I've been MIA for a bit, I've been travelling. I'm back now and ready for some butt kicking workout .

I started the NROL4W on Monday (hubby's doing NROL) and we plan to do it 3 times/week. I am SORE. What amazes me is that I've been fairly active this past year or so and especially since summer this year I've been consistently working out 5-6 days/week - running and lifting (except for the last 4 weeks I did no workout) - I did not expect this level of soreness. I am very surprised. Could 4 weeks of no workout make my muscles that weak?

Here's what I'm going to do for few weeks. Please feel free to make any suggestions or comments. This is all new turf for me and I could use ALL the help and advice here.

Lifting days - 2000 calories/day (book suggested 2200/day after calculation)
Non Workout days - 1600-1700 calories/day
macro - C/P/F 40/30/30 (I'll try and stay as close to this as possible)

I used to:
1600 calories/day
Macro - C/P/F 45/25/30

I am really afraid to increase my calories/day cuz I still got plenty of weight to lose. I have a sedentary job and it freaks me out to increase calories to 2000. But, I'm going to follow the book's suggestion more or less and re-evaluate after 4 weeks. Thoughts?

Should I add any cardio on non lifting days or not yet? I believe, he does add some HIIT in stage 2. I am currently doing all workouts with dumbbells. I'm waiting for our barbell which is at a friend's house right now...he's going to clean up his garage and return it to us at some point.

Any suggestions, tips or comments are welcome

Thanks.

Hi Pinto:

Wow, site's been down over the weekend and I guess we've all just been too busy to see your post. But, in any case, back.

Is is possible to be this sore after four weeks off. You BETCHA YA! It happens to all of us. But don't confuse muscle soreness post workout with muscle weakness. After a short absence, a return to those squats and lunges can cause our muscles to ache just as much as is if were our very first time.

Don't despair. A four week respite actually may have been beneficial. Oh my, did I say that?!

Depending upon how intensely you have been training over the summer, that rest may have given your ligaments, tendons and maybe even your spirit a little time to heal and catch up with your muscle gains.

Four weeks is a little longer than necessary to take for recovery but that's okay. I'm looking for the silver lining here. NROLFW actually goes into detail about how often to cycle in a rest week. Since that is the program you are following you may refer to that and mark it on your calendar.

Cardio recommendations. I like to subscribe to the idea of cardio most days of the week. It can be separate of your lifting or incorporated into your lifting program by designing a circuit kind of lifting program.

I tend to do both depending upon the amount of time I have available that day or where my head is at. In any case, I tend to make sure at least two days have HIIT training.

Calories. Sigh.That's a tough one. I do believe in eating as much as you can. If you cut back too far you won't have the energy you need for endurance and eventually for strength gains. If you find that you are not losing at that caloric level then begin to cut back 100 at a time. See where this takes you. It's a bit of trial and error.

I would also suggest making sure that your water intake is high enough as well as the quality of the foods you are taking in. In short, keep it squeaky clean.

Anyway, good luck and welcome back!

Lydia, thanks for responding and suggestions.

I'm thinking of incorporating some cardio during off days. Not sure whether to do HIIT or steady state. Lou does incorporate HIIT during stage 2. But, I think I want to start my cardio during stage 1. As you can see from my stats, I definitely need to lose lots of weight. Very nerve wrecking all this is.

Problem with eating is I'm having a hard time upping my calories to 2000. Like yesterday, I ate 1680 calories and I had absolutely NO room to eat or drink more. I know it's way low but that's how it ended up. I ate every meal and ate well, yet the calories came up to be that low. I haven't lost an ounce since I got back and started and cuz of travel I also gained 4 lbs . Having a sedentary job does not help matters...so I am doing 30 min walks during my lunch time.

Quality of food is good. All lean protein and post workout protein shake. Water I drink anywhere from 70-100oz per day not including any tea or coffee.

Pinto, having started higher than you, I would recommend that you do start cardio along with the NRLFW. "They" recommend that you not do HIIT for more than 2-3 times a week (in what I've read) so you could certainly do both steady state and HIIT. It is not uncommon to plateau when you start a new exercise routine, but if after a couple weeks you're still not losing, you might want to lower you calories but keep the good quality of food. As someone - Meg? - says, we are all experiments of one. Use the book for a guide, not a bible. And have fun - this is not supposed to be a chore.

Thank you Pat . I will add cardio to my routine on off days.

Actually, I did do SS cardio yesterday and I planned to do it for an hour but I ran out of "juice" within 25 mins of running. I guess not working out for 4 weeks does that to you . Not to mention, my legs felt very tired and tight from previous day's routine. I'll continue with SS for a week and then add HIIT to my routine for at least once a week and slowly build on it.

Oh I'm trying to enjoy this as it is a very different turf for me . We finally got our barbell back from our friend and boy does it change the squat position for me. Tonight, it will be first day doing it with a barbell. I'm nervous and excited at the same time.

Yesterday, I tried to do a squat (just to try) with only the bar to see if I can do it and apparently, either I'm not that flexible or I wasn't doing it right. I noticed, I could not squat as low with the bar as I was able to with the dumbbells. Is that normal? Also, my arms and chest hurt from just holding the bar in that position for only 2 squats.

Also, should I do tonight's routine with only the bar without any add on weights? Just so I could get the position down right and get used to it? Bar itself weighs roughly 15-17lbs. Or would that be pointless workout?

So far, I've been able to do the squats with 50lbs (25ea) dumbbells. I know it's not a lot of weight but due to recovering from tendonitis I was trying not to lift too heavy, plus, I doubt I could have gone heavier .

I apologize for asking so many questions. Thank you all for responding

Just my thoughts.

...

I found there was a point where I couldn't hold the DBs that I could squat, but maneuvering the bar (45#) was a problem. Very annoying. I can now use the bar though, but I still find the length a problem in my very-crowded-with-useless (and unused) machines. Grrr. If they'd take out the ones no one uses, it'd be a great space. They added on this lifting room last year. It's got a great rubberized floor, AC , and several cages, a wooden platform, a fair number of benches, and a set of Olympic bars (shown below; they're too short for squats though). But there are also 6-8 machines, of which only 2-3 are ever in use. What they don't have in this lovely room is a set of dumbbells!! I have to drag them in there or run out into the general area if I'm doing a series of exercises which require both DBs and BBs.





As for the cardio - I cannot stand to do it beyond 1/2 hour, whether ss or HIIT, unless I'm outdoors, which is not feasible in our below zero temps this time of year. I have been adding in some swimming 1-2 x/week for variety.

Sacha - will you find out what you're having? Glad to hear you can get back to lifting.

Thanks I'm glad to be back as well! I hate not lifting! I'm not sure what we will be having, we live in a region where the hospitals won't tell you the sex of the baby (... where I live, certain cultures have a higher than normal abortion rate for female fetuses... )

I'm definitely weak in my upper body. So many moves if I had the strength would be performed better. I cannot do a normal push up. I can go down but couldn't lift myself up. So, per book, I'm doing the 30 deg angle version...even that is hard. Prone Jackknife, that is one insane workout. I can't raise my tush that high in the air yet or go on tippy toes on the ball but I'm doing a slightly easier version of it. Oh well, I know I'll get there.

As of now, I'm doing the squats with single dumbbell holding it in the middle. I feel I can go heavier with that vs. if I hold one in each hand. Also, I'm doing 1 body weight set of squat with a very, very light pole (I believe it is pvc) so that I can get the motion/form for going up and down right as if I was holding the BB. I can lower the pipe myself without assistance whereas with the BB I need assistance cuz my arms hurt when I bring them down and I don't want to drop the BB. I tried the hoodie, thanks Sacha for that tip. It definitely helped .

Cardio, I'm going to do on non-lifting days. Not hours and hours of it. Not anymore . I'll switch between HIIT and SS depending on how I feel that day.

Congratulations on the baby news . One of my best friends had the same issue. We didn't know the sex of the baby (same reason as yours) until she was born.