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Okay, well the plan for the next few months (okay, the rest of high school) is to get into great shape for tennis. So we'll see how this goes. Some basic stats...

Age: 17
Gender: Female
Height: almost 5'9''
Weight: ~150 lbs.

Schedule
Monday: tennis (2.5 hrs)
Tuesday: dumbbell press/bench press, lateral raises, forward raises, lunges/squats, run 20 min
Wednesday: tennis (2.5 hrs)
Thursday: seated row, lat pulldown, lunges/squats, abs, run 20 min
Friday: rest
Saturday: same as Tues
Sunday: same as Thurs, no leg work


Today... I worked out for the first time in about three weeks after vacations in Jamaica and Spain (both of which were, by the way, amazing). I conned my roommate into working out with me, so I got to do bench instead of dumbbell press and squats instead of lunges. I did 3 sets of 10 reps for everything, since I didn't know what else to do. My weights were 55, 10, 10, and 65 for the listed exercises. I couldn't run, because I ran out of time.

In nutrition news, I had an egg/cheese wrap and a glass of milk for breakfast; rice, chicken, and mixed veggies with apple juice for lunch; and a Jimmy John's Turkey Tom for dinner. I've been drinking water all day. Surprisingly, no snacks.
 
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Okay, so complete failure with diet today. Breakfast was okay, with two sausage links, a few strips of bacon (not so good) and a egg and cheese English muffin sandwich. Lunch was some whole wheat bread and broccoli and cheddar soup from Panera :D but unfortunately I chased it with a dark chocolate and caramel candy bar. Dinner consisted of a Krispy Kreme original donut (damn them for giving free samples) and half of a chicken caesar sandwich.

On the bright side, I had a fantastic day for tennis today. The conditioning part was jumping rope, 1 min, 1.5 min, and then 3 min with something like 20 sec breaks in between. Of course, I was playing hard for the other two hours too :)
 
Yeah, diet has definitely always been my weak point :( but Tues wasn't too bad, was it? I'm not tracking calories per se, for now I think I'm just trying to clean things up and keep it as simple as possible so I can stick to this. I know from prior experience that it's hard for me to stick to remembering everything I put in my mouth and jotting it down for any longer than maybe a week.

I don't really have dead set physique goals because I don't know what my BF is or anything (I think it's around the mid/upper twenties, like 26-27 or so... our gym teacher took it for us with calipers last semester) but I figure that my weight should "ideally" be closer to 135 based on the height/weights I've seen of the pro tennis players I watch.

No leg work on Sunday because I do legs on Saturday. (Just realized I have a typo in my original post... Saturday is same as Tuesday.)

EDIT: Quick question - I'm due for seated rows today, but I don't know is it better or worse to do rows where you lean in or with a straight back?
 
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Thanks, and I definitely will :)

Diet today was slightly better. Breakfast was a glass of milk, two sausage patties (greasy, unfortunately, thanks to the school cafeteria), two tiny blackberry pancakes, and some eggs with cheese and ham. Unfortunately, I was really short on time for lunch and I had to jump in and grab what I could - the line for the regular lunch was too long, the regular pizza was gone, and so I grabbed two hot dogs and, later, an apple and some apple juice. Dinner was beef ravioli, broccoli, some bread, and more apple juice.

The workout was decent. My weights were 50 and 50 on the row and lat pulldowns and 20 for lunges. Three sets of 10 for each. I'm kind of baffled by the row and pulldowns because on both of them, I struggled to finish a set, but then felt fine afterwards and I feel fine now. When I did bench and shoulder stuff Tues, I could barely lift my arms afterwards. I had no idea what to do for abs, so I ended up just doing 20 crunches and 20 bicycles before I went running. Time again made me cut 3 min from my 20 min run but I think it was productive nonetheless.
 
topspin said:
Thanks, and I definitely will :)

Diet today was slightly better. Breakfast was a glass of milk, two sausage patties (greasy, unfortunately, thanks to the school cafeteria), two tiny blackberry pancakes, and some eggs with cheese and ham. Unfortunately, I was really short on time for lunch and I had to jump in and grab what I could - the line for the regular lunch was too long, the regular pizza was gone, and so I grabbed two hot dogs and, later, an apple and some apple juice. Dinner was beef ravioli, broccoli, some bread, and more apple juice.

The workout was decent. My weights were 50 and 50 on the row and lat pulldowns and 20 for lunges. Three sets of 10 for each. I'm kind of baffled by the row and pulldowns because on both of them, I struggled to finish a set, but then felt fine afterwards and I feel fine now. When I did bench and shoulder stuff Tues, I could barely lift my arms afterwards. I had no idea what to do for abs, so I ended up just doing 20 crunches and 20 bicycles before I went running. Time again made me cut 3 min from my 20 min run but I think it was productive nonetheless.
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careful with the carbs
 
Is it okay to be eating "unlimited" (but reasonable) good carbs like whole wheats and fruits and veggies? And how much is too much?

Since today's my off day, today's entry will be about diet, which I think I've been doing a pretty good job with today. Breakfast was a bowl of Complete, a few bites of nasty, salty ground-beef-and-potato-ish-stuff (before I realized how nasty it was) and a biscuit. I know, probably not the best but I love the things and the cafe only has them occasionally. Lunch was a sandwich - wheat bread, turkey, cheese, lettuce, and tomato - and some mixed veggies, with some apple juice. My brother's going to bring me an egg for a snack (I'm starving right now, even though it's only 4:15) and I would just eat the white, but I'm way too hungry to give away any food.

No clue what dinner will be, I'll update later.

Oh yeah, and last night I also had a snack of a little dessert (chocolate/walnut/caramel thing), a small pear and half a clementine. Obviously the dessert wasn't too healthy but it was like the size of a silver dollar, so I figure it was alright.
 
To finish off my day, I had that egg I mentioned earlier, a turkey sandwich from Potbelly, a wedge of delicious brie, and mango juice (I go back home for weekends).

Derwyddon, thanks so much for your help. Interestingly enough, we looked up our rough caloric needs today in Chem, and mine (based on height, weight, age, and activity level) was about 2900. I'm willing to count calories some and be conscious of that sort of thing, I'm just afraid that I won't be able to continue it for more than a couple weeks. I just don't want to feel like I'm restricting myself too much all at once, because I don't think I'll be able to stick to something too confining.

The 7 habits article you gave me is really good, thanks. Here's what I think I can change with my diet right off the bat...
  1. Change breakfast to a bowl of Complete and some fruit (apple or banana). Only problem is that there's no protein here so I don't really know what I should do. The choices are usually sausage links, sausage patties, oily ham, or bacon.
  2. Just drink water. I'll keep the milk for breakfast, but no more apple juice. It's probably all sugar anyway?
  3. Add snacks/smaller meals between meals. What should I do for this, considering that the cafe isn't open and I don't have time to go back to my room for food all the time? I could get an apple or banana from the cafe, but I don't know what else. (And again, no protein.)
  4. Figure out a post-workout snack. Just looking around, it seems like there are a million different ideas on this but any suggestions? I really don't knwo where to start.
Thanks again for all your help, it's absolutely incredible.
 
My workout today was pretty weird overall - the first time I did an organized workout on my own at my home gym, Lifetime Fitness. After jogging for two minutes, I headed over to do squats first (all the benches were taken). I started with 65, since that's what I did last time, but then raised it to 75 for the 2nd set and 85 for the 3rd. I think I'll stick to 85 from now on.

After that, I was going to do dumbbell presses but I was seriously so lost by what weight I should do that I ended up going back to barbell, benching just the bar. It was probably useless, but I tried. The fact that the dumbbell felt so unstable freaked me out a little, but in the future I think I'll try it again, maybe just doing 15lbs. Is the dumbbell better because it recruits more stabilizing muscles?

Did the raises with 10 lbs again, but I'm starting to think that 10lbs is too much for the lateral raises. I can feel my form suffering. I'm going to tone it down a bit.

Diet today has not been the best, but not too bad. Two lean cuisines, a cracker, and mango juice for breakfast. Unfortunately, I cracked a little and had an unhealthy snack of marzipan and a piece of chocolate. Right after my workout, I had a turkey panini from the gym, which I assume was pretty healthy - wheat bread, turkey, swiss cheese, red pepper (not spicy), and some nut-thing on the side. And of course, lots of water.
 
topspin said:
we looked up our rough caloric needs today in Chem, and mine (based on height, weight, age, and activity level) was about 2900.
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That number seems way too high. On this page, your number comes out to be 2300 assuming you are "Extremely Active", their most active category. I think this is much more reasonable.
 
Gonna have to agree with g8 there. When you calculated those numbers at school, did you maybe use the formula for a male? I notice you didn't mention gender when listing factors. That would explain the variance. I could see getting a number as high as maybe 2450, but 2300'ish would seem more accurate.

Nice catch, g8.
 
you need to take into more consideration what you're eating too.
you've said "thingy" when you're referring to food numerous times indicating that you really don't know what you're eating.

do you have a mini fridge or something? You need to stock up on lean protein, fruits, and veggies. yougurt would be good to.
and vitamin water.
 
Yeah, I was wondering about that too because I started estimating my calorie intake on the past few days and I never got anywhere near 2900. The site I used is but I guess it was really off.

Yes, I do have a mini-fridge at school so I can store some foods but I think that will mostly be useful for after school, post-workout food. Midmorning, I don't have time to go back to my room.

As I side note, I weighed myself this morning and I was at 147lbs before eating anything. Just a benchmark, I guess.

EDIT: Finished out the day with a snack of granola bar coupled with more marzipan and chocolate (I know, I know). My dinner included this Chinese dish that is basically equivalent to pasta, which included a bit of shrimp, chicken, and fish, and then a small wedge of brie and Activia yogurt.
 
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Workout today was decent. The lat pulldowns were at 70, which I felt comfortable with despite the fact that last time I did them at 50lbs. I think that I just didn't rest long enough before between sets. Instead of doing the cable seated rows like I did last time, I did bent over rows with 20 lbs on each side, which makes me wonder why I decided to do cable rows in the first place. Might switch that permanently. For abs, I just did 20, 10, and 10 reps of decline crunches. Nothing special about my run today.

Diet, I think, has been okay. Lean cuisine for breakfast. Same lunch as yesterday - turkey panini from the gym. Snack was a Pure Protein bar and a small sweet potato. I think I'll have a chicken caesar salad from Go Roma for dinner - everything's feeling kind of heavy in my stomach and salads usually help me clear it up.
 
Okay, I'm quickly learning that I have practically no willpower when it comes to diet.

I did have that chicken caesar salad, which felt great, but over the course of the afternoon/evening I had a chocolate/caramel candy bar, several crackers, two wedges of brie, and some yogurt with honey. Not good. I think I'm just going to tell myself from now on that I can't eat after 9. I know some people say it's fine to eat at night, but seeing as I usually snack unhealthily in the evening, I think it'll work well for me.
 
Okay, I didn't update yesterday, so I'll use this post to talk just about yesterday. I'll post again for today after I get my workout in.

So yesterday was a tennis day (which went really well, by the way) so this will just be about diet. Breakfast was a bowl of raisin bran. Lunch was more raisin bran, some yogurt, and a Lean Cuisine southwest chicken panini. Somehow in the span of the afternoon, I also managed to get in two more bowls of yogurt and a wedge of brie. Probably not the best. Dinner was a turkey sub from Subway - wheat bread, provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, pickles, and peppers. No mayo.

And now, I'm off to watch the Australian Open/do homework. :D
 
I'll probably have to make another post later today, because I'm assuming I'll eat something later tonight, but here's what's been going on so far...

Breakfast this morning was eggs, two pancakes, a banana, and a glass of milk. For lunch, there weren't a lot of options but I did what I could - a chicken patty sandwich, broccoli, and water. (The other choices were grilled cheese and pizza, so I figure this was decent.) Before my workokut, I had a Nature Valley bar as a snack, and then dinner of Jimmy John's Beach Club - fresh baked turkey breast, provolone cheese, avocado spread, sliced cucumber, sprouts, lettuce, and tomato on white bread. Water all day, of course. If I eat later tonight, it'll probably be something vegan because it'll be at a health thing.

Workout today was decent. I tried the dumbbell press, 20 lbs each. It was definitely less steady than the bench, but I liked it. When I did squats, I almost got kicked out of the gym for doing it without a spotter, but I did it at 95 lbs and felt fine. 10 lbs on forward raises and 8 lbs on lateral raises. Cardio turned out to be 10min on bike and 10min on the elliptical, because all the ellipticals were taken at first.

Overall, I think it was an okay day.
 
topspin said:
Overall, I think it was an okay day.
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I'd agree.

Now, the night. ;)
 
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