Preparing for September - Physical Condition

If you didn't catch my post the other day about drawing a Utah limited entry elk tag... it is a tag that I had targeted for several years now and I knew going into the application period that I had a very good chance at being one of the top point holders, so I was expecting to draw this year. Knowing that my chances of drawing were good I actually began preparing around the New Year. I knew that I had to get myself right physically.

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I am part of the predominant religion here in Utah and in my local congregation I was called to work with the Deacon's Quorum (12 & 13 year old boys). The Church rolled out a new program for the youth and since I was working with them I decided to also participate and set some goals for myself. One of the goals is "Physical" and sometime between Christmas and New Year's Day I stepped on the bathroom scale and saw a number that I had never seen before... 225. At 6'2", 225 isn't bad if you are an NFL safety... but I'm almost 40 and have a desk job!

For the last couple years I had told myself that I wanted to weight 185lbs again. I felt that I had the motivation to actually do something about it this year. I decided to start small and for the month of January I eliminated soda and candy (Dr. Pepper and Swedish Fish are my cryptonite). I also decided to try a "Push-Up Challenge" of doing 100 pushups a day for 30 days. January came and went without me drinking any soda or eating any candy and doing 100 pushups every day. On January 31st I stepped on the scale and it read 219.4lbs. Not too bad for my first month and the best thing about the pushup challenge is that it got me into a routine of doing something daily.

In February I continued with the goal to not drink soda or have any candy and to replace the pushups I decided to take it up a notch and do a "Burpee Challenge" where I did 100 burpees a day. February came and went and on Feb 29th I stepped on the scale and it read 211lbs. But at this point I was starting to see plateaus in my weight-loss so I knew that I would have to step up my physical activity.

In March I began to finish three bedrooms, a home office, and a family room in my basement so I took advantage of the physical labor. I also began doing specific workout routines alternating by doing core specific routines M/W/F and High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) routines T/Th/S and taking Sundays off to rest. I would work on the basement in the afternoons right after work, then after the kids went to bed I would do my workout routines. I really started to see the physical changes during March... the love handles started shrinking, the spare tire was shrinking... it felt good and I liked looking in the mirror and seeing some real results. Interestingly though, I didn't see a huge difference in March on the scale because on March 31st I stepped on the scale and it read 207.8lbs... but I knew that even though the sheer weight loss wasn't as high as the previous months I was going through what the fitness experts call a "body recomposition".

In April, I stepped it up again and included a weight lifting/training component to go along with my core workouts on M/W/F. And man, did that accelerate the "body recomposition" and the weight loss that I was seeing continued. On April 30th I stepped on the scale and it read 200.2lbs.

The first time I stepped on the scale and saw a number below 200 was May 3rd... 199.8lbs.

May has been tough, I've gotten away from my routine a little bit because we were in a time crunch to get the basement ready for carpet so there was about a week where I was up until 1 or 2 am painting and didn't do my usual workouts. Once you get out of routine it's so easy to just let it go... and it's so hard to get back into the routine. I also developed a nasty case of tendonitis/tennis elbow from all the mudding, sanding, and painting so I haven't been able to do any of the weigh training without re-aggravating it and setting myself back. I really want to get back to the weight training soon.

To date my lowest number on the scale has been 196.8lbs on May 22nd. I'm trying to get back into the routine but I'm finding that now that the kids are officially out of school and summer has started that I don't get that time in the evening between when they go to bed and when I go to bed. I'm going to need to be creative in carving out my workout time again and getting back into the routine. The workout routines put out by FitnessBlender.com are great, I've created a profile and identified a number of "favorite" videos for core, HIIT, and lower body specific routines that I really like and that push me. I generally look for workouts lead by the male instructor because those seem to be an intensity level that are a better fit for me. My wife has been a huge support, she has been exercising religiously for a while now and has even started training for a half marathon this summer. We support each other mutually... she knows if it's a "core night" or "HIIT night" for me and I know which days are her "run days" so we can keep track of each other.

In five months I have lost nearly 30 pounds and I'm creeping closer to my goal weight of 185lbs... and hopefully that means that I am in good physical condition to go up and down the mountain on my elk hunt this fall. I've got about 12 pounds to go and I'm hopeful that over the next couple months I'll be able to shed that weight and reach my goal before my hunt starts.