How Falling Out Of The Fitness Routine Affected My Body

For the first time in probably 2 or 3 years, I’ve taken an extended break from working out. I shouldn’t even call it a break at this point. I became lazy.

I haven’t exercised at all in a month and a half. No weight lifting. No jogging. Not even simple stretches or yoga. I’m extremely disappointed in myself. Every morning, I wake up and I’m disgusted that I won’t bring myself to go into the basement (my gym) to do a simple workout.

First let me explain how it happened. In early January, I caught the flu. As much as I wanted to lift weights, I wasn’t going to make my sickness worse. My body needed to fight off the flu, not spend time repairing my muscles. So I took a week and half off until I was all better.

I had planned on starting my routine back up the following Monday, but over the weekend, I started feeling dizzy and sort of nauseous. I thought it might have something to do with the cold and I figured it would work its way out of my system. It got worse and worse, so I went to the doctor, where I found out I got an ear infection from the cold. It was messing with my equilibrium and that’s why I was dizzy all the time. I can’t remember ever having an ear infection before so I was a little scared of the symptoms before finding out what the problem was.

Anyway, there went another week, for a total of about three weeks.

I hadn’t worked out for about at all during this time and I got used to sleeping in. I didn’t have the drive to work out anymore. I took 2 more weeks off, for no reason other than that I wanted to sleep longer.

I’ve noticed that I’ve been feeling a bit sluggish lately and working out in the morning has always given me tons of energy. It prepares me for the day ahead. I wasn’t feeling that way anymore so I knew I had to force myself to start working out again.

Yesterday, I had it in my head that I was finally going to start working out again. I think I was truly ready to get back into the gym this morning, because my internal clock woke me up at my normal training day time, 4:45am (I know, super-early). I was wide awake and ready to go.

It felt great!

Sadly, I lost some strength during that short amount of time I took off. I can still lift the same amount of weight I was lifting a month and a half ago, but I can’t do as many reps in the same amount of sets. 🙁

It sucks, but it’s a great reminder of how important it is to keep going and and to never stop. I’ve made a ton of progress in my lifts over the last 6 months and it’s all for nothing if I don’t continue putting in the work. I’m not going to let that happen. I feel so much better today and I’m determined to feel that way every day!

I Lost 25 Pounds in 3 Months

Almost 3 weeks late, I finally got around to publishing my essay for the Bodybuilding.com Transformation Challenge. It’s probably too late to even be included in the finals of the contest, but that’s ok, that’s not why I took the challenge. Actually taking part in a challenge was a ton of fun.

I told everybody I knew that I was taking part in it and that definitely held me accountable. It also kept me motivated. I wasn’t going to let anybody down, especially not myself. The accountability kept me working harder than I ever have in the past and I’m happy to say that it was with great success.

I lost about 25 lbs. in those 3 months and I also learned how to control my diet, which is something I’ve always been terrible at. Now I never want to go back to my old bad habits. I’ve also learned to love cardio. I thought that torturing myself with the elliptical machine or treadmill everyday would drive me crazy, and it did at first, but then I just got used to it. Now, I feel like my day is incomplete without it and I crave it. Weird huh?

I started the challenge officially at 174 lbs. although I tested the program for about 2 weeks before actually registering and I weighed in at 178 lbs. When I finished the program I was at 154 lbs. That’s one hell of a difference. I had to put two new holes in my belt!

My essay at Bodybuilding.com details my workout schedule, my diet, and my supplement schedule if you’d like to see exactly what I did to lose all of that weight. I’d love to hear your comments either here or on my post at bodybuilding.com

Starting My Ninth Week of the Transformation Challenge

I just put up another status update over at bodybuilding.com about my progress over the last week if you’d like to read it. Basically, I’m doing pretty good. I didn’t really lose any weight this past week, but I also haven’t taken any body measurements, so it’s really hard for me to determine if I’ve put on muscle instead. I really need to buy one of those one-handed tape measures so I can track that better.

Another great benchmark is that I’ve finally hit 16% bodyfat, which was my original goal when starting the challenge. I hope to come somewhere near 9% before the end of the year. It’s been tough so far just to get to 16 so we’ll see how that goes.

Well, I’m off to Boulder to try some vegan food at VG Burgers with my vegan fiance. 😀

Tracking My Progress in Dropping Fat and Building Muscle

Back in January I entered a Bodybuilding.com contest called the Transformation Challenge. There’s really no chance of me winning because I don’t want to make as drastic changes to my body like many of the other contestants, but I entered because it would help me to hold myself accountable.

With everyone being able to see my progress, I have to see progress every week so it makes me try that much harder. I’ve been seeing great progress so far too.

My original goal is to drop to 16% body fat. I’m around 17-18% right now, so I’m not too far away. Then I hope to get to 9%.

Anyway, I’ve been making weekly progress updates on a “Bodyblog” I set up on the bodybuilding.com website and thought it could be useful to some of you. You should sign up too and start tracking your progress.

You might find my latest post interesting. It’s titled “Fell Off The Wagon But Still Seeing Progress.” Add me as a friend if you sign up for an account. 😀