Week 2 Down

"Attitude is a little thing that makes a BIG difference" - Winston Churchill

   So the second week is done for and the reason I'm a day late on the post is because the scale was broken at the gym so i couldn't get an accurate measurement until today. So here we go I dropped another pound down to 213 and cut my body fat by another .5%. So what did I learn from this week where I stuck more to the meal plan and worked out harder?
 
   I learned that the first week was kind of just shocking my body and burning off the easy layer of fat. If I can get consistent results of losing a .5-1% of body fat a week I will be happy. Yes dropping weight is good, but replacing it with muscle is better. So in the end if I still weigh 210 but have a healthy body fat percentage it's a success.

   One big thing is the eating healthy at work is usually the hardest but if I try and space out my meals and drink more water in between it helps out a lot. The end result of this will be benefit for those that work and live odd hours because having chicken and rice at 2 in the morning would be frowned upon, but that is my dinner time so deal with it.

   So how to be healthy on a night shift. Well they say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but when you wake up at 2 or 3 in the afternoon my first thought isn't its time to eat. I honestly am not very hungry in the "mornings" any more so I drink 16-24 ounces of water and go work out. Then after the solid workout I do a protein shake which may have helped me this last week not be as sore. but it's a filling meal. Now the rough part is what do I do for the rest of the day, snacks is what can make or break my routine so I try to stay out of the house and away from the food if possible. let's take a break from food and talk about hobbies.

   Hobbies are great benefits to any balanced life. Working out is good and you can spend hours in the gym, but you might as well find other things to do with your time to better yourself. Simple things such as reading a book to more complex like assembling boats in a bottle or something. Maybe even something like writing a blog and throwing your thoughts out there for everyone to read and silently judge whatever floats your boat. The best part is, your mind is distracted which keeps you from boredom eating!!

   Now you've made it to evening when all your friends want to go out and eat what do you do? Just be yourself and either go out and just have a small portion of whatever or politely decline and continue making your brown rice and chicken medley. They will still be your friends. And one bit of advice, just as one salad won't make you suddenly be skinny, one burger isn't going to kill you. We are just trying to develop habits to healthier living.

  You finished dinner number 1 and you are at work what can you do to avoid ordering pizza at 2 am or hitting up the vending machine that costs an arm and a leg for a fruit cup? I found that one meal then fruit spaced out throughout the night really helps. I'm no expert so try out what you want, but sometimes it's just nice to eat an apple to kill off a craving.

   The hardest thing about where I work is there are fountain drink dispensers everywhere. So the temptation to get a caffeine anything is strong, but just focus on why you are doing this and it will help out a lot. Cold water is never bad though.

   After 2 weeks on this plan not drinking soda at work my body has finally adjusted to where I'm not as tired. I don't even get the need to fill up my cup with Coke or Dr. Pepper and it feels great. Overall week 2 was good and it should be a fun week 3. I was able to run a mile in 5:20 so I'm ok with that. We will see if I'm able to get that down throughout the next few months.

   Again I want to say thanks to everyone who has helped me out so far on this process and we will see how it ends up here in a bit. this one was such a ramble, but that's what my thoughts are!

So it begins: Week 1 in the books

     Alright, One week down on this trek to happiness and you know what? Dieting is hard. I've already had to make a few adjustments to the original meal plan, but that is ok because I'm not giving up just refocusing. I also now have protein powder which is a little more essential than I originally planned but am looking forward to the benefits. And I just want to thank everyone helping me out with the hardest part of this last week, What to do with freaking oatmeal!!  That first day was rough but it does make you appreciate protein powder more. Anyway thanks to you guys I have a ton of Oatmeal recipes to try and someday I will write about them all, but for now let's get into week 1.
     Starting stats for week 1: 216.5 lbs and 23% body fat.
     Ending stats for week 1: 214.5 lbs. and 21.5% body fat.

So honestly number wise week 1 was positive, but lets take a closer look.
    Pros of Week 1: Eating smaller meals and being more conscious of what I'm eating. Worked out 1 day. Meal planned for this week.
    Cons of Week 1: Only worked out 1 day, had about 4 cheat meals, 2 were extremely late at night and pointless.

   Overall just the habit of eating smaller portions really helped out so refocusing this week should help out even more but we will see on that. The new goals for this week are to stick with the workout plan. This should be more possible from the protein powder helping recover quicker. Cut back on cheat meals and watch the timing of meals. Lastly plan and prep meals for the next two weeks.

So goals set, I will follow up on them next time. Now to the happiness part of the experiment. Does this change in behavior actually make me happier? Hard to tell since I didn't do so hot sticking to it the first week, but I do feel better. This next week should give me a better perspective after week 2. As an old personal trainer friend of mine would say let's have some fun! (It never was fun, but thats a different story)