Saturday -- Arm Day

"Everyone has weak spots in terms of lifting". I think about the many times Ryan has told me this. I think about it because it's Friday night and tomorrow morning circa 9 am I will be doing an arm workout in yet another attempt to get my very little arms & shoulders, ever so slightly bigger and stronger.

I have been lifting "heavy" for about 5 months now and have seen a lot of progress in pretty much every other area. I have finally developed something that resembles something roundish in the butt area, I have lines that nicely define a set of abs (although I'm not lean enough to see the 4 or 6 pack...I can definitely feel them there!), quads that can squat 150 lbs. etc etc. I like activities like lifting where I can put in work and see progress. So where are my arms & shoulders?!? I mean, they've shown up every workout with me as far as I can remember, so how come I can't see improvements like I can in most of the other areas I train? 

This brings me back to Ryan's statement about how everyone has their problem areas. He's not wrong (imagine that :-) ). I've seen many others experts on various fitness boards and fitness articles also talk about this. Why does it happen? Why doesn't the body favour symmetry in muscle growth? Why does it differ for different people? Is it genetically determined? Are my arms/shoulders actually not capable of putting on size/muscle like the rest of my body?

(** Note: I realize "putting on size" can be a misleading term. I am not trying to bulk currently, and as a 110 lbs female who doesn't supplement like crazy or take steroids of any sort I realize there is only a limited amount of muscle that I can put on. What I mean by this is that compared to the other parts of my body my arms and shoulders have progressed significantly less**)

That caveat covered, I still have all these unanswered questions...so where does that leave me on this Friday night? 

Answer: Planning to go hard tomorrow morning with the following workout:

                                        Saturday -- Arm/Shoulder Day

1. EZ Bar Curl                          4 sets (last one drop-set)    10-8-6-8
2. Shoulder Smith Press          4 sets (last one drop-set)    8-8-6-8
3. Dip Machine                         3 sets                                      10-8-6
4. Hammer Curls                      3-4 sets                                  10-8-6-(8)
5. Cable Front Raise*               3 sets                                     10-10-10
6. One-arm Tri Ext.                   3 sets                                     10-8-8
7. Cable Bicep Curl                    3 sets                                     10-8-8
8. Dumbbell Shoulder Press      3 sets                                     8-8-6                         

* Lighter weights due to dislocation of shoulder ~ 3 months ago. I'd like to be able to say the dislocation, subsequent ER visit, PT and recovery is what causes my small arms and shoulders, but I hadn't been lifting for very long when it happened and it's been several months of seeing consistent improvement in other areas.

My favourite saying in terms of fitness is "Eat clean, train dirty", and even though I may not be able to see the results of everything I put in, I'm not about to stop training dirty.

So wake up and train dirty tomorrow... but for now, get sleep!

Goodnight :-)

Cinnamon Protein Bread!

I have zero cooking skills. Zero. Thankfully, Ryan does most of the stove-top cooking and fiery grilling in this household (for everyone's safety). I like to think I'm good at food "prepping" a.k.a the cutting, chopping, salad-making part -- although I have, several times, sliced small parts of my phalanges off -- but that's not nearly the harm I would cause if left near a grill or stovetop.

However, I very much enjoy baking. That's not to say I'm any good at it, but my standard for "good" is:

1. Not burning down the house or any part of it
2. Not having the finished product be burnt to a crisp
3. Having the outcome be something that the dogs would eat (unlike the meatloaf my Mom made in 1993...sorry Mom!)

In all seriousness, I'm quite fond of certain baked goods and although a little lackluster in the meatloaf department, my mother is quite the baker and what little skills I have I inherited from her. That said, Jamie Eason's Cinnamon Protein Bread was the perfect experiment for me to try. And let me say, the outcome was phenomenal. (Not because I am particularly clever in the baking department but because her recipe is delicious and hard to screw up :-) )

The Swirly Batter 

 I followed her recipe pretty much to a "T". I used 1/4 c. Stevia instead of 1/2 c. of Ideal because the Ideal at the health food store is pretty pricey and the Stevia I can pick up from SuperTarget is less expensive.

Finished! (Fork marks to test if it were done in the middle...must.get.toothpicks)

The house smelled delicious and cinnamon-y afterwards. This bread, to me, is just the right consistency. It's a bit crumbly, but I'm experimenting currently with trying to make it "stick" a little better.

The best thing however, in my opinion, is that this bread is sweet yet isn't full of just sugar and unbleached flour. The recipe uses oat flour instead of white flour and baby food applesauce and egg whites instead of oil and eggs. Most of all, I get to use my favourite protein power from ON: Vanilla Ice Cream Gold Standard.

I plan on trying more of Jamie's recipes in the future, but for now I have found my new favourite sweet and satisfying snack!

Defining the F-word

What does it mean to "be fit"? This is a question that has plagued me for a very long time. However I seem to define it, I can always produce numerous counterexamples to convince myself that my original definition was not inclusive enough...or maybe was too inclusive. To that end I am putting the question out there (or as you can see below, many questions) about fitness and what makes an individual fit. 

• Who is fit?
• Are all/most athletes considered fit?
• What makes an athlete?
• Is there a body-fat percentage cut-off to being fit?
• Can you run a marathon and not be fit?
• Can you deadlift/squat 300 lbs and not be fit?
• Can you be fit and overweight?
• Can you have a crappy diet and be fit?
• What about a really crappy diet?
• Can an overweight smoker with a really crappy diet be fit?

Ok, maybe I think I know the answer to that last one...but I have thought about these questions a lot over the past decade or so and my answers seem to change over the years so I will first share my current answer. This answer has come about through many arguments discussions with Ryan, my siblings, and various people I've interacted with recently. Per my usual method I made a diagram/chart that helps me define what I see as "fit". Please note that if someone does not fit into this somewhat arbitrary definition, it doesn't mean I don't see them as fit or wouldn't if I ran across them somewhere. What this chart does tell me is that an individual that meets the criteria would likely be seen (by me) as a fit individual. With that...here it is!

Directions: Choose 2 (or more) from the 1st column, 1 (or more) from the 2nd column, then follow the chart for 3rd and 4th columns.

What do you think? How do you define fitness?

Deadlift

This is my body-weight (+ 3 lbs). I deadlift it. 

Not my chalk on the bar... not quite hard-core enough for that. Yet.

The Beginning

The Purpose:

What's another fitness blog for anyway? Well, several things:

1). It's for me (the author) to be able to document my ideas, beliefs and findings on food & fitness and be able to track this over the years (yes I plan to do this for years!)

2). It's for you (the reader) to be challenged, questioned, and to be able to argue about your own fitness and food related beliefs.

3). It's for the sharing of current and past ideas about the science of lifting, training, building muscle, running, cardio, health, fitness, clean eating etc etc.

4). It's a place for all the questions you and I both want to learn about to be put out there and hopefully, one day, answered.

5). Most of all, its a place for like-passioned people with different ideas to discuss, convinced, be convinced and offer helpful hints and advice to each other.

If at this point you aren't as motivated as the whole Braveheart army, that's ok. I'm no Mel Gibson. But hopefully you are as excited as I am!

The Author: 

Location: Durham, NC
Occupation: Graduate student in physics at Duke University (5th yr)
Hobbies: Lifting, Running, Baking (not cooking!), Dog Training, Physics

I spend most of my life in the lab, in the gym, and around the house. I live with my wonderful, handsome boyfriend, my amazing roommate of two years and three pretty, playful, precious and sometimes rambunctious puppies. My Aussie is almost 3 years old, my boyfriend's Boxer/JRT/BC/lab (aka mutt) mix is 10 mos and my roommates Lab/Pitt is 2 yrs. They all get along amazingly well and training/playing with them keeps me sane.

In terms of fitness, it's a long story. Here are the highlights:

• During childhood I played many sports including soccer, street hockey, frisbee, touch football and basketball
• During high school I continued soccer, track, and crew but during the winter season took a fitness class where I was introduced to lifting. This basically involved letting 20 students into a weight room and telling them to go for it. I didn't learn technique, but I did learn that I loved certain machines.
• Along with beginning to workout I also began to watch my diet more. I wanted to lose a little extra weight, but unfortunately my obsessive personality got the better of me. Sophomore year in HS I developed anorexia, lost about a 1/3 of my body weight, and began a battle which I still fight today between my brain and my body. I debated on whether to share this or not, but when I look at many of my attitudes towards food and fitness and health a lot of them have been influenced by my eating disorder. It has been there ever since I became a lifter and a dieter and although there are times when it gets the best of me, there are other times where I have managed to silence it. I think it's important, in any good experiment, whether in the lab or on a blog, to have all of the information, all of the variables before making accurate assessments.
• College brought about a slower time. I gained way more than the freshman 15, got very overwhelmed with my classes (I was attempting to double major in biology and physics), and stopped working out full stop.
• After deciding to lose some of the weight I had put on the first two years of college I went back to the gym, became obsessed with working out and again, threw myself back into the world of the eating disorder. In retrospect, it always seems that my most severe bouts of restrictive eating have begun as a good, honest effort to become healthy and have gotten carried away.
•  College was also where I began << to love >> running. Although I had run track in HS, it was just something to do to fulfill my sports requirement. I began to run in college as a way to get away from studying. It soon became the only escape that really could clear my mind.  Because I went to school in Boston, every year I also got to stand around mile 20 of the Boston Marathon and admire all of the runners, young and old, who trained and pushed themselves to complete the amazing feat of finishing a marathon. Although long distance running isn't my thing, I love the atmosphere of races and have plans on racing next year (hold me to this!).
• For the past 4 years I have been working at getting my Ph. D. in physics at Duke U. I have had several month periods where I have given up on healthy eating and working out, but for the most part I have continued running and recently have gotten back into lifting. I love it. It, more than anything other than the puppies, has kept me happy and sane through the long hours in the dark lab and the sometimes (o.k. almost always) frustrating life that is the life of a graduate student.

So that's where I will end and hopefully all the other posts will have less to do with my personal life and everything to do with healthy, delicious recipes, killer workouts, burning questions and fun facts!