ChristyLA's Journal, 15 June 2014

Watching you like a hawk you know. I am still shooting for 160, but will begin doing things differently at that point. Told another poster I might try for 158 to allow a few lbs. variance.  

Thanks, CR. I'm following you too ;) I admire your ambition. I got down to 163, but when I ate normally (healthy and a little under my calorie output) I quickly went back up to 168. So my body didn't agree with the lower weight ;) Then I began working out regularly again, so I've been adding muscle. It takes guts to watch the scale go up, even though my size remains the same, but I would rather have more muscle than a lower number on the scale. I love muscle :) 

Great job on the workouts and Yay for new muscles, right? 

You go with the muscle!! Good for you! I work with my 8 lb weights and 10 lb kettle ball and that is enough for me lol!! Well, for now anyway. 

One thing at a time for me. I can't walk and chew gum, so need to get the weight down as low as I can, then will focus on more intense weight training. I've got my own personal trainer on this site.  

Thanks! Yes, more muscle is good. I adjust my dumbbells to 5 or 10 lbs, depending on the exercise. I do slow lifting with the ChaLean Extreme program, so the weights feel heavier than they normally would! I'm slowly increasing the weight of my dumbbells. At one point, I was lifting 20 lbs with the slow reps. I highly recommend getting adjustable dumbbells if you like to weightlift, because it's good to continue to challenge yourself with increasingly heavier weights, and it becomes difficult to store multiple sets of dumbbells. 

CR, that's what I did too - got my weight as low as I could first. How much do you lift and who is your personal trainer, if you don't mind sharing? 

My max goes between 8-10. I don't have a personal trainer. What I mean to say I have a mentor who is working with me on my food intake. Wishful thinking I had a personal trainer. I put together all my workouts using sites online, particularly bodybuilding.com. 

That's great. I eat what makes my body and my mind feel best. That means a lot of protein - it tames my appetite. I try to eat 25% of my diet in protein. Next, I try to eat as many vegetables as possible. Lastly, I limit my carbs to the least processed ones, and keep my net carbs around 100-150. I also limit my calories - which usually means fats, because they have the highest amount of calories - to maintain my weight loss. I do workout DVDs and walking mostly. When I weightlift on my own, I do exercises that I've learned from DVDs and when I used to workout at the gym. I also like to stretch (but don't do it enough), using the exercises I learned from yoga DVDs and when I used to stretch in gym class in school. I work the muscles that need to be worked and that weren't worked the day before, and I do the exercises that I like the best. It's come down to doing what's best for me, not what different people say, because there are so many different theories out there of what's the best things to do.