MoePower

Awesome stuff. Type 1 is definitely hard to control. I'm trying to get my friend who suffers severely from Celiac disease to try the Paleo diet since I've read that it is very friendly to the gluten-free lifestyle. I need to read more into this

I absolutely live on BSN Lean Dessert Protein Shakes http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/bsn/dessert.html It's got a lot less calories than the other protein shakes I used to get. In generally I just love BSN and Gaspari Nutrition products...I can never seem to go wrong with them.

I do believe I will take part in this 28 day challenge! In about a month, I will be moving back to Maryland...and I want to make a "WOW!" return! When I left 2 and a half years ago, I was skinnyfat...but this time I want everyone in my family to be like "You have MUSCLES!". My 3 fitness goals: 1) Continue working on building my calves. They've always been somewhat skinny, so this one is rather important! I've incorporated some new routines as of last week for this, so we'll see how they pay off. I just need to stick with them. 2) Up my weight and bring my 4 sets down to 3 with lower reps. I feel my muscles are starting to get used to the weight I'm at now. 3) Do more cardio (<~ I've been reeeeeeeaally slacking on this! I just need motivation). I need to get in and do some 10-15 minutes of HIIT on the elliptical. I'm gonna throw a 4th one in there for kicks....DRINK MORE WATER! I'm going to fill up a gallon every day and take it with me wherever I go and I will force myself to finish it. I'm not getting enough hydration. My personal life goal will be: try not to have a nervous panic attack and worry myself sick about my move back to Maryland. I worry and cause too much stress on myself when I have a big change coming.

Welcome In some way, I'm so happy I never went off to a University for college...I'm so sure I would have also gained the Freshman 15! It's great that you wanna lose it though. A lot of people I know who went away to college still have it and don't wanna do anything about it. Skydiving....just thinking about it gives me vertigo! Hah. More props to you, though. Good luck to you and your goals

I would love to try out Parkour, but knowing my luck, I'd break something my first day. I have a lot of respect for people who stick with it, though.

I'm in a pretty sweet spot. The Apartment complex I live in has free gym membership to this place called City Club which is otherwise usually super expensive to join. It's about a two minute walk from my house....so whenever I get done work, I usually head straight over there. Unless it's a leg day, then I go later in the evening...that way, it's not too crowded when I do my lunges

Welcome to the forums! Nice Job shedding all that unwanted fat. All it takes is that determination. I find it so funny that once someone starts lifting heavy, they start to see incredible progress...and then after they see that, it becomes a (good) addiction and keeps you going.

Indeed it does cause some water retention (but being a female, that comes with the territory anyway), but it's honestly not anything to be worried about. I find eating a lot of sodium does worse things to me. I also cycle on and off of it. You don't really need to do that, I just personally do. I'll usually go for about two weeks and then off two weeks. I'm fairly new to creatine (only been using it for about 2-3 months) so there is still a lot I'm sure I have to learn. As for weight loss, creatine isn't a weight loss supplement by any means. I've heard a few different sides to the story on whether or not it helps in overall fat loss though. Some folks I know swear that it does and some don't. Perhaps it's the extra energy one can feel when on it that makes someone workout that little extra which ultimately helps in fat reduction! I definitely noticed better gym performance since I started taking it. It just gives muscles the energy they need and can help increase lean muscle mass and recovery. I would recommend it for any type of active person...even if you don't want to bulk. If you run a whole lot, I'm not sure you'd have to worry about that anyway! Plus, who wouldn't want lean muscle mass?

Rest days are just as important as any other day! When you work out with the proper intensity and your muscles get sore (the good kind of sore), you need to let that muscle group rest. The soreness is caused by microscopic tears in the muscle fibers. So like Robotrogue said, it's very important to let your muscles heal and repair. I take a creatine/glutamine drink mix to help with that as well.

Hey Everyone! Nerd + Fitness = me pretty much. Anyway, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Shannon but everyone usually refers to me as Moe. I've had that nickname for so long that I pretty much forgot why I got it in the first place. I currently live in the humid state of Louisiana but I am and always will be a Maryland girl at heart. Most of my time is spent working from my home as a Graphic Designer for a company back in my home state. I really love my job and couldn't ask to be in a better position in my life. I live with my Husband (getting married on April 15th so I guess that is close enough) and my fat-ass cat named Lucy in a cozy little apartment with horrible internet service! I met my hubby several years ago while I was a part of an online gaming forum and for the longest time he and I played Halo 2 together without every really taking much interest in one another. Eventually, our gaming community had a huge lan party in Virgina Beach, VA and that is when we met face to face for the first time....and it's allllll history from there! I started going to the gym about two years ago (my Husband is a fitness buff) and for the longest time I didn't take it seriously enough to see the results that I wanted; therefore, I got super discouraged. I went in to it set on spending countless of hours doing nothing but cardio because that is what I was always told to do...women do cardio to get fit! Right? WRONG!!!! After dealing with some personal things in my life (and horrible fitness advice), I finally realized that I wanted to be really fit, healthy and perhaps one day enter a natural female figure competition. I did a lot of personal research and realized that women DON'T need to workout any differently then men do! That's when I bought some gloves and hit the weight room as hard as I could. A year and a half later, I'm still spending 95% of my time in the weight room busting my buns and lifting heavy....I've seen more results than I could have ever imagined. So now, I'm in the process of trying to find a good starter natural bodybuilding competition for me to compete in and hopefully I can do something within the next year! That's pretty much all I have for now...if anyone wants to know anything else, please don't hesitate to ask. I hope to stick around here for a long time! -Moe