do the body for life challenge

Well, last week was the last week of my scheduled body for life challenge. I have to be honest and I say I still weigh what I did when I started. The first few weeks I was off and running and lost week quickly, but an unforeseen medical issue arose which slowed down my workouts and distracted me from taking care of nutrition. My observations are :
=> that planning is essential to ensure you have healthy foods around you at all times so you do backslide to the convenient and unhealthy. => Be prepared for the unexpected. You can’t plan an unexpected event that’s why it’s unexpected, but you do need to have a plan that will help you get back on track or stay on track if something unexpected rises up. A trigger or something that will remind you that you have a goal to reach and you have to get to it.
=>Schedule it. Schedule your workouts and keep the schedule.

I’ll be giving it another shot. I want to do the full 12 weeks on track and on target.

The last few weeks I haven’t been following through on this. An unexpected health issues and life detoured me, but I have not given up. I’ve seen the progress I can make with these changes so I’m going to get back on track starting tomorrow – I’m going to get a work out and eat right. Onward and upward:)

Gained back all 6 lbs I lost because I fell off hard – no workouts and went back to old the eating habits. Issues during week 6 threatened progress, but it is my intention to do the best I can with getting workouts in and eating healthly.

Week 3 of th BFL challenge – I lost 5 lbs :). Excellent. I couldn’t really work out the way I wanted to but just changing my eating has helped to drop a few lbs…so when I really get going on the workout portion I expect to see more pounds dropping off.

Week 4 of the challenge – relished too much in the previous week’s victory :( so I lost focus a bit, but still manage to drop 1 more lb…I bought a set of weights so I can do some at home weight training. Next week, I plan to get back on track with my eating and ramp up my exercise.

Turned out much like round 1. Disorganization contributed to not really following through on what I needed to do. I kept forgetting my lunch so I had to go out to eat for lunch most days and I’m trying to figure out how to get meals made after work and find time to workout.

Good news is I did get my benchmarks and boy did that motivate me :). So starting tomorrow I’m on the wagon, better commitment at least that’s the plan. I plan to put my work out in the mornings for 2 reasons: the book suggest working out before eating breakfast for maximum fat burning. And two, it will save me some time in the evenings so I can focus on making my meal.

I have started to think more about how I eat and what I eat – more whole grain breads, turkey bacon, fewer sodas etc…that’s something positive this week.

This is the first official week of my own personal Body for Life Challenge and if I had to score the round it would go to…well I don’t know who, but not me…lol. The order of the week was disorganization which kept me from getting the start I desired. I went shopping for the “right” foods to carry me through the week, but came back with only half my list. Which means I had a tough time getting meals in me that were structured the way they should have been. I also neglected to get setup with weights so I didn’t have any weight training this week and only did one cardio work out. I also didn’t have the benchmarks I wanted to have before I started…so alas this week was about getting my mindset for the adventure. Over the weekend I’ll work on getting myself more organized so that next week I can follow the plan more closely.

I did pick up on a couple of things this week:
1) Habits – Are going to be the biggest key for me. I have a crazy soda habit. And while I went the first few days fine, I find myself craving a carbonated beverage of some sort. Also, I’ve recently developed an ice cream habit which had me eating drumsticks several times a week.

2) Organization is key. If you just want to get started, it is better to dive out there and do something rather than nothing, but in order to increase your chances for good results you eventually need to make a plan and follow it.

So that’s the tale of the tape for week 1. I hope week 2 goes a little better :)

http://bodyforlife.com/index.asp

Aargh…today was supposed to be day 1 of my personal body for life challenge. I really didn’t do the planning I should have. I tried to go shopping yesterday for the foods I would need, but I didn’t get everything I needed and last night I didn’t go to bed like I should have so this morning I kept hitting the snooze forgetting that I needed to do a work out this morning. So, to say the least I really didn’t get started. So I am going to count tomorrow as the official day 1. I’ve made a plan – bed at 10:30 or so, so I can get up at 5:30 and do my first workout :).

I’ve decided to give this challenge a go. I ordered P90x, but it’s too advanced for me just yet…The Body for Life challenge is a well guided and simple program I can put in place and hopefully see some results. I’ve got to re-read the book, so I’m targeting a start date of this challenge for 1st of September.