Thread: Getting Back into Training but bummed....Help!!!!!

Hi everyone!!!!

I am new here and need some major guidance.

I am 40-something and have recently begun training again after a nasty accident left me on the disabled list about 8-9 yrs ago.

Problem I am facing is I am getting majorly depressed and aggravated looking at what's become of my body. I realize it will take time, yada yada yada...but I still feel down.

I am doing 35 mins cardio 4x/wk and a upper/lower split as well. Trying to keep my diet clean but the disgust with myself propels me to eat at night. I will keep plugging away.

Has anyone else felt this way? I need some moral support--

Thinking about adding something like a t3/clen combo-- Any thoughts?

I am trying. Currently I weigh about 139 lbs and am approx. 24%bf. Looking to get cut...and lean.

I used to be in super shape and modeled as well. I am trying to focus on now...and the future.

Any help is appreciated.

Wanted to throw out a couple things - I've been fighting w/ my weight most of my life - not that I was ever obese but it wasn't until I competed at age 35 that I was finally able to demonstrate to myself that I had the ability to change my weight & bodyfat to get the results I wanted. Mind you competition comes w/ dealing w/ being in the best shape of your life, followed by a nice little post show rebound and an off-season, so there are other issues to deal w/, but just KNOWING that I had the ability to control those changes is so incredibly empowering.

A huge part of making progress is not sabotaging yourself with the mental aspect of it while you're trying to keep up the consistency and the work to get to your goal. I have spent many years working on managing my associations w/ food. I've gotten bummed out about things or where I was w/ my weight and just gone to food to get some sort of satisfaction out of some part of my life - but it never tastes as great as I think it will, and never fixes how I feel, and then screws up any progress I made in setting up the burn rate I know I need if I want to make some serious progress.

I'm sort of at that point right now - I'm going on a vacation to S. Florida next week - due to work and general wear & tear from my last competition, I took off 4 months from the gym - I hadn't gained any more weight that I did pretty much after the post-show settled in - so I've been consistently at 15 lb above my competitoin weight, tho my body composition has changed over those months. So like I said - trying to get rid of whatever I can before I head out on myvacation next week. I basically pulled out all my little tricks for my usual last 4 weeks of competition cut, but I'm finding it doesn't work all that great if I haven't had the time to set up that burn rate and my body is also reminding me of how it likes to stick where it is right now, weight-wise - even tho I am seeing some bodyfat changes. I've been eating friggen fish & asparagus for 3 weeks and doing double cardio almost every day, but have been hampered w/ a heavy travel schedule for work, having my cardio schedule screwed up by changing time zones and not sleeping well, and now just got home to discover I have a cold coming on. (I'm going diving in Florida - I CANNOT have sinus problems due to a cold if I want to get below 6 ft of water...). So -- I guess for Florida, I'll take whatever I can get and not worry about it so much.

After that I plan to change my competitoin category from body building to women's Physique. This means dropping my off-season fluf AS WELL AS dumping at least 10 lbs of muscle mass to fit into this smaller category. I've got 6 months to do this for my target show - but let me tell you what is going to keep me going -- NOt obsessing about the back fat I currently tend to collect (mostly age-related), NOT getting bummed out about how I look, and probably some stumbles but lots of focus on diet becaues I know I'm going to get sick of the diet at regular intervals (as it is I can't cook chicken anymore... ), but I will be focusing on the progress I can see at small intervals - improvements in energy levels, improvements in how my clothes fit, and paying attention to my end goal -i.e. visualizing the end goal and just not looking at the scale, or if I need to, not even bother looking in the mirror until my clothes feel like they're getting looser.

I also have worked hard to remove the assoication of food as a support, a reward or a crutch for when I get down on things. It never fixes anything and only sets me back. Very few foods taste better than LEAN feels.

Hope that helps.... I generally always meet my goals, but making it day to day w/o some struggles is hard. Removing dependency on food as my emotional go-to or when I get bored, or just looking for some sort of satisfaction, takes a LOT of the pressure off. Schedule a good cheat meal once / week associated w/ something fun. Anything to help you keep the random cheats to a minimum and also allow you shorter blocks of time with small wins to keep you focused along the way to the big win. Its frustrating because it is a journey, and never a destination. You can't get there quickly - and you are always limited by how fast your body will respond. You just can't force your body to poerating faster than it is designed to. Those slow & consistent changs are the ones that your body can adapt to and support, in order to better maintain over time.

Another thing that has always kept me moving forward is focus on making improvements in the gym - e.g. stronger lifts, better form, new split - something that I can focus on in the moment instead of going thru the motions and still being frustrated about slow progress toward the end result. If you've come from an accident - do you have any specfic training you are following now or interested in any particular approach that you'd like to try to improve any limitations you may have? One thing I've had to contend w/ in the last 6 months is the fact that I seem to have hit the age (I'm 45) where the accumulated wear & tear of many years of lifting, probably bad form before I found some good trainers several years back, more wear & tear from heavy competitoin dieting the last couple of years, a bum shoulder, crappy knees, plantar fasciitis and buttloads of recurring tendonitis --- I simply can't lift like I used to - and that sort of balls to the wall lifting was what kept me going to the gym for the last 30 yrs. What do I do now? I'm playing w/ some new splits and have hired a trainer to also help me make this transitions to LOSE size while improving my conditioning, but not also losing what it iwas that has kept me going to the gym all these years. Again, its a journey, not a destination. Part of it is finding the things that jazz you about the whole fitness lifestyle and explore those. Finding the passion for is something that makes the whole 'losing weight' thing almost secondary, but a nice little side benefit to what you are doing, w/o the mindfuck and frustration of doing "all the right stuff" but not seeing the satisfying results you want just yet.