Women Don’t Lift!

Women don’t lift, women run and do yoga or pilates, women take fun Zumba classes and do Soul Cycle classes, right?

While all of these other exercise classes are fun and I have done at least one of all of them in my lifetime, they come along with the assumption that … Women Don’t lift!

Now I bought into this myth that “women don’t lift because they don’t want to bulk” for years, I was scared of the bench press (okay lets be real it still scares me a little) I was scared to pick up weights that were heavier than 10 pounds and weren’t pink or purple. I was scared that I would do just what I was avoiding, bulk up!

But then when running wasn’t accomplishing anything for me in the weight department, I was the same size and I was bored out of my mind while running,  I have never been a very good runner and running distances just made me bored. I started researching weight lifting, Mr. was made for weightlifting his body was clearly designed to lift heavy things, so he has always been good at this at the gym. I found Adrianna Osuna on Instagram and started researching powerlifting, and looking at body shape instead of only focusing on the shape.

She inspired me to pick up not only her book about her nutrition and weight lifting programs but to also pick up the darn weights! And let me tell you, lifting weights that weren’t pink or purple and weighed more than 10 pounds was scary at first, but it feels damn good! I feel strong and my body looks and feels good!

I am officially under 200 pounds!!! Which has been my goal for over a year I started out at 230, the heaviest that I ever was and have been trying everything from the Whole30 to be vegetarian and nothing made me feel or look as good. I am sitting at 195 pounds and I feel great, I am getting my hourglass shape back and feeling good!

So enter the next problem … since you know women don’t lift right, there are NO good weightlifting apps designed for women, I found one that says designed for women and if you are anything more than a beginner you have to pay over 100 dollars for . the year! Now my husband has his pick of 10 FREE weightlifting apps that will identified his body type and help him find his one rep max and work through how much he should lift each time and how many reps he should do, progressively getting heavier working the correct muscle groups each day, but for me I get to use 1 . app that was actually designed for males but has some women’s fitness, it doesn’t help calculate how many pounds I should be lifting each time or when to increase weight, I am on my own. So then I downloaded the nike training app, more of the same for the women I got body weight exercises  and yoga, . .. I DON’T WANT TO DO YOGA!

So again I turned to Adrienne’s, surely there has to . be a powerlifting program for women out there, I can’t go to a class or crossfit, and seriously I shouldn’t have to because women can lift things okay. And sure enough she had her own program, that helps me increase weight find my one rep max and speaks to me like WOMEN ARE STRONG AS HELL! Because we are, so stay tuned for lifting progress pictures updates and PR’s because!

FEMALES ARE STRONG AS HELL!

Here is me, reminding myself that “I am enough!” and feeling super great in my clothes last Fri-yay! 

-Rae

 

Whole 30: Week 1 Trials and Celebrations

What we ate for day 1-6 of the Whole 30, this was made before I read that smoothies were not recommended for breakfast so that was changed and deleted from the following weeks meal plans.

When I checked in on Day 2, I was in solidly in the hangover phase of my Whole30 and was not very happy with it at all. That passed and for days 4 and 5 I was pretty good, I was happy with the meals I was making and didnt really feel like I was missing anything from last week.

Well maybe I was a little bit more in the Kill all things  mode on day 5 than I would like to admit, it was a Friday night and Mr. H and I had made dinner that was delicious and sat down on the couch to watch a movie ( after eating dinner at the table sans electronics to give the meal its due- this has been a difficult shift, I grew up eating my meals in front of the TV, when I was in high school there was a TV in the kitchen/dining room and my mom and I would make dinner and then sit and watch our favorite shows while we ate, and that has carried over into my adult life, Mr. H and I often cook dinners and put on a movie to enjoy) But this night we sat down to watch a movie and nothing could make me happy, I was uncomfortable, I didn’t want to watch that movie, I wanted to go to bed at 8:30 an then complained when he didn’t want to come with me, I was a hot mess. But I did not want to admit that to anyone!

Then Day 6 hit, Day 6 happen to fall both on a weekend, and about three days before was supposed to start my period. And all I could think about for most of the day was  CAKE!  I cannot say for sure if this was a result of the Whole30 or of my uterus rebelilng against me and my health goals as it does every month.I mean I love cake I always have, if you want to meet a sugar addict if there ever was one, look no farther you found her. I never had a problem with my sugar addiction until recently, until I looked at the scale the week before I went wedding dress shopping and realized I had gained 35 pounds since I was in my best friends wedding two years ago. But this Saturday I wanted cake more than anything, I had done pretty good the first 5 days without it, but on Saturday I am used to more laid back day, I am not busy busy busy from the time I eat breakfast till lunch time and normally this is our snacking day, we eat a late breakfast and then a late lunch and munch on something (popcorn, ice cream, croissants from the coffee shop) until a late dinner and a drink. So needless to say Saturday was rough day for me, but I did it!

I got through Saturday without a slip we even ate out on Saturday night, and even though I felt like a d-bag making all the changes to the menu items we did it! Another Si Se Puede moment!

I am now officially a week into my Whole30! We went grocery shopping today and still spent more than I would like. . if anyone has any good tips for Whole30 on a budget I would LOVE them! We did the starting in the meat section and working our way out, I think its just that we are cooking at home more and using more meat (we were a fairly boring meat family before mostly turkey and chicken) that it is adding up. It also doesn’t help that Mr. H and I aren’t living together yet,so we can’t buy in bulk or create a pantry of stored food it is like we are starting over every week! Soon this will change. . .in May hopefully and I cannot wait!

I can already tell a difference in the way my clothes fit, today I put on the pants that used to be tight on me, ( pre January when I started loosing weight before the Whole30) the fit well after I started working out and eating more healthy in January, I was down about 11 pounds when I started the whole30 but today they were laughable, they were HUGE,! I felt like I could have curled up inside of them and fit better, or fit a small human in them with me just to make them tight, Mr. H said the butt looked like a saggy diaper, not exactly what you want to hear from your fiancé but hey he meant it in love so YAY for #nonscalevictories!

Well cheers to week 2. . this week I am going to try Salmon for the first time, Mr. H loves it an so I figured now is a good time to branch out and try it so Salmon with coconut cream here we come, don’t worry I am making him try brussel sprouts too!

Today is filled with Sunshine, coffee shops with Kombucha on tap, house hunting and meal prep, who could ask for a better Sunday?

Cheers to all the Whole30 goers out there, Si Se Puede!

❤ Kelsi Rae