As anyone who is working on improving themselves will discover, motivation is an integral and challenging part of achieving your goals. Success doesn't happen over night, but nothing feels better or gives you an extra boost of motivation than noticing small changes in your self, and seeing the steps that lead to your hard work coming to fruition.

I've been working on eating healthy and limiting empty calories, making smarter nutritional choices, and working out to lose fat and gain muscle. I was ecstatic today when I measured my waist and noticed that I've lost an inch of fat (I'm at 26" now) in just under two weeks. It's a nice feeling to know that you're not struggling for nothing, and it makes me want to keep working at it to get in the shape I want to be in. It's obviously a very small step in the right direction, but those little steps show that there is always progress to be made with a little effort.

I'd like to hear all the improvements you RY folks have noticed in yourself and what you're doing to achieve them, and what your goals are.

The only recent goal I can think of is putting up 225 on bench press. Started working out just over a year and a half ago and could barely get the bar up 10 times. Not much for most people but it was a huge goal for me. Made me feel like I was actually getting some where.

Also the ability to do even one chin up/ pull up was amazing for me after being fat and weak for 18 years of my life.

Motivation. What an interesting word. Let's have a talk about motivation.

When I ever I do something that takes a great deal of effort. I like to play chicken with myself.

Chicken with what you might ask? Your mind and your body. One is going to quit first.

You will constantly find yourself wanting to quit, but will you?

You must gain enough control to say "No I'm not going to quit, my body is going to fail first"

Yeah I just got started in a major re-invent. We will see how it goes.

anyone getting database errors?

I just got to that also. I remember when I started, we were benching 95 pounds for maybe 10 reps and were amazed when people would bench using a 45 on each side. I just did 225 x 3 after finishing my bench workout, which consists of 5 sets or five reps the tops set being 210 pounds x 5. I was proud of me. I remember maxing at 215 lbs about a month ago.

As for the pullups, i'm afraid i'll either have to become a lot more stronger or lose weight to be able to even do one. (I weight 280 pounds)

I managed to squat more than one and a half times my body weight for three reps.
I know it's not huge or anything.

1) Back squat: 190#x4 from 155#x5
2) Overhead Press: 110#x4 from 105x2
3) C+J@150#x10 (one every 1.5 min) up from 130#
4) Leg supported DB ROWs: 100#x4 from 85ishx5?
5) 160# hangclean from 150# from the floor

The numbers are a month and a half apart.

I went from 145# to 158ish during this period.

backsquat 245x3, never tried 1 rep max
bench weak b/c of ac separation 205x1
barbell military press- 125x1
deadlift (raw) - 265 1 rep max
i can do 3 extra wide grip chin ups, forearms about 45 degrees outwards from being perpendicular to my lower arms at the up position


I went from being 185 of fat basically to 160 in about a year and a half. I was weak as hell before, still am but at least I'm getting somewhere.

I've gone from being about 198 pounds at about 5'6" to ~140 pounds at 5'8.5" since febuary 2007.
My waist, when I was at my highest weight, was 33 inches, now its about 26.

When I started I couldnt run for 2 minutes, it damn near killed me.

Now, I've run a half marathon (my time was terrible, no need to mention specifics there :P)
And just recently a 10k in 1:08; still not a great time but hey, I did it!

Thats actually pretty much a short of all my big successes, sorry

Are you doing full squats?

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