears.

. . . I actually, really, 100% quit smoking. I had been "mostly quit" for several years previous, but still smoked the "occasional" cigarette to the tune of 5-10 per month. Since starting training I have smoked 2. They were both gross and not worth it.

. . . I lost some of my social life. When I stopped wanting to go out and eat and drink and started wanting to get up early and train, I stopped seeing as many of my friends. Not because they didn't support me (they did) but more because our worlds just didn't meet up any more.

. . . I gained amazing new friends and deepened relationships with current ones, people with whom I can share this crazy Fitness Insanity and who don't blink twice at my turning down a drink or dessert or turning in at 10pm (or earlier . . . ) so I can get up early to train.

. . . I acquired a hilarious number of bruises from dropping weights on myself, bumping into things and from just generally flailing around like a crazy person. They showed up on my shins, arms, collarbones, shoulders and thighs, but the worst ones were always on my shins. I don't know why it took me so long to get deadlifting socks. I think because I felt like I didn't need/deserve them (as in, I wasn't hardcore enough.) So Chris gave them to me for my birthday.

. . . I lost the 30#. Not quite in time for my birthday, but close enough. In the 6 months between Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011, and my 30th birthday party on Saturday, April 28th, 2012, my body composition changed so dramatically that I was able to wear the kind of dress I had always wanted to, but ONLY if it looked good. And it did.

Also, let's be real, I'm wearing Spanx.

. . . I began to figure out who I was. Which as I understand it, is the point of your 20s now that we all get endless adolescences, so I guess I made it sort of just in time.

("We all" being privileged kids who get to go to college and pursue our dreams/fritter our time away/spend a decade "finding ourselves"/etc/etc.)
("Made it just in time" implies that I actually figured out who I was. It would be fairer to say I am still just beginning to figure it out. But I'm comfortable with that, because I'm 31, and in our 30s we're comfortable, or at least that is how it has been explained to me. Digression.)

(Final caveat: I hope this does not come across as too self-aggrandizing. It's my story told in bits and pieces. I love reading other people's stories and find them inspirational and fun, so I hope this is a little bit of that too.)

Things I learned at the gym this morning

1) I vastly prefer split-jerks to push-presses, and had a successful and satisfying "Overhead Press Day" for the first time in a while.
2) While not the definition of comfortable, wearing a thong under running capris for lifting is actually not that bad and does address the giant panty-line issue that plagues me otherwise. Further testing will be required before it becomes a regular thing.
3) When Eric knows we're competing, he always wins. The last time we did med ball slams for time (12#x100) I smoked him (he says he didn't know we were competing - whatever). Today, with the explicit knowledge it was a competition he completed 50 unbroken slams with a 15# ball, I was still at 40 or 41 when he finished. He is very athletic.

Training today:

Warmup: Is, Ts, Ys
"Overhead Press": 6 sets of split-jerks working up to 94#x7 and 1 set of strict OHP at 65#x5. Supersetted with inverted rows.
Accessory work: Two supersets of pressing and lat/midback work.
Finisher: Medball slams.

World's Most Forgiving Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Seriously. I have wronged this zucchini bread from Simply Recipes in every way imaginable, and it has consistently shown resilience, fortitude and reliable deliciousness in the face of everything I have throw at it. I've made some version of it during pretty much every diet/nutrition/eating iteration I've tried in the last couple years. It can become lower-carb, lower-glycemic index, high protein, gluten-free, dairy-free or both of those plus being high-carb/low fat/low protein (which is the way I made it yesterday to eat as my 50g carb/<5g fat/low protein-post-workout snack.)

Substitutions I have made with generally high degrees of success (though there is naturally an inverse relationship between the number of health-oriented substitutions you can make in any recipe and the degree of OMG-delicious that said recipe results in, at least in my experience):

• Applesauce for butter (partially or completely)
• Whole wheat flour for all purpose flour (partially or completely)
• Protein powder for all-purpose flour (half-substitution)
• Coconut/almond/chickpea flour combo for all purpose flour (partially or completely)
• Stevia, honey or maple syrup for sugar (partially or completely)
• Egg whites for eggs (partially or completely)

Oh, and I never use almond extract, I always use vanilla, because I love vanilla and I never have almond on hand. I also often sprinkle a handful of chocolate chips (dark or milk, whatever is on hand) on the top of the batter before I put it in the oven because having those little hits of pure chocolate makes any variety of a healthy version extra delicious. At some point I should probably try making this recipe exactly as called for as I imagine it's pretty insanely good, but let's be real, that will never happen.

Baking + not ruining my nutrition plan = very happy me.

Now go forth, bastardize this recipe, and enjoy!

Hmmph.

I try really hard not to make excuses for myself while I am lifting. If a weight is not going up, rather than start spinning my mental wheels on all the reasons why that might be (I'm tired or sore, my form is off, I slept badly or ate something different, the rack sucks, I forgot my iPod, etc) I try to focus on the task at hand and getting it done. Try being the operative word there. I am a fairly compulsive over-thinker in all areas of life, and I have yet to get this under control in the weight room. I know my tendency to over-analyze everything is generally ultimately unproductive, so I've been trying to be better about it. It's hard.

On the other hand, I do think it's important to pay attention to factors like stress, work load, nutrition, surroundings, and of course lifting form, to see how these things can be tweaked and changed to help me make the lifts I need/want to make. I think one important factor in this evaluation is to make sure that these reasons for not making a lift become areas for improvement, rather than excuses for performance.

I think I need to start meditating again, as during the brief period where I was sitting for 5-15 minutes a day, I did notice an increased ability to shut out the excuse/explanation part of my brain when I needed to JUST LIFT.

The source of all this reflection is the fact that I squatted today, maxed at 195#x5, but I'm pretty certain only the first 3 reps were to competition depth (no video to confirm, but Keith agreed with me.) After the 3rd rep I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be able to get down to depth again, but I really wanted to get my five reps in. This is problematic on two fronts: 1) As soon as I thought that I couldn't get to depth again, that pretty much guarantees I can't - the brain is powerful! and 2) about a month ago I knocked 30# off my max working weight for my squat in order to ensure that I hit competition depth on every. single. rep. So I had no business cheating myself on those last two.

I'm also annoyed, because a month ago, at the beginning of my last 5-3-1 cycle, I hit 192#x8, all to comp depth. So 195#x5 shouldn't have been a problem. RRRrrrrrrgh.

Okay, I'm spinning in circles here. Enough.

Training today:
Squat: 6 sets working up to 195#x5,1
Accessory: single leg work, snatch grip deads and kettlebell complex

Bench Day Bummer

Today was bench day, which traditionally has been not-my-favorite, because for about 9 months (from September of last year through this May) my 1-rep max was stuck at 115#. It did not budge. FOR NINE MONTHS. I was a little frustrated.

Happily, I did finally bust through that plateau and hit 135# for a clean, relatively easy rep in May. It was wildly satisfying and definitely one of my biggest accomplishments in the gym to date, mostly because I worked so long and so hard without any measurable progress. Lesson learned, yet again.

Since that awesome day, I have been feeling solid about my bench form, and though I haven't gotten 135# again (not because I haven't tried), overall I've felt good. Which was why today, when I was supposed to max out at 115# for 5+ reps (I'm following 5-3-1 for all my main lifts) and I could only get 2 on my own with an assist for a 3rd, I was not thrilled. But I'm trying to live out my new-ish gym motto "Don't Be Such A Spaz," so even after trying for a second set with the same result and even though I am coming off my deload week and should feel fresh as a daisy, I figured it's just not my day and moved on. I adjusted my foot position for my pause bench sets, pulling my heels farther back so I could drive in without pushing my butt off the bench, and this definitely felt better. Form, form, form.

Training:

Warmup: rotator cuff and lat work

Bench:

• 7 sets working up to 115#x2,2
• Pause bench 100# for 3x3

Accessory: More back and tricep work (serious weak spots both)

Finisher: Burpees --> Pullups (jump up to bar and eccentric lower for my non-pullup-capable self)x 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5

Burpees are RAW. They give me that throw-uppy, burning, want-to-die feeling like nothing else. But they're also extremely effective and I definitely get an outsize sense of satisfaction after doing them. And on days like today when my benching is off, it feels good to throw myself into something hard and sort of terrible to end the day. Good times.

Deadlift Day!

Until a few weeks ago, deadlift day was without a doubt my favorite day of the week. Like many powerlifters, I love the unequivocal nature of the deadlift. Either you can pick it up or you can't. Period. It's also the lift where I have been able to move the most weight, and the one I've always felt the most comfortable with in competition.

However, as my weights got heavier and heavier, my form was definitely suffering. I've always lifted conventional because the first time I tried sumo (probably 6-8 months ago) I felt like there was a vice grip around my hip joints and I couldn't really even get down to the bar. A few weeks ago, I assume after having watched one too many videos of me lifting anything over 240# with an increasingly rounded low back, Chris told me we were going to change my stance to something closer to sumo, but not quite all the way there.  Realizing that in the future I may want a functional spine for things other than crushing mad weight, I figured he was making the right call.

Positives about the new stance: It forces good form, there's almost no way for me to round my back out. Whereas with conventional, if my legs gave out my back would just kick in (this is BAD.) In this new stance, because of the way I have to approach the bar and the inherent stiffness in my spine and hips in this position, either my legs do the work or the bar doesn't move.

Negatives: For the past 2 weeks I haven't been able to get anything over 199# off the ground. THIS SUCKED. This also pointed out that my glutes are still pathetically under-active and weaker than they should be if I think I can throw around 280# (which I almost got in my last comp.)

Pre-stance change-up, I was raring to go and eager to hit 300# before the end of the summer, but now it feels like a major accomplishment to get 214# off the floor. Which I did. Today. And I am HELLA PSYCHED about it. If you had told me a month ago that I would be thrilled with 214# for two singles I would have laughed in your face. But that's what I got today, and it felt good. For the first time in this new stance my medial knees didn't hurt at all, I was able to self-correct on form throughout my lifting, and I feel like I'm on my way back up.  It feels good.

I also want to give credit to this breathing/bracing technique that I read about earlier this week on Girls Gone Strong (#5 under 'Barbell Box Squat'.) I have read a ton about bracing your core with breath and keeping your ribs down, but it never really made sense until now. I used it today with my deadlifts and front squats and I think it really helped maintain stiffness, as well as providing a nice pre-lift routine.

Training today:

Warmup: Kettlebells

Deadlift: 6 sets, working up to 214#x1,1

Accessory: Front squats, suitcase carries and jump rope (I actually jumped rope! I did it! Whoo hoo!)

I should spend the rest of the day doing school work, but I think it is entirely more probably that I will go see Man of Steel and This Is The End, with a totally amazeballs cheat meal of icecream and pizza in the middle. Yeah, that sounds about right.

Overhead Press --> Split Jerk

Today was overhead press day, without a doubt my least favorite day of the week. I say it's my least favorite because it's not a competition lift, but really it's probably got a lot more to do with the fact that my overhead press SUCKS. Actually, I don't even do a real overhead press until my last set as a finisher; I do a push press, which also pretty much sucks (my form is bad, my weight is plateaued pretty much constantly, and I am always throwing my head around in weird ways to avoid popping myself in the chin with the bar. It's ugly.) Overhead press day is the day when I most often feel the way I did when I first started lifting, mainly that I look like I have no idea what I'm doing and that I am struggling with embarrassingly light weights. It's not a fun feeling to return to, but it's probably good for my character.

Today I tried a split jerk instead of a push press, and it actually felt pretty good. Worked up to 85#x5 and was pretty please with how easily the weight went up, without getting stuck at my usual point.  The rest of my session felt good and pretty easy.

Training today:
Warmup: Is, Ts, Ys.

Main lift:

• Split jerk for 6x5 sets working up to 85#x5 for last set 
• Strict overhead press 55#x12

Accessory work: DB bench and band assisted pullups, plus some midback and tricep work.

Finisher: Erg 1500m

Throwback Thursday?

So recognizing that this is, in fact, a blog, and therefore can be read by anyone out there with an internet connection, it occurred to me how obnoxious it might seem that one of my goals is to become a "ripped hottie."  To clarify, I say this with both 1) extreme irony, as based on the past 31 years of my life it is not a goal I ever thought I would be anywhere even close to achieving and, 2) full awareness that it totally violates everything I've said in the last year and a half about how strength training is important for me specifically and women in general precisely because it take the focus away from appearance and puts it where it belongs, on performance.

That said, it is my goal right now. I hope to, at some point, in an epically long post (or several, or a whole series, or something) go into more of my background and how I ended up so tragically, morbidly obese, and how I found my way out of that, but here's the Clif notes version that I put together while looking for nutrition coaches a couple weeks ago:

I am a 31 year old woman, finishing up school for physical therapy and living in Boston, MA. I'm a current powerlifting junkie, former fat kid/young adult (topped out in high school at 300#), I lost about 75# slowly through my 20s with some decent overall healthy diet changes and a lot of agonizing cardio and occasional bouts of dieting (South Beach, Weight Watchers, etc). My biggest physical transformation has occurred over the last year and a half, I started working with a physical therapist and trainer [Chris! for those following along from other posts] (who I had been seeing for physical therapy for nagging shoulder pain and who became an amazing force for change in my life and who I love and continue to work with) in November 2011 and he got me started weight training. With the training and some basic diet changes (no alcohol, limited sweets, much more protein and fewer crap carbs) I went from 225# to 195# (I'm 6' tall) and saw really wonderful changes in my body composition, mental attitude and outlook. After reaching my general goal of "getting in shape" by my 30th birthday in April 2012, I wanted something more to work towards so started powerlifting last May. I have participated in two competitions and really love the sport. I still work with my trainer (who is also now a close friend and mentor) and am really happy with the programming he writes me for the weight room, but I don't think he gets my food issues.

[large section where I go into excruciating detail about my pre-comp diet to get down to 179.4 for weigh-in and post-comp binge to balloon back up to 210#. YAAAAAaaaaaayyyyy . . . . . Also for a later post.]

I know I have a problem with portion control and I know I am an emotional eater and prone to bingeing for the sake of feeling over-full as a replacement for feeling sad/lonely/etc. Over-eating has been a coping mechanism since I was a kid and it's how I ended up 300#. Overall I am in a much better place and over-eat/binge much less frequently, but it is still an issue for me, especially when I am not on a strict/specific plan. I have been a calorie-counting crazy person for a while, I have daily food diaries for pretty much every day for the last 3 and a half years (I use sparkpeople.com).

So. Yeah. I get wordy when I start talking/writing/explaining my relationship with food. Which is the point of this here bloggy-blog-blog in the first place.

To make this a true throwback thursday a la Instagram, here's a couple pictures to provide some evidence to the story above.

My brother and I as totally awesome punk rockers. Proof that at some point I was on the way to losing my babyfat and being a normal weight (about age 7 here I think.)

Highschool. Mom's birthday. Proof that that 'normal weight' was never achieved. I am around 280-300# or so. Note that I do not actually fit all the way into the frame (there's more of me!)

23 years old, a little less fat at around 250# and actively (sort of) trying to do  something about it (hello 45 minutes on the elliptical!)

At a Christmas party last year (2012) at a very happy weight of 195#. Weight training  works wonders!

Getting my rack height checked for my comp in March 2013. I weigh 179.4# in this picture. That fact alone blows my mind. To be fair, I am also dehydrated, sort of emotionally unstable and so hungry I am on the verge of eating the barbell instead of squatting it.

Training: OFF AGAIN. This is my first time taking back-to-back off days since April 11 and 12. Plus it's a deload week. I am going to be so fresh by the time I get back to heavy weights on Monday I WILL NOT EVEN BE ABLE TO HANDLE IT. Or at least that is the plan.

Goals

I have a goal problem. I like to set them. I like to change them. I like them short-term and long-term. I like them related to scale weight and weight-room weight and running time and pretty much anything that can be measured. I pretty much like them any way you can serve them up. I like to plan them out in detail and break them down into little steps and set up count-downs and charts and all that OCD-jazz to see how far on/off track I am.

This is all fine in some ways (and it's good to have goals as something to work towards and to track success or failure), but it's also a problem in that I have too many goals, and also goals that directly conflict with each other. For example, running training for a Tough Mudder decreases power strength in the gym, or the large amount of physical activity I engage in makes me more hungry and less likely to be able to stick to nutrition guidelines for body comp change. The conflicting-goal issue is a problem that Jen (new nutrition coach) has gently prompted me to address. (This is also something that Chris has pointed out to me, but I think he also kept waiting for me to come to terms with on my own. I am slow.)

So now I just have two goals and they are:

1. Lose bodyfat/look better. (Aka, become a ripped hottie :)
2. Perform well at the RPS powerlifting meet October 12.

Compare this to my list of stated goals that I sent Jen in the process of setting up our work together:

1. Lose bodyfat while gaining muscle and strength.
2. Compete in Tough Mudder August 12.
3. Compete in powerlifting competition October 12.
4. Find a sustainable nutrition approach for the long-term.
5. Get leaner, lighter, faster.

And for further hilarity, compare that to my own goals set for myself in April after my last powerlifting competition (post-competition/big event is a major trigger for me to go on a goal-setting binge. The edits in the list below were added post-goal-list-creation):

Goals (Set April 21, 2013):

1. Focus on technique/form for three major lifts this summer while also conditioning for Tough Mudder (August 10 and August 24) and building upper body strength. Get bodyweight comfortably to mid-high 180s by August/September with conditioning work and whole-foods diet eating (4 months)

2. Recover from Mudders and focus on powerlifting. Train for meet in December October 2013. Compete in 181# class with a 650# total (235+120+300 goals) (8 months)

4-month (August 25, 2013):

• Complete 10, 8, 6-rep KB complex with 16kg bell
• Turkish get up with 12kg bell
• Weigh 188-190#
• Gym PRs: 120# bench (met 5/31 w/ 135#!), 240# squat, 275# dead
• Mile run: Under 7:45 minutes
• Unassisted body weight chin-up (neutral grip)
• 2 Tough Mudders

8 month (December 25, 2013):

• Compete in meet in 181# class with a 675# total (235+120+300 goals)
• Unassisted bodyweight pull-up (overhand grip)

Ah yeah . . . like I said, I like goals.


Not all of these are directly conflicting and some are just small steps towards a larger goal, but at least for today I am appreciating the clarity of having two goals, and only two.

Training today: OFF. I am feeling sore and pretty beat up, and grateful for the recommendation to cut down on my training frequency (and cut out the running entirely, more on this later.)