Ok, I’m gonna start a journal. This post is gonna be really long b/c in order to get helpful feedback I suppose I have to tell you guys pretty much everything. (Plus, I’m naturally pretty chatty.) I would love any feedback, especially on my routines and my training split - I have been messing with the split for a while now and haven’t got it to my satisfaction yet. I prefer a 4 day but I hate having a sissy day with, say, just bi’s and shoulders (which is sort of how it pans out now); I also hate having any other bodypart on leg day b/c it already lasts really long. So any suggestions are welcome.

I am 5'7" (did I get those marks right? Or did I just say that I am 7 feet, 5 inches tall?), weigh 156, about 21.5% bf by my best guess (last measured a little over a month ago @ 22.5; since then I’ve gained 2.5 lbs and leaned out a good deal in my upper body and abs.) (My hiney, however, is another story.) I’m pretty much of a mesomorph for a girl (with the obligatory dash of endomorph thrown in...see ‘hiney’, above) - my shoulders are pretty significantly wider than my hips and I build muscle relatively easily (so far. Knock on wood.)

One year ago I weighed 212. Boy, was I fat. Over the course of this year I have slowly lost -what, 56 lbs? (You do the math - I’m a liberal arts person.) I started off just walking, then running and doing some light (less than 15 lbs light) weights at home. I got back into the gym and doing heavy weights 5 or 6 months ago. (Luckily, in college I had trained for a couple of years with a competitive bber, and so I had some muscle memory to help me out. Another lucky legacy of the same period: I already had a healthy scorn for the pink weights and the nautilus machines.) I haven’t really hit any serious plateaus in the fat loss yet, although there’ve been a couple of times that I took 2-4 weeks off dieting and went back to maintenance. I think I lucked into keeping my body out of starvation mode. I want to continue losing fat SLOWLY (brutally deceiving my endocrine system the whole time) so that I can see what areas I need to bring up; then I can start judiciously adding mass in carefully selected areas. (I’m already fairly muscular for a girl - I don't want you guys thinkin' I'm a weenie.) Overall I think that about 16% bf at about 150 would look pretty sweet, so that’s what I’m shooting for. I’m kicking around trying to compete in a bb show (1st time) this year - mainly to have some concrete goal to work towards (this would probably be at <12%, about 137 or so, by my extremely scientific calculations.) Hopefully I will have some pictures to post for feedback in the next couple of weeks.

Diet’s been pretty much right-on for about 4 months now (I range between 2000 and 2300 kcal/day, usually pretty much isocaloric, if anything I usually err on the side of lower carbs; all carbs are low GI except postworkout, plenty of good fats, at least 6 meals a day, blah blah blah). I’m currently taking creatine (have been for a little more than a month; probably going to cycle off in another month. Go ahead and tell me I don’t need to cycle it. I’m ready.) No other “unusual” supps (despite the fact that doc caught me reading the anabolic forum! Can’t a girl just look?!?) - just a whole assload of vitamins, protein, and flax oil (let me just interject here that this is hands-down the assiest ass-tasting **** I have EVER choked down my gullet, without exception. Ass ass ASS.)

Weights are usually 4 days/week in the gym, about an hour a day (I try hard not to go over an hour). I hate cardio machines anyway and I hate the girls that are usually on the cardio machines and I would ESPECIALLY hate it if somebody thought I WAS one of those girls, so I don’t do cardio at the gym much. Sometimes I run with my dog but not nearly enough; us Southerners don’t like doing stuff outside in the wintertime. It’s unnatural, and cold. I tell myself I’m saving cardio for when I reach a plateau in my cutting, but I’m really just waiting for spring. However, I have been consistently losing fat even without the cardio, so... yeah. I’m just gonna wait for spring.

I’ll go ahead and post my back workout from this Friday (1/24/03) so you have some idea where I am RIGHT NOW, then I’ll (blessedly) close and go watch the Superbowl.

1. Bent BB rows: 1x14 warmup with 50
1x12 60
2x8 70
2. SLDL: 1x8 warmup, bar only
1x10 115
1x8 125
3. Deads: 1x10 125
1x4 165
(Cleans: 1x12 with bar, just for fun and because they make the veins pop in my shoulder)
4. Assisted pullups: 1x6 70 lbs assist
1x3 55 lbs assist (these SUCK and I know it. I am such a girl.)
5. Rows (on HammerStrength machine using the widest/lowest grip) 2x10 45 lb on each side

I ran out of time today and couldn’t do any abs; normally I do some ab thing at the end of each workout.

A couple of questions:
1. Grip work: I do mixed grip on deads and SLDL but I can’t get anything over 115 without straps. What can I do to work on grip strength?
2. What is the best way for me to get to unassisted chins? (and naturally, after that, weighted BADASS chins.) I’m thinking of getting a chin bar for my house and doing negatives.

A gaggle of goals:
1. Squat over 200 by end of year
2. Bench bodyweight by end of year
3. Unassisted chins


Thanks for reading this (if you did) and commenting (if you do). If not, FINE. I didn’t want your help anyway.