I’m beginning to start a new routine here.. blogging only about once a month – this has to stop!! Of course, life has been crazy as always with me trying to juggle too many things at once. Cooking for people every single day, using ingredients that I normally would never think to add to my own dishes / food is… well to say the least – super challenging! I think for the first time this week I actually didn’t even want to taste the food, I’m sick of always worrying about what  I consume during the tastings, and it is also prohibiting me from leaning out the way I want to.

For the past couple of months I have been experimenting with doing very little cardio, in order to grow as much muscle as possible. This would usually not be a problem for me in terms of staying lean, but I am also now consuming more foods in the way of tasting and not being as strict as I would like. Fact is, calories add up quicker than you think and at the end of the week it can mean a difference between 0.5 lbs and 0.25 lbs, and so on. When you have very little weight to lose, every pounds feels like a great victory so times certainly do change! I have come to the conclusion that I HAVE to have cardio in my life – I may have had this epiphany once earlier in these blogs, but then decided I would give it another shot at not going for too much cardio. Fact is, I just can’t be strict enough with the diet at this stage and I need to compromise: Slower muscle growth in order to say lean. I feel a bit “big” right now, perhaps a bit too ‘manly’ on the upper body because I am carrying about 6-7 extra lbs so my new goal now is to slim down before summer hits! What does this mean? I’m going to incorporate at least 4 x cardio sessions a week – mostly HIIT (which initially I thought I would hate, but in fact I quite like it as it mixes things up and keeps in interesting), with one or two low/medium intensity jogs outside a week.  I won’t be doing any cardio on the days I train legs (usually Tuesday/Friday) so with one day off completely from working out a week that means 4 x a week. Let’s see what this will bring – I hope I can keep up the new routine amongst my 18 hour workdays!! I will try to post my work out for tomorrow later this week – did legs (hams/glutes) tonight – and on to my favorite tomorrow: BACK!!

Hope you are all having a great week and that you are training hard!