Bulk Cycle 1 - Week 3 - Tuesday

negative pull up 5x5
chest dip 5x5
bb good morning 5x5x70 lbs
bb squat 5x5x120 lbs
bb shrug 5x5x85 lbs

stability ball jack knife 5x20

2 activity points.

Food:

banana, baked oatmeal & hard boiled egg [8]
grapes & cottage cheese [6]
raw vegetables & cheese [4]
omelet w/ avocado & tomato, turkey bacon [18]


20 ounces of water and one coffee w/ skim milk [1]. I used all of my daily points and today's activity points, and have 49 weekly points remaining.

Bulk Cycle 1 - Week 3 - Monday

chin up 5x5 - 3 unassisted and 2 negatives in the first 3 sets, 2 unassisted and 3 negatives in the last 2 sets
db calf raise 5x5x35 lbs
reverse db calf raise 5x5x35 lbs
bb military press 5x5x55 lbs
lat db raise 5x5x12.5 lbs
rear delt bb row 5x5x70 lbs
db skull crusher 5x5x15 lbs


2 activity points for this.


Food:
banana [0]
coleslaw [4]
grapes & cottage cheese [6]
salad vegetables w/ avocado, hard boiled egg & homemade honey mustard dressing [12] - This was not the dinner I had planned. Unfortunately, my slow cooker cooks much too fast to cook rice. I will be buying a programmable slow cooker this week. I never know when I'm going to have to work late and I need my slow cooker.
warm milk w/ NesQuik [9] - I needed to get in another dairy and some points but I was absolutely not hungry.


36 ounces of water and one coffee w/ skim milk [1]. I did not have much of an appetite today. I didn't even want to work out in the morning - I preferred to wait until after my subbing job and swim lessons. I still feel sick from all the junk I ate over the weekend. I don't know why I do this to myself.  Anyway, I got in 32 of my 35 daily points, 2 activity points are going unused, and I have 49 weekly points remaining. I don't expect days like this to happen often. I'm not sure if I should carry my APs through the week or not. When I'm trying to lose, I use-them-or-lose-them, but with bulking, I really should be eating them. I don't know - we'll see how it goes.

Bulk Cycle 1 - Week 2 - Weekend

It wasn't a good weekend for food. I ate tons of crap, and I know it was this stupid no artificial sweetener thing that set me off this week. I was still trying to adjust to a bulking diet and it was just too much all at once. I'm glad I'm going back to normal tomorrow. I stocked up on tons of produce, as well as some frozen berries. I'm going to give fruit smoothies a shot.

I'm changing my bulking strategy a bit. Initially, I planned on eating at maintenance levels (35 points per day) AND eating all my weekly and activity points. I'm not going to put so much pressure on myself to eat the weeklies, especially if I'm eating a lot of zero point foods.

I have felt like crap all day, and tired. No doubt because of the junk.

Bulk Cycle 1 - Week 2 - Friday

bent over bb row 5x5x65 lbs
incline db bench press 5x5x37.5 lbs
stiff leg bb dead lift 5x5x105 lbs
bb lunge 5x5x75 lbs
bb shrug 5x5x85 lbs

plank/side plank 3x30s per side (90s total per set)

2 activity points for this.

Food:

baked oatmeal [6]
banana & coffee w/ real sugar [1]

banana & cottage cheese [6]
turkey salad w/ light dressing [8]

raw vegetables & hummus [4]
Chinese food


And this is where I binged. I even got unsweetened tea, but I ate way too much. Then I bought a candy bar. I put the brownie mix back on the shelf but I grabbed a package of Oreo cookies instead. I cannot do this no artificial sweetener thing. I find myself craving sugar and eating too much, and eating things that are considerably worse for me than artificial sweeteners. All week long, I've noticed that when I don't have my coffee at work, I eat. When I'm home and can't have my tea, I eat. I struggle so much with making the right choices as it is. This is making it a million times harder. Call me weak, call me a failure. I'm calling it picking my battles.

Bulk Cycle 1 - Week 2 - Thursday

db bicep curl 5x5x25 lbs
bb calf raise 5x5x115 lbs
single-leg db calf raise  5x5x35 lbs
front delt db raise 5x5x12.5 lbs
lat db raise 5x5x12.5 lbs
rear delt bb row 5x5x65 lbs
standing (single) db tricep extension 5x5x25 lbs


2 activity points for this. I took a quick rest after work and almost fell asleep before getting my exercise in. I snapped myself awake just in time. 


Food:
bananas & cottage cheese [6]
eggs w/ ham, banana [8]
raw vegetables & hummus, skim milk [8]
apple & cheese [4]
roast w/ broccoli & olive oil [6]
hot chocolate & popcorn [7]


I had 3 bananas at work. THREE! If I'd had my coffee, I wouldn't have eaten over 300 calories worth of freaking bananas. This no sweetener thing is killing me. 


56 ounces of water. Again, bad choices, and I have 27 weekly points remaining.

Bulk Cycle 1 - Week 2 - Wednesday

No workout scheduled today.


Food:
cottage cheese [6]
eggs w/ waffle & syrup [10]
apple [0]
apple, cheese & skim milk [6]
meatloaf & broccoli [13]
apple [0]
hot chocolate [6] 


20 ounces of water today. I need to buy some more Brita filters. This stuff tastes worse than usual. I really want some freaking coffee. Not having coffee is making me make bad food choices at work. I'm desperate to reset my sweet tooth, but I don't know if I'm desperate enough. I feel myself weakening with every passing hour. Apples helped, being 0 points and still sweet. But I'd rather have my diet Coke. I had some non-diet hot chocolate (2 cups) because I was desperate for anything wet and sweet and I was about out of apples. This giving up artificial sweeteners is fucking hard. So few things are worth the extra points/calories. I don't know if I can do it for 26 more days. I know this is a self-imposed challenge, and I hate failing, but I'm going insane.


Oh, and I have 29 weekly points remaining.

Bulk Cycle 1 - Week 2 - Tuesday

I had some cheese [2] and an orange [0] after I blogged last night.


Today begins my 28-day no artificial sweetener challenge. No diet drinks, no neotame, sucralose, saccharine. aspartame, or similar in my coffee and tea. The ONLY exception I will make is for my protein powder, which  I hardly ever use but may need in a pinch. I am not replacing the artificial sweetener in my coffee with real sugar or stevia or honey or agave nectar. Real sugar is the only one of those that I actually like, but it's not worth the points it would take to make the coffee/tea palatable. So I guess I'll go without for a week or two, then try it unsweetened. I foresee a lot of broth in my immediate future because I need warm drinks with flavor.

negative pull up 5x5
chest dip 5x5
bb good morning 5x5x65 lbs
bb squat 5x5x115 lbs 
bb shrug 5x5x85 lbs

stability ball jack knife 5x20

2 activity points. 

I'm going to be honest. I did not want to work out today. I woke up at 5 AM, got my gear on, brushed my teeth and promptly went back to bed. I haven't been getting enough sleep. I figured I'd workout when I got home. Then I decided I'd do it tomorrow and shift things around. Then I decided to keep my schedule and workout after work and taking Sebastian to his swim lesson. By the time I got home, I was so exhausted and cranky. My head was killing me from the caffeine withdrawal and I had a million things to do. So I texted my workout buddy and told her I didn't want to work out. She told me to go ahead and do it anyway, that it would help my headache to get some blood flowing. I cursed her in my head and got dressed. As I was starting my first pair of exercises (pull ups and squats) my kid went nuts, the dryer went off, dinner needed to be put away. Into my third set, I was so overwhelmed with trying to do things between sets that I just sat on my kitchen floor and cried. My head hurt even worse, I was having problems with the new barbell and I just wanted to guzzle a Diet Coke. But I didn't. I took some ibuprofen, took care of my dishes and laundry and put the kid to bed, then resumed my workout. It sucked balls but I finished it. By the time I did, I felt better. Not flowing endorphins better but better in the sense that I wasn't such a lazy asshole.

Food:

poached eggs w/ cheese & turkey bacon [10]

crap at work [12]
skim milk [2]

apple & cottage cheese [6]

crock pot chicken salsa w/ broccoli [11]
orange & baked oatmeal [6]


46 ounces of water, and a few ounces of nasty, unsweetened teas that I tried to gag down. I used all of my daily and activity points and have 35 weekly points remaining. I was still pretty hungry after my last meal though :(