Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Bunny Love

Here's bunny in her food bowl. She's small enough to fit right in it now:



Bunny chilling with Dio:



Hello!

We've had her 3 days and she's really settled in and become a lot calmer and tamer. She comes running when I put my hand out to her and she's very calm when I pick her up. She almost fell asleep on Matt's lap today as I petted her head. She'll only become more friendly as she gets older.

Back Online

Hey guys... I am alive and well! The move from Australia was successful although very busy. We had a nice fight with the rental agency due to their incompetence from the get go and we're starting up a case with the tenancy tribunal. It's a huge hassle long distance but it's worth it to try get the security deposit back. I am very angry with how we were treated and actually quite flabbergasted that a couple of people would be so apathetic about the situation when we have done the right thing by them from the start.

It has been nice living in Australia for the past 4 years; I had a really good time there and made some awesome friends. Having said that it is nice to be home too; apart from the traffic here. We bought a car on Monday: a 1998 Nissan Lucino, very tidy and it runs very very well. That's one thing to cross off the list of things to do. Next major thing is finding a place to live.

So far things are going great here. We are sooo lucky we came last week rather than this week because we both had mild colds from the germy germs on the flights and now with this Swine Flu fiasco going around we would have been kept in isolation :-/ That would have made me real happy when we have many things to do to get settled.

I've actually lost weight since being home.... just doing the regular 3 meals a day and no major snacking. It's pretty good actually. A few of my pants are looser than they have been in a while even with me dieting! Probably not getting enough protein in but I don't really care.

I've actually worked out twice since I've been home. On Monday I did a full body workout: Benching 3x10x60kg, DB Rows 3x8x29kg aside, Squats 3x10x70kg, Scapular Retractions on T Bar Row, Seated Leg Curls and some exercises for my biceps and triceps. It felt really good but bloody hell I've been sore; that's what you get when you don't work out for almost a month! Today I went and did some Deadlifts 2x10x100kg, Good Mornings 4x6x40kg, One Armed DB Rows 3x10x29kg, Incline situps 3x10, Pushups (legs raised) 3x10. I tried to start out with some squats today instead of the deadlifts but 60kg did not feel good. My aches ached even more and felt kinda weird (bad weird) so I thought I'd better stop the exercise and do something else. Shit those workouts were quite hard. I don't know why in hell I decided to do high reps for the big exercises :-/

I was supposed to go to soccer practice tonight but ended up having a long nap in the late afternoon and missed it. Some things never change...LOL. I'll try get to the practice next week or go watch the game on Sunday.

I also have some good news!! I have a new baby: a little bunny rabbit. I didn't expect to get one so soon but we went looking in some pet shops and this little critter came running up to us for pats then started doing cute little bunny jumps (bunny owners will know what I mean, it's so funny and cute). I'm not actually sure if it's a boy or a girl but I had a peek and I'm about 80% certain it's a girl, she's pretty young so it's difficult to tell. I haven't named her yet. Matt wants to call her Spot cos that's what he started calling her in the pet shop. I'm thinking of Charlie, Bon Bon, or Hoppy. Any suggestions please put in the comments. I will put up a pic of her later!

Monday, April 13, 2009

BBQ Day

I had a great day with friends today.... a nice Easter BBQ and a farewell for us as we leave Australia.

We have a big week this week with packing, cleaning, moving.

My last day of training was actually last Saturday - I just haven't been feeling like it this week. This is the first time in years my motivation has been down the toilet with training for such an extended period. Nevermind... I'm sure it'll be back soon when we get settled. I hope :-/

I probably won't be updating this blog for a couple of weeks because internet access will be limited as we make the move. There won't be any training anyway... Ha!

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Great Workout!

I had a pretty intense workout at the gym today. I did kind of like a full body tension workout as I felt like doing something different today; it kicked my ass! As I was trying to get everything done in just over an hour, I had really short rest periods (between 45-60 seconds) and supersetted some of the exercises. This is what I did:

Leg Press 3 x 12 x 160kg
Leg Curls 1 x 12 x 39kg, 2 x 12 x 46kg
Leg Extensions 2 x 12 x 140lbs
Glute Ham Raises 2 x 12
Bench Press 2 x 12 x 50kg
KB Rows 2 x 12 x 24kg each side
Incline DB Press 1 x 8 x 22.5kg, 1 x 10 x 20kg
Lat Pulldown 2 x 12
Lateral Raises 2 x 12 x 25lbs
Hammer Curls 2 x 12 x 25lbs
Tricep Pulldowns 2 x 12

I finished off with 25 minutes cardio on the recumbent bike: 5 mins warmup, 15 mins of intervals 60:60 seconds ratio and 5 mins cooldown. I'm starting to really like the recumbent bike. I always thought it was lazy cardio because you're almost lying down, but if you crank up the tension and pedal hard you get just as good a workout as you would on any other piece of cardio equipment.

My heart was pumping hard for a whole hour!

Diet today was great. I have been having lamb every night for dinner for the last 3 days as I'm really enjoying it. Getting a little bit sick of chicken at the mo :-P

I just put some chickpeas in water in a saucepan to soak overnight and they're really noisy! I'm going to make some kinda corn and chickpea fritter tomorrow.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Superwoman!

I must be superwoman or something. I got a whole 1 hour sleep last night after I wrote that blog post. I was pretty tired for work in the morning, but perked up in the afternoon and even managed to get a gym workout in!! How about that?

WEDNESDAY'S WORKOUT

Front Squats
70kg x 3, 5 sets.... felt pretty good!!

Pendlay Rows
70kg x 3, 5 sets

Inverted Rows 3 x 6

Bench Press
70kg x 3, 3 sets
72.5kg x 3, 2 sets

Pushups (legs elevated) 2 x 10

Incline Leg Raises 2 x 10

Eats were pretty good today. I had an awesome dinner - grilled lamb (to perfection!) with mashed savoury pumpkin. Nom nom!

I hope I get a good nights sleep tonight. I'm starting to get those stupid leg aches again, but hopefully I'll be tired enough to sleep through it. I need to make my lunch for tomorrow then I can sleep!

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Can't Sleep! :-(

I'm feeling very frustrated right now. I've been lying in bed for 4+ hours and I just can't sleep because my legs are aching so bad. This happened to me on Sunday as well (actually fell asleep at around 6:30am) but I didn't care so much because I didn't have to work the next day. Tomorrow (or Today) is going to be a bastard at work on an hour or so sleep (that is if I even get to sleep). I've taken painkillers, magnesium and potassium but nothing is helping :-(

Fuck.

Okay I may as well update my training anyway.

Saturday I had a good training day. I actually got up before work like I said I would to go for a run. That took about 50 minutes. In the evening after work I went to the gym for a lower body workout.

SATURDAY'S TRAINING

Front Squats
warmup, then
65kg x 5, 4 sets

Romanian Deadlifts
90kg x 8, 3 sets

Split Squats with Kettlebells
48kg total x 10, 2 sets

Glute Ham Raises
5kg x 10, 3 sets

Sunday was an off day. We went to the bar as usual and saw a few friends there. Funnily enough we were introduced to one of the powerlifting legends of Australia. It was quite motivating talking to him.

Monday I went to the gym again! I didn't really have a plan so I just followed what Matt was doing

MONDAY'S WORKOUT

Overhead Press
warmup, then
40kg x 5
42.5kg x 5
45kg x 5

Pendlay Rows
60kg x 5
65kg x 5
70kg x 6

I think that might be a PR on the Pendlays actually. I've done 70kg before but never for 6 reps. I'll have to look it up to be sure.

Incline Leg Raises 3 x 10

Cardio: Interval Training on Recumbent Bike; 5 minutes warmup, 20 minutes of 1 min on 1 min off intervals, 5 minutes cooldown.

That brings me to Tuesday. I didn't work out Tuesday but I did go for a 30 minute brisk walk after work.

I've been reading a few blogs on meal planning and such. Basically taking some time out of your week to plan your meals for the whole week. It saves on costs because a lot of the time you're eating what's in season (and therefore cheaper) for produce and also, because you have planned your meals you only buy food to make what you have planned. This may sound like something that a lot of you do anyway if you're following a set diet plan from a trainer but for those of us that don't like to eat the same damned thing every day, it's a good way to be organised yet save money at the same time. As soon as I get settled after the move I am going to try doing this. I think I have mentioned before that I sometimes waste food because I don't eat it in time after I buy it (especially here where food perishes very quickly). I need to get out of that - it's wasteful and costs too much.

Anyway, it's 5:08am and I have to get up at 6:45am. I hope I at least get some sleep.

Bye Bye March!

Wow, I can't believe the first quarter of the year has gone by so quickly! Only two weeks of work for me left before the big move! I have been training, just not updating. This is just a quick one before I go to sleep so you guys know I'm alive :-P