I was working full time while I studied, so free time was important to me. If I went to class or did uni work in my free time it was something I didn’t enjoy that didn’t earn me anything, so I pretty much chucked it to the bottom of my priority list. I was at uni because I thought I should be, not because I wanted to. Looking back I should have done an apprenticeship and become a plumber or electrician.
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Ah okay I see. And I’m beyond surprised you deciphered my auto correct mistakes because I had to look back at what the statement was lol.
An ex friend of mine did an apprenticeship as a plumber. I’m glad he’s moving up in life. He seems to be enjoying it a lot and the base pay is 18.50 for him.
That’s why I’m so adamant about not eating anymore crap food that comes out of a window or a box. And I’m slimming down nicely while still staying at the same weight. Strength has been improving very well despite tiny discrepancies. So we’re in the same boat with the liquification of food. During the morning and afternoons everything I eat is liquid because my schedule goes in fast bursts then slow bursts and most times I’m moving so quickly I don’t have time to cook. For actually drinks I’ll have OJ, tea, fresh squeezed lemonade, or water. Sometimes i catch Charlie horses all over the place from not replenishing salt fast enough so I mix some salt into a warm water bottoms and squire like juice in it for taste. Once 5-6 PM hits that’s when my hunger climbs well into the late hours of the night, but I actually have time to cook solid foods, and rest, and lounge about and spend time with my husband so I don’t care how many trips I make to the fridge. It’s become a reoccurring thing that If I miss eating when the initial hunger grumbles start I immediately get a piercing headache on either temples on the side of my head. It’s so annoying and consistent and even after eating they tend to not leave until I nap or go into full Sleep mode.
As far as working my schedules change often. Some weeks I’ll only work 25 hours on the weekends, other times I’m clocking in At almost 40 hours in three days (if there’s help needed) But I’ve informed my manager that school is my top priority so I’ll probably start seeing a lot of 24-26 hour work weeks which is fine by me.
You’re doing extremely well with all the work you’re doing, I’m sure it’ll pay off in the long run. I’m very similar to you with meals, often I’ll not eat until 12 or 1pm when I get my first break then I’ll try and have a sandwich and a shake before the gym and another after. After that I usually have a big evening meal and then little bits just to make up the calories after that and I’m usually okay. My main issue is I’m just tired all the time even after eight hours sleep.
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I’m right with you there too. One thing I’ve been doing is pre packaging something that’s a complex carb. I was doing steel cut oats blended down, but I’ve switched to sweet potatoes that are blended almost into a runny paste. That way when I wake up between 9-11 I can eat maybe two of them with some milk or OJ and start building my energy up. What I’ve noticed is I don’t have that bounce off the wall energy or anything like that. It’s more of a sustained steady lower energy, but If need to all of a sudden be active for short bursts I can do that multiple times in the day and well into the afternoon and dusk if I need to. Where my husband is just super energetic during the late mornings and afternoons, and is a walking zombie come 6-7pm.
My body burns through everything like it’s nothing and it really really enjoys sleeping and repairing itself, as well, so most times during my school week when I catch gaps of time I sleep. I’ve started packing a pillow and my favorite blanket in my car and in my backpack and I find a spot and immediately dive into a nap for 2 or 3 hours. This helps quite a bit and I’ve never had problems getting to sleep at night if I’ve had a nap earlier in the day. That way if I need to stay up until 1 or 2, when I wake up in the morning I’m not too exhausted. However if I fall asleep at 10 or 11, I’m indestructible in the mornings lol.
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@caesium32 so if you can try to find gaps of time to just nap, or maybe even just lay down and rest/relax I’d say go for that. I’ve noticed just like with eating and metabolism, sleeping isn’t really cut into blocks like we like to think it is. It’s more or less a continuous cycle. So if you can find a rhythm try to time stuff as best you can.
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I forget how low your wages are. We pay a ton more tax, but a fully qualified plumber here would be on minimum 50 AUD per hour base, probably most would be on around 75.
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And I completely understand. I’m glad you listened to yourself and whatnot. If I didn’t want to do this believe me I would’ve just probably speacialized in some 1 year personal training program and been on my way. There’s nothing wrong with that don’t get me wrong, but I’ve always been drawn to the medical field. And I’ve decided to to keep my psychiatric career path, but I’m going to blend it into either blood or neurological medical branches of medicine because I can’t pick just one.
Yea 
. That’s one thing I will never let fly over my head about you guys east of the prime meridian. Some masses in my country couldn’t stand the though of paying taxes any higher than what we do, but ever since I learned about the systems you guys have over there I honestly wouldn’t care. I think everyone is suited accordingly
I agree. For all that some people abuse our welfare system the majority of it does what it is intended to: help those who can’t help themselves. Plus our public education is generally pretty decent, same with medical care. You only start getting rorted by the tax man when you earn the equivalent of over maybe 65000 per annum and even then there are easy and legal ways to get around it.
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I kind of didn’t though, I finished my degree out of stubbornness. Not exactly a waste of time but I certainly could have done something better.
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It is definitely noticeable.
For the record, two lifts per session at decent volume plus assistance for each is very feasible - PROVIDED you train two or at most three days a week AND you work below 85% of your max on each lift.
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Well there’s always something we think we can do better or more of, but at the same time I think you’re a splendid person, -and if you do want to turn the table I’m sure you’ll have tons of support
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And now that you mention it I was trying to go at that percentage but instead of 3 max days, four or five. I think when I’m off for the semester again I can hop up to two lifts per session. Right now, though, I don’t think I have enough energy for everything. Not unless one thing suffers
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Well, thanks. Yes, I know the support is there and that’s pretty huge.
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LOG # 46
Deadlift for explosive. I also combined some reps in just to strengthen up the lift because it doesn’t get rotated often enough.
135x 10 reps
180x 5x5
225x 10 reps
275x 3 reps
225x 3 reps
185 5x5
135 10 reps.
Kind of plain and boring looking but I had a ton of emotions surging through me that night. And while I was going through the motions and powering through everything, breaking the floor, tightening out with the lock, I was upset. I was frustrated. And everything that’s been stressing me out was banged out each time I slammed the barbell on the floor. So I’d call this a therapy session, moreso than a training session. I didn’t do any secondary work because I’ve been needing to focus on deadlifting to jump up in number anyways.
I’m feeling weird. Odd. Not focused. Scattered. I don’t know.
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From what you said you’re going through, it’s the result of a buildup of stresses over time. Once you manage to remove or mitigate some of the stresses, you’ll feel a palpable sense of relief and back to your normal self.
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LOG # 47
Been moving around a lot lately but I have a lot of stuff to log. First off will be the training session.
Squats for reps
I focused on building up my ability to do many reps with a weight that’s relatively heavy because one of my short term goals is to be able to squat 315 for well past 10 reps. And in order to do this I’m going to have to start squatting heavy for more reps.
135x 10 reps beltless
200x 10 reps beltless
225 5x5 beltless for first set
255 5x5
275 3x5
Backed down
225 5x5
185 5x5
Secondary work:
Leg press: 100 lbs 2 sets of 10
Standing calf raises: 100lbs 3x10
Abductor: 100lbs 3x10
Prone leg curls: 35lbs 5x5, 40lbs 5x5
Jump squats: 10 reps
Walking lunges with 135lbs: 2 sets of 10
LOG # 48
This was systems work and speed work.
Got creative and took advantage of the giant field behind my apartments.
First drill was hill sprints. I count one run through of up and down as 1. So I did five hill sprints.
Second drill was pushing my car for 50 meters 5 times while it was neutral. I had my husband time this and my goal was 5 mins, but I ended at roughly 9-10.
Third drill was wrapping two climbing ropes around my husbands ankles, and I had him lay down on a little rubber mat so the grass wouldn’t irritate his back and I dragged all 240 lbs of him for 50 meters 5 times as well. But unlike the car pushing I was facing him and moving backwards instead of towards.
I had fun that day. And I was laughing at how funny my ideas were but they were completely free and I somehow got my husband involved lol.
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Alright so I’ve figured out what has been causing this unusual fatigue. And it’s partly due to my sleeping patterns, but mostly because of my menstrual cycle.
Sorry if this bothers any of the dudes here but first thing first I noticed that ever since climbing up in weight my menstrual cycles have been struggling to sort out the kinks. However everything finally synced up perfectly BUT I went through a ton of pain in the process. For about two weeks my logs have mentioned me being stressed out, and reasonably tired. I thought I was pregnant at first but after visiting my doctor and running some tests and whatnot I wasn’t pregnant but my period went amiss for 6 entire days. And I think the shift into this weight range while losing fat caused my body to hang on to everything including whatever Iron it thought it was about to lose. I had acne everywhere, and food tasted weird. Three days ago I finally went into menstruation, but had the worst cramps and bloating ever. It was extremely heavy and I mean HEAVY. I kept seeping puke out of my mouth. It wasn’t projectile but it would literally just seep out without any heaving or anything. I had the chills but was burning up, and a headache that kept crawling up and down the back of my head. I had to call off for two days, and I couldn’t even walk to the bathroom in a straight line. I got worried so I went to my doctor again to make sure everything was okay and it was. I have a dude gyno doctor but he’s pretty chill and rather young so he kind of made me feel not so stressed out. He mentioned that for someone of my height it’s a good idea to keep my weight in check. He said I have appreciable amounts of muscle but at this weight it’s easy for my body to want to slap on heaps of fat. He said I’m okay at this weight, and he actually gave me a compliment on not looking like the number on the scale at all. He also mentioned that it would be a good idea for me to up systems work and HIIT. So going back to the period issues, about the second day everything lightened up instantly. The more I keep training the shorter the actual bleeding is. What used to be seven days has whittled down to four and sometimes three days. After that all happened my faces cleared up literally over night, and body temp immediately jumped back up to, “why is it so hot in this 70 degree room?” ,Like it usually is. So everything is gravy now that my hormones have sorted themselves out. Because it was interfering with school and my personal life with my husband and my performance in the gym. Not only that but I’m usually a calm, down to earth, reasonable person, but these last two weeks my emotions were everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
As for sleeping I’ve found that what keeps my school stresses down is to almost immediately slam myself into sleep mode as soon as I get home. After waking up I tackle my studies and homework and whatnot, and then the rest of the day I focus on training and into the early night. I kept trying to train first and then study at night on an exhausted mind. So this has fixed that stressor quite a bit.
After monitoring all this for a week now I feel good. And the last two sessions have felt very very good. I’ve noticed when I approach the luteal phase of my cycle that’s when things slow down a bit, but nothing compared to what was going on these last couple of weeks.
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