Tag: strength

11 Day Progress

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Good morning, internet.

Alright, so I skipped a daily blog for yesterday. I’ve had some weird adult life stuff happen recently and it has sent my anxiety so far through the roof that it is on the moon. I also have to go to the dentist today, so yeah, I’m super excited. But that’s beside the point.

I said I’d update my numbers on day 10, so here’s my day 11 numbers update!

(I’m a dependable adult, yes, hi.)

Weight: 188.8 lbs (down 3 lbs)
Body Fat Percentage: 36.2% (The goal is 25%)
Neck: 35.5 cm
L Arm: 31 cm (up 1 cm)
R Arm: 31 cm (up 1 cm)
Chest: 109.5 cm (down 1.5 cm)
Waist: 100 cm (down 3 cm)
Hips: 113 cm
L Thigh: 59 cm
R Thigh: 59 cm

Everything seems to be going in the right direction! WooHoo!

But listen

Since the autumn solstice I’ve been slacking I’ve been sleeping. It’s so dark in the morning now and contrary to popular belief being a morning workout person does NOT commensurate being a morning person. They’re very different personality traits.

However, here I go… off to the gym… turning over a new leaf… in the dark.

Clarification

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Let me clarify.

I was thinking about yesterday’s blog all day long. I feel like it came across that I was telling you to pick the most efficient way to ONLY lose weight and to stop doing all other types of exercise. Which I know a lot of people interpret as “only do cardio”.

Now, I do more cardio and aerobic exercise than I was doing when I was trying to meet all of my big goals at the same time, but

I still weight train!

I love weight lifting. Keep in mind people, weight training is a great way to lose fat! Of course that’s still helping me gain little baby muscles, but that progress won’t be as prominent.

The shift I made was to weight train less often and less intensely to focus on losing weight instead of building muscles. I started to do more HIIT type weight lifting and compound movements instead of trying to tear down and build up one specific muscle.

Remember at the beginning of this 90 day adventure when I said that I split upper body and lower body days instead of specific body parts? Well that’s the reason!

If I do an “upper body” day as opposed to a “shoulder” day then I can incorporate some ab workouts or some compound tricep / bicep / back / shoulder movements or I can do plank modifications for a HIIT routine; I’m not limited to only shoulder movements.

I always used to think:

  • You walk on an inclined treadmill and use the elliptical to lose fat
  • You dead lift and do bicep curls as heavy as you can to gain muscle

And there was no in between.

But honestly, as long as you’re moving in a way that gets your heart rate up, it’ll help you lose weight. It’s really that simple. The other day I folded laundry so fast that I counted it as a workout warm-up. Seriously. It was that intense.

I’ll put together a workout for the blog sometime soon. (It won’t involve laundry.)

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Taking a mental health day from work and this is my current situation. ❤

Pick your Goal

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I don’t have a whole lot to say this morning. Maybe it’s my commitment to this 90 days or maybe it’s a detrimental personality trait that I want to get a blog up today anyway, regardless of the length or quality. Hmm. But this is actually something that’s on my mind a lot…

…So I listen to a lot of podcasts. I really hopped on that pod-trend. And one podcast in particular that I like to listen to while I’m at the gym is the “Let’s Run” Podcast by Pahla B Fitness. (She recently changed the name, so now it’s “Fitness Matters” if you’re looking for it.) Now I feel like her YouTube channel and her podcast is geared more towards the older crowd, 40 years and above, but she is one of the most inspiring podcasters that I’ve found.

The reason I bring her up though is because she has the sweetest voice I’ve ever heard but she is perilously realistic with the advice she chooses to give. One thing that I heard from her at the very beginning of my initial weight loss odyssey was essentially:

If you want many different things, such as to lose weight and gain muscle and run a 5K, you have to pick one at a time or you won’t be able to efficiently or fully accomplish any of them.

(Disclaimer: I know that is in a cool little quote box, but that is not a direct quote from her, it’s just my paraphrasing.)

You can see how alarming this would be to a dabbler such as myself. When she was talking about this she used those three specific goal examples and I happen to actually want all three of those things! At that time in my life I was

  • doing tons of cardio to drop the pounds,
  • weightlifting for an hour 5 days a week to gain those muscles,
  • and incorporating interval running a couple evenings a week to teach myself how to properly run any distance at all.

I’m not saying I took her word as gospel, but I was a teensy bit crushed.

Make no mistake I was definitely seeing results but I was also exhausted. Not just physically but emotionally, too. I knew deep down in my multitasker’s heart that it wasn’t sustainable. So I decided that Pahla was the excuse I would give myself to focus on weight loss instead of a bunch of different things.

I don’t know if I’m seeing better results yet but I do feel like I can sustain this lifestyle now for as long as it takes to be completely satisfied. I don’t feel like all my goals are a race to the finish line anymore (haha, pun!).

And that’s the thing about goals, health goals in particular: I enjoy working towards something! I’ve found that the times my anxiety flares up the most is when I lose my intention for things. (To be fair that’s a chicken and egg situation because I don’t know which of those causes the other.) So why do I feel like all of my fitness goals need to be finished immediately?

Full honesty here:

To wrap up this blog all nice and neatly I was trying to think of other examples of non-health goals that I have that I don’t feel like need to accomplish as quickly as possible and apparently I don’t have any. My brain has informed me that all of my ambitions on a very tight schedule. Cool. No wonder I’m a collection of procrastination and nervous energy wrapped in skin. Love that.

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We’re all works in progress anyway. No one really knows what they’re doing.

Day 1 / 90

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Good morning, me! I actually did the thing that I said I would do and got my butt out of bed at 6:00am. Hooray! *whines*

Maybe it was a dumb idea to start this 90 day thing 4 days before thanksgiving and a month before Christmas, but you know what? I’m doing it. I’m gonna be a big ole baby about it most days, but I’m doing it.

Okay, GOALS:

    • Blog every day (preferably morning)
    • Drink at least 3 liters of water every day
    • Eat healthy meals all day long for at least 5 day per week (Are you happy now, Thanksgiving?)
    • Exercise at least 4 days per week, either at the gym or at home

Easy! That’s it. I have to focus on 4 things for 90 days.

STARTING FIGURES & FACTS:

Weight: 191.8 lbs
Body Fat Percentage: (idk, but I want to remember this so I can get a scale to tell me)
Neck: 35.5 cm
L Arm: 30 cm
R Arm: 30 cm
Chest: 111 cm
Waist: 103 cm
Hips: 113 cm (measure 2 inches below belly button)
L Thigh: 59 cm
R Thigh: 59 cm (measure 2 inch below crotch)

I also want to write down something I can’t stop thinking about each day from the day before. I will figure out a clean, concise title for this eventually, but it’s currently 6:49am and I can’t right now.

YESTERDAY:

Jacob took Papa to a UK basketball game yesterday and I can’t stop thinking about how if I had a daughter I’d want her to marry someone exactly like Jacob. (Is that creepy? That sounds creepy… My bad.)

Okay, that’s all.

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My baby toes succulent bloomed a couple days ago!