Yeah my wife is really amazed at how ga-ga I am for this little girl already.
I saw a little girl at Trader Joe's yesterday with a shirt that says "Daddy answers to me"
Yeah I can totally see that...

Upper body push last night, first day back after 2 weeks off
Shoulder was a bit tender, which is weird, it hadn't hurt at all in weeks, i guess it just got used to the bit of rest

well she was a bit early at 37 weeks, so she had some trouble breathing, and I think the docs just wanted to be safer rather than sorry, so they kept her there for monitoring. She is perfect though

She is SO tiny, but yeah a full head of hair.
The bags are from 4 days in the hospital, she had to stay in the nicu for a while so we got sleep in tiny little pockets

So I got a new dumbbell on Friday
Actually, my wife got it for me, but I helped out.
We had it custom made, fabrication took roughly 9 months to complete.
Since I'm trying to increase the size of my snuggle muscles this incredible weight will actually increase in weight over the next 18 years.
Her name's Charlotte Our 5 lbs. 8 oz. little angel

Well since losing weight is all about calories in vs. calories out, tracking exactly what you eat in a given time period can help your weight loss. Instead of 'guessing' you have eaten too little or too much you'll know for certain.
Sites like TheDailyPlate.com will track it for you online very easily.
You can then track your progress weekly and compare that to your caloric intake and tweak your daily calories to meet your weight loss goals.

Pull night last night

Press day today, chest tris shoulders
Then 30 on the elliptical, then 3 sets of box jumps.

Hey Iris,

I try to imagine that there is a string attached to my butt that pulls me backwards when i squat. You definitely want the weight to remain in your heels, to help this i've seen some people put a small weight in front of their toes and just their toes on them, forcing you to keep your heels planted. I would also choose a more narrow stance, when you're not trying to drop your body straight down and up you'll be able to go lower without spreading your legs so wide. Don't know if that makes a lot of sense, but instead of trying to drop your pelvic area between your legs forcing you to spread them wide and lift your toes, push your pelvic area back and go as low as you can while keeping your chest upright. Til you get the hang of it you're not going to get your thighs parallel to the floor, but keep at it and you will

Its going great, this week was light, but still kicked a lot of ass, now i'm looking forward to getting the fat stripped off. Course that's tough to do around the holidays, but all the more reason to stick to my eating plan and avoid all the junk that tends to accumulate this time of year.

If you're sore all over, take a few days off and eat and rest buddy, with all that heavy lifting a couple days of doing nothing would do ya good. I notice that on times i take off i put on a few pounds while all those tears get filled in with new lean mass.

Hey Rachael chinups are tough, but just keep at it and you'll be banging them out in no time.

Boot camp tonight, 1 hour of sweat! Then quick pull set
Biceps are 3/4 inch (17) bigger than a few months ago, woohoo! Everything is bigger, chest, shoulders, back, loving it!

Wow! Melinda what a change, you look amazing! Imagine what you'll look nice next september?? Keep it up, and keep posting bikini pics

Hour long boot camp last night, then a little on the elliptical, then some chest work. Gonna go light for the next week and a half for a little recovery time.

Boot camp tonight, 1 hour of breathlessness.
God she worked us really hard tonight, small size so we could move around more, and she took full advantage of it.
usually there is a small 30 second break...but no love today!
Heh, then came home for mattress dancing
LOL brings new meaning to the thread topic "I did mine!" TAG YOU'RE IT!!!"

Pull day today, got in late after another trip to the hospital with the wife, just wish the freaking kid would chill out for a bit and cook a little longer!
Went really hard, course it helps that I bumped into a girl from my boot camp class that is just gorgeous. I mean, this exotic beauty, just made every muscle want to work harder lol. I know it sounds bad, but it really does help, proving that a lot of it is mental! I was even able to give her some tips, she wanted to get back into weight training after her trainer ditched her and left her routine-less.
So moved a bunch of iron, then 30 mins on the elliptical.
Feelin good

Yeah i plan to start running more again to lean out, was up to 10k runs, but bulking gets in the way!
We're having a girl, and my wife is more of the poop / lose sleep one, i sleep through the crying/yelling/pooping!
Thanks!

yeah i'm hovering around 255, miss the 227 days, but i think another two weeks of bulk, lay off the cardio, then take a week off then start a cut. We'll have a new baby at the end of this month, so i think less time at the gym in the beginning will be good for the family.

Press day today, my shoulder has been bugging me the last week, getting really sore over the weekend, so what did i do?
Take it easy?
Nah!
Funny after the workout the pain stopped, maybe it just needed to be worked a bit more??

Do we even want to know??
Who am i kidding, of course we do!!

Hey Marlo, welcome!

Speaking from experience Marlo, you can lose all the weight that you want to, you just have to understand that putting on all that weight took time, and so will taking it off. And its going to be hard, frustrating, nerve-wracking, and you're going to want to quit. But you know what? It is so worth it! I have added years to my life (probably a few decades worth), happiness, fulfillment, enjoyment, and it just continues to get better.
Good luck in your journey, take it slowly, one small goal at a time!

Hi there Heather, welcome to our little community
Good luck on your goals!

If there were three of her, I think you'd need to call in reinforcements
Hell, even just one...

Hey Alison, you have made some great progress!
Ok so you're working your butt off and gaining weight?
What kinds of exercise are you doing?
you say you're doing 3500 calories a week, i'm assuming that's like 700 / 5 days right? Is that cardio? Resistance?
HIIT?

What's your diet like? Are you drinking a lot of water?
Feel free to PM me, i know its a lot of questions

Oh yeah logging all that stuff here would be too time consuming, i think i spend enough time at the PC as it is, i did see on bb.com that you can enter all that stuff though, but meh, not enough hours in the day.
But definitely keeping a notebook is key, i wish i would have done this 2 years ago, i can't imagine where i'd be now.
As it is its only been 6 months or so, and i've gained more in that short period than i have over the last two years.

Lift day this morning
Really pumped this morning, it seems liek the more iron i move around, the better my mood. If this continues i may need to get hulk big just to be happy! lol

Hey Dave
Yeah i meant more like a log while you're working out, so you can see what you were doing last week and hit that number or better, i can't tell you how much faster i've made gains since i've started tracking every rep!
My split is as follow:
Monday: Push day.
Bench press is the main compound movement, 7 or 8 sets, 4 warm up, 4 working, all to failure around 7-8 reps, then i'll add a low weight high rep set to really fatigue the muscles, usually 30 reps, and man those get tough around 25-30!!
Then move to dips to hit the tris a bit more and the lower pecs, 4 warmup and 4 working, again to failure at 7-8 reps
Then move on to the shoulder press, and by now the shoulders chest and tris have been worked so hard these really burn, usually four sets is all i can bang out.
then i move to tricep cable pressdowns to isolate the tris, and if i've got time work in some high rep cable crossovers.
Tuesday is boot camp or HIIT
Wednesday is pull day
Main compound move is the bent over barbell row, 4-5 warm up sets, 4-5 working sets
Then throw in a 15 rep set of wide grip barbell curls to really get the biceps pumped.
Then move to dumbell rows, again 4 warmups 4 working, back to the wide grip barbell curl just to take advantage of the bicep pump you get from the rows.
Then i move to incline hammer curls, light weight high reps, then more wide grip barbell curls to failure. By now my bi's have had it!
Then i go to mid-height cable pulls, really get a full body workout with these! Get a really big range of motion, and really get every muscle in my body involved, from my toes digging into the ground, to my traps pulling the weight back and high, i love these! You can really move a ton of weight, and the nervous system gets SO taxed because you are really using everything you've got to keep yourself from slamming into the weight stack, pull it in at a fast pace, and slowly let it return, really milking the eccentric movement.
Thursday a repeat of Tuesday, boot camp or HIIT
Friday is lift day, modified to get some quad work in also.
Main compound movement here is the deadlift.
4 warm up sets on neutral ground, then 4 working sets starting from a deficit to really get the hams and back stretched.
Then move to the leg press, i'd prefer to do squats, but squats AND deads in one day would mean the next day i wouldn't be walking around much. Plus it allows me to go really heavy and take some stress of the lower back that has just been worked really hard doing the deads. Then i do single leg romanian deadlifts with dumbells, 6 sets of preogressing weight, really using mind-2-muscle to work the glutes. Then move to the roman chair, again focusing on just squeezing my butt to do the lifting, but find i really have to concentrate on getting just the gluts and hams involved and not the lower back. I super set these with box jumps.
God I love iron!

Pull workout this morning, added some weight and reps over last week, moved a lot of iron this morning!
Feeling really strong, really pumped up!

Boot camp tonight, she really beat on us. Breathless the entire time

Hey Graham this community is an invaluable asset to a lot of us, glad you could join us!