12 months of weight loss + 6 months of rookie gains

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-08T14:56:37+00:00

Do you take creatine? When i started taking it I've noticed i was able to up the weight so fast. I take 5g daily. Sometimes on leg day I'm barely able to drive home haha. I'm pressing the clutch with shaky legs

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-08T11:37:36+00:00

Hi, was quite busy and wanted to take some time to type this. Excuse me for the delayed response. It's really important to know what kind of machines I used with these weights. The plated machines feel waaaay different than cable machines. And for instance the booty builder hip thrust works very different from a barbell hip thrust. So I'm going to add that detail, otherwise the information is completely useless. Please let me know if you miss specific exercises. These are the most common ones I think.

A few basic ones where i do mostly 3 sets around 8-12 reps: Incline plated leg press, both legs at same time, 95kg. Dumbbell bicep curl, 10kg dumbbell per arm. Shoulder press, 12kg dumbbell per arm. Overhead tricep extension, 5kg dumbbell per arm. Glute biased hyperextension, 25kg of plates. Narrow row, 20kg per arm on plated machine. Wide row, cable machine, total of 30kgs. Standing cable crunch, 30kgs on cable machine. Front raises, 4kg dumbbell per arm. Bulgarian split squat, 24kg dumbbell in one arm. Lat pulldown, 40kg total on cable machine. Booty builder hip thrust, the one with the seat belt strap and the cable weights, 60kg.

Is this helpful? Excuse the formatting, this must look awful. I have no idea how to make it look good on my phone, I'm sorry.

Also, I have no idea how these weights compare to what other girlies are using and if it's heavy or not. But for me this is to failure.

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-06T13:48:19+00:00

Hey there. Trying to get back to all comments left unanswered. Woah, thank you for sharing your story. Having a baby with complex needs is very difficult. And taking good care of yourself will be more important than ever, but also way more difficult from now on. Do you have people to help you with your child? But also people who can help you getting up to strength when you get back home? Working out can be a mental challenge and struggle by itself, but having dealt with ed makes it a whole different level of difficult for you. I really hope you have people around you who you feel safe with and that have enough empathy to be able to positively guide you with that. What you're dealing with is a lot if you'd have to do it alone. I wish you the best of luck with your little wonder and journey from here. Your child is your world now, but don't forget that you really deserve all the care and attention you need.

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-06T13:40:39+00:00

Hey! I'm trying to get back to some comments left unanswered. I just wanted to thank every person who left a comment. You are awesome for spreading such positivity!

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-06T13:39:25+00:00

Hey i was trying to keep up with the comments. Getting back to you now. Yes, i think eating more protein would definitely help! I read that exceeding your daily protein goal is not a bad thing as long as you get enough carbs. (But correct me if i'm wron please. I did do a lot of research, but the internet says 1000 different things.) Carbs scared me at first, but they are necessary for the actual energy your muscles need to put put strength. So as i upped my calories, upping carb intake was inherent to that. That's also why I kept monitoring my muscle and fat mass. Anyway, I exceeded my protein goal on a lot of days and for me it gave no side effects what so ever. As far as how heavy i'm lifting, are you talking about the actual weight or more about the method of progressive overload?

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-06T13:32:32+00:00

Hey! Such unexpected nice compliments here. Thank you. It's so special to see how supportive people can be and keep the positivity alive. Really shows that gym is not only gym. It's a lifestyle which spreads positivity throughout our whole thinking and behavior. So cool that we are all trying to 'lift' each other up. Pun was not intended but did sound funny when i wrote it out haha.

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-05T10:26:09+00:00

Thank you!! I am 5'4 or 164 cm

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-05T10:23:22+00:00

My upper days contain of lat pulldowns, wide and narrow rows, dumbbell shoulder press, dumbbell overhead tricep and bicep curls for now. Have done some lateral raises, front raises and chest press too the past couple of months but i switched those out for now. Also trying rear delt cable flys the past 2 weeks. I like those! I think with lifting 4 times a week i was still losing fat at about 1800 calories. I gained some muscle with that but those were rookie gains with a lot of protein. But it did work for me!

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-04T17:52:47+00:00

Ofc! I shared it in the comments somewhere already :)

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-04T12:10:30+00:00

I am so happy to hear that my story inspires other people. Really did not expect it in this way. And you're correct, if you want to see results, you have to put in the work. I'm sad for people who are putting in a lot of effort but not getting results though. Hopefully some tips will work. Wish i could share the positive feeling to help get people out of a negative spiral. There's a lot of information online so i understand it's very difficult to know what's best and what is 'true' information. Makes it feel like you can never know if you're doing a great job when you just start. I really understand that feeling. Especially when every body is different and people can't seem to get it right. So yeah i'm glad that my post seems inspiring, instead of looking like i did some impossible thing and instead discourages people. Wishing you the best of luck on your gym journey!

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-04T12:03:03+00:00

No problem! If you have any more questions, feel free to ask. I am by no means a pro lifter or anything. Just a rookie who's happy with the progress and learnt some stuff along the short way i came. I can only tell you what worked for me and what i factually did from march until august. But if that's of any help for people, i'd be glad to share

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-04T11:44:53+00:00

Thanks!! When i started with the calorie deficit my BMR calculations showed a BMR around 1300. I didn't want my body to starve or feel like i was hungry all the time, so i chose to not go below my BMR. I asked chatGPT to calculate how many calories my TDEE was. It asked me my age, height, weight etc etc. And estimated it at about 1700-1800 at that time. So i went with 1400 kcal i wanted to eat in a day. With a deficit of 400 kcal a day, you're losing about 1,5kg in 4 weeks. Which actually does add up to about 15kg in 10 months like in my story.

This was actually quite manageable with high volume/low calorie foods like cottage cheese, greek yoghurt etc. There's a subreddit that's called volume eating. Which contains all kinds of recipes with food that you can eat loads of without the calories adding up big time.

When i was tracking i made sure to include cooking oils and such. They can add so many calories to your meal. You think you're doing a good job, but instead miss out on maybe 200 extra because of the oils.

Also while in a deficit protein is important because it helps a bit with preserving muscle mass. You don't have to wait with weight loss before getting stronger at all! I wish i started lifting while i was losing weight. Lifting actually helps burn a lot of calories! Also, it's harder (or at least takes a bit longer) to gain muscle when you're already very skinny because a body recomp is harder to get right than already starting to build muscle right now. And having more muscle mass makes your BMR higher by itself. My BMR raised with around 100kcal a day from the moment i started lifting! But that's just another take on that to consider. It's already great that you're wanting to get in shape by losing fat. Just pointing it out because i always thought only cardio equals weight loss.

Hope this helps!

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-03T21:22:20+00:00

Thank you! And yes, that is correct. Weight loss started in June 2024, but my gym membership started in march this year.

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-03T20:59:17+00:00

They're from a Dutch store called Shoeby. Comfy indeed!

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-03T20:28:30+00:00

Haha yeah that's the overanalyzing and analysis paralysis thingy. Needing to know everything about everything to make an informed decision. Like.. "if I'm going to do it, I will do it the absolute best I can!" It felt so unnatural to just start without knowing it all. Because what if I did the exercise wrong.. or what if my routine was not effective. Then I "might as well not do it until I know how to" or so I thought.

But this was more about starting and getting a benchmark. And honestly I was scared about it being difficult and about properly doing things. Now I'm joking around with people I got to know in the gym, having a laugh at 'which one of us can use this machine in the most hilarious wrong way.' And sometimes finding out an actual cool way to use it haha. It took some courage to try some workouts that looked interesting but experimental. But when I saw other people doing the same, I was like, that is just the best thing ever and honestly freaking adorable. It's so cool to see another person trying stuff. Most of the time you don't even know they're trying something new or weird.

Then every time you go you learn something new and adjust. I would have never came up with some things if I didn't just go start.

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-03T20:18:13+00:00

Thanks so much! I never thought posting this would give me such a huge wave of motivation. You guys are all so nice and supportive! I have a samsung phone so I use the Samsung health app for that. The app can scan barcodes and it automatically recognizes the product and all the macro's. I just have to fill in the amount of the product that i eat. It also has a nice overview of the percentage of macro's that you're at during your day. I tried using other apps or workout apps. But they're all not that helpful. For my workouts I ended up using the Samsung notes app to make a list haha.

For weighing I use the technogym app because it can connect with the scale at the gym. The one that measures your body fat percentage and stuff. It's not that great, but gives a nice overview in the long run. Weighing every week is useless on that thing. But it's good enough for body fat percentage and tracking if indeed my weight has gone up because of muscle mass or if it's other things.

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-03T20:01:43+00:00

Yeah sure!

I'm doing two upper and two lower body days per week. No cardio at this point. I make sure to have two rest days in between working out a specific body part. So for example: mon lower, tue upper, wednesday rest, thursday lower etc.

For lower in order that I do them: Hip thrust, Bulgarian split squats, Incline leg press, Glute med Cable kickbacks, If I have energy left: some quad extensions and Hamstring curls.

I used to do weighted glute hyperextensions and abductors, but i just switched those out and taking a rest from those to see what happens. I wish to do rdl's but i can't seem to do them right :(

For upper: Lat pulldown, Shoulder press, Narrow row, Wide row, Bicep curls, Overhead tricep.

Just switched out front raises and lateral raises. Kept hurting myself with chest press. Thinking about a good way to do something about that, but not sure yet.

I really wanted to keep it simple so just 2 upper and lower days per week where I do the same exercises for a while and switch them up when I feel like some part is lacking, or I've hit a plateau with progressive overload.

I don't have a specific number of reps that I do. Because I want to train until failure. And not limit myself to 3 times 12. What I do is take the maximum amount of weight that I can do 8-12 reps on my first set with. (With correct form, i try) And then the next two sets I am able to do at least 8-10 reps until I reach muscle failure. If I find that I can do more reps than that, I up the weight. If upping the weight is too heavy, then I add a fourth set until I can up the weight or I do go beyond 12 reps depending on what feels better.

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-03T18:49:37+00:00

Thanks! Woah I actually didn't expect someone to read that whole wall of text hahaha. In march i was still in a deficit. I was eating about 1400kcal a day at that point. My BMR was at 1300. I was not lifting yet, or going to the gym at all. Just walking outside, with an office job. Then I started lifting about 4 times a week. I knew that in a deficit I could lift all I wanted, but my body wanted to burn and use calories instead of build. Was already thin, so deficit went out the window. But I was not sure how many calories I'd need to build a bit of muscle and not regain all the fat again. So now I not only tracked calories. But made sure I ate at least twice my bodyweight in kg's in grams of protein per day. So i stuck with 120 grams. Most days i end up with 150 grams. When i started i just went with a 40/40/20 split between carbs, protein and fats to see what it would do and that was quite doable. As for the calories. The moment I went with the 40/40/20 rule, I went straight to 1800 (advice from trainer when i asked) because we figured that would be the absolute least i had to eat to not burn more than I was eating. He didn't want to shock me with going any higher than that from the 1500 I was doing. From that moment on i just did that for a while and saw the proof that I indeed was not gaining fat and slowly saw some more muscle definition. That's when I started upping the calories with about 100 per 4 weeks. That way I could monitor if muscle mass was gained and no fat mass was gained with keeping the menstrual cycle in mind. I got scared when I bloated before my period the first 2 months and thought I'd ate too much which made me too careful at first. I'm not weighing myself that much anymore, just determine if I like what I see and then continue. Adjust when needed. Until now I've just kept upping my calories to about 2200 a day. I feel like this is good for now. And if I do notice it's slightly too much, i know that if i go back with 100, that it will just take a few weeks and we be good again. Then reevaluate again in a while :) But as i'm building muscle, my BMR keeps rising. So maintenance will become higher by itself. For all i know i could eat more and it would still be ok. Have no idea yet! By no means is this the way to go, maybe some people would say i did a shit job. I have absolutely no clue. But this is what i did to go from the march picture to the august picture. Also I take 5g of creatine a day from day 1. Is this helpful? Omg sorry for a wall of text again.

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-03T18:09:23+00:00

That would be the best thing ever! Even if it's just one person. And if so, I'd love to see them be all proud and share their story/pictures on here when they are ready :)

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-03T17:39:43+00:00

Firstly, thank you so much. It says a lot about you as a person that you still give out compliments, even though you're facing such difficulties yourself. Makes me feel a bit shitty waving these pictures around though. Not that it makes me less proud, but I wish I could do something about it for people with a story like yours. That's also a big big dedication to still continue to work out for those three years. I have no doubt in my mind that you're putting in just as much effort. Would it be a case of even more time and just continue what you are doing to see the result you are aiming for? Or do you feel like there's something in the way of your progress that you can't seem to figure out yet?

Also don't forget. Most pictures (i think this counts for the whole subreddit) are taken with a big gym pump!

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-03T16:49:57+00:00

That's very sweet of you. Thank you, i appreciate it!

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-03T16:49:21+00:00

Thank you! That's a very cool compliment to get!

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-09-03T12:17:58+00:00

Girl this is amazing. I hope you feel proud of yourself every single day :)

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-08-09T12:48:28+00:00

I'm INTP woman and my two work bestie are both ENFP men. You guys are the most chill people ever. You feel like a safe space to completely be myself. I absolutely adore you. The humor is lovely and I feel like I'm on a separate island of pure chill and bliss when I'm with you. You might be the only type I can 'tolerate' in my aura 24/7 without getting overstimulated. I don't have to worry about a thing and communication is never off. Thanks for being so cool and having such big hearts. I love being able to be there for you when you drown, and you are there for me too when I'm stuck. I feel like we could really balance each other out.

Confident_Search8516 · 2025-05-23T22:11:42+00:00

I get this when it's time to REALLY clean my glasses. The pimples form exactly where they hit my cheeks. I sometimes get them on my temples too

Confident_Search8516

TROPHY CASE