Promenade

Hello everybody! I've been training for a while - basically a little bit over two years now. I have started with simple home training, weight loss diet and occasional jogging.

After a year I have switched to gym and my progress literally skyrocketed. I was never happier in my life with my figure, not even when I was in my early twenties. I look so much better than in my twenties actually. I have to thank you all for this, but recently I feel like my progress has been slowing down. I'm not sure what approach I should take next. When I first started I was overweight, but I managed to drop those additional pounds in just a period of 6 months. Since then I try to eat not too much and I keep relatively clean diet - sometimes I eat some pizza and so on, but I try to maintain balance between the light and dark side here :) My figure has definitely improved - I feel more feminine now, leaner and stronger, but I didn't really notice much progress as of recently, so maybe somebody has any ideas? I'm doing FBW workout with 8-15 reps that I have found here on this forum. A male friend of mine from my gym recommended me to start doing Push/Pull 4x/week, what do you think? He is pretty knowledgeable about it, so I took his advice serious. Is this the step in right direction?

Thanks a lot!

Katyaa

Hey! I hope you are well. I'm very happy for you - keeping this lifestyle and committing yourself to the gym for two years is really great achievement. Truth be told, not many people are able to stick with heavy work outs and diet for so long - but it's also not for everyone, right? You are already pretty advanced, I agree, trying Push/Pull routine may be a good idea if you feel that FBW is not enough for you anymore. I'm personally still running FBW, just doing lesser reps as I have my own goals to achieve now and personally FBW suits me the most, but not everyone can improve on this plan in the long-term, so you should definitely try Push and Pull. If you won't like it, you can always switch back.

Best advice I can give you is to keep trying new things, but not really changing those that work as well. If you don't feel like doing what you do, feel free to try something else! Learn to feel and know your own body - when you do this, there is no stopping you!

CatLady

You have had some great info from Katyaa here, you should definitely try new things and don't be afraid of trying them. You will never know unless you try - I have also switched a lot between different plans and after I have learned more about my body I'm basically using only two different plans and changing reps, few exercises and of course - I'm modifying my diet accordingly. Sometimes I add calories, get additional pounds and then lose them - your strength and muscle is growing so much faster when you are eating more than you actually need. Obviously it comes with extra pounds, but it's the best process for a great, constant progress. I basically divide it into two periods - "mass period" and "cutting period", which are occurring every three months, but it's not for everyone. Keeping yourself at 0 calories deficit is definitely easier approach than eating a lot and then cutting, because we all know how exhausting losing fat may be :P

Anyway, if you don't intend to change your diet, you should definitely consider changing your amount of reps. If you are doing 8-15 now, feel free to switch to 4-8 for example. It always helps me to overcome stagnation, so if you are not feeling your switch to Push and Pull feel free to modify your plan accordingly. If you are not sure on how to do it, you can post it here, give us your suggestions and we will try our best to help you :)

Good luck!

bynx

Great info from all of you here! I'm sure promenade will make a great progress now thanks to you and well, so will I! I have similar problems now, I don't feel like I'm really moving forward, but I don't want to get on a strict diet - I try to eat healthy and consume a lot of proteins but I'm not dedicated enough to keep a diet now. I only started working out because my ex boyfriend took me to a gym a few times. We are not together anymore, but I've stuck with gym as I have really loved it but I don't see a point toa try this hard. I was never overweight so I just go to gym 3x/week to feel better and look better. It was working so far, but as I've seen so many great responses here I'm sure I will be able to do something about it. I will start with adjusting my reps because as promenade I'm on FBW with higher reps - 8-12. I was using a plan that my ex boyfriend gave me so I will make some changes!

cherryjuice

Hey, don't worry about occasional lack of progress - it happens all the time to everyone. As others have stated you have to feel your body and keep making changes until you find this one good method or preferably a few, which suits you best. As for diet, it will be a turning point for you. If you want to keep moving forward, sooner or later you will have to start keeping your diet in check and just sticking to macros and healthy eating won't do. You will have to try the approach that CatLady has mentioned - gaining weight and then losing it and I'm afraid to say, that in your case it will happen sooner than later, but hey, losing weight is definitely not that bad - all you have to think of those three months when you will be eating a lot! Works for me so far, although I never had any trouble with eating less and doing a lot of cardio :D

Promenade

Wow, thank you for all those great responses. I'll do as you said! I will start with switching from higher reps to lower and give it a go. Soon, probably starting next year I will also start thinking more seriously about diet - even if I don't eat a lot and rarely do any cheat meals even now, I will try maybe low carb diet or cutting/mass approach as well, because I don't see myself working out and not seeing any progress - I feel like I definitely have to move forward :) I think I got a little bit addicted to gym :P Thanks again. I will post here when something finally moves forward.

JuliaSnow11

Hey. I'm pretty much new to this stuff, but just like as you I want to keep improving my body. I'm still overweight and I have just started my diet, but I feel like I'm going in the right direction, so just wanted to wish you luck in achieving your goal, because I can see that you are taking this quite seriously and I hope we will both achieve our goals of having a great body!

sharon123

I can vouch for just simply switching to lower/higher reps. It was personally a game changer for me and I was able to maintain a pretty good progress thanks to this. My story is a little bit different though, because I started from split training method that I found on the internet way before I've found this forum, back in the days when I was totally clueless about working out, but after a year or so of split, I've switched to FBW on lower reps 4-6, which didn't help as much as the next plan I've picked anyway. I was doing this training for 8 months and then I simply picked another fbw, the one which had higher reps and I noticed increased stamina, better muscle visibility - definitely a game changer. I'm only doing fbw for now and I don't plan on changing it, although I'm not taking gym and my figure as serious as some people here, so if you are really aiming for a dream body, then my approach won't have much use I guess, but the point is - keep experimenting!

Lamina

Hey!

I've been struggling with lack of progress just like you did, but don't worry - even if changing your workout plan won't help, changing your diet definitely will - so it depends greatly on your motivation to be honest.

If you think that it's time to get on another level then getting your diet sorted out will be definitely helpful and I believe there is no way to avoid it. I personally sorted out my lack of progress when I have started to take my diet seriously and I feel much better when I did so, mostly because it gives me a lot of satisfaction - I know that I'm doing something that a lot people is too lazy for, they are not dedicated enough and I see the efforts of my hard training. Don't get me wrong, it's not like it is that "hard", actually I find keeping my diet strict pretty easy - maybe because I have already grew used to it and I'm one of those few people, that actually like eating "less". I don't find a lot of pleasure in eating "too much".

If I were to choose I would definitely pick going semi-hungry over the feeling of being overfed, so it is a matter of preference I guess, but the thing is - diet is what have allowed me to get on another level - both in results and motivation.

Good luck, looking forward to hear from you about your progress in a few months :)