Today was a bad eating day.  Not that I ate anything fatty or overate, I did quite possibly the exact opposite I ate erratically, and didn’t consume enough fuel for my body.  By 8 pm after work, workouts and two walks with the dog my brain function was at an all time low.

I had a great breakfast of 3 egg whites cooked in a non-stick pan and cooking spray, a whole wheat English muffin, a slice of Provolone cheese, two slices of chicken breast meat from Applegate, and 1 slice of lettuce and four mushrooms.  This is my new go to breakfast.  A nice pack of protein, it’s filling, and all together only has 353 calories.  My next bit of food consumption didn’t occur until 1:30 PM, which was exactly 7 hours from my previous one.  In a fucked up world this would be no good, let alone an ideal one. 

I just forgot to eat.  This used to happen to me all the time and I would over compensate at lunch, inevitably going into a food coma, becoming useless for the rest of the afternoon.  It would be a food haze of feeling awful and bloated, while my brain couldn’t process more than making change for a dollar. 

Today when I did get to eat lunch, I found myself at Uncle Julio’s, and was surprised to find uncorrupted food.  I ordered their Ensalada Grande without cheese, and the dressing on the side.  I added the chicken breast which was about 5 oz of meat, cooked on a charcoal grill, and not finished with any butter or olive oil.  I couldn’t believe that such a perfect combination of exactly of what I wanted would be at Uncle Julio’s which is famous for their flour tortilla machine, and fresh made chips.  The first time I’ve felt really good about eating out.

Before my workout I ate a Cliff Mojo bar, and a mini Luna Bar.  I ate them an hour before my workout knowing that if I didn’t there would be little in my stomach to keep me awake. 

I’ve tried hard to eat once every 3-4 hours, and when work is problem free it’s fantastic, yet when life’s commitments creep up on me, it’s easier said than done.  From an overall consumption stand point it was a victory, because I could have easily binged on some crap to satisfy the hungry beast which is the fat guy part of me.  I found a way to stay on track, and realize that tomorrow I will have to do better to keep track of time.

My workout this evening with Ali was another day of lifting.  Today’s focus was on back and biceps.  He started me out on a cable row machine doing a two handed row while in a squat position.  I believe he wanted me in a standing position to engage more of my core.  This was followed by an alternating 1 handed planked dumbbell row.  After 15 reps on each side of the body I went back to the cable row, yet on the second go around of the dumbbell row Ali had me go up in weight, and instead of alternating I did just one side at a time for 15 reps.

I wasn’t able to do a pull up on the assisted pull up motion (still a few pounds to go before that works), so he had me use a smith machine.  I got underneath the bar and lowered my body towards the ground, I pulled upward fast, and then released slowly trying to create as much negative resistance as I could.  This exercise was intertwined a couple of times between other ones.  We again used the TRX doing extensive work for both the back and biceps.  Each exercise was done for a minute at a time.  I found out today that in order to get optimal work out on the TRX I have to bring my body almost to the top in a particular movement, but stay just shy of the top, because at the point I will be on my feet which will relieve all the pressure from the muscles you are trying to work.

We did lat pull downs on a lat machine, and proceeded to do more dumbbell rows from the planked position.  Towards the end of the workout the focus moved heavily into the biceps.  I did 2 different bicep burnouts, each one working until muscle failure. 

Ali’s workout today was good, yet I felt I needed more back work, so after we finished I went and worked on kettle bell swings.  I did 15 straight minutes of swings alternating between two handed heavy and light weights, and 1 handed with a lighter kettle bell.  It’s been quite some time since I’ve done swings, so I was surprised to see how much stronger I felt swinging.  The swings felt great.  After the 1^st 15 minutes I took a break, and did about another 5 minutes of swings. 

From the kettle bell swings I went to the locker room got changed, and went back into the gym for some cardio.  I did another session of Cardio Intervals this time really focusing on maintaining a higher speed.  Initially I had planned to just do 40 minutes because I figured with the 20 minutes of kettle bell swings I would technical have done an extra hour of work.

Of course my OCD would no t allow just a 40 minutes of a cardio, after the 2^nd set of intervals I started thinking maybe I should do 3 intervals.  After the 3^rd set of intervals it was a foregone conclusion I was going to do 4 cycles of intervals.  At the top of the first interval I held it for 1 minute, then 2 minutes on the second, 3 minutes on the third, and 4 minutes on the fourth. By the end of the 4^th set of intervals I was past the 50 minute mark so finishing an hour was no longer a notion but my reality.

It felt good to get that full hour of cardio, and see my plan for the week coming to fruition regardless of how I felt.  Overall my body has felt good this week, it’s tired from the work but not exhausted.  I’m looking forward to two days of rest, and I’m desperately going to try and get to bed tomorrow night at 10 PM.  I haven’t had 8 hours sleep in almost 10 days now.  

A quick side note, when I was doing the pull ups on the Smith Machine, the leaned back position I was in allowed all my excess fat and loose skin to move downward, which revealed a guy with more muscle than I anticipated.  It made me feel good, that all the work is sculpting a physique beneath all the fat.

Friday will be a good day all around I can feel it.