Get Fit: I want a folding vegetable.

[Tvtyrant]

Wow, really impressive! Keep up the good work!

I have unfortunately been slacking off the last weeks. Did not find the time for longer runs, did not keep up with the daily push-ups. (Managed however a PR of 40 reps.)
On the plus side, I went bouldering once more with my sister and found out that the bar above the door to the changing rooms at work is sturdy enough to do pull-ups on it. So I do that sometimes, PRs are 7 for chin-ups und 3 for pull-ups.

Keep it up! Slacking is fine as long as you jump back on it when time allows :)

Are chinups or pull ups considered better?

[AMFV]

Keep it up! Slacking is fine as long as you jump back on it when time allows :)

Are chinups or pull ups considered better?

They're basically the same exercise in most ways. Pull-ups have a slight more focus on your lats and your lat activation, chin-ups work your biceps a little bit more. They both have slightly different grip strengthening factors. As your back strengthens you'll be able to do more pull-ups than chin-ups, so higher volume of work can be achieved with pull ups usually then you could with chin ups.

[Tvtyrant]

They're basically the same exercise in most ways. Pull-ups have a slight more focus on your lats and your lat activation, chin-ups work your biceps a little bit more. They both have slightly different grip strengthening factors. As your back strengthens you'll be able to do more pull-ups than chin-ups, so higher volume of work can be achieved with pull ups usually then you could with chin ups.

Makes sense to me.

@Iruka what is your current goals?

My hike/workout partner and I are bringing a friend along with us Saturday. I don't really know what his fitness level is, the hike we picked should be okay for most people.

Saturday's hike:
https://www.gaiagps.com/public/ciWw8vRicIvZmAmIaA1BciEt/

[Glass Mouse]

Hot damn! This January I was on the verge of throwing out my tightest jeans because they were unwearable. Today they barely leave an indent. I'm still not on friendly terms with my low-rise jeans, but I'm getting there. It's slow progress, but steady.

Also, I finally caved and bought scales so I can shift to a less jeans-based metric. I'll report back on how that goes.

Next up: Getting over this stupid months-long cold so I can start biking again!

[Comrade]

Congratulations on the progress!

I've been getting serious the past few months about hitting the gym and not only working on strength training but putting on weight as well, since I've been chronically underweight most of my life; for some reason I've generally looked a bit heavier than I actually am. I've mostly wavered around 135lb (at a height of 6'1), and getting my body to retain any more than that has proven a struggle since apparently calories are my kryptonite. This week, though, I finally crested 150lb. Still on the lighter side for my height, but it's progress all the same.

The weight increase has been accompanied by a corollary boost in the gym. Recently increased my one-rep max on the bench press to 205lb, and I've been managing up to twenty pull-ups in one go. Feels good. The weight has vacillated in the past so it's possible it might go down again before it goes up again, but I'm on an upward trajectory for the moment.

[Tvtyrant]

Hot damn! This January I was on the verge of throwing out my tightest jeans because they were unwearable. Today they barely leave an indent. I'm still not on friendly terms with my low-rise jeans, but I'm getting there. It's slow progress, but steady.

Also, I finally caved and bought scales so I can shift to a less jeans-based metric. I'll report back on how that goes.

Next up: Getting over this stupid months-long cold so I can start biking again!

Nicely done! Summer should be a bonanza so you are definently on the right track.

Congratulations on the progress!

I've been getting serious the past few months about hitting the gym and not only working on strength training but putting on weight as well, since I've been chronically underweight most of my life; for some reason I've generally looked a bit heavier than I actually am. I've mostly wavered around 135lb (at a height of 6'1), and getting my body to retain any more than that has proven a struggle since apparently calories are my kryptonite. This week, though, I finally crested 150lb. Still on the lighter side for my height, but it's progress all the same.

The weight increase has been accompanied by a corollary boost in the gym. Recently increased my one-rep max on the bench press to 205lb, and I've been managing up to twenty pull-ups in one go. Feels good. The weight has vacillated in the past so it's possible it might go down again before it goes up again, but I'm on an upward trajectory for the moment.

Nice! My workout partner has the same profile as you and most of the same issue. He is up to 161 from 130 by 3/week workouts, doubling his calories and drinking a lot more water.

You might also consider creatine, it helps your mucles retain water making them recover faster from a workout and making you larger.

[Cozzer]

I need to buy new summer clothes, because the ones I got last summer are quite loose, and the ones I got before that are definitely too loose to wear.

As far as spending money goes, I guess there's lots of worse ways.

[Tvtyrant]

I need to buy new summer clothes, because the ones I got last summer are quite loose, and the ones I got before that are definitely too loose to wear.

As far as spending money goes, I guess there's lots of worse ways.

Nice! Nothing quite like getting to reward yourself for losing weight :)

Saturday's hike went well. We brought a new hiker along with us, and shortened our route to 9 miles. He had some trouble but we are hoping he will come with us next week.

[Iruka]

They're basically the same exercise in most ways. Pull-ups have a slight more focus on your lats and your lat activation, chin-ups work your biceps a little bit more. They both have slightly different grip strengthening factors. As your back strengthens you'll be able to do more pull-ups than chin-ups, so higher volume of work can be achieved with pull ups usually then you could with chin ups.

I guess that speaks of the weakness of my lats. I find it very hard to do even a single pull-up in good form that is not just a reverse grip chin-up. I always found chin-ups much easier to do.

@Iruka what is your current goals?

50 push-ups is my next milestone, with the chin-ups I'd like to get to 15 over the next month.
I will also restart my running, tomorrow morning and then try to establish a running-in-the-morning routine. Tomorrow came before I finished writing this and I indeed got up at 07:30 and went for a 55 min run.

I threw out any weight goals for now. I don't really need to lose weight and reducing sweet snacks for a month actually increased it.

Hot damn! This January I was on the verge of throwing out my tightest jeans because they were unwearable. Today they barely leave an indent. I'm still not on friendly terms with my low-rise jeans, but I'm getting there. It's slow progress, but steady.

Also, I finally caved and bought scales so I can shift to a less jeans-based metric. I'll report back on how that goes.

Next up: Getting over this stupid months-long cold so I can start biking again!

How is your candy-abstinence going?

[Comrade]

You might also consider creatine, it helps your mucles retain water making them recover faster from a workout and making you larger.

I'm familiar with creatine but am reluctant to delve into any sort of supplement more involved than an occasional protein shake for days when I'm too busy to hit my protein count through the usual method of eating an obscene amount of chicken. Otherwise, though, I'm counting on hitting my goals just through diet and exercise.

I guess that speaks of the weakness of my lats.

Lats are a tough muscle to target, so you're not alone there. Does your gym (if you go to one) have an assisted pull-up machine? That can help you focus on and develop your lats to the point of being able to do them unassisted with good form.

On my end: upped by bench press to 220 and hope to hit 225 (two plates!) by my next chest day. On the negative end of things, I think I strained one of my biceps, because boy is my arm on fire.

[Tvtyrant]

On my end: upped by bench press to 220 and hope to hit 225 (two plates!) by my next chest day. On the negative end of things, I think I strained one of my biceps, because boy is my arm on fire.

Nice work! Is this 1x or 10x?

I have no idea how old you are, if you are 16-23 I wouldn't worry about the elbow. If older maybe take a couple days off, injuries take longer.

[Comrade]

Oh no, it's my one rep max-- I'm a ways away from being able to do that ten times. I'll work my way up to that, though.

[Tvtyrant]

Oh no, it's my one rep max-- I'm a ways away from being able to do that ten times. I'll work my way up to that, though.

I don't really do 1 reps so I don't lbow what the conversion time for that is.

I'm lazy, I just do 10/8/6 and call it a day.

[Comrade]

I don't really do 1 reps so I don't lbow what the conversion time for that is.

I'm lazy, I just do 10/8/6 and call it a day.

Yeah, I don't do 1 rep 'sets' as part of my workout, just as a gauge for how my strength is increasing from workout to workout. It's indicative in a way that seeing the increases in my regular workout routines may not be.

[Glass Mouse]

I've been getting serious the past few months about hitting the gym and not only working on strength training but putting on weight as well, since I've been chronically underweight most of my life; for some reason I've generally looked a bit heavier than I actually am. I've mostly wavered around 135lb (at a height of 6'1), and getting my body to retain any more than that has proven a struggle since apparently calories are my kryptonite. This week, though, I finally crested 150lb. Still on the lighter side for my height, but it's progress all the same.

Congrats! That's a significant amount of muscle to put on!

How is your candy-abstinence going?

It's still going strong. I've fallen off the wagon more times than I'd like in April (four out of thirty days is kind of a lot), but it's becoming more and more a habit with a few outliers as opposed to a constant struggle. It's nice.

Also, this week has been consistently sunny, so biking has indeed been a bonanza.

[AMFV]

So we're now only a few days from my next competition. I'm definitely feeling a little bit under prepared, it's my first time competing in open heavyweight rather than in novice, so the weights are up considerably. It'll be interesting to see how I do though. I've got a squat suit that fits, finally, I'm probably going to deadlift in it as well, since I don't have a fitting DL suit yet. I tried it today at light weight, since I don't want to strain anything, I was able to get to a single at 345 for DL before it started to feel like there was any weight on the bar at all. So that's pretty drastic, I imagine that I can probably get 50-100 lbs more out of that suit. As for squatting, being a squat suit it was definitely a big help there. I definitely can imagine that it'll feel like a rocket out of the bottom when combined with leg wraps. I got up to about 385 for five. Which is when it started feeling like I was doing working sets, so I stopped there, to give myself plenty of time to recover by Saturday.

I'll let you guys know how it goes, maybe upload some picatures afterwards.

Congratulations on the progress!

I've been getting serious the past few months about hitting the gym and not only working on strength training but putting on weight as well, since I've been chronically underweight most of my life; for some reason I've generally looked a bit heavier than I actually am. I've mostly wavered around 135lb (at a height of 6'1), and getting my body to retain any more than that has proven a struggle since apparently calories are my kryptonite. This week, though, I finally crested 150lb. Still on the lighter side for my height, but it's progress all the same.

The weight increase has been accompanied by a corollary boost in the gym. Recently increased my one-rep max on the bench press to 205lb, and I've been managing up to twenty pull-ups in one go. Feels good. The weight has vacillated in the past so it's possible it might go down again before it goes up again, but I'm on an upward trajectory for the moment.

Awesome! Although if you keep increasing the weight the pullups start getting a lot harder really quickly.

I guess that speaks of the weakness of my lats. I find it very hard to do even a single pull-up in good form that is not just a reverse grip chin-up. I always found chin-ups much easier to do.

That's fairly common with people who don't do pullups all that often. I remember in the Marines all the people who were in A-School who were fairly young and inexperienced could do more chin-ups (since you were allowed to do those for the PFT as well), and most of the more experienced guys did regular pull-ups. Once you do enough of them they just get easier, which makes sense since your lats are a lot stronger than your biceps.

For pull-ups lat-pulldowns, negative pullups (use a jumping motion or a stool to get up, then lower really slowly), are about the best ways to improve. Doing sets to failure and broken sets as well. I found that if I was doing that sort of thing I could reliably hit twenty all the time, and I was not a small dude when I was in the Marines.

Lats are a tough muscle to target, so you're not alone there. Does your gym (if you go to one) have an assisted pull-up machine? That can help you focus on and develop your lats to the point of being able to do them unassisted with good form.

I'm going to step in here, lats are an easy muscle to target, they are difficult to isolate. Like there are a huge amount of exercises that work your lats. Deadlifts, one of the big compound movers works your lats. Any type of row, any type of pulling motion. Cleans. Farmer's Walks. Shrugs even a little bit, depending on how you do them. And your lats get very involved in pretty nearly all of those, and there are multiple types of most of those. Now working your lats is difficult because they are a larger muscle, and they're one that's used in pretty nearly all your daily stuff, so you'll be feeling that soreness.

It's isolating them that's hard. I can only think of two exercises that do that, and those are variations of the same, pullovers and machine pull overs. Oh, I guess you could do cable pullovers as well. But isolating your lats is generally much more challenging than other isolations.

On my end: upped by bench press to 220 and hope to hit 225 (two plates!) by my next chest day. On the negative end of things, I think I strained one of my biceps, because boy is my arm on fire.

It's easy to forget how much your biceps are involved in stabilizing the bench press. A five pound jump is definitely doable though, depending on how you're feeling that day. A lot of PRs is just feeling good on that particular day. Like for me, in competition I always do better than in the gym, cause of the adrenaline and the emotions and what-not. But a five lb PR should definitely be manageable.

[Tvtyrant]

So we're now only a few days from my next competition. I'm definitely feeling a little bit under prepared, it's my first time competing in open heavyweight rather than in novice, so the weights are up considerably. It'll be interesting to see how I do though. I've got a squat suit that fits, finally, I'm probably going to deadlift in it as well, since I don't have a fitting DL suit yet. I tried it today at light weight, since I don't want to strain anything, I was able to get to a single at 345 for DL before it started to feel like there was any weight on the bar at all. So that's pretty drastic, I imagine that I can probably get 50-100 lbs more out of that suit. As for squatting, being a squat suit it was definitely a big help there. I definitely can imagine that it'll feel like a rocket out of the bottom when combined with leg wraps. I got up to about 385 for five. Which is when it started feeling like I was doing working sets, so I stopped there, to give myself plenty of time to recover by Saturday.

I'll let you guys know how it goes, maybe upload some picatures afterwards.

Sounds good! Good luck on the competition, we are rooting for you!

[Marillion]

About 9 months ago, I started following a variant of Rippetoe's starting strength schedule, and it was really effective. It was easy to remember and work into my schedule, I was losing fat and building muscle, eating healthy, and generally loving it. Then one fateful day towards the end of January, I apparently got a little too ambitious when I tried to deadlift my body weight, 200 lbs at the time. I did it twice (!!!), but on the third try I gave myself a minor hernia in my lower back and it's taken a long time to heal. I couldn't even lift 60 pounds or bend in certain ways without intense pain shooting down my leg, and between that and intense training for a major promotion at my job, for about a month and a half I was so exhausted that I ate way too much junk food and didn't get any exercise except for walking my dogs 20 minutes a day, and my weight went right back up.

Well, between medication and lots of lower back exercises, I finally woke up a few days ago without even a twinge of pain. Today, I lifted weights for the first time in 3 months, and you guys I missed it so much! I've lost a fair amount of ground, of course, and I must resist the temptation to push myself too hard and hurt myself again, but I'm very excited to be back at it

[Delicious Taffy]

A friend swindled me into going to the gym with her, today. I only managed 30 minutes of straight running before I had to stop, though. How much of this is it gonna take to be Usain Bolt 2.0?

[Tvtyrant]

About 9 months ago, I started following a variant of Rippetoe's starting strength schedule, and it was really effective. It was easy to remember and work into my schedule, I was losing fat and building muscle, eating healthy, and generally loving it. Then one fateful day towards the end of January, I apparently got a little too ambitious when I tried to deadlift my body weight, 200 lbs at the time. I did it twice (!!!), but on the third try I gave myself a minor hernia in my lower back and it's taken a long time to heal. I couldn't even lift 60 pounds or bend in certain ways without intense pain shooting down my leg, and between that and intense training for a major promotion at my job, for about a month and a half I was so exhausted that I ate way too much junk food and didn't get any exercise except for walking my dogs 20 minutes a day, and my weight went right back up.

Well, between medication and lots of lower back exercises, I finally woke up a few days ago without even a twinge of pain. Today, I lifted weights for the first time in 3 months, and you guys I missed it so much! I've lost a fair amount of ground, of course, and I must resist the temptation to push myself too hard and hurt myself again, but I'm very excited to be back at it

Ouch. I'm glad you are pain free now but that really sucks that your back got hurt that badly. Take it slow and son't agonize about the pace.

A friend swindled me into going to the gym with her, today. I only managed 30 minutes of straight running before I had to stop, though. How much of this is it gonna take to be Usain Bolt 2.0?

I can't run for 30 minutes straight, super jealous. I bet a week, a month at most.

[Marillion]

Ouch. I'm glad you are pain free now but that really sucks that your back got hurt that badly. Take it slow and son't agonize about the pace.

Thanks. It wasn't actually that bad, or rather, I made it worse than it should have been. I waited way too long to see a doctor about it, because the last time I'd hurt my back it healed on it's own within a month with stretching and ibuprofren. By the time I realized it wouldn't get better on its own, I legit didn't have time to go to the doctor for something that wasn't life-threatening. But yeah, I'm definitely taking it easy for a while. My schedule was 3x/week A-B-A*, B-A-B*, with squats on all routines and deadlifts every other workout. Plus, it was sets across at %90 of my max weight. It made for pretty rapid gains for me as a newb (more than doubling my deadlift in ~6 months) but I see now it was definitely overworking my lower back. I think probably I'll only do deadlifts on the last workout of a week, and lower weight/more reps for a while.

[Tvtyrant]

Thanks. It wasn't actually that bad, or rather, I made it worse than it should have been. I waited way too long to see a doctor about it, because the last time I'd hurt my back it healed on it's own within a month with stretching and ibuprofren. By the time I realized it wouldn't get better on its own, I legit didn't have time to go to the doctor for something that wasn't life-threatening. But yeah, I'm definitely taking it easy for a while. My schedule was 3x/week A-B-A*, B-A-B*, with squats on all routines and deadlifts every other workout. Plus, it was sets across at %90 of my max weight. It made for pretty rapid gains for me as a newb (more than doubling my deadlift in ~6 months) but I see now it was definitely overworking my lower back. I think probably I'll only do deadlifts on the last workout of a week, and lower weight/more reps for a while.

This is almost literally how I hurt my back a few months back, so I feel your pain. Mine wasn't the weight as much as trying to do a lot of bouncing type excercises. Kettlebells, rope excercises, and chopping wood.

[Delicious Taffy]

I can't run for 30 minutes straight, super jealous. I bet a week, a month at most.

In hindsight, that kinda reads like I'm humble bragging, but it's actually a bad thing I did that. I'm very inactive, most of the time, and WAAAAY over-exerted today. I'm very literal-minded and tend to hyper-focus, due to a mix of ADD and autism. So when my friend suggested the treadmill, my brain sort of went "Okay, treadmill is for running. It's running time, now."

My legs hurt like hell, and may actually be damaged. Don't try this.

[Tvtyrant]

In hindsight, that kinda reads like I'm humble bragging, but it's actually a bad thing I did that. I'm very inactive, most of the time, and WAAAAY over-exerted today. I'm very literal-minded and tend to hyper-focus, due to a mix of ADD and autism. So when my friend suggested the treadmill, my brain sort of went "Okay, treadmill is for running. It's running time, now."

My legs hurt like hell, and may actually be damaged. Don't try this.

No worries there. My knees and joints are still functioning, i'm not picking up running until I am light enough it won't cause permanent damage.

I hope there is no serious damage and you recover quickly :)

[Cozzer]

It's strange... one one hand, about a month ago my weight loss just stopped. I'm trying to keep doing the same things, but my weight now just hovers around the same figure (and after a month, it can't be a fluctuation). On the other hand, people are telling me I'm visibly slimmer than a few weeks ago (and looking in a mirror, I'm inclined to agree with them). I guess I'm putting on more muscles, but I don't feel more muscular. The human body really is a mystery.

That said, things are going great! Even if it's less measurable, progress happened and that's what count.

[Tvtyrant]

OMG it is working everyone! My 11 year old track running nephew and I played tag for over 30 minutes 1v1 without stopping. I don't think I have run for 30 minutes since highschool!

So I am feeling pretty accomplished right now :)

[Iruka]

OMG it is working everyone! My 11 year old track running nephew and I played tag for over 30 minutes 1v1 without stopping. I don't think I have run for 30 minutes since highschool!

So I am feeling pretty accomplished right now :)

Awesome! Keeping up with an 11 year old is quite a feat!

[AMFV]

About 9 months ago, I started following a variant of Rippetoe's starting strength schedule, and it was really effective. It was easy to remember and work into my schedule, I was losing fat and building muscle, eating healthy, and generally loving it. Then one fateful day towards the end of January, I apparently got a little too ambitious when I tried to deadlift my body weight, 200 lbs at the time. I did it twice (!!!), but on the third try I gave myself a minor hernia in my lower back and it's taken a long time to heal. I couldn't even lift 60 pounds or bend in certain ways without intense pain shooting down my leg, and between that and intense training for a major promotion at my job, for about a month and a half I was so exhausted that I ate way too much junk food and didn't get any exercise except for walking my dogs 20 minutes a day, and my weight went right back up.

I'm going to be really honest, I'd kind of stay away from Rippletoe's stuff. He has never competed at a high level, he's never trained anybody that has. He's pretty strong for a gym, but not strong enough to be giving people advice as a general rule. There are a few other programs by people who are actually competing and actually doing well that are better for that sort of thing. And also are often better at avoiding injury, since that's fundamentally a crucial part of competition.


Well I had my competition on the fifth, it's taken a few days for me to be where I could post about it. It was pretty disappointing there weren't a lot of guys there. As a result they combined my class with the next one up. Which sucked in terms of the pole-push and what-not. Also I underperformed pretty generally. Zeroed a couple of events. I knew that the weights were going to be on the heavier end for me, but I at least thought I'd get them. Which is a frustrating moment. It was my first competition out of novice, so I knew I might not perform that well. But this was very frustrating for me. I definitely need to get myself more focused, if I want to do well in the next comp.

Well, between medication and lots of lower back exercises, I finally woke up a few days ago without even a twinge of pain. Today, I lifted weights for the first time in 3 months, and you guys I missed it so much! I've lost a fair amount of ground, of course, and I must resist the temptation to push myself too hard and hurt myself again, but I'm very excited to be back at it

Definitely take it slow, but don't take it too slow. You'll be able to gain back that ground much quicker, so if you feel like that's happening don't pull back too much.

A friend swindled me into going to the gym with her, today. I only managed 30 minutes of straight running before I had to stop, though. How much of this is it gonna take to be Usain Bolt 2.0?

Many thousands of sessions.

OMG it is working everyone! My 11 year old track running nephew and I played tag for over 30 minutes 1v1 without stopping. I don't think I have run for 30 minutes since highschool!

So I am feeling pretty accomplished right now :)

Awesome! Tag and games are pretty good, cause they let you regulate and pace in a way that other things might not necessarily.

It's strange... one one hand, about a month ago my weight loss just stopped. I'm trying to keep doing the same things, but my weight now just hovers around the same figure (and after a month, it can't be a fluctuation). On the other hand, people are telling me I'm visibly slimmer than a few weeks ago (and looking in a mirror, I'm inclined to agree with them). I guess I'm putting on more muscles, but I don't feel more muscular. The human body really is a mystery.

That said, things are going great! Even if it's less measurable, progress happened and that's what count.

I think that if you're okay with that particular type of progression you want to keep track of things like your waist-line and your measurements. That way you have an objective measure, and can make sure that you're still progressing rather than stalled out. Or shift to watching your lifts closely to ensure there's progression there. The key is not to keep doing the same things if progress has stalled. Like if you're doing the same things and your lifts are increasing and your waist is going down you're still progressing. But if you're doing the same things and your weight, your lifts, and your waist has stalled, that's a stall. And you definitely can't trust people eyeballing to tell you that.

[Tvtyrant]

Well I had my competition on the fifth, it's taken a few days for me to be where I could post about it. It was pretty disappointing there weren't a lot of guys there. As a result they combined my class with the next one up. Which sucked in terms of the pole-push and what-not. Also I underperformed pretty generally. Zeroed a couple of events. I knew that the weights were going to be on the heavier end for me, but I at least thought I'd get them. Which is a frustrating moment. It was my first competition out of novice, so I knew I might not perform that well. But this was very frustrating for me. I definitely need to get myself more focused, if I want to do well in the next comp.

I think that if you're okay with that particular type of progression you want to keep track of things like your waist-line and your measurements. That way you have an objective measure, and can make sure that you're still progressing rather than stalled out. Or shift to watching your lifts closely to ensure there's progression there. The key is not to keep doing the same things if progress has stalled. Like if you're doing the same things and your lifts are increasing and your waist is going down you're still progressing. But if you're doing the same things and your weight, your lifts, and your waist has stalled, that's a stall. And you definitely can't trust people eyeballing to tell you that.

I'm sorry the competition didn't go as desired. Having your weight classes combined is harsh, not really fair for the lighter competitors.

Switching activities can really help with stalls IME. Like swapping swimming for cycling for a while, or doing more lighter and working back up.

[Cozzer]

I think that if you're okay with that particular type of progression you want to keep track of things like your waist-line and your measurements. That way you have an objective measure, and can make sure that you're still progressing rather than stalled out. Or shift to watching your lifts closely to ensure there's progression there. The key is not to keep doing the same things if progress has stalled. Like if you're doing the same things and your lifts are increasing and your waist is going down you're still progressing. But if you're doing the same things and your weight, your lifts, and your waist has stalled, that's a stall. And you definitely can't trust people eyeballing to tell you that.

Well, right now I'm doing bodyweight programs that last about a month, and I try to pick different styles (when I complete one that's more strength-oriented, I choose one with more cardio, for example), so there's always a bit of change in my routine. Since I don't have a goal that's more specific than "feeling fit and looking good", it works for me.

Also, apparently my weight just unlocked and started going down again since a few days... but I might look into the waist-line thing, it's probably more accurate for my purposes.

Thanks, and don't worry about the competition! First-time anxiety is always a big factor, I think... Now that it's out of the way, next time you'll be able to show what you can really do!