Good morning, Readers!
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We all know that growing up, I wanted to be Xena, Warrior Princess.
It wasn't until too late that I started doing the things the I really wanted to do, like martial arts, and archery, and improving my strength with weight training.
I'm doing them now, though, so I can't regret too much.
And things are looking up.
Mostly.
Last night I went out to the gym with my weight-lifting crew to test how far we've come along. This session focused on high weight exercises, testing out strength improvements.
The Bad
The bad is that the five pounds I struggled so hard to lose over the last two years has returned. I kind of knew this already, as my clothes are fitting a little tighter. I'm quite sad about that I'm resolved, however, not to let it get me down. I'll just have to get back on My Fitness Pal and log my food. I'm also cutting wheat products out of my diet again. It's probably not wheat's fault, but the weight gain and inclusion of wheat seem to be correlated. Now it's rice cakes and Vegemite instead of toast and Vegemite... and pasta is right out.
I'm also cutting out all processed sugars again (or as much a possible... even in savoury things here, there's so much added sugar (like in sausages. SAUSAGES)). There is an exception. I'm allowed two squares of chocolate for five days once every month.
The ladies know why.
The Good
There is a lot of good news though. I blew my previous maxes for the bench press and the squat out of the water.
My previous max weight for the bench press was 120lbs. Last night, I lifted (barely) 135lbs. That 15lb increase is nothing to be snuffed at. I will say that just 5lbs more defeated me. Still, I'm really pleased with the bench. I'm still miles behind everyone else on the team, though. That frustrates me. It also gives me plenty of inspiration to keep going.
I did great on my squats as well, kicking my previous max of 185lbs to the curb. My new max is 205lbs. I'm pretty impressed with that. I didn't even hurt my knees doing it, which is important, because my left knee in particular is screwed.
Alas i couldn't test my dead lift, as my broken finger prevented me from lifting in that manner. It did try, but it hurt too much. For the record, my previous dead lift max (and I suppose, current max) was 185lbs. I'm hoping to keep my dead lift and squat the same. Perhaps I'll be able to next time.
Stupid finger.
Anyway, all in all, I'm quite pleased all told. Not happy about the weight gain, but I've no one to blame but myself.
Now I have to figure out what I'm going to eat today. I've inputted what I had planned for today, but with the two hours of martial arts tonight and the walk into work this morning, I now have a two thousand calorie deficit I have to somehow make up, because here's the thing, I want to lose weight, but I want to do it healthily. That means eating enough food to fuel all the exercise I'm doing.
That means that today I have to eat around 3 000 calories.
That's a lot of food. I know I'm not going to make it. Using My Fitness Pal before, I noticed on the days I was training, I routinely fell short of my calorie intake goal by about a thousand or so. The number of times I received a warning from the app that I needed to eat more...
Anyway, not enough food is terrible for you. It's really fucking bad. And my goal is to continue to get stronger. I can't do that if my body is eating itself in an effort to stay alive. I also don't want to wreck my metabolism more that it already is.
You would have thought that I had this all figured out by now, being in my 30s and all. Nope.
Oh well. At least I'm getting stronger. That's something that going all right. Now I have work to do!
Ciao!
It wasn't until too late that I started doing the things the I really wanted to do, like martial arts, and archery, and improving my strength with weight training.
I'm doing them now, though, so I can't regret too much.
And things are looking up.
Mostly.
Last night I went out to the gym with my weight-lifting crew to test how far we've come along. This session focused on high weight exercises, testing out strength improvements.
The Bad
The bad is that the five pounds I struggled so hard to lose over the last two years has returned. I kind of knew this already, as my clothes are fitting a little tighter. I'm quite sad about that I'm resolved, however, not to let it get me down. I'll just have to get back on My Fitness Pal and log my food. I'm also cutting wheat products out of my diet again. It's probably not wheat's fault, but the weight gain and inclusion of wheat seem to be correlated. Now it's rice cakes and Vegemite instead of toast and Vegemite... and pasta is right out.
I'm also cutting out all processed sugars again (or as much a possible... even in savoury things here, there's so much added sugar (like in sausages. SAUSAGES)). There is an exception. I'm allowed two squares of chocolate for five days once every month.
The ladies know why.
The Good
There is a lot of good news though. I blew my previous maxes for the bench press and the squat out of the water.
My previous max weight for the bench press was 120lbs. Last night, I lifted (barely) 135lbs. That 15lb increase is nothing to be snuffed at. I will say that just 5lbs more defeated me. Still, I'm really pleased with the bench. I'm still miles behind everyone else on the team, though. That frustrates me. It also gives me plenty of inspiration to keep going.
I did great on my squats as well, kicking my previous max of 185lbs to the curb. My new max is 205lbs. I'm pretty impressed with that. I didn't even hurt my knees doing it, which is important, because my left knee in particular is screwed.
Alas i couldn't test my dead lift, as my broken finger prevented me from lifting in that manner. It did try, but it hurt too much. For the record, my previous dead lift max (and I suppose, current max) was 185lbs. I'm hoping to keep my dead lift and squat the same. Perhaps I'll be able to next time.
Stupid finger.
Anyway, all in all, I'm quite pleased all told. Not happy about the weight gain, but I've no one to blame but myself.
Now I have to figure out what I'm going to eat today. I've inputted what I had planned for today, but with the two hours of martial arts tonight and the walk into work this morning, I now have a two thousand calorie deficit I have to somehow make up, because here's the thing, I want to lose weight, but I want to do it healthily. That means eating enough food to fuel all the exercise I'm doing.
That means that today I have to eat around 3 000 calories.
That's a lot of food. I know I'm not going to make it. Using My Fitness Pal before, I noticed on the days I was training, I routinely fell short of my calorie intake goal by about a thousand or so. The number of times I received a warning from the app that I needed to eat more...
Anyway, not enough food is terrible for you. It's really fucking bad. And my goal is to continue to get stronger. I can't do that if my body is eating itself in an effort to stay alive. I also don't want to wreck my metabolism more that it already is.
You would have thought that I had this all figured out by now, being in my 30s and all. Nope.
Oh well. At least I'm getting stronger. That's something that going all right. Now I have work to do!
Ciao!
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