Back in September 2020, I decided that I needed to get into gear and be better about my health. The short of it is that by September 2nd, 2021, I had dropped down to about 187 pounds and was sitting below 24% body fat, meeting two of my three major goals; the lowest I'd seen on the scale was about 183, just a hair over my third goal of reaching 180.
On October 30th, 2021, we moved into a house on an acreage about an hour from where we had been living, also 45 miles and roughly 50-60 minutes from my job. There were lots of things to do in getting packed up to move, getting the old house ready to sell, and getting unpacked in our new place, so it was understandable that I'd miss a lot of my regular exercising, but I was able to do a bit of walking on the treadmill and some band/bodyweight exercises for a month or two, though I'd been letting my nutrition slip.
January 2022 hit me hard mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, and I definitely dealt with some depression. Part of it stemmed from having to adjust my drive times, and at that time of the year this meant leaving for work in the dark and getting home in the dark. Part of it was feeling overwhelmed with the various fix-it projects I could see around the property. Part of it was just the general upheaval I was experiencing; in almost every move I've made during my life, I have lost contact with virtually all of my connections, and the two years leading up to this particular move I didn't have many connections built in the first place. I talked with a counselor a few times once I got on to working 10 1/2-hour shifts (which left my Mondays free for appointments), but being gone from 6 AM - 6:30 PM to handle my 7-5:30 schedule was too much.
Pretty much all of 2022 I did no regular exercise. I snacked a lot more, and wasn't watching my portions or the makeup of my food. I was not happy with the negative changes happening in my body, but finally over New Year's weekend I made the conscious choice to actually get up and do something about it.
January 4th, 2023, I weighed in at 212.6 and my body fat was hovering around 30% again. I had used the treadmill a few times in December, but that gave up the ghost, so I decided that I would need to walk outside. And hey, if I'm going to be doing that, I might as well kick into the C25K program again, right? As I write this, tomorrow will be my last day of Week 6, and while I'm not fast (though I never really was), my endurance is coming back, which is great because the gravel roads I run/walk on are a lot hillier than the sidewalks I was using in Des Moines in 2020.
The second week of January I also pulled out the resistance bands, starting up the 6-month routine from Theology Geek Fitness that I'd started in January 2021. I'm now halfway through the first week of Month 2 and am pleased to see that, even with the yearlong absence of regular strength training, I have made some gains in my abilities, somewhat assisted by adding some different bands to my supplies in the last few weeks.
This morning, I weighed 201 with a bodyfat of 25.9% (however accurate my bathroom scale is on that front). I'm in a mode for more rapid weight loss and fat burning, so I'm trying to hit at least 10,000 steps/day, get resistance training 4-5 days/week, and consume approximately 1,500 calories. I'm planning to follow this general scheme for another 2-5 months, depending on how my progress goes. I'm hoping to get below 18% body fat as a minimum goal, wouldn't mind dipping to 14-15% before I work on bulking.
I don't mind weighing 201, honestly, but the body composition isn't where I want it. Running the numbers, if I were to stay 201 but get down to 14% body fat, I would have to eliminate basically 23 pounds of fat and put on 23 pounds of muscle. I have my doubts about being able to put in the amount of work needed for that type of transformation. Whereas weighing 185 with 14% body fat, I would need to burn 26 pounds of fat and put on only 10 pounds of muscle.
This all has to be held in balance, of course. If I neglect my family, job, church, or other obligations in order to achieve these goals, they're not worth achieving. But having something on the table is incentive for me to at least keep working at it.
