after lurking for a week, I'm back again.
The good news, we got the loan! So now we are organising ourselves for moving end of October into the new house. This past week has been very pressurizing as we only heard the good news on Friday, then we had to go by the house to negociate the kitchen, which the owner said he would like to sell us; it turns out for more than a new kitchen would cost! Plus he wanted to spring the dog on us, again! Aargh!
training went well, (and eating as well) as I've been able to go to the gym again, but my knee ligaments got weird on Friday night when lying in bed and making a half-turn. They're ok now, I went for a walk on Sunday but I still got a scare.
Good morning, everyone and it’s wonderful to be back home again. I’m still seeing highway signs when I close my eyes but am catching up on sleep, so feeling great. I got back into the gym this weekend and did cardio both days and two first-rate workouts: bi’s and tri’s on Saturday (ow ow ow) and shoulders yesterday — it was really over the top in number of exercises and sets, but hey! I was out of the gym for a week and needed to make up some time. By the time I got to shrugs though, my efforts were pretty feeble.
I caught Cindy's post at the end of last week’s thread about a new Challenge starting today (C6!! ) and girl, your enthusiasm is contagious! Best of luck to you — it sounds like a great plan and I know this will be the one that busts through all the plateaus and barriers for you and gets you where you want to be!
Lieke — congratulations on getting the loan! Great news — I know how you’ve been sweating over that.
I know we have lots of new posters and I haven’t had a chance to say due to general life insanity but welcome and keep posting — I love to hear what everyone’s doing. Where’s Ilene, my these days? And Dip — hope you’re still around. I saw your boat photos in our LWL album and she’s a beauty! But who’s the hot babe with the great biceps in the picture?
It’s such a relief to be home and eat clean again. I’m on my own little five week challenge right now and loving it. My new resolution is to eat more and different kinds of veggies, so if anyone has any ideas or recipes, please share!
Hi all! After (sort of) catching up on my forum-reading, I am once again amazed at all that you ladies (and Jack ) do. You guys are such an inspiration.
For my weekend workout, I went on a camping/canoeing trip with my youth group on Friday and Saturday. My sister and I (we were in a tandem kayak) were the first ones to arrive at our canoe landing by nearly an hour - not because I was paddling hard or anything. I did paddle fairly consistently, though, and managed to avoid the various tree branches and river obstacles, which is more than I can say for most of the people in my group. We had a lot of fun, but it was kind of chilly waiting around wearing wet clothes.
I've re-vamped my diet a bit (I still need to fit more protein in, though), and I actually cooked last night, for the first time in weeks! I'm looking forward to eating healthy and strengthening my body... and hitting that scale goal by the end of the year Let's just hope my enthusiasm lasts
Good morning everyone. This is my beloved Monday off. I just love this day. The house is quiet and I can do whatever I want and eat whatever strange concoctions I can dream up.
I need to do lower body today and I'd like to walk/jog too.
My upper body seems pretty feeble so I'm gonna do it three times this week. (any advice on that would be appreciated)
I should walk/jog/elliptical four or five times. This seems to be where I can throw in an extra just because I feel like it.
I need to work on increasing protein and getting my fats down just a bit.
I start nights on Friday so that'll be a new challenge. I do OK with food but feel about like a rag rug when it comes to exercise.
Just got back from the gym. Did a heavy chest and tricep workout, then 1/2 hour of elliptical. My shoulder and abs are still really bothering me, so it's becoming a challenge to find ways to work other body parts hard enough to do any good without the injured parts impeding the workout. I used to finish my chest workout with pushups to failure, but lately my abs fail first at around 10 pushups- hardly a workout for my chest! This body part falling apart bit is getting depressing The gym was steamy today- I thought it felt nice to get good and sweaty, but I got a real earful from a few members. Hmmm...don't want to sweat when you workout?
SusanB- I think doing Upper Body 3 times in a week is a bit much. If you are lifting to failure, you're breaking down muscle tissue that needs at least 3-4 days to recover and rebuild stronger. If you are not pushing yourself to that point, you're not going to build muscle and get stronger anyway. Working the same muscle group too often just leads to burning muscle tissue, injury, fatigue, and overtraining in general. Twice a week is PLENTY! Or break it up so that yu are doing different muscle groups each day: back and biceps, chest and triceps, shoulders and arms. There you go- three days and you've hit all the parts and given yourself plenty of time to really focus on each muscle group.
Jack-see above.
Lieke! Congratulations! I had to re-read your post to remember that in most of Europe, kitchen cabinets and appliances do not come with the house. In North America, the cabinets at least are always part of the house price and usually the appliances unless special arrangements are made in the negotiations. We learned that the hard way. I'll never forget the look on my mother's face the day we were supposed to move into our house in Grenoble, and she found basically an empty room where the kitchen had been. Talk about culture shock!
Hiya Meg! Are you hurting after a week of no gym?
2sw33: The kyaking sounds fun! I used to do a lot of white water, but haven't been in a boat in years. One of those things I think I'll always get back to doing. I think time's running out.
Must be the last gasp of vacation for some of you lifters out there- haven't seen L2L or Dip for a while. Cindy, Tiki, Ilene, Nelie- hello, hope the week goes well.
Thanks so much Mel! That's exactly the sort of advice I was looking for. I got hunting for exercises to do that with and found this site www.bodybuilding.com
It has sooo many things to try and pretty good explanations and so on. Does anyone know it? is it good? can I work from there?
So many questions ... ah those newbies!
Crazy executives were in my office most of last week - so posting had to be kept to a minimum. Meg, GREAT to see you back. I know what you mean about highway signs. Whenever I finish a roadtrip, if I've had to drive more than an hour at night once i go to bed, I can still see the white lines of the road. Drives me nuts. Good luck on your challenge.
Jack, no dear, you can never rest. There is always something to fix, clean, remodel, that's how you keep your mind sharp.
Two questions - one workout related and one not - What are some good arm exercises I can have the cheer team do that do not involve weights? They need to build strength in both their bis and tris and other than tricep dips, I'm drawing a blank. Second, how old is old enough to have members of the opposite sex making phone calls to the house? DS is entering 7th grade and there are about 3 girls that have started calling. I don't want to be the overprotective mom, but I also don't want to be the overly liberal mom. Suggestions?
I know, I lurk and don't post much, but ya'll have inspired me.
Tiki- You got to the 7th grade, be thankful! They started calling here in 6th grade, and those girls are nuts. I was never that silly when I was that age Okay I am probably lying! Those push-ups Mel was talking about make a good upper body work-out. Since I am also a huge fan of Yoga can I suggest some Downward Dogs, hold for 6-11 breaths, concentrate and its all about the arms and hamstrings. Cheerleaders need both.
Mel- Sorry your still hurting girl. My husband saw your picture and said who is that pretty lady, she looks like a young Carrie Fisher. My elbow started to hinge during my workout today, but I never dropped weight or sets. And I am finally after this long time off from the gym (been back about 3 weeks) I got a mile done in 13:34:02. A nice improvement for me in the cardio department.
Susan- I switch from days to nights every month, the thing it to make time to excercise without compromising too much sleep. For me that means saying sleep is a min. of 6 hours, and if that means going to bed early and waking up early so be it. Or even worse working out after work I will do it. Same goes for day shifts. Also if I missed a workout I missed it, progress not perfection We do have lives after all.
JCH- Love the enthusiasm
Meg- What kind of recipes are you looking for? I love my veggies, but I eat cheese (oh the horrors ) , so most my recipes may not work for you.
Jack- "Honey do" lists never end.
Lieke- Someday I will grow up and have a house congrats on the loan.
To everyone else HI! and if you don't know me I am just Chris. Doing it one day at a time like the rest of ya'll
SusanB – Good luck with starting nights – that would be tough for me, I’m no good at being productive at night. I’d like to echo your question on bodybuilding.com (I’m always looking for new sites to read – it keeps me interested/motivated)
Mel – Sorry to hear your body isn’t back to normal, but at least you’re working around the problems. I hope it gets better soon.
Tiki – 7th grade, huh? Well, I’m not much good for parenting advice since I don’t have children, but I have the feeling I’d treat those girls calling my son the way my Dad would treat boys calling me (let’s just say, it wouldn’t be pretty). What does your DS think about it?
Chris – Hi! I remember you from the journals… I’m glad to find your posts here
Anyway, I don't usually post two days in a row, but maybe it'll help keep me on track. I did well yesterday with exercizing and eating (I cooked again!). I went to Curves, did my Day 1 lifting, and jogged 2 miles at the track. I think I'm not going to do Curves on my lifting days, though, because I've been reading the thread on cardio and lifting. I count Curves as cardio (my heart rate is always above the "target" when I'm there), and I always do it before lifting because it's not open that late, so I'm probably depleting the glycogen in my muscles before I get to lift.
One thing I've been doing lately is helping my little sister (9 yo) do a workout of lifting and running (she's rather chunky and she hates getting picked on about it). As far as weights go, I have her do a lot of the exercises with just the dumbbells bars, since the lightest I can put on them evenly is 5 lbs. I may invest in a few of those pink rubber dumbbells for her sake. I'm concerned a little about my ability to correct her form, though. I can't seem to get her to grasp the concept of not rounding her back but not overarching and sticking her butt out. Too bad she never took ballet. Anyway, does anyone have advice on training a youngster?
Thanks Chris and 2sw33t (JCH?) - if I get supper out before I go to bed and I sleep solidly, I have a couple of hours in the afternoon. Say 3-5 that I can work in and after supper. I'll just have to plan a little and stick with it.
I did lower body yesterday and I can tell.
Today is back and biceps (thanks Mel).
Oh and I tried that cottage cheese, jello, strawberry thing. I think it's Ilene's. Yummy!
Hi all,
This week my goal is to eat clean and log everything in Fitday. Yesterday went well as far as that was concerned. I also found a gym I think I'll check out.
Re lifting apparel, do people have particular shoes they like to wear? In the past I've always just worn my running shoes b/c that's what I have, but should I get some cross-trainers or something?
I just wear my New Balance crosstrainers - I don't think you have to wear special 'lifting shoes' although there ARE some out there (way expensive though). Your running shoes should be fine - I wouldn't recommend sandals though...
Just a quick post re: bodybuilders.com - I've read through of bit of the stuff on the site (there's a TON!), and I've found articles giving a lot of contradictory information, even on what exercises are good/bad. I think, to some extent, that's indicative of the various contraversies within the bodybuilding world - but it makes it hard to tell good info from bad info.
Also...the thing about Bodybuilders.com is the fact that it is essentially a RETAIL site. It exists for one reason: To sell product. And quite a lot of the products they sell are really geared towards 'hardcore' bodybuilders, and a lot of them are a waste of money, quite frankly.
If you want exercise routines, I'd use either Krista's Stumptous site, or www.abcbodybuilding.com, or just go to the library and check out some books (Krista has some recommended reading on her site as well!). Just my two cents.
Oh, oh yes. I'll have a look at the abc one as well. Thanks all!
Now I have a question. (what another one?) I did lower body yesterday and back today and now my tailbone hurts. I'm gonna take ibuprophen and do the heat and cold thing (watching the hockey game) But do you have some tips for me? Stretches or something?
Week of August 30 - September 5
but am catching up on sleep, so feeling great. I got back into the gym this weekend and did cardio both days and two first-rate workouts: bi’s and tri’s on Saturday (ow ow ow) and shoulders yesterday — it was really over the top in number of exercises and sets, but hey! I was out of the gym for a week and needed to make up some time. By the time I got to shrugs though, my efforts were pretty feeble. 
) and girl, your enthusiasm is contagious! 
Best of luck to you — it sounds like a great plan and I know this will be the one that busts through all the plateaus and barriers for you and gets you where you want to be!
due to general life insanity but welcome and keep posting — I love to hear what everyone’s doing. Where’s Ilene, my 
these days? And Dip — hope you’re still around. I saw your boat photos in our LWL album and she’s a beauty! But who’s the hot babe with the great biceps in the picture? 
) do. You guys are such an inspiration.
Let's just hope my enthusiasm lasts 
Okay I am probably lying! 
