32 Workouts in 17 Days: Ask Me Anything!

[acer621]

TL;DR: I worked out a lot over the holiday season and it was both good and bad. Enjoy!

After the heartbreak I found myself enduring at the end of last year, I found myself dreading my annual leave time over the Christmas break. The man who had purported himself to be one of my dreams, a man to whom I had spoken almost daily since April, was set to come over to Australia from Canada, and meet me, with the prospects of a relationship moving forward. However, life being what it is and the fact that the universe hates me and always has, this did not come to pass, and I was left in a pool of disappointment and tears.

So, I naturally thought that the best way to get through this was to go to the gym. A lot. I decided that I’d undertake a program of two workouts per day, every day, from the day my annual leave started on Friday 21 December, until I went back to work on Monday 7 January. That would be 17 days inclusive, 34 workouts in total. Prior to this I did six workouts per week: three Powerlifting and three Olympic lifting.

This is the wrap up.

Facts:

• I did 32 workouts in 17 days. Missed one on Christmas Day, missed another one on a day when my body just wanted to go back to bed and then eat a lot of food. I’m pretty good at listening to my body these days when it comes to stuff like that, so I complied with that request at the time
• I went to two branches of my gym to spread it out a bit. Both weeks I did three personal training sessions with my trainer where we focussed on Olympic lifting. In three other sessions I did a straight up 5 x 5 of the three powerlifts and then often an EMOM of that same lift straight after. All other sessions were up for grabs in terms of what I felt like doing at the time. This included a lot of machine work where I would work myself up from the lightest weight to the heaviest I could manage for a 3 x 6 or 3 x 8, and a lot of metcons involving kettlebell swings, dead ball slams, pushups, situps and squats. Examples of days shown here. Some days I spent upwards of three to four hours at the gym spread across two sessions, but this included lots of rest periods and just taking my time
• Amount of money I would have if I was given one dollar for each time I re-racked someone else’s weights. I once got to the leg press and saw 160kgs worth of plates on there that I had to rerack
• Amount of times I cried in my car, either in the carpark or driving home post workout, because I was tired and what I really wanted to be doing was showing a hot Canadian dude the sites of my home town
• Number of matches on Tinder and Bumble that I got while swiping at the gym: probably 30. Number of dates this resulted in: exactly zero. Number of those 30 men that called me a milf and said something or other about anal sex: way too many, though of course any number higher than zero is too many on that score. Number of men from my gym who saw me on Bumble / Tinder and decided to slide into my DMs on IG to ask me for sex: two, and they’re both complete dickheads

Pros:

• I was out of the house a lot and thus couldn’t mope too much
• I was surrounded by people. While I only ever work out with my personal trainer or by myself (that is, no classes or with gym friends) just being among people, even if I didn’t talk to them or engage with them, was comforting and familiar
• I burned a lot of calories. I couldn’t even begin to keep up with the calories I needed, partially because exercise suppresses my appetite rather than stimulates it, though made a concerted effort to have more protein in the form of protein shakes. I probably missed entering a few packets of chips and Ferrero Rochers, but I wouldn’t be out by more than a few hundred calories all up. Also, due to an autoimmune disease I have called achalasia, I get food stuck in my oesophagus pretty regularly and have to go and regurgitate it, but I didn’t minus those calories from the total (I am not looking into the toilet and estimating how many grams of steak / potatoes / gnocchi / bolognaise just came back up). I may do a ‘refeed’ next week. In terms of whether I lost weight I don’t know, since I don’t weigh myself. I do know that my legs and glutes are swollen from, I assume, water retention (three leg days in a row will do that to you) and that my pencil skirt was a bloody tight fit this morning
• I went out for a lot of meals. My plan was to go to the gym in the morning, go out for breakfast, go home and nap, then go to the gym again before coming home for dinner, or sometimes swapping the external meal if I wanted to come straight home after the morning workout. I ate out something like ten times. Not as many as I’d said I would, but still a respectable amount nonetheless
• I lost bodyfat. Before and after picture here, you can see my stomach is more ‘toned’. Photo doesn’t show the increased arm definition, but that is there as well. When I returned to work yesterday a colleague said that my face looked thinner
• I slept well. The length and quality of my sleep was much improved (though of course a lot of that has to do with not having to get up at 5.45am for work!), but I also snored less
• I pulled a 5 rep bench press PR (61.5kgs, up from 52.5kgs) and also snatched so well I got up to second place on the leaderboard
• Working out was a much better pastime than drinking myself into a coma, or fantasising about doing so. This is the third holiday period I’ve been clean and sober, and was by far the easiest one to get through

Cons:

• I drank way too much black coffee and the resulting heartburn was pretty intense at times
• I once did the maths wrong and had twice the amount of protein I’d intended to have (three servings rather than 1.5). I could just about have left the earth’s atmosphere with the power of my farts
• You could very easily make the argument that I used working out and the resultant exhaustion as a way of not dealing with my feelings of heartbreak
• I got very sick of my workout playlist, and the insides of my ears hurt from my earbuds
• My joints began to hurt. Muscles were fine (only a small amount of muscle pain), but my knees and left elbow were notably sore. I assume they’ll come good in days to come
• The amount of laundry I had to do. It’s summer in Australia and when I worked out last Friday it was 111 degrees F. Sweat happens, that’s all I’m saying

Would I do this again? Hmm, yeah probably, but I don’t think I would recommend it to other people. It takes a particular type of person experiencing a particular kind of heartache to want to do this sort of thing, and if I was happy and not spectacularly lonesome for male company I’m not sure there would have been a point to all this. If I had to do it again, I might try having an actual goal, but since my only goal this time around was to be out of the house as much as possible, that was very easy to work toward and achieve. Having the workouts structured would have been helpful, as would my nutrition being more on point. I can say for sure that I drank enough water during this period, which I’m sure was helpful.

So, I did 32 workouts in 17 days, AMA!

 

[stalinlazer]

@acer621 My once-long-distance boyfriend had his flight delayed 24 hours once when he was supposed to visit. I bawled my eyes out the whole night, so I can’t imagine what this must have felt like for you. You seem to be keeping your chin up the best you can, kudos.

This was a genuinely enjoyable read, so thanks for that

 

[acer621]

@stalinlazer Yeah, the whole situation is just such enormous fucking bullshit.

I enjoyed writing it, glad you liked reading.

 

[onlybyfaith]

@acer621 You are SUCH a badass
Edit: and your post was hilarious

 

[acer621]

@onlybyfaith Oh, thank you!

 

[alexhunting]

@acer621 I’d love to know more about the EMOM workouts. I saw your post about bench followed by EMOM pushups and it sounded like the exact kind of masochism that I’m into at the gym.

Thanks for the update! This was really interesting to read. I totally identify with using exercise to cope like this. When I was preparing to leave the city that I had lived in for ten years to start my dream job in other state (which I was also terrified about, so I had a lot of feelings between the leaving my friends and imposter syndrome), I spent like three hours in the gym everyday for several weeks.

I am sorry about the heartbreak and that dude. But so so so many congratulations on your sobriety! That is hard work.

 

[acer621]

@alexhunting In terms of EMOMs, I'll often do it as a burner or finisher.

For example, if I do deadlifts, I'll do a 5 x 5 at, say, 85 or 90kgs. Once I've done that I'll a traditional 10 round, 10 rep, every minute on the minute of deadlifts at around half of that weight. On Sunday I did a box squat 5 x 5 at 75kgs and a box squat EMOM afterwards at 40kgs.

On the bench press day the other week I did all those round of bench presses followed by a 10 round, 15 rep pushup EMOM.

Yeah, the heartbreak over the guy... Man, it's just so hard. I have hundreds and hundreds of emails and messages that I can go through and read and reread until I'm blue in the face, but the fact remains that he just ghosted me the minute his ex came back to tell him she still loved him (the very minute she found out who I was and that he'd planned to come here). There's nothing in any of the messages that suggests he still had feelings for her (the opposite, actually), so it's just all so bloody heartbreaking, and feels terribly unfair.

Thanks for the support

 

[alexhunting]

@acer621 Ah okay cool! Thanks! I was curious about the weight issue and what percentage you were using.

Ugh I’m so sorry. It’s just so shitty that he up and did that with absolutely no warning. So shitty and dishonest. I hope it’s getting easier to cope with now.

 

[alwaysjesus]

@acer621 You are an actual ubermensch, or whatever the feminine version of that word is.

 

[acer621]

@alwaysjesus Überwomensch, obviously! (I, uh, may not speak actual German).

Thank you

 

[dawn16]

@acer621 This is an amazing af story and I wish I’d dealt with a lot of heartbreak in my life this way instead of other ways. No questions, just bookmarking this for the next time I’m pissed/sad af.

 

[acer621]

@dawn16 Well, I hope you don't get your heart broken anytime soon, can confirm it's hard as hell and that being in love / being in a good relationship is vastly preferable to doing two workouts a day so that you're so exhausted you can't think.

 

[dawn16]

@acer621 Hi! Hope you are feeling better heartbreak-wise. It's interesting to see the results of... constructive and quantified... mourning, but it make be healthier to go back to your regularly scheduled programming sooner rather than later.

Apart from this, I had a question about your data, the MFP screenshot seemed to have your intake as low as 600 kcal on some days, did you feel that sleep+coffee was enough to fuel your body even with this 1000kcal+ deficit?

 

[acer621]

@dawn16 There were definitely a few days where I had a really big deficit in terms of calories.

did you feel that sleep+coffee was enough to fuel your body even with this 1000kcal+ deficit?

Yeah...no. The workouts would take a really long time because I was resting a lot in between sets. I think you can see from one of the workouts I linked to that I was at the gym for nearly three hours. A lot of that was because it took me a while to get through stuff.

Am back to normal training and also back to work as of yesterday, so it's back to six workouts per week rather than 13 or 14.

 

[luigari]

@acer621 So... are you human or secretly Wonder Woman?

You killed it!! So proud of you!!

 

[acer621]

@luigari Nope, broken heart for the win!

 

[luigari]

@acer621 You totally capitalized on those break-up gains!

 

[acer621]

@luigari Woo hoo, yay over training!

Edit: changed my words

 

[leoser]

@acer621 Phew! Exhausting just reading about it.

I do two-a-days now (4 days of the week), and 2 additional days, but I split my cardio (running) and lifting. I can't imagine lifting twice in a day.

 

[mariab626]

@leoser I want to do two a days but have a question. I want to get the most bang for my buck, which do you recommend I do first, cardio or weights? I am using a midweight program and love running but I have put off running so I could do weights to focus on burning body fat. I would like to do both in a day but don't know which should come first. I fully expect to be worn down at first and have to get my stamina back up but with muscle recovery and breakdown I want to make sure I'm doing it right. Any information you can give would be very helpful!