Great start to the week

Being back at the gym yesterday was great. I'll admit, I was a little apprehensive at first, having been away for so long. But it didn't take long to get back into the groove. And it helped to have mom there with me. I saw some of the same people. The dedicated morning gym goers, still at it. That was a comfort.

Our gym is in the process of remodeling and so it's a bit of a mess, but certainly nothing that bothers me. They have installed a LOT of windows around the track and it really brightens it up in there. I LOVE IT!! The first floor weight room is centered in the middle of the track, so we benefit from one whole side of the new windows. It's very uplifting. I'm used to working out it dark, dungeon-like environments. My home based weight room isn't totally cavernous, there are two windows, but it isn't enough to make it exactly bright and cheery. It's nothing a fresh new coat of vibrant colored paint couldn't fix. It's the musty smell that I'm not so fond of. Every since our air conked out and spilled water all over the floor, it's gotten quite stinky. Maybe a good steam cleaning would help, although our basement is huge by basement standards and it would probably cost a fortune.

I'm positive that I work harder at the gym. I don't know what it is, I just do. Maybe it's the environment. Maybe it's the fact that you feel you are being watched (although everybody is busy with their own thing so that shouldn't be an issue). Whatever it is, I like the fact that it makes me push harder. I only did two circuits and it took me 1 hour, 5 minutes of that hour was a warm up and 5 minutes was a cool down. I burned 400 calories. Not too shabby! I wore my HR monitor - that's how I know.

I ate great all day. I grilled myself a chicken breast for lunch, with cauliflower and a sweet potato. I had over easy eggs mixed into ground beef for breakfast with a little bit of cheddar (yummy!). Snack was Greek yogurt, blueberries, almonds and cinnamon. Dinner was top sirloin, baby kale and oat bran hot cereal. I'm totally in love with oat bran cereal - I eat it now instead of oatmeal. The nutrition facts are almost identical.

But last night, at about 8pm, I was hungry, so I had a peanut butter jelly pita. It was so good, I had another one. I get so ravenous on days I workout. Even when I do the stuff that magazines are always telling you to do to curb hunger. Like, in the afternoon, have a snack of almonds and fruit or a fat a half an hour before dinner. I do that and STILL feel like I could eat a cow at dinner time. Eat eggs in the morning and eat less overall during the day. While eggs sustain me for a long time in the morning hours, I still feel the need to pig out in the evening. It's always been that way. My super hungry times of day are around 3pm and 5pm. Then, I'll almost always be hungry again at 8pm. So I feed myself. I can tell the difference between real hunger and cravings. I have REAL hunger during these times on weight training days, so I feel it's important to keep fed. Especially since I want to build muscle.

One of the biggest benefits (in my opinion) to building muscle is the fact that I can eat more carbs. According to Jimmy Smith, who has a lot of super great info (you really need to check him out), I can have 4 high carb days a week eat between 1.5 to 2g of carbs per pound of bodyweight to build muscle. Of course they have to be good sources - donuts don't count ;)