Thoughts: Hurricane Ivan… Stupid hurricanes.

I need to start getting to bed earlier than midnight. I can’t seem to get up before 6:30 or 7 am when I knock out so late, and that messed up my plan to do cardio at the gym and then take a tai chi class this morning at 8.

I went in for an emergency hair cut appointment last night at 7:30 pm right after work, so I wound up delaying meal 5 for an hour and a half, which of course pushed down meal 6 to 11 pm. I probably should have just skipped meal 5, but dang it, I was hungry!

The hair cut looks great, though. I love getting my hair chopped short. I don’t know why I always let it grow back into a shaggy mess over 3-4 months before I go in for another emergency fix. The lightness I feel after I shed about a pound of hair is really quite amazing. I now know TWO hairdressers at the Florida Mall Regis Hair salon that can do awesome, trendy short hair cuts. If you are ever in town and need one, ask for Bethany or Damaris.

The Great Creatine Experiment has commenced. I took my first 5 g dose of GNC Creastack yesterday, and will continue to do 5 g a day for the next 4 days, then cut down to a half serving only on weight training days. I’m not really loading as instructed (Four 5g servings a day for five days in a row) because I’ve read too many articles that state that this is just a waste of money and well, that’s a lot of creatine for a female in the 130-140 lb range with only a bit over 100 lbs of lean body mass. I’m going to chronicle the whole experiment in my photo album at http://maggiewang.com/photos/album04. You can check there for pics of the new hairdo, too. So far I just have my Day One pics, after just one dose of creatine. I doubt that those 5 g made much difference, so just consider those my default state after one challenge.

So far no weight gain or bloating. In fact, I weighed in at 132.8 lbs this morning, which beats my previous low of 133.4 by almost half a pound.

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Nutrition (1600-1700 high zig-zag day; items in parentheses are my “bulk up extras”)
1: 3×1 omelette with mushrooms and napa cabbage in oyster sauce and 1/4 c grapes
2: Tuna oatmeal salad (Chocolate banana shake)
3: Chocolate mousse (1/2 Chocolate banana shake)
4: Chocolate banana protein cookies (1/2 Chocolate banana shake)
5: Kung Pao chicken with broccoli in oyster sauce
6: Cottage cheese and grapes

Supplements:
Multivitamin with iron
Calcium 500 + D
1 T. safflower oil with meals 1 and 5
1 T. flax seed oil
1 servings of GNC Creastack (5 g creatine, 2 g l-glutamine, plus phosphates)

Calories eaten and deficit for yesterday = 1288/ -756 (target -337)
Water: 10 cups
Ratios: 41% carb / 42% protein / 17% fat

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Workout:
8:30 am Cardio at the fitness center–elliptical trainer

I used resistances of 2-6 to vary my intensity, but I think I will go with speed/RPMs at a steady level 3 or 4 resistance next time if I use the same machine. Maybe it’s just me, but I didn’t feel like I was heavy enough to actually get the stupid pedals to move properly at the higher resistances.

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The Awful Truth:
1. Ate 5-7 plaim M&Ms at work.
2. Meal 5 was eaten at 9:30 instead of 7:30 pm.
3. Had to swap out the planned chicken and broccoli dinner with a quick to make oatmeal tuna salad instead.

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Brownie Points:
1. Did my non-running cardio this morning, and didn’t give in to the temptation to use the treadmill.
2. Cooked some broccoli in oyster sauce this morning.
3. Got my hair hacked and tamed at last.

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Short-term Goals:
1. Cook a big batch of kung pao chicken tonight and make those nutrition bars.
2. Grill extra chicken breasts.
3. Plan out new store area for my gallery site.