Goals

Finn looking regal on the sofa.

Back on April 8, I decided to set a goal to get to or under 170lbs in time for Masters Nationals the weekend of July 15. My weight at the time was 177.5 lbs. Well, Nationals is this week. So, did I do it?

First, let’s discuss how to lose weight. It’s rather simple, you just need to burn more calories than you consume. That’s it. The easiest ways to do that are to eat less (diet) or move (exercise) more. And a combination of the two is most effective.

Now, other factors can also play a role, for example:

Stress

Amount of sleep

Type of foods consumed

Body type

But I was not too concerned with those, and planned to just focus on diet and exercise.

As far as diet went, I didn’t do much. I tried to eat a little less, not eat after 7pm and not eat breakfast until around 10am. I did not radically change anything else, I still drank beer, enjoyed food and tried not to make a big deal out of it. Instead, I started to exercise more.

Back in April I started a calisthenics program. For the past ten or so years my HIIT workouts have been inspired by CrossFit, so they have been a lot of movement, kipping pull-ups, high-volume workouts.  Calisthenics leans more toward controlled movement, proper form but still high-volume. No kipping pull-ups, and lots of variations on pull-ups and pushups and ab workouts.

Right away I noticed that I was burning a lot more calories in less time with the workouts I was doing, despite not getting my heart rate as high. I was also struggling to learn the moves and build stamina to do do more, but as the days went by I began to notice that I was getting stronger.

Now, part of the reason I switched to calisthenics was that my shoulder was hurting and I wanted to be more in control of my movements to help it heal. I’ll talk about what fixed my shoulder in another blog, but suffice to say I’m at 100% now. I’m enjoying the new approach and look forward to continuing it.

But here’s the kicker - I checked my weight every couple weeks and was down maybe 2 pounds after about 8 weeks. It wasn’t looking good for hitting my goal. Clothes were fitting a little better, and I was starting to lose some belly fat, but weight was definitely not dropping off. I was mentally resigning myself to not losing as much weight as I wanted.

And then I something caused me to stop doing the workouts every day like I had been doing. In fact, I was having trouble finding time and space to workout. Things were looking even bleaker for my goal.

Yet here I am after another 6 weeks and I’ve hit my goal. That’s right, I’m down to 167.5 (Monday, July 12).

So what changed? Finn.

Seriously, my weight drop coincides with getting a puppy. Down 5 pounds after the first week, and nearly 10 after 6 weeks. I’m walking him a lot, on my feet in the house a lot more and having to be creative to find time to workout. 

I assume there’s some stress related weight loss in there, too, but mostly it was an increase in walking and general activity. And probably stress and lack of sleep. And I think I’m snacking a bit less because he’s always in my business and it’s easier to not eat around him. And stress.

Regardless of how I did it, I’m quite happy to be heading to Nationals later this week without all my extra COVID weight to slow me down. Hopefully that will translate to more stamina and general athleticism. I’ll report back on how it goes in the next blog!

Nothing too radical, and the photos are not great, but my belly is tighter and my pants looser.