Day 4 - gym buddy is back

Day 4 and I got my gym buddy back! 

I've been working out with my friend for several months now, it's great to have another person you can go with so you can encourage each other. It's not essential by any means but it sure does help. 

So today we did the shoulder workout and it was absolutely fine. There weren't really any modifications we had to make. She found, like I did that I had to drop the weight a bit at towards the end workout because the muscles were so tired; I'm quite pleased about that as it means I am not unusually weak or going mad 😜.

So that's it, week 1 DONE! 

Day 3 - leg day

So today was leg day and squats which I was really happy with. Legs are normally one of my stonger areas. 

I was in the middle of my second set of squats when a personal trainer who was admittedly bored as there was no one in the gym decided to come over and give me a hand. She was very polite and started spotting me and then encouraged me to add more weight. I was doing 40kg at the time. Now I appreciate this isn't a lot, but I have a dodgy knee and I like to have the best form I can manage and go as low as possible. The PT encouraged me to do more and by the end I was doing 50+ kg although it wasn't the best form in my mind, she said it was fine. She then basically took over my workout and me being British, I was too polite to tell her it wasn't necessary as I had a training plan. So, I then did weighted donkey kicks and weighted flute raises instead. Oh well! 

Day 2 - Doms, Doms, Doms

I haven't worked out regularly for about 3 months. So two heavy workouts back to back wasn't something I was looking forward to but I said I was going to do it so let's crack on.

Here's what today looked like 

The exercises were better (or I was better at them). I'd not looked up what a Dumbell Preacher curl was so I just did Arnold curls instead. This set was a bit longer, with a 5 minute warm up it took 47 minutes as oppose to yesterday's which was 39. 

I'm used to DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) - goes with the territory. Prior to this programme  I'd not been pushing myself hugely. But on this programme I'm making a conscious effort to go heavy as I can and the price to be paid is DOMS! I have not had Doms like these for a loooooonnnnng time. I normally get Doms on leg day but not chest, arms and back and not all together! 

Here's a look at one of my meals, I figured out that if you lash spices all over tofu and fry them, they're tasty so I added it to my spicy parsnip and carrot soup.

It's a sign (I hope) it's working. Speak tomorrow. Lx

Day 1 - Christ

This was my first day doing the programme. Here's what my next few weeks look like 

And today was day 1. 

Didn't look too bad to be honest. 

Now having watched her instructions videos, Jamie says go heavy as you can with form which I take to mean if you can do 12 but can't do 13, you're in the zone. So I went for it. 

Push-ups. I fucking hate push-ups, most likely because I'm shit at them and I'd really like to be able to do them properly but I cant. Off I go, on my knees doing girlie push-ups. Then it comes to narrow push-ups later in the programme which I take to mean tricep push-ups, which I simply cannot do. I tried. I couldn't even say I got half way. I got about 30 degrees and that was it. At this point I'm grateful that it's the week before January and the gym is dead.  I switched to tricep dips and carried on.  By this stage, my arms were wobbling at rest. AT REST. When it came to overhead extensions, I would normally do 10kg for 10. I went to get it out the rack and I couldn't so pretended that wasn't the weight I was going for and gingerly picked up the 8 and got on with it. 😉

I did enjoy it though and will be doing more tomorrow. Speak tomorrow. Lx 

Jamie Eason 12 Week Challenge

Welcome to the new blog 

I've done fitness challenges before but from September 2015, I changed jobs and my usual habits of fairly healthy eating mixed with plenty of gym sessions went out the window. In came early morning starts, no gym sessions and whatever comfort food I could get my hands on. 

Browsing around www.bodybuilding.com I looked for a new training programme, something I could get my teeth into in the New Year. 

I came across 

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/jamie-eason-livefit-trainer.html

Looked interesting and exactly the kind of structure I like with a training programme. I like to have lots of freedom when it comes to diet, but a really specific training programme (call me crazy). 

So if any of you are into YouTube  makeup tutorials (another passion of mine) and ever watch those "Get Ready With Me" videos - this is a bit like that. But like a really long, 12 week version of that! I will aim to give you a quick overview of the programme I did that day and perhaps some discussion of the food. I will post pictures of before and after. 

I hope to shed a bit of light on what it's like for a "real" person who has a busy job to do the programme. I will mainly be following her training programme rather than her diet plan. Reason? Well I mainly eat veggies and fish, not meat but the key reason is that she recommends eating 6 times a day.  I work, you work, I'm sure you know the drill, your busy  and I have found that cracking open your tupperware of tilapia fillets and egg whites gets some looks. And some comments. So I'm going to go ahead and skip that. I think flexible dieting has something a lot more manageable to offer so I would recommend anyone check out this guy

http://www.healthylivingheavylifting.com

Great website and blog and books written by Mike Samuels. The guy is really helpful and provides practical advice on dieting for results which can fit around your life. 

So, I'll see you along the way!

Lisa :)