Belated thanks to Terry and Jane for the kindly messages of welcome!
I've been doing some rethinking of my program; I'd said in the women's challenge thread that I was going to do OPT, but after several days I believe I'll go back to what I started doing in July--keeping calories at or slightly below 1500, doing a low-volume but (for me) somewhat more intense resistance training session twice a week--while adding in more medium-intensity cardio and also trying to kick up my daily NEAT activity levels. And accept that progress may be a bit slower.
Leigh's material has some good info, and OPT seems pretty well-structured, but what I've found is (a) the daily calorie allotment is low enough that I spend my workdays mentally fogged and snappish, which is not good, and (b) at the same time, the workouts don't feel like I'm pushing hard enough. So I think slightly upping both intake and activity levels might be better for me. Then too, prescriptive workout programs tend not to work for me--I have to make constant re-adjustments based on which of my array of damaged/creaky joints is going to be balky or cooperative on a given day.
The week thus far:
All days -- cal total at or just below 1500
8/3
squats, 2x10 at 75
pushups, 2x8
assisted dip, 2x10 at 110
assisted chin, 1x10, 1x8 at 110
deadlift, 2x10 at 70
chest press, 1x7 at 45, 1x6 at 40
row, 1x10 at 70, 1x10 at 60
overhead, 1x8 at 15
ab mach. (Nautilus) 1x10 at 65
8/4 -- long walk (~40 min.)
8/5 -- nothing (too damn HOT)
8/6
squat, 2x10 at 75
pushup, 2x10
assisted dip, 1x10, 1x9 at 110
assisted chin, 1x10, 1x6 at 110
deadlift -- attempt aborted due to weird knee pain, subbed in:
leg press, 2x10 at 180
chest press, 1x10 at 40, 1x8 at 45
row 1x9 at 70, 1x9 at 60
ab machine, 1x10 at 70
8/7 -- 30 min steady state aerobics (elliptical and bike), HR 140-150
A couple of notes: I've decided to discontinue overhead pressing, since it's just too hard on my shoulder joints, even at pathetically low weights. (I've had chronic impingement issues in both.) And I'm going to need to keep swapping around lower-body stuff as my knees permit--there's no real consistency in which exercises cause pain. (Weirdly, I've had no knee pain with squats, even though that's what my old PT told me I'd never be able to do. My big issue--with back barbell squats, at least--is shoulder pain from the angle of holding the bar. I think this is just a flexibility problem, because it's slowly improving with practice and gentle stretching.)
Eating at ~1500 cal is proving to be not at all a problem; few or no cravings or episodes of crazed hunger, and weight seems to be slowly moving off (although I've just discovered my goddamn cheap scale is giving me measurements that vary by up to two pounds, when taken several seconds apart. Back to the store it goes...).
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