3 weeks in…
Posted at 21:56 in Food, Personal, Training
…to the new year and all is going extremely well!
It’s been a long time since I felt so motivated in the gym and it’s having a really positive effect on my lifting. My numbers are creeping back up to where they should be which pleases me greatly; I’m almost back to what I was lifting when I was only lifting for sets of 5 reps but am now lifting for sets of 8.
One of my aims this year is to get more video footage of me training in the gym. Not only will this serve to help me improve my form but it will hopefully be helpful to people who read the blog, if only to motivate. I’m back in the gym tomorrow for lower body so will try and get an up to date squat or deadlift video.
As you know I’ve been following a relatively low carb, high fat diet for the previous 2 years but am currently experimenting with carb cycling to see if it has a positive effect in the gym. Typically I was only eating a small amount of starch in the form of sweet potatoes on training days and no starch on rest days but since the start of the new year, I’ve been consuming starch every day with considerably more on training days and a modest amount on rest days.
At present, my macro split looks something like this:
Rest day macros
Training day macros
So far so good! I’ll keep you updated with any progress.
Food is still pretty basic – I break the fast at 3pm with a protein shake made with double cream & water. This is the same every day whether it’s a training day or a rest day. I have a shake for the sake of convenience as I work in a busy outpatients department and our lunch break is at noon. It’s far too early for me to break my fast and I’m not prepared to change my feeding window so a protein shake packs a good punch – a decent amount of protein and fat.
If it’s a training day, I’m in the gym for about 5.30pm so don’t get to eat until I get home so around 8pm. Food is normally approximately 300g meat (usually beef), 250g sweet potato (100g or so on rest days) basted in coconut oil and baked and about 400g veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, sprouts, carrots). Sometimes, if I don’t fancy veg, I add in 3 scrambled eggs cooked in butter and have some sauerkraut on the side.
On rest days, when I get home I will typically eat something small such as a little full fat Greek yoghurt, some brazils and a clementine but on training days this is eaten as dessert after dinner. I also *love* a glass of Jersey milk in the evening – it’s full fat, unhomogenised and absolutely delicious!
This is just a typical day of eating (as I get asked this question a lot!) but doesn’t include everything I eat. I also eat other types of meat (lamb, chicken, pork), aged cheddar, different varieties of vegetables, berries when in season, occasional bacon, gluten free black pudding (swoon!), etc.
I’m not going to make any promises about blog post frequency as I find that just puts pressure on me to write something of substance but if anyone out there misses my blog posts, you can also keep in touch with me via facebook, twitter or fitocracy as I post more frequently there…
I’ll leave you with a few pictures from the past week or two.
I’m finally managing to master fishtail braids <3
I also mastered the smoky eye look!
And finally, I got to the gym the other week only to find I had forgotten to pack my gym trousers! In desperation, I borrowed a pair of shorts from a male PT but I think I *just* about managed to pull off the look…
Catch you soon folks!
Glad is it all going well for you- I would be interesting in seeing the videos, as you say, it is hard to describe the exact movements.
Fantastic! Its great to hear success stories about people who actually put the hard effort in! Glad your seeing the results. Keep up the great work :)
Fantastic! Its great to hear success stories about people who actually put the hard effort in! Glad your seeing the results. Keep up the great work :)