Lift and Chat: March 16 - 31, 2008

sportmom · 03-24-2008, 06:45 PM

5% points on body fat is AWESOME progress in one month!!! Congrats Midwife!

Mel · 03-24-2008, 06:49 PM

Midwife- that's wonderful progress! Are you enjoying the workouts?

Lydia- I occasionally lifted before spinning, but never after! Spinning drains every bit of glycogen and then some! It is a fun way to get the cardio in, tho. I miss it

Today's workout included a wall crawl sequence that I just learned. The shoulder press is HARD. We also did some figure 8 crawls like these using kettlebells like in the video. I've also done them with dumbbells. Start out with about 5 pounders...these are tough!

Mel

nelie · 03-24-2008, 08:17 PM

Oh my god Mel, that is insane.

midwife - congrats on the progress, that is awesome

As for me, ow ow ow is the word. My butt was hurting before my workout but now it is even more so. I did step ups (the right way) with 50 lbs on my bar. I also did squats but I've cut back a little on the weight although on the last set I did do 120 lbs on the bar. I'm really trying to work on my form with squats. I find that I have the tendency to curve my back and stick my booty out. Oh and on my last set for pushups, I went to the first stair. It was pretty hard. Although I need to practice on those for a while I think, I can visualize doing a 'real' pushup sometime in the near future.

JerseyGirl69 · 03-25-2008, 04:30 AM

Sportsfreak, please share info re: your diet...

Lydia227 · 03-25-2008, 07:53 AM

Mel: Now that takes some core strength. How fun. Yeah, I felt a little foolish attempting to lift anything beyond my gym bag after that class. I'm really struggling right now with trying to get a good mix in my program. I'm also missing the body comp I had last summer. It's time to figure it out now or I'm going to be miserable this summer.

Enjoy the day all!

baffled111 · 03-25-2008, 11:07 AM

Mel! Ouch. Those look incredibly hard.
Midwife, congrats on the bf points! That's fabulous.

I went and did the yoga last night. It wasn't at all as bad as I'd thought. The lying around breathing was kept to a minimum and the class seemed to be a good balance of strength and stretching poses. If I keep with it I think it will be really good for helping with my flexibility and balance. I have terrible balance. It was nice to be strong enough to be able to make a reasonable showing with all the poses despite being a yoga virgin.

Off to the gym to do 4B1 today!
(Sportmom--that's a test!)

.

Lydia227 · 03-25-2008, 01:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by baffled111

The lying around breathing was kept to a minimum.....

See that's always been my impression as well. Glad it was a good experience Baff.

nelie · 03-25-2008, 01:21 PM

baffled - if you want to try a yoga video at home (you can rent them you know!), Candelight yoga is pretty good. The yoga journal also has a series that is pretty challenging.

I'm super sore today, ow ow ow. That is what I get. I was just lamenting yesterday that I haven't felt as sore as I did in my first few workouts. I guess you can't make me happy. If I'm sore, I'm unhappy, if I'm not sore, I'm even unhappier.

elisa822 · 03-25-2008, 03:37 PM

Lydia/baff - my yoga class only does about a minute or so of breathing (while standing up!) at the beginning and then we do about 3-4 minutes at the end. The rest...is hard work! I think it really depends on what type of yoga class it is and the instructor.

I did go to my yoga class today and it was great, as usual!

midwife · 03-25-2008, 07:00 PM

Thanks, guys! I am LOVING the workouts, Mel. They are hard, but I keep surviving and walking away to do it again another day. My right arm continues to be weaker than my left and it is the weirdest feeling to will it to lift on the last couple reps and it just won't do what I am telling it to do.

I'm at a very strange place with my body right now. Pretty soon I will weigh less than I remember weighing since 1995. I can see changes in some of my muscles and in my clothes, but when I look in the mirror, I don't sense a big size change. It is almost as though my hips and belly are static and the clothes are dynamic. I'll tell you, this weight loss thing is a mental trip.

I'm at the point where I have no idea what my goal weight will be. I've actually dropped that ticker and I don't know if it will be back. Where will my body end up? I have no idea, and I also realize that my body will always be in a bit of flux, even when I decide to "maintain"....body fat, muscle, shape will always be tweaked I guess.

It's a trip, though, and when I start to get to analytical and freaked out, I just try to focus on behaviors. That is something I can control immediately and daily, and not the overall numbers, etc. Even my new little ticker challenge of 5 pounds by Mother's Day is a little odd....I think it will happen as a natural side effect of my continued behaviors, but again....how do I even determine a goal scale weight? Maybe my new goal should be a body fat percentage? My trainer says a good body fat goal for me to shoot for at this time is 17%. When she told me that, I felt like it might as well be a goal weight of 115 lbs or something....but after the changes in my body this month, I think it is actually realistic.

Is it truly possible that I can have a rockin' hot body? Strong and muscular? My body image is all over the place right now and my mood changes from one day to the next.....always positive and knowing that my changes are positive, but on this journey....with a fuzzy destination, I can feel on top of the world one second and doubtful the next....but the journey is the important part anyway.

I am so grateful to have all of you to talk about this with. No one in my real life understands.....maybe some of you do!

Mel · 03-25-2008, 08:24 PM

Midwife- I absolutely understand! I think you are right about abandoning the goal weight ticker and working on behaviors, body composition, and fitness goals. If you want rocking hard body, unless you have injuries or metabolic issues (which it doesn't sound like you do), how far you take it is up to you. How much time and effort and perhaps money are you able to expend on fitness? One of the things that has really struck me over the last 7 years of my fitness and weight loss journey, is how plastic the human body really is. Yup, we all have certain genetic limitations; I'll always have skinny calves, but even in my 50's I can build a significant amount of muscle and keep it with hard work. Likewise the body composition. I'll never get my body fat back into the low teens or dip in to the single digits, but that's a personal choice about what I'm willing to live with. It's not as easy to cut body fat, but it is doable with dedication at any age if you are healthy.

I'm so glad you are enjoying this and have found a great trainer and place to train

BTW, it's pretty normal to be stronger on one side. My left side is stronger, both leg and arm. Chest and back don't seem to be "sided" and visually I'm symmetrical. Weird.

Baf- you made me laugh with "it wasn't as bad as I thought", and "the breathing was kept to a minimum."

That's pretty much my take on yoga.

Mel

elisa822 · 03-25-2008, 09:09 PM

You know what's hard? Getting in enough protein! So, I'm tracking on Fitday and it's rather enlightening. Today, I had what I think was, for me, a lot of protein. A decent amount of protein at every meal, including breakfast. Or so I thought. I still ended up at a 40/30/30 breakdown, with the 40 being carbs.

I think that's going to have to be the goal for me. I was hoping for the 40 to be protein but it would involve serious change for me and I'm not sure if I'm ready for that.

midwife - it's so amazing and great, the drop in bodyfat that you've seen. And isn't it exciting to see what your body can do!? Good for you.

I would love to see a drop in BF. I had it tested a few months ago and I was disgusted and shocked at the number. I think I was told it was about 35%. I didn't think that was possible at my height and weight. And given my workouts. Maybe the test was off but who knows. I should go back and see if it's any better but it was so depressing, I'm not sure if I have it in me.

I'm off to finish watching Bigges Loser!

Mel · 03-26-2008, 07:28 AM

Elisa- that number really doesn't sound reasonable. How was it tested?

Cardio done- 3 mile run on treadmill broken up by 8 minutes on recumbent bike every mile. That's about the limit of my knees and back. Shoulders today at the gym including those crawls again

Food on track for 2 days! I seem to have no problem getting the protein in- some days I have to be careful because I'm over 50% which is a bit much!

Mel

elisa822 · 03-26-2008, 08:47 AM

Mel - first, what do you eat in a day that you have no problem getting up to or over 50% protein? Can you just give me a sample day??

As for the BF test, I think I was so crushed when I had it done that I wouldn't admit here what the number was but I did talk about the method. I researched it at the time and, of course, the guy at the gym told me how accurate it was (whatever). All I know is he asked me my height and weight and then pointed some baton thing at my bicep and the computer spit out a number. Very sad. I guess I could go back but he didn't seem to think it was a surprising number.

I'm also on for day 3 of good clean eating. But, as usual, it's the weekends that cause me trouble. I'm hoping Fitday will keep me in line!

nelie · 03-26-2008, 11:38 AM

Elisa - Those electric impedence machines just give estimates and there is only really one way to truly find out your bf%.

I had a dream last night that I was out shopping for exercise equipment and was looking at these chin up bars. I then tried to do a chin up and I could do it. Weird that I'm dreaming about doing chin ups. Although I currently do have 3 goals right now.
1) Improve my squat form
2) Do multiple 'real' pushups
3) Do a chinup.

I did 1B this morning. I decided to try 90 lbs on my bar with deadlifts. Try was all it was. The bar barely lifted and I couldn't do it. I did do 80 lbs though

I've also been doing shoulder presses with the kettlebell. I have a 25 lb kettlebell and then a 35 lb kettlebell. I can do shoulder presses with the 25 lb kettlebell but 35 was too heavy. So I did it with a 25 lb kettlebell holding a 5 lb dumbbell. I thought I was going to drop the dumbbell and knock myself silly but I didn't.