Monthly Archives: June 2016

My Fitness Journey – Day 166 (Tuesday, 14 June 2016)

First, I apologise that the updates were not regular after Day 96. As it turns out, life was pretty busy and crazy experience. There was lots of travel, many things that I was involved in, and all around hectic on the job front and the home front. So as I result, whilst I have a really good record of my food intake and exercise since I was tracking that daily, I didn’t blog or record my feelings daily. So basically we are going to jump 70 days (10 weeks) forward to the results.

But before I do that, I wanted to recall what I set for myself as a goal in my initial plan back in January when I started this fitness journey.

“In terms of time frame, I am looking to 24-28 kg in 6 months. That is roughly 1 kg a week, which is very challenging. Whilst I would be thrilled with 22 kg, I also want to push myself to go a bit beyond. I am under no illusion how difficult this will be.”

So…drumroll please…

24 Week Results
This is result of My Fitness Journey after 24 weeks

Technically, I failed. I missed by goal by 1 kg, which was about what I had begun predicting. I don’t blame anyone else but myself for it. I can replay in my mind the times I indulged too much which would have delivered that extra 1000 grams of weight loss I needed to achieve the 24kg minimum goal. I know that there were instances where I thought that “I can just simply lose a bit more than planned whenever I want.” As it turns out, the body also wants to have a say in matters past a certain point. And I should have planned and eaten better towards the end. I did keep my promise to myself…as a result of missing my target, I didn’t take that reward trip I planned.

Even in the light of failure, 23 kg is still something to be proud of. That is still 0.95 8kg a week over the course of 24 weeks. I still learned a lot about nutrition, diet, exercise, will power and commitment. I learned a new appreciation for food. Half of the clothes I had safely locked away in the “one day I will wear that again” section of my closet I am now wearing. Maybe if I had made my weight loss goal public instead of private (I hid all of these weight loss posts until after the my personal challenge was over), it might have motivated me more. I will never know. I will just enjoy the results I have now.

Before I go on, I should also give some shout outs:

  • South Beach Diet – Phase 1: I don’t think it was necessary to achieve the weight loss results. Rather, it’s real value was in getting me to think about the food I was eating for 2 weeks.
  • MyFitnessPal: What a great food tracking app. Most of the battle really was about Calories In vs Calories Out. And it allowed me to think about micro and macro nutrients, which also helped in food selection.
  • Fitbit: My Fitbit Charge HR and Aria scale helped to automate and remove a lot of the guesswork from tracking several health metrics.
  • Tess Modig: She’s a training instructor (Spinning and Body Pump) at my gym. Her positive energy and good vibes make going to the gym fun on her class days.
  • Mr Stingy: He wrote an article about a friend who lost 26 kg in 6 months. I didn’t follow all of the advice in the article (for example, I didn’t embrace Strong Lifts or Intermittent Fasting, and I approached the macros differently than his friend did), but the article was inspirational. It showed how change was possible.

So what’s next?

Strangely enough, I am going to spend the summer stabilising, meaning that I want to maintain a loss of 23-25 kg. I think almost 1 kg a week is a lot to ask of your body for a sustained period. I don’t have any science to back that up, but for my money’s worth, I think some time being mindful of weight loss, but not maniacally focused on it, is a good thing. I have always considered this part of my fitness journey to be Phase 1. I need to think about Phase 2. I know that it will involve another 15-20 kg, but I don’t feel the same pressure to lose it that quickly. Losing that amount of weight over the next year would be something I would be fine with. I don’t want to let it go that long, but I have to have a think about what makes sense. And also, it’s my feeling that the way I lost the first 23 kg cannot be the way I lose the next 20 kg. My body is different than when I first started, and I need to change the nutrition and exercise regime from this new starting point.

Anyway, for those of you who have read along, thanks for reading! I hope you take some inspiration from what I have written. And hope you come along for the next phase of my fitness journey when it starts!