weirdquark

Bring Sally Up HSPU: holy crap.

You don't even have to go paleo at all -- I read an article today on the CarbSane Asylum blog talking about someone who tried eating nothing but potatoes for two months and lost 20 pounds because even though he was aiming to eat 20 potatoes a day (2200 calories) to maintain his weight he couldn't manage to eat more than 1500 calories a day because he felt too full.

Oh good.

Definitely. I would totally take a strongman seminar/do training if I had the opportunity; it sounds super badass.

Hooray! Is eating average macros something you'll keep up now that you've recovered? Could be that it just works better for you than carb cycling in general and not just when you're feeling bleh.

You didn't sound whinny, I was just mocking Texas a bit. You could try doing more front squats instead of back squats-- with those you can't get away with not being upright enough because if you go too far forward you have to dump the bar instead of doing a good morning the way you do with back squats, so it's a good way to practice bracing your core.

"Chubby" girls in Japan. A friend of mine from college lives in Japan and says she recently saw a weight loss add where the 'before' picture had a woman with a thigh gap that would have been the 'after' picture anywhere else. Not that I'm going to stop bitching about the beauty standards we have in the US, but ye gods, Japan.

Spousal unit can suck it. Tell him he's just jealous that you can eat lots of food and still lose weight. I also can't imagine not training for a 5K but I don't run enough and am not sure I could run the entire thing without stopping on no preparation. Last time I tried to work up to a 5K I managed to get to a sub-9 minute mile running the entire time by running once a week for six weeks but it also took me four weeks to be able to run the entire time, so after months and months of not running at all? Yeah, I'd want to practice a bit first.

I've never actually seen Mean Girls but I read the summary and thought it sounded like Heathers except with fewer explosions.

Front Squats: Nemesis! Went a bit higher than usual on the heavy single, though not a new PR and I think not a new morning PR either. Triples felt extra solid, so I'm pleased with that. KB Swings: 100 rep minimum.

Well, everything IS bigger in Texas, but you'd think that would mean the gravity would be higher. Doing something else instead of NRoLfW because you didn't want to do NR is totally valid, though I'm sorry you ended up disappointed. If you want to work on core strength, you could try New Rules of Lifting for Abs instead? It has a similar structure (so I don't know if you'd like it better or if you'd have the same problems with it) but the exercises are focused on involving the core more. I tried it but didn't finish; I ended up wanting to focus on the big lifts and lifting heavy and super setting was a pain because with the numbers I was using I had to unload my barbell and dumbbell between each lift because I didn't have enough plates to set both up and leave them alone the whole time. But I did like it better than NRoLfW.

Fighting over 25lb plates with another woman does sound awesome. Hopefully you will see her again and can be workout buddies!

Squats: Hopeful that my previous efforts and higher heavy single meant I could consistently get the max I had been getting, I upped the weights on my warm-up to push progress. Moderate success; I failed my attempt to jump up to a heavier triple, skipping my usual warm-up triple, but repeated it after my usual triple weight and jumped up to a heavier double from there. But after that I got a slightly higher single but still not my usual one, never mind meeting my previous 1RM. Still, doing more or heavier warm-up sets will help push up my top weight, so sticking with it. 1-arm DB OHP: None of my sets were unbroken this time but I added a rep to a set. So one step forward, one back? Deadlifts: Successfully added weight and did all of my planned doubles.

I don't know, I think you can say that you had an awesome thing happen which you can't go into details about for reasons and we can share your happiness and excitement without knowing what you're talking about. So yay!

It does! Also a high risk of eating disorders! Sigh.

Yeah, once ballet stopped being running around and pretending to gracefully leap over puddles and seemed to be going in the direction of Serious Business instead of fun, I told my parents I wanted to quit. Then I started being interested in tap when I got to high school and wanted to do musicals. I occasionally think about picking up a more serious class -- I got to take a few in college for gym but I haven't done much with it since.

It's more important to keep track of how much the bar weighs if you're likely to use different sizes of bars -- I have a 6' standard (uses plates with a 1" hole) bar at home and the gym has the usual Olympic men's bar, which is 7' and uses plates with a 2" hole. The Olympic bar weighs about 45 pounds. Mine is more like 15. You can also sometimes find a women's Olympic bar at the gym which I think weights 35 pounds. So if I was just paying attention to how much weight the plates weighed at home and then went to the gym and tried to put my usual plates on the bar, I'd likely get flattened from the sudden 30 pound jump. In terms of tracking your progress, it doesn't matter what the bar weighs, but in general you want to know what you're actually lifting, so yeah, count it.

Most of the time when you hit post and it doesn't do anything, it's posted. So when I hit post and it doesn't do anything, I copy my post just in case and refresh the page. At least 90% of the time my post is there after all.

I took ballet when I was four or five and quit, so I never got anywhere near en pointe. I'm of sad that I stopped, or at least I wish I had tried tap or jazz instead because I love dancing and would like to have had years of training and it's hard to find classes for adults. Also, dancers need to be crazy strong. On the other hand, lots of body image issues that I'm glad I didn't have to deal with.

You should combine them!

Does that mean your co-worker can go home?

Woot! Deadlifts! Muay Thai! I don't greet everyone I see as I'm walking around (which is kind of funny because when I moved here I was told that it was a 'howdy' town and people would be offended if I didn't howdy them back. So I say hi when I get a howdy but otherwise mutually ignore the other people who are walking around.) But I do always say hello and thank you to people like bus drivers or the person taking my order or at the register. We are having an interaction! They are providing me with a service! And having worked in public service myself, you do appreciate the people who are polite and friendly to you and want to provide them with superior service than you do when you get the ones who are rude.

I need to remember to eat the edamame in the freezer....

Yeah, sounds like something germy. Hope it passes soon, but in the meantime take it easy!

We've been swinging back and forth between weather in the 60s and 70s and closing things on campus early and opening everything back up late within the space of a few days. As a transplanted Yankee, I do know how to drive on snow and ice. Slowly, carefully, and after the roads have been plowed and sanded. And when the roads haven't been sanded? I'm not going to be able to apply my brakes on ice any better than the locals just because I've had more experience driving in bad weather than they have.