Hey Steve, congrats on expecting your first child!
Thanks Derrick.
I'm kind of curious what stage you are in right now. You trying to put on some muscle or just maintain? What's your weight these days? Hope I'm not prodding too much.
Not prodding at all.
It has been a while, believe it or not, that I focused on building muscle or losing fat. For the most part, at least for the time being, I'm done with that. For the past year or so, on the nutrition front, I've primarily focused on eating healthily while not paying much attention to quantity. I find that I have a natural proclivity to eat a level of calories that maintains my weight. It's when I want to lose fat or gain muscle that I have to make an effort. And since I'm not trying to do either of those... there's no effort.
On the training side, I'm more strength and performance based than ever before. I care much more about what I'm able to do, in and out of the gym, than I am about how I look in the mirror.
This way of "packaging" my lifestyle no doubt keeps me fit. It's just a shift of emphasis. Instead of worrying about the scale, the body fat, the muscle I worry about doing what I enjoy and matching my training with my needs. It works out nicely.
My goals for 2010:
1) Get to either 191 lbs or 10% body fat
2) Get my belly measurement down to 36" or less
3) Complete one sprint triathlon, one 5K run, one 10K run and one Olympic distance triathlon
Nice! I see you're focusing on distance running quite a bit. That's a path I've never ventured down, really. I've done 5ks here and there but they were for fun and charity... not competition. It's cool you enjoy that sort of thing though. I know quite a few runners who love it.
Reasons:
1) I reached 193 lbs and 14% body fat last year. I hit a major plateau and couldn't lose any more weight or fat. A lot of stress came my way and I took way too long of a break. Gained back 21 lbs so here I am at 214. Now I realize just how happy I was with the way I looked when I was 193. I want to get back there as quickly as possible. 191 would top off my weight loss at 60 pounds even. 10% body fat is something I have always wished to obtain. I think my abs would be visible.
Towards the end of the period when I actually actively dieted and bulked... whenever it would be time to diet, I'd want it over with right away, lol. I know that's not what I preach around here. The reason I don't b/c most are psychologically wired to put on whatever they take off quickly.
Me though... I'm not like that. I have a pretty good handle of my expectations as well as the physiological side of things. So when I'd diet, I would do something like Lyle McDonald's Rapid Fat Loss Diet. Get the fat loss over with as quickly as possible and move on.
2) At 36" my belly would be the same size or smaller than my waist and hips. I'd finally look proportionate and not have that damn spare tire look. Even at 193 I looked kind of like a decent body with too much fat around the belly.
That makes perfect sense.
3) I love triathlon training and I really loved the sprint triathlon I did last year. I want to become a real triathlete and start making significant progress. These are realistic distances for me yet they would be challenging to say the least. This would be a great step for me this year.
Triathletes have my respect... I'll tell you that!
