Progress thus far

Now that I've been at this for over a month, I should probably take stock of where I'm at.

Perspective.

Goal 1: Lose 15 pounds, without losing too much muscle mass. So far, so good. I started at 154.6 on January 12, and I'm currently at 148.2. And I've got some budding biceps. Success! You'll notice on the progress page that I jumped about 5 pounds down recently - and at least one of those pounds is due to my new scale. The new scale is pretty awesome, mainly because it weighs me a full pound lighter than my other one. Fun! But actually, based on reviews and the like, the new one is supposedly much more accurate than the one I was using. We'll go with it.

Goal 2. Lose said weight without going insane in the membrane. Yes! Dieting and body image have the potential to get dicey but I'm maintaining a good balance all around. Pretty proud of myself, considering I've struggled with this in the past.

Goal 3: Have some semblance of abs. Ehhhh. Not yet. Work in progress. Does feeling them count? Poke. Now that I think of it, "having abs" is not really a goal, it's more like an end result. My goal should be to plank all day, e'er day.

Goal 4: Do 30 minutes of cardio 4 times a week. I'd say for the most part, I've done fairly well at keeping up with this. Sometimes it's 3 days a week, or sometimes it's 4 or 5, but only 20 minutes. In the car today, I realized that going to the gym after work is more normal to me than not going. If I don't go to the gym, it feels a little weird. Cool.

Occasionally, this is my only motivator. Thank you, blog friends.

Goal 5: Track my food intake, minimize my weekend splurges, and cook more. Check, check, check. My Fitness Pal has been super helpful when it comes to tracking, and while I'm still enjoying my weekends, I'm not eating everything in sight.

From January 25: "Currently, I can do 8 pull up reps with the assisted weight set on 85 pounds. I can do more reps after that, but not another whole set of 8. I'm hoping to move down to 75 pounds by the end of January."

If you can't see the gif, you're missing out.

HA! NOPE. If I'm completely honest with myself, I've been slacking with using the assisted pull up machine at my gym. I don't like it and I'm not sure why. That being said - there still has been some minor progress. I can do 4 pulls at a 70 assist, which I don't think I could have done back in January. I do a lot of hangs and flexes on our pull up bar at home. I don't use the pull up bar at home too often because I'm afraid I will tear down our ceiling/door frame and the upstairs' landlord's 2 toddlers will come crashing down on me. They make enough noise as is. But hangs (just hanging for as long as possible) and flexes (hanging but pulling up as much as possible - which for me right now is a few inches give or take) have been helping. I've also been rocking the baby 'shups and planks.

Speaking of planks.... again, from Jan 25: "I'm able to hold a front plank on my elbows for a full minute now, but it's the side planks that kill me. I can't seem to do over 30 seconds on those." Winner winner! My record is a 2 minute hold for the front plank, and a 1 minute hold on the sides. Goal is to up that in the next week or two.

Gotta work that spleen.

Things I could do better:

1. That stupid pull up machine. I don't know why I don't like it, but I don't. I don't feel like I'm getting a good work out from it. I've never been sore after I use it, even if I feel like I'm working hard. My back and arm muscles are more sore after I do a good pushup workout. I dunno. More hangs?

2. Consistent planks. I do them, but I have no set schedule. A year+ ago, I used to do at least 2 minutes of planking every single day. I'm going to work on getting into that routine more.

3. Continued perspective. It's not like I don't have perspective currently, but at some point, the going will get rough, and I will want to eat three Papa John's pizzas in one hour and then sit on my butt for a week. Having a good outlook and big-picture perspective always helps during those moments (and after those moments, should they happen).

However. Overall progress? In the right direction.