Avistew's introduction thread

[Avistew]

Hi everyone!

I'm going to try and explain my situation in a lot of detail, so it's probably going to be long.

Part I: Stats

Gender: Female

Age: 27

Height: 5'5" (I thought I was 5'6" for years, does it count?)

Starting weight: 179lbs

Current weight: 159lbs

Starting waist: 34 1/2 inches

Current waist: 32 inches

Starting hips: 43 inches

Current hips: 41 1/3 inches

Starting/current biceps: 11 inches (no change)

Starting thigh: 21 inches

Current thigh: 20 inches

Part II: Goals

My main goal is to get stronger and fitter. I struggled with asthma all my childhood and teenage, and thought I was doomed never to be active. I had doctor's notes not to take part in gym classes. I remember when I was 17, I had a class on the fourth floor of my high school, and climbed the stairs slower than your average person. The class I had there was 2 hours long. After the first hour was over, I was still catching my breath.

Several years later, when I was in my early 20s, I spent a year in Alberta, Canada. It was winter, and pretty cold. I decided to go to the corner store to buy something (probably a bag of chips). I couldn't make it there. I was unable to breathe and ended up in the hospital.

These two events are what I remember when I start losing focus. I tell myself I never want anything like that to happen to me again. Thankfully, as I grew older, I realised that exercise was my friend and not my enemy. My asthma is much more in control now, although I'm still pretty scared of exercises such as running or swimming, which were the two worst (running because of the effort, swimming because of the "holding your breath" part)

So, in short, my goals is to be strong, and also to be able to breathe properly. In the process, I also expect to lose fat and get my body fat percentage in a healthy range.

Part III: Nutrition

Now, I have some other health issues apart from my asthma. Most notably, I can't digest meat. For years I was taking supplements with every meal just so I wouldn't get sick. I also had a big iron deficiency, and as a result was warned that there was no way I could ever be vegetarian. So I ate red meat every meal, took the enzymes or whatever they put in these pills, and took iron supplements.

When I was 24, though, I happened to be poor for a period of time, and I decided to cut meat, as vegetarian options were much cheaper. Since I was worried about my health, I went to the doctor (free in France, thankfully) to check regularly how it affected my health.

Turns out my iron went up the roof and I don't need any more supplements. (I also stopped having hypothyroid, since I'm talking about health. I doubt that has anything to do with nutrition, though. Although I guess you never know).

Long story short, I have really no desire to go back to the enzymes and supplements, and so the Paleo diet doesn't seem very suited to me. The lack of meat makes it harder to take in a lot of protein, though. I can have eggs fine, but I would need a LOT of them. I'm trying to figure out a good balance.

Other, related problem, is the amount of carbs. Since I get my protein mainly from a combination of legumes (lentils, beans, peas) and grains, I do take in a bunch of carbs.

Because of these two things, I'm thinking my strength gains might end up being much slower, and possibly my fat losses as well. I'm fine with it taking the time it needs, but I would love any advice that could help.

Right now I'm cutting, so on a calorie deficit, but trying to get in as much protein as possible so I can get stronger at the same time. Next year I'll be moving to the US, and I'll have regular access to a gym, as well as a normal food budget.

Part IV: Exercise

Since I can't access a gym right now, and I don't have a set of weights either, I'm focusing on bodyweight workouts. I have been improving slowly but surely. I'm hoping to manage pullups later on, although right now I'm sticking to inverted rows as a substitute. I'm also doing squats and pushups.

Since I'm unemployed, I've got a lot of free time. Basically, if you take out the time I sleep, eat or look for work, all the rest is completely free. That means I could train all day, but obviously I'm worried about overtraining, so I haven't been taking advantage of all that time much.

I work out every other day (when you don't have a job, weeks become kind of arbitrary. Much easier to remember if I worked yesterday or not than what day of the week it is). My workouts are typically 20-30 minutes long without including warmups. The rest of the time I walk around a lot, probably an hour and a half per day, sometimes more. I realise walking is less than optimal, but it gets me moving without being too "scary". I go up and down stairs a bunch on my walks.

I've taken a look at Convict Conditioning and I'm thinking I might give it a try. If anyone here is familiar with it, I'd love to hear your advice and/or warnings.

I think that covers everything. If you have any questions, shoot! I'm also taking pictures after every workout (it started as a way to prove to my boyfriend, who lives in the US, that I really am working out). Obviously there is no difference from one time to the next, but I started taking pictures in the end of June and I'm starting to notice differences, mostly my belly being smaller (although only above the navel for some reason) and some muscles starting to show up a bit here and there.

[CyningaDena]

Good to have you on board! I hear you about the protein dilemma. It takes tons of meal planning to get all of the essential proteins in the right amounts and not OD on beans and quinoa, and I finally decided it was just not worth the expenditure of energy. I take a whey protein supplement now -- it's just a powder that I add to my breakfast smoothie. Totally cheating my diet to do that, but I'd rather fudge some arbitrary set of rules than short-change my body.

I've not done Convict Conditioning, in part because I heard less than amazing reviews of it. Not that it was bad, just that it wasn't structured very well and that most of the information you could get for free off the interwebs. A lot of folks here are using Steve's Angry Birds bodyweight workout as a way to get started, and I haven't heard anyone complain about it yet. Maybe because of the Big Brother panopticon effect. If nothing else, I've seen their strength improve throughout the course.

Best of luck to you with your goals! That takes a lot of courage.

[Avistew]

Thanks for the support! I've heard good things about the Angry Birds workout, too, I'm going to give it a go I'm not lacking time by any means, but sometimes my stamina isn't where I'd like it to be, and I can imagine that working out several times a day for less time each might end up working better for me until I build up to doing it all at once.