New to the bodybuilding message board

Hi folks, My name is Donna Earley, and I just discovered this message board and I was thrilled! I had lap RNY in May 2003, my original weight was 252, lost down to 112 with complications (too low) and worked my way back up to 130 lbs, which is a good weight for me. I lifted for enjoyment, did a little bodybuilding when I was in my early 20's, even did one show though I didn't even come close to placing back then. My boyfriend at the time was a body builder (met him at the gym and again in my Italian class), and we worked out together. It was great! Then I started getting sick with lots of stuff that pulled me down further and further and my weight gradually started increasing and I was too sick to exercise, and in pain all the time. I kept trying, when I was a little better for bits of time, to go back to the gym and work out, but could never get my weight down again, and I just got sicker and sicker and would give up after a while in frustration. I had fibromyalgia though it took years to diagnose and a bunch of other stuff. After I was diagnosed and was getting treated, I felt some better and finished law school and went to work at IBM, where they had a corporate gym on site, and I started working out there again. Though I could get stronger, and I did cardio till it became a 2nd career, I could not lose the weight. My rheumatologist finally insisted that I have the RNY and after thinking it over for a year and being given a short life span by my docs without the surgery, it became a "no brainer". So I had the surgery, started working out a week after surgery, and have been going at it ever since! At first, I had the feeling that the guys at the gym either looked right through me (I was invisible), or wondered what the heck I was going to do at the gym, as fat as I was! It was probably in my head, though as I trimmed down and shaped up, they began to notice that I was there, in the weight room, daily almost, and buff! Now I'm just *one of the guys*! The funny thing is that I've brought my before pics in a couple of times to show some of the guys that I train with sometimes, and they look at that picture and say, "you know I think I remember seeing you here back then!" They otherwise wouldn't have made the connection. I've trained for a while with a couple of professional bodybuilding trainers, and really loved it, unfortunately couldn't afford to keep it up indefinitely but it helped me a lot. I have toyed with the idea of competing one day, though I have some mildly redundant skin, even with the training, that I would want to get rid of first. My husband is going to come to the gym one day next week and take some video and digital pics of me at the gym working out for a special heirloom video that we're doing of my journey, so I'll try to put some of them up on my website when we do them! I love lifting and training and getting stronger and getting buff. I just feel good when I'm doing it, love seeing the muscles pumping and feeling great! I like the elliptical machine for cardio, forward and backward, and can go for a long time and just get lost in it. I couldn't run or even do exercises standing by the time I had surgery, and I have gotten to where I can run a 5K, which is really awesome to me! I had asthma before and would get an attack when I ran. I'm so happy to be able to do this again! And I'm so happy to meet other enthusiasts here! Wow, this is terrific! With kindest regards, Donna E. www.teklawgirl.biz

I am so glad you found us too! We have a great board going here. Lots of support and knowledge going on! Keep posting and let us know how you are doing as far as the lifting and training is going. I know what you mean about getting buff and stronger. I love the way it makes me look and feel. Those befores and afters are just great aren't they? I love the looks on people's faces. Makes me feel like I have really accomplished something in my life! I am glad they figured out that you had fibromyalgia. It is awful having something wrong and not knowing what it is. Now you have become empowered over it and that makes you a stronger person! Great job! Take care! Valerie

Hi Valerie, Thanks, I am just so excited to *meet* you guys, too! Of course I went to your pics and nosed through your equipment, and showed my hubby, too, and did the "honey, can't wait for daughter to go off to college so I can finally have my own gym at home ." And he said, "Yeah, I know honey." Still, even though I would like to do that, I still like having access to the local weight room which is really excellent. The guy who owns the place is a long-time bodybuilder and former powerlifting champ himself (Scott Siegel), and there are a number of competitors who work out there, so the line of equipment is excellent and versatile! It's one of the things that keeps me going to that gym. Scott and I still workout together from time to time, as I do with other guys, and still get feedback from some of the professional trainers who go there. It's also really great for keeping my head into what's going on, what's new, motivation on dragging days, etc. You know how that goes, though, I'm sure! The fibro was/is bad but I've learned well to manage it, and my training is key! Of course, I know when I change my routines or "up the ante" that I'll have flares, but that just goes with the territory, and I am ok with that. Some of my friends try to figure out how I can do something that will sometimes make me flare, and how I work through some of those flares in the gym while I'm in so much pain, but it's nothing compared to life before, you know? I understand and am used to living with pain, so when it comes, I just roll with it. It's a choice, like any of this. Even though it is initially very difficult to exercise while one is in pain, the special workouts I do when flaring help me to alleviate the flare. They aren't the gut-wrenching soul-searing things that I might do on a heavy leg day, to be sure they are comparatively really gentle workouts, but they can feel that tough during a flare for the first 5-10 minutes. It was really rough recently when I had to have surgery on both of my feet due to nerve impingement from bone growths that was leaving me with half my foot numb! I was having increasing difficulty with balance on my squats by the time I lost feeling to the front half of both feet, so it was finally time to bite the bullet and get the surgery done. But that put me off my feet on my back for 6 weeks (including a scary staph infection in my entire right leg they think from the 2nd surgery), which took away my major tool for managing my fibro, stress, weight, comfort, etc. I look forward to swapping/sharing this part of my world with other folks that can understand me on multiple levels! With kindest regards, Donna E.

OUCH!! That had to be terrible. Foot surgery is really a difficult one to recouperate from. Makes you realize just how much you use your feet. Hospitals are notorious for picking up staph/strep infections. Unfortuntately sometimes even the best aseptic technique doesn't always prevent those nasty opportunists to invade! It is like Earl always says...Pain is progress. Sometimes we have to just bite the bullet and go on. I think it makes us stronger people. The key is knowing when it is time to lay back and when to move on. Hugs, Val

Welcome to the board Donna happy to have you here. Feel free to post as often as you like and share any information that you feel may be helpful to other members on this forum. Alicia

WELCOME!! I can't wait to here more about your workouts. Would also love to hear about what it is like training for a contest. I can relate to how you use to feel in the gym. Initially I felt the same way until I got to know all of the regulars. The men are actually very nice to me but its the women seem a little less friendly. I think it might be that they are just less outgoing. Then again most people are not that chatty at 5:30am!! I think it also helps that most people know me via my husband since he also works at the gym and we are both pretty outgoing. I feel really fortunate to be so close to the staff as well. Many of them are good friends that I have known for a few years and see outside of the gym. I do admit though, at 280, I am close to the heaviest, if not the heaviest girl in the gym. There are times that I do get very frustrated with my body but I imagine that probably happens to women at 150 as well. No doubt it my mind that I also have a distorted body image as too. Does this happen to any of you still? Some days I feel lousy about my body and others I am at peace with my body and am able to really focus on my workout. It is during that focus that I have my best workouts. On the days I feel lousy I just try to pat myself on the back for at least making it in to the gym.

Hi Stacy! Well, I'm not currently training for a competition, but I'll tell you about my past experience and training with trainers with that as an eventual objective also. At this point what I am doing is seeing how close I can get to a competition body again, which has its challenges without the plastic surgery, only in the ab area. This area is where I had the most major fat storage, and where fat wants to come back on first if I gain. That's my genetic curse, eh? I have done pretty well in developing the muscles, though I'm just coming back on right now after a 6 week hiatus with foot surgeries that kept me on my back in bed for far longer than I liked! The leaning down ("cutting up")is really only tough for me right at the abs, though I've come pretty close. The lingering issue is some redundant skin there that I've managed to tighten up quite a bit (no apron), but the wrinkles would be visible enough to mess me up in a figure competition. I had thought I'd need a breast lift, but when my pecs are in good shape, they do the lifting I need, ya know? That surprised me that I would be able to get that kind of recovery, considering that I was a 42D before WLS and am now a 34/36B. I would like to get implants when I get the tummy tuck. My glutes have helped me to get butt lift and fullness after the fat came off, but let me just say, "squats R us" you know? I empathize with the body image issues. I sometimes think that other people how haven't had to fight as much as I have to be able to be in this condition have no idea what it means to me. Most people that I see at this level have never had to struggle to this extent, though a couple of the guys in the gym, including my regular training partner, were pretty heavy before they got into bodybuilding years ago, but have maintained since pretty consistently. One of those guys still fattens up in the off-season and loses it again during competition times, but he's a young guy in his 20's and doesn't mind because it always comes off when he hits the competition training cycle. For me, though, even now, I gained 5 lbs while I was out with surgery, and it bugs the crap out of me. I made my hubby wait till later this week before he does the filming because I really can't stand carrying an extra 5 lbs on film, after everything that I've gone through to get here! I am very self-conscious of that 5 lbs, and especially knowing that it isn't truly 5 lbs because I have no doubt that I lost *some* muscle mass while I was off my workouts. The funny thing is that the guys at the gym tell me that some of my body has shaped up better after the downtime and most of them don't see the fat that I am so conscious of. In general, I have cycles (ebbs and flows) of high muscle mass/low bodyfat and down times, on about a 3-month cycle anyway, because I don't train the hardest and lean down the max all the time. My body needs relative rest cycling, too. A competition weight, muscle mass and body fat is not exactly healthy to maintain all the time. I look forward to chatting with you guys on this forum! With kindest regards, Donna E. www.teklawgirl.biz

Thanks Alicia, I look forward to it! With kindest regards, Donna Earley www.teklawgirl.biz

Welcome Donna

Thank you, Diamond! Donna Earley www.teklawgirl.biz