It's been about three weeks since I started losing weight, and progress has been pretty good. I've been doing pretty well at eating low-carb foods, and I've been running every morning and going for walks most evenings. I also play indoor soccer on Thursday evenings.
Current vs. Goal Body Composition | ||||
| Weight | BF% | Fat Mass | Lean Mass | |
| Starting | 241.6 | 28.7 | 69.3 | 172.3 |
| Current | 230.8 | 26.6 | 61.4 | 169.4 |
| Goal | 198.0 | 13.0 | 25.7 | 172.3 |
That's 13.4% to goal. I'm a little concerned about the reduction in lean mass, but it's a cheap scale, so I'm going to chalk it up to error for now. If that number keeps declining, I'll know I need to change something.
Diet-wise, I've been doing a pretty good job. In January, we bought half a cow, so my diet consists largely of various cuts of beef. I can happily eat ground beef and steaks almost daily, so it works out well for me. Lunch is often a meatza: a pizza with ground beef for crust and usually one of several hot sauces for sauce. More about this creation in a later post. When I'm craving something sweet, I'll quell the craving with a teaspoon of peanut butter (our local grocer grinds it fresh) or a banana or orange. There's some sugar in each of these, but by managing the craving I avoid eating something more detrimental.
Instead of a full cheat day, I'm just going to have a cheat evening today with pizza and a birthday cake that some of my friends sent me. My birthday's in February, but I'm not complaining. I've had some epic cheat days in the past, but I'm not really craving more than that.
I'm trying to follow a disciplined running strategy. In the past, I've tended to keep running for as long as I feel fine, but after a point, that tends to give me an adrenaline hangover and throw off my workout schedule for the next day or two. Pushing too hard can actually cause me to run less than if I follow a gradual, progressive schedule.
I'm currently running four miles per day, after which I walk a quarter-mile home. As you can see, the third mile of my usual route has a 50-foot climb in the middle of it, which pretty well finishes me off when I'm starting to get tired. I'm going to stick to the four-milers until I can get all four miles into the 8's. I don't want to waste more time running slowly. Once I'm faster, I can run longer distances in the same time.
Running faster is usually just a matter of pushing harder. I know what pace is comfortable, so I just push a little past that. After some time running at that pace, it becomes normal and I can then try to push past that pace. Four miles is starting to feel normal at my 9:xx pace, so next week will be focused on speed.
