The Final Push

Since triathlon season is over for me, I decided I need a new goal to keep me motivated to exercise. And I find that I do better with my goals if I share them with you the reader, that way I feel accountable. So in November 2006 I started losing weight, I began that journey at an even 300 pounds. I lost weight and then I lost some more, all the way down to 206 pounds in April 2008. Over the past few months my weight has yo-yo'd in part because of the triathlon training...I find it hard to eat fewer calories to lose weight and still train hard. Now my focus can be totally on losing weight, and I want to make that final push to 200 pounds...or 100 pounds lost. I figured my birthday in November is a good goal, after all that would be the best present to myself!

How am I going to do it? Any good goal needs a plan, so here it is. Just restricting calories doesn't work for me, neither does just exercising...I need the proper combination of both. So the exercise part has been pretty constant this year, as evidenced by the exercise log at the bottom of the page. But I think I am going to mix it up a bit since I got stuck at a weight and couldn't break through that plateau. So I am going to add some weight lifting, light weights with lots of reps. This is certainly a difficult thing for me to do, I get in a weight room and become a typical muscle man and try to lift as much as possible as many times as possible. Not only do I end up hurt, but I add bulk muscle which I don't want. So I have to stay away from that as much as possible, and as demasculating as I think it feels! I am also going to keep up with the cardio, probably adding more elliptical machine to my workouts because it doesn't hurt my foot as much as running and burns a lot of calories.

As for the diet part I have been pretty successful with restricting my calories. I also have to eliminate all temptations from the house, I can be strong...but only for so long! Sadly I do best when I get into a grove, I eat the same thing for breakfast and lunch and then have varied dinners. It isn't exciting, but it works for me. When I reach my goal I need to develop another plan about how to maintain that weight, although when I said earlier that my weight was yo-yoing, it was within a 10 pound range which I think is OK.

Anyway, you be reading about my hopeful successes and my progress on my goal. I have 66 days until my birthday, or about 9 weeks. I have about 23 pounds to lose to get to 200, leaving me 2.5 pounds per week which is a very doable goal provided there are no plateaus! Wish me luck, throw me some support, and keep me on task, I need YOUR help too!