Bernard Marx

So far so good. It's always easy to stay with things right at the start though. I haven't raised my voice at home (although I haven't had any particularly frustrating situations yet either). I haven't spent a single red cent in the cafeteria or vending machines at work, I've been brewing my coffee at home and bringing it with me in a thermos in the mornings, then drinking tea and water throughout the day. Monday night, I did some light yoga poses before bed. My wife and I have both been trying different ways to get physically active, so we decided Tuesday that we would start doing the beginner body weight circuit 3x a week and did the first one, so we'll try again tomorrow night. (the dumbbell rows should help me toward my pull up goal, and I'm looking at things in my house scheming for an option to do bodyweight rows later on). Monday we had veggie quesadillas with zucchini, onions, peppers and plenty of cheese. Yesterday was a fattoush salad with pita and hummus. I've also worked through a few stages of my favorite black bean burger recipe, getting everything pureed last night. Tonight I'm going to make veggie stir fry, and get the burgers finished and frozen. Just need to add some breadcrumb and egg to bind the puree before I throw them in the skillet to brown. Tomorrow is going to need to be a quicker meal since it's the day of the week I work late, so probably going to throw together some lentil taco 'meat' and do those, then Friday I'm going to make a big ol' pot of chili.

I think it sounds like fun. I'm not sure what your goals are, so it's hard to give feedback on how this kind of training would help or hurt those goals. If you're just trying to keep working some strength and functional fitness while building up some bad 'donkey' points, I'd bet this'll work just fine. If you were specifically trying to build up your max in certain lifts, it might not be the best. My only suggestion is to start cautiously and build up in a controlled way. If you're not accustomed to dynamic movements and explosive training like you're referencing, you could open yourself up to serious injury if you're not careful. As long as you listen to your body, allow yourself time to adapt, and are comfortable with how these kinds of movements fit with your goals, I heartily endorse it.

I'm a big fan of freezer cooking. I take a weekend a month (or a vacation day if necessary) and just go ape in my kitchen. I typically do Friday evening planning, Saturday shopping and prep work (pre cooking dried beans, cutting veggies, setting marinades/sauces), Sunday meal assembly, cooking and portioning. Once everything is portioned out and in the freezer (my wife and I did it for a while with just the small freezer above our fridge, then we bought a chest freezer when we realized we'd stick with it), week nights become very simple. Grab your meal out of the refrigerator and heat it up in the microwave to eat. Grab a meal for tomorrow night from the freezer and put it in the fridge to thaw.

Happy New Year everyone. I've decided to start by subdividing my goals a bit. I fully appreciate the concept of breaking down large overarching objectives into quickly winnable and measurable bites of progress. In that vein, here are my goals for January that will support my goals for the year. I intend to document my progress at least three times/week as I work through this. I will not raise my voice at home. I will record in my log any instance that I fall short of this goal as well as documenting a way I could have handled the situation better for my future reference. I will not purchase anything from the vending machines or my work cafeteria. This goal is clearly defined and easy to document failings. It will support both my financial goals (items in vending and cafe are marked up and constitute wasteful spending) and my health goals (when I consume unplanned food items, I tend to choose unhealthy options, and consume excess calories). I will spend at least 10 minutes per day engaged in healthful physical activity. At the moment, I've been doing a simple evening yoga session combining sun salutations with a few restive poses to get ready for bed. I will document any days I fail to meet this goal. I no longer have the excuse of school so I will return to cooking dinners regularly, preparing menus based largely on vegetables and minimizing breads and pastas. By the end of the month, I will consider myself as having been successful in a goal if I miss it fewer than 3 times.

Ok. I think I have a rough idea of my 2017 goals mapped out. I tried to keep them somewhat aligned so that each of this year's goals support one of my level 50 criteria. One of my fitness goals is a carry over from last years goals (I kind of last minute replaced some of the strength training goals with running because I wanted a more social experience with my workouts). I will continue to review my goals, define how I will measure them and determine success. So far, I have 10 goals, three of which will be year long overarching goals, and the remaining 7 are things I should be able to work at sequentially and check off throughout the year. I do not raise my voice in my home. Young children can be challenging, but they need patience and understanding When I raise my voice, I upset them which hurts our relationships I feel guilty after I do it, and feeling guilty increases stress, which I've found degrades my health/wellness goals This will be a hard goal to measure I will save at least 15% of my income This is about a 33% increase in my savings rate over 2016. This fits in my ten year plan that has savings rate increasing annually up to 50% at year 5 Maintaining a 50% savings rate for five years plus the savings from five years of ramping up will hit my definition of financial independence I will lose and maintain an amount of weight loss sufficient to reach a body fat percentage between 15 and 17 According to a few online calculators based off current weight and BF% I think this will be around 25-30 lbs Ballpark goal weight should be about 200 I will need to make more specific nutrition goals to support this The specific target is somewhat flexible because it's hard to calculate BF% exactly. I may define success based on how I look/feel rather than hard numbers I will run a 5k with an average pace of 9min/mi or less. I did about 9:40 min/mi in my first race after only 11 weeks of training from non runner This supports my lvl 50 hiking goal as running and hiking fitness are complementary I will run a 10k There are plenty of programs for walking up distance after a 5k over time Need to be sure not to add too much too fast to avoid injury I will do a freaking pull up This goal carried over from last year. I gave up on strength training because I didn't have anyone to do it with me and I was tired of working out alone I have some ideas to improve my chances when I try again, but I need to map it out into a clear plan I will perform a full depth Grok squat and hold for 60 seconds I do not have the hip or posterior chain flexibility for this because I sit too much I will stretch and practice regularly to get my hips to sink deeper and my heels to stay on the ground This goal should help facilitate injury prevention as I work through my other fitness goals by improving my ROM I will clean out my basement and garage of any and all items stored and not used in 2016 It doesn't matter if I sell them, give them away, recycle, or worst-case trash them, they will be gone I will go through my closet and ask the becoming minimalist's two questions for every item of clothing I own Do I need this? Why do I have this? Goal is to remove at least 15 items based on the answers. I will reconnect via Facebook with at least one musician I met during my previous major and attend at least one of their performances In order to get back into composing and getting performed, I will need to make an effort to network with performers.

A new year is soon to begin. In that vein, I've chosen a new username and am starting a new battle log. 2016 went well for me. Despite the ups and downs, I've netted 15 lbs of progress toward my goal. I'll start this thread by listing the good things I've accomplished so that every time I visit I'm reminded of the momentum I carry. Completed my Bachelor of Science, graduating at the end of the fall semester. Trained for and ran my first 5k in just over 29 minutes Completed a nutrition support program at work with a total weight loss of 20lbs from start to finish Improved biometric screening markers from last years physical. Biggest improvement in LDL, small improvements in HDL, triglycerides, blood pressure, and A1C. (All numbers still within 'normal' ranges, but improved within the normal range. LDL had been almost low enough to fall out of 'normal' range now firmly in the middle) Doctor officially cancelled pre-diabetic diagnoses from my medical records due to two years of sustained improvement in A1C. Got a big wage increase at work and have controlled spending, resulting in a positive savings rate Paid tuition in full for both semesters and paid down debt Despite these successes, I'm coming back to start logging for the Rebellion to see, and obviously there must be a reason. I mentioned ups AND downs and the astute reader would notice a net of 15lbs lost this year despite 20lbs down during the program at work. If I add up all my yo-yos in my weight chart for 2016, I actually lost a total of 35 lbs over various periods of time and over other periods of time I gained a total of 20lbs. Consistency and long-term sustainability are the devils I struggle with now. Here are the challenges I saw during the time periods of my biggest weight gains through 2016: Spring and Fall semesters. I gained about 5lbs over the spring semester and 15lbs during the second half of the fall semester. It seems when I get busy and stressed I fall off the wagon. Sugar. The holiday season has been killing my progress and self-esteem. I gave away as many sweets as I could get out of my house, but whenever I've had any in the house, I have zero self control. Cookies, fudge, kringle, cake... I've eaten too much of all of it. Work stress. The most stressful times for school have also coincided with busier times at work. I've found myself caving in to the siren song of the vending machines too often. I'm still trying to plan out my goals for 2017, so I intend my next post in this thread to flesh out those details. In the meantime, here are some of my level 50 goals: Kids grown up into well adjusted adults with good parental relationship Financially independant Good all around physical fitness/health Have completed or am actively completing 1 or more long distance trails in the US (either thru or section, in order of likelihood/desire) IAT, JMT, PCT, AT Minimal participation in consumer culture, few possessions and only those that add significant value Composer working with musicians interested in contemporary modal works My progress toward these things so far: 3 year old and 18 month old. They're both happy, healthy, and full of life so far. Positive savings rate of about 11% of income. Currently 6'3" and 229lbs 22.4% body fat (impedance measured at health clinic, and down from 26.3%) healthy biometric results Have done about 30 miles total of sections on the IAT Implemented household rule for waiting period on new purchases which has resulted in either my wife or myself talking ourselves out of purchases like: fitness trackers, new computers, and excessive clothing. 1-in-1-out rule has helped prevent proliferation of things in our house. Have only intermittently played any instruments over the last year and not written anything in several. My oldest child is interested in music and may help catalyze my return if we start doing piano lessons together.

First, I'd suggest a physical therapist, kinesiologist, or doctor to try and diagnose your specific problem. If that's not an option, and you want to try to self diagnose or experiment to see if you can resolve it yourself, some things you could try: Warm up before and cool down after your shift. Try a good dynamic warm up routine (google could help) before your shifts to loosen your joints and get your muscles ready. After a shift, try some controlled movements or stretching to keep things loose. Tai Chi, Yoga, etc. Similarly, try some kind of stretching or movements on your off days. Nothing too strenuous, but something to get those limbs moving and blood flowing. I've seen many people have success with foam rolling tight muscles. I've never tried it, but maybe something you could look at.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I wound up repeating the final week twice, but each repeat, I tried to do Monday - hold my pace under 8 min for as long as I can, jog it out, then see if i can push back up like an interval. Wednesday, nice easy jog, 10:30 or more, Friday, try to maintain my goal pace for the duration. Not sure if it helped, but I ran the race today, and finished 404 out of 1200 at 29:04 (9:17/mi average). My goal was to break 30 min, and I met my goal, so I'm happy. Debating now whether I want to do one of the 5k improver programs to see if I can get faster with this event, or if I want to do a 5k - 10k bridge program and start trying to walk my distances up to halfs and eventually full marathons. Happy decisions to ponder I suppose. Thanks again.

A little over a month ago, I decided to sign up for my first 5k and started using the rundouble C25K app. I allotted more than nine weeks from starting the program before the date of my race on the advice of the internets claiming that many people need to repeat a week or two in the program. Well, so far, I'm in Week 6 and haven't needed to do that. In fact, when I did the twenty minute run workout I felt really good averaging a 9:30 pace (my race goal for the first one is to try and come in under 10min/mile). So I'm looking at the calendar and realizing that if I don't wind up needing to repeat two weeks between now and the final week, I'm going to have two weeks before the race with no idea what's appropriate training (I am an utter running noob armed only with a smartphone app, a few tips from a coworker, and a few articles from lazy Google searches). JFGI didn't return any obvious or consensus answers, so I figured I'd stop in with my Rebellion friends and see if anyone has any suggestions. The last few weeks of the app seem to be just straight timed runs that add two minutes to the run each week, so is it as simple as continuing that pattern for a couple weeks and getting into longer runs, is there a type of workout I could do that would help me use the time to push my pace, or should I just repeat the last week a couple times to maintain? Any advice or opinion is greatly appreciated.

I missed a workout Tuesday, and have had a rough couple days. Just feeling drained and stressed out. I tried to make myself shake it off yesterday. I logged all my food again and got back into the gym. I hit my sets and reps deadlifting 165, so I'm going up to 170 next time. I've also been more aggressively dropping the assistance weight on the pull up/chin up/wide grip pullups in my plan. Since I alternate through the three of them each workout, I've been (and I'll keep doing it as long as I can keep hitting the reps) cycling my assistance weight downward relying on the fact that the wide grip and chin up variations are harder and easier than normal pull ups respectively. The way it has worked is workout 1 I do pullups with 110lbs of help. Workout 2, I do wide grip variation with 120lbs of help. Workout 3 I do chinups with 100lbs of help. Workout 4 I start the cycle over with regular pull ups at 100lbs of help. I've gone through three cycles, and each time I do the pull up workout at the lower assistance I just barely hit all the reps, but by the time I cycle through the next two workouts and come back to it, I'm just barely able to get all the reps with less help. If I get to a point where I can't keep the constant progression with the three workout cycles, I'll add a fourth with body weight negatives that will probably look something like 1. pull up, 2. wide grip 10lbs more help, 3. bw negatives, 4. chin up 10lbs less help I think I need to remind myself what I've accomplished already in less than a month's time to try and reinspire myself. I've progressed 30lbs closer to my goal of unassisted pull ups. I'm working my way toward a 200lb deadlift. My hip flexibility has improved enough that when I went for a bike ride I felt more comfortable leaning forward into the bars while I rode, and I'm now having more trouble with balance than flexibility when it comes to getting my squat form down. I've dropped about 3lbs total, and when I look in the mirror against my 'before' posture picture, I feel like I see a little bit of improvement. All this in less than a month is HUGE and if I just stick with it, I can keep moving forward.

The 'punishing' comment was meant more as a half joke because the ride home was harder than I had planned. I know some people struggle with themselves emotionally when they fall off diets but I've gotten used to it. I've been going up and down over almost three years now, and as long as it's more down than up, I can accept it. It took me almost ten years to get up to 280, and I haven't been below 220 since I was in middle school, so right now I'm tied for the 'best shape of my life.' I want to go further, and I want to get better, but I'm not a professional athlete, fitness model, or really anyone whose livelihood depends on that level of discipline. I love going for rides with my daughter, and she seems to enjoy going to the grocery store, (She can name most of the items in the produce section at two, so I'm happy about that) and it was an excuse for some light easy activity to get out and enjoy the weather. I can't wait until my son turns 1 so I can bring him too without disobeying my pediatrician's recommendation for the bike trailer (apparently the bouncing/vibration of bike trailers in kids under 1YO has been linked to 'shaken baby syndrome' like symptoms and she suggests better safe than sorry). I basically granny geared my way up the climbs...probably could have walked faster, but that trailer was heavy. A bunch of heavier liquid items were on sale at better than normal prices, so I stocked up, two gallons of milk, two large glass bottles of EVOO, the white wine vinegar I like for dressings, plus our normal produce load, 5lbs of oatmeal, 2lbs of coffee... I need to remember to shop like I rode my bike on trips when I ride my bike LOL.

RIP win streak. Blew it again this weekend, with no holiday for an excuse. It was getting late Saturday, I was working on a term project and the kids were getting hungry, so we decided to order pizza for a quick dinner. I should have known better. The combination of stress and my old weakness/nemesis of pizza. Before I knew it, I'd eaten almost an entire medium pizza by myself. After a day of not tracking my eating at all. I think I nuked any calorie deficit I might have cultivated during the week with that one. The only upside to the weekend was an unseasonably warm day yesterday that let me put my daughter in the bike trailer and head up to the grocery store. There are a couple solid hill climbs on the way home, and with probably 80 - 100lbs in the trailer between my daughter and the groceries, I guess I punished myself a bit for my indiscretion. I'm hardly surprised to see no significant movement on the scale this morning. No sense getting mad about it. I know my weaknesses, and I succumbed to one of them. All I can do is get back to it. Today has started well, I had my oatmeal/protein powder mix for breakfast. Haven't eaten my banana yet, I'm saving that in case I need a snack. Going to hit the weights in about two and a half hours. The only way to avenge a loss is to grab a win, and start stringing wins together into a streak.

Now I just need to make myself cry in the gym... So I can say I put blood, sweat, and tears into rebuilding my body. Scuffed my shins up pretty good with the deadlifts today. Maybe I should wear longer socks for these workouts... Hit all the reps easy enough and had enough gas left in the tank for another set or two if I wanted, so next DL workout I'll go up to 165x5. It's been a while since I deadlifted regularly, so I was pretty conservative on the weight I started with. I don't want to get hurt by doing too much too soon, but I feel like somewhere between 175 and 185 is probably the zone where I'd be just barely able to complete all reps with proper form. If I do well with 165 next time, I'll start bumping it up 5lbs per workout as long as I complete all the reps with proper form (I could even increment by 2.5lbs as I discovered the work gym doesn't have a power rack, but it does have a few 1.25lb plates). If I'm right on those numbers it just tells me one thing: 200lbs is close enough to taste and seems like a good short term goal to try and punch through that barrier within a few months as I get stronger. My sets are lower reps than workouts I did in the past, and I'm pushing higher weights to try and get stronger, and so far it seems to be working faster than my past efforts. I know gains are much easier to come by early in a workout, so I'm not going to let myself get to swelled up in the head by it, but it feels pretty good to increase the weight after hitting all the reps in one workout, then come in for the next workout, grab the heavier weight, and rock out all the reps again.

I am not at all a medical professional, so my overarching caveat is ask your doctor if you're unsure. That said, what if you started doing some bodyweight squats, or circle back to an empty bar for a few workouts? Something with minimal load that will allow you to get those muscles moving again without risking further injury. The empty bar option might also give you an opportunity to check your form carefully, because my understanding is that lower back injuries from squatting are typically caused by either too much weight too fast or improper form and since you've said you were following the progressive loading in small increments carefully, it may have been a form problem.

Yesterday counts as a win. I stayed within my calories and did my workout. I went pretty hard on my workout. I decided to be a bit more aggressive with progressive loading than I was before. Before, I was mainly concerned with not losing too much muscle while losing fat, so my rule was add weight when you complete all reps and feel like you could do more. This time, I'm borrowing the progressive idea from stronglifts that if I hit all the reps, the weight goes up. Period. If I don't hit all reps, I'll stay at the same weight and if I get stuck for three consecutive workouts I'll drop down and start stepping back up. I won't progress as quickly with my program as it is now, but I feel pretty good so far about the results I'm seeing to address some of my worst muscle imbalances and mobility issues. I'm loosely planning to stick with this program for about a year with minor adjustments as needed. By next spring, I'll hit up craigslist and closeout sales (getting rid of the stuff they didn't sell to resolutioners) to put together my home gym, and then I think I'll move into the stronglifts program and really start to work strength. I think following this program for a year will make sure that when I move into that type of program I'm able to execute the movements (especially squats...if I tried to load a bar right now, I'd give half squats at best) with proper form. This is me. I have to keep dreaming big for the future, or I lose myself in the daily slog. I've been feeling stressed this week. Between school deadlines and my son being ill over the weekend (he's getting better now, and it wound up being nothing major but I'm still a relatively new parent and seeing him that far out of character had my heart in knots), it's been a pretty emotionally draining week. I find myself better able to let go of stress when I daydream about what could be if I just stick it out and keep working. To that end, I've added a couple points to my level 50 goals. First, I'm going to officially say that a bodyweight in the area of 230lbs with a body fat percentage in the 14-17% range is me at level 50. Second, at level 50, I will be a member of the 1000lb club. It might take a few years of hard work, but anything is possible, and I would absolutely love to come back to this thread and post video of my 1RM for bench, deadlift, and squat to prove my membership.

I'm a big fan of hearty soups/stews/goulashes. You can stash a lot of veggies in a pot and not notice them if the stock is quality and the flavorings are good. Big chunks of carrots, celery, onion, squash (add summer squashes late to your soups or they'll cook away to nothing but mush, heavier squash like butternut or acorn can be added earlier since it likes the longer cooking times), cabbage, potatoes (sweet or regular), turnips, and more. Beans are amazing, kidney beans, garbanzos, black beans, navy beans, all of them add tooth and texture to a good stew. I eat mostly vegetarian, and beans + rice = a pretty good protein source, so I do a fair bit of dishes where I'll take vegetable stock (homemade preferably, but low sodium stuff works) instead of water in the amount called for on the rice package and cook the rice. In another pot I cook a bag of frozen mixed vegetables (there are a bunch of different veggie blends available depending on your grocery store, so you can experiment with what you like). Then I mix the cooked rice and vegetables with a well rinsed can of beans and bring it all back up to temperature either on the stove or in the microwave. Season with salt and pepper, and if you want to play with flavors without thinking too much, wander down the spice aisle at your grocery store and look for some of the no-salt spice blends. There are dozens of options, most of them aping a specific flavor profile, like cajun, mesquite bbq, italian, lemon pepper, etc.

I did ask. Unfortunately, as our company has grown, they changed their model. At one point, they were providing gyms at every facility, but they have so many facilities that I'm told it's 'not cost effective' to put more in all of the new facilities. Because they feel it's unfair to employees in other facilities, they've made the decision to continue to maintain existing gyms for those facilities that already have them, but they won't invest in any further improvements to those existing gyms...I get it, and I'm still happy with the perk of having free access to a gym that I can visit during my lunch breaks, but it would be nice if it had a power rack. I think a home gym setup might be more cost effective if I really need to switch. I was pricing buying new on Amazon (and could probably get things cheaper if I hunt Craigslist), and I come up with about $1500 for a 300lb olympic set with 7ft bar, power rack, adjustable bench (that could actually handle my body weight and the amount of weight I'd like to someday be able to bench...), selecttech dumbbells, and rubber flooring tiles including shipping on some of the overweight items from marketplace vendors. Even if I paid that full retail it wouldn't take very long to recoup that over the cost/aggravation of finding a local gym that actually has the equipment, the cost/time of traveling to/from the gym, and of course the membership fees for access. I think I'll see how I'm doing over time working with what I have and keeping your suggestions in mind and start socking my pennies away. Hopefully by the time I truly need a proper back squat option to keep progressing, I'll be in a position to scour CL deals for what I need.

2 day win streak in the books. I almost didn't win yesterday. I had a small lunch, and a small quick dinner. I needed to raid the fridge after dinner looking for a few extra calories to get to my goal. Found a couple hardboiled eggs left from Easter and a small container of leftover pasta e olio that got me up to the mark without nuking my macro ratios. I was a bit surprised after logging my dinner that I had come up so short. Yesterday would have been an easy day to phone in my diet since I'm in the midst of a major deadline for my group term project (and one of my group members didn't pull their weight, so the other two of us are stressing trying to fill in the gap before Sunday), and came directly home from working on a computer to sit on my computer and crank through some schoolwork. There's still a bucket of my kid's Easter candy sitting on the counter that I managed to avoid sneaking into (My wife did me a favor and hid it this morning to make it easier to portion it out to the kids a little bit at a time, because we want to encourage health but not total self deprivation, and just like it's a temptation for me to see the bucket, the kids will ask for candy all day if it's in sight and in mind). Workout yesterday felt really good again. I dropped 10lbs off my assistance weight for dips, and still hit all reps and sets, and I even got a little bit deeper into the movement than I have in the past. If I were to hit my weight loss goal, that 30lb subtraction would leave me only 20lbs away from unassisted dips, so that's something to look forward to. Bodyweight squats...my mobility isn't all the way there yet to start adding weight to it, but I'm getting closer. I switched from box squats to plain old vanilla BW squats. There were maybe 6 reps out of my 3x10 that I didn't get full range of motion or maintain proper form. A couple due to lost balance (since I'm used to slightly unloading on the box at the bottom), a couple due to my heels coming off the floor, one where I couldn't quite get my butt down enough, and one where I caught my back rounding slightly. I've got to get the form down and mobility addressed before I start loading them. I'm still not sure how I'm going to go about loading my squats when I get to that point. The gym I go to (free gym facility at work, can't afford a membership elsewhere) doesn't have squat racks. My options seem to be learning to clean into front squats with a barbell (doable, but I'd have a bit of a learning curve since I haven't worked clean since high school football, and I've never worked front squats), using the Smith machine as a lesser evil because it's there, or trying variations with dumbbells/kettlebells. I've got some time to think about it since I'm guessing I'll need at least a few more weeks to get my form solid. For now, I'm leaning toward goblet squats with a dumbbell as a start to loading the motion, but I know at some point I'll want and need to go heavier. Maybe a mix and match philosophy where split squats/goblet squats provide the free range of motion and stabilizing muscles, clean and front squats for similar motion and slightly different muscle activity, and sets on the Smith to allow me to load heavier than I can clean when I need to do that. Idk. I never liked squatting on the Smith in high school when the rules were you had to 'learn to squat' with it before you could work in the racks, so I'm really not thrilled with that option.

New win streak started. 1 day in the books successfully. My workout was rather disjointed yesterday. For some strange reason, the time slot I visit the gym where it is usually empty or empty minus a couple of folks on the treadmills/bikes/ellipticals was a happening time. I couldn't work through my circuits as circuits, because the place was too busy for me to monopolize that much space/equipment, so I tried to go with super setting instead (I still have a pretty tight half hour time limit, so if I don't work through my recoveries from one exercise with another, I won't fit it all in). There were some good things: After discussing with Urgan, I decided to put deadlifting back into my routine. Repped 145x5 in three sets and it felt really good, so good in fact, I'm going to increase the weight for next time and see how that feels. I still had some left in me after my third set, so I'm pretty sure I can handle a bit more. Dropped ten lbs off my assistance weight for pull ups. That's a step in the right direction. I've got a ways to go yet to get to full bodyweight pull ups, but hopefully the early progress is a good sign for this program and in a year I'll be there. There was a little bad: My flexibility seemed off yesterday. I've been working a lot on stretching my hips after my workouts. One of my favorites is borrowing child's pose from the yogis, but yesterday, even after thirty seconds, I just couldn't breathe and relax my way into as deep of a stretch as I've gotten out of the pose before. My hips just felt very solid. Hopefully it was just a fluke. My hypothesis is maybe lifting in more traditional supersets didn't keep my muscles as warm as zipping through full body circuits usually does, so hopefully that's all it is. Diet: Made a really good salad and dressing for dinner and had enough left over to pack some for lunch today. Iceberg lettuce, spinach, carrots, grape tomatoes, chickpeas, and black olives. Dressing was white wine vinegar, garlic, herbs provence, crushed red pepper, EVOO salt and pepper. It really hit the spot. On that note, I've been surprised to find myself not really feeling deprived or hungry so far and other than Easter haven't had to work too hard to stay on track. Hopefully I can keep seeing weight loss at this calorie intake, because I feel pretty comfortable maintaining it for a while. Once I get into the neighborhood of 190-200lbs, I can ramp up the calories to maintenance level or a little over, try to make the extra calories come mostly from protein, and start really and truly lifting for strength and muscle gains. If I were to wind up back around 230 some day, I'd be ok with that, but only if my body fat percentage were at or below 15% (hypothetically speaking, if I were 230+ with 15% or lower body fat, I would be a freaking BEAST, can you say possible level 50 goal?).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2990627/ The only thing I can think of is the research into weight 'set points' similar to the article linked above. There are also some thoughts I've heard (but not necessarily substantiated) that were floated as counter points to the thrifty gene idea. Specifically, the idea that depending on the prevailing climate of a population while it evolved, some groups of humans were selected for greater or lesser degrees of thermogenesis, directly impacting metabolism and susceptibility to the calorically dense but nutritively deficient Western Diets.

I am very sorry to hear that your reality has been such a challenge. I know everyone's journeys are different, and while weight loss is never easy, for some it is far easier than for others. I'm glad to see you're here, still fighting, and sharing your experience with others.

Alright. I put together a 6 day winning streak, continuing until Saturday. Sunday, I knew Easter at the in-laws would be a challenge, and my resolve lasted about a half hour into things. Then I got comfortable and old habits took over, overindulging accompanied by socializing. I'm ok with it. After all, there aren't any more holidays for a while, so if I got derailed one day by a holiday, I should have no problem keeping a longer streak alive without a holiday interruption. Back at it today. Weigh-in this morning showed a drop of 3.2 lbs. A bit over my 2lb/week goal, but I'm not going to adjust calories just yet. In the past, when I start to get back on the wagon, I have seen bigger than expected losses in the first week, and then they level out at a fairly consistent pace, so I'm going to give the current eating plan one more week. If next Monday comes with a drop of over 2lbs from today, I'll try to math out an appropriate caloric intake adjustment, if it comes in between 1 and 2, I'll consider my plan dialed in for now and stick with it, and if less than 1, I'll give it another week and average out any weight change over three weeks to make a decision about how effective my plan is.

Logged another win yesterday. That makes four straight. I'm averaging between 1700 and 1800 calories eaten, and ballparking my strength circuit training adding up to 200-300 extra calories burned over my historically sedentary existence. I have no idea the accuracy of that number, but I found a few places that give estimates higher and lower than that based on the activity, my age/gender/weight and average heart rate, so I picked the middle of the road and am going with it for now. I'll adjust my calorie intake up or down depending on the results I see. I've also started sneaking in a little bit more exercise. At my work, the parking lot is quite large and wraps around the building. There are limited spots close to the admin areas at the front of the building that people tend to try and arrive strategically when night shift workers are getting off to snag the prime spots...Well I've been avoiding even looking for spots in that area by entering the lot at the second entrance a few hundred yards down the road and parking in the first spot I find toward the back. I estimate that I'm adding somewhere between a quarter and half mile total of extra walking each day with that. I did add deadlift to my back/pull workout yesterday in place of the back extensions. For now, I think I'll try the alternating between the two exercises in that slot, so I'll deadlift every other pull/back workout and see how my body reacts. The fun part is going to be keeping my eating on track over the weekend. With Easter lunch at my in-laws on Sunday, and a busy Saturday planned, sticking to eating well is sure to be a challenge, but I'll do the best I can to keep making good decisions. The last thing I want to do is break a solid five day streak of success.

That was a thought I had as possibility as well. Since I switch out certain exercises within the work out days and I've seen some on the boards here mention that deadlifting too frequently burns them out physically, I wonder if it would make sense to alternate, so week one when Pull workouts are on TT, I do deadlifts on Tues, back extensions on thurs, then on week 2 when pull is MWF I do deadlifts monday and friday, and back extensions on wednesday?

Ok. That helps. Thank you. Negatives are in my 'pull up' rotation, along with a few different assisted variations to get different muscle groups more attention on certain days. Every pull/back workout includes a 'pull up' component using one of the variations, along with alternating back flys or DB rows to try and further isolate my back muscles (I think they're the weak link in my pull up chain, since I can do more biceps heavy chin ups with about 20lbs less assistance than pull ups, and need 10lbs more assistance on wide grip pull ups than regular in order to hit all reps/sets). If I'm breaking out my workout into push/legs one day, pull/back the next, do you have any thoughts on where I might fit deadlifts into it? They cross back and leg muscle groups, so I'm not sure where they'd fit. I was thinking about maybe just doing Friday deadlifts, so that one week they would be on a pull/back day, and the next week on a push/legs day, but they would always be followed by two full active recovery days with no strength training. Does that sound logical, or do you think there's a better way?