Tag Archives: fat loss

Ongoing Lifestyle Choices

A few of us in our church and several hundred on an on-line health and fitness site just completed a 14 week Summer Challenge. The goal was not just to lose weight, but to change your body composition. Therefore, weight lifting was incorporated as well as cardio and a huge part of the program is about nutrition. Now that the official challenge is over, the goals need to be re-set so the fat doesn’t come back on. I’ve been involved in 6 of these challenges over the past 3 years. Over and over again I see some who had worked so hard put the weight right back on because they go right back to their old ways of doing things. This has happened to me too. So what can be done to change that this time? How can we hold onto the gains we’ve made, or should I say the losses we’ve accomplished?

The secret is in the goal setting. A huge part of this program is the mental game. When we continue to set life changing goals and continue to work toward those goals, we can continue to see improvement from ‘challenge’ to challenge. Life long self-improvement and personal development. Isn’t that what we all want? Not just physically, but spiritually, emotionally, educationally and in every other area of our lives? A vision or mission has no end date. Get a big one. Seek God, asking Him what His purpose for your life is. Don’t put limitations on what God wants for you. Then go about setting small, mid range and long term goals to get you there. That’s the secret of any success in this life. And don’t forget to stay surrendered to God. Keep your dreams and desires fully surrendered to Him and He will give you the desires of your heart, since it’s Him who puts them there in the first place.

Goals & Challenges

Summer is upon us. I have been involved in fat loss-muscle building challenges since the fall of 2009. This Summer Challenge is my sixth. Why?, some may ask, and have asked. For me to have a goal and be working toward something brings meaning to my life. It just makes me happy. I’m constantly seeing how I can improve, have more energy, feel better and be stronger than the year before. Since March of 2011, I’ve been eating strictly vegan. Partly as an experiment and partly because it just makes me feel good.

I’ve incorporated some green drinks (Amy’s Hippy Dippy Green Drink aka Green Lemonaide) and some live food smoothies into my nutrition plan. I try to eat at least fifty percent of my food raw. I believe as we put living food into our systems, we will feel more alive and our bodies will be repairing at a much faster rate. Live food in = life. Dead food in = well you get the picture.

One of the goals for this Summer Challenge is to gain muscle. The goal is to gain 5 pounds of pure lean muscle while at the same time lopping off five pounds of fat. Not an task, but it has been done. The main thing to focus on is eating enough calories so you don’t lose lean body mass but not too many as to add unwanted fat. This will be accomplished by eating 5 or 6 mini meals a day and cycling the calories. Shooting for 1600 on my low days and bringing them up to 1950 every fourth day. These numbers are different for every person. You can google Katch McArdle Calorie Calculator to determine what these figures are for you.

My first meal is oatmeal with soy protein. Meal 2 is Hippy Dippy Green juice or live food smoothie. Third is a large green salad with a variety of raw veggies and lentils, beans or quinoa. Meal 4 are protein balls or protein drink, the last meal is some form of protein and vegetables, either cooked or raw. I taper down on carbohydrates during the day which helps a great deal with hunger. I workout early so I bracket my workouts with the highest carbohydrate meals. It’s important to fuel your workouts. I’m logging everything I eat so I know how many calories I’m consuming.

Speaking of workouts, I’m lifting pretty heavy weights 4 days a week doing a split routine.  Which consists of one day training chest & biceps, one day of legs & abs, one day of back and calves & abs and one day of shoulders & triceps. For cardio I’m running with my running buddies on Tuesdays and Thursdays incorporating high intensity interval training. On Friday or Saturday I usually get a long bike ride in with Dan.

After just one week I’ve lost 1.67 pounds of fat and gained .07 pounds of lean body mass. for a total of a loss of .83% body fat. Not to mention the half inch off my waist and a quarter inch off my hips!

With a bit of discipline, some hard work and a determined goal, you can reach your health goals. Won’t you join me in getting in the best shape of your life, no matter what age you are?

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