Summer: Living life to the fullest

S

SarahPT

New member
I'm a little late starting this journal. I actually typed it all up and then lost it before I could post it. So now I'm trying again.

Over the winter, as usual, I did a muscle building program. I had good results, but of course I gained some fat too. I started an official fat loss program last Sunday with a goal of losing 8 pounds of fat.

Here are the details of my summer plan/goals:
1. Fat loss. When I weighed in last Sunday I was at 123.4 lbs. BF by Omron is 18.1% and by caliper is 17.2%. I would like to lose 8 pounds. I'd like to complete this within 8 weeks and then maintain. It won't be hard for me to lose such a small amount of weight. Here is my plan:
A. Cardio will be increased. Both the number and length of sessions
B. I'll be more active in general. I'm getting my garden in, putting coats of finish on the house, painting the basement, plus just being outside as much as possible.
C. I'm going to reduce my cheats. I have no desire to strive for a super clean diet. I eat healthy and indulge at times. Right now those endulgences have been overboard, so I'm just going to reduce them.
D. Cut out alcohol. I haven't been drinking much. Just one drink 4-5 nights a week. I'm just not going to buy them anymore.
E. Reduce strachy carbs in my last meal. Eliminating them doesn't work because my blood sugar gets low and I'm miserable. But I've been eating about 50 in my last meal of the day. I think I can cut that down to about 30.

2. Running. I just did my first 5k of the season last week. I used to be a very serious runner, but over the past 13 years my running has been nearly non existant. I'm working on becoming a serious runner. I'm going to do a couple more 5ks and a 10k. Right now running is 3 times a week. I may increase to 4 later.

3. Hiking. This is my real passion. I writing started a hiking book last year and I want to get a lot more done on it this year. It's going to be harder since I work on Saturday's now. Bill and I only have one day off together, so we're pretty limited. We're going to do the best we can. I plan to get in one hike a week. If Bill and I can't hike on the weekend I'll do one by myself.

4. Maintain my muscle. I tend to lose muscle in the summer because I'm so active and I forget to eat. I want to maintain, and possibly even grow a tiny bit if I keep my nutrition right.

So...workouts will look like this:
Full body weights twice a week. I'll be hitting the weights super hard and focusing on pre and post workout nutrition so I can get the most out of it.
Running 3 times a week.
Hiking once a week.
Bike or kayak once a week.

For nutrition I won't be tracking my food or anything. I don't have time for it. I've been aiming for 2850 a day, but I think I've only been getting about 2500. That's probably why my muscles haven't been growing. I do have some vague nutrition goals:

3 servings of fruit a day. I usuall get this, but I want to make sure I continue and I get a variety. I love fruit, so this is easy.
2 servings of veggies a day. I know that sounds terrible. I've only been getting one. Veggies make me gag. I'm going to be growing some of my own, so maybe it will be easier to get 2. And 2 will be an improvement.
6-8 servings of grains a day
3 servings of meats/eggs a day
1 serving of nuts or legumes a day
2 servings of dairy a day
1-2 servings of whey a day

Carbs will make up the majority of my diet, and I'll be getting plenty of lean proteins. I'm going to keep fats minimal. I function best with about 15% fat, but those irresistable cheats make the fat intake go up!

I should be posting some progress pics soon.
 
My official first week weigh in was .9 pound lost. I was aiming for one pound, so that's good. AT the 2 week mark I'll test my body fat.
I missed my workout yesterday and eating wasn't the best. We're int he middle of evicting our tenants and they are threatening us and whatnot. The stress is a little much. Im getting out for a run this morning though. NOT working out is just going to make the stress worse!
 
Sunday, May 21st
2 weeks of fat loss done. I had a very tough time this week. It rained heavily all week, so geting out and being active was very difficult. Also, hubby and I have something extremely stressful going on in our lives right now and some bad things happened this week, so I've been doing the best I can with eating, but it's been real hard.

I got in both my weight training sessions. After a break from weights I got so sore! I did speed intervals Tuesday, ran 4 miles at a fast pace wednesday, rode my bike 6.4 miles Wednesday, did my long slow run saturday at 6 miles, and did an easy run of 3 miles today. No hike or kayak, no gardening or anything else outside. The rain is getting rediculous.

I'm down 1/2 pound this week. I completely forgot about my body fat check, so I'll do it tomorrow morning.
 
Woooohoooooo Great On The 1/2 Pound Your Rocking!!!!!!!!!
 
Thanks ladies!

Saturday May 27th
Eating and workouts were good this week. I weigh in tomorrow and I think I've lost at least another half pound, if not more. My abs are really coming back out!
Unfortunatey I'm going to have to miss my run today. I'm so bummed. I've been doing well with my running and I really want to keep at it so I can do good in my races. But, I'm feeling really run down and yucky. Things in my life have been pretty crazy...huge changes. I need today to rest. Tomorrow hubby and I will be hiking and I want to feel great for that!

And I did do my body fat Monday and it was down to 16.5%.
 
wow. i am impressed by your knowledge of exercise/eating...i'm assuming you are a personal trainer based on your link and your name...

you mentioned that you think your muscles arent growing due to not eating enough...so is that true that you need to eat more to sustain muscular growth but to lose fat?

i'm having a hard time accepting the fact even though i've been told the same thing = that my calories are too low for the exercise i am doing and hence i am stuck at a plateau AGAIN.

wondering if you'd mind sharing your knowledge on this forum...as i woudl LOVE to lose 8 lbs of fat, not muscle/fat and i just cant figure out how to lose 1 lb/week. i never have been able to - it tends to be about 3 lbs/month but i am at a standstill now with the last 10 to go...

sorry to babble in your journal but i think if you dont mind explaining the eating more to lose more theory, could be helpful to a lot of folks

thanks in advance
 
Thanks ladies!

I don't mind the questions at all Skyler. Yes,I'm a personal trainer. See, in the winter I always do a muscle building prgram and then come spring/summer I drop excess fat. To build muscle the body needs to take in more calories than it burns off. Those extra calories are used to make the muscle. At the end of this year's muscle building phase I just wasn't eating enough to build muscle. I was just maintaining.

When anyone is trying to lose fat, muscle loss is a risk. Our bodies will only burn off so much fat before they will start wasting muscle away. That's one reason why eating too few calories is detrimental. It can be hard to find the right calorie level to burn fat but not lose muscle. Does that make sense?

I'm doing pretty well. I'm down to 121 pounds. My runs are going really well. I'm increasing my distance and my speed. I'm having a hard time focusing on weight training because it's summer and I want to be outside!!!
 
June 5th
Had a depressing weeeknd and ate kind of bad and wouldn't you know it? The scales are down. I've lost 3 of my 8 pounds now.

Workouts have been crap due to the horrible weather, but that should change today. I just picked another 5k to add to my list of races for this summer. This one's in 2 and a half weeks!
 
Sorry I haven't checked in! Things have been busy and I've been having a hard time dealing with the weather. I'm such an outdoors person and I need to be outside! We had rain and cool weather for about 3weeks straight! Now it's hot as heck, sunny and humid. We've done some hikes but they haven't been the best. Kayaked once only this year, only fished twice. Pitiful!

My last weigh in I was down 3.6 or 3.8 pounds from my start. Can't remmeber exactly. I'm hesitant to weigh in right now because i'm holding a lot of water due to the high humidity.

My running hasn't been as good. I developed patellafemoral pain syndrome. I've been doing cerain exercises for it and I think it's already getting better. It seems to bother most on my speed workouts, which is what I need the most work on! My endurance is great, but my speed sucks. I have a race this comning Friday and I'm not as ready as I want to be. It should be interesting. I's a 5k and it's tkaing place at a ski slope. It's going to be extremely hilly!

Sarah
 
Yay, I'm down to 4 pounds lost! Half way to my goal. I had a great run yesterday and great weight workout today. Tomorrow I'm going to run, then rest Thursday because I have a 5k Friday. Eating has not been bad, just a few treats. :) Oh and body fat measurement was 15.9%.

Sarah
 
June 27

Things are going pretty well. I'm going to weigh in tonight. I know I've lost more weight. I had 2 AWESOME runs last week, improving my time on both. Then I bombed in my 5k! So bad! It was my worst 5k time ever. I don't know what happened. I was upset, but I got over it. Also, I messed me knee up while running. I was feeling 90% receovered from the petella femoral pain syndrome, but it's back now. After the race it really hurt. Running hadn't ben bothering it up to that point, so it must have been the way I was running. Since then I've just been doing some hiking and walking and some resting. I'll do weights tomorrow, then I'll try a run again on Thursday.

I'll let you all know how my weigh in goes. If I had to guess Iw ould say I'm down another pound. ;)
 
Great job. Filling with envy ;)

Its great to hear from someone who is a personal trainer and has much success with having a healthy body.

Hope all is well. Have a great day. :)
 
Thank you very much!

When I weighed in I was down more. I've lost 5 of my 8 pounds. Woohoo! I plan to do a BF reading tomorrow morning.

I did run on Thursday. My knee bothered me, but not too bad. I went 7 miles. I know I need to rest it some, so I'm considering changing my summer running goals, as much as it irks me to have to do that. I haven't been able to train hard, and I don't want to do these upcoming races if I can't go full force. We'll see.
 
July 8

Well, things have been more than a bit stressful here. My husband and I went through hell trying to sell our old house. It's a way long story but the place got completely trashed (worrse than any human being could fathom!) and we HAD to sell it because we were completely out money. We worked out butts of to get it back to being presentable after we evicted our tenants. It sold yesterday! So we are celebrating. We both have 5 days off together now, and it's our anniversary next week. I haven't been working out much at all and I haven't been paying attention to my eating. I couldn't. Every second of my life was consumed. I didn't have time to sleep enough and there was nothing I could cut out of my schedule. I did do weights a couple times, hiked once and kayaked once.

Monday I start my half marathon training. My schedule for workouts will look like this:
Monday: Long run
Tuesday: weights
Wednesday: speed run
Thursday: weights
Friday: Easy run
Saturday: off
Sunday: fun cardio (hiking)

This may get switched around if Bill and I have a day off together and hike mid week or whatever. I'm going to start focusing better on my eating this week, though we'll have an anniversary dinner and go out for ice cream while on vacation.

So I haven't lost any more weight, but that's fine because I've been taking a break and I'm almost at my goal anyway. :)
 
Tuesday July 11

Apparently taking a bit of a break from diet and workouts didn't hurt. I lost an additional .2 lb. I'm doing well now. Diet is good and workouts are back full force. My knee is healed, and I started half marathon training. Running feels great!

Today I hiked and did upper body, but ran out of steam for lower body. I'll hit legs in the morning before we go hike again, most likely.

I definately need to do a body fat check!
 
July 23rd

Doing well. Bill and I did the most strenuous hike we've ever done yesterday. We climbed Sugarloaf, which is the second highest mountain in Maine. It actually has a very well known ski resort. We climbed up the back of the mountain along the Appalachain trail. Anyway, it was extremely steep and tretcherous navigating boulders and passing beside cliffs. It was a great challenge though. The week before we did a short, semi steep mountain in the white mountain national forest.

Half marathon training is going well. I have no doubt I'll be able to completel the race. I know I won't do well, but that's fine. It's my first time.

My weight was down 6 of my 8 pounds at last check and I bet you I've lost another pound since then. So, I'm almost ready for maintenence.

Eating has not been bad. my garden is coming along nicely and we have fresh green beans now. The blackberries behind my house are growing like crazy. I got a handful today and soon I'll have quarts. It's nice to have all sorts of fresh food outside my house to motivate me to eat good!
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Sugarloaf is awesome skiiing.. some of the best on the east coast (Sunday River is the best :D ) I can't imagine climbing some of that terrain unless my butt was comfortably in a chair lift or a gondola... :D I'm most impressed...

Read Bill Bryson's book, A Walk in the Woods, and compare notes on his experiences on the Appalacian Trail :D
 
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