Amy gets strong!

[amiaow]

Thank you... so do yours, you are stunning as always!!

Now, what's happened lately? I had a totally exhausting weekend working on the house again and attended two BBQs and had a few drinks and ate a lot of snacks. I went over my diet cals, ugh. Then yesterday I figured I had eaten enough over the weekend so I wouldn't refeed which was the worst idea ever. I had a terrible day, felt like absolute rubbish and then didn't go to the gym. Double ugh. Today I refed and felt sooooooooo much better by the time lunch rolled around, woohoo.

In bad news though I have somehow hurt my shoulder. I don't know what I have done as I can't replicate the pain in any particular direction, just when I am doing things sometimes I get a horrible sharp pain in the front delt. Today at the gym I spiced it up and did a half hour plyometrics/core circuit instead of my usual program and tomorrow is rest day. Hopefully it's feeling a bit better by Thursday and I can lift upper body again. House renos are nearly finished for the time being so that should stop aggravating it too!

Nutrition in recent times...
Saturday: 2685 cals
Sunday: 2078 cals
Monday: 2248 cals
Tuesday: 2968 cals; 398 carbs, a new record for me.

I'm taking another diet break from next week. A couple of weeks. Then I might drop back into the land of cut for one more round and see where I end up. I'm pretty happy with my results already but would like to drop a bit lower so that I have a bit of breathing room for winter

[amiaow]

Whoops, didn't check in for a few weeks on the diet front. It's been busy in my house!

In bad news, I have developed RSI in my right shoulder, elbow and wrist- it's all house reno related. I took last week off from the gym and it felt better by Friday but this week I have had to finish some jobs off and it has completely blown up again. Ughhh. I have one more day of plastering & painting to go today, then going to hit the rehab hard. This is just not cool, I can barely pull up my pants!!

I've still been cutting but have really been struggling to eat my designated calories, I have been so hungry. I was off the wagon for more than half of the week and had a refeed so epic that my food baby actually hurt (405g carbs, woooohooo). This morning I went and back-calculated my TDEE based on my diet results so far combined with what I've eaten. I thought I was in a 400-500 deficit each day but it turns out that I've been closer to 800 deficit each day. I've lost on average 660g/week, total so far is 5.3kg/11.6lb in 8 weeks. Whoops. I've upped my cals to 2200 this week and that combined with the no-gym should slow the rate down a bit. I hope. I don't want to lose my muscles!

Cutting update- Week 8 progress
Weight 76.6 - 75.1kg (-1.1 kg)
Chest: 93.5 - 92cm (-1.5cm)
Arms: 28cm (0cm)
Hips: 100.5- 98.5cm (-2 cm)
Waist: 74.5 - 73.5cm (-1cm)
Thighs: 53.5- 54cm (+0.5cm)
Calves: 37cm (0cm)
Shoulders: 107.5- 105cm (-2.5cm)

[amiaow]

Quick update. Haven't lifted for a few weeks- shoulder cracked it and now my hip flexor has started to seize. It seems I am falling apart. I was going to hit the gym again starting yesterday but am going to have to take another few days of rest. Ugh!

DEXA scan at 18%, happy with that result so I've stopped dieting and stopped tracking too. How liberating. I am eating what my body wants, which at the beginning was more fat and more vegetables and less rice, and is now just less food as I'm not hungry now that I am not exercising.

Hope to update soon with more workouts!!

[gobbles23]

Wow! 18 is crazy Haha! Good job

Hope everything feels better soon! Do you foam roll at all?? I get really tight hips/glutes if I don't stretch/foam roll pretty often- it gets really painful!

[stephanielynn76]

Quick update. Haven't lifted for a few weeks- shoulder cracked it and now my hip flexor has started to seize. It seems I am falling apart. I was going to hit the gym again starting yesterday but am going to have to take another few days of rest. Ugh!

DEXA scan at 18%, happy with that result so I've stopped dieting and stopped tracking too. How liberating. I am eating what my body wants, which at the beginning was more fat and more vegetables and less rice, and is now just less food as I'm not hungry now that I am not exercising.

Hope to update soon with more workouts!!

Sorry about your injury woes. but 18% is awesome!!

[amiaow]

Okay! I'm back! Woohoo! I had the best part of three weeks off until everything felt better. I didn't track calories in this time and that was wonderful... I wanted to eat what my body wanted to eat and give it good, nourishing food. Lets just say my body was a bit out of whack, lots of cravings, which took me a few weeks to figure out (ie, wanting to eat maltesers meant that I hadn't eaten enough carbs, and once I upped the carbs the cravings went away). I also craved fat a lot at the beginning and incorporated more nuts & seeds, but my desire to eat them has lessened a bit now.

This week I started to use MFP again but I'd like to use it just as a recording tool, not as a 'must eat this' tool as I was previously. I'd like to eat at my natural maintenance and keep lifting over the winter and see what happens.

I did a lighter workout yesterday to test things out and it went well. My shoulder is feeling good and strong and seems to have settled down nicely It was also nice to not be completely exhausted with a heart rate that takes a couple of minutes to come down between sets like it was when I was cutting... cortisol must be under control now!

Workout (W[kg],R x S):
Bulgarian split squats: 25/8 per side x 3
BB step ups: 25/8 per side x 3
BB OHP: 25/8 x 3
Standing BB calf: 25/30 x 2
Pushups: 3 x 8

Pull day today, yay! I have missed my pullups and rows!

[amiaow]

Tuesday workout was good!

Workout (W[kg],R x S):
Assisted pullups: 20/8 x 3
Stiff-legged deadlifts: 30/8 x 3
Seated row: 35/8 x 3
DB upright row: 15/5 x 3
BB curl: 20/8 x 3
FB prone jackknife: 10 x 3

I've decided that it's time to increase weights again. I'm lifting quite easily on many of my lifts now, so they will get an additional 5kg or some extra reps. Yay for new challenges! Ultimately, my goal is to be able to do all of my BB lifts in the Olympic lifting part of the gym, which means that they must get to 40kg first!