Weight Loss Journey

Weight Loss Journey

Its Friday! Woohoo! Its been a tough few weeks trying to get through being back at work and sticking with my current training plan. My weight coming into the New Year was 13.9 stone (88.2kg) with my target weight to reach in April being 12.4 stone (79kg).

Now to achieve this goal of weight loss my plan was to mix up my training with more Cardio and change my weight lifting training to more light weight higher reps style along with a much cleaner diet. However I ended up with a broken rib from Muay Thai training which meant even lifting the kettle to pour my Green Tea was difficult

 

 {Green tea can help you lose weight. Several studies have suggested that the flavonoids and caffeine in green tea can help elevate metabolic rate, increase fat oxidation and even improve insulin activity. One study showed that those who consumed green tea and caffeine lost an average of 2.9 pounds during a 12-week period, while sticking to their regular diet. Another study suggested the increase in calorie output was equal to about 100 calories over a 24-hour period. You don’t need to drink a lot of green tea to help you lose weight. While weight loss benefits vary based on different dynamics, they have been found by drinking as little as 2.5 cups of green tea per day}

 

Which meant my weight lifting plan has been put on the back burner for another few weeks, or at least until it stops hurting when I sneeze.

Which left me with only one option, Cardio.

Now Im not an avid runner or anything and believe me even though I'm at the gym a lot, I do not love running on a treadmill for any length of time at all. So this was going to be a challenge. Now the first couple of sessions I decided to ease myself into it by doing only 20 mins at a time, which to be fair wasn’t too bad. My legs hurt a lot after the first session however, my body just isn’t used to running. When I got past the DOMS(Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) from the first week however I decided to hit 30 mins, now this wasn’t actually as bad as I feared, my legs didn’t hurt anymore and I manage to update my playlist with song songs to run to instead of slam weights to. ( Believe me there is a difference the music can make to certain workouts ) So I made it through the 30 mins and thought to myself ‘You know what, I reckon I can do 60 mins the next time’

So the next time was only a few days ago and yes it was hard!!

Not so much the running but I found that after a certain length of time your mind just like it does when weight training, tries to convince you to ‘just give up now’ you start thinking ‘well iv ran more than 30 mins why don’t I just stop at 40 mins or 45 mins’ Now trust me I thought about it, but then I also thought to myself  ‘Well Iv ran this long what’s another 15/20 mins?’ After managing to convince myself to push through I managed the full 60 mins!

I felt a real sense of achievement when I finished and I was glad I didn’t give up on myself.

 

My current weight has now went down to 13.2 stone (83.8kg)

This has been a combination of cardio at the gym, eating a much cleaner diet than I did over Christmas and also lowering my alcohol consumption. Now I know I told yous before not to go cold turkey on the alcohol but if have strong enough will power then give it a go.

Give yourself manageable goals. I want to lose 1.5 stone (9.5kg) and Iv given myself until April to achieve it. Now looking at my weight just now it might look like I will reach my goal weight well before April. However if I had started this weight loss goal and told myself to lose it in 4-6 weeks I would probably be stressing about it too much and not hit that time frame.

I have started to enjoy running now (maybe not so much for 60 mins at a time) but I haven’t sickened myself with it and fallen off track. I will soon be hitting the weights again which will help keep my workouts from being boring. I will keep yous updated.

Remember: Set achievable/realistic goals, don’t put yourself under too much stress and try to enjoy the process. It’s the only way it will last.