Operation Glutes Follow Up

You can read the first post here. 

What I loved most about the plan Suzanne built for me is that pretty early on I felt STRONGER. This is the part of the post where I admit that I felt up my butt (good god, the Google searches that are going to arrive at my blog…) and found that I had muscle! My glutes FELT stronger and rock hard. It only took about 3 weeks for that to happen. While my butt didn’t look different yet, it felt different. It didn’t look like Kim Kardashian’s (maybe I just genetically have a flat butt) but it FELT stronger.

In general I just felt more muscular. In turn, I felt more confident in my body image.

Week 3 – I noticed around the 3rd week that I wasn’t sore for 1-2 days after a session like I was in the first two weeks. That first week I was sore for days and it was awesome! But that feeling quickly went away and I needed to increase the amount of weight.

For example, the first week I did the 1 arm tricep kickbacks I used an 8 lb weight and it was difficult but I could finish the 10 rep set. By the end of week 2 I increased it to 10 lbs (struggling to finish the 10 reps) and week 3 I did 12 pounds.

I breezed through week 4 and 5. I increased the weight on a lot of the exercises I was doing because they got too easy. I barely broke a sweat or I wasn’t sore afterward. I kinda like that “I worked out really hard last night” soreness…

Week 6 – The final week came and I knew the routine well and my transitions between exercises were faster. It look less time to set up and get started, which was nice. That was my frustration in the beginning. The final week I was up to doing 17.5 pounds for the tricep kickbacks. It was a pretty awesome feeling to be able to do 3 sets of 10 at a higher weight!

Final Results

I went into this experiment with the goal of strengthening my glutes and toning my arms. I believe I achieved both. I’m in no way “done” and still have a lot of work to do but I made progress. My physical therapist said my glutes were much stronger and that was music to my ears.

When I discussed my goals with Suzanne before starting, weight loss wasn’t even on the list. Which is strange for me–considering my background and my mindset. It just wasn’t the focus. Getting strong and healing my knees and toning my lunch lady arms was all I cared about!

I stepped on the scale for my first weigh-in since March. I hadn’t weighed myself for the 6 weeks that I was doing the program. I didn’t lose weight, in fact I gained 1 pound. But that could be inaccurate. My weight can fluctuate between 2-5 pounds depending on the day I step on the scale.

As you can see, I lost about 1/2 an inch on my hips and waist. Now for the horribly awkward “before” and “After” photos. I felt incredibly foolish posing, hence my dumbfounded look and Michael was teasing me telling me to do my Hulk Hogan pose. 😛

The changes may not be totally obvious in these pictures but I can feel them on my body. My triceps, deltoids and biceps are stronger and more defined.  My thighs are a little more toned and muscular. The underarm and “side” fat (I don’t even know what to call it) is a little less. All in all, I’m pretty happy with the results. I can SEE a change. I can FEEL a change. I like it. And I’ll work on getting better pictures for the next round. 😉

Thanks for following along on my experiment. Stay tuned for Phase 2.