Progress and Setbacks - the Road Ahead

KnowAndDo

KnowAndDo

New member
Hi everyone, I've visited a few of your threads already and thought it would be a good idea to start one myself.

Time to make a few changes. Currently weighing in at 270.2 lbs and looking to get down to 230lbs, drop my body fat %, and be in better shape overall in 40 weeks time which makes goal day 2 June 2016. When I reach this goal, the plan switches to maintaining this weight which is a bigger challenge for me. I've been down to this weight twice in the past 8 years but an injury or lack of focus always brings me back to where I find myself today or even heavier. In the past, when I was focused on making the right decisions the weight has tended to come off fast for me.

I am starting today instead of waiting until the start of a new week and will be focusing on getting at least four 30 minute workouts per week into the schedule. Aiming for a combination of weight lifting and cardio like light jogging or biking.

I know what it takes to reach this goal and need to focus on making the right choices each day. Not planning to follow any extreme plan but will be focused on 4-5 smaller meals each day and targeting 2000-2200 calories a day.


Good training all,


DateWeightBody Fat %Thoughts
27 Aug 2015270.234.5Ready to start
31 Aug 2015262.233.6Great start on the Exercise, Eating and Attitude
7 Sep 2015258.433.4Short run/walk combos, eating and attitude positive
14 Sep 2015259.133.3Couple basketball sessions, eating needs clean up
21 Sep 2015256.633.0Great exercise levels, eating still needs improvement
28 Sep 2015252.932.5Eating improved, doing one week Vegan test
5 Oct 2015250.532.3One Week of Vegan completed, going for 30 days
13 Oct 2015249.732.2Two weeks in, energy levels are great
19 Oct 2015249.332.2Light exercise week
26 Oct 2015244.931.6No running, pushups and weights
02 Nov 2015242.831.3Limited exercise week but more active at home
09 Nov 2015241.831.3Good on the eating, light again on the exercise
16 Nov 2015239.430.9One more week of good eating/light exercise
23 Nov 2015238.530.9Eating worse than other weeks, exercise very light
30 Nov 2015242.031.2Lesson learned: Just because it's vegan, doesn't mean it's healthy.
7 Dec 2015243.631.4Lesson learned twice, repeat of last week
14 Dec 2015243.431.4At least it was a maintain week
21 Dec 2015241.831.2Better week
28 Dec 2015240.631Meat free xmas
4 Jan 2015245.231.2Too much Christmas Cheer
11 Jan 2015247.531.9Time to stop the slide
 
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Day one complete. I made it go gym for a 15 minute walk/jog followed by an arms workout with crunches to finish. Eating was good and didn't fall victim to any after hours snacking.

Also checked starting body fat % at 34.5% to give additional numbers to track and keep an eye on lean body mass.

Short term goals:
Under 30% body fat
Under 260 lbs
5k run
 
Hi K&D & welcome to the forum & congrats on having a successful 1st day. It sounds like you have realistic goals & the right attitude. It's good that you are visiting the other diaries. It's always good to get newbies in the forum & you are very welcome here. Cheers, Cate
 
(Re) learning a valuable lesson about returning to the gym after a long break. Even though I knew better, I went ahead and used more weight than I should have on Thursday and sure enough ended up with the evil DOMS on Saturday. Intentionally used much less weight than I was previously using but obviously still too much as drinking from a glass is still tough today.

I did a little work around the house yesterday and had a hard time sleeping last night due to the DOMS. Eating continues to be good and heading for a good first week.
 
Oh, OUCH :eek: drinking from a glass is tough? Double ouch!
I'm not the only one who goes full bore, that's for sure. I'm still learning by my mistakes & I don't think that will change anytime soon. Good luck, but mostly well done on a good week K&D xoCate
 
It's hard to ease back in when you want to go gung ho, but you'll feel much more like going the next time if you don't get so terribly sore.
Good luck! The start of the journey is often one of the hardest parts but you can do it!
 
Sounds like you're doing great. I think your short term goals sound really sensible and inspirational. I also am just doing it slow and steady. Weight loss for me has been a little too slow just recently for my liking but I've just got to keep finding ways to incorporate healthy actions. No point giving up, is there?;) also whats the DOMS?

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Cate/Mystic/Rachel
Yep, tough to not overdo it even when we know better sometimes. (DOMS is delayed onset muscle soreness btw) Think it was the combination of bench press and tricep exercises that did in the arms.

Almost back to normal now but decided this would be a good day for a light jog/walk. Picked up a GPS watch/heartrate monitor a while back so decided to put it to use today and let it tell me when I was overdoing it. The aim was to do one minute walk, one minute jogging but turned out that the jogging had to get slowed down to barely more than a walk in order to keep my heartrate below the threshold I set. In theory as I get into better shape, the heartrate should stay down longer and let me run faster/walk less but the main thing is that it reminds me to take it easy. Covered 3.22 miles today in 49 minutes.

I've decided that Monday is going to be my official weekly weigh in day as weekends have always tended to be a time when I am less likely to stick to the plan. Last week I had a couple salty meals prior to the Thursday start so these initial numbers/drop aren't something I want to see repeat.

Weight 262.2 Body Fat % 33.6, Overall a great start and getting into a good routing on the Exercise, Eating and Attitude front
 
All going well, one mile run for an ice coffee at lunch followed by a three mile run back. Guess I took the long cut on the return. Was a little warmer today so tougher to keep the heart rate in check.

Will be making tomorrow a rest day.
 
Enjoy your rest day! :) I haven't managed to fit in any proper structured exercise other than playing with my kids and taking them to and from school/preschool so it would explain why I've never really encountered the DOMS ! I've been trying to build a bit more exercise into my routine though just to get a bit fitter. Walking for one minute and running for the next minute while on the way to pick them up from school sounds pretty good to start me off. Though it'll probably be walk for one minute and run for 15 seconds! [emoji1]

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Hi K&D, well done on the run & with your weight loss since starting in here! You sound so positive & positivity is so contagious. Go team! xo Cate
 
Hey KnowAndDo! Great job getting started with some good habits. I'm a runner but just picked up my first GPS watch yesterday. I'm pretty excited to try it out.
 
Thanks everyone,

Rachel: Alternating run/walk is based on some information I picked up on the Galloway method. Has been working for me so far and really has helped cut down on soreness/injuries.
Oaks: The GPS toys are a lot of fun. I had been using my iphone with the Runkeeper app previously. I was missing the heartrate function which I really depend upon right now as I haven't run enough to recognize when my HR is getting outside of a sustainable zone which used to result in me running too fast and blowing up.

I'm a little sore today but nothing like I experienced after the first day in the gym so having a rest day is going to be good. Came close to a setback yesterday until I stepped back, thought about it and decided to focus on what I could control.
 
Well done for recognising a possible setback and finding a positive way to handle the situation:)

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KnowAndDo said:
Came close to a setback yesterday until I stepped back, thought about it and decided to focus on what I could control.
Click to expand...

That right there is the single most important thing when losing weight! I´m not very good at it yet but I´m practicing :) Looks like you´re setting yourself up for success, I think I´ll drop in on you every now and then to do some cheering (and to pick up some of the motivation you keep floating around here).

LaMa
 
Thanks Rachel, LaMa, and Cate,

Really starting to sink in how much of this is mental. Eating has been very good but have been struggling a bit on the motivation front the past couple days which had been impacting my desire to work out.

Went to Youtube and watched a bunch of video on ultramarathoners last night which helped. Went out for a 4 miler walk/run this morning which put me at 11 miles for the week. Going to shoot for 40-50 miles for the month of September.
 
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