Now that I can move again...

...it must be time to do my second workout.  Yippee!  How bad did my first workout beat me??

Well for starters, my butt and hams were SO sore.  HOW SORE?  So sore I half-sat, half-fell onto the toilet and then had to wince because the cold, hard seat hurt my tenders.  My arms, shoulders, and chest/armpits burned and ached the longest (thanks, push ups!), and my traps were sore from my neck all the way down between my shoulder blades.  My abs hurt.  EVERYTHING HURT.  For two days, I whimpered and slept and tried to drink water.

Really, the whole experience wouldn't have been so bad if my mattress wasn't on the FLOOR in the living room (because that is the only cool room in my apartment), meaning I had to climb up off the floor every time I got up...and then collapse onto the bed to lay down.

I guess yesterday I could have worked out, but I was tired and still a little sore (who am I kidding, my back and triceps are STILL sore).  Tonight I get to do a lovely little mixture of dead lifts, shoulder presses, lunges, more crunches, and lat pull downs.

So in other words...I'll be back as soon as I can type again.

Step one, taken!

So, while I'm still fresh in my sweat I thought I would go ahead and jot down my thoughts about my first workout.  Ever see those Jell-O commercials with the people wiggling out the brand?  Yeah...that's me right now.  I even had my post workout shake--a recipe from the book (they were kind enough to include blender-less options for people like me) that didn't taste too bad and fulled me right up.
Stage One workouts follow the pattern of one "whole body" exercise followed by two alternating sets of two exercises that target upper, lower, or mid body.  My upper arms and legs and butt are pretty wiggly, bu I also feel wobbly in parts of my body I wasn't directly using...  Basically, I feel like my muskols are all being tossed around in a shake'n'bake bag.
Overall, I am pretty pleased with myself.  I feel like I was testing out weight loads today.  My first sets were usually lighter, and on most exercises I increased my weight for the second set.  Next time, I will start with the weight I used in the second set if it was challenging enough, or add weight to that number.  There were a couple exercises I did (step ups and push ups) where I couldn't do 15 reps in the second set, but I pumped out 12.  That's not too bad, right?
The only thing I pretty much failed were the prone jackknifes on the swiss ball.  Maybe my ball is too big for me to do those, maybe my core just isn't strong enough to stabilize me on that thing, I'm not sure what my deal is.  I tried, kept falling off, and switched to swiss ball crunches instead.  I took those nice and slow and my gut is burning something awful..
But I WILL figure out how to finish the prone jackknifes before this stage is over!

Can't wait to see how I feel tomorrow...

This just in: Washing my hair was a pain in the A.  Holding my arms up and scrubbing my scalp was so tiring...

Lift like a man, look like a goddess.....

...the promise is printed on the front cover in bold, lavender letters.

Of course frumpy-dumpy me wants to look like a goddess, so I purchased the book after hearing lots of great feedback from women who tried Lou's The New Rules of Lifting (dude version).  For this chick guide, Lou Schuler teamed up again with Alwyn Cosgrove (the mind behind the actual program) and newcomer Cassandra Forsythe, M.S. (the mind behind the diet plan) to give ladies the attention they deserve in the heavy-lifting circle.
New Rules... takes women through seven stages (including an optional stage thrown in to increase strength to weight ratio and prepare chicks for unassisted pull ups...I excite!) of progressing intensity, all with the goal of increasing power and strength.  The diet plan is straightforward--eat healthy, real food to power your body for the beastly workouts--and cutting calories to speed up weight loss is discouraged.
I've read through the book a couple times and it's as entertaining as it is informative.  I found myself laughing and learning (and fretting the day I would actually start this butt-kick-fest) throughout the read.  I almost feel like I need to have a huge poster printed with the 20 New Rules and hang it everywhere I go, lest I fall back into the mindset fuzzy-pink-hand-weight pushers want to keep me in.
And well, now the time has come.  I've set many start dates that have come and passed since buying the book and every time I had an excuse.  This time, I can't think of any good excuse to reason myself out of starting (I was going to throw the "I'm too fat and weak" card but it just didn't make sense), so I'm digging in and trying to mentally prepare myself as much as possible.  I have everything ready for my meet-and-greet with the squat rack tonight...

..I hope it likes me.  Wish me luck.