My Big Why

[BearKey]

I just joined up.  Taking those photos was ROUGH.   Really rough.  Here is my Big Why.  I may need to work on it, but for now, here is my Why:

 

 

I hate the way I look and feel most days.  I am ashamed of how out of shape I have let myself become.  My posture is closing in on itself—probably as much from my self-disgust as from the extra weight and lack of muscle tone, especially in my core.  I want to ...no, I WILL strengthen my core muscles so that I can be more erect again—strong and tall and attractive.  I WILL lose 80 pounds by April 1st, 2019.   I WILL become more active and find ways/opportunities to use activity to fill my life with meaning and FUN, which will increase my social life and be FUN.  All of this will get me to where I want to be—fully me, fully alive, and living a full last third of my life.  I will live a healthy active life well into my 90’s!

 

 

Yes. I. Will.  

[Elastigirl]

Welcome. Love your goal to strengthen your core and improve your posture.

[Defining]

Welcome!

 

A few tips for posture: scapular wall slides, thoracic foam rolling, and banded face pulls should be your bread & butter - at least once a day each, if not more. Manual massage or using a tennis/lacrosse ball on your chest muscles and lats is also crucial (and painful, ohmyg-d painful - but necessary). I'd recommend working on breathing too (yes, I know how silly that sounds), specifically diaphragmatic breathing - this not only helps engage those muscles that you should be breathing with anyway, but it's really difficult to do when your shoulders are crunched in, so the breath itself will remind you to pull the scaps down and away from your ears (a good cue for posture is to 'tuck your shoulder blades in your back pocket', rather than pulling your shoulders back). A really nice stretch is the thoracic bridge, which hits all the good spots. I also like to do sun salutations when I wake up in the morning, as a reminder and warm up before I get going for the day.

 

Don't neglect your hips; you'd be shocked at how much tight hip flexors/inactive glutes can make good posture harder. Many people have what's called 'anterior pelvic tilt' - think Donald Duck - which pulls your back out of alignment and often causes other muscles to tense up to compensate; the best suggestion I have to counter that is RKC planks. I'd recommend (also daily) any glute activation exercises you enjoy (firehydrant, bird dog, glute bridge, etc.) in addition to practicing a deep squat regularly (AKA 'third world' squat or 'Garland Pose/Malasana' in yoga) which is not a strength movement, but just a position that helps loosen things up. I also like goblet squats and zercher squats to help reinforce an upright torso posture. A few other ideas: https://www.t-nation.com/training/bulletproof-your-body

 

Depending on how much you weigh, and how much free time you have, maybe 50lbs by 04/2019 would be a better goal than 80lbs? Totally up to you, but I'd love to see you set yourself up for success, and 1lb/week is a great rate of fat loss. One of the easiest/nobrainer ways to work on fat loss is to fill up with a fist size portion of protein and at least 2 fist sized veg servings at every meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner), and then no more than another fist of starch - if you're still hungry, you could follow up with a piece of fruit. And then snacks should be a card deck sized portion of protein and either a veg or fruit if you need more; you can always fill up with chilled green tea in between meals & snacks to stay hydrated/less hungry.

 

But also feel free to ignore these suggestions, since this journey is about what works for YOU!

 

'Hope to see you 'round the boards!