Took some soon-to-be before pics last night. I was having trouble getting the angles and focus right in the little bathroom mirror, over-the-shoulder kind of stuff... but I'm not confident enough yet to get someone else to take the pics, so it'll have to do!



A little background: I'm 26 years old, been vegan a total of 6 years. About a year ago I decided I wanted to get into lifting, an idea I had had before but not acted on. Growing up I was never very athletic, I did enjoy running around a lot but never stuck with anything structured like sports or working out. So I signed up at a gym, found this website, and read up on the articles and forums. I never posted,
but I got a lot of helpful info (thanks y'all!)
My main goal is to get bigger, not huge but I'm 6'3" and would like to fill out my frame quite a bit. I kept a log and settled on free weights, mostly dumbbells as my preferred method. I was hitting the gym 3 to four times a week, doing one day chest and arms, one day legs, and one day back and shoulders. Once I could do more than 12 reps at a given weight I would step up the weight, and was doing so regularly. I started out around 160 lbs, dropped a couple pounds at first and then after like nine months was still only at 165... but getting stronger all the time...
Well about three months ago I was at a hardcore show and messed my back up good in the pit. Really made me fel old, i used to get hurt in the pit and it would be a black eye or a busted lip, but a pulled back? C'mon. Well I couldn't go to the gym and even though it only took maybe a month for my back to feel totally healed, the slackness in discipline stuck and i have been to the gym maybe once since!

So... I'm signing back up at the gym this Saturday and gonna get serious this time. I feel like last time I made progress but not as much as I would have liked, so this time I think it will help if I'm active on here, soliciting advice and to stay motivated/inspired! Yeah!