Exercise update
For the past three weeks, I have been going to the gym to do my light cardio exercise on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays without fail (hoping to help myself from falling off to sleep after work, which results in me often staying up very late at night). It has helped me to manage my time better after I get out of work, and I have been successful at avoiding after-work naps!
ALSO, I increased the weight on the Glute Press Machine to 240lbs and on the Abductor Machine to 135lbs this past Wednesday.
Aaaaand..... diet update!
After having been on this high-protein diet for a couple months, my stomach began to get very sensitive, especially to lactose (due to all the lactose in my diet from the milk and whey concentrate shakes [my Syntha-6 by BSN]). Up until recently, I had been dealing with a sensitive stomach for a good few months, until I decided to finally admit it was only getting worse and try to cut the lactose out of my diet. As a result, I have been drinking lactose-free milk instead of my usual milk for the past two weeks, and have been drinking hydrolyzed whey (Hydro Whey by On) during the day and casein protein (Complete Casein by Cytosport) at night before bed since last Saturday. Casein is a slow-digesting protein, so a person's muscles are continually fed throughout the night, and Hydrolyzed Whey is the whey protein that is broken down into peptides, making it easier and faster to digest (as a result, it has little to no lactose).
After diet change:
I have cleared up my sensitive stomach by about 95%! Whatever issues my stomach still has is probably because it is still sensitive, so it will react negatively to simple things like beans and apples. After being lactose-free for a couple of months, I am sure I will be back to normal again
However, I measured myself yesterday and check out these more than disappointing stats:
Waist: 26.5"
Hip/Butt: 40"
While the new waist measurement is warmly welcomed, I was
by my butt measurement!! In disbelief, I did it again and again, but it just continued to measure 40" every time. Forced to face the facts, I talked to my man about it and told him about how I altered my diet, as I am now taking three shakes in a day (two hydros and one casein) instead of just two (two whey concentrates). Substituting one mini-meal for a shake resulted in a lower-calorie diet, which means I basically lost the fat off my butt 
and in result am left with lean muscle (muscle with no layers of fat in between the layers of muscle). I haven't been doing this lower-calorie diet for even a week yet (only 5 days when I measured yesterday), and I lost .75" of fat off of my butt. Whoa! See, I can lose weight VERY easily if I am not careful. I have to do a lot to make sure my weight stays on.
Lean muscle and less fat sounds nice, right? Well, sure it does, but my current priority is to maximize my muscle-growth, and low-calorie diets (even if they're protein-high like mine) retard muscle growth speed. More calories allow for faster muscle growth as muscle growth benefits from calories, but the muscle will have layers of some fat mixed in, whereas a low-calorie, high-protein diet will result in leaner muscle (no fat tissues) but the growth is MUCH slower.
I am not terribly upset anymore because, knowing that it was only fat that I lost, I can easily gain it back (as opposed to losing muscle, which is NOT easy to gain back). Starting tomorrow, I will go back onto a higher-calorie diet (of course, it will always be a diet high in protein), so I will make sure to eat at least four times a day, as opposed to my recent three. I want to give my muscles as much to "work with" as possible, for the sake of growth. I will go back onto this lower-calorie, high-protein diet maybe two to three times out of the year to shed some fat, while also trying to minimize the amount of slow muscle growth by limiting these diets to a week-long each time.
Back to eating more again! I'm curious to see how long it will take me to gain the .75" of fat back...
For the past three weeks, I have been going to the gym to do my light cardio exercise on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays without fail (hoping to help myself from falling off to sleep after work, which results in me often staying up very late at night). It has helped me to manage my time better after I get out of work, and I have been successful at avoiding after-work naps!
ALSO, I increased the weight on the Glute Press Machine to 240lbs and on the Abductor Machine to 135lbs this past Wednesday.
Aaaaand..... diet update!
After having been on this high-protein diet for a couple months, my stomach began to get very sensitive, especially to lactose (due to all the lactose in my diet from the milk and whey concentrate shakes [my Syntha-6 by BSN]). Up until recently, I had been dealing with a sensitive stomach for a good few months, until I decided to finally admit it was only getting worse and try to cut the lactose out of my diet. As a result, I have been drinking lactose-free milk instead of my usual milk for the past two weeks, and have been drinking hydrolyzed whey (Hydro Whey by On) during the day and casein protein (Complete Casein by Cytosport) at night before bed since last Saturday. Casein is a slow-digesting protein, so a person's muscles are continually fed throughout the night, and Hydrolyzed Whey is the whey protein that is broken down into peptides, making it easier and faster to digest (as a result, it has little to no lactose).
After diet change:
I have cleared up my sensitive stomach by about 95%! Whatever issues my stomach still has is probably because it is still sensitive, so it will react negatively to simple things like beans and apples. After being lactose-free for a couple of months, I am sure I will be back to normal again
However, I measured myself yesterday and check out these more than disappointing stats:
Waist: 26.5"
Hip/Butt: 40"
While the new waist measurement is warmly welcomed, I was
by my butt measurement!! In disbelief, I did it again and again, but it just continued to measure 40" every time. Forced to face the facts, I talked to my man about it and told him about how I altered my diet, as I am now taking three shakes in a day (two hydros and one casein) instead of just two (two whey concentrates). Substituting one mini-meal for a shake resulted in a lower-calorie diet, which means I basically lost the fat off my butt and in result am left with lean muscle (muscle with no layers of fat in between the layers of muscle). I haven't been doing this lower-calorie diet for even a week yet (only 5 days when I measured yesterday), and I lost .75" of fat off of my butt. Whoa! See, I can lose weight VERY easily if I am not careful. I have to do a lot to make sure my weight stays on.Lean muscle and less fat sounds nice, right? Well, sure it does, but my current priority is to maximize my muscle-growth, and low-calorie diets (even if they're protein-high like mine) retard muscle growth speed. More calories allow for faster muscle growth as muscle growth benefits from calories, but the muscle will have layers of some fat mixed in, whereas a low-calorie, high-protein diet will result in leaner muscle (no fat tissues) but the growth is MUCH slower.
I am not terribly upset anymore because, knowing that it was only fat that I lost, I can easily gain it back (as opposed to losing muscle, which is NOT easy to gain back). Starting tomorrow, I will go back onto a higher-calorie diet (of course, it will always be a diet high in protein), so I will make sure to eat at least four times a day, as opposed to my recent three. I want to give my muscles as much to "work with" as possible, for the sake of growth. I will go back onto this lower-calorie, high-protein diet maybe two to three times out of the year to shed some fat, while also trying to minimize the amount of slow muscle growth by limiting these diets to a week-long each time.
Back to eating more again! I'm curious to see how long it will take me to gain the .75" of fat back...