It has been a couple of days since I ;last reflected on my journey and there have been a few days of ups and downs in terms of exercising and eating. Not that I have not exercised or eaten over my calorie limit, but in terms of motivation and drive and a general feeling of tiredness. There have been days where nothing has been able to phase me and my motivation and drive have been higher than ever. Then there have been days where I feel like going to sleep for pretty much most of the day and I have had to watch what I am doing in order to get the most from the day. I have also found, on those days, that if I shift my mindset back to those times where I was motivated, I could pick myself up and get on with things and the tiredness would almost disappear. Perhaps exhaustion, at times, is a mind thing? Who knows?
Today I am on a motivation day - I am already on about 14,000 steps, I have done a lot of work, I have done an exercise video and read a lot. I took a 20 minute power nap about 2 (I love power naps and would highly recommend them to anyone) and I feel great. By the end of the day I should have walked about 20,000 steps, if not more. The good thing is that walking around my block is about 2500 steps, so I can do work and then use that as a 'walk the dog' time and also rack up the step count along the way. Great exercise and a break from work = win win!
Weight wise, the newest of my jeans are now beginning to fall down my waist, so I am presuming that I must be losing some fat and trimming down, although I won't now do a before and after shot until my journey has finished. I did one about half way and the shots don't do justice to how much I have actually trimmed down, so hopefully I can do a before and after at the end and you'll really be able to see the difference (and so will I hopefully).
At the moment, the smell of herb chicken is cascading across my kitchen and filling it with a delightful aroma and making me look forward to my dinner - chicken wraps. I have calculated, with the amount of exercise and resistance training I am doing, that I need about 30% of my calories to come from protein, 30% from fat and 40% from carbs to give me a good, balanced diet and also help me to retain muscle mass and increase my muscle capacity. The training videos are obviously helping, but I have also bought some new weights and also a pull up bar, which arrived this morning. The good thing is that I feel stronger and I can feel that my arms and legs are becoming much more muscular, which is also great for weight loss, as muscles tend to continuously use calories throughout the day, whereas fat obviously doesn't. So more resistance training is something I will be looking into doing over the next few months. The downside to this is that I tried to do some pull ups once I had the bar set up only to find that I could manage half a one before having to give up! It was both funny and scary at the same time, especially considering that, in my 20s, I could do 50 in one go...how have I let my muscles go this much? So this is something I seriously have to work on.
I don't think that I will have lost the 2.7lbs needed to go below 12 stones this week, but I certainly think that I will be under 12 stones a week Saturday. This will be the first time I have been under 12 stones since I was 28, which is a fair while ago! That will be another milestone on my journey from fat to fit. The way I see it is that at a certain part of a run or a marathon, a runner hits what is commonly termed as 'the wall'. An imaginary place where it is so hard at times that you simply want to give in and stop. I think I have reached that and am coming through the other side. I know that there is a long way to go and that there will be plenty more obstacles along the way, but having moved past the wall I am on through to my second wind and hopefully this will enable me to see it through to the end. I suppose at some point in the future I should start to think about the 'what next' part of my plan. What will the next steps be in my journey once I have reached my goal weight? Maybe building muscle and getting toned and actually into 'shape' in the literal terms rather than getting fit?
But that is for the future and it is a place I have to get to first before I can start to act on it and that means losing the weight first. I am on track to do that and I am also enjoying the journey again...mostly. I can't say that I am always enjoying it, there are times when it is hard and it is painful and tiring and exhausting; but mostly I am and the fitter and stronger I become, the more able to enjoy it I will be.
And the good news is that the area I live in has just been removed from the lockdown. Phew. Hopefully now things can go back to relative normality, although keeping a watchful eye on distancing and safety.
One more day until I can see how much weight I have lost (or not as the case may be) and then it's back to onwards and upwards. I hope that you are all having a good time on your journeys.
Until tomorrow, stay strong and stay safe.
Thanks for reading.
Sean.
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