Weekly: train with weights 3x (Happiness Manifesto Declaration #1)

was neglected this week.

Hope next week will be better.

I love my weight workouts and miss it when I am unable to do it!

However, I did get one very good ab workout on Tue.

I did 108 Sun Salutations that left my shoulders, legs and triceps incredibly sore and my chest and back feeling nicely worked out.

So I did get a workout. Only, no machines or weights were involved!

I was one of the first members to enrol when my gym opened in the neighbourhood, in June.
A woman who had joined almost as early as me used to chat with me off and on.
I had noticed that she faithfully followed the card that the gym had made for her and that she rarely missed a workout.
but her workout had not changed in the past six months.

She approached me on Monday and told me that I looked noticably slimmer – Especially in the abdomen region. She asked me why she had hit a plateau. She claimed that she did so much work on her midsection but it never went down after the initial two months.
I told her to up the intensity of her cardio for short bursts at a time to burn more fat. I also told her that spot reduction is a myth and that she has to vary her workouts every 6 weeks if she wants to see results.
She asked me to show her my ab routine. So we got out some mats and I put her through some variations of the crunch. I showed her a new exercise to do for the obliques and finally told her to hold the plank and then the teaser for a full two minutes.
She struggled but bravely did every exercise I taught her.
The next day she sought me out and told me that she was feeling sore in her midsection after a long time!
She asked me to teach her some more exercises. I told her to do these for a few more weeks and then told her that I will show her some moves on the swiss ball.

When I told my sis about my recent experiences as a coach at the gym, she asked me how the trainers reacted to my inability to get out of teacher mode even in the gym. ‘Many gyms do not like it if you start changing their member’s routines’, she said.

The trainers have only just begun to act friendly towards me. I did not wilfully change anyone’s routine. On both occassions, the members specifically came to me and obviously felt I was speaking sense because they did all that I suggested.

I hope I have not offended anyone! I must be more careful.

Today was back and bicep day.
The trainers are a lot friendlier now.

One of them Prabhu stayed with me throughout the back workout and most of the biceps work. He upped my weight and made encouraging noises when I threatened to give up. He stayed till his shift was up ( He stays only till 1:30 pm ) On his way out he sought me out with his eyes and waved goodbye.

Vikram was with me yesterday while I stood on the body fat analyser and had seen my face fall when I read the printout. I had been horrified to learn that I had a body fat % of 37.3%.

He came up to me today to offer words of comfort. He told me that bio-impedance machines are not very accurate.
He said that he has noticed that I am looking noticibly slimmer and asked me if I monitored my measurements. He told me to get measured at the gym tomorrow and assured me that next month the measurements will show a change. He also told me that I should continue with ‘my own workout’ and that he will spot for me whenever i needed help. He was actually forgiving me for not following the workout card given to me by the gym!
Why, after 5 months of ignoring me, is everyone so friendly? It must be all those glow-points awarded to me by Elderbear – I now radiate with the same warmth that Elderbear always possessed.
Or maybe it is becoz I was motivated by NYC to smile at people more. I have even braved a ‘hello’ when the face that returned my smile was particularly friendly.
I always enjoyed going to the gym but now I have one more reason to go – the trainers are my friends!

machine assisted tricep dips to my arm workout. And boy did I feel my tris today!
I could not work my favourite body part – legs this week. I had very unwisely upped the resistance to 11 and 12 on the stationary bike and elliptical and my right knee decided to protest.
It seems to have recovered, so I am tempted to go to the gym tomorrow even though it is my day off and do a light leg workout. Nothing heavy duty. A few free squats and lunges and then the leg machines with moderate weights. No walking lunges or step ups or smith squats.
I will decide tomorrow.

I usually workout alone at the gym. The trainers usually ignore me as I do not do the exercises prescribed by the gym.

A few days back, one trainer, encouraged by my smile of greeting complemented me on my leg workout.

Today, another trainer came up to me when I was doing my push-ups. He gave me some pointers on improving my form and then complemented me on the weights I lift. He said it was rare to see a woman lift as heavy as I do.
He offered to train me on my leg day. He said he has a fantastic workout for the lower body based on the Matrix Method.
I have agreed. So next week, I will have Prabhu training me on a super tough leg workout.
I am looking forward to it!

Am feeling sore everywhere except the chest and arms. But that is because I will be weight training them today.
Have added the assisted pullup to my back routine. Really works the lats!
Found a new trainer glancing at me evry now and then at the gym yesterday when I was on my leg routine. He then approached me when I was on the smith squats and ‘gave me a few pointers’ on my form and posture for the plie squats. I thanked him politely.
He gave me thumbs up sign when I was on my walking lunges.
His jaw fell open when he saw me stacking one step on the other for a 14 inch step up.
Finally when I was on my adductor abductor work he came and complimented me on the workout.’I like your routine – you really believe in going for it don’t you. Been working out for long? ’
This was the first trainer who had even plucked up the courage to talk to me and definitely the first to tell me I was doing something right.
Also, I had promised NYC that I would smile at someone new every day so my smile at this new trainer must have been particularly friendly.
The other trainers at the gym had generally boycotted me as I was not following the programme prescribed by the gym.
So now thanks to NYC, I have one friend in the gym!

I was hoping that my waist can be whittled down to a shapely 28 inches. But does not look likely. Have decided to broaden my back and shoulders so that my thicker waist will at least look smaller.
Am still hoping the waist will measure at least 30 inches if I reach my weight goal of 65kg.
So today I went really heavy with my back and shoulder work. Did three sets of 4 exercises for the upper back, reaching failure after 10 reps at the end of every set.
Did [ three sets of 10 ] 5 exercises for shoulders. Could heavy up for the first three exercises but had to lower the weights for the last two exercises.
Am going to keep this up for at least a month.
Advantage: Workout finishes faster. Can sneak in a small bonus cardio session.

Third session of the week was an hour devoted to chest, triceps and biceps.
Did 5 exercises ( 3 sets of 12 ) for chest and 3 sets of 12 but three exercises for the bi and tri.
As it was the end of the week, I toyed with the idea of getting onto the elliptical for a short cardio but decided to pass it up.
Have done enough ( 7 ) cardio sessions this week.
Nothing seems to work though…... have been stuck on 71.5kg ( 160 lbs) for more than a week. This after doing a good share of cardio and weight training as well as eating squeaky clean.
Am aiming for a reasonable 1/2 kg ( a 1.2 lbs ) of fatloss per week. Have eaten around 1550 to 1650 calories per day for the past ten days or so. Food is low in sodium too.
I cannot eat any less than I do ( without feeling hunger pangs )nor can I work out more than I do.
Will I ever go back to my old size 12?
As I said, PLATEAUS SUCK!

Decided to do back and shoulders today. Did at least three sets of five exercises per body part. Reached fatigue by the third set. Minimum rest in between sets. Will know if I really had a good workout if I feel sore tomorrow.

This week’s three weight sessions have been logged in. One upper body session compounded with lower body moves. One lower body session, two ab sessions.