Sorry ladies to be such a downer. I've spent most of my morning sleeping and crying. My 27yo cousin just lost her husband of 6 years. Far too young to be a widow and now a single mother. They are such a beautiful family, and my heart weeps for them. 2014 just needs to be over. At this point I'm buying condolence cards in bulk. 8 funerals this year so far. I don't think I've attended 8 in my entire life. I need no sympathy, but Katie needs all the love and prayers she can get.

Sorry ladies to be such a downer. I've spent most of my morning sleeping and crying. My 27yo cousin just lost her husband of 6 years. Far too young to be a widow and now a single mother. They are such a beautiful family, and my heart weeps for them. 2014 just needs to be over. At this point I'm buying condolence cards in bulk. 8 funerals this year so far. I don't think I've attended 8 in my entire life. I need no sympathy, but Katie needs all the love and prayers she can get.

So sorry to Hear this. You're right 2014 has been a rough year, I too have been to a lot of funerals this year and some of them for people who were pretty young. Sorry for your family member! Xo

Ladies who use fitbit garmin or other calories tracking devices. How do you log those in? the garmin doesn't sync yet and a friend wants to know how to set up her diary and calculate burn. SHe pasted the forum she was reading and it was just WAY too technical to actually be helpful and she a tech weenie lol

Welcome to the lovely newbies if I've missed you. Sorry, my brain's been fried the last week with work

Sam, I'll send much love and prayers Katie's way (if she doesn't mind a stranger doing so :flowerforyou: ). 2014 has been in a love/hate relationship with me. So many changes happening and so much going on, I don't know if I like it. Maybe it's just a sign of getting older and things just naturally evolving.

I started Stage 6 this morning. Just went through it slowly with the basics and light weights (okay, except the pulldowns... I added an extra 10kg to that, still too light :ohwell: ) to get everything right. I think it could start getting nice and painful once I add proper weights lol I need to adjust a couple of things in the B workout because I'm not allowed to do any crunches at all, but my physio exercises book came on Friday, and I think there's a few things I can substitute, so that's good.

Damn I'm gonna have smokin' guns at the end of this Stage :bigsmile: :laugh:

I'll be adding a bit of HIIT onto the end of the workouts though - just to kill myself a little more Didn't do it this morning because I took it nice and easy, and I'm also lined up for a jog this afternoon if the weather holds out.

Oh, if you ever wanted to see anything funny, you should watch me do pull downs. I weigh 39.5kg/87lb. Current pull down weight sits at just over 50kg/110lb... the stupid thing keeps wanting to pull me back up with it so I have to wrap my legs tight around the bench :laugh:

Welcome to all the new ladies!

sam, how awful. I can't even imagine the pain of that loss. Sending up some prayers for Katie.

DNA, thats freaking awesome! That means you can do pull ups then?! That's a goal of mine that I'm really far from reaching right now.

Ok, here's the report on my week. My plan was:

1. 3 days of lifting.
2. 2 days of HIIT cardio.
3. 1600 cals on non-lifting days, 1800 cals on lifting days. This averages to TDEE-17%.
4. 26% of cals should be from protein
5. 6 cups of water daily
6. 3 days consisting of 20 mins of stretching
7. No eating after 8 pm.
8. Eat 3 servings of vegetables daily.

1. Check
2. Check
3. Check
4. No! 22%
5. Check
6. Check
7. No
8. No

Poor week as it pertains to sticking to the plan. I DID lose 1 lb though. Although half of it was lean mass. I think the low protein contributed to that.

This week I'm sticking to the plan except I'm adding a 9th. No junk food (chips, cake, sweets, ice cream, cookies) allowed 3 days of the week. One of the reasons I didn't meet my protein goal this week was because I used up my calories on junk before getting in all my protein. I find this becoming a trend for me and it needs to stop NOW.

Oh, and for anyone interested in yoga (beginners), I found this great 30 day challenge on youtube. I started it tonight, but I don't think I'll be able to do consecutive days. Will do it as often as I can.

Have a great week ladies!

Hey all,

I go away for a weekend and it's like I've missed an entire month! Busy ladies!

Sam - so sorry. Thoughts are with all of you :flowerforyou:

DNA - nice pull downs. I got to bodyweight with mine and found myself fighting the leg bar too much to stay down. Now I do kneeling pull downs - I much prefer these, have you tried them?

Rewind to my squats..... I had squat day today and attempted to note my form. First off, I found it VERY hard to judge with a front on, wide leg position. My legs are at such an angle that it is hard to assess whether they are parallel. I changed to side on out of the rack just to get a feel of where parallel was. So, the result is that I can get parallel with weight up to bodyweight, but not over bodyweight. Thank you to those pulling me up on my form here - I appreciate it. From now on you will be known as my cyber- spotters :laugh: I will back off the weights a bit and aim for the greater range of motion.

On the downside, I am totally OVER my stupid hormones and bloat. I am having my third period in 4 weeks and today weigh the heaviest in 3 years :grumble: Having this stupid implanon out on Friday, can't take it anymore. I know I'm trying to gain, but the 3kg in bloat I am currently carrying has GOT to go.

whoa, y'all have been busy bees this weekend!

YEA!!! I went to the gym today!!! I did SLDL, glute bridges, walking lunges and back hyper-extensions. No where near my PRs and I didn't even care, it was form focused and it felt GREAT!!!

Sam, I am so sad for you and your family. What a difficult year this has been for you all. You're each in my thoughts and prayers.

DNA that's awesome!! Congrats on the big pull down numbers AND on doing pull-ups. I was doing about that on the pull-downs but never had enough strength to do an unassisted pull-up, only on the assist machine. I read on T-nation (I think) that using bands instead of the assist machine was a better way to get to an unassisted pull-up. When I'm whole again, I'll have to try.

Beeps I'm with you on the food, no eating! I want to get down 15 by the end of the year.

Welcome to the new folks! I love how active this board stays!