That looks cool HB -- thanks! If I can stay with this, and get to where I'm lifting more than a pitiful dumbbell or body weight, I'll get something like that!

was away from LC and exercise for quite awhile.

OK, for a couple weeks I've been back to eating almost sufficient protein daily.

For the last several days I've been trying to "make exercise" out of everything -- shopping, etc.

For the last two days (3 as of today) I've been spending about 2 hours outside doing minor yard work. Raking, bagging, and a few 'goblet squats' with 15# bricks to move them from one place to another, only a few a day.

Last night I reread 'power of 10' and 'slow burn'.

Tonight I'm going to see if I can do a few of the exercises. I couldn't do a single one when I first got those books, so I'd put them away till now.

The water weight came off, to 372, my norm weight. My scale says I gained 5# between last night and this morning which is probably wrong unless it's nearly menses so I'm ignoring that, 372 is about where I am without any unusual increase/decrease in fluid.

Through this week I've been going out and working in the yard every day. Which given the shape I'm in is easier said than done. I've been rather weary all week, and doing 'goblin squats' to lift these 15# bricks and move them across the yard (half a dozen a day, so not too much at once) -- it is getting me more exercise than ever, though not the overwhelming degree my Type A would prefer. Have been pretty much meat/eggs for food for a little while now though tonight we are splurging on homemade LC treats (me and the 12 year old).

Actually gained, not lost, weight. Go figure. Oh well.

PJ

Have continued the outdoor work. Did so much brick hauling yesterday and other stuff that I can barely move today and actually feel sort of traumatized. I clearly overdid it. But I got a lot accomplished and I'm kind of proud of myself for even being ABLE to do so much leg work that (combined with the rest of my body) I could feel this way. I'm feeling muscles that I swear I have not felt in probably 15+ years.

It led to some musing.

When you get really fat, the first problem is that oxygenating that much mass is difficult. Inability to get enough oxygen stops nearly all exercise in its tracks, as the heart and lungs go nuts trying to move enough blood through fast enough to deal with a supersized body even moving let alone moving while bearing extra weight. It literally becomes impossible to do more than the mildest exercise and, given how unhappy the heart is about not having oxygen for its own needs, not real safe.

The second problem is of course the weight you have to move, which is difficult because it's so much (heavy), plus, that insufficient protein (which is ever-present in the morbidly obese IMO) tends to make one weak, plus, that feet issues kick in due to that combination plus being OFF the feet becoming a norm, which means just 'the doing it' is hard as hell, totally apart from minor things like having oxygen while doing it.

The third problem is the mobility; from lack of limberness to whatever the word is when bodyfat is literally IN THE WAY so you can't turn or bend in certain ways easily or even at all. Worse, this creates both some lack of balance and a tendency to hurt yourself easily, when an underused muscle or tendon suddenly gets way too much weight imposed on it in some twist or surprise movement.

One gets slow and cautious to avoid having a fall that could be very destructive, a movement that could be injurious, or a tax on the system that brings on the equivalent of a major asthma attack just because you worked a little too fast or hard putting the groceries in the back of the car.

So what this means is that when challenged to exercise, the actual muscles, UNLESS you are weight training, doing squats or hauling brick around your garden, never really even have the CHANCE to seriously work out. It's like there are all these issues with the body that stop you long before you get to even challenging let alone really taxing, the muscle.

Your lack of oxygen, your body impedence, weakness or overburden, stops someone morbidly obese waaaaaay before the point where say, all the muscles all the way around your thigh, and above your knee, could even get to that "Ye gods, I'm alive and it hurts!" stage.

This is harder on the lower half of the body because you can do arm exercises with much less demand and even while sitting. Lower body work (without a gym machine, and since we're talking about the morbidly obese here, many don't have a gym, are too embarrassed to visit a gym, too poor to afford one, or can't fit in the machines) has to support the ENTIRE body weight, and often the inability to do that right off means you don't exercise it hardly at all. It's not like arms, where you can lift a little and work up to a lot.

Even something like a single squat has to instantly bear your entire body weight -- on the knees and back as well as on the glutes and thighs and calves. So if you can't go from doing 'nothing' to squatting 250-450# instantly, someone morbidly obese is in a bit of a catch-22 and usually defaults to not exercising at all because it's impractical, dangerous, and unbelievably taxing.

Sit down. Stand up. Sit down. Stand up. Use the legs, not momentum and leaning the weight out, to stand. I do it as often as possible. In the kitchen if I'm going to be in there awhile, I have a folding chair. I make a point to sit and stand a dozen or two times rather than just casually standing by the stove -- it's more exercise. I fill my cart heavily with birdfood, catfood and catlitter right up front so the whole shopping trip is hauling around a lot more weight, and then I use super walmart shopping as a workout of sorts, forcing turns fast and hard so I really have to use a little torso and shoulder muscle, walking quickly where I can, not avoiding walking all the way across the store for some trivial thing.

I've been doing some degree of isometric exercises while sitting on my bed. This is where you basically just 'tense and hold' a muscle. I've been doing that with my buttocks and thighs for some time.

Basically I've been working to bring as much exercise as I can into daily life.

And trying to eat enough protein -- minimum 60g but I really feel exponentially better on more like 120g -- to keep me strong enough to do it.

I really think it's helping.

PJ

Had a hard time moving around today; my left quads scream in actual pain (not just soreness) when I flex them just right. But I took the hoe to the 10 remaining bricks and managed to get them out of the ground, walked around slowly, played leaf duty for Ry who was raking bigtime leaves on the North wall, walked down to the store slowly, that's about it. Tomorrow hopefully will be a more active day.

Had sausage and eggs for an 8:30am breakfast which was good but then damn it, put off eating repeatedly until I finally had a mock at like 8pm. Around 11 I started feeling like my body wanted MEEEAAAAATTTT so I just nuked some cooked chicken breasts, and I'm taking a little bit of pesto on my fork, then stabbing a shred of chicken, and munching. It's late but oh well at least it isn't much carbs.

I'm probably hallucinating, but I could swear my sides seem thinner and my stomach skin seems like it's softer, looser and hanging lower (sigh) -- as if I am losing some weight in my torso area. The other day I did a double-take in the mirror, because it just seemed like my face/neck was a little thinner somehow. I haven't measured anything to compare to past measurements yet. I feel like I might be imagining it, and there's always a little play in measurement, and I don't want to delude myself or be so disappointed. I'd rather give it another couple weeks of eating well* and exercising regularly first.

* I'm not eating well--or rather I am and have been but two days last week I ate too many carbs at night, not like highcarb, but lowcarb treats that were slightly carby and I ate too much of. As long as my overall daily carbs are less than 70 I feel like I'm going to live. So if I'm eating nothing but meat and eggs and I feel like eating something with 30 carbs, I do. Maybe that isn't the right decision but I wasn't losing any weight prior to that approach so if I don't lose any with it, I won't exactly be worse off.

PJ

I took my measurements this morning (posted on my regular journal). Doesn't look like there is much change really. Bummer. Well, I *feel* thinner, not sure if that counts for anything!

Didn't work out in the yard yesterday. Did laundry instead. Supposed to rain today. Hoping to do some weights exercise by the time the day is over.

Gah! It has rained for two evenings! So I haven't been able to work in the yard. I feel this fear like it's not yet a habit and I'm worried I will quit doing it. I haven't been eating as much protein and I feel less strong and more inclined to carbs at the moment, so I need to increase that obviously. It's supposed to SNOW this weekend, for godssakes! Maybe it will semi clear in the day(s) so I can get at least something outdoors done.

Hi Rightnow, I was just looking around and I caught your stats. Wow, you are doing really well with this from your start point. This Gym Journal is interesting I may just have to eventually try this too. Keep up the good work. Take care MB

Well, it has been 8 months since I posted in this gym log. Mostly because it's been about that long since I did any working out. I waffled off/on plan, gained some weight. I've lost that now. I've been slightly more physically active lately. Tensing my muscles a lot. Cooking more, doing a few more house errands. A lot of more stand-up/sit-down behavior than usual.

I just ordered and received a 'flat bench' and barbell, and bought a couple 25# weight plates (I have smaller ones also). I've wanted to be able to do bench press and butterflies for a long time but my existing recline-bench has the seat affixed and is too short for anything not sitting.

For the moment, I have kitchen cabinets laid on plastic all over my living room floor, to be painted. It's been a big series of back to back "house jobs" as I cleaned out and got help painting my bedroom, hallway, living/dining area, and kitchen. The kitchen cupboards are left to be primered, painted, hardware'd and mounted, at which point a weekend reorganizing and cleaning will finish off the kitchen. Another weekend on reorg of the big living room bookcase and desk will finish off that room. And I think I can probably do in a weekend the 12 big drawers and closet of my own bedroom. So in my perfect world, by six weeks from now if I keep on it, all but the kid's room and back room (which we are currently calling The Fire Swamp) will be done -- clean, organized, painted.

This ought to count as physical gym work in my book. I have to squat every time I bend down! A little more effort and my living room returns to the spacious place I made it that has my squat cage and bench in it.




I also feel that making one's "place of rest" nice is just as important. My room though tiny has hugely improved as well:






What I've been working on lately is simple body-weight stuff. Wide-legged squats, at least a few a day. Stretching, not formally but at every opportunity. Drinking a lot of fluids (I've had a cold for over 2 weeks) so I have to get up to run to the bathroom -- from my captain's bunk, believe it or not that is its own form of exercise at my size!

My current first-goal is to focus on strengthening my abdomen, obliques, and hip flexors. In my supersized body these are the three things (especially the latter two) that get the most stress from even the simplest exercise let alone "weight training" and the ones that I think most contribute to the success or failure of health/injury across the board for me as a result.

Within a week or two as the painting finishes, I hope to have some stats in here of ongoing workouts and where I begin.

PJ

Your room is beautiful!

Reposting this in my gym log which I FORGOT I EVEN HAD until 5 minutes ago. Now that I'm finally starting to get my act together again on the exercise front (slowly) I guess I should start using this journal.

This morning, Ry and I went through some basic weight lifting stuff.

My goal was to use 5# weights and just see what she could do in various exercises. With the understanding she should stop if it got really hard.

So we tested 10 fairly slow reps, and I had her tell me on what rep (if any) she felt muscle burn, on what rep (if any) she 'wobbled', and how many 'total' she estimates she could do at that weight if she had to. I'll look that over and think about how to start her on something that she has to really work to manage 8-10 of, and then have her do 3-sets-6-reps. I guess. I mean I've read more bodybuilding materials than probably half the people who do this seriously but the only real conclusion I have gained from it is that "opinions differ" when it comes to half the important elements!

We only did some of the moves today, we will do more on Thursday. To start just for review I had her do a seated Arnold Press, incline triceps extension, standing side-bend, incline shoulder press, half-kneeling bent over row, calf raise, standing lunge, deadlift, and squats. (Not in that order.) My full list that I had picked out for myself long ago when I first began working out (and stopped when VLC stopped working for me. Now that it is again, mysteriously, I want to work out again! Go figure!) is here: http://blog.firedocs.com/tt/WLE.html except squats aren't on there as I hadn't seen the goblin squat and "my knees were scared" trying the ordinary one.

Getting her to do a squat was like trying to teach your cat to sing on command. To her, if you move downward you go up on your toes. We are using a very wide stance, and forcing the heel to stay DOWN, and she just cannot figure out how to do it! We went through it, I demonstrated it several times, showed her a little anigif movie of someone doing it, I'm not sure she ever really got to the point of successfully doing even one (no weights). (She had some issue with the lunge but she got that after a couple tries.) So I finally had her sit on the flat bench, feet flat, and then slide forward so she was mostly on her feet still sitting and then slowly continue forward and down into a squat, and then slowly stand up. This might work... maybe...

I can't do the lunge as it requires I lift all my bodyweight on the forward leg. I can do a bodyweight goblin (wide-stance) squat but only just. She managed 3 very wobbly lunges per leg.

I've been making a point to sit on the rather low couch way more, so I am regularly getting up and down, and making a point to stand up basically like coming up from a half squat. (This is opposed to sitting on my bed, back to the headboard, with my laptop.) And to do a full squat here or there through the day just to make the effort. It is getting slightly easier. Which is not saying much.

Not to be picky but if MOST people had to do a squat at nearly 400# as their STARTING LEVEL . . . well I'd get more sympathy.

PS so as a humor approach I sent her to this youtube video: "How to do the Asian Squat" which is HILARIOUS. The quality is horrible but the film is SO funny! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWTm...ynext=1&index=4 Dontcha know that only the asian squat is cool and will get you chicks, LOL!

PJ

Ha! I forgot I had a gym log again. That shows how often I use it. Let's see, last visit was just over six months ago. I'm sloth! Sigh.


Hoping to daily increase even if it's the most tiny amount. Gotta start somewhere.


Yesterday: got the weight bench out and the weights.

Today: Arnold Press, 10R/5#, 8R/8#, hoping to do more later.


PJ

I haven't had the 'extra' energy to do anything since my last post. Oddly enough I have felt fairly strong but the get up and go energy was lacking. But I've had trouble keeping my protein and calories up. The last 2 days my protein was higher, those two days combined, than it has been for the nearly 2.5 weeks I've been back on VLC IF, and today I've had more energy than I have so far, so it seems like that might relate. I'm determined to eat sufficient chuck burger, chuck roast, chicken, and eggs, to keep my protein up long enough to see if I can drive myself back to working out. At least a little!

PJ

Someday when I have energy again I will start lifting weights again. Until then, this journal is pretty much closed.