While I love my home gym, working from home, and living rural, it does get a little isolating. Especially when no one else in my real life has any interest in fitness! So I’m trying out putting my strength/nutrition talk online instead of letting it rattle around by itself in my head.
Background: music/literature nerd growing up, so not a lot of active hobbies except hiking, climbing trees, and generally being a country outside kid. Got into martial arts when I was 37 and started supplementing that training with running and bodyweight exercises. Had just started getting into barbell weightlifting when I unexpectedly got pregnant at 40. Long pause for a rough pregnancy and recovery and then again for Covid and long Covid, and now I have been back at it for about 2 years. Recently dropped my running habit and replaced it with yoga, which has relieved a lot of unnecessary strain on my body.
Currently: 43, 5’5, weight fluctuates between 125 and 130. Been a strict carnivore (except coffee) since September of 2022 to alleviate severe post-Covid IBS. Consistency is key for me–my overall goal is to stay as mentally and physically strong as possible as long as possible since I find myself an older mom.
Been feeling tired, sore, and generally under-recovered the last couple of days, so I made sure to eat more yesterday and let myself go to bed when I got tired instead of fighting it to get more stuff done. Mentally it didn’t seem to help much, but I slogged through my normal routine anyways and ended up progressing in reps after being stalled earlier in the week. Good enough for me! Don’t need to feel motivated to make progress.
5am: woke up to a thunderstorm, did 15 minutes of hip-opening yoga while the coffee brewed. Still hate the chair poses in this flow, but it’s basically all mental now—my quads can handle it fine.
8:45am: out to the muggy carport gym. No music or podcasts—wasn’t feeling it.
All weights do not include my 5’ “ladies” barbell, which weighs about 11 lbs
Press: 35 lbs, 11, 11, 10
Chin ups: 1/4/4/3/2/2/1
Bench: 50 lbs, 11x3
Row: 45 lbs, 11x3
Hanging leg lifts: 5 sets of 14
Walked laps around the yard during rest time.
Continuing with my slow and steady method to keep from irritating my tendons. Sometimes I miss pushing myself to the limit, but definitely do NOT miss having to take time off for angry elbows and hips. And if body composition keeps improving like it has been, there’s no good reason to switch my approach!
Pretty typical meal for me as a carnivore…the burgers are 1/4 lb each ground round and done in the air fryer, and the omelet is one duck egg, one chicken, and some extra liquid egg whites for added floofiness, plus some colby jack. Sometimes I’ll swap bacon for the cheese. Eggs are fresh from a friend’s hobby farm down the road.
Right now, the consistency of eating mostly beef and eggs 3 meals a day is working for me, so I’m just rolling with it. Calories end up being around 2200 for the day, which may need to go up if I keep feeling under-recovered. Not sure how so many carnivores eat only twice a day–I would be chewing my arm off for sure.
Determined to get some quality sleep tonight and wake up with renewed energy tomorrow!
Definitely woke up feeling better, thanks to good sleep and a couple days of extra calories. Upper back sore from yesterday’s training, but not too bad.
5am: 15 minutes of yoga while coffee brewed–“strong and balanced,” (both the yoga and the coffee, ha!) which was pretty vigorous and ended with me feeling warm and loose
6:30am: squeezed a quick sunrise walk between thunderstorms
7:15am: breakfast–one of my eggs was a double-yoker–extra energy to put to good use!
8:45am: 45 minute vinyasa yoga flow–“full body,” but super quad focused. Left my legs a little bit jelly, but still overall energized
And that’s it for legit exercise today. But today is going to be an active day, as usual, and I’ll spend most of it on my feet, just getting stuff done.
I always feel kind of conflicted when I eat more to support training/recovery, but I can still see abs, and regardless, my stupid teenager-in-the-heroin-chic-90s brain can just hush up. Strong is the goal, not skinny and weak.
