Susie Home Maker

So I didn't post daily what I had to eat, but I did well anyway, so mind your own business :) Kidding. I did have a special moment with the peanut butter jar Saturday morning and was about at my fat quota by 1pm, so I had to hide the jar from eye sight. Pathetic, maybe, but I succeeded. I just really love peanut butter.

Saturday I went to Ram's and got my last workout of the week in -- shoulders and biceps. That was a sight. My right shoulder has been killing me so much that I can hardly hold a weight in it. But luckily Brandon was at the gym so I lifted my arm up and he put the weight in my hand for the overhead shoulder presses. Once the weight was there, I could do the lift on my own, so I still got a good workout in, and still increased weight on some things. The lateral cable raises were killer and so were the incline bicep curls. I couldn't hold a 20# DB in my right hand, let alone the 25# DB I had been using last week, so I dropped to 15# on my right and 20# on my left. My right side is stronger anyway and so I figured I could just work on my left catching up :) I don't know if it works like that, but it makes sense to me. Also, Brandon did a few of the shoulder special tests on me and we are guessing it's either impingement or labral injury. I'm going with impingement just because I don't have time for labrum probs. (Seriously, click on that link.. nothing to do with shoulders/labrum/whatever.. just click)

I also started my training at the Carolina Club Saturday. It is a very slow paced waitressing job, but the people (alum typically) are all very friendly and fun to talk to and I got to sample some food and bring a lot of leftovers home from a wedding reception. I only took a big portion of spinach salad, chicken, ham, and some white fish, but it's all very delicious and FREE hah. I love anything free. Well, not anything. I don't want like free bird poop on my head, or free plantar warts - lord knows I've had enough of those - but you get the idea. And no, I don't care that the world knows I had a lot of warts growing up, if anyone is to blame it is my parents/sisters for not reinforcing showers.

Today I think I have only spent about an hour outside of the kitchen and laundry room. Cleaning and ironing all my work clothes - I burnt my knuckle on the iron too, typical. I made 5 sweet potatoes, 2# baked chicken (simple "recipe" below), cut up a bunch of red pepper, onion, and broccoli, and then made a Raspberry Lemon Protein Bread (Jamie Eason's cinnamon swirl bread but altered) and some Raspberry Protein Muffins (Little B's blueberry muffins altered)

Too bad I don't have two muffin tins and too bad I don't have patience to make two batches :) Oh well! My house smells delicious right now from all these raspberries cookin!

I also made some protein pancakes this morning of Jamie Eason's. Delicious! I am going to post all these recipes and nutrient info on different posts starting as "Recipe: " so that if you ever want to go back you can just search "recipe" and find them all. And you can just take out the protein if you don't want it and they will still be delicious! (Remember to refrigerate.. no preservatives)

The rest of my day I'm going to spend finishing ironing, making my turkey burgers, and driving back to Greensboro for another week of "work". CJ and Jack's birthdays are this week so it will be a good test for me. Oh! I did want to mention, that last night I went out to the bars with some friends and just ordered water and put that Mio flavoring stuff in it. SO good! And I was always holding a "drink" so I didn't feel the need to drink alcohol or anything! I was super happy about it and about how easy it was.

One week until D-Day (clearly not the WWII invasion of Normandy, France) nervous but excited to see how much progress I've made in 5 weeks. Maybe I'll post pics.. most likely I won't haha. Alright well. Catch ya later. Hope you all stuck with your weekend goals. Monday is going to be here before you know it, so plan out your week and pick a goal to reach by the end of the week or a bad habit to break! One little thing, one day at a time, and eventually you'll get to where you want to be!



My chicken:
Preheat oven to 400. In a frying pan, spray some olive oil, salt and pepper the bottom of the pan. Lay down the raw chicken. Salt and pepper the top. Let it hang for about 3-5 minutes, flip it and let it hang out 3-5 minutes. Maybe flip it one more time if the outside isn't white. Then when your oven is ready, pop it in there (in the frying pan) for about 20-30 minutes and take it out when it's completely white and the juices are clear. Done. Easy clean up. It's the JUICIEST simplest chicken ever. And then just throw on some mushrooms or sriracha sauce or whatever. It's a good base chicken for recipes.

Back to Being Positive

This week has been chaotic. Why? I have no idea really. It's not like I'm actually busy. Yes, I am doing more then usual, but I think really it's just that my schedule has been thrown off. And it just takes me some time to adjust. Things are going really well here, though. I like the clinic I'm at.. except for the polos. I mean most of them are wearing polos too, so it's not that bad. But I had to wear a polo with black pants. I felt like I was going to work at McDonalds. That might have been the worst. I don't know if I will wear my new, comfy, nicely fitting, black pants again. Just because McDonald's ruined them for me. Or at least not with a polo. Who knows though. Tomorrow I only have 4 hours of work and then I'm going to a Pilate's studio with my CI (Clinical Instructor.. a PT who teaches me basically) to lead some lady through some exercises. Who knows. It's not a part of my clinical, I'm just doing it.

My workouts yesterday and today have been pretty good. It's been difficult adjusting weights, but that's just something you deal with when switching gyms in general. Whether my weight is going up or down this first week, I'm not really concerned. The main point is to just lift as heavy as possible, with good form, and work my muscles to exhaustion by the last rep. As long as I do that, I don't care shouldn't care about how heavy the weights are. Good theory. My damn ego still gets in the way though. Whatever. Today was legs. We did both the lunges and squats on the smith machine today, and I was actually pleased with that. Lunges were much easier. Not in my quads/glutes, but I could focus on where to push and on my form more, then just wanting to quit. Typically I dread lunges just because they take SO LONG! Not that this was any faster, but it was different, and I could lift more because I didn't have to clean and press that barbell over my head, it was just already there! Magic :) But I definitely pushed more with my front heel and even kept my back foot off the ground for both the eccentric and concentric motions, and only put it down for a little balance. It was divine. So here was the day:

Squats on Smith Machine ss Squat Jumps - 3 sets
Seated HS Curls (They don't have the prone machine.. which (surprise, surprise) annoyed me) - 4 sets and a drop
Leg Press - 4 sets
Lunges on Smith Machine - 3 sets
Leg Extension - 3 sets

The leg press also was different. The one I like to do has you pushing more at an incline of 45 degrees or so, and the one at my new gym is more of a horizontal push. It felt like I didn't have as much room to get full extension and full flexion before the weights would drop down. But I eventually got the hang of it and increased weight each set, even though reps increased as well. It definitely wasn't as awesome of a feeling as pressing over 400.. but I did it and worked hard and I was basically limping out of the gym my legs were so shaky.

We are headed back to CH tomorrow after CJ is done working, so we will get to do 2 workouts this week at the SRC and Rams. Praise the Lord! I am also going to try out some new recipes this weekend,  some different protein breads, and a Carob Chip Banana bread of Little B's, and a few others. I'll post the recipes that I make if they turn out to be delightful. It's also my bff from Kansas, Jack's, bday Wednesday and CJ's bday Thursday of next week, so I will be making some desserts for them (clean.. shh don't tell) and going out to celebrate while being 100% on my diet. This week I ate all of the stuff I needed to eat, but a few days had some serious cravings and would eat a tootsie roll (yes only one) after the gym. So my goal for this weekend is to be 100% and to prep all of my food again for the week, no cheating, no extras, nothing, this weekend. A few days of being good takes away all the urges of being bad. Seriously. So that's that. I think I'm going to post my meals this weekend - no lying, no leaving anything out - so you all can hold me accountable. So if you found my last nutrition post boring, check back on Monday :)

Well, I'm going to bed. Last night I stayed up until 11:30 playing minesweeper on my phone.. and I was exhausted and "rushed"... meaning I only had 2 hours between waking up and getting to work to sit around and eat as opposed to 3. I'm weird, I like my morning chill time. Whatever, you all have weirder quirks.

Catch ya on the flip side! And thanks to my AMAZING sisters for all of the support and motivation and encouragement you gave me this weekend. I love you all more then anything!