Back to the Gym!!!

I made it back tot he gym last night!

It felt SO good to be back.

I was feeling extremely crabby and frustrated.  Mostly because I had just finished two cleanse days and a lack of sleep, which makes me cranky, not to mention taking before photos and having to upload them and see myself... for real... with no baggy clothes to hide behind.  I know its for the best, but its hard to do when you are the only one in a houseful of people making such a drastic change.  Not that our 'clean eating' or even the 'slow carb/paleo' eating is a big change, but I'm doing a ten day cleanse to get a jumpstart, because I'm the only one with 70+ pounds to lose.  The rest of the family just wants to stay healthy.

I find it beyond frustrating that it is so much harder for me to lost weight than it is for my husband.  Seriously. He can just think about it for a minute and he can lose weight and gain muscle.  Ugh.  Men.  It makes me feel like he doesn't appreciate all of the sacrifices I'm having to make and he's just asking me why I'm so irritated at him, when really, I just feel like I'm alone in this.  I hope this phase passes quickly!

Anyway, I went to the gym and tried the treadmill.  Even though I wore my back brace, I still felt a little too anxious to try the elliptical.  As it was, I was only able to do 2.6 on the treadmill without feeling like I was going to re-injure myself.  That in and of itself was really depressing.  I felt like I wasn't going to be able to make any changes with that little work!

I have to say, I had a HARD time staying focused and staying positive.  It was really hard for me not to beat myself up for being back at the beginning again.  I did the best I could, and every time I found myself putting myself down or feeling like "I am NEVER going to get into shape again, I'm going to feel awful FOREVER." I would forcibly change my attention to one of the many "Transformations" that had encouraged me and just pictured myself at the end of my journey.

I tried to be purposeful in my movements with the weights and make sure I was focusing on each muscle as I worked out.  I worked on chest, shoulders & triceps from a workout plan I found online for working through a back injury.  I left out the military bench press and seated shoulder shrugs because they put too much strain on my back.  I ended up doing:


Day 1
1/13/2013
Time  6:00-7:15
Cardio Treadmill for 10 min. @ 2.6
Chest/Shoulders/Triceps
Flat Bench Press *20x12 40x12 50x12
Incline Bench Press 20x12 20x12 20x12
Dumbbell Bench Press 15x19 15x12 15x13
Dumbbell Flys 8x12 8x12 8x12
Front Raises 8x12 5x12 5x12
Tricep Push Downs 20x12 30x12 30x11

*I wrote each set with # x how many reps.

I am really excited to keep track of my weights and reps, because I know that I'll be able to see a lot more improvement that way, especially since I can't do much of anything cardio wise for at least another week or two.