Body Recomposition. At home - NO GYM!

[BleachedPink]

I thought my other thread title was too long, not very eye-catching, and didn't describe my goals, so I decided to start a new thread.

Plus, I have realized that I might be one of the few people trying to get into the best shape possible without stepping foot inside a gym, so maybe others will be inspired to do what they can at home. I am solely doing body weight exercises and dumbbells now.

I started out thinking I would do a true bulk and then cut down in the spring, but then I realized that I would much prefer to take the route of doing a body recomposition while eating at maintenance instead. Mainly because I still have a high body fat and know that the inches will still be coming off.



This is where I was last summer, July 2012 to November 2012, 4 months after baby to 8 months after baby:



I have been working on losing all the weight from pregnancy the past year by doing lots of cardio. A combination of P90X, Jillian Michaels DVDs, and whatever else I could do to get my body moving whether it be frisbee golf, hiking, etc.

The pic on the right is about where I was at the end of January 2013:


I bought the Insanity DVDs with my tax return and lost another 10 lbs or so in the spring.
Then summer came and went and I am ready to continue on my journey to getting the best body I have ever had. So now here I am. I started doing a "bulk" back in August and stopped all cardio. I was so BORED OUT OF MY MIND of doing MORE cardio, lol! Plus I knew the next logical step would be to start building muscle. So I came up with a 4 day a week upper/lower split routine that I am pretty happy with.

So here are my results from 1 month. Mid August to Mid September:


Like I said, I have stopped all cardio. I am eating at maintenance, my weight has stayed the same but I have lost an inch off my waist and a little off everywhere else. Except my butt has GROWN a quarter of an inch. I can also see muscle growth in my shoulders and back. So I am pretty happy with the results so far, and plan on keeping this up.

[BleachedPink]

I was looking through my schedule for the month of September, and I realized that I only gave myself ONE day off this entire month! I knew I was working a lot, but Dayum! I work for myself painting murals and decorative painting and I have been swamped with work the entire year. Argh, I can't complain about making money, but it definitely is affecting my training schedule a little bit. But I do what I can do as often as I am able to do it. I won't be getting a day off until well into October, so hopefully I won't burn out from all the stuff I commit myself to.

Tonight's workout is going to be Chest and Back. I hope I get it in because my friend (who I rely on here and there to watch my baby when I work) asked if I can sit tonight for her kids. So that means no pull-up bar and no Chest and Back workout. I could drag my 15 & 20 lb dumbbells to her house and do a different workout, but goddamn that is annoying to have to do that. I already bring my baby and diaper bag, and sometimes my laundry, lol. So I don't know if I should bring an Insanity DVD with and get in a little cardio, or just take it as a rest day. But Fridays are already rest day at the moment because I work one job in the morning, and then I go and paint a Daycare after hours in the evening until 11pm. Luckily I will be finished painting this daycare in 3 more weeks, so that means I will get my Friday evenings and Sundays back! Whoohoo!

[BleachedPink]

I love transformations whether it be the walls in a room or the way someone looks. I always got a kick out of seeing makeovers in magazines or television. Hair makeovers, make-up makeovers, wardrobe makeovers, room makeovers, and who could forget the "pimp-my-ride" makeovers?!

There was a year where i used to spend hours browsing the beachbody forums looking at everyone's transformations. There was, and still is, a forum there dedicated to your before and after pictures where thousands upon thousands of people have made threads showing off their results. And it would get me SO inspired to get up off the computer chair and do it myself.

[schnauzers]

Doh! You could have just requested a journal name change instead of starting a totally new one

[BleachedPink]

Doh, well maybe the two threads can be merged together. Because I posted my workout routines in the first one.

[BleachedPink]

I am shrinking out of all of my pants yet again! I have a few pairs of painting jeans for my painting jobs, casual dressy work pants for my library job, and various jeans for everyday. I remember when I bought a few pairs of size 11 skinny jeans this time last year as a goal to aim towards. They hung over my door for a good while before I was able to comfortably fit into them. Now those same skinny jeans are baggy-looking jeans. All the rest of my size 11 pants are starting to look clownishly big on me. I need a belt for all of them, otherwise they hang and my buttcrack is showing, lol.

I was thinking I really don't want to go out and buy all new pants, then I remembered I have a full storage bin in my closet of size 9 and smaller pants that I haven't been able to fit into in 2+ years! So I am looking forward to trying them on again and seeing which ones I can now wear. I still might end up doing a little shopping in a few weeks because I know I don't have skinny jeans in smaller sizes, and I like that look right now. I want to replace my favorite electric blue skinny jean that is now a baggy jean, lol.

[BleachedPink]

What I have been doing for the past 2 months is:

Workout 1: Chest and Back - P90X dvd
Workout 2: Legs and Glutes - my own routine
Workout 3: Shoulders and Arms - P90X dvd
Workout 4: Legs and Back - P90X dvd

Plus I do the Ab Ripper P90X routine twice a week.

The workout equipment I have at home is a pull-up bar, and various sizes of dumbbells up to 20 lbs. I already think I need to upgrade and buy 25 lb dumbbells for a lot of my moves with the legs and glutes.

Chest and Back routine is:
Each move is maximum reps you can do in 30 seconds.
1. Standard Push-ups
2. Wide Front Pull-ups
3. Military Push-ups
4. Reverse Grip Chin-ups
5. Wide Fly Push-Ups
6. Closed Grip Overhand Pull-ups
7. Decline Push-ups
8. Heavy Pants (I am using 20lb dumbbells in each hand)
9. Diamond Push-ups
10. Lawnmower (using 20 lb dumbbell)
11. Back Flyes
THEN REPEAT THEM ALL ONCE MORE, AHH!

My Legs and Glutes routine:
1. SLDL - 40 lb (15 reps)
2. Split Squats - holding both 15 lb DB (15 each leg)
3. Bent leg DL - 40 lb (15 reps)
4. Walking lunges - holding 15 lb DB, 20 reps
5. Dumbbell hip thrusts - Up to 40lb by using both 20lb DB stacked on my hips
6. Glute kickback - 15 lb behind knee
7. Goblet squat - 40 lb
8. One legged DL - holding one 20 lb DB w/both hands, 12x per leg
9. One leg glute bridge - 12 per leg with 20 lb DB on top of hip
And then I REPEAT all of them once more all the way through.

Arms and Shoulders routine is:
1. Alt shoulder press: 20 lb
2. In & out bicep curl: 15 lb
3. Tricep kickbacks: 15 lb
Repeat all 3

4. Deep swimmer press: 15 lb
5. Full supination concentration curls: 15 lb
6. Chair dips: Max reps in 30 seconds
Repeat all 3

7. Upright rows: 20 lb
8. Static arm curl: 15 lb
9. Flip grip tricep kickback: 10 lb
Repeat all 3

10. Alt shoulder flyes: 15 lb
11. Crouching COHEN curls: 15 lb
12. Lying down tricep extension: 15 lb
Repeat all 3

Legs and Back routine:
Pull-ups are all max reps in 30 seconds.
1. Balance Lunges - 25 each leg
2. Calf Raise Squats - holding 15 lb dumbbells
3. Reverse Grip Chin Ups
4. Super Skaters - 25 each leg
5. Wall Squat - 90 seconds
6. Wide Front Pull Ups
7. Step Back Lunges - 15 per leg holding 15 lb dumbbells
8. Closed Grip Overhand Pull Ups
9. Single Leg Wall Squats - 90 seconds, switch leg every 10
10. One Legged Dead Lift Squats - 25 each leg
11. Reverse Grip Chin Ups
12. Toe Roll Iso Lunges - 25 per leg
13. Wide Front Pull Ups
14. Calf Raises with 15 lb dumbbell
--- 3 different directions; toes pointed outward, parallel feet, and toes pointed inward.
--- 15 slow raises and 10 fast raises (these burn!) for all 3 directions
15. Close Grip Overhand Pull Ups
16. 80 20 Siebers Speed Squats - 25 per leg
17. Switch Grip Pull Ups

[BleachedPink]

So, I haven't done any cardio since early June. That was when I stopped doing Insanity and took a break from exercising for a while. I then started doing bodybuilding/weight training workouts for the past 2 months since mid-August to present and eating pretty much at maintenance while continuing to recomp. I am still about the same weight as when I started back in August, actually 2 lbs lighter, and I will add an update soon for how many inches I have lost.

I think I am going to switch up my routine for the next 2 weeks and go on a mini-cut. I will probably do weight training exercises 2 days a week still, and do Insanity 3 days a week on top of that.

I just want to quickly lose another inch off my waist and hips so that I can comfortably fit into size 9 jeans instead of being at this "In-Between" stage where im at right now. I went shopping yesterday and was able to fit into some size 9s, but not all. I bought a pair of electric blue size 9 skinnie jeans that will be my goal. I need to lose like 1-2 inches to zipper them up comfortably!

[BleachedPink]

I have been all about Kale chips lately. As I was at work one day at the library, I came across a new book called "Kale: the complete guide to the world's most powerful superfood."
http://www.amazon.com/Kale-Complete-...kale+superfood

As I was skimming through the book, I was reading about all the amazing effects this food had on the author's body. How she was experimenting with creating recipes and eating so much Kale everyday and after a week she had noticeable differences in her skin quality, wrinkles were more faded, and I forget what else, but everything was good. The book goes on about all the nutrition Kale has, the anti-aging and anti-cancerous qualities it has and I was sold. I wanted to give it a try, so I looked up how to make Kale chips. It is SO freaking easy.

This is how I make mine:
De-stem and bake on a cookie sheet with a teaspoon of Olive oil and seasoning salts and pepper. I bake for 10-15 minutes at 300* and stir about half-way. These CANNOT overcook otherwise they turn brown and taste very bitter. If you time it right, they should be crispy and melt in your mouth. They are SO GOOD! I had all my friend's little kids who don't like vegetables all begging her mom to buy and make more.

[BleachedPink]

Here is my 2 month progress so far on my recomp.



From mid August to mid October.

Starting weight 158.6, current weight 158.2

Upper arm: 12" - 11.4"
Boobs: 38.75" - 38.5"
Waist: 35.5" - 34.24"
Hips: 39.25" - 37.4"
Butt: 39.5" - 40"
Thigh: 23.75" - 23.5"
Calf: 14.5" - 14.4"

[BleachedPink]

For the past 4 days I started using the FitDay App to start tracking my calories and macros. I mainly wanted to see what the calorie range I eat in, since I haven't been tracking any of that for the past year. But then last night the USB port on my phone stopped working, so I cannot charge my phone anymore. It is now dead and makes a better paperweight at the moment. Luckily I was within the warranty by 9 DAYS!!! So I am getting a new phone mailed to me for $20 rather than buying a new one for hundreds more. I was still paying on this one too! So I have to wait a few days to get it in the mail, but at least I have a new phone to last me for another year.

My maintenance is roughly 2,000 calories a day according to my stats. From the past few days of tracking, it looks like I have been eating on average 1,850 calories a day, give or take. Some days I eat below that, some days more. The last workout I did was Thursday, legs and glutes and I noticed that the day after I ate about 250 more calories. That was also the first day I started tracking, so I'm not sure if that is common for me to eat extra calories after a hard workout, but I have a feeling it is. It looks like I eat around or just under maintenance on days I do not workout, and eat at or above on or after training days.

Generally, I just follow my hunger cues and TRY to eat balanced diet and it has worked in the past for losing fat and is still working, but at a much slower rate. This is due to the fact that I have been eating too many treats lately. 2 months ago I started out with the mentality of doing a full on bulk, so I wanted to eat more calories each day. But I let myself indulge a bit too often with the treats lately, and it seems the more I have the more I want. That was part of the reason I started tracking everything in the FitDay app. I want to get a handle on eating better and make sure I am getting enough protein. Last year it was much easier to cut calories because I was SUPER depressed after going through a really bad break-up and I lose my appetite when I am depressed. I had no desire for treats back then and I was dropping weight pretty easily last year.

This year I am much happier, so I have a healthy appetite again!

[BleachedPink]

I talked a little bit about going on a 2 week cut, but I was still doing weight training this entire time and eating too many calories. Starting tonight I am going to officially go on a 2 week cut. Tonight I am going back to doing Insanity workouts for 2 weeks, and I am going to try to track my calories and try to stay in more of a deficit. Right now I am at 155 lbs, and my goal is to drop it to 150 lbs. Then I am going to go back to eating around maintenance and weight training exercises for the next couple of months.

[BleachedPink]

Yay, got my replacement phone yesterday and now I can get back on track with counting calories.
I'm going to try to stick to this for the next month or more and see my results and what kind of progress I make doing this.

I have gotten in the habit of making food on Sundays to try and last me most of the week.
I have a Baby Bullet steamer that I love to use to make hard boiled eggs. It makes 6 at a time, so I make them into deviled eggs to munch on for breakfast and as a snack throughout the week. I usually have to make one more round of 6 eggs mid-week to last me the remainder of the week. I got so bored of plain hard boiled eggs, and I need to get more protein! Doing this has helped me so much in making sure I get at least some protein at breakfast instead of just a bowl of Raisin Nut Bran or something else that isn't so healthy. I don't leave myself much time in the morning, so this has helped me a lot.

I also make homemade taffy apple salad, a recipe I found online to copy my grocery store's deli.
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/taffy-apple-salad/
I make half of this recipe at a time. I buy little 8 oz cans of pineapple chunks that are perfect for halving this recipe, full recipe is too much for 1 person and goes bad before I can finish half.

I have a total sweet tooth everyday and this is a pretty good way to satisfy that and still eat pretty healthy.

[BleachedPink]

Still trucking here. I have had a weakness for Halloween candy the past week, but now that all my favorites are gone, I am not tempted to have it everyday. I didn't pig out either, I was always able to keep it to a couple snack size pieces each day and always within my maintenance calories for the day.

Speaking of calories, I have MyFitnessPal app set up to track my calories and it has estimated for me to be cutting on 1,500 a day. Sometimes I eat up to 2,000 a day, usually the day after a really good weight lifting session, but never over. I have been getting better at eating closer to 1,500 and I am hoping that it will be easier as I figure out better On-The-Go foods to eat in my diet, but for the most part I still eat closer to maintenance most days. I find I do a LOT better eating closer to 1,500 if I save most of my calories for lunch and dinner. I also find that exercise helps me create more of a deficit, so I am hoping to get all the help I can that way!

I also got out of the little rut I was in for the past couple of weeks. I was doing SO well from August to October getting my workouts in and I finished a decent 2 months of weight lifting and that was with NO TIME OFF FROM WORK EITHER! But last month was the 1 year anniversary from when my ex-Fiance left me, and I was getting a little depressed again and didn't have any motivation to do anything for a couple of weeks, not even the other projects I have been working on. But I am out of it and have been doing Insanity workouts for the past week, now I just need to get my diet in check and I should be seeing the fat melt off again! I believe I did see a loss of 1 lb in the past week, but I will have to see for sure if it keeps dropping...

[BleachedPink]

Sweeet! I've lost about 2 lbs since the last time I've posted. I also took all my measurements and lost a little bit all over. My waist is the smallest it has been in nearly a decade. I have been counting everything lately and have been eating in the range of 1,600-1,800 calories a day and doing about 2-3 days a week of HIIT cardio (Insanity DVDs), and I am doing maybe 1 day a week of weight lifting. I've been pretty distracted lately with work and personal stuff, so I have been trying to continue progress on weight loss by keeping my calories down.

This past weekend was awesome! I participated in a Food Network show called Food Court Wars. The decorative painting company I contract with, who is always giving me mural jobs every month or so, got recruited to redesign 2 food courts in a mall on the north side of Chicago about an hour from where I live and they asked if I wanted to help out. I was like "Hell yeah!" So Saturday and Sunday night we were painting overnight transforming these 2 food courts so that they can compete for free rent for a year. I was given the task of creating/painting all the artwork for both spaces and I also made the sign for one of them. The two restaurants were "The Fat Shallot" and "Taco In A Bag." There were 2 stationary cameras set up filming both food court transformations, so I will definitely be on TV for the sped up time lapse. Then Monday evening was the filming of the food courts open for the first time and competing for sales. I only got about 8 cumulative hours of sleep the entire weekend and was wearing day old makeup and messy hair for the opening day filming, but all in all it was a pretty cool experience. I doubt I made it on TV ordering food, but I bet I will be able to see myself and the paint crew sitting in the background enjoying the yummy food! They said it should air around February.

I know I ate well under my calories this past weekend. I was pretty much doing unintended Intermittent Fasting. Between catching up on a little sleep during the day, and painting all throughout the night, I didn't eat as much as I usually do. The last night I was working so diligently trying to get everything done that I didn't even notice how hungry I was getting by morning. Then you get to that point where you're so hungry you aren't even hungry anymore! Hopefully we will get a lot of free advertising from the show and be super busy this upcoming year. lol, like I need any more work, I already don't get enough days off as it is...

[BleachedPink]

I was looking over and studying all my progress and stats, and it's really interesting to see the line graphs consistently going down for the past year. I love seeing that, it's so motivating. I must have put on some kind of muscle during the 2 months of bulking (Hopefully up to 2 lbs? lol), because back in July right before I started, I was down to my lowest of 155 lbs. Then all of August and September while I was "bulking" and really doing well keeping a schedule of weight lifting 4 days a week, I was hovering around 158. Now In November I am cutting and back down to weighing 154 in the morning and 156 evening. I usually go by my evening weight. According to my inches, if the body fat calculators are correct, I have lost about 3% body fat since July being back down to the same weight.


August 158.6 - October weight 158.2 - November weight 156

Upper arm: 12" - 11.4" - 11.25"
Boobs: 38.75" - 38.5" - 38.25"
Waist: 35.5" - 34.24" - 33.5"
Hips: 39.25" - 37.4" - 36.5"
Butt: 39.5" - 40" - 39.5"
Thigh: 23.75" - 23.5" - 23.35"
Calf: 14.5" - 14.4" - 14.3"

[BleachedPink]

Yes! I am in a pair of jeans I haven't been able to fit into for 7 years! A pair of size 9 Roxy brand jeans that I was only able to fit into for one summer after I lost a lot of weight after living and working at a ski resort one winter.

[BleachedPink]

Yay, well I am satisfied with my little mini cut I did the past 6 weeks or so. After using the MyFitnessPal app to start tracking calories, I tried to stay close to 1600 calories a day and managed to make it through Halloween (unfortunately I ate a lot of candy during this time) and I made it through Thanksgiving. I only got in about 1-2 workouts a week, plus whatever physical stuff I was doing for my paint job, but I still managed to lose weight and inches. I think I averaged almost 1 lb a week loss. I'm down to 154, in the mornings I am as low as 152, but I go by my evening weight of 154.

I don't know if maybe I'm a little BiPolar (my father is) or if I'm ADD or what, but I feel my energy levels are getting higher. I am no longer falling asleep at 9pm (when I put my daughter to bed), and my work schedule is opening up a bit this month, plus all the Holiday goodies this month, so I think this will be a good time to go back to building muscle. I want to do a clean bulk, so I am going to raise my calories to roughly maintenance 2,000 a day and go back to the bulking routine that I put together. I want to take advantage of the winter months and bulk through the end of February, then go back to cutting in the spring now that I know I can do it.

.

[BleachedPink]

Thought I'd compare where I am now to where I was a year ago:

July 2012 to November 2012 to November 2013


My computer crashed on me back in June, so I lost ALL of my progress pictures and a lot more other stuff.
Normally I like comparing the exact same pose the exact same way, but this is all I have at the moment.

I lost my measurements from the July pic, I think I was around 195 lb in that pic?
But here are my stats laid out November 2012 to November 2013:

Weight: 180 lb -- 154 lb
U Arm: 12" -- 11.25"
L Arm: 10.5" -- 8.9"
Chest: 42" -- 38.25"
Waist: 40 -- 33.5"
Hips: 42" -- 36.5"
Thigh: 25" -- 23.25"
Calf: 15" -- 14.25

[BleachedPink]

Soooo....this should be interesting. My ex-Fiance came back to me this past weekend and my family is back together again. I am pretty damn happy about it, I got what I wanted for Christmas.

Anyway, he used to lift weights years ago before I met him and used to always talk about when he finally gets a good job again he's going to buy a weight bench and get back into lifting again, etc. He used to be pretty muscular with a very low body fat, he is 5'10" and I think his weight averaged about 155-160 when he was with me over a year ago. But after a really bad year for him recently and all the stress and drama he has dealt with and the shame spiral he created for himself, his body weight has dropped down to 144 and his muscles have gotten really soft. I definitely notice a loss in muscle mass. He wasn't huge by any means before, but now he's gotten so scrawny. He has let his health decline SO much by drinking too much and not eating enough.

So, we are going to get him back to being healthy again. We are both going to be on this bulk together. I literally just bought myself a membership to a gym recently and paid it off for the next 2 years, but I am going to ask if they can rewrite the contract for BOTH of us to use the gym for the next year instead. We are going to lift together and try to build some muscle. Hopefully with him eating nutritious meals again and drastically cutting back his drinking and getting into a nice body building routine, he will be able to turn around his body and balance himself out again mentally and physically. He is only 25 and he acts like a 45 year old complaining about all his body aches, a weak back, how he needs fish oil for his joints, etc. I know most of it is from not getting adequate nutrition and I swear most of it can be solved by eating right and taking care of his body again. I'm excited to be doing this together and I really hope doing this will give him some more motivation for life in general, and get him feeling so good physically that he will feel like a new person (he has already done a HUGE turn-around already, but now he needs to work on his health to get back to 100%)

[BleachedPink]

It's going pretty great so far!

We went to the gym a few days ago and he showed me how to bench press and we spotted each other. He said he doesn't feel comfortable with me spotting him, especially as he gets back to lifting higher weight, and I don't blame him. And he feels really insecure at the gym because of how small he currently is, he says he feels like a crackhead, lol. In the meantime he says he has no problem with coming to the gym with me so he can spot me on my bench press days, but he has a personality where he gets kind of paranoid about people in public and thinks they are all judging him. So I think our plan for after the New Year is to buy an inexpensive weight bench and put it in his brother's basement who lives close by. That way they can both work out at home and spot each other. His plan in the meantime is to use my pull up bar and 20 lb dumbbells at home to build his arms back up. He spent 2 years in jail some years ago and was able to bulk up in there, so he definitely knows how to work out without a gym. He is also the type who says he doesn't plan on working out his legs because he doesn't "need" to, at least not until a future date, but I'm hoping I can convince him otherwise.

He also showed me the rack where the squatting bar is. I tried a couple squats with just the bar to get used to the form and didn't feel comfortable, so I made a mental note to watch some squatting videos for next time.

For my bulking routine I am going to do a 5/3/1 program.