Happy Hound

December 23, Friday and the start of my holiday! 11:30 to be precise. I am off until Tuesday, January 3 at 7:30am! Yahoo!


The good thing is the University shuts down, so it's not like vacation where you go away for a week and come back to 350 emails. I will have only a few.


I left work and went straight to Roy's, it has been very, very cold. In fact, this morning when I got up at 4:00 am it was 27 degrees. I live in California. This is not funny, not one bit. The morning before it was 47 and even that was way too cold for me. 


We trained shoulders and I had an especially good time, I felt good and full of energy. Barbell shoulder press, back is pretty straight up but Roy would tell you some precise percentage, 70% incline or something....


Warmed up then I am not sure of the weights, I was only doing 6 to 7 reps and I think maybe 95 pounds. I did 5 sets I believe then a drop set of 25.


Then onto dumbbell seated shoulder press with the bench back straight up, he said to be careful and not to tip forward and fall down on my face. That would really put a damper on a great holiday break wouldn't it?


We started with 40 pound dumbbells, making sure they are slowly lowered, all the way down to get a good stretch in the deltoids, then power up. The weight was slowly lowered till we ended with 35 pound weights, and we did 5 sets I think.


Then boxing! I am not very good but that doesn't stop me from having a good time. It's like the people you see on the dance floor who cannot dance even if their life depended on it, but they are having such a great time they make you laugh out loud. That's me boxing.


After I fought my way out of the traffic (the next day is Christmas Eve), I get home and David and I put a cold bottle of sparkling wine in a bag with two plastic cups and we are off to Happy Hound restaurant.


I haven't been here in years and years, I grew up here so ate here in high school! I had made plans to come here after my last competition, just for the fries and I never made it!


We ordered one medium order of fries, one cheeseburger cut in half and two waters. I found a table with hot, bright sun shining right down on it, a gift from heaven. It was so hot I took off my sweater.


David cracked the sparkling wine and poured it into the cups. We kept it down, the restaurant is directly across the street from the police station! ha ha ha


We sat in the sun, enjoyed the fries and burger, sipped the sparkling wine and had a wonderful time. Kind of like the wine scene in the movie "Sideways"...

Then home to make caramel cupcakes for Christmas Eve dinner, everyone is coming to my house as usual, but I will be at the gym at 6:00 am when the doors open to hit the legs! 

10 Weeks Out

It's 10 weeks away, and that sounds like a lot. It is a long time, but then time is all relative. If, for instance, the 10 weeks was how long you had to live, it would not be much time at all. If it were a vacation on a yacht in the Caribbean it would be a very long time (I have done that for 10 glorious days, I shall tell you about it sometime). If you are on a diet it can seem like an extremely long time. If you are worried that you won't lose enough bodyfat it is not enough time.

It's all in how you look at it right?

Right now my head says I have plenty of time. It's funny as my body changes so much through out the day. I can look lean and ripped one moment and an hour later, soft and flabby. Food and water impact it all. Not just eating and drinking but WHAT is eaten...

I can see right now that the fat on the upper back has started to leave, thank goodness! It's the rear end that looks a bit soft, but that is the last to go and I am not worried. My butt goes from glorious to very, very firm and small. It is rather disappointing to work to get it so big just to see it melt away!

The abs are definitely not as soft as they were, I was looking  very, very lean earlier  but I was at the gym so long I had to eat then shower then take the pictures. So, these pictures were taken after I ate 1 cup of egg whites, 1 serving of steel cut oats and too many cups of coffee to count! Not what I would do on competition day!

This all looks the same, but again the stomach is looking flatter. I can really tell when I roll on the foam roller. Those of you who have a cat will know exactly what I am talking about. I lay face down on the roller, rolling one quad and the excess skin on my stomach just sorta hangs there, you can cup it in your hand, like a cats soft belly....but, it's all getting smaller and smaller, so if you were to reach under to cup that soft spot, there wouldn't be much there to hold!


TMI? I am standing here half naked ya know! I also tend to exaggerate just a little bit....

So I am looking quite similar to last week, but I knew I would, "The Diet" hasn't been in full force yet, but I have been eating clean most of the time and not snacking , so I am already taking shape. 

I am already starting "The List" of the foods I shall eat, the restaurants I shall go to, the drinks I shall enjoy. This is actually one of the fun parts, daydreaming about the fun afterward. And what's even funnier is other people do it too, they live vicariously through my diet, then can't wait to celebrate with me afterward. It's not like they dieted too, they just want to be part of the fun when I am ready to cut loose.

I was at Mark and Virginia's for dinner last night and they (along with David) already planned my first outing, not that they asked me what I thought, but since they made it all sound so fun I will go along.

The plan is to go to The Happy Hound in Los Gatos. It has been there forever! I am 50 years old went to high school here, I used to go there after school!

Apparently they have killer french fries, cooked in peanut oil. I haven't been there in probably 15 years, but my family has so I have just learned.

David said there is a picnic table in the parking lot, back in the corner. We will go and spread a table cloth on the table, get a few orders of fries and wash them down with Champagne.

If you think this sounds good and end up trying it, can you let me know what you think? I don't want to waste one of my first "bad" meals on a pipe dream!