Sometimes it just clicks into place

I’ve been aware since mid-summer that the “good habits” and “routines” that I put into place over the past year or so were slipping away.  Why is pretty obvious: a little thing called a Global Pandemic!

If you are like most of us you’ve gained weight during the pandemic.  I certainly have.

So, for the past few weeks I’ve been doing a lot of “thinking” about how to restart, revitalize, and revamp my fitness routines to get me headed toward my ultimate goal of between 190-199 lbs and 12-14% body fat.

And I kept drawing a blank. Zero. Goose Egg. Nada. Nothing. I felt “blah.” No energy. No motivation. then a couple days ago, something “clicked” and a path forward materialized in my brain.  BAM! There it was.

I’m self-aware enough to know that all this time my brain was working on the problem even when I wasn’t consciously working on the problem and eventually it all came together.

The problem I was facing was that everything is connected to everything else!

Anyone who has ever moved furniture around a living room to only have everything end right back where it started knows what I was dealing with.

I’d plan on making one change “Item A” only to realize that affected “Items 1, 2, and 3”  Aaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggggghhhhh!

Here’s my Game Plan:

Overview (Stretch, Lift, & Move)

• Normalize my stretch and lifting routines.
  • In other words, what I need to do is get those to the point where they are habitual.  I do them pretty much without having to look at my “how to do it” books and get myself to a point where SKIPPING a day feels WEIRD!
    ….
    
• Increase my aerobic activity.
  • I hate exercise for exercise sake. It has to be fun. Something like Dancing or Cycling.
  • Right now, given the unpredictiable weather an “inside” activity like dancing is the better choice.
  • Also, increasing my dancing will start to get me ready for later in 2021 when hopefully the competition season will start back up.

Stretch & Lift

• Use the stetching and lifting routines laid out in the book “Getting Back in Shape (3rd edition) / by Bob Anderson, Bill Pearl, Ed Burke and Jeff Galloway”
  • Jan – Program Before the Program #1
  • Feb – Program Before the Program #2
  • Mar – Program Before the Program #3
         ….
• Each program has a stretching component as well as a lifting component.  My plan is to:
  • Stretch six days a week Mon-Sat (Sunday will be a rest day)
  • Lift 3 days a week: Mon, Wed, & Friday.  Recovery days will be Tue, Thu, and Sat. (Sunday will be a rest day)

Move!

Right now I’m going into the dance studio to practice/exercise twice a week for a total of 6-7 hours.  Here’s my gameplan:

• Jan – Add two hours of practice per week, bringing the total to 8-9 and spread it across three days instead of two.
• Feb – Add another two hours bringing the total per week of practice up to 9-11 hrs.
• Mar – By March I anticipate that the number of people who have been vaccinated will be sufficient that I’ll be able to re-start my Dance Team.  This might happen in Feb…who knows.

But the bottom line is that even if I just go into the studio and practice on my own on the competition line dances or work the syllabus patterns, that movement will burn calories and increase my aerobic capacity as well as improve my dance skills.

Weight Loss / Body Fat Loss

I have a spreadsheet where I input my daily weight and body fat numbers. IF all goes as planned here are the targets for the next three months.  These numbers are well below the recommended max loss rate of 2% of body weight.  I’m aiming at under 1% — .6% to be precise.  Later on that can be adjusted but for the first 3 months, I’m setting my goals on the conservative side.

• Now (end of Dec): 295 lbs / 41.4% BF
• End of Jan: 287.31 lbs / 38.9% BF (loss of 7.69 lbs & 1.76% BF)
• End of Feb: 279.82 lbs / 37.13% BF (loss of 7.49 lbs & 1.76% BF)
• End of Mar: 272.52 lbs / 35.37% BF (loss of 7.30 lbs & 1.76% BF)

Diet…NOT “dieting”

Just because something is “simple” does not mean it is EASY! Loosing weight / body fat is a simple equation burn more calories than you consume. Tah DAH!

Yeah…right!

After reading up on the latest info (not much has changed) I calculated that for my weight and for my goals, I should be consuming 2,200 calories per day if I want to loose weight.

To track my food intake and to make sure that I maintain a nutritionally balanced diet, I am using a desktop app called “Perfect Diet Tracker”

I really like it for several reasons:

• The interface is straight forward and intuitive.
• You can input your own goals / targets.
• It connects to a shared database of food products.
• If something isn’t there, you can add in the product info and create your own products / foods.
• You can combine several things and create “Favorites” to make data entry easier.  e.g. My “Morning Coffee” is actually THREE food products: coffee, half & half, and stevia.  But I created a “group” that combines all three things so when I want to record a cup of coffee I just choose “Morning Coffee” instead of entering each of the three ingredients each time.
• As you go through your day, it shows you how many calories you have left and what ratios of Fats, Proteins and Carbohydrates you’ve already consumed side by side with the recommended daily ratio so you can adjust on the fly.

Check out the program for yourself: https://perfectdiettracker.com/  And no, I don’t get any kick back by referring folks to them.  I just think it is a well made program.

So…now I have goals and a plan to get there!

See ya on the dance floor!