Sore, Stuffed & Sleepy

Those are the three words that best describe my day. Well, for the most part.

Let me explain.

First, the sore. If you read my entry yesterday, you know I started leg workouts. I did relatively light weight, and only did 11 total sets for the overall workout, yet my legs were quite stiff and sore this morning.

I knew they would be. I've had enough experience at this to know whenever I start doing squats, no matter how easy and light I take it, my legs get really tight and sore the next couple of days (and playing basketball afterwards yesterday probably didn't help). Today was no exception -- all day long, every time I've stood or sat down, my leg muscles protested, quite painfully at times. Generally, the second day afterward is even worse, then they start to get better, and as long as I continue doing squats at least once a week, I don't get that extreme soreness again.

Now for the sleepy.

One of the changes I'm making for the second month of my weight loss and get-fit program is moving my cardio to the mornings, before work. Up until now, I've been going to the gym at night for both weight workouts and cardio, and that's meant on nights when I'm doing both usually not getting home until 9 or later.

By moving them to the morning, I get home a little earlier, leaving me more time for other stuff and giving me a little more time to relax and get ready for bed. I have a hard time going to bed just two or three hours after doing all of that work, so maybe this will help me get to bed a tad earlier, though I'll still be doing my weight training in the evenings.

And now we come to the stuffed.

This new eating plan I'm on has had me feeling really full all day. Even when I start to feel a little hungry, I'm still feeling a bit bloated from eating so much. It's not like I'm pigging out or anything, but I've upped the protein sources a tad (going from four ounces of chicken breast to six ounces is an example), and I've added some healthy, complex carbs to most meals.

Whereas during that first month I would eat an egg and two egg whites for breakfast, sometimes with a little lean ham thrown in, now I'm adding a serving of oatmeal. At lunch, instead of four or five ounces of chicken breast and a half-cup of veggies, I'm eating six ounces of chicken, a half cup of veggies, and a cup of brown rice.

When you're eating clean, you end up taking in a large volume of food without necessarily taking in a lot of calories. By eating clean, I mean lean meats, plenty of veggies that are fresh or frozen, never canned (and even the frozen ones can't have flavoring, sauce, or sodium added). Carbs are things like brown rich that you boiled from a bag (not the boxed stuff that's loaded with preservatives and chemicals), sweet potatoes (not canned), whole wheat spaghetti noodles.

The idea here is to eat lean, healthy food that's as close to its natural state as possible, avoiding high-fat, processed foods. This is about more than weight loss, it's about making healthy choices, using food as a fuel.

And when you're eating clean, the sheer mass of what you eat can be a little daunting.

Take my first dinner tonight as an example. I had five ounces of lean pork, 2/3 cup of brown rice and 1/2 cup veggies. The total nutritional breakdown for that meal was 415 calories, 8.5 grams of fat, 46 grams of protein, and less than 200 milligrams of sodium.

Contrast that with, say, a Big Mac, medium fries and a medium Coke, which comes in at 1,090 calories, 44 grams of fat, 29 grams of protein and more than 1,200 milligrams of sodium. And I'd go so far to say there's not a healthy gram of anything in that McDonald's meal.

What's my point? You can eat a lot of food, without taking in a lot of calories or bad stuff, when eating clean.

In fact, I'm just not used to eating 400-calorie meals at this point, so both my lunch and my first dinner felt like I was stuffing in the food.

Something I noticed tonight, though. Even though I was dragging a little from lack of sleep, once I hit the gym tonight and really starting working, I found myself doing more sets, more reps, with heavier weight. Whether it just happened like that today, or it was because of the eating, I don't know, but I suspect it was from my healthy increase in food.

Anyway, enough of my soapbox for tonight.

Here is the scoop for today -- and yes, I'm still taking it easy on the forearms, choosing lifts that allow me to work the chosen muscle groups with a minimal amount of hard gripping or forearm strain required.

Cardio
Stationary bike -- 40 minutes (30 minutes on level 5, the rest on level 4)
14 miles
450 calories

Weight training -- chest, shoulders, and triceps

Chest
Barbell flat bench press
135 pounds - 1 set, 10 reps
185 pounds - 1 set, 8 reps
205 pounds - 2 sets, 8 reps each
195 pounds - 2 sets, 8 reps each

Incline barbell press
135 pounds - 1 set, 8 reps
135 pounds - 1 set, 6 reps

Seated Machine Chest Flyes
125 pounds - 2 sets, 10 reps each

Shoulders
Seated barbell press
115 pounds, 2 sets, 8 reps each

Seated machine side raises
110 pounds - 2 sets, 10 reps each

Seated Machine Rear Delt Flyes
140 pounds - 2 sets, 10 reps each

Triceps
Angled-bar press down
140 pound - 2 sets, 10 reps each

Tricep dips
Body weight only -- 20 reps

Abs
Seated Crunch Machine
110 pounds - 2 set, 15 reps each

And now for the food...

Breakfast
Coffee
Eggs -- 1 whole, 2 whites
Oatmeal -- 1 cup cooked
One fresh strawberry sliced up (that was my oatmeal sweetener)

Lunch
Boiled chicken breast -- 6 ounces
Whole Wheat noodles -- 3/4 serving (3.3 ounces cooked)
Veggies -- 2/3 cup
Sesame oil -- 1 teaspoons
Soy sauce -- 2 teaspoons

Snack
Protein Bar

First Dinner
Lean pork -- 5 ounces
Veggies -- 2/3 cup
Brown rice -- 2/3 cup

Second dinner
Baked Tilapia (seasoned with dill and ground pepper) -- 5 ounces
1 whole pear
(note, I was SUPPOSED to eat a sweet potato, but as sometimes happens around our house, they disappeared somewhere  between the grocery store and out kitchen).

Snack
Fat-free Greek yogurt

Totals for the day
1,635 calories (that's a little lower than I thought it would be)
35 grams of fat
179 grams of protein (wow, I'm still a little low there)

Water -- 70 ounces
Diet soda -- 24 ounces

Thanks for stopping by. As always, if you have comments or questions, leave them in the comment section and I'll respond to each one!