It's been a few years since my last update; sorry about that! A lot of life got in the way and I fell off the wagon pretty hard. Granted, I didn't exactly lose any weight last time, but I had made some moves towards a healthier lifestyle.
This time around, however, I tried to be a bit more proactive about things. Here's a brief timeline of what's happened so far:
JAN 12
• I signed up for MyFitnessPal. My name on there is kbam17 if anyone would like to be friends.• Using their calculations, I started eating at a caloric deficit to lose one pound a week on average. I aimed for 1560 calories each day and a macronutrient split of 55, 30, 15% for carbohydrates, fat, and protein, respectively.
• I also started eating a lot better; I went from having pastries, chocolates, and pasta every day to salads, fruits, and well-rounded meals. I still indulged here and there, but in moderation and consciously.
• Ultimately, it worked really well and I lost 6 pounds my first month!
FEB 10
• I started incorporating exercise in addition to eating well. I promised myself to walk around my block every day. While that may sound wimpy, my block is about 1.5 miles around and extremely steep. I'd say it goes up or down about 4 or 5 stories each direction.
• I started out taking about half an hour to make the circuit and ended at 22 minutes; that's 4 miles per hour!
• As expected, my weight loss slowed to a more reasonable 2 pounds this month.
MAR 10
• I added weight lifting into my exercise.
• I started with body weight exercises, but really wanted to push into real weights. We already owned some dumbbells, but it was hard to work with them as the increments between were too large for me, so we invested in a BowFlex adjustable set that I finally got to use this past Thursday and they were awesome!
• Regardless, I'm really enjoying lifting weights, but I was concerned that I wouldn't get the full benefit on such a large caloric deficit, so I upped my goal to lose 0.5 pounds per week which brought me to a 1760 calorie goal. I also adjusted my macronutrients to 45, 30, 25% for carbohydrates, fat, and protein, respectively so my muscles could better repair themselves after a workout.
• I currently lift on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays and take a slower walk around the block afterwords.
I'm two weeks into my lifting routine. After two more weeks of working on form and strength, I'm going to add interval training to my post-lifting walk.
I'm really excited about my progress so far. Just yesterday someone finally asked me if I'd lost a bunch of weight recently and today I pushed past 162 pounds after being stuck there for three weeks! I think I'm finally getting on a good path.
My quantifiable goals are to get between 130 and 135 lbs (unless I find I'm comfortable higher up) and to get my body fat between 23 and 25% (right now it's 30%).
