Muscle Build Experiment Progress Report

My first week is officially over, and I now have two workouts under my belt.  The diet has been going well, other than the fact that my dine-out options have been completely confined to Mexican food.  (Beans, meat, veggies.)  It’s cool though.  I like cooking, so I’ve been making huge batches of beans at home and just warming up a bowlful every time I eat.  I made some wicked lentils first, and now I have a big batch of pinto beans to tide me over for next week.  And meat has always been my specialty anyway, so I’m just peachy with cooking up a big hunk of protein for every meal.  Throw some veggies in the mix, and voila.  Bodybuilder’s delight.

Because I have been going to the gym for about a solid year now, I’m finding it difficult to really blast my muscles into exhaustion.  I am going for my max weight every time, though, and that has gone up in just these past two workouts.  Now I just need to focus on intensity and blasting specific muscle groups.  I will still exercise my entire body each workout, but I will alternate my main focus between upper and lower body every time.  Oh, and that 5/5 cadence is murder – it’s great for tiring you out quick, especially when you’re working with heavier weights.  (5 seconds up, 5 seconds down.  It feels like an eternity).

My gym-going buddy and I are both seeing weight gain from this program already.  Both of us were about two pounds heavier than our norms when we weighed in on Friday.  And that was our hungry weight – we probably went up another 2 lbs each after we went for a post-workout meal.

Saturday was Dieters Gone Wild day, and I think I sufficiently sickened myself with all the junk I ate.  I’ll be just fine on beans and meat now, thank you.  Time to gear up for workout week 2!