Never made chimichurri? Be still my fancy ladded heart. You've been missing out (I assume)! MOAR herbs, like Monte notes, is always a solid choice. Also, you don't need much of it to add solid taste, so be careful with the amount you're making on a cut!

Never made it but ordered it at steakhouses and a Mexican restaurant I like.

I've made many different pestos though, but they don't have the vinegary zip of chimichurri.

Good morning,

Yesterday, Tuesday 5/2/17.

Calories 1177
Protein 116g <--- yeah baby!
Fat 56g
Carbs 77g

I ate some extra chicken (and pumpkin seeds) last night. I'd post the screen shots from MFP but Tapatalk is being a butt.

Tuesday/Rest Day
Spin class, 30 min (left halfway through)
Pool, 14 laps various
Sauna, Mmmmmm

What's the difference between a block pull and a dead lift?

A deadlift begins from the floor, a block pull is exactly the same except the bar is placed on platforms of a height of your choosing, to make it easier to reach the bar or to train the upper part of the deadlift movement.

Deadlift is pulling directly off the ground, block pulls are when the bar/weights are elevated (on blocks), which shortens the pulling distance and allows the use of more weight (usually).

Thank you! I was watching Renton's block pull vid and thinking that it looked like a dead lift.

Is one better than the other? Do they differ in results attained?

If you can pull from the floor with good form (most women are flexible enough to, I think), then deadlift is probably a slightly better exercise due to having a longer range of motion and providing more work to your quads (which are the prime movers off the floor).

My block pulls are very nearly deadlifts since I'm only using 5-6cm blocks. Usually, block pulls are done from higher blocks and for different reasons; to overload the middle range of motion of the deadlift for lifters who are specifically weak there. Pretty advanced stuff that you (and I) don't need to worry about at this point.

Thanks Renton!

Lunch! Roasted skinless chicken thighs w turmeric, salad & Brianna's honey mustard dressing.

Wednesday 5/3/17

Calories 1516
Protein 111
Fat 83
Carbs 99

I can explain the extra calories with one word; cashews. They add up fast.

Tonight was supposed to be my weightlifting night but I had to skip the gym. My sister's bf is in the hospital and has taken a bad turn so instead of the gym it was a visit to the cardiac icu at Beth Israel (in Red Sox traffic). Ugh. Never take your health for granted.

I ended up staying there much later than I thought, way past dinner time, hence the cashew snacks. Then had dinner at 10; two burgers, no buns, L/T/O mustard, 6 oz halo top vanilla.

So no exercise at all. Will rectify this tomorrow.

Thursday's lunch is homemade chicken salad of shorts.

Skinless thigh, poached breast, plus avocado, tomato and evoo. Tasty but I'm getting sick of chicken. Need to get to the grocery store.

According to MFP:
330 calories
35g protein
21 fat (yikes)
4 carbs (good)

Hi Lapka,

Just wanted to thank you for the post above. I've been swimming as you suggested, but doing approx 30 min, with 30 min of treadmill, elliptical or bike.

Finally seeing results! Thank you!

Thursday 5/4/17

Calories 1272
Protein 104
Fats 63
Carbs 76

Weight machines, upper & lower body

Friday 5/5/17 Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo party in the office, which means poker has to be postponed till Saturday. Boooo I consoled myself with some exercise and sauna.

Calories 1281

Protein 82

Fat 66

Carbs 95

Got home late from the gym but cooked dinner anyway, though a little voice in my head was saying "take out! Come on, it's Friday!". Nope. I made myself a big ole hamburger with ketchup and mustard, plus sautéed shredded Brussel sprouts seasoned w rice wine vinegar & sesame oil. Odd combo but quite good.

Hitting the gym tomorrow morning then poker all day.

Sattidy 5/6/17
No cardio today but a lot of weights. This list took about 2 hours to complete and mama has some poker to play.

My hands are hurting; the pads beneath my fingers where callouses grow. Mine are red raw at the moment. Maybe I need those stupid fingerless gloves?

This shiat is ****ing up my pretty hands. I noticed the other day after a work out the veins in my hands were bulging, extremely imo. They went down after a while. Actually I snapped a pic so I'll post it. Lemme know it that's normal. Happy weekend all. PS yes I know the veins look gross! They go away after a while tho.

Do not get gloves. The will reduce your gripping power and they can lead to blistering.

Sand the callouses down with an emery board or one of those rough block things that women use to rub the bottom of their feet to make them smooth or something like that.

I'll try sanding down the spots.

Welp, I had fried chicken fingers for dinner, while playing poker. With ketchup. Kinda mad at myself for choosing that. I rationalized it, telling myself I needed meat/protein. Cleverly not thinking about the breading and grease that goes with it.

Numbers are not good today, yet part of me wonders if having an increase in calories might be somehow beneficial.

Calories 1455

Protein 64

Fat 59

Carbs 121

I need to eat before heading for poker.

You're doing well if <1500 kcal days are your offdays. Don't be too hard on yourself.

That's a ton of work. You'd be better off choosing 2-3 compound exercises to learn and focus on, and then follow them up with a short medley of machine stuff if you want. I think trainers put these circuit routines together just to make their fat pupils sweat profusely and feel like they're burning a lot of fat. But really, they'd just be better off doing some squat and bench and then hitting the treadmill for half an hour.

Thanks!

Protein was only 64g for the day which sucks. I thought eating those chicken fingers would really up my protein but instead they increased it minimally and upped my carbs considerably. Shoulda plugged it into mfp before I ordered but I was in a game!

First hand pocket tens with $8 straddle and 5 limpers. It comes to me and I raise to $40 pre. 2 callers.

Flop A-9-10 rainbow.

Bet $75, one caller.

Turn is ace

Oh Lord, please let fishy be holding an ace! Bet $150 and I get a call!

River is blank.

Value bet of $100 and he calls. I show and he mucks.

One of the guys that folded to my $40 pre raise said he folded 9-9. He said he was upset he folded it till he saw my cards. Damn!

Chicken fingers/nuggets are very very difficult to know the macros of unless you made them yourself, and potentially even then. For the ones I eat, I just averaged a lot of calorie figures from MFP and shrugged. Really all you can do is guess what the chicken to batter ratio is, and still expect a huge variance in the oil content.

That's my eventual goal; doing the grey skull program and follow up w some weight machines that target other muscles, but!!!

It's like they're 'canned' trainers here. I want a trainer that will show me how to use the bars, move the weights, show me how to lift properly, explain which set up is for dead lifts etc etc etc.

But the trainers seem to have a canned training program they use and that's it. Which yes is aimed for fat people but it's not the program I want.

I'm tempted to approach someone lifting and ask him if he'd be interested in earning a hundy per hour to get me started, but fawk. Social anxiety.

I always seem to get there when it's busy too (straight from work) which doesn't help.

Why so tiny on the river? Or were he or you all in?

Probably something like 95% of personal trainers have literally no clue and you could exceed their knowledge just by reading wikipedia articles about health and fitness topics for 3-4 hours. I'd suggest you consult some lifting youtube channels such as Alan Thrall for how-to videos about the main lifts, do them to the best of your ability, and get them on video for us to critique here. That would probably be better, and safer, than consulting one of those hack PTs at your gym.