Getting on the workout wagon. Perhaps staying on it.
After several months of slacking off, and almost as many telling myself, "Gotta start exercising again this week," I started a new program on Monday and finished the first week of lifting today. Somewhat custom program, fusing kettlebell basics with a beginner's lineup I found on T-nation, but it turned out that there's 90 days between the start point and my main goal date in early June, so I kind of feel like I'm in with the P90X crowd. Feels good. Is good. Some notes:
- Weight's stayed pretty much constant all week, but most of those weigh-ins have been with however much water I've downed and my recovery shake in me at the time. The weigh-ins that matter are slated for Sundays, even though I neglected to set starting measurements this past Sunday.
- The views in the mirror and the shower are already a bit better, so I guess something's going right regardless of the last point.
- Everything was sore for the first few days, but that's starting to subside pretty quickly, so it would seem things are getting used to being used more often.
- My calves rule number one. Today's calf raises barely registered anything at all, which means they're getting more weight and reps next week. Upper body is meh but better than it used to be, rest of legs doing pretty good considering I'm also doing an hour of cardio every. single. morning.
- I thought waking up at 4:30 AM for said cardio every day would be the first thing I ended up skimping on, but so far, so good. I almost look forward to it, even when my easily distracted self stays up a little later than necessary.
- Been eating better for a few weeks before starting up the program, so I already have a good feel for where I can go food-wise and still keep to my carb/protein/calorie benchmarks. I should really be logging more thoroughly, but I am pretty certain I'm actually keeping under the calorie mark most of the time, and hitting the other two dead on.
- Got a pair of ShapeUps a little while back as an adjunct, since I'm on my feet all the time at work and might as well put that time to use too, but there's only so much they're doing given I've been working on my feet at the majority of my jobs for the past decade and change. Regardless, they're super comfortable and keep me from dragging my feet no matter how beat I am otherwise, so a worthwhile investment.
- If I don't keep up on this track to be the prettiest princess at BC2011, someone needs to come to my house and punch me in the teeth. I'm serious. There's nothing stopping me at this point from being a fair amount of what I could (and, I think, should) actually be, physically, so slacking off is verboten.
- I would be lying if I said I wasn't partially inspired by my manager at the job I hate, who recently began reattending his gym to try and lose some weight, but does little more than bench presses and curls, and still pounds garbage like McDonald's, hot bar trash, and Chinese food on a daily basis. Never mind his excessive drinking habit. Outstripping him on that front as well as job performance would be glorious. Vengeful? Kinda. Inspirational? Plenty.
As for the routine, it's just four days of lifting (Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri), split up to focus on different areas so I'm not murdering specific muscle regions in a self-defeating fashion, cardio every day (including off days). I'm considering taking Sunday off from the cardio as well as any lifting, but we'll see.
Diet-wise, the main goal is keeping things to 70g of carbs or lower on off days, 100g or lower on lift days, with as much protein as possible crammed in there every day. I'm supposed to be going as high as 2550 calories a day, but I'm not sure if I even break 2000 on a regular basis anymore, as mentioned earlier. Just not that hungry, or good at finding low-fat protein sources, I guess. Sodium's a bit harder bullet to dodge, especially when eating at work without preparing something to bring in, but I'm doing okay on that front. Not great, but okay.
So yeah, we'll see where this takes me. I might even start posting some weekly shots once I'm less shamefully built.
- Weight's stayed pretty much constant all week, but most of those weigh-ins have been with however much water I've downed and my recovery shake in me at the time. The weigh-ins that matter are slated for Sundays, even though I neglected to set starting measurements this past Sunday.
- The views in the mirror and the shower are already a bit better, so I guess something's going right regardless of the last point.
- Everything was sore for the first few days, but that's starting to subside pretty quickly, so it would seem things are getting used to being used more often.
- My calves rule number one. Today's calf raises barely registered anything at all, which means they're getting more weight and reps next week. Upper body is meh but better than it used to be, rest of legs doing pretty good considering I'm also doing an hour of cardio every. single. morning.
- I thought waking up at 4:30 AM for said cardio every day would be the first thing I ended up skimping on, but so far, so good. I almost look forward to it, even when my easily distracted self stays up a little later than necessary.
- Been eating better for a few weeks before starting up the program, so I already have a good feel for where I can go food-wise and still keep to my carb/protein/calorie benchmarks. I should really be logging more thoroughly, but I am pretty certain I'm actually keeping under the calorie mark most of the time, and hitting the other two dead on.
- Got a pair of ShapeUps a little while back as an adjunct, since I'm on my feet all the time at work and might as well put that time to use too, but there's only so much they're doing given I've been working on my feet at the majority of my jobs for the past decade and change. Regardless, they're super comfortable and keep me from dragging my feet no matter how beat I am otherwise, so a worthwhile investment.
- If I don't keep up on this track to be the prettiest princess at BC2011, someone needs to come to my house and punch me in the teeth. I'm serious. There's nothing stopping me at this point from being a fair amount of what I could (and, I think, should) actually be, physically, so slacking off is verboten.
- I would be lying if I said I wasn't partially inspired by my manager at the job I hate, who recently began reattending his gym to try and lose some weight, but does little more than bench presses and curls, and still pounds garbage like McDonald's, hot bar trash, and Chinese food on a daily basis. Never mind his excessive drinking habit. Outstripping him on that front as well as job performance would be glorious. Vengeful? Kinda. Inspirational? Plenty.
As for the routine, it's just four days of lifting (Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri), split up to focus on different areas so I'm not murdering specific muscle regions in a self-defeating fashion, cardio every day (including off days). I'm considering taking Sunday off from the cardio as well as any lifting, but we'll see.
Diet-wise, the main goal is keeping things to 70g of carbs or lower on off days, 100g or lower on lift days, with as much protein as possible crammed in there every day. I'm supposed to be going as high as 2550 calories a day, but I'm not sure if I even break 2000 on a regular basis anymore, as mentioned earlier. Just not that hungry, or good at finding low-fat protein sources, I guess. Sodium's a bit harder bullet to dodge, especially when eating at work without preparing something to bring in, but I'm doing okay on that front. Not great, but okay.
So yeah, we'll see where this takes me. I might even start posting some weekly shots once I'm less shamefully built.