I’m 21 years old, 148lbs. low enough bodyfat that you can see the outlines and grooves of my abdominal muscles when flexed.
Let me start with a little history. Back around christmas '06 I was a 200lb skinny fat sack of garbage. I had been in an abusive relationship and had no self-esteem and during the years of college had let myself balloon up from my all-time high of 160lbs.
At that point I was angry at myself to change so I started dieting and weight training.
I started on Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength workout for about 6 months dropping weight relatively easy but gaining strength and muscle is an uphill battle for me.
I started off on the bottom with a bench of 85, deadlift of 115 and squat of 95.
So I did that and then switched to Madcow’s 5x5 once gains started to slow down.
Now a year and a half later I’ve increased my lifts to a 165 bench, 300lb DL and 212 Squat. I know this is just baby numbers for alot of people but damn if it wasn’t the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do to get this far.
So for the past 3 months I’ve been lifting weights for about 3 weeks at a time then giving up, and starting again a week later. I can’t get out of this cycle. I still run a monday, wednesday, friday 5x5 program but never have the will to get into the gym anymore.
I feel like I’ve lost my way or whatever drive got me this far. Anyone have any suggestions?
You have to be passionate about lifting to keep going. Going to the gym and lifting weights is something I look forward to. When I start lifting weights I want to see who’s gonna be the ‘bitch’…me or the weights.
You have to get into that mental attitude. It happened to me gradually. I wish I could tell you do: X, Y and Z…then you’ll have that mental attitude, but it doesn’t work that way.
However, I truly think that you can’t achieve anything special, in any aspect of life, unless you’re passionate about whatever you’re going after. I went through that on-off cycle for a while until I finally committed to it. Maybe you’ll get there, but it’ll take some more time…
To the OP, no one can give you advice on how to love the iron. We all do, but it’s not something that’s learned. Progress is the coolest thing to me. Hitting new PR’s is awesome. If Clean and Jerking your bodyweight overhead (my last serious PR set) doesn’t excite you… I can’t help you.
As to why your lifts suck, there could be a number of reasons, but it’s probably your diet. A lot of fat guys drop weight and then keep eating like birds. Reintroduce carbs intelligently into your diet. I recommend Thib’s Carb Cycling Codex, it comes with a lot of great responses.
To the op: Look at your before pictures. I used to be a tub and just looking at those pictures makes me wake up at 4:30 in the morning to do my cardio. Damn you Dignity, I damn near pissed myself.