Odds and ends

I've been meaning to link to this young lady's tumblr for a while. She seems like a super smart woman who lost a good amount of weight and promotes all kinds of good stuff--like healthy body image--and she does a good job of explaining why strength training is good for women and good for weight loss. This person also breaks it down quite nicely. It's a review for a BodyBugg, which I do not own, nor endorse (although it does seem kind of neat!)


My own strength training has been pretty awesome lately. In the past, I would get on a machine and basically do whatever I did the time before, and the time before that and the time before that. Basically, it would be me getting on the machine and doing something I already knew I could do. Only lately has it finally sunk in that if I can do 12 reps of something, it's time to move onto a higher weight. Now I'm aiming for weights where I basically tap out after 8 reps. It feels great, and I'm more likely to make progress if I keep challenging myself.

While we're talking about progress--the scale is turning into my worst enemy. Right after my last post--about finally seeing the scale move back down again--it went back up to 187. For the past 2 days. It's seriously frustrating. My boyfriend says I shouldn't be weighing myself every day, but I want to kind of keep close tabs on the impact different things are having on my weight. Does a bad day of eating affect things? Does two? Does it take a day for something to register? So far it hasn't caused me to abandon any of my new habits, so I'm not going to give up on the daily weighing just yet.

I know no one cares but me, but I wrote down my arm workout last week, and I thought it would be good to make a record of that, for the sake of progress:

Weight x reps (in last set of series)

Bicep curl: 50 x 8
Bicep extension: 60 x 8
Tricep press: 80 x 8
Chest press: 35 x 8
Fixed pull down: 90 x 8
Seated row: 55 x 10
Pec fly: 45 x 8
Shoulder press: 15 x 8

The shoulder press is actually my weakness. After I hurt my back in 2005, I lost the ability to do a lot of strength stuff over my head. My arms go all weak and can't support any substantial weight. It would be awesome if I could get that strength back!