Flashch Posted November 6, 2012 Report Share Posted November 6, 2012 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- strechingI 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 followingMy 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 dipsN.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 FlashCH, level 1, RangersSTR 3|DEX 2|STA 1|CON 3|WIS 4|CHA 2FlashCH battle logMy goal:"Men sana in corpore sano", a healthy Soul in a healthy Body Link to comment
PitBull_Liz Posted November 6, 2012 Report Share Posted November 6, 2012 As a newbie (just started yesterday!) it's great to see updates like this after only two months. Great job! Amazon Warrior Stronglifts 5x5 Progress:Started 7/29/13Starting Squat Weight: 45 Current Squat Weight: 75 (staying here while working on form)Starting Bench Weight: 45 Current Bench Weight: 65Starting Row Weight: 65 Current Row Weight: 85Starting OHP Weight: 45 Current OHP Weight: 55Starting DL Weight: 65 Current DL Weight: 105 Link to comment
Erick the Red Posted November 6, 2012 Report Share Posted November 6, 2012 Great progress! I read somewhere that appearance is a function of performance. I'm happy to see you are another example of that. Current Challenge: (Feb-Mar 21) Step by Step My Epic Quest Character Sheet *** Old Challenges and Links hidden below Spoiler My Old Battle Log (2012) 1st (Scout) 2nd (Scout) *** (2013) 3rd (Warrior) 4th (Warrior) 5th (Warrior) 6th (Assassin) *** (2014) 7th (Ranger) 8th (Scout) 9th (Monk) 10th (Scout) *** (2015) 11th (Ranger) 12th (Ranger) 13th (Ranger) 14th (Ranger) 15th (Scout) 16th (Scout) *** (2016) 17th (Ranger) 18th (Scout) 19th (Scout) 20th (Rebel) (2021) 21st (Adventurer) Past groups: The Wild Hunt 6 *** The Serenity Crew *** The Wild Hunt 5 *** The Wild Hunt 4 *** The Wild Hunt 3 *** The Wild Hunt 2 *** The Wild Hunt 1 *** Browncoats Achievements: (20 Sep 2014) Completed first half marathon *** (17 Feb 2014) Finished mission to bring body fat from over 25% to under 12% over six months (trying to repeat that now) Link to comment
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