Fitness Safari

New blog and first FFF profile has been posted on Fierce. Fit. Fearless. Introducing Lisa C., one of the founding members and the instigator behind starting an IF group for women. Thank you, Lisa, for opening up about your life-long battle over your body image. How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them. ~ Benjamin Franklin

A friend of a friend reached out to me recently. She's frustrated and looking for a weight-loss approach that actually works and is sustainable - same as the rest of us. I started typing her response, but, what came out was a fairly detailed outline of what I've been doing and why it works. It's not super technical or scientific. If you want to read about the science behind the theories, go to www.leangains.com . Martin always does a thorough job of explaining things in fairly simple terms. What follows is more of how I would explain my lifestyle on Leangains to a friend. It is in no way complete and does not cover all aspects of IF, but I think it's a decent introduction to the average person who may be curious about what IF is and why the way we eat is primarily responsible for how we look. .................................................. No matter whether it's 10 lbs or 100 lbs, I see people every day killing themselves in the gym on treadmills and elliptical t...

I survived 5 days in New Orleans without turning into too much of a pig. I was on par with the diet all but Sunday and Monday when I enjoyed Brunch at Commander's Palace (though in all fairness, my entree was an Angus Prime Ribeye with a poached egg), but the Strawberry shortcake with fresh cream and buttermilk biscuit was probably not on my LG menu - but who cares, I was at Commander's! I also did not lift a single piece of iron during my entire trip - was hard to fit it in between work and awesome dinners with dad - piles of boiled crawfish, broiled and raw oysters, gumbo...the list goes on! How I managed to avoid all fried foods and jambalaya during my stay, I'll never know. I guess I'll just chalk it up to the fresh, in-season crawfish that were everywhere! And, since I did not lift at all while away, I had to do something so I ran on the levy. I ran over the levy. I ran along the levy for miles and miles and I even ran up and down the levy for miles and miles - bes...

I was flipping through the channels a few minutes ago and came upon The Biggest Loser. I've watched some of the show before and know that the person who loses the greatest percentage of bodyWEIGHT is deemed the winner and is destined for fame and glory...well, maybe not fame and glory, but I guess they get some money or cool stuff. Anyway, as I'm watching this poor woman try to decide whether she'll trade in the $10,000 prize she won for a 1 pound advantage at weigh in, it hit me - they're doing it all wrong! The person who loses the highest percentage of bodyWEIGHT at the end of this show isn't necessarily the fittest person there. The winner could be totally skinny-fat like I was just two months ago. I was still squeezing into a size 4, yet I had no muscle tone at all. I thought, how dumb. Granted, I was never morbidly obese like many on this show, but let's take me as an example: I lost about 13 lbs or nearly 10 percent of my bodyWEIGHT in two months of IF, h...

Woot! Woot! Let's hear it for broken records!!! First...as I mentioned in my last post, I would be introducing a new twist to my regimen. Call it an experiment of sorts, but I'm trying PSMF - Protein Sparing Modified Fasting. I would not recommend this approach to anyone as it requires very low calories and high protein...but I'm only trying it EOD every other day (rest days only) for a couple of weeks. If you're that interested in it, you can Google it yourself. I ended up doing two days in a row due to a misplaced rib head in my upper back probably due to my heavy standing military presses on Sunday... A quick trip to my chiropractor yesterday and I was better than ever and ready to hit the gym today. All told, I was down from 115.5 to 113.6 in just a couple of days, however, I do expect that number to creep up after a day of eating maintenance +20% (today)...Anyway, the gym! I found a lone bottle fo 5-hour energy and decided WTH and chugged it down on my way. A quick...

For my early readers, do you recall the story, Is no place sacred that I wrote after I saw a Craisins ad on the wall at my gym? In it, I compare Craisins to their close cousin, Mike n Ike's... Anyway, not long after I posted my story, (and I'm sure a total coincidence) the Craisins ad was replaced by an ad for egg whites! Yes! Seems I may not have been the only person to complain about the candy, er, I mean Craisins ad they had posted. Well, I'm even happier to report that the powers-at-be have decided it is better to push healthy items to the members of their club and have brought in their latest poster below. I definitely approve: At any rate, I'm still IFing, working out, and trying to keep my shit together while I undergo some major life events. The good news is that I seem to have busted out of my fat loss stall and have hit 115 lbs, but am maintaining my strength. I'm working to tweak my diet as I know I've been slacking big time and am already seeing cha...

After I sent Martin ( Leangains.com ) my chinup vids so he can post them, he asked me about my routine so he could offer some background to the videos. He felt it may help give some direction to other IFing women out there; and I hope it does. I think he's going to post this sometime soon as well, but I wanted to archive it on my own blog. I created this routine from bits and pieces found scattered like confetti across his blog. I know everyone is slightly different and has different goals, so this routine may not be for you. I also know that, after two months of this, I'm stronger than ever before, but will likely have to find a way to shake things up a bit to keep things moving...but I'm not sure how to proceed. In case you rush through the routine without reading the fine print, I generally rest from 3 to 5 minutes between every set. Since I'm only doing 2-3 types of exercises at 3-4 sets each, I'm in and out of the gym in under an hour. Oh, and I only workout 3 ...

The videos are a little shaky, but that's what happens when you let your 12-year old daughter film you. Only got two sets recorded - no idea what she was doing the other sets...but you get the idea. I'll post again when I break the 25 lb barrier! First set - Body weight + 17.5 lbs - a new PR! Only did 5, but that's ok with me! Followed with 15 lbs x 5, 10 lbs x 5, BW x 6, and BW x 6!

Spent the weekend moving into my new apartment and MAN am I sore! The muscles in my neck, middle and upper back and thighs are especially tired and heavy today. I was going to shoot my weighted chins vid today for Martin, but it's going to have to wait at least one more day. I have to eat and rest before I'm going to take that on. I don't want to disappoint everyone who's rooting for me out there! Hope you are all keeping to your programs and seeing results. I'm looking forward to another week of heavy training, heavy eating and lots of sleeping! Stay tuned...I'll publish the video later this week.

Recently I've been struggling with my motivation. I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere. My workouts stalled (poor diet, lack of discipline and no sleep). Then, today, I hopped on the scale to a solid 116.0 lbs (was literally 117.8 yesterday at the same time). I think the two pints of Guinness I had to celebrate St. Patty's with my girlfriend and the bar appetizers I shouldn't have eaten may have given me the "Whoosh" that Martin Berkhan speaks of. "By the way, a nice bonus after a night of drinking is that it effectively rids you of water retention. You may experience the "whoosh" effect, which I've talked about in my two-part series about water retention. That in itself can be motivating for folks who've been experiencing a plateau in their weight loss." In any event, I'm pleased at my results so far and look forward to seeing how I will look in another two months - just in time for Memorial Day at the Jersey Shore. Here the...

Some of you following my blog may be wondering what I'm eating - when I am eating, that is. Going 16 hours a day without food is not that difficult most days. I only have trouble when I'm bored. Luckily I have a job that keeps me on my toes and a life that is quite full when I'm not at the office. What I eat varies a bit depending on whether it's a rest day or a workout day. On workout days, I eat higher complex carbs/starchy veggies because my muscles have been greatly depleted of their glycogen stores through my short, yet intense workout. If your muscles are empty, there's plenty of room for glucose! Add to this the increased insulin sensitivity I'm creating within my system through a low sugar, low carb diet the rest of the time and when I do eat anything that is turned to sugar, my body cleans it up in no time, using the glucose for energy and refilling the stores in my muscles - leaving nothing to store as fat. Yes, it is that simple. <script async...

I went to bed last night stuffed to the gills. I had 177g of protein yesterday and my total allotment of 1,326 calories and yet I lost another pound. Then, I was really hungry this morning and was prepared to devour every morsel of my 4-piece of Grilled Caribbean chicken I got at the grocery store, but I couldn't finish it. I'm not sure if it's because my body gets tired of eating chunks of protein or what, but after making quick work of a wing and two drumsticks, I only got halfway through the breast. I seem to get full fast, then hungry again pretty quickly after eating - even after STUFFING myself with protein and veggies. I'm planning a cheat day on Sunday where I will eat something fatty and sweet so my leptin levels can climb again and kill this constant hunger. Just so you know, I don't feel like I'm starving all of the time. The feeling is more like what you get an hour after eating Chinese food - you know you just ate, but you could probably eat a bit m...

OMG. How I can go from so hungry to stuffed so fast is unbelievable. As my 16-hour fast ticked down to a close, I prepared to devour my lunch: two tilapia fillets smothered in mushrooms and onions, a small yam and about a cup of blueberries. shortly after I was STUFFED. I felt like this little guy over here - full belly and ready for a nap. Luckily it was the almost 50 g of protein in the fish that filled me up, so I rebounded in about 20 minutes. Only about 90 g of protein to go. Ugh. How in the heck am I supposed to get it all from food! I guess it's another ribeye for dinner tonight.

A week ago, when I began my foray into IF (intermittent fasting), I weighed in at about 128 lbs. Now, that doesn't sound like a lot, but I'm pretty short (5'2"), so I was looking quite soft. Well, I'm proud to announce that after 1 week of IF, a sensible meal plan, and a few hours total in the gym, I now weigh 120 lbs. According to my Tanita body fat scale, I went up briefly this week from 28.5 to just over 30 (as I flushed water weight most likely) and was down to 27.5 when I woke up this morning. Now, I have no idea how accurate these scales are, but what I am shooting for is a downward trend. When I get leaner I will get the trainers at the gym to do a caliper measurement to see where I stand. I know a good deal of my weight a week ago was water weight, but I am feeling thinner and lighter and already fitting into jeans that were too tight just a week ago. I don't look like the woman in this picture...yet...but I'm happy with my progress. Today's Upd...