I didn’t pre-make my meals on Sunday and that’s made lunches a little difficult this week. I’ve ended up eating out a lot, and while I kept things ‘sane’ I don’t think it’s been the ‘best’ I could do. Starting next week things will tighten up a LOT.

One issue we (I) have is that when we finally get home about 7:00PM I’m so exhausted that I don’t feel like making dinner. So today I got the bright idea that I’m going to purchase a crock pot. That way I can fix it and forget it. With the winter rainy season on it’s way coming home to beans, chili, stew, soup and things like that sounds wonderful. I may even take some of my weekends and bake some homemade bread…. Mmmm.

My fiancé was the first one out of bed this morning when the alarm went off at 4:00AM. I took longer, but managed. We were dressed and out of the house before 4:30. I tried ‘nuking’ eggs again for breakfast but one of them EXPLODED and I ended up with ‘egg water’ in the bowl and egg all over the inside of the microwave. So I grabbed a bagel with Peanut butter instead. That didn’t seem to sit well during my workout so I’ll have to figure out something else for tomorrow.

My workout was good and VERY hard today. Back and Shoulders day. I’m pretty happy with the strength in my shoulders but getting frustrated with back exercises. It seems like my ‘assisting’ muscles (like biceps) give out before my back gets a good workout. I guess I’ll just have to wait for those ‘smaller’ muscles to catch up.

So, the workout looked like this:

Assisted Pullups:

170lbsx12, 180x12, 190x12
This was SO frustrating for me. And wasn’t exactly the best way to start off a workout. Doing pull-ups is a goal of mine and knowing I’m 190lbs from being able to do one just set a bad tone for the rest of the time.

Lat Pull down:

75lbsx12 & 60x10/75lbsx10 & 60x8/80lbsx10 & 65x10

Maybe it was the ‘pre-fatigue’ from doing pull-ups but this just seemed REALLY hard today… I’ll have to check but I could have sworn I did 90lbs last time.

T-bar Row:
45lbsx10/35x10/35x10

Wide Grip Row:
60lbsx10/60x10/10x10

Arnold Press:
25lbsx10/25lbsx10/25lbsx7

There was just NO getting this up one more time…

Then came the shoulder super set: Lat raise, front raise, Bent over back Flye
10lbs x 12/8lbs x 10

One thing I hate about Supersets – I tend to try to use the same weight for each and that made the front raise too hard and the back flye too easy. I’m going to change that next time and just grab a whole family of weights – There’s enough weights and few enough lifters that I think I could do that without pissing anyone off. The only real danger is me tripping over them.

The other thing I changed for this workout was I wore my stop watch and tried to limit my rests to 45-60seconds. I had been going by ‘feel’ and waiting until I ‘felt ready’ to go for it again. Timing myself certainly made my workout go by quicker! But I did notice a decrease in performance. I’m guessing that with the longer rest I’m allowing myself to lift more and build more strength, but with the shorter I’m keeping my heart rate up and burning more calories? So I’ll need to decide which is more important to me. Personally I would like my strength training days to be focused on strength and my cardio on calories – if that’s at all possible. I don’t know – maybe someone more knowledgeable then me has some insight.

So – the workout’s done. I’ll be grabbing lunch on the go today but the store across the street has an excellent salad bar.

Oh and I’m setting a goal today of 3 – 24 oz bottles of water before I go home.