The Things You Can Learn By Changing Your Intentions

Over the last two days I have been implementing my new goals: 2500 calories and alternating workouts. I have already learned some pretty exciting stuff. As it turns out I am stronger than I thought. This week I have changed from the 10-12 rep bodybuilding style lifting to a 4-8 rep strength focused routine. I haven't done this style of lifting in a long time so honing in on the right weight to use has taken some experimentation.

I am a huge RadioLab fan on NPR and they have this episode called "Limits." In it they talk about how the mental limits we set for ourselves sometimes keep us from doing things that we are actually capable of doing. Example, for years and years no one thought you could run a 4:00 minute mile. It was just believed to be outside of human capacity. Then in 1954 Roger Bannister ran a 3:59 and a mere two months later John Landy ran under 4:00 and since then it has become the standard for middle distance runners. Bannister broke a mental barrier and changed the parameters of the conversation.

I think I have broken a personal mental barrier this week. Instead of just adding a little bit of weight to each lift I do I decided to throw caution to the wind and just kept piling it on (of course I didn't throw safety to wind!). I have been hitting weights I didn't think I could even do a 1 rep max on, let alone do a set of 5. I am changing my parameters for how far I can push my body in the weight room and I think I am going to see some great results because of it.

Limiting myself to 2500 calories has also been a little different. I have actually been quite hungry a few times over the last couple days but sitting with that hunger has been a good experience. As an obese person I am used to eating a lot and eating all the time. I rarely felt hungry before because I was always snacking on something (and it showed). But now that I am limiting the amount of calories I eat, I have to be careful to spread them across the day which means sometimes I need to just wait to eat.

I have found this rather difficult but I am getting better at more effectively using my calories. If I cut out one of the eggs I eat in the morning that gives me about 100 calories I can use later for a small snack. I am also turning to more vegetables since they are low calorie but can be very filling. And finally portion control has become very important. We make some awesome homemade meals in my house (thank you wife for being a great cook and meal planner) but even homemade meals can get out of hand if I don't watch my portions.

I feel pretty good about the last couple days. I hope this change up gets me loosing weight again and helps me towards my path of living healthy.

And whenever I want to give up I just remember that this little girl wants to have her daddy around for a long, long time :)

The Inevitable Plateau

I wish this was the plateau I was talking about!

I'm calling it what it is: a plateau. I thought my weight loss was slowing because of my struggles to achieve my goals but even after getting back on track I am still not making any progress. I have been stuck at the same 365lbs for over a month and its time to change things up a bit.

Here's the plan:
              Calories: Drop from 3000/day to 2500
       Right now I am consuming around 3000 calories a day which should be dropping my weight by a couple pounds a week according to MyFittnessPal. Keeping to 3000 calories has actually been pretty easy so the challenge of dropping the bar to 2500 will hopefully reengage some passion for eating right. I think it should also be enough to get my body burning fat again but to make sure I am also going to change up the workout routine

             Gym Time: Switching from body building+HIIT to alternating schedule
       Its easy to become complacent in the gym so I am designing an alternating schedule to change things up and find new and exciting forms of gym torture. I am going to switch between heavy lifting and circuit training.
       Week "A" is going to look very similar to what I do now except I am going to increase the weight and decrease the reps. Right now I do between 10-12 reps on most my lifts. I am going to drop the rep count to 6-8. I will increase the weight to make sure that the last one or two reps are almost impossible to complete. This type of lifting is focused on building strength over definition and hopefully this change up will inspire some new muscle growth. I will also keep doing about 15 mins of HIIT after the lifting routine is done.
      Week "B" is going to be a whole new beast for me: circuit training. I have not actually designed this schedule yet and it is not my expertise so I will get back to you with the program after I have done enough research to put one together. However my basic idea is having an upper body routine and lower body routine instead of lifting only one or two muscles a day. I will do each routine twice a week: upper body, lower body, rest, upper body, lower body and if I can find the time I'll do carido on Saturday and rest Sunday.
      This will be my new routine and diet plan for the next month. If I am still not losing weight my next area to fiddle with is carb consumption. Not eliminate all carbs but I think my carb consumption is a bit high so I am going to do some more research and see if this area needs some work. Wish me luck and I'll let you know how everything is going. And of course thanks for reading. I really appreciate all of you who read my blog. It gives me encouragement to know that there is a group of people out there that care enough to keep up with what I am doing. Thank you. Also, I would love to get more people involved so please share this link and let's see how many like's we can get.

In addition to this blog I have been branching out my online presence. You can now find me in the following places:
          My website: wriggconsulting.weebly.com

          Find me on Fiverr!!!

          Or hire me through Elance