Taking a second run- strength training this time...

blairf83

Hi!

I successfully dropped about 30 lbs last year... (calorie counting, 6 day a week yoga practice) but I fell off the bandwagon in a big way back in october- depression kicked my *kitten* (lost the horse I'd tried for a year to bring back from a pelvic fracture... laid off from my job for the holidays... just temp... but... bad timing, had to give up my yoga practice mostly between the vet bills and layoff puting a pinch on) and put most of my weight back on. Now, I'm a size smaller than I was when I weighed this much a year ago, so it's not *as* bad, but still... not good.

So I am starting over. I am doing yoga only once or twice a week and got a membership at planet fitness. Workouts currently consist of roughly 20 minutes of cardio (treadmil- just started adding a little running in last time, or elliptical) and then 45 to 1 hour of strength training with machines or freeweights, doing this 4 to 5 days a week, sometimes I sneak in some cardio after yoga when I do that...

Need to lose approx 30 lbs again to be a good weight, and slim down a bunch and get stronger- am trying to get ready to show adult equitation at National Finals at the end of the season so need to slim down and get STRONG.
Also just was declared protein deficient (am vegetarian, lactose sensitive, and don't care for egg. This is the first time I've been low in 16 years of strict lacto ovo vegetarianism- and I donate plasma so am tested regularly. Assuming it was because I was still slacking on enough protein and then I started strength training) so I'm working on that....

I am supposed to start working with a personal trainer shortly- budget limits how often I can do that but I need some guidance- I have rods through most of my back so getting my abs to work for me is a challenge- I think they let me cheat things an awful lot. My friend goes to the gal I'm planning to work with, and she's saying that if using strength training to lose weight and shape up, don't plan on really losing much weight for almost three months... Which makes me squeamish about this approach (even though I think it is ultimately what I need....) because I am preparing to drop a couple grand on a custom riding suit for the first time in my life... so I need to get down to a suitable weight so I can have it made, but then stay more or less the same size/shape so it won't need a bunch more alterations

last year when my doctor put me on my path to getting unfat... I was put on 1200 calorie diet... And it go the weight off... but I was chronically hungry and miserable. My yoga practice leaned me up and got me pretty strong and muscled up. I started back at that mark, eating back exercise calories... but the scale just isn't budging, and I've been back counting calories since the new year, and the past month really religiously...

So... I'm taking a different approach that I am hoping will shock my system into giving something up... Upping my baseline calories, and then only eating back a small portion of any exercise calories, so I will have days where I don't work out and eat more calories, and then have days where run a bigger deficit, having worked out. Any other suggestions to shock the system?