…or something like that.

I just had an awesome workout. I’m either stronger or I just wasn’t pushing enough last week. I may not have been. I’ve never “power” lifted before.  Today I was making faces and grunting like the big boys!

Ultimate Diet 2.0 - Week 2, Day5

Weight 134.5
kCals:  1968
Carbs: 199.5 grams.
Total for carb up: 599.5 - 12g per kg/lbm

Day 6 Workout:

DL:  3×5x175
Flat DB Fly: 2×6x70, 1×6x80

BB Row: 2×5x95, 1×6x95 - Was still in DL mode. Forgot to do 6 reps first 2 sets.
Incline DB Press: 2×6x35, 1×6x135 (Machine). Couldn’t lift the 40s to start the third set.

Leg Press: 1×6x300, 340, 360

Low Row: 3×6x9, 1×6x10
Calf Raise: 1×6x210, 2×6x220, 1×6x225

Glute-Ham Raise (!!): 2×4, 2×3, 1×2. YES! I did this. I didn’t go below parrallel to the floor but, hey, last week I couldn’t do one from even above parallel.
DB MP: 3×6x60

Assisted Wide Grip Lat Pull: 1×6x10, 2×6x8
Chins: 2×3, 1×3.5, 1×4

Tricep Dip, 4×4. And yes, these were unassisted. I totally rock.

My hands are killing me. I don’t wear gloves for deads or chins. They seem to make it harder. I use ‘em for low row and DBs because those handles are sharp and kill me. Still I have callouses like I had after playing guitar for 10 years. Callouses are NOT for girls! My gloves suck. I need to get real ones. Or something. My hands hurt more than anything else.

Now I’m sleepy. I need to eat though.

Oh and I kinda half dropped the bar on myself during the decent on my last DL. OK well, I used my quad to lower the weight because if I hadn’t the bar woulda come crashing down and I would have gotten yelled at. Hit right above my knee. The one with the tendinitis. Last week I had bruises up and down my shins. I think I need knee pads or something. That’s happened before.  I had a bruise in the same spot a few weeks back.  A huge ugly bruise. This will be the same no doubt. I can tell because it hurts. Bad. I actually almost left the gym to go buy an ice pack after I did it, it hurt that much.

Weight: 134.5
kcals: 3595

Uhm, so I lost what? 1.5lbs eating 1426 calories of crap - brownies, ice cream, donut, in one day.

How much do I love this “diet”?

Something weird is going on. I eat 1300 clean kcals and I gain weight. I not only triple the calories and dirty ‘em up but I reduce exercise burn by probably 40% and lose weight. I give up trying to figure this stuff out. I think it’s more like a crap shoot.

Just goes to show how utterly useless scale numbers are. My girth measurements are all pretty much the same I think. Didn’t do a caliper.

That all said, I did “go” yesterday. 3 or 4 times. Once, alot, at around 3am which kinda sucked because I had a hard time going back to sleep knowing I hadn’t eaten the entire batch of brownies. I don’t feel as pregnant now. My lower abs aren’t rock solid either. Too bad. I thought the ab workouts were maybe starting to actually work!

I’m really really struggling to determine just how many carbs I should consume. I’m already at 432g. I keep reading conflicting things. The book itself says 12-16g per kg lbm. That’s about 600g for me if I stick to the low end. That’s where I ended up last week - actually a bit over that, though I did the puke fest thing and so I don’t really have an accurate number.

I’d like to keep that scale number or something close to it. I’m afraid to eat anything else today. I was even thinking about doing some cardio just in case I overflow. I don’t care about lbm loss at this point. Not too much anyway.

I should just throw the damn scale away. It’s making me nuts with all its stupid lies.

And now I’m hungry. I hate that about carbs. I wasnt’ even hungry yesterday. I had to force myself to eat. In fact, the only reason I even “ate” pre-workout (like the books says I have to) was because I got to do the dextrose. Otherwise I would have justified not eating with the fact that the workout goal was depletion.

Today I woke up famished - after a 3500+ calorie yesterday! I just ate a 400 calorie breakfast 2 hours ago - 45% carb, 30% protein, 25% fat. I’ve had a crap load of caffeine (isn’t this what they put in “diet” pills? p.s. it doesn’t work). I’m hungry already.

Carbs kill me. I’ve found a new love for low carb diets despite the fact that I’m not a believer in extremes.

That said, the low carb workouts are starting to annoy me. I don’t want to do them. I love being in the gym which means low carb isn’t something I can do forever. I just love the not being hungry thing. I guess my focus during maintenance will be trying to find the balance - enough carbs to keep me fueled, few enough to keep me from wanting to eat non-stop. I suppose it could just be all the sugar I consumed that’s giving me the out of control eating feeling. I hate having to battle the cravings and the voices in my head. I just want to live in peace! Drama ain’t my thing!

I guess that means I’ll have to try a low sugar carb up next week. I will miss my brownie sundae.

Whoo hooo I get to eat  caramel truffle brownie sundae tonight!

Weight: 136
kCals: 1302
Carbs: 19% (61.5g)
Workout: Ab circuit, 20m treadmill, 40m Arc

Hanging leg raises: 3×10 - These are getting too easy. Not sure if I’m working the abs correctly. I start from a dead stop, hanging, then lift knees to chest.

Woodchop: 1×12x3 plate. My form was sucking and I couldn’t seem to find the groove, so I stopped.

Jack knife: 3 x 12

Lateral Raise: 2 x 12 x 25

Plank on Ball: 2 x 2 min.

Plank w/static leg raise: 1 x 2 min.

uhm……

Week 2, Day 1
Weight: 139.5
kcals: 1536
Carbs: 94.37g (going for 75g. oops) So, that’s like 25% carb.
Depletion workout: lower body- 90+ minutes, cardio - 60 minutes

Day 2
Weight: 138
kcals: 1387
Carbs: 69.9g - 20%
Depletion workout: upper body - 90+ minutes, cardio - 40 minutes - Wanted to 60. OK not wanted really but woulda had I not had cramps/bloating/gas. ugh. It went something like this in my head which was battling me the entire time:

“I’m tired. I’m hungry. I’m in pain. I have to pee. So what if I just went 3 times during weights. 40s good. Get the fuck off the Arc. If you don’t I will take you out at the knees.”

Day 3
Weight:

139.5 (!!!!)(WTF???!!!?)

The scale is not my friend today or I just get fat on low cal/low carb.

Not giving up yet up jeez that number really threw me. Could be the “irregular” f-ing thing again or TOM I guess. I really wish I had a clue.

It’s been 3 days since things have moved.  I don’t know what the issue is. I get 20-30g fiber low cal. 30-40g on typical days. Could be dehydration maybe? I do suck at water. I drink it but generally only get 60 oz on average.

So anyway. I wasn’t even hungry yesterday. Only time I get really hungry is in the morning and during and after workouts.  Hunger pangs (why isn’t it pains? It does hurt after all!) during depletetion workouts make me a bit queezy.

I was aiming for 1500 kcals yesterday but was bloated after dinner and not into whey before bed.  Too much salad I guess! I love me some salad. I gotta check the sodium on the dressing. It’s no fat, no carb, 5 cals per 2tblsp,  but so I guess there has to be something giving it flavor. Mostly it’s just vinegar though. I like me some vinegar. Anything with tons of flavor like that makes me not hungry.

I gotta say, those depletion workouts are not fun anymore. I liked ‘em last week. I walked into the gym yesterday and wanted to turn around and leave.  Maybe ’cause I knew I was gonna be there for 2-3 hours. That’s the first time I’ve felt like that.

Just the day before, as he was leaving, my Mr. Perfect, Mr. Walking Pheromone, grabbed my hand and told me not to stay too long. He was touching me!! He was touching me with the very manly hand attached to those very manly vascular forearms I couldn’t stand to look at just 10 minutes earlier.

I melted. And then I stammered. The I blurted out whilst slurring like a drunk, “But I like it here. I like it better when you’re here. Touching me. Please don’t stop touching me. Ever!” OK, no I didn’t say that. But I thought it. Yes I did, uh huh. Hey, he was touching me, what else was I gonna think?

Alrighty. I’m feeling a bit better today. Weight is back to where it was before I started Ultimate Diet 2.0.  Thigh and calf are +.25″, belly (girth around naval where all my abdominal fat hangs because of the excess loose skin that doesn’t hold things where they should be hence the tummy tuck!) is up .25″ as well. Caliper measurement is back to where it started, perhaps even maybe down a bit. So, considering the following:

1. PMS or TOM is here. Gotta be because I’ve been famished for the past two days despite having eaten over maintenance on Day 6). PMS always gives me insatiable hunger. Plus I was a miserable bitch yesterday until I did cardio. That’s always a “tell” as they say in poker.

2. Navy formula (what I use to calc bf%) are all down, giving me a fat loss of .8 and a LBM gain of .8 lbs.

3. Here’s the key part: After 1 week of Ultimate Diet 2.0 bf% is down .6% to 19.2% - where it was when I started week 2 of pre UD 2.0 maintenance (which ended up being a bit over maintenance!).

So, it would appear that I did not do as much damage as my (as is all too typical when the scale taunts me) hysteria yesterday led me to believe.

I woke up today thinking I wouldn’t continue UD 2.0. Now I think I may see if I can tweak a bit. I really don’t think the super low cal thing works well for me. I think I will try upping the cals but maybe adding some more light cardio work. Cardio does wonder for my head.

Yesterdays workout:

20 min Arc, 10 min treadmill (and my knees don’t hurt STILL!)
Hanging Leg Raise 3×10
Horizontal Woodchop 2×12x2 plate
Lateral Extension 1×12x25
Planks on Ball 2×120, 1×90

I’m up another pound.

I do not have time to play with this diet. I have 6 weeks to my surgery and instead of losing weight, I’ve gained it. And it’s not just fluid.  The fat roll on my stomach is fatter. I can tell just by the way it feels when I squeeze it. Fluid or fat? God. This sucks.

Over the past 3 days I’ve eaten 8119 calories. Minus a BMR of 1550 x 3 days leaves me with 3469 surplus kcals.  That’s not even a pound, OK call it a pound, two max if my BMR is lower, and here I am up 6.5 lbs.  All of my measurements are up.

That 1550 BMR doesn’t include an hour of cardio and 2+ hours of resistance training. I am so blah and bloated right now and pissed. Pissed pissed.

I Googled “Ultimate Diet 2.0 log”. I ended up learning that most women have not done well on this diet without modifications. Basically, it’s designed/written for men. Just like most everything else I’ve been reading lately related to weight training, dieting sub 22% bf, bodybuilding, etc.

I’m sick of the women’s “diet” sites like Spark People and others. That stuff is just crap, plain and simple. They are telling some women to eat sub 1500 cals a day. Yeah, maybe that’s fine if you don’t get up off your ass. Ever.

I must have PMS. I am a raving cranky bitch today. GRRRRR!!!!!!!!!

OK, so, I need a new plan to get rid of this fat. What? Likely typical lower cal, cardio, blah fucking blah. I’d just do another week but I don’t have another week to mess around with and I don’t know what modifications to try.

I know for sure that the low cal thing doesn’t work for me. 1.5 years of doing that should have taught me something. But no. AND, I can’t function on such low cals. I think carbs are too low as well because once I added them back it was like I couldn’t control myself. I ate until I puked. That’s never happened to me before. AND, low carbs makes cellulite more apparent. AND high carbs makes my skin shiny. I looked like crap low carbing.  Yesterday I was glowing, shiny. Like a girl should be! So, no more super low carbs for me for sure. Not right now anyway.

I should have went with my gut. I didn’t think 3 weeks was long enough to do this. I should have went with my gut. I didn’t think it was working when after a carb fest followed by 3+ days of 1200 kcals I lost only 2lbs. I can do that eating 1800 kcals and doing crap loads of cardio. No need to be a mental zombie.

Who knows? This seeming failure may be related to my ever increasing irregular menstrual cycle and other aforementioned irregularities. I actually did go last night.  It wasn’t exactly regular but hey at least it’s moving.

Alright. Enough bitching.

Weight: 143 (ugh) That’s +5.5 from yesterday. Carb load went OK. I did more than I’d planned. I orginally was intending to do 10g carbs per kg/lbm as I was afraid I hadn’t depleted entirely.

Given the puke fest I then figured I’d better do the minimum 12g to make up for whatever didn’t get digested Friday night.

Ended up doing 14g which is middle of the road.  Waist and belly measurements are up an inch. Hips stayed the same. Thigh is up half an inch. Biceps same. Caliper measurement at hip is + 1/2 - 1mm.

I didn’t go nuts carb or calorie wise so I’m blaming the fructose. Damn red grapes are like crack to me.  I’m also still not “regular” and I’m getting irritated. It’s been probably 3 weeks I’ve been having issues on and off, mostly on. I’m ready to start smoking again. That’ll fix things.  So, that may very well be what’s up with measurements being up so much.  I’ve seen it before. Though that says nothing about the caliper #. We’ll see what Tuesday, day 1, brings.

Here’s todays workout:

DL: 2×5x165, 1×5x175
Leg Press: 1×6x260, 1×6x280, 1×6x300
BB Row: 1×4x95, 1×5x95, 1×6x95
Glute Ham Kicks: 1×6x9 plate, 2×5x10 plate
Low Row: 4×6x9 plate
Calf Raise: 4×6x190
Incline DB Press: 3×6x70
Flat DB Fly: 3×6x60
OH Wide Grip Assisted Pull-up: 1×6x12, 1×6x11, 1×4x10
Pec/Bi Dip: 2×6x8, 1×6x6
Tri Dip: 1×6x8, 2×4x4, 2 unassisted
Chins: 2.5
MP: 1×6x55 (machine) 1×6x50 (DBs), 1×3x60 (DBs)

My weight in the a.m. was 137.5. Not great but hey at least lower. I felt fine. Not tired. Not foggy headed. Good even. Did 40 minutes on the Arc before breakfast. Went home. Ate. Started feeling queasy, tired, oh so very tired. Stayed that way the rest of the typical low cal, low carb day. Counted the seconds until pre-work up mini carb up.  Had a bannana, whey, and a high fiber English Muffin. I’ve decided I don’t like those anymore. Zippo flavor. Cardboardy.

Weighed myself again pre-workout. Still 137.5. Cool. Didn’t get my usual 2-5lb afternoon gain.

Go to the gym and did 20 more on the Arc pre workout as I figured I would probably blow it off if I waited until after.  Did the final depletion workout. I was surprisingly strong. Stronger than last workout. Carbs are wonderful, wonderful things. I also had 5g creatine as well. I’m sure that helped. Did 3-4 sets for all but calfs, bi/tri, and abs.  Though arms probably ended up getting more work than anything else as usual.
Left the gym and went to the grocery store ot buy my uhm, “carbs”. Pretzels, non-fat ice cream, and caramel turtle brownie mix. OH and my M&Ms!

Opened the pretzels as soon as I got into the car. I love pretzels. I love salt. Sometimes I get the urge to buy a bag of pretzels just so that I can suck the salt off of them. Sick, I know.

Got home, had my PWO shake which wasn’t my usual PWO shake because I didn’t have any vanilla EAS whey. I only have the slow casein/egg stuff. So, I had to use the chocolate Designer Whey which tastes like crap to me.

Had some grapes. Maybe 20 or so. Had some more pretzels.

Went to Target to get a belt for the kid. Eat my M&Ms while I’m waiting for him. I couldn’t wait any longer for those M&Ms. Well, I coulda. I just didn’t wanna.

On the way home I stopped to buy Freihofer’s chocolate chip cookies because kid doesn’t like the brownies I bought. They had nuts. God forbid. The kid will eat a jar of peanut butter in one sitting but put a few walnuts near him and he freaks.

Freihofer’s taste nowhere near as good as I remember them tasting when I was a kid. In fact, I kind of didn’t even like them. I shoulda bought the damn pink Hostess Snowballs. Oh well.

I ate 6 of the “these taste like crap” cookies while I was sitting in the car filling out my Mega Millions lottery card.  Did I think they would taste better if I kept shoving them down my throat? I dunno.  Oh, and no, I didn’t win the 145 million. Again. I wonder why I never win that damn thing.

After cookies I stopped to pick up take out. I ordered the Veal and Peppers which came with pasta. Yummy pasta. Really yummy pasta. And sauce. Which was apparently more oil than sauce.  I ate maybe a cups worth. A cup including veal, peppers and pasta. I had about 2.5 ounces of bread. I was stuffed. Started feeling dizzy. I had to go lie down.

Watched some Tivo’d “Workout”, the Bravo reality show.  Started feeling like that pasta tasted way too good for me not to eat some more. So I did. Couldn’t fit in much more before I got that stuffed sick feeling again.  I should probably mention here if I haven’t already that I’d been constipated for 3 or maybe 4 days by this point. Stuff just wasn’t moving. So, I go lie down again. I think I fell asleep for a bit. Watch some more Tivo.

I’ve still got the ice cream and brownies waiting for me.  First I have more pasta because damn that stuff is good.  All told I probably ate about 2-3 cups over the course of the night.  I decide it’s too late to be baking brownies and I didn’t really feel like eating an entire brownie sundae anyway.

So, I just get me some ice cream. Because I’m hungry? Uhm, no, not quite.  In fact I’m stuffed. I can’t fit anymore food. Ice cream is supposed to help digestion isn’t it?  That’s why they give it to sick people.  Right?

I eat about a cup, if that.

Then it happened. Things started moving. I had cold sweats, I was in pain, my entire abdomen was engorged, swollen, hard as a rock. I looked to be about 4 months pregnant.

I quickly became unconstipated. I quickly became nauseous.  I so, sooo, SOOO, badly, I can not tell you how badly, wanted to stick my finger down my throat but I couldn’t as I was too busy being unconstipated. I literally thought I’d OD’d on food or sugar or something. I quite honestly began to think I should call 911. I was in that much pain. It wasn’t just the nausea - it was my entire abdomen feeling like it was going to explode!

And then I puked. And then I went to bed.

I woke up and am the same weight I was yesterday. How that happened I dunno.  I guess it had something to do with things getting “moving” again. Or I just puked up all the carbs/cals/fat/chemicals/poison? No way to tell. I don’t know what got digested and what didn’t. If it takes 3-4 hours to digest then I doubt any pasta or bread was digested. Certainly the ice cream wasn’t.  I dunno how to go from here. Maybe I’ll just count half the pasta & bread.  I didn’t even vomit all that much, considering the amount of food that felt like it was sitting in my stomach. Felt to be, oh about a ton. Give or take.

A few days before this past Christmas there was a water main break in a pipe at the end of my driveway.  Since then the resulting hole large enough to swallow my car times two has been temporarily filled. What that really means is that the end of my driveway is several huge pot holes. I drive a Mustang.  Mustangs don’t off-road well.

So, the town is out there right now. They’ve already started digging. One of the guys comes to my door and asks if I need to get out of my driveway.  Uhm, they’ve already begun to dig. There’s a least a foot drop.  I didn’t really understand the point of him asking.  And, to answer the question, yes, I do need to go out.

I’m stuck. Oh well. I guess I’ll have to do absolutely NOTHING. Problem? I’m not tired today! Though I did have trouble falling asleep and then staying asleep. So, I overslept. I actually would have been out of here had I been up on time.

When I started Ultimate Diet 2.0 I was 139.5 lbs.  That was up 3.5lbs from the prior week. I’d been doing maintenance which turned out to be a bit over maintenance. I was at 2400 average daily kcals for last week thanks to two “cheat days”. One unplanned. It was more like a conscious out of control eating thing. Over the course of about two hours I ate half a box of some sweetened version of Total cereal.  I knew all the carbs would be with me on the scale the next day, and probably on Tuesday my weigh in day. I didn’t care.

It’s now what, Thursday, Total pigout was Sunday. I’ve been doing 1200 kcals for the past two days, a little below maintenance on Monday, kicked my ass hard at the gym and I now care.  I’m stuck. I’m still 139.5. My legs are KILLING me. Well, not killing but I haven’t been this sore and tight in a long time.
I’m almost thinking I won’t do the carb up. I don’t get this. How can I not be dropping water weight? I am a bit oh let’s say irregular. Been two days now. Or, maybe it’s PMS?  Hard to say. I have this nifty little IUD that makes my cycle irregular, or nonexistent, or well, at least really hard to track.  I’m really starting to get paranoid.  How do I not lose anything with no carbs? This actually shouldn’t surprise me given I only lost maybe 5 lbs the first two weeks I did South Beach and that was coming off Weight Watchers aka the High Fructose Corn Syrup Diet. (I say that because the food they pimp at the meetings is pumped full of the stuff)

So, I can’t eat. I can’t go anywhere. I’m supposed to be out of the gym today though I think I’m allowed to do cardio (I’ll have to “read the fucking book” again and check). Looks like rain, though I might be able to squeeze in some yard work. That might be useful in keeping my mind off of those ymmy OMG I sooo need to eat them M&Ms. Then later on I’ll probably have to escape to no carb no cal Norrath.

I slept at least 8 hours last night.

I woke up tired.

Low carb sucks.

I guess the only plus is that I’m not all that hungry. At least I’m not as hungry as I thought I’d be. I usually do 1700-1900 kcals. Ultimate Diet 2.0 has me doing 1200.

I’m really worried that I’m not getting in enough depletion during these workouts. I just can’t seem to match weight with reps and time under tension on some stuff. If I go lighter I get no burn. Heavier I fail. I dunno.

Did cardio this morning. I didn’t think I’d feel like doing it after today’s lower body workout. I actually probably could have gotten through it. I was just kinda bitchy and cranky so I’m glad I did it this morning. Then again, now I’m sitting here at 6:30 and have only like 300 calories left for the day. I was hungry by the time I went to bed last night, which was about an hour after I ate.

Nights suck for me. I just want to go to sleep but I can’t because: A) it’s too early and B) my daughter is coming home from college tonight. And that’s another thing!! She is an eater. Eating, eating, all the time. And she never shuts up. She’s gonna stress me I just know it. I talked to her earlier today and she’s like, “Let’s do something tonight, I wanna go to the movies.” Sure, she’s gonna get home maybe 8 or 9pm, we have to unload all her crap and then go out? I WOKE UP TIRED!! I just want to sleep!!!!! Not to mention the fact that I have no money or debit card and the movies cost like 8 gazillion dollars AND they have that stinking popcorn I hate HATE HATE saying no to! AND I’M HUNGRY!!

Bah. First thing I’m eating Friday night is M&Ms. I’ve already decided. No, second thing. First thing will be my pwo shake. They’ve got one of those candy machines in my “gym”, candy machine in the gym? hence the quotes, and I have to look at the M&Ms in it every time I leave the gym, when I’m starving, and can’t have my pwo carbs. I swear I only workout so that I can have my crack dextrose/malto/whey afterwards. I love that stuff. LOVE it. I put it in the blender and it gets all foamy and thick, almost like a milkshake but better than a milkshake.

I’m too tired to do a workout log. I need to do more calf sets and I should be good, at least #of set wise. Who knows if I worked hard enough. Yeah, I got dizzy, especially during DLs. I dunno what made me think that would be a good idea but I did ‘em. 4 sets @ 95lbs.

Well, at least my knees don’t hurt. At all. It’s amazing. I didn’t do lunges as that’s when I first felt the pain. I may try them next week. I couldn’t do step ups. Gym was too crowded today. Couldn’t do back extension either, again couldn’t get near it. I’m really tired of the crowds.

And, I’m so sick of the walking pheromone and his hot/cold crap. I dunno what that’s about. He’s either super shy or doesn’t think I like him, maybe both. I’m shy too, so grrr I dunno how to do this. I dunno. I dunno. I’m about ready to just tell him to ask me out or something. This is getting INCREDIBLY frustrating. And every once in a while he won’t show up for a week. I start thinking I missed my chance to, I dunno, tell him I love him and want to marry him?, OK just that I want him, badly.

Kid just called. They are out to eat. She’s having chicken parm. I whine, bitch, and moan. She says, “I’ll bring some home for you!”

Oh great, and there’s the damn ice cream truck with it’s loud obnoxious music.