Well this is a new journal, exercise log or whatever, so I guess I should introduce myself and why I'm logging this information in front of others.

My name is PJ and I've had a journal on this forum for a few years now. I'm 43 currently (1/2009), I live in the Ozarks, and for most of a decade I've been single mom to a daughter who is now 12.

My high weight is over 500#. I came to this forum at 482 a few days after my birthday in 2006 (9/18 I think was the day I decided to save myself). I couldn't stand for more than 30 seconds without back pain. I couldn't walk to the car without exhaustion. I had horrible acid reflux, brain fog, and other medical issues which lowcarb (which was gluten-free by side-effect) solved within 10 days.

I didn't become obese until adulthood. It was a terrible adjustment. My child struggles with her weight and I try to understand. She is currently on lowcarb with me. Today I weigh 382. That's about 25# heavier than several months ago. I think it will reduce as my LC continues and more water weight falls off.

I initially ate very low carb (>12, with variance) and lost a good deal of weight, though not so much in 'supersize' terms. I'm not fond of vegetables, I'm gluten-intolerant, and possibly caseine as well, which I didn't learn until LC got me off them for awhile. Eventually my body changed, and I felt really bad on minimal carbs and had to up it a bit. I now eat VLC by default (my big problem is remembering to eat or being hungry for it), but I eat 'controlled carb' (~60/day) when I'm paying attention. Mostly adding in berries, legumes, and the rare corn tortilla. My biggest 'danger food' for too-much is hard cheese.

I've lost enough weight that it's important I begin exercising.

Around mid-2007 I began exercising suddenly. I started a blog for it, and the post I feel best describes my state of mind at the time and how good it was for me is this one: In the dark of night I love that post because it reminds me of how profoundly exercise improved my life the minute I got serious about it.

Alas, I did poorly with my eating which gave me insufficient energy, and I now see I instantly overtrained (I was chronically exhausted in the torso-muscles) and I completely flaked out I am sorry to admit. A couple brief flirts with walking after that hasn't yet gone far.

I work from home. I was in business management for a decade, then shifted to internet coding and graphic design, then programming, then management in that area, and now I am back to a very simplified form of project management on IT products in publishing. I SIT all day and work on a laptop computer. I work to make food for us 3-6 times a day, mostly burgers, finger steaks, chicken, eggs, and many kinds of meat-stews.

I used to drink some low-carb slimfast until I discovered that if I did, I didn't lose any weight, even in a period where I was losing otherwise. Maybe it's because it's 20g protein are all from caseine which I may have some issue with.

My kid is homeschooled and a computer addict, though she likes to read and do sketching as well. We've had some real trials related to lowcarb but at least for the moment she is on the same page as me and I'm really trying to make sure everything is food she likes. I don't try to get her to lift weights since I hear it's not good for kids. She is 5'4 and adult-sized. She is in karate.


I love lifting weights. I hate cardio, unless it's part of the weights. (Even when I was young and athletic I was that way.)

My goal is to begin weight lifting even if it's one stupid dumbbell one rep at a time. To just DO SOMETHING consistently and be accountable to myself enough to bother keeping a log like this. Anything, at this point, would be good.


I have a little info about my status and knowns to start off.

1. I'm way weaker than I thought. 8# on arm dumbbells is fine; 10# on a couple moves, 5# on another couple. Pitiful, I know.

2. Isolated exercises can be compound for me because of my weight. For example in the bent-over row, where you put one knee on the weight bench, other knee slightly bent standing onn floor, hand on bench, other hand with weight lifting from floor to shoulder: for me that is a compound exercise, because of the effort to hold my weight up with my arm and my bent leg. It's more work on my slightly bent leg than on the arm I'm supposed to be working out LOL.

3. My "knees are scared" and this prevents me doing the things I'd really like to: namely squats. I'm sure this is good since trashing my knees trying to squat at nearly 400# is probably nuts. Previously, I tried to make up for it with deadlifts -- the one "core body" exercise I read about that did not require the knees involvement -- and I think slightly hurt myself in overdoing it.

4. I think it's possible that I have difficulty with "form" in some exercises just because of the interference of bodyfat. My bench is nice in that it reclines as a seat (Tri-Bench) but it's far too short for me to do much on it, or it might be that I'm just too large.


I don't have a barbell. I could get one.

I do have a cheap (Weider) cage that I got mostly so I could try to do squats and have something real to hang on to. That was before my knees put in their vote to delay that kind of exercise for awhile. Currently it's in the back room that used to be my weights room before I abandoned that great effort and is now used for, well, everything else. If I need it I will dismantle it partly and move it into the living room where there is more room.

I have a kettle-bell that lets you put small plates on it for adjustable weight.

I have pair dumbbells in 3#, 5#, 8#, 10#. I have fractional metal plates but alas all my dumbbells are coated. (Much as I'd like to be cooler by having metal everywhere. At least they aren't pink! ) I've tried to find 12# dumbbells in my town but need to drive an hour for a store with anything real.

I don't have much room. But I pay the rent so I can make some.


As for exercises, I've read so much about weightlifting online I believe I'm more confused than when I began. Aside from the intriguing sociology aspect of bodybuilding forums (the people are so charming...must be the testosterone ), apparently there's at least 3 different answers and thou-musts for any given thing you can imagine.

In the past I've been given good advice by a couple people I admire (Mistress Krista and Amory Blaine) which I can no longer find now that I'm again interested in trying to follow it. I'm trying to find a nifty sheet I made myself that has detail on the muscle and exercise and steal of an anigif that I used for ideas of what kind of exercise to do.

I find the discussion related to muscle bulk vs. strength confusing. I mean I understand the concept I just haven't figured out how one is supposed to plan one vs. the other.

I don't yet have a plan. I'm working on one right now.

What I DO have is a determination that I'm going to do SOMETHING, I'm not going to spend another two years (like the last two) accomplishing very little despite some good if brief starts. I want 2009 to be the year of my accomplishment on many levels.

I don't have a car, I live in a small nowhere town, and it's way below freezing, so right now all I'm looking at doing is some kind of weight lifting, no matter how small. Hopefully I won't overdo this time!

Onward.

PJ