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!!