Gonna be fitbyforty

[fitbyforty]

Hi everyone!  I'm a 37 year old mom of two.  I'm morbidly obese at 5ft, 260 lbs.  I'm at my heaviest weight to date.  I have had some  weight loss successes and I've had some failures, but I'm here for the first time and trying again.  I feel like it's life or death, I've felt like that before, but it's so in my face right now that I can't ignore it. I'm losing my mobility because my lower back hurts easily now and that's embarrassing to admit because it wasn't but a few years ago that I could squat over 200 lbs. I have lost over 60 lbs multiple times and gained it back.  I was in a car wreck and injured my back and I had a foot injury after that, and I'm embarrassed to say I just gave up at that point.  I am hoping that I can make lasting habits this time.   I want a better quality of life.  I just joined my first challenge here.   https://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/topic/113680-fitbyfortys-first-challenge/  and I'm hoping it can help me jumpstart some better habits.  I plan to log there for the challenge, but I know it will take me many challenges to meet my goals. 

 

Long term goals

- lose 125 lbs by the time I'm 40 (in a little over 2 and a half years) and be living a more active and healthy life.

- participate in spartan races by the time I turn 40.

 

Current Challenge Goals

- only drink water, coffee, Gatorade zero (no cokes or juice)

- Go to the gym at least 3 times a week

- no fast food

- take breaks from my work to stretch throughout the day

- journal daily

[fitbyforty]

Finding a new normal in the gym isn't fun, I'm not psyched like I used to be after hitting the gym, but I am glad I went.   My main goal with lifting is to regain back strength (was damaged in a wreck a few years ago and now tenses up and hurts when doing everyday tasks), lift heavy to help my body composition and longer term weight loss goals, and improve my functional strength and stamina.  I have to keep reminding myself that I am crawling now.  I do feel good about today and even though I need to make some changes in my next lower body workout, I am glad I skipped the cardio and went to the strength training.  Because of my lower back, walking on the treadmill and the elliptical make my back seize up after only a few minutes, so I think my time is better spent strength training right now. 

 

Today's Workout (lbs) (short rests)

Leg press (with free weight leg press, not band) - 180x12, 180x10, 180x 8

Adduction- 100x9, 100x5, 100x5

Abduction - 115x12, 115x10, 115x8

Back extension - 100x10, 100x10, 100x6

Hydromassage bed 10 mins

 

Note: I cut the workout short after back extensions because I could not get my lower back to loosen up.  I'll redo the order next lower workout so I can finish. 

 

[fitbyforty]

I got up this morning really sore, this stupid, wonderful soreness that makes you proud you made good decisions the day before. I really did miss the gym and I'm so glad I'm getting started again. Today was upper body and core. I don't even know the weights I used, as I forgot my notebook, but each exercise was 3 sets as heavy as I could starting with a rep range of 10-12 for the first set and then as many as I could do each set after.  

 

Chest press (oh man did I miss free weight bench press so I might use dumbells next time instead of the machine) 

lat pull down

shoulder press (machine) note: the angle and range of motion for this did not seem just so for me (I'm really short), so I will switch to dumbells next time

stability ball transfer crunch

full body stretching

 

Tomorrow I'm going to rest if I need it and if not I'm going to change things up and try the circuit at the gym. If I rest tomorrow I'll do the circuit on Friday.   For now I'm going to be giving my body time to adjust and in a few weeks I'll probably choose a routine to try for a while. 

 

 

[fitbyforty]

The weekend was good.  I ate reasonably and I kept up with my challenge goals. 

 

The gym kicked my butt this morning, but I really enjoyed myself.

 

For my warm up I moved around and stretched to loosen up my hips, back, and shoulders. 

(I'm trying a new way to count sets and reps.  I'm shooting for around 25 reps throughout the sets and once I reach 3 sets of 8 I'll go up in weight.)

(All lbs for measurements and short rests)

 

Leg press 180x10, 230x8x3

Chest press Machine 5 sets with 40 lbs  to failure each set

Seated cable row 3 sets of 55 lbs to failure each set

lat pull down - 4 sets of 70 lbs to failure each set

 (at this point I was pooped, ran out of steam.  hopefully I can finish the workout wed.) 

Hydro massage after 10 mins 

 

 

[fitbyforty]

Yesterday I did body weight exercises. 

So this morning my body was like "eh" about my workout yesterday, so I hit up the gym for a full body workout and it felt really good.

 

Stretching and moving around.

Leg press -  180x13, 270x8, 270x8, 270x6

Chest press machine - 40x12, 3 sets of 45 to failure. not sure of reps (between 5 and 8 reps each set)

Lat pull down - 70x10, 75x8, 75x8, 75x5

Seated DB shoulder press -  3 sets to failure with 20 lbs DBs (very slow and controlled throughout)

Seated cable row - 3 sets to failure with 45 lbs.

Back extension machine - 1 set with 85, 3 sets with 100, not sure of reps, kept at each set till my back started jumping too bad to continue. 

Went right to the hydro massage table this morning

[fitbyforty]

Did this about 1am this morning.  

(in lbs)

stretched



leg press - 270 x 10,  270x10, 320x8, 360x6, 360x6, 360x5

bench press (smiths machine) - 85x 7, 85x6, 85x6

lat pulldown = 3 sets of 75 lbs to failure

db shoulder press - 3 sets with 20 lbs dbs to failure

seated rows - 3 sets of 42.5 to failure

  

I;m getting excited about what my body can do now and still recover easily