Tag Archives: exercise

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

Fitness, ,

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!

So it’s been one of those weekends

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First off, I have to say that it has been bonkers at work. My days got a whole lot more busier even though my job has stayed the same. That is because during the last 3 weeks or so I have been covering for people who have been on holiday. Some weeks it has been 4 people and some weeks it has been 5 people. So although I have not had many meetings, I have had a ton of emergencies pop up here and there. I can’t ,ake pretend that I will be sad to see most of the people I was covering for come back to work tomorrow. And I see a bunch of long weekends in my future as a form of recovery.

Anyway, it’s been one of those weekends where nothing went according to plan, but the weekend was basically good anyway. Being so exhausted from all of those little emergencies.

Friday was an intentional stay-in day. I tried my hand at one of the recipes from Mark Bittman’s ‘How to Cook Everything’ website and I have to say, the Mushroom and Chicken Paella (Paella de Setas y Pollo) came out fantastic. I ended up downloading the cookbook from iTunes. I have a general rule that you sample a recipe from a cookbook and it only takes one sample to know if it is good. So between dinner, some red wine, and a tv (mental note: too music CSI and Criminal Minds back-to-back is not good for my overactive imagination) and the night was a success in my book.

Saturday was good enough during the day. I went to a lighting and hardware store in order to do a little DIY in my apartment regarding electrical outlets. I am still alive and the apartment isn’t shorted out so I think I did something right. Also got in a awesome workout in the afternoon. I now remember the importance of some free choice in my workout routine. I love the classes I take, but I need to add in some alternative exercise days or else I will not make my 2011 target. The even was spent making another cookbook recipe that came out fantastic – stir-fried beef in ginger with veggies and rice. Liking this cookbook. Then it got disappointing. Got a call and a sms from 2 friends asking me what I was doing tonight and if I wanted to go out. So I said yes and to give me a call in 30 minutes so I could get ready. Well no sooner than I get out of the shower then I get 2 sms messgaes with each one of them saying that they wee tired and that they were going to stay home (note: these 2 people aren’t together nor do they live together). Fair enough I thought…off to the club anyway as there is always someone I know. Fast forward to 45 minutes later when I notice on facebook that one of them cheched-in at the other one’s apartment. More than a bit annoyed, I shared my views. It ruined my mood to go out, but I decided when I went to bed that hey, at least I know where I stand with them. Another positive – my facebook friend list is now right-sized by 2 people.

Sunday…feeling good. Started the way I start every occasional sober sunday…chillout music streaming in the apartment, a download of the morning papers and websites to keep informed (this debt ceiling thing is a manufactured mess), read and answer some e-mail, write a letter to a friend in a difficult place to try and help out, and of course, fresh-baked scones a la cookbook, homemade strawberry jam, and some typical scandinavian breakfast items. The morning feels good. The afternoon though is all about the gym and The last Harry Potter movie (quite good…a good use of 3D for the right reasons too). Dinner was chicken Adobo from the cookbook (of course) which I was not overly pleased with because I added too much japanese rice vinegar to the sauce. A glass of red wine and relaxing at home. Some cleaning as well.

So really overall it was a good weekend. A restful weekend. Which I think that I will come to appreciate because this upcoming week is Stockholm Pride week. The week when the love that dares not speak won’t shut the hell up. I am rather fired up for Pride. Certain days anyway. I’ll try and blog and stream it if I remember.

So anyway, I hope everyone had a good weekend ans sweet dreams when get that far. I am actually going to go for 6 hours of sleep (a doubling of my normal time) and see if these new resting and sleeping techniques I learned can trick my body into being tired.

Godnätt 🙂

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