Start Where You Are

Although I no longer weigh 482 pounds, at 390 for the moment I am still not exactly a perky little penguin. I'm still in the blue whale category. It's easy to beach me; getting up off the floor is easier said than done. Getting ON my exercise bicycle is a workout all its own. I can't do even one situp, even one pushup, not even one regular leg lift. If I did jumping jacks my entire house would shake and my breasts would probably put out an eye on the rebound.

I can, however, bitch and moan well enough to prove I'm fully alive, and since I'm alive, there's no excuse for not getting off my butt and starting to exercise some. I've lost enough weight that I can at least MOVE and BREATHE finally. Thank God for an eating plan that bears zero resemblance to the food pyramid that half kills me every time I put a 'whole grain' in my mouth.

To make sure I knew what I was doing (Virgo x4 don'tcha know), I set out to investigate basic weight lifting forms. What are they, how could they be combined properly, etc.

I made a simple spreadsheet that lists the group of basic free-weight exercises that I am starting with. It names them officially, describes them briefly (my own words), gives an official explanation, tells you what muscles it works, and what kind of exercise it's considered, and even gives you a hyperlink to a visual demo of someone doing that exercise so you can see exact form!

It's free. Click on the image below to download it. (Which I had to turn sideways so you could see a sample of a part of it.) It's in Excel format. Excel or Open Office (which is free on the internet and works for all computer platforms) can open this.



OK, I'll be honest: up until now, I've had a problem getting my act together for a decent workout. There's no excuse. I have a few free weights. I have a weight bench. I have a room that I deliberately made into an exercise room. I have a radio, TV, and DVD to entertain me, in case 15 minutes of ripping muscle fibers were not fascinating enough. I even have a ridiculously expensive exercise bicycle there.

So in my exasperation with myself, I have decided to create a simple little plan that starts out insanely easy. Dainty, even. For fragile flowers with parasols, if you will. The kind of plan that I could not possibly find even one small reason to complain about the hardship of. The kind of plan that works even if the only weights I had were soup cans. And gradually builds up.

While it may seem like a waste of time to start deliberately small, what I am actually working to accomplish here is the HABIT of doing something. And remembering what it is I'm supposed to do.

I'm going to officially start this June 1, simply because the reptilian part of my brain loves matching things, marching bands and starting stuff on Mondays or at the beginning of a new month.

o0o

I'm supposed to be on a carb-cycling plan, which I'll be detailing on my other blog, The Divine Low Carb, as soon as the back of my brain finishes working it out and I hear the little DING! that says it's done.

Lately my eating has sucked and been the usual: barely any eating at all. Yes, ultra low carb and low everything because I'm not hardly eating. It's so hard for me to make myself eat, mostly because I'm too freakin lazy to feel like getting up and preparing/cooking which you just HAVE to do on a good eating plan. I need to be eating many times a day, 3 hours apart. Not only is this what is most conducive to weight loss, but I need so much protein for my body mass that I pretty much have to operate that way (since I don't want to go over about 38g of protein at any one time). I'm hoping the eating plan and the exercise plan gradually come together in a truly useful, healthy behavior pattern.


June 1 goals:
A: 30 seconds at 30 RPM on Level 1 of the lifecycle, twice.
B: 3# weight, 8 reps, 2 sets, GROUP 1 exercises from the worksheet.


Group 1 are: upright row, seated rear lateral raise, arnold press, front lateral raise, counter pushups (likely to be 'counter leans' to start with!)

Now if I can do this stuff at 390 pounds and being brand new to much moving at all, surely anybody else out there who does not already have a workout plan could manage this. Use no weights if it's that new, or soup cans or anything else if you don't have any.

If any others are interested, I will make a shared google spreadsheet others can share with me, with a row for each of us and each of the exercises across the top, so you can enter your daily (or weekly) workout weight/reps. Would it help encourage you to do it if others were doing it with you? Surely if I can do it, anybody can!

Send me email at theDivineLowCarb@gmail.com if you want to join me. I need some kind of email address in order to tell google to give permission to share the spreadsheet. If you want a free google mail address, let me know and I'll invite you to one.

o0o

No matter where I am today, I have to start where I am. A month from now, a year from now, I will be in a different place. I'm going to be a month, a year older anyway, right? The only question is, do I choose to keep getting older while wishing I was healthier, or do I do "a little something each day" so that when I am a year older, I'm a whole lot healthier?

PJ
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Starting Anew!

I'm starting a new cycle (cycle 4) in my fitness efforts, as of yesterday.

Cycle 1: From 1/1/2005 to 6/30/2005: I started at 482 and ended at 411. My life changed greatly then, as my ex moved in, sponsored by my mercy for useless animals phase.

Cycle 2: From 9/18/2006 to 1/1/2007: I started at 467 and ended at 380. I loved it but it was all very low carb (VLC) and I worried my body was adapting to VLC.

Cycle 3: From 1/1/07 onward: I started a 'carb cycling' 'moderate carb' eating plan but promptly dropped off any plan at all, alas. Ended 5/12 at 414.

Cycle 4: From 5/12/2007 to 8/6/2007 is my next cycle. Starting at 414, but I expect some of this is water weight so I'm not too concerned about the seeming gain. Starting with VLC to kick in a ketogenic mode, but intend to cycle carbs after that.

I was originally going to do Venuto's BFFM plan, but I've decided to just do what I want, record it, and see what happens. If it doesn't work, I'll do something else. This approach has worked better for me than any pre-written plan has so far, so why not.

I'll be putting my workouts, pitiful as they may be, on this blog. Who knows, someday someone starting around where I am may find it useful. I hope it will encourage me to DO them so I don't look like a failure on my own blog. ;-)
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