While I’ve been doing just fine on my own over the past few years with getting in shape and losing a lot of excess fat, I’ve been going a little crazy, lately, just hovering around 200 for-ev-ER. I know a few things. I know I want to lose a few more pounds so I can reach that magic number*. I know that I’ve reached some kind of plateau. I know that I need to work on my lean muscle mass for my metabolism and aging. I know I need help. I know this because I had a moment of desperation a few weeks ago when I started seriously considering the whole beachbody thing. I just wanted to get it gone and was seeking out a plan that took away the thinking, rethinking, overthinking, angsting and then throwing up my hands in frustration. Fortunately, my friends reached out to me and offered some guidance that would save me a few bucks and offer a different route before I decide to go so extreme with the beachbody plan.
My goal this week was to ‘make a plan for weights.’ I didn’t know how to go about doing that so I got back to one of the friends of mine who reached out to me, who also has lost over 100 pounds and is passionate about fitness and nutrition. She’s gone a few steps further, though. She’s taken classes and learned the science behind things and is on a path to become a personal trainer. While I’ve been on a journey guided by trial, error and inference, she’s been on a journey guided by science, classes and deep learning. While I embraced cardio and running, she and her husband embraced weights. We were both successful, but I needed the science, at last, to help me and the expertise of someone who lifts.
Starting weights is just so serious. I don’t want to hurt myself, so striking out on my own just didn’t seem smart. Denise took me down to her gym where she taught me some kettle bell lifts. She and her husband love the kettle bells, but for some reason they just freak me out. I’m always afraid of throwing out my back. I think I may give them a try once I feel a little stronger. So instead we focused on using my own body weight as restistance and a few things with barbells and lift bars. I didn’t do a lot, but I did enough to be more sore than I ever would have guessed the next day!
{I failed to look at our selfie and Denise’s eyes were closed when I finally peeked so I did some pretty sly photoshop with one of her Facebook pics here! LOL!}
For now, Denise came up with a basic rotation for me based on five main moves: the squat, the dead lift, a pull with arms, a pull with arms and the abs/core workout. I am to start out with a little warm up, then I have three sets with around ten reps in each set, and I am supposed to do the circuit three times before moving onto the next rotation. She said I should do that m-w-f for six weeks, then I can revisit my whole workout routine and see what needs to change, if anything.
So this week I am trying it. I’m planning to lift mwf, I’ll walk or jog twice this week and I’ll run my 5k this weekend. I’ll also journal my food every day so I can get a better picture of how the food intake is going and how I can polish that up for utmost health and fat loss. Here we go: week one is done and was successful, week two of January can be just as awesome! I wonder if the scale will change much this week?!
*magic number:170 -simultaneously is half of my starting weight and also, magically, the number that puts me in the ‘normal weight’ category for my height.
Paula
I know I need to do some resistance training. I started running in spring of 2015 & it really has been really good for helping me get leaner & lose weight. It is the only form of exercise I am doing & I see that I have gotten a bit flabby especially in my arms. I wanted to join a gym for the winter months so I could add resistance training in, but I haven’t. I don’t want to bulk up, but know I need to do both. I have several Beachbody programs. i found their programs to be good. I used to do Power 90 & really got some great results.
Jen
I’m doing the same thing. I use to have a personal trainer and then they moved on and I was just done getting tossed around. Plus it was expensive. So I turned to running and I’m a running junkie. I signed up for a 1/week group training class for 8 weeks. Then I also started taking a once a week HIIT class. My goal is to do one day a week of a beachbody workout that I already own. So that’s 3 workouts/week that aren’t running. But I just started. So I’ve done 2 workouts so far and have not done any running. Mostly because I’m sore! I hope this shocks my body into dropping some fat and losing inches, even if not weight on the scale. Good luck with your new journey. I can’t wait to hear how it works.