Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

ok so i am considering today the real DAY 1 of my new training regimen as i've pretty much half-asses it for about two weeks now. you know that whole life thing that happens? yeah, sometime sits not really condusive to 1.5 hours of exercise a day. not that its been all bad or anything, just i haven't really been keeping close track of much and i need to tighten it up a bit. i got really obssesive for a while about it all and i needed to back off a bit anyway, so maybe it'll be good for me.

food has been decent. i put my waterweight back on after the wedding. i don't think i can permantly give up salt. i swear its all i've got left!!!! plus it's kind of a cool trick to know how to drop it in a day for special occasions. also--and this is really weird--i have been craving alcohol lately. like very frequently. now i rarely drink. even as a bartender, i used to have maybe MAYBE 2 beers a week....now everyday i want to drink, and not just one, like 3 or so......it's very very strange. how detrimental is this to my diet? maybe it's stress? maybe it's just me trying to have a social life and thats what people my age do apparently.....i don't know. but i'm not sure if i like it.


today was leg day. i walked to the gym about 25 min. then-

1 leg leg curl 3x12@45lb
leg xtn w/ body elevated 3x15@35lbs
1 leg calf raise w/ DB 3x12@15lb DBs
Hack Squats 3x12@machine only (how much does that thing weigh??? its a killer!!!)
Reverse Lunges w/ DBs 3x12/leg@5lb DBs ( i have a hip that pops so i go easy on this)
Straight Leg Roman CHair lifts 3x12
Crunches on Ball 100 total

10 minutes on the escalator thing
25 minutes home
drank my xtends

and it downpoured on me the whole way home--it was really nice actually...also i saw a CRANE! like the bird! in haverhill massachusetts! wtf?
i was so shocked. i tried to grab my phone and take a picture, but it flew away! i was the only on ewho saw it and i have never seen anything like that here. it was freaking cool!
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you are looking fantastic, great job

your pictures from the wedding were so cute. You looked great!!! Love love love that color on you.

Yeah... the salt thing is just something for special occasions, but definitely not something to maintain all the time. Salt is flavor!!!! and we needs us some flava!!

Just remember, this hour and a half thing is just until maintenance, then your cardio will be scaled weigh back to a doable maintenance.

Lets get your bodyfat tested women!!! That way we can give you some hope of when you get to give up the cardio sessions from hell! LOL

dani you live in haverhill? nice bike riding up there.

thanks melissa i had a lot of fun at the wedding, and yes, i definately need flavor! i'm gonna look into finding a trainer to test me this week. all of the trainers at my gym seem really busy all the time. we have the gym trainers who are hired by the gym, and i think they all suck so i don't think they have the right tools to do it. but we have one independent trainer whos very good. actually you might know her michelle dubois? she was a fitness model in cali years back.

pazios, whereabouts in mass are you?[/quote]

North attleboro, right at the corner of Rhode lsland. I ride through haverhill on my way to either maine or New hampshire. I come through real early as I have to clear Bsoton on Rte 28. 28 can be pretty hairy on bike in boston and cambridge. Mostly I ride into connecticut and rhode island.

Keep up the good work Buffy Dani

so for some ungodly reason, i went to bed at 1 am and woke up at 4:30 and could NOT go back to sleep! so i went to the gym at 5 yes 5 and here was my workout
pushups 3x10 oh yeah, its your birthday we're gonna party like its your.....ok i was really proud of myself...whatever
pyramid scheme style::
wg pulldown 50, 60, 67.5, 75
chest cable crossover 10, 15, 20, 22.5 (per hand)
seated row 50, 60 65, 70
Hammer curls 7.5, 10, 12.5, 15
Incline curls....did about 5 of these, felt nothing but awkward and switched to bb curl
BBcurl 20, 25, 30, 35

cardio
walking to they gym 30 minutes
escalator thing 10 minutes
walking home 25 minutes

food was sub par so far although not disatstrous--balance is key. thats what i keep telling myself. BALANCE BALANCE BALANCE> good workout.


i may go for a walk soon too. i took naps all day cuz i was so tired from 3.5 hours sleep that now i'm too awake

I've spontaneously gotten up early.

The nice side of it is that you get a great jump on your day and get done earlier

yeah it was kinda nice, but my internal clock was screwed up all day. and now, the next day, i got 8 hours of sleep and i still feel very tired. but it was cool to be up before everyone else.

ok, so i had an awesome week workout wise. i did EVERYTHING I WAS SUPPOSED TO!!! woohoo! so changing my work schedule helped so far....lets see....any notes to make (typing eveything everyday is too much--I DON"T KNOW HOW YOU DO IT DV!)
highlights highlights...
i did one set of 10 pushups with such perfect form! i was so damn proud! i didn't hesitate or anything until the last rep. i just banged em out. of course the next two sets were a little harder, but hey-the progress is there>
i was going to do an overheard press with 20 lb dbs for my last set, but someone one was using them, so i said what the hell, i'll try 22.5 and i did it which makes a new standard for me. so thats pretty sweet.

i got lots of outside cardio, which was lovely. and i will walk for quite a bit with my puppy today before work.


as far as diet goes, its been good, but not great as i had planned. my urge to drink is still there and baffling me. it's stress, i know it is. so i drank this week. not a lot, but a lot more than i'm used to....i'm just not a drinker! so it's bizarre.
also my meals have been a little strange. i eat 5 meals a day and i have meals 1, 2, and 3 down to a science, but four and five usually suck because i'm working and often don't even have time to blend a shake together, so then i'm famished and eat something i shouldn't. i made all that sound worse than it is. i'm such a worrier


overall i've noticed good changes this week. Oh! and as of 6.1 we have been allowed to wear short sleeves at work (yessssssssss) and a few people have been like "damn dani, i didn't know you had arms like that" its pretty cool.

i had a crappy workout follwed by a fight today. it was crappy because i felt rushed, and there's nothing worse than that. instead of 60 minutes low intenity cardio, i got 30 minutes interval training, which isnt so bad i guess.

but then this STUPID fight led me to forget to eat meal 2 before i headed out to do important errands for my newborn niece. so i just ate meal 2 at 3:25 pm. not good at all....bah.

bad day so far. i hope it perks up.

sorry about the fight.

you are as hard on yourself as I am when it comes to this stuff. Its such a curse (and blessing) to be locked in the brain of a perfectionist

For example, I had to yell at myself all the way up the stairs today to have my protein shake and veggies when what I really want is a Tofurky Italian sausage.... even though my daughter realizes that I'm a much more pleasant person to be around when I am sticking to my diet, which I absolutely haven't been so I'm a complete grump. It's funny because even after a couple days of being back on track my mood will improve because at least I will be not breaking commitments to myself. Its an important lesson for me to remember when I want to go way off the wagon. Kinda like your damned if you do and your damned if you don't... but I know I'm in a better frame of mind and better to those around me when I'm feeling confident. K, this speech was sort of directed at myself as I was writing it, so if you got something out of it great... but if not, I did cuz I needed to remind myself why I need to go make a damned protein shake right now

oh no vp, i love hearing that side of you. i get a lot out of hearing it. it shows me that nobody is perfect all of the time,and everyone has weak points. if even you can have days like that, it gives me hope that my goals are, in fact, attainable. working out has been a little tougher towards the end of this week. ive missed a cardio session and i'm gonna do legs tomorrow (day 1) which means that i will either have to skip the leg exercises for today's plan (day 4) or just add them to my day tomorrow, so i won't be too fatigued...i think i will do that. which just means tomorrow will be heavy heavy stuff, but i can deal-its my day off.

my diet has been really good. i'm proud of myself. all shakes and veggies for dinner which may actually be the hardest part!
VP-you're gonna be so proud of me! ok, so i always go out on thursday with my best guy friend and he always wants to go to dinner which is hard for me to stick to a meal plan in a restaurant so we always go to the same 2 places-one has an awesome salad bar and a veggie burger, the other is all organic delicious veggie plates with tofu (think earthycrunchy-a place after my own heart <3) but we went to a new place and i was so diciplined: water with lemon, my shake that i brought with me and downed in the car, and tabouleh salad (with little to no wheat bulger in it-almost entirely parsley-the real deal) and 2 spoonfuls of hummus and lemon juice as dressing. it was a proud moment for me



aaaaaaaaalso, last night was "girls night out" and i did what you told me to with the drinking but i was starving after, and instead of being stupid, we went to a chinese restaurant and i got steamed brocolli!


maybe this sounds like no big thing to most people but those are two small victories for me.

so i'm happy. tightening up even more next week (tomorrow) week 3 of this program. wish me luck!

i have been doing very well lately imo. i have follwed my plan to a t. and not cheated on my diet (except yesterday, which i will write about in a minute) at all. it's been pretty cool. i was out buy a suitcase for vv08 and i saw the swimsuits and i was like "oh what the hell" i found one that i thought was cute but didn't think for a second it would look good on me. and it looked AWESOME on me. so awesome in fact that my best friend, whi is a guy, said that i cannot where it in public, ever. so would posting pictures count?

i have, however, been having some self esteem problems with my extra skin. i've had extra skin everywhere, but as m y bf drops even lower, it's getting outta control! its mildly embarassing. it's fine if i'm standing, but if i'm sitting or bending or what have you....yikes. not sure what to do about this and its frustrating, i'm supposed to be looking/feeling better about myself, not worse


yesterday i went to the gym and i forgot my notebook. i could remember almost everything i had to do, but i ised it as an excuse to push my limits and see what my one rep max was for most things. i was a little disappointed, but just a little. i always set the bar just out of reach dammit. i did 3 sets of 2 ( ) assisted pullups with someone holdingmy feet. he said he just helped me a little, but hey its a start. i then tried to see what my max was on my lat pulldown (because obviously its not yet at my bodyweight) and it is about 95lbs. thats still 35 lbs away from unassisted pullups!!!!!!!!!!

i then tried to see what i could curl with a bb. i grabbed a 60 and could barely move it. so then i grabbed a 50 and i just ba-ba-ba-barely got it up, but i did, so i was happy. then i did a set of negatives with that 50. ouch.

next-bench press (this isn't even part of my routine, but the guy i wa sthere with wanted to do them and i was doing chest yesterday too. he is very very strong but for some reason his chest is crap, he was pushing just the bar with no plates and i'm thinking "i can do that" so i did) after watching my friend push an empty bar, i put 30 lbs on the bar and pushed out a set of six. so 75 lbs, set of six. woo hoo. i felt tough after that.....finally.

then i came home and cheeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaated on my diet like whoa! my friend, who is a chef, has wanted to make me "chicken quesadillas" for ages. so he did yesterday. whole what tortillas, sauteed onions and jalepenos , follow your heart cheddar cheese, soy chicken strips, baked with salsa, homemade guacamole, and tofutti sour cream. oh my god! it was heaven. then he made me peanut butter cups......i pretty much died after i ate that. i imeediately went into a soy coma and lied on the couch for several hours. today the soy hangover remains and i feel pretty guilty, but it might have been the best cheat i have ever had. (and it was high protein vp! ) i just had to post about it.

back on 100% today. time to go to the gym and squat those quesadillas away!

absolutely when in doubt always post pics.