From mewl to roar

[PardaCub]

Hi, I’m Parda. I’m 26, female, and I guess a wood elf kinda person at 171cm and 70kg (5’7†and 154lbs). I’m not overweight per se, but I lack muscle and have a wonderful little lifesaver around my hips that I don’t plan on using, so it might as well go. I love reading (fantasy, Stephen King, YA fantasy & English language literature, not to mention cookbooks), wasting time on the internet, motorcycles, cats, Xena Warrior Princess, Once Upon A Time, Orange Is The New Black, Orphan Black. Film-wise I enjoy Tarantino, Disney (animated in general) and action films though I severely lack in the comic background reading department. I am currently busy catching up on Studio Ghibli productions.

 

I only started really working out 5 years ago in my last semester at uni in Germany (my native country, I now live in the UK), inspired by binge-watching Xena for the first time. I'd like to get more focused and goal-oriented, and get some more ideas on how to motivate myself when going to the gym seems like a chore.

 

Barriers

 

I’ve been on and off the health/fitness trip. Motivation is my biggest problem. I get bored when I get stuck in a workout routine. In winter my energy level drops to about zero (craving for warming carbs increases during that time). I have a daylight lamp for this now, and it helps some. Add to that that I seem to be catching the gym flu about every other month and am too congested to go to the gym to do a proper workout during that time. I used to have mad willpower to kick my ass into just about anything until I tasted blood, but that drive has mellowed out of me with the years.

 

I’ve been dabbling in strength training for the most part and I enjoy working with weights more than anything else. That said, I also run, to support my partner who is trying to lose weight, and to get my zombie apocalypse survival chances up again. My problem here are my joints. I went out and not only twisted one of my knees skiing way back in ’06 or so, I also never got it treated. It doesn’t bother me most of the time, but awkward posture, too much use or I guess the weather can make it feel weird/stiff. More recently a relatively minor motorbike accident had me land smack on my right hip and shoulder. Again, soft tissue injury only, thanks to protective clothing, but it’s been ‘only’ six months and some days it feels like I got sand in my hip joint and simply cannot run or do proper exercises. This injury is the reason I essentially had to start from scratch with the weights. In general, I need to learn more about proper form to protect those weak-ass wimp joints. (Resting my right elbow at the moment after a stupid spontaneous decision to throw some back-row machine into my workout yesterday.)

 

Diet-wise I’ve been cooking for me and my partner for the past few years, mostly from scratch. It’s something I really enjoy. Recently I’ve been trying to lower the content of starchy carbs in our diet, and to reduce meat intake to once or twice a week, and then only higher quality meat from the local butchers. I’m playing around with vegan recipes as well, and replacing my milk with almond milk & co. Don’t see myself going fully vegetarian/vegan/dairy-free, but I’m trying to minimize stuff for both ethical and health reasons. On the plus side, I don’t really snack, and I generally don’t eat breakfast.

 

Goals

Quite simply, I want to be a ranger. I think at the moment I would be more a Scout by default – I run my 5k on a treadmill in about 35 minutes and am improving. Running outside I am improving as well, ‘the zone’ gets easier to find and I’m trying to improve my hill work. While I think runners are some tough determined moth- uhm, people, I want to be a bit more than a lean mean running machine though. I essentially want to be Xena’s season 6 Gabrielle... I plan to do some cosplay of that series, and looking like a pear with chicken wings attached is not gonna cut it.

 

Immediate goals:

Learn to do proper bar squats (currently using 16kg kettlebell close to chest because with the bar I lose my balance and bust my knees)

Get a consistently good form for my exercises

Actually add weights to the bar for any exercise

 

Tl;dr:

Lazy person with terrible form who injures her joints a lot and then whines about them. My form needs to improve in just about every department, and I need to find a balance between pushing myself and pushing myself too far. My diet is pretty aimless and exploratory at the moment.

(I also swoon over women with mighty abs and razor sharp cheekbones.)

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Welcome aboard. Sounds like you're pretty far along, you just need a couple of tweaks. Check out some of Steve's blog posts about diet and exercise, they should give you the direction you seek.