It has been about 2.5 years since I was last in a gym to actually lift. Even then I wasn’t really “serious” about it. Was going because all my friends were going, not going for myself. The times never really fit my schedule so I ended up skipping pretty often. Other priorities started to crop up.
I made some gains and stayed relatively fit (basically I didn’t get really fat) but never reached any of my goals. I never really adjusted my diet, tried protein for the first 4 months of lifting and then quit and over the 5 years of lifting just slowly lost interest and eventually just quit going…for 2.5 years.
Max’d out around 200lb. bench, 315ish DL and 315ish squat. But you are only as strong as you are right now and I haven’t lifted in 2.5 years. This will be humbling starting over.
Then I moved. Didn’t join a gym so I would jog or ride a bike so my pants would fit. Bought a cheap weight bench and some dumb-bells that really didn’t get a whole lot of use. Did some body-weight stuff. Walked the dog daily and would run occasionally. So again I stayed from getting fat but just barely. And by not being fat I mean not FAT…still have a bit of a gut.
Then it hit me. 2 weeks ago I was sitting at work and the table was separated to the over-weight and the fit. I literally was sitting in between the two and during the meeting realized that this was serious. I was either going to do something about it and be on the in shape side of things or I was going to continue the path I was on and eventually end up on the fat side of the table.
For me this is really serious. My dad is a walking health time bomb. High BP, cholesterol, type 2 diabetic, etc. And it was around my age (28) that he started to “let himself go”.
So I started to run again on a schedule. Then I realized that the one summer I actually worked out seriously I really lost the fat. So like I said I joined the gym.
So my plan is pretty simple. Run 3x week, Lift 3x week and take a day off for some rest. On the lifting days they will be centered around “the big three”. Squat, bench and dead-lift. The gym I joined is actually not super busy, has 1 squat rack and 1 power rack, a ton of benches of all flavors and a lot of areas for doing deads. When I took the tour there was actually a guy doing dead-lifts.
I’m cutting out the processed food slowly but surely and I started packing my lunch this week (eating pizza or burgers every-day doesn’t work so well). I quit drinking all soda about 3 months ago. I’m picking up some protein this week and looking into trying some MRPs to start out the day.
I’m not doing this on anyone else’s schedule but my own. I’m not doing this for anyone else but me. It took an “out of body experience” for me to realize how close to the edge I was. Thanks.