Moving Forward - I definitely feel the flexion exercises. Are you moving as slow you can manage for them? I'm also a good 40+ pounds heavier than you so I'm moving a bit more body mass.

tiawyn - I'm not a purist but you should see how many people just say stick to the plan. I have to make modifications because I'm working out at home and I don't have a cable machine for any of the pull downs. I'm also doing a bunch of cardio work and need to fit that in between the lifts. I haven't looked into it yet, but there are other new rules books that may be more in line with what you are already doing. I hear very good things about Abs and Supercharged. I'm committed to finished this program before tackling another though.

2FatCats - wow, that is amazing! you must be working so hard! I definitely think I'm going to do intervals after all of my lifts. I need to train for a 75-mile bike ride anyway and it seems like the weight & interval combo packs one awesome punch.

Thanks for all the kudos, ladies! The calorie burn equates to about 9 a minute for me. DH burns 10-11 a minute but he's got 2 inches and 58lbs on me!

We started Phase III in Supercharged on Tuesday. Boy oh Boy! Those reverse lunges with a rear foot elevated are quad KILLERS! My DH accused me of "distracting him by talking and therefore he was unable to complete the last set"...he said this as he lay on the gym floor gasping for breath and whimpering. I finished and stayed upright - only because I was afraid if I flopped on the floor I might not get up! They still hurt 2 days later and tonight there are squats to be done. But in a weird way - I welcome the pain. Just lots of weakness screaming as it leaves my body!

Hey all! I'm in phase one and looking to finish it by early april. I workout M W F. I wanted to try to add one cardio day on Sunday but I keep getting caught up.

Through help on myfitnesspal, facebook and even in the gym itself I feel great about doing it. It can be daunting to move about the weights area. Can't wait to become a fixture there, and hopefully turn some heads when I'm able to lift very heavy.

I'm starting stage 1 of NROL4W tomorrow. Diet plan question -- I adjusted my calories according to dude's guidelines, and subtracted my "maintenance" calories by 300 as suggested by him. But my thing is, is it necessary to follow his diet plan exactly with the morning/afternoon snacks? On my days off or days I work night shifts this is easy, but sometimes I work a full 7-9 hour shift and I work on the sales floor of a department store where we're not allowed to eat, so on those days I only get an hour for my meal time and that's when I eat my mid-day meal and have my mid-day coffee (or, that's when I have my dinner if it's a dinner time break). Snacks don't really work out on those days. Does it really matter that I eat 5 times a day, every day? Or would I be fine just eating my allotted calories and have my protein shakes?

Lauren--I've basically disregarded the whole diet portion of the program. I'm just doing the workouts. I have tried to be mindful about eating more protein. And I'm eating far fewer calories than they recommend. Perhaps I would have more muscle by now if I had followed the diet pla, but I'm losing weight and getting stronger. I'm not sure what others are doing, but this is what I'm doing.

Lol @ me - day 1 of stage 1 workouts and I went over my workout calories! Haha! I had all these new calories to play with and I DID! I just laugh at myself. I misplanned some things and it just didn't work out like I wanted to. Oh well, I'll do better next time!

The workouts actually were pretty familiar to me and were things I'd done before; I had actually just added the seated rows to my workout routine before I started slacking, lol. The only thing I had issues with was the jack-knife on the exercise ball -- I am NOT used to using those! However, the book said to do 2 sets of 8 for those... once I got used to being on the ball, I could pound out that exercise no problem! I probably could've done like a bajillion reps, lol. Is it supposed to be that easy? And how do you make that more challenging???

Oopsie on the calories. :dizzy: That's life. Falls into the $@#t happens category as far as I'm concerned. The bigger problem for me is not mis-planning, but how hungry I sometimes feel on the day after lifting.

That's great a lot of these exercises are familiar to you. I felt like I started from scratch when I began. Now in phase 2, it was nice to see some repetition of exercises. My only recommendation of the prone jackknife is to do it in a very controlled manner and focus on tightening everything up as you do it. I also upped the count a bit because I felt I was capable of more.

Workout day 2 and I did SO much better today! All the exercises were familiar -- this is all stuff I've done before. I just suck at lunges. How do you get better at lunges??? My legs won't go down far enough, lol.

I hated the lunges at first in phase 1. I couldn't get down very far and I was worried about my knees. But as I started to do more of them, I just got used to them. I started to focus on making sure that I was at least getting low enough so that I could really feel the burn, which I think helped me to get lower. In phase 2, you start to do lunges with a rear leg elevated which is definitely effective. Despite my worries, my knees have been fine.

I'm glad to hear workout day 2 was better for you. I'm taking a week break because I just finished phase 2. Phase 2 was only 8 workouts so it went pretty quickly.

I just finished my 2nd day. I am finding it hard to skip days or not do extra exercises. I know the book says not to. Do you find this to be best like the book says?

Got another newbie question. Is it correct that we start off at 15 pushups then go to 12?
or am i suppose to make it harder some how? I can only do 10 now so unsure if i should plan to decrease.

Hi Hiddenstar--I was so sore after the workouts in phase 1 that I definitely needed those days off. I still take them. You want to give your body a chance to build muscle. I also take the weeks off between phases for recovery.

I think you should reduce the number of pushups, but try one of the harder versions since you are doing fewer of them.

I hope you enjoy it! I am starting to notice by phase 3 that a lot of the exercises are starting to repeat, which is helping me feel more comfortable with the exercises.

hiddenstar - can you post some of the weights you are lifting? if you feel like you could go again the next day, maybe you aren't pushing yourself hard enough. I'm always struggling to get that last rep in and it is definitely effective.

I'm probably going too low. My knees are very weak (no damage according to dr) so i took it slow to watch form and learn routine. My 1st two days - i did 20 lbs. Today, i did 40lbs. I probably still need to up it more. Just don't know how much to do and afraid of overdoing it as a beginner. Don't want to go back to constant knee pain which happened end of november.

Any advise greatly appreciated. :)

I think you are wise to take it slow and watch your form, but you need to lift heavy to get the full benefit. I was worrying about my knees in the beginning too. But I never felt any pain. In fact, now that you mention it I don't think about my knees anymore. I think I've strengthened the supporting muscles for my knees. I also notice less back pain in my daily life--likely because I've strengthened my back and core muscles. Try increasing your weights on every exercise at every workout, unless you really know you can't or shouldn't.