Although I "felt" the incline shoulder raise well yesterday, and although the bent over row made me stop and rest and breathe kinda hard and sweat a little, I only had a tiny bit of "feel-this-soreness", about 12 hours afterward. Then none. Today I feel fine.
I'm disappointed. I want to feel some pain. I want to feel like I really worked it. I want to feel like I have definitely pushed the boundary of what my muscles are used to doing. I want to feel like when I heal from that I'll be stronger.
More pain! More pain!
Maybe I'm getting twisted and sick. I've been weightlifting for two whole days, and barely at that, and I'm already getting masochistic. Some would suggest that I must have already been pretty twisted before this came along.
Shhhhhhh.
Showing posts with label weights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weights. Show all posts
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Saturday, June 2, 2007
First Steps on the Road to Somewhere
Finally! I can finally (again) say "I lost 100 lbs!"
I can't find my bleeping sewing tape measure to take my measurements. Probably some kid stole it to play with it. Hmmn, I wonder which of my only child that could be, since she will insist it's not her if I ask. ;-) I want to get a body fat measurement (using the measurement method linked on the sidebar) as of now so I can use that as one of my main "measures of change" (as opposed to weight).
Yesterday I did the shoulders #1 group (upright row, seated rear lateral raise, arnold press, front lateral raise). I think 8# is enough to start. I'm so embarrassed. I mean really, that's just pitiful! But what the hell. You gotta start somewhere. The Seated Rear Lateral Raise was kinda hard, my body gets in the way, I can 'sort of' do it. I'm just going to keep doing it. I suppose eventually it'll get more elegant. For the moment I feel kinda like I'm doing some bizarre variant of the bomb drill where kids crunch up under their desks.
Today I did the torso #1 group (bent-over row, fly, side bend, incline shoulder raise). That was harder than the arms. Actually I thought the bent-over row was going to do more for my leg muscle than the ones I was supposed to be working (as in, it wasn't the weight, it was the time taken to lift it that was a problem for it!). Nice, though. By the time I was finished with the group, I was breathing kinda hard and sweating a little, and I had to rest between the row sets. And this was with the first two (3 and 5 #) being way too easy, and probably 8 as well, next week I'll start at 10# for all the torso group and see what the true max should be.
Gods I love free weights. I had kind of forgotten how much. I used to love just working so hard and sweating and feeling the muscles so clearly. I was so young then it seems like a million years ago. Which I guess about 22 years nearly is, in a lifespan.
I can see I need to get a couple more dumbells of >10 lbs. I do have dumbells you can put plates on, and at higher weights I'm sure that's good, but it's sure a lot easier to just pick up what you need. I gotta be sure and get the metal kind from now on, not the coated kind I got for 10#, because I have fractional weights that'll magnetically stick to the ends if I need between-weights.
Besides. Those coated dumbells make me feel like some dumb chick in "shape" magazine who would talk about toning... in designer pink spandex. Puhleeze.
Well my food has sucked, though today is looking to be slightly better. For a few days I just barely ate, didn't feel like it, and then yesterday, my first day to really make an effort, I was so totally swamped at work I didn't even have time for a potty break let alone food. If it wasn't for the high-protein/low-carb slimfast, I would be seriously up a creek for ingesting anything at all. I know it's imperfect, it's processed, it's not food, but it beats not eating. Do the best you can with where you are, and live to do better another day.
I came up with a menu for next week though, and a shopping list for it, which I wouldn't be able to afford if I didn't already have chicken and hamburger in my freezer. I'm going to see how I do actually eating 6x per day. 2 are slimfast, 1 is a big cobb salad for dinner, so only 3 are actually something to make -- and the food is the same the whole week. It's a lot cheaper that way, a lot easier to prep all or partly ahead of time. We'll see. So far, aside from the SF and cobb salad, the three meals for the first week are red mexi-chicken mix, burger with blue cheese mixed in it (quick on the foreman grill), and 3eggs/2oz Soyrizo in the late morning. I have other options but I'll try those week after next.
If I can keep that menu up for the week, the nutrition count numbers are just awesome for me, the protein is very high which I really want, and all of them can be at least partly pre-made, so it's superfast to grab 'em. I even have enough room in my numbers that I could have a chocolate protein muffincake, plus a mocha (get this: 100% Kona coffee, made in a french press, with some 24% butterfat cocoa, and some half&half... sound good? :-)), and still have my numbers be fine. Yay.
Is it fair to get chocolate and coffee and STILL lose weight? I say yes. Getting insanely fat on starvation response is like getting poorer the harder you work. It's just profoundly unfair. So I figure I deserve to be able to eat really WELL and lose weight. In some bizarre way, this seems like a proper balance.
Tomorrow is arms and legs on the weights. Wish me luck on the legs. Right now just my body weight is generally too much for lower body work without a machine. But I'll work it out... eventually I will be there. I have faith in myself.
I can't find my bleeping sewing tape measure to take my measurements. Probably some kid stole it to play with it. Hmmn, I wonder which of my only child that could be, since she will insist it's not her if I ask. ;-) I want to get a body fat measurement (using the measurement method linked on the sidebar) as of now so I can use that as one of my main "measures of change" (as opposed to weight).
Yesterday I did the shoulders #1 group (upright row, seated rear lateral raise, arnold press, front lateral raise). I think 8# is enough to start. I'm so embarrassed. I mean really, that's just pitiful! But what the hell. You gotta start somewhere. The Seated Rear Lateral Raise was kinda hard, my body gets in the way, I can 'sort of' do it. I'm just going to keep doing it. I suppose eventually it'll get more elegant. For the moment I feel kinda like I'm doing some bizarre variant of the bomb drill where kids crunch up under their desks.
Today I did the torso #1 group (bent-over row, fly, side bend, incline shoulder raise). That was harder than the arms. Actually I thought the bent-over row was going to do more for my leg muscle than the ones I was supposed to be working (as in, it wasn't the weight, it was the time taken to lift it that was a problem for it!). Nice, though. By the time I was finished with the group, I was breathing kinda hard and sweating a little, and I had to rest between the row sets. And this was with the first two (3 and 5 #) being way too easy, and probably 8 as well, next week I'll start at 10# for all the torso group and see what the true max should be.
Gods I love free weights. I had kind of forgotten how much. I used to love just working so hard and sweating and feeling the muscles so clearly. I was so young then it seems like a million years ago. Which I guess about 22 years nearly is, in a lifespan.
I can see I need to get a couple more dumbells of >10 lbs. I do have dumbells you can put plates on, and at higher weights I'm sure that's good, but it's sure a lot easier to just pick up what you need. I gotta be sure and get the metal kind from now on, not the coated kind I got for 10#, because I have fractional weights that'll magnetically stick to the ends if I need between-weights.
Besides. Those coated dumbells make me feel like some dumb chick in "shape" magazine who would talk about toning... in designer pink spandex. Puhleeze.
Well my food has sucked, though today is looking to be slightly better. For a few days I just barely ate, didn't feel like it, and then yesterday, my first day to really make an effort, I was so totally swamped at work I didn't even have time for a potty break let alone food. If it wasn't for the high-protein/low-carb slimfast, I would be seriously up a creek for ingesting anything at all. I know it's imperfect, it's processed, it's not food, but it beats not eating. Do the best you can with where you are, and live to do better another day.
I came up with a menu for next week though, and a shopping list for it, which I wouldn't be able to afford if I didn't already have chicken and hamburger in my freezer. I'm going to see how I do actually eating 6x per day. 2 are slimfast, 1 is a big cobb salad for dinner, so only 3 are actually something to make -- and the food is the same the whole week. It's a lot cheaper that way, a lot easier to prep all or partly ahead of time. We'll see. So far, aside from the SF and cobb salad, the three meals for the first week are red mexi-chicken mix, burger with blue cheese mixed in it (quick on the foreman grill), and 3eggs/2oz Soyrizo in the late morning. I have other options but I'll try those week after next.
If I can keep that menu up for the week, the nutrition count numbers are just awesome for me, the protein is very high which I really want, and all of them can be at least partly pre-made, so it's superfast to grab 'em. I even have enough room in my numbers that I could have a chocolate protein muffincake, plus a mocha (get this: 100% Kona coffee, made in a french press, with some 24% butterfat cocoa, and some half&half... sound good? :-)), and still have my numbers be fine. Yay.
Is it fair to get chocolate and coffee and STILL lose weight? I say yes. Getting insanely fat on starvation response is like getting poorer the harder you work. It's just profoundly unfair. So I figure I deserve to be able to eat really WELL and lose weight. In some bizarre way, this seems like a proper balance.
Tomorrow is arms and legs on the weights. Wish me luck on the legs. Right now just my body weight is generally too much for lower body work without a machine. But I'll work it out... eventually I will be there. I have faith in myself.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
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
.
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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