St. Petersburg Crab shack sucks!

It had been a while since I had dinner at the Crab Shack on Gandy Blvd. in St. Petersburg, but I had fond memories of going there with rowdy friends and ordering steaming platters of fresh crabs. Times change. Charles and I arrived at 7pm and were seated shortly afterward. That may have been the high point. I asked our brusque server if there were any specials and she said," only Grouper Cheeks." Okay, I ordered the Surf and Turf, steak and snow crab and Charles ordered the mysterious Grouper Cheeks. Our salads came out reasonably quickly and this should have been when I made the decision to go elsewhere. The salads were bowls of yellow ice-burg lettuce with slices of white onion on top and one slice of tomato, each. Since I requested dressing, my salad had a dollop of white 'blue cheese' dressing on it. Unappetizing indeed! When every fast-food chain serves a more upscale salad then you it is time to rethink the offering.

I ate the tomato slice. A little while later, our entrees were brought out on small white plastic oval dishes. How sad. Grouper cheeks turned out to be fried fish nuggets, bland and tasting only of cheap shortening. There were quite a few of them, too bad they weren't good. The one I tried didn't have the same texture of any other grouper I had had before. I'm pretty sure these used to be served in middle school lunchrooms. Surf and turf was one section of snow crab and a skinny steak underneath, my baked potato still completely wrapped up in aluminum foil, with packets of 'spread' (I guess that is supposed to be butter, excuse me, margarine) and sour cream. Again, fast food baked potatoes surpass this.

By now I was not believing this was a real place! One segment of snow crab is a half-pound? I must have 2 or 3 pounds when we have them at home then. I cracked into a crab leg and it broke in half, crabmeat still inside each half of the shell which is the classic sign of frozen crabs. Not having been supplied with the steel picker thing that usually helps, I gave up on that piece. Charles helped me attempt to get some crab and finally said, "Well now we know what not to order." Thank God for his sense of humor.

The steak was okay. If it was served to me next to an order of eggs at 3 in the morning I would be pleased. In this context, I was just glad to have something edible. After unwrapping the baked potato; (the foil wasn't even cut) I used the melted butter (hopefully it was butter but I must be dreaming. This place cheaped out on every possible thing) that came with the crab on the baked potato instead of the 'spread'.

Stepping outside was a relief and I apologized to Charles for the bad choice. Do yourself a favor and don't bother with the Crab Shack.

training plans

Saturday's workout is already documented, Sunday I went for a three-mile walk, so steady state cardio, Monday took Advanced Spin class. Tonight is squat/ press/ clean night. Weds I'll take the Ultimate Challenge class which is a cross between boot-camp and treadmill interval training, Thurs off. Friday will be squat, bench deadlift day and if I'm still struggling w 140 on deads I will use an alternate grip to see if that helps. Not sure about Saturday yet, maybe another spin class. If the schedule works it would be nice to take yoga and spin, although the man hates it when I spend a lot of time in the gym on weekends. We'll see!

joy of deadlifting :-)

It was a good Saturday to go to the gym in the afternoon, I bet the awesome weather kept a lot of people away. Yes, I'm antisocial while training, why do you ask? The relative lack of people didn't save me from unsolicited advice but what are you gonna do? So, I squatted, lots of warm-up sets, then 3 work sets/five reps w 75 lbs. Moved on the dumbbell flat bench presses, one set of five reps each w/ 15, 20 and 25 lbs dumbbells before moving on to the barbell bench where I completed three work sets of five reps (with difficulty again) at 65 lbs. I hope adding the dumbbell work will eventually lead to greater strength gains here.In between barbell sets I did back extensions, a total of four sets starting with bodyweight and working up to two sets w the ten-pound plate. Nest time I'll use the 15 pound dumbell for the last heavy set. Wrapped it up with 140 lb deadlifts, five ugly reps so I'm probably stuck here for another session. It felt good to pound it out early, get some food and a nap so I can go out tonight.
Off topic, my hair and nails are growing like crazy, may have something to do with all the protein I consume. I eat straight up tuna, chicken, eggs, no 'whey protien drinks' or anything like that.

hang cleans, overhead press and light squats

75 lb cleans, 4 sets of three; they were ugly but it happened. Overhead press was three work sets of five at 55 lbs which is an improvement over last week when I failed at three reps with this weight, so yay me! Six sets of light squats, weighted back extensions topping out w a ten-lb plate. So that was a good training session, showed improvement. I noticed that if I keep my glutes tight when doing presses it helps quite a bit, so looking forward to progression on that. It is starting to warm up this week, hopefully it isn't completely the end of the nice cool weather but we will see.

Suzanne Somers cracks me up

I had forgotten to blog about the ridiculousness of Suzanne Somers on the Today Show discussing ways to be fabulous after 40 when she is well over 60 until I saw this picture.

Doesn't she have any friends to warn her away from foolishness such as this? Oh my. She is amazingly rich and funny so more power to her.

In other news, I have the usual Friday dilemma of a friend coming over versus working out tonight.

Strong again

Woot 135 lb deadlifts yesterday- and without a mixed grip! I am on my way to the 150 lb goal for Spring. Also squats were 75 lbs worksets, the at least ten years older lady then me doing 95 lb squats on the rack next door lit a fire under me. Jeez, she didn't even look fit! Anyway 75 lbs, so on my way to 95 lb squats. Bench presses were all over the place. Since I can't get coached on what I am doing wrong here, I am going to switch them completely to dumbbell bench presses. Spin today, most likely tomorrow also to keep cardio good.

left it all in the gym tonight

A reminder: don't pig out before your workout no matter how hungry you are. Anywho, went, warmed up and back extensions, front squats with only 55 lbs, overhead press at 55 lbs- damn those are hard and I failed on the fourth rep but am determined to increase my upper body strength. Good shoulders really help the whole silhouette of one's body fall in line and my posture is so much better then it was before barbell training. I see women curling forever in the weight room and as glad as I am to see them there and at least lifting something, I just wish information about compound movements was more readily available. I would never go back to lifting those little girly weights with no results knowing and experiencing what I have in the past months of training. Building muscle that you can see and feel- for me the most dramatic difference has been the legs, is so gratifying and empowering. The fact that my body did not give out after skiing all day, days in a row, a completely improved experience over last year blows my mind. Barbell training is my fountain of youth.