FlashCH: 2 month update, where I struggled and I overcame this

[Flashch]

Hi fellow rebels!

I started being a rebel a little more than 2 months ago and I think it is a good time to turn back and see how it has been going and give feedbacks for other beginners. I want to share where I had issues and how I overcome them.

These issues were: tired whole day long and focus on appearance instead of goals.

So how was I and what were my goals two months ago? Just an out-of-shape nerd trying to level up again for the nth time.

Since then, I tried to follow such a program:

- Strength training twice a week (about 1 hour training)

- Hockey practice once a week

- A hockey game max once a week(-end)

- Paleo as much as I can (focusing on breakfast and dinner during the week)

You can have a look at my battle log.

Usually, my workout looks like this:

- 10min warm up

- 4 sets of squats

- 4 sets of dips

- 4 sets of assisted pull ups

- 4 sets of inverted dumbbell rows

- 4 sets of plank with side rotation

- 4 sets of chest press

- streching

I try to do some circuits, doing one set of each exercice before starting next set. By doing so, I'm able to reduce the time to do the 4 sets and increase the intensity of my training, because, man, it's so boring to stay 1 minutes between exercice doing "nothing"...

In addition, I turn partially into paleo. Especially for breakfast, I changed from high carb, high grain cereals (e.g. Kellogg's brand) to eggs (omelets). I also ate more vegetables. Only during week-end, as I am traveling back home, I'm "forced" to eat family non-paleo food.

Nevertheless, I drastically reduced my carb income. Maybe event too much as I was starving through the day being exhausted even after 9 hours of sleep. I suffer from this symptoms for very long, I was even considering going back to previous breakfast until I found a post that says I should eat more.

So I give it a try and since two weeks, I eat much more, especially more fat and adding fruits to breakfast and dessert. I think I went too low in carb for what is good for my body. I was able to be less tired during the day without feeling hungry for "sugar". However, I didn't recover totally my energy yet... I still have to figure out how to adapt my diet to this.

I really feel better in my body right now. I saw a lot of changes, loosing fat around belly, loosing large legs I had before, taking some muscles on shoulders, arms and back without doing a single minute of cardio training (except for warm up) and only doing strength training. People have started to notice my change after maybe 5 weeks. I felt the changes already before. In fact, the scale didn't move much as I "only" lost 3 kg (about 6-7 lbs). Furthermore, the scale started to move only after a few weeks. Hopefully, you can read everywhere on this forum that you shouldn't focus on this damn scale. So did I.

About two weeks ago, after a workout at the gym, I said to myself: "hey, you look great, now you can relax..." hopefully my mind kick my ass really bad directly as I remind that the goals I set at the beginning was not to "look great" but the following

My goals are, by Christmas:

- do 2 pull-ups

- 30 push-ups at once

- 80 kg squats

- fell happy because of my new habits and thus more confident

and was I able to do them? NO! So I shouldn't relax and keep going in that direction! I guess this is exactly why you should always set clear goals and never forget them! If I wouldn't have these goals, I would have probably started to miss some trainings, allow me sweets and loosing momentum and thus starting again where I was two months ago.

So where do I stand compare to my goals:

- went from bodyweight squats to 4 sets of 10, 70kg squats, next time, adding 5kg => goal feasible until Christmas

- went from 83lbs assisted pull ups to 61lbs, should try once again without assistance => hardest goal to fulfill until Christmas

- went from about 10 push-ups, to more than 20 => goal feasible until Christmas

- feel happy and more confident => achieve and leveling up!

- went from 61lbs assisted dips, to fully unassisted dips

N.B.: I didn't really know why I should keep a battle log, but I still manage to do one. I found it useful for two reasons

- first, when you are doing the workout, the temptation of stopping 2 rep before or to skip one set is big, BUT I always thought men, I don't want to log that I miss one set or some reps, so I'll finish this, and I was doing the last reps or last set

- second, you can track your progress, it really gives you motivation to remember that you were able to lift "only" that much compared to more now, I am boosting myself each time I can make progress.

W00t:

- first time somebody told me, "hey, you look great, you lost weight!"

- first full set of unassisted dips

- girls staring at me

Summary:

- The results on my body was worthing the little effort to cook in the morning. I usually prepare the "toping" for my omelets once a week and keep them in the fridge.

- Strength training was well adapted for me as playing hockey forever (a sports where you work in intervals)

I hope that I can help somebody with my thoughts otherwise Thanks for reading!

FlashCH

[PitBull_Liz]

As a newbie (just started yesterday!) it's great to see updates like this after only two months. Great job!

[Erick the Red]

Great progress! I read somewhere that appearance is a function of performance. I'm happy to see you are another example of that.