No clever titles here
Today's workout: Chest and Shoulders. Still Power Week; rests 2-3 minutes.

One-arm DB Bench Press
WU 15lb PB+Add xR6/L6
Work 35lb PB+Add xR6/L6, L6/R6, R6/L6
Notes: First workset absolutely rotten, as I tried to find my point of balance. Interesting, doing them one-armed -- certainly feel it a lot more.

DB Decline Press
WU 15lb PB+Add x6
Work 35lb PB x6, 6, 6
Notes: Very odd, how easily these seemed to go up. I recall struggling last time.

DB Flyes
WU 15lb PB x6
Work 25lb PB+2Adds x6, 6, 5
Notes: Felt these too.

Military Press (parallel grip)
WU 15lb PB+Add x6
Work 25lb PB+Add x5, 5, 4
Notes: That certainly sucked rocks. Worse than last time. I think I must switch chest and back next Power Week, as I felt the effects of yesterday's deadlifts in echo during many of these exercises.

Upright DB Row
WU 15lb PB+Add x6
Work 25lb PB+Add x6,6,6
Notes: The blithe repetition of numbers cannot convey how much these hurt my shoulders. I'm not even sure if it's the muscle or something else, or both.

Lean-away Laterals
WU 10lb DB xR6/L6
Work 15lb PB x R6/L6, L6/R6
Notes: Haven't done these in a cycle or two, and was surprised at how "easy" they seem to have gotten.

Entire workout: yech. Every time I picked up a weight, this shudder would run through me: Oh, man, this is sooooo heavy! I can't lift this much, can I? I could, when I got into the groove of the motion, but still, the initial surge of feebleness was hardly encouraging. I've felt rotten all day. Came home, and was so exhausted I decided to have a nap instead, so ate 2 ounces of chicken and a tree of broccoli with some fish oil and went to bed. I couldn't sleep, of course. First the dog had to lick me all over, then William came and sat on my chest, huffing catbreath affectionately into my mouth and curling his sharp little claws in ecstasy in my bosom, and then -- well, I just couldn't sleep. Felt I should be doing something.

So I did; I went off and cleared out about a hundred volumes from the bookshelves and put them in the Sell/Donate pile. This drop in the bucket makes absolutely no difference, and doesn't even make space for all the books stuffed in the gaps on top at present.

The other thing I did was call and book appointments for all the test nonsense my doctor requisitioned at the last checkup. Next week will be a whirl of allopathic medicine: appointment to discuss blood test on Monday, bone density scan Wednesday, ultrasound (yuck) Thursday. I'll enjoy this, I can tell already. Not to mention, supposedly there is an order in to Toronto to get an MRI done on my knee this month.

Then I had supper; again, motivation not stellar, so I made the last kohlrabi into the same thing as last night, and had the other half of the lemon oatcake. Same as last night. A. was watching a tape of cartoons off YTV someone lent him, and I watched a couple of Darias. Then things moved off into something to do with the Debbies who live in the hills and the mutants who live in the valleys, which was entirely too close to my own high school experience to be remotely watchable. Besides, I don't feel like working out tomorrow. I want my rest day.

After lifting, I did sprints again. Same as yesterday, yes. Dull, very, though it was considerably darker. Total lifting time: 50 minutes.

Sixth meal: one microwaved sweet potato with butter sprinkles, and a sample pack of Orange Creamsicle Whey Gourmet protein. It made a nice change; however, I think I still prefer my own syrupy concoctions.

Today's total: 1392 calories.
134g protein, 126g carbs (27g fibre), 28g fat.

Curiously strong
I am addicted to the Altoids breath strips, particularly the cinnamon.

The trouble is, the only place round here that sells them is Sugar Mountain. As you can well imagine, this is dangerous.

I only wish that I could think of something to do with the very nifty little trapdoor tins the strips come in.

You see what?
Last night, as I was undressing for bed, A. said, "I can see your body changing already."

"What?" I cried. "What! Where? How?"

"I'm seeing all kinds of abs starting to peek out."

Abs!

My dream has been to come into this show with a couple of visible abs or so. Last time, though my bodyfat was low enough that there were veins crawling round my groin, there were no abs to be revealed, merely a flat expanse.

When I first got wacky about this working-out gig, I did a lot of Pilates. I like Pilates a lot -- it's fun to do. It was also very effective, flattening and tightening the midriff region, and helping to pull up all the extra skin that formerly contained the equivalent of another me. It didn't, however, bulk up the muscles -- which is, I expect, why it is so popular among the female actor crowd. Long and lean.

So this year, I switched to something a bit more hard-hitting: serious ab workouts, once or twice a week. I started out with the standard round of mixed crunches. More recently, I've headed into the the more gruelling realms of cable crunches, weighted things, knee raises, and of course the evil Dragon Flag.

It seems that my abs have Bruce Lee (the Dragon) to thank for this particular pain. It seems that His Dragonness was a touch obsessed with the state of his rippling core.

Though I'm on the Net, where no one can see me sweat, I hasten to clarify that what I am doing is in fact a "partial Dragon Flag." No way am I anywhere close to raising my bod up into the air again in the concentric movement, and indeed, I do lose control of my legs in the last few inches (though those inches, happily, get just a little fewer every time). I shudder to think. Even my pathetic half-dozen half-flags make me walk around bent over as though I've just given birth.

A. brought me a present yesterday. Was it jewellery? lingerie? a new book? Nope, it was a new kind of anorectic tea. (Don't get alarmed here. "Anorectic": appetite suppressant.) We're both very tired of me wandering round the house moaning, "I'm hungry!"

This is why a lot of competitors spend their dieting period popping back the dear old ephedrine-stack thermogenics; they aren't, in fact, all that much of a metabolic booster, but they certainly do suppress the appetite. I, however, am not going to be doing any of that hard stuff. Not only is it illegal in Canadian bodybuilding (not that that stops anyone else -- after all, "it clears from your system in three weeks!") but I have had my experience with original full-bore Therm@Pro, and it was a bad one. Me, my adrenal system and ephedrine are not boon companions.

So. In the Kalahari desert, the Kalahari bushmen, when wandering about seeking animals to throw sharp sticks at, would sometimes find themselves between animals for uncomfortably long periods, not to mention very far from the nearest waterhole. When that happened, they would seek out the Hoodia gordonii and chew it -- hopefully peeling the spines off first, but you never know. Those Kalahari bushmen were tough, wiry fellows.

I now have me a box of Bija Slimming Tea. Why do I suddenly feel like a 'fifties housewife? "Slimming tea." How lame. In addition to hoodia, it has an optimistic selection of other herbal metabolic pumpers: my dependable green tea, bitter orange extract, and Garcinia cambogia extract. Flavour: pleasantly citrus-ish.

It may work, it may not -- whichever; I have already established that drinking a lot of tea is a relatively pleasant way to not eat between my sadly frugal meals.

So that's where my Erector Spinae are
No missing them this morning.

Today's weight: 128.5 pounds. Temperature: 96.8?F.

All discombobulated this morn. We went out and took the dog for a very quick walk, for A. is driving the brother of a friend of ours up to see his doctor in remote Orillia (long story). He had to leave at 6:30 a.m. So, while I packed up my first three meals, I made him some stuff to take too, and it was enough to throw off my routine utterly.

Also, I took my contacts out last night, filled the little container with solution, and left the two --the basket of lenses, the bottom with the liquid -- sitting next to each other in the bathroom. As opposed to one inside the other.

Today's eating, pretty much same as yesterday, with knobs on. Meal one: sour shot, green tea, quarter cup 8-grain cereal, tablespoon sugar-free jam, splash of soymilk; one cup egg sub with the Sauce that Shall Not Be Named. (I see now, in fact, that the low-c@rb and p@nc@ke and b@rbecue ads have vanished, replaced by powerlifting and weightlifting ads, which makes me seem much more butch than I really am. I am not complaining, though.)

Meal two: cup of egg sub, frittata'ed just as yesterday.

Meal three: salad, 2 ounces chicken, quarter cup edamame, creamy tofu mayo dressing with capers and balsamic vinegar.

I was over at the Da Vinci Gourmet site just a bit ago. These are the makers of the sugar-free syrups I use with such abandon, syrups which turned my last competition diet from a bleak expanse of drabness to -- relatively speaking -- a joy. I see they have new flavours... Green Apple! Lemon! I wish the place I go to in Toronto would order in some of these more exciting ones. I suppose, on the other hand, I don't really need to be buying me a liquor cabinet merely for the purpose of accommodating my sugar-free syrup collection. I've already got seven or eight different flavours. Still. Red Hot Cinnamon! Grape! Spice Blend! Strawberry!

Sigh.

I win some, I lose some
This morning, I found my favourite ring. I'm so happy. It's a beautiful chunky silver thing, with a cabochon stone of the finest moss agate I've ever seen, and it was given to me by my best-beloved friend.

I lost it a couple of months ago, and I've been looking for it in likely and unlikely places ever since. Then today, I dropped an earring, and it rolled away under a dresser. I looked under to find it, and there, right against the wall, was my ring.

Then the bookstore called, to say that the pocket-sized Universal Waite tarot deck I've been waiting for forever had finally come in. The deck was supposed to be released in February... then it was delayed till May... then it didn't exist after all... then it appeared on Amazon and was declared "sold out" practically in one moment... and now it's mine.

But -- I took off tonight to pick up A. at work, and thought, "hm, I don't think Grishilde ought to be pulling to the right in quite that dramatic a way," got out to check, and discovered that the front driver's side tire was very nearly on the rim. It is now full of Gunk, and appears to be holding, but she will not be going on any highways until she gets new front tires. (The other tire went flat some time ago, and is currently the spare.) Poor Grishilde*. Not to mention, the oil leak which the garage claimed to have fixed is still leaking, and I must get her back before the three-month warranty expires.

Today's eating tallies to 1455 calories. 149g protein; 118g carbs (22g fibre); 30g fat.

For dinner, I had kohlrabi hash browns again, with 2 tablespoons of soy protein sticking them together, and half a lemon oatcake with a nice thick lemony frosting of two tablespoons of Quark, lemon juice and Jello pudding powder on top. Mm! dinner and dessert!

Then, after coming home, I was starving (which always happens after I "bonk" like that) and made up one of my gooey messes, flax fibre, soymilk and half a scoop of protein powder, a teaspoon of lemon fish oil, and the other half of the lemon Jello. (How lemony my day has been.) It looked very dubious, but with a mug of green tea it did the trick, and least I don't feel as though I could eat the cats raw now.

*Grishilde is my dream car, a silver Volvo 240.

Is this the afterlife? It's not quite what I expected
Well, my children, I am pleased (is that the word? Sure... 'pleased') pleased to announce that I have just now depleted my entire system of resources.

Today's workout: Back, Traps and Calves. It is still Power Week. Rests today were generally around three minutes.

Deadlifts, short Olympic bar
WU 50lbs x6
Work 140lbs x7, 7, 6
Notes: I added one more rep instead of adding weight, since I have the feeling my form will suffer if I try, and if there's anything I don't want to do, it's pop a disk doing deadlifts. So there I was, pulled the 6th on the third set. It was hard, but not overwhelmingly harder than any of the others... set the bar down, and it was as though someone removed a plug at the base of my Achilles tendon, and every bit of energy I possessed ran out into the earth. I couldn't even attempt the last; it was kind of a struggle just standing up again. After that point, of course, everything more or less passed in a blur of nastiness. I think the problem was that it was too long after my last meal.

Wide Grip Chins
b/w, using lat pull bar slung between beams
1+ 5neg, 1+ 4 good neg+ 1 lousy neg, 1+ 3neg
Notes: eugh.

Bent-over Barbell Row, short Olympic bar
WU 30lbs x6
Work 50lbs x6, 6, 6, 5
Notes: Again, added a set here rather than adding weight, as I want to keep my form halfway good. Again, in last set, hit an absolute wall on the last attempted rep, and could barely wrangle the bar back onto the rack.

Close-Grip Seated Row
WU 50lb x6
Work 90lb x6, 6
Notes: Oddly, in this one, the first set was crap, and the second not bad.

Barbell Shrug, short Olympic
Work 80lb x8, 6, 8
Notes: I had noble plans to do this without straps, instead of increasing weight. Hence the '6' -- my grip failed. The last set, with straps, was dead easy.

Calf Raise, seated, 90lbs of plates in my lap
Superset: 15 parallel+20 pulses, 15 toe-in+20 pulses
Notes: none, except that there has got to be a better way for the hapless home trainer with minimal equipment to work calves when her heavy partner isn't around to sit on her knees.

Then, practicing for the next stage of nastiness, I went out to run sprints down the football field at the school at the end of the street. Yes, though my central nervous system protested and my glycogen was glycogone.

I remember doing this during the Rock Hard Challenge, and, what's more, I remember doing it fasted, in the mornings. I think at that time I was just more used to starvation. Ugh. Jog to the school; ten sprints down the field (jogging back each time).

Total lifting time 55 minutes, plus however long I dragged myself round the schoolyard.

Then home to die. Except the pissing phone kept ringing. There I was, trying to mix up a protein shake and cook some friggin' pancakes, the phone is ringing -- "Hello, is this the lady of the house?" (lucky that I did not respond as I truly wished, or they'd've known for sure and certain it wasn't); the dog is licking me and butting his head at my quaking legs, the cats are twisting in and out underfoot because they've decided that since I'm eating, it's suppertime.

I fed them, and finally got to eat. I'm still waiting for my blood sugar to rise from the depths. Protein shake with glutamine, lemon juice/vinegar, 1/4 scoop Bob's 10-grain pancake mix (mixed up with water and a bit of egg sub, but I added a bunch of nutmeg), 1 tablespoon sugar-free jam, and a thin sauce of Jello pudding powder and soymilk. And it was good. I wished there was more.

You know it's good if it turns the milk pink
Weight this morning: 129.5 pounds. Temperature 97.5?F.

A. stayed at his mother's house last night, so it was just me and the beasts. I don't think I moved all night; I was pinned to the bed by something furry at every turn.

For some reason, I feel a little peaked today, a little unhappy in the midriff region, a lot tired. I just finished a large black coffee, but it didn't help much. I'm about to try a litre of water instead.

Aired out the cobwebs with a brisk walk this morn with the dog. We were going up the railway line near my house, heading home, and he was off the lead (bad, I know, but it makes him happy, and lets us practice our untethered "Come here!"s and "Sit right now!"s). Anyway, I was well behind him (in dark clothing) and he was wading through the tall weeds (dark dog). A lone early-rising (or unsleeping) fella hove into view at the other end of the trail and came towards us, looking at the ground as he walked.

Then Onyx came bounding out of the grass at his feet, all big grins and indecent energy (for 5:10 a.m., certainly). I saw at least a foot of air under the poor guy's shoes as shock shot him off the ground; fortunately, Onyx came to me immediately when I called him.

Still, the only response my morning acquaintance gave to my regretful apology was a sidelong glare of resentment as he passed us indignantly by.

I then came home, and had breakfast. 1/4 cup 8-grain cereal, with artificial strawberry extract, a bit of almond syrup and 2 tablespoons soymilk; 1 cup egg substitute with 2 tablespoons of salsa, and green tea. The cereal was a blinding hot pink. That strawberry extract is, um, unusual stuff.

Meals two and three are packed and waiting. Two consists of a cup of egg substitute cooked into a frittata with mushrooms, onion, roasted pepper, a tablespoon of ground flaxseed, and tomato-basil Mrs. Dash; three is a tub of Romaine, with grape tomatoes, Vidalia onion, fresh red pepper and jalapenos, plus 3.75 ounces of chicken and a creamy tofu-mayo dressing.

I'm supposed to do deadlifts today. The thought is not an attractive one in my current state.

What I wouldn't do for a really NICE dessert right now
I tell you. Cake, in layers, perhaps, with a lot of terribly excellent chocolate in it. Tiramisu. Perhaps something with figs and mascarpone... or something with marzipan. I was doing the dishes, watching couples stroll by romantically eating things in seductive DQ cups, and I envied them their happiness. Not their no doubt rambunctious sex lives, but their ice cream.

What am I eating? Lemon sugar-free Jello chunks stirred into a mixture of a half-scoop vanilla protein powder and Jello pudding, thank you. It is post-workout.

Workout today was abs, and I did the following, in a circuit fashion:
Dragon flags x5
Cable crunches, 40lbs x10
Swiss ball crunches, 25lbs x10
Dragon flags x5
Cable crunches, 45lbs x10
Swiss ball crunches, 25lbs x 10
Half dragon flags (go down halfway, lift up again) x8
Cable crunches 45 lbs x7(pause) x 4
Swiss ball crunches, 35lbs x10

I have also eaten (meal four) a lemony oatcake with a tablespoon of sugar-free jam scraped thinly on top; and (meal five) ostrich loaf (5 oz ostrich whizzed in food processor, 1/4 cup soaked Fiber One, Italian-style herby things and garlic, tomato paste), kohlrabi/onion hash-brown type things, and one bite of steamed kohlrabi greens (mmm, leather).

So much for ostrich, anyway. It's all right, but definitely not All That. Bison, on the other hand, is All That, and so is elk. So, for that matter, is chicken. On the other hand, I am delighted to discover that kohlrabi is in fact yummy. It is good in hash browns, and it is good raw -- crispy, with a nice bite. It's my mother's favourite vegetable, but I never really took to it before. The greens might be good perhaps cooked as they do down South, hours and hours in a lot of lard, but steamed (and I steamed them a long time, too, thinking they appeared rather 'collardy') they are not my thing.

The total: 1362 calories
146g protein; 110g carbs (33g fibre); 28g fat.

I'll have the pain, with a side of pain, please
Today's weight: 132 pounds. Today's temperature: 97.0?F

How depressing.

"Hello? The fat cells please... Kids, we're on a tight deadline here. Let's just have consistent departures, no returns."

It's not significant, of course; my weight can fluctuate up to three or four pounds up or down in a day. Could be anything: too much water, too little water, insufficient, shall we say, eliminations... nonetheless, it is discouraging. One and a half to two pounds a week, that is the target at hand. Let's get cracking!

This morning, the long-anticipated slope running.

It is certainly obvious that I have been focussing on lifting rather than cardio of late. Oof ugh. Ow. Five in the morning, A. and me and the dog, off to the ski hill.

I walked briskly up the first time, mostly because it was still pitch dark and I wanted to be sure that there were no new pits or gullies in the worn little path up the hill. Then ran up the next two. Pant pant. For the last bit, the grade gets suddenly much steeper, so you sort of stop running, and do a slow-motion kind of hop from foot to foot up to the crest (the dog weaving back and forth in front of you, nose pressed to the ground to capture the fascinating scents of voles and shrews and midnight bunnies -- out of the way, dog!). It's a bit like being the Bionic Woman, only with more sweat.

I did this fairly regularly last year, and I used to do a comparatively breezy half-dozen runs up the hill.

Needs work.

Meal one: 1 cup egg substitute with dill and a bit of nutritional yeast; 1/4 cup 8-grain cereal with caramel sugar-free syrup and butter sprinkles.

Meal two: 1 cup egg substitute, baked into a pancake with 1/4 cup pumpkin, 1 tablespoon each flax seed and flax fibre. Topped with tofu cream and more sugar-free syrup (the "pancake" flavour this time).

Meal three: the other half of yesterday's elk stir-fry, with some rice vinegar added in, and a large dish of Romaine to go under it.

It is now raining, in large cold drops.

"A relaxed mind is a creative mind."
I like to drink Yogi Tea. Not only is it very good (all the flavours that I've tried) but each and every little tag on the bag has a different Snippet o' Wisdom.

That was today's, on a bag of Cocoa Spice. It's brewing aromatically now.