Day 2

Did much better yesterday diet wise.  No cake for a start.

Diet

• Porridge (50g), raw honey and raisins.  1 glass of orange juice
• 1 Banana
• 2 tuna sandwiches (4 slices of bread, 1 tin of drained s/f oil based tuna)
• 3 dates
• 1 Raisin and nut bar
• Small portion of home-made chilli
• Roast chicken breast, on a bed of lentil, pepperoni and tomato sauce (kind of sauce anyway) with a few roast potato slices and green beans

Supplemented by my usual:

• Home-made lemonade, 1 lemon, juiced, and 2 pints of water
• 1tsp unsulphered black-strap molasses
• 1 high strength cod liver oil capsule (1000mg I think)
• 2 litres of water during the day, 1 litre during training

New to my diet:

• 125mls semi-skimmed milk, 1 scoop of whey protein (post-workout)

Definitely better today in terms of keeping out the rubbish.  The fruit bar wasn't necessary but I forgot we had left-over chilli.  After the box is done I won't buy anymore, they tend to just make me hungrier to be honest.  I''m going to use whey protein following my sessions to see if it speeds up my recovery, as I'm feeling like my legs may be building up fatigue.

Training

• 47 minutes spinning, including warm up and cooldown (550kcals)
• Military press, 4x8 reps, 20kg
• Straight legged deadlifts, 4x8, 30kg
• Assortment of crunches, planks and reverse planks

First of all, those silly low weights are only being used because they are only for maintaining muscle, rather than building strength or size.  It's a little embarrasing to step back onto low weights but I have to remind myself "Leave your ego at the door".  I have training goals, so aim for them and don't give a damn what anyone else in the gym thinks.

The actual spinning went pretty well.  The calorie burn could have been higher but I was out of energy by the last segment so wimped out and sat down through it rather than standing on the peddles.  The lack of energy I think was mostly because of an issue I'm starting to address that I'll get onto below.  The spinning felt less heavy than usual because it was shorter, and with no seperate warm up as well I kind of feel cheated out of the best workout I could, but if I'm to keep my muscle and can't spend a little longer in the gym, the time on the bike's obviously gonna slip. 

My key energy issue: recovery.  Most specifically, sleep.  I reckon I had about 5-6 hours sleep on Tuesday night.  6-7 is usual.  This just isn't enough.  Even if I wasn't training it's not good.  I have a permanent runny nose (attractive) which only seems to disappear when I'm on holiday, when I'm rested, which makes me think it's from exhaustion (or allergies, but let's emliminate the former).  So last night I made an effort to not read until the small hours and tried to get to sleep before 23.30.  And you know what?  I'm not sneezing as much today, my nose isn't nearly as bad and I just generally feel better.  It'll be interesting to see the effects of getting a good night's sleep for a week, see if it can properky clear my sinuses.

In conclusion, a good day really.  Workout might not have been as strong as possible, but then the diet was improved.  And with this better sleep I feel good today, my legs feel good today (protein helping I think) and the aches in my back muscles have gone.  Looking forward to a good workout this evening.