Fitness Update #1

Fitness Update

I've been going to the gym for around 4 months now, which is officially the longest time I've stuck at any sort of exercise (go me!), so I thought I'd do a little fitness update. I might make this into a regular thing if it goes well and you guys enjoy reading it, so let me know what you think in the comments.

I love lifting weights. I'm not a cardio girl and I always hated the thought of getting on the treadmill and (attempting) to run for an hour, 4 times a week. I think that's why I never stuck at the gym before - it was boring and I wasn't seeing the results I wanted. With lifting weights I can see progression week after week and that's what keeps me motivated to keep going.

When I first started going to the gym I went with Anthony and he showed me what exercises to do and how to
group them together on which days. For the past 4 months I've been practicing the basics and concentrating on getting the correct form on exercises and slowly increasing the weights. Now I'm used to this I've decided to switch up my routine.

My week used to be split as below:

Monday: Chest & Triceps
Tuesday: Legs & Shoulders
Friday: Back & Biceps

This made sure I was targeting each muscle group and I'd do around 3 or 4 exercises for each group and 3 sets of 8 reps. I found that this was a great beginner routine as it only requires 3 days at the gym so it's not too daunting. A few weeks ago though I decided I wanted to add in an extra day and start training harder. I've gained quite a bit of muscle definition but I haven't really seen any fat loss, so I really thought about what I wanted to work on and have decided on the below.

Monday: Chest & Legs
Tuesday: Arms
Thursday: Glutes & Arms/Cardio (Depending on how I'm feeling)
Friday: Back & Shoulders

I've added an extra session in on Thursday now and I'm loving going 4 times a week. Where I've put cardio on Thursday this means an extra long cardio session as I'm now also starting to incorporate some LISS into every session, as I wasn't doing any before. I've also separated legs into 2 sessions (legs and glutes) as I really want to concentrate on building my booty and my leg session was far too long to do in one day! Instead of doing 3 sets of 8 reps I'm also concentrating on lifting much heavier and aiming to get about 3 reps out of my last set. I'm hoping I'll see even more improvement in muscle growth by increasing weights to the maximum I can safely lift. So this will be my routine for the next couple of months and I'll see how/if it works for me before re-assessing again and having another switch up.

The thing I really struggle with is my diet - I know it's a much bigger contributor to health than working out is, but I just like cakes and chocolate too much! I find if I try and do everything at once I won't stick to it, so I've concentrated on my workouts first and then I'll add nutrition into the mix too. I'm going to try and get my (newly toned) butt into gear after my birthday and try to get a proper food plan together. But for now I'll be stuffing my face with Dominos and birthday cake on Saturday! Diet starts next week....

Kayleigh x

- Disclaimer: I'm in no way a fitness expert, this is just what I'm experimenting with at the moment for my own personal fitness journey.

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