I have a teensy bit of bad news but a whole lot of good news to share today. First, the bad--I've only lost 1.8 lbs since the end of May. That's entirely because of a 10 day vacation in Colorado Jack and I took at the end of June, plus a long, binge-y 4th of July weekend. The good news is, I lost it all in less than a week! And today I'm lighter than before we left on the trip (142.8). So that's something.
But I have even more exciting news: this week I started to lift heavy. Yes heavy, like in the weight room alongside the wannabee Arnolds, taking a 45-lb bar, putting plates on it, and lifting it. The idea seed of lifting was planted in my mind a couple months ago I think, around the time I had my fitness "revelation." Ever since then, the pull towards it has gotten stronger every day and I began to get more and more bored and annoyed with the classes I was attending at the gym that focused on high rep with low weight. I decided to begin Starting Strength, a widely recognized lifting program developed by Mark Rippetoe which is highly recommended for beginners/novices. In the program, you lift three days a week, doing pretty much just the basic lifts, like squats, deadlifts, benchpress, and overhead press. Later you add stuff like power cleans and pull ups but I haven't gotten there yet--kinda scared actually. For each lift, you only do 3 sets of 5 reps, but the point of the program is that every workout, you add 2.5, 5, or 10 lbs to what you lifted the last time. At first I was incredulous; I mean, how can that be possible?? I've gone to strength training twice a week for over a year and I've barely budged from squatting 30 lbs, right?? Well after doing research and coming to find that many, many people have vouched for the fact that you can, and will progress that much that quickly on this program, I starting getting excited about it and decided to give it a shot. Here are my starting weights for all of the lifts included in this first phase of the program (which I think I will do for about a month):
Squat: 65 lb
Deadlift: 75 lb
Overhead Press: 30 lb
Bench Press: 45 lb
So yeah, I'm not quite at the bar for OHP but I plan to be tomorrow. My goal right now is to squat my body weight by the end of July! (or around there...)
More good news--I had good results on my re-assessment today. The last one I had was May 20, and I've lost .25-.5 inches everywhere on my body but my bust! That's a score I'd say! :)
Shoulders: 39.75/-.5/-9
Chest: 36.5/0/-7
Waist: 32/-.5/-8
Hips: 37.25/-.25/-4.25
Thigh: 19.5/-.5/-3
Arm: 10.5/-.5/-1.5
BF%: 24/-1.7/-11
Taking my good feelings and positive vibes and sending them out to y'all via internets!! Cheers! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment