The gym I belong to recently remodeled the weight room so I thought it an appropriate time to focus on cardio. The remodel was scheduled to take 2 weeks, so I figured I would dedicate myself to hitting the elliptical with a vengeance. The weight room was done early, but I kept my promise to myself and stuck to the cardio for the entire time. This gave my entire body time to "rest" from the weights, but I have to admit that it was damned hard to stick to it since I really don't like cardio.

As a result of my experiment, I can squeeze into a medium shirt comfortably now. But as a headscratcher, I have gained 4 lbs since I last weigh-in (3 weeks ago). My pants are also down to 34's, so I don't think that it is weight gain from lack of exercise or a BM waiting to happen. Today was my first day back to the weights and it was leg day. I am not a fan of leg day, but I know it is necessity. I am happy to say that I have finally made some gains on my squat, 155 lbs! Just two months ago, I could only do 115 and now through perseverance I am making some gains. I am only 45 lbs away from my goal of body weight. Well, almost... it will depend on how much muscle I gain in the coming months.

Everything else appears to have stayed the same, deadlift is still a working set of 185 with a max lift of 200. I am curious how my chest and arm days will turn out later this week. I'll have to report back then.

@BigViffer- I think you have stumbled onto something. When I was working on getting my black belt (a real one not one you purchase), I would get in these off periods where I could not progress. My sensei said, "quit, go home for two weeks, no Karate." It was amazing coming back after the break. I was smoother, fresher, ready to damn take on the world.

So I suspect the change of pace kicked in for you too. Congrats. It's needed sometimes. I do it without a gym remodel. Sometimes you just need to completely change things wither we want it or not.

I've discovered another wonderful side effect of taking two weeks off weight lifting. Soreness. Extreme and seemingly widespread soreness!