I wanna be STRONG!

[analogwatch]

My name is Erin! I'm 27, married, and a stay-at-home mom to a 3 year old who will not stop coloring on my walls. I swear most of my arm workouts are me scrubbing crayon off with a magic eraser. In my free time I enjoy gaming (Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3 both left me sobbing messes. MORDIN, WHY) and I also write and draw as hobbies. Perhaps one day I will self-publish a novel.

I have struggled with depression my entire life and am currently on two medications. I am hoping that exercise will only continue to improve the positive effect the medications have had on me.

I am 5'9" tall and approximately 247 pounds. I wear a size 20W/2X, or thereabouts, with a 41 inch waist and 48-ish inch hips. I was rail-thin as a child, but once puberty started the belly, butt, and hips emerged. I have not been smaller than a size 12 since I stopped growing, and that was when I was doing marching band and winter guard at 16 and could count my ribs at 170 pounds. (I have a very, very large ribcage, which has alarmed a few boyfriends. This made shopping for homecoming/prom/wedding dresses difficult, so much so that my mother had to sew my prom dress and nearly had to sew my wedding dress.)

I love my body, as it is the only one I have (I have struggled my entire life with body image issues; this mantra is very important to me), but I would like if it were stronger.

I realize I should have "Adventurer" in my signature, but quite frankly I know what I want to do. I know what I want to be.

I want to be a warrior. I want to be that woman that walks into her gym, deadlifts enough weight to perplex everyone around me, and knows in her soul that she's strong and capable. When it gets to the point where your 30-someodd pound 3 year old is killing your arms after holding her for a significant length of time, it's time for a change.

I know I have some weight to lose. I don't expect to be down in single-digit body fat percentage. I'm perfectly happy being built like those strong guys at those strong guy competitions: the ones with thick waists but can heave telephone poles like they're toothpicks. I want to look like that. I want to be strong like that. I want to still have difficulty buying clothes but for entirely different reasons.

I'm hoping this can help me on my road to being able to lift (but not throw) my husband.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

You are in the right place, and if all you want to do is deadlift, the warriors are the place for you. Deadlifts are awesome, I love them, many here love them. When I clicked on your challenge thread and saw STRONG my first thought was DEADLIFT! The warriors will help you get a good workout. A little advice, diet is 80% of weightloss/fitness, figure out a way to eat healthy that works for you. Paleo is pretty common around here, I count calories, but find what will help you. Also, find a way to quantify strong. How many pounds do you want to deadlift? That is your first epic goal. Then find ways to get there in six week increments and get SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Trackable) goals to help.

Welcome to the Rebellion!

[surge_supra]

Yes, welcome!! I'm new here too but I think that your goals are awesome.

I'm a 5'4" 130lb female and I would LOVE to walk into a gym and lift a weight that makes every guy go "how in the hell is that possible??" or do a ridiculous amount of pull ups (within reason) or even handstand pushups and make some jaws drop. Screw turning heads from being that classic, proverbial blonde-haired beauty (no, I don't have blonde hair but still), I wanna turn heads from the sound of the immense weight I just lifted hitting the ground

I definitely agree with tanktimus, certainly look at paleo and other diets that work for you and your lifestyle and consider maybe the next six week challenge or making a daily battle log if that's not your thing. Not sure where to start? There's also a thread for that. And a thread for lifting too.

[Laureleye]

If you're not sure paleo is for you, a good first step is to just move to real food. All those new muscles will need good quality fuel, right? I credit my real food diet and my workouts with the 180 degree change in my mood, so I'm wishing you good luck on your journey.

[analogwatch]

You are in the right place, and if all you want to do is deadlift, the warriors are the place for you. Deadlifts are awesome, I love them, many here love them. When I clicked on your challenge thread and saw STRONG my first thought was DEADLIFT! The warriors will help you get a good workout. A little advice, diet is 80% of weightloss/fitness, figure out a way to eat healthy that works for you. Paleo is pretty common around here, I count calories, but find what will help you. Also, find a way to quantify strong. How many pounds do you want to deadlift? That is your first epic goal. Then find ways to get there in six week increments and get SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Trackable) goals to help.

Welcome to the Rebellion!

Yes, welcome!! I'm new here too but I think that your goals are awesome.

I'm a 5'4" 130lb female and I would LOVE to walk into a gym and lift a weight that makes every guy go "how in the hell is that possible??" or do a ridiculous amount of pull ups (within reason) or even handstand pushups and make some jaws drop. Screw turning heads from being that classic, proverbial blonde-haired beauty (no, I don't have blonde hair but still), I wanna turn heads from the sound of the immense weight I just lifted hitting the ground

I definitely agree with tanktimus, certainly look at paleo and other diets that work for you and your lifestyle and consider maybe the next six week challenge or making a daily battle log if that's not your thing. Not sure where to start? There's also a thread for that. And a thread for lifting too.

If you're not sure paleo is for you, a good first step is to just move to real food. All those new muscles will need good quality fuel, right? I credit my real food diet and my workouts with the 180 degree change in my mood, so I'm wishing you good luck on your journey.

I'm not really willing to go paleo, because of my 3 year old -- I am extremely hesitant of anything that may restrict her diet just because she's so little. I'm okay with restricting MY diet, but not okay with restricting hers (and also not so okay with cooking two dinners!). I've been trying to work real food into our diet for a few years now, and everything I cook is from scratch, but I'll admit we probably (okay, definitely) eat fast food a little too often.

I don't want to do just deadlifts, I want to do bench presses and overhead presses too, and work in other lifts slowly. Those are the three I want to start with, though. I have a really lofty ultimate goal for deadlifting and bench pressing, and I'm not sure I should tell you, but maybe I will. I want to be able to deadlift close to 400 pounds (I'm anticipating I'll settle around 185-190 with muscles, considering 170 made me almost disturbingly thin-looking, and the only muscles I had then were in my legs) and I want to be able to bench press my weight. I'm thinking I want to settle around 100-125 for OHP as an initial goal. I know I won't be able to do that at all at first, nowhere near, but that's what I want to work toward.

I'm just not sure where to start. With diet and just straight-up lifting? Should I work on cutting first or on building muscle to help my fat loss? I'm confused.

[bigm141414]

Hey! welcome! A DL goal of 400 (and really might as well set it for 405 because that equals 8 big plates) is awesome! You can get there with hard work and dedication!

Have you figured out a good way to get there? Programming wise? We can recommend some stuff for beginners if you need a direction to go in.

As for what to do first? I say lift first while cleaning up your diet. You don't have to go full paleo (I don't) just work on making better decisions when it comes to food or count calories for the first few weeks and assess where you are food wise. Once you have a good baseline of where you are you can start to make adjustments that suit you. Lifting heavy a few times a week will burn a lot of calories so as long as you are not over doing it food wise, you can get stronger and lose weight at the same time.

[analogwatch]

Hey! welcome! A DL goal of 400 (and really might as well set it for 405 because that equals 8 big plates) is awesome! You can get there with hard work and dedication!

Have you figured out a good way to get there? Programming wise? We can recommend some stuff for beginners if you need a direction to go in.

As for what to do first? I say lift first while cleaning up your diet. You don't have to go full paleo (I don't) just work on making better decisions when it comes to food or count calories for the first few weeks and assess where you are food wise. Once you have a good baseline of where you are you can start to make adjustments that suit you. Lifting heavy a few times a week will burn a lot of calories so as long as you are not over doing it food wise, you can get stronger and lose weight at the same time.

405 for DL it is!

I have no idea where to go with programs. I'm hoping to have a program worked out by next week so that I can start to put it into action. For now I've been doing the BBW with my husband (who, amusingly, will not be lifting with me).

I can definitely lift first while cleaning up my diet. I think my biggest issue, really, is portion control. I swing widely between "not nearly enough" and "oh god stuff my face i'm dying." I need to buy lots of fruits and veggies and snack on those throughout the day. (can I just say how excited I am that clementines are in season? Oh man!) I've had snacks for my daughter but I've never eaten them myself. I need to change that.

[CalvinHobbes]

I'm a big fan (along with a ton of people on here) of Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe. The e-book version is fairly cheap ($10 I think?).

Your goals sound awesome, look forward to seeing your progress!!