I’m a little late, but these are definitely related!
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Thursday, October 24
5 min warmup, day 19/20 CG. Punching the clock!
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Friday, October 25
Weight 155.1
Day 20/20 of the CG Ultimate Beginner series, so that’s a wrap. I LOVED IT. I’ve been in gyms since I was 21 years old, have had friends who competed, and never encountered the quality of instruction I’ve gotten in this series. I don’t think a personal trainer would have been any better. Just every word she said (and there wasn’t a lot of talk) was helpful: “remember to squeeze at the top,” “keep your torso steady,” “try to relax the rest of your body,” “back arched” or “back flat to the mat,” “chest out,” “hips back and up,” just all of the things that don’t come from simply watching or getting general instruction (e.g. TN form vids), which is what I have been doing all of these years. That you can watch each individual muscle of hers work helps, too, haha.
So. 15 minute/1 mile cardio warmup, 20 minute TM cool down walk, stretching. Just a terrific workout altogether.
I was trying to figure out when I started taking collagen this morning, and wound up getting sucked into reviewing my log. I’m not doing nearly the cardio now that I was before the issues with my back. I need to work on that, which would probably help with the scale/recomp. I’m definitely not embarrassed to walk around (at home!) in a sport bra and leggings, so there’s no emergency, diet-wise, but I do worry about the toll the holidays will take.
Feeling really good! I start CG Iron on Monday.
I need gainz!
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Great win here, completing a program is fantastic. Especially when life rudely interrupted the first time.
Sounds like CG’s instruction has been gold.
Ribeyes and Iron, I see gainz in your future. You are going to leave me in the dust!
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The best cut.
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Monday, October 28
Weight 154.5
Average calories for week 1573
Average steps 8197
Day 1/30 Iron with 7 minutes cardio warmup and followed by McGill’s Big 3.
Yesterday Agile 8 and a short hike - this marks the first elevation-gaining hike in a bit. Buttons has broken into a run a couple of times recently, so we’re beginning to move a little more with her. Although I’ve come to really enjoy walking 1/2 mile into the woods and then sitting on a rock, petting her. We’ll have to start planning for 6-8 hours if we’re going back to 3-5 mile hikes with her, because we sure have gotten good at sitting around in the woods, and it’s fairly time consuming. 
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Tuesday, October 29
Day 2/30 Iron, 15 minute/I mile cardio warmup. Felt good!
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Wednesday, October 30
Day 3/30 Iron, 5 minute warmup.
Woke at 5:45 this morning and yesterday - it’s not enough time. I’ll move to 5:30, see how that goes.
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The fall colors make it dazzling and almost hypnotic.
@SkyzykS it’s more about the mobility. This was Monday. It takes a LONG time to take walks.
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I am soft on dogs. I grew up with two mainly, both CockaPoos. The first was Spike - my parents wanted a Bulldog so when my dad brought home a CockaPoo from a tavern in the late sixties, they called him Spike.
He ran loose in our neighborhood, despite us living on a busy street, pretty sure he sired several kids as he was not fixed, pretty sure he got hit by cars a few times. I would find him on the front porch in the morning on my way to school.
He got hit by a car in front of all of us on vacation in Idaho. Pretty traumatic. We took him to a vet, really for no reason, then wrapped him up and took him home and buried him in our back yard.
We got Suzy, another CockaPoo a few years later and she lived for seventeen years.
I got Dakota with my wife before we got married, she was a Whippet, Golden Lab Mix. Crazy, until my daughter was born. She was a rescue. I had her for about twelve years, and was a great dog.
About six months after she passed, we got Bella, a CockaPoo that is the spitting image of Suzy. I bought her from a breeder as I wanted my kids to have a puppy experience. She is a great dog, but riddled with tumors - will never buy from a breeder again with the exception of maybe a field type Lab.
Buttons is the bomb. She clearly would walk through fire for you.
You are blessed.
I am verklempt.
We do not deserve dogs.
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Oh! Ok. I see. It’s not as much about quantity of distance then. Its about quality. 
Buttons! 
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Thursday, October 31
Weight 155.5
I’ll talk about Buttons when I have more time, but meanwhile cardio 35 minutes/2 miles, decent stretch.
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Buttons has the same gait as me!
My little old lady, Lizzie, is 13 now and she’s been suffering from arthritis. She now gets a monthly jab of Solentia and she’s back to doing Zoomies and living her best life.
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Friday, November 1
Weight 154.3
Average steps 8784
Still no time to talk about Buttons, which I blame on all this working out. And on how long it takes me to accomplish 1 mile walks with Buttons.
Today day 4/30 Iron - full body - with a 15 minute gentle cardio warmup. Still working on my format for posting workouts - bear with me, readers. Caroline Girvan has posted everywhere “do not copy” and I want to respect that, so have to figure this out.
I haven’t been tracking my weights, but I am going up and eventually I’ll want to log that to track progress. Or not? Does anyone just do their fair-and-square best and not worry about tracking?
Feeling fantastic, and last night I had a dream wherein I was lean enough that my obliques were just cut af and I was only just noticing it. Like “oh look, I have @Dani_Shugart’s midsection, how very nice,” lol. Awesome. But the reality is that I’m now feeling all the muscle under the layer of flub and that’s really pretty happy-making in and of itself. At Dani’s age my core was pretty cut, and I try to keep my expectations reasonable to my circumstances.
(Though I would love Dani’s core, and am working toward something more like that. But lightly, and with a sense of humor, I hope. Goals!)
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Those CG workouts sound like they are doing their job!
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HA! I’m stoked about your progress and delighted for the kind words. Your writing always puts a smile on my face.
Such great questions. I think it all depends on what keeps you challenged and consistent.
Once in a while I write the load I used that day, but I mostly don’t care. Performance on any given exercise will change dramatically (for me) depending on time of the month, and where in a workout an exercise is placed. So my performance might appear to decrease on an exercise just because I did it at the end of a workout as opposed to doing it fresh… and vice versa.
But my body doesn’t care what the numbers are, it only cares about tension. And I’m more interested in consistently finding ways to challenge myself and feel tension in the muscles I’m trying hardest to build. This involves a lot of set-extending techniques, like drop sets, slow eccentrics, pauses, and burn out partials. However, lots of smart people could make a compelling argument for doing the opposite.
So it’s awesome that you’re thinking about it and figuring out what you enjoy the most. And it may mean having years or seasons of tracking your loads and aiming to go heavier each time, and years or seasons of challenging yourself without that pursuit in mind.
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Okay, maybe I’ll continue to not care for a while. One of the things that’s kept me in the past from lifting more than just as an accessory to running is all the counting and tracking. Workouts, for me, are a time to just be with my body. Lifting has always felt like an ADHD challenge - endless keeping track, which disrupts the meditative component I’m looking for.
So good! Asked and answered. Thank you for your feedback!
They certainly are enjoyable to me, in an “omg this sucks” kind of way. And pretty soon I’ll probably look like a girl GI Joe, too; bonus!
Still Friday
2 mile Buttons-paced hike, but on and off a rocky trail with good elevation gain. I was challenged after having done legs. And then later, after Mexican food and drinks, husband and I took another 2 mile walk without the dog. It was nice to go at a normal pace.
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Sunday, November 3
Average steps 9503
Day 5/30 Iron - arms, abs - with a 15 minute/1 mile warmup.
Yesterday did a 2.75 mile Buttons-paced hike up and down a mountain. We got lost as the sun was going down (the trail winds through the mountains, we wandered off to find a peak view) and had to clamber through the forest down the mountain, going around big, dead tree gnarls and swampy areas (poor Buttons). I was honestly a little panicked. Luckily we all survived, though, so it’s all good.
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Good to hear you both made the hike safely.
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