Let myself go, getting myself back

LauraM87

Well as the title suggests I've let myself go majorly! Was always a size 10-12 and had a pretty decent figure, however, after finishing college, job changes, too much enjoying myself, getting married and all the rest I'm now looking pretty crap if I do say so myself.

I had heard the joke before "What's the difference between a wife and a girlfriend?" "About 3 stone" and sickeningly enough its pretty accurate in my case. But enough feeling sorry for myself, my plan is to log in here pretty often in a hope that it keeps me on track and also as I could do with some advice.

Starting stats:
Female aged 27
Height 5ft 4in
Weight: 13st 11lbs I think but I'll confirm this in the morning as Thurs will be weigh in days

Hoping to get back to 10st 0lbs and be fit again, so I've joined my local gym - the equipment is pretty decent and it has a good pool but the instructors are not the most enthusiastic.

This is the program the instructor gave me to do for the next month (all suggestions for improvement welcome):

Day 1: 20mins on any cardio machine to warm up
3 x 12reps of each of the following:
Hack squat machine (30kg)
Lat pull down (level 5)
Quadricep extensions (level 5)
Chest press machice (level 1)
Hamstring curls (level 6)
shoulder press (level 3)
Dumbell lunge (2kg weights)
Dumbell chest press (6kg weights)
Dumbell shoulder press (2kg weights)
......sorry I don't know what weight the machine levels equal

Day 2: 50mins on cardio machines during intervals
Day 3: repeat day1
Day 4: repeat day2

For my diet I used to use MyFitnessPal and find it great so I'll aim to eat about 1500cals daily of clean eating as much as possible and cut out the take aways, crisps, chocolates and midweek drinks and see after a few weeks if I'm dropping weight

Mr. Incognito

Hi,

Firstly congratulations.

Secondly, as someone who was a smoker, poor eater, and emaciated when I left college let me say that anything is possible.

27 is very young still so you should be able to get fit again within a few months.

The things I would say is that

1. That seems like a huge work out to go from a zero starting point. Four days in a row is tough, really tough. Especially with weights thrown in. You should ideally give a muscle group 48 hours to recover if you are doing weights. You don't have to identify gyms but decent equipment, a pool and not too enthusiastic instructors sounds like Rathmines to me. I would suggest you do days 1 and 2 and take a day off and then repeat. Your body needs time to adjust, heal and deal with all the work you are throwing at it. Recovery days are key.

2. If you don't hit your targets for a day, don't get down about it. Consistency of approach is key. Some days your body is flying to go, other days it will feel flat. Most people get disheartened at the start because they try to do too much, too fast. You have to accept that some days you are not going to be super-woman, go home, get a good rest and go for it at the next session.

3. The scales are not an accurate measurement of anything. If you are working out right you might find that your weight actually increases as you build muscle (as it weighs more than fat) but the more muscle you build the more calories that muscle consumes so that's your target.

4. I know I am going to get slated for this but try and avoid protein shakes. They are empty calories imo and I think unless your goal is body building they are no use in a slim down work out.

5. Diet Diet diet is all important. Learn to love eggs, scrambled, hard boiled with tuna. Avoid potatoes and bread. If you are going to have bread you can get inexpensive healthy brown seed loaf in lidl.

6. Avoid booze for a while. It strips motivation and is lethal for calories. If you want to lose weight cut it out totally for the first month and then cut down on it.

Just my 2 cents.

Do come back and keep us updated on your progress.

LauraM87

Thank you for all the great advice I've definitely taken it in board. I decided to do my work outs on Tue Thurs Sat and Sun so I will be getting some rest time in between. I've done the cardio day and the weights day once so far and found it OK to be honest but then again I'll probably feel it tomorrow.

More surprisingly since I've cut out the junk food I'm actually finding it hard to meet my calorie target on MFP which just shows how much crap I was eating.

Looking forward to next Thurs and having my first week completed but feeling super.