Beasting Up!!

I've done it!!! I've finished a full round of Body Beast.. Oh but here is the kicker, I added 2 weeks onto the Bulk phase and guess what my end date was? Ok, it was my birthday!! I didn't plan it that way, heck I probably couldn't have planned it if I tried, but that is indeed the way it ended up. Oh but wait did i mention that it was a milestone birthday (do adults have milestone birthdays?) It was the BIG 4-0!1 yup on October 11th I officially entered adulthood I turned 40.. Ok I know that you are thinking to yourself HELLO, you have been an adult to a VERY LONG time! But to me if the truth be told I feel better now than I did at 18. You see, at 18 I was obese, probably morbidly obese. I weighed in over 300 lbs..

And I know you are sitting there just thinking to yourself.. SALESPITCH.. but I have been up and down and back & forth with my weight, and my eating, but what is different now is my love of exercise. Yup, I know you have to eat well, and I had been a vegetarian for years and even as a vegetarian, I was still around 300 lbs. In my teens I was obese, by my 20's I was anorexic, by my 30's I was back to obese.. but then I realized I needed to love something other than food, to find a way to destress that didn't involve my hand in a chip bag ot scoffing down candy, or cheesecake.. Or depriving myself of just about everything and walking around hungry. I needed to take the focus OFF of food. Yeah I know that's not really the right way to do it.. Well for me, it started with increasing my exercising..

Food is for sure so very important, but I refuse, REFUSE to obsess about what I put in my body.. I am a vegan, I am a vegan for one reason only, that reason is because I love animals, it is not for all the wonderful side effects that come along with a vegan diet, like increased energy, and a trimmer waistline.. Those to me are just bonuses.. When people ask me how many calories I eat, I reply truthfully and honestly.. I HAVE NO IDEA! and it is the absolute truth! My focus has changed from stressing about what I ate to strengthening my body. Now, when I eat I think to myself, I need this food because it helps give me strength, It helps that it is TASTY too!!
I remember for years that I would never consider eating coconut oil, avocados, nuts, peanut butter, even bananas because they were all supposed to make you fat.. Well, I eat them all now, and I don't worry for a second about whether or not I'm getting fat. The interesting thing is that when I was doing Body Beast, I was trying to GAIN weight, yup I said it GAIN!! Well not fat, but muscle..

I didn't really succeed, but I'm onto my second round and I will surely be Bigger! But more importantly and I mean this, I am STRONGER! I can now hold 65 lb dumbells in each hand and squat and deadlift them. When I started Body Beast I couldn't even hold 40's without them slipping. I never thought I'd be working out with weights higher than 35 lbs, yet this morning, I did chest presses with a 45 lb dumbbell in each hand for 8 reps! And you know what I can feel 50 coming quickly around the corner!  And no I don't mean 50 years old! I mean 50 lbs!! But it's not just the increase in weight, I can do things I never dreamed of, I can do 4 ball push ups, I'm getting better at one arm push ups, and Oh yeah, I can now do a kind of crane on my bench!!

 

So I'm going to keep pushing myself, because that is what makes me HAPPY!!

YIKES!!! Has it Really Been Over a YEAR?

Yes, my goodness, it's been over a year since I last blogged! Well a ton has happened in the past year. Starting with my workouts, let's see, I did an Asylum P90X hybrid after my first round of Asylum. To tell the truth I am a weight, pull ups (at least many, many failed attempts at doing them unassisted) and push ups kind of girl. It's so funny because, when I first started working out again, I was doing all cardio and yoga.. Until I started P90X then I fell in love with resistance bands, and push ups.. After I got used to the resistance bands I started with weights, upgraded to a pull up station and can do a HUGE variety of push ups!

So where am I now? Well, after a few more rounds of P90X, I started P90X2.. This was actually quite a change from the weights, and bodyweight exercises I was used to in P90X. Before starting P90X2, I was using 30 lb weights on nearly every set that I was doing. Well P90X2 was more focused on your entire body, so there are tons of stability workouts meant to strengthen your core. I couldn't do Arnold presses on one leg with the 30 lb weights, so I dropped my weight down to 25's and in some cases for things like Y-T flys on the stability ball, 15 lbs. After my first round of P90X2, I started a 2nd. Now I'm alternating P90X one week, and P90X2 the second.. I can't help it I miss my heavy weights!!

Oh yes, I forgot I am now at 35's on some of the sets and I am working toward improving EVERY time I do the workout again. I started out trying 35's in April, let me just say that I couldn't do 1 shoulder press, I couldn't do one bicep curl... NADA!! BUT, I didn't decide to give up trying, instead, I'm doing as many reps as I can with 35's and if they don't surpass 8 reps per set, I also do the set with 25's for max reps. I am not a pro, but this seems to be working for me, I can now do about 10 shoulder presses per side with 35's, tricep kickbacks and nearly everything in Shoulders & Arms. I do the entire Legs & Back routine with 35's in each hand, so I'm doing lunges and squats with 70 lbs!!!

So what is my goal? I think about this often, when I was 300 lbs, my goal was just to lose weight.. BUT NOW, NOW, I want to be strong! I want to do pull ups, multiple one arm push ups, I want to be able to hold crane for more than a few second.. I don't care if anyone thinks I'm thin or not, the truth is that at this point I just want the strength to accomplish... well... EVERYTHING!! I want to be able to do all the things that I could never do as a kid because I was too overweight, or because I was completely uncoordinated!

I really, really want to try everything under the sun, EVERYTHING!!
Hmmm.... I have so much more to write, but for right now, I don't want to bore you to death..
See you soon!