Back in 2007 I realized I was fat and out of shape. I’d been that way for a long time, but in 2007, I finally realized it. But I’ve covered this story in my last post.
Having then realized that I was fat and out of shape, I set about to change that the only way I knew how: Calorie restriction and walking.
Sure, I’d tried low carb, Somercizing, low fat, you name it, but calorie restriction seemed to be the only answer for me. Plus a little exercise.
So I ordered Nutrisystem and started walking. My walking goal was 10k steps per day.
I lost 55 pounds in about 7 months!
Great. Of course, I could not keep up a calorie restricted diet forever, so I added steps, reaching for a daily goal of 15k, and sometimes even surpassing 30k.
But my weight crept up again. I gained back 15 of the 55 pounds I’d lost. Still not bad, and I rationalized to myself that I was older and could not lose weight as I had been able to do in the past.
Then my brother convinced me to try Tony Horton’s P90X.
Wow! It was tough, too tough for me to complete all the workouts at first, but I continued through it, and continue working out with Beachbody products, including One-On-One and Insanity to this day. I am down 25 pounds since I started back in February 2010, and have put on a lot of muscle, so I am probably down 30-35 pounds of fat.
Much of that fat loss has to do with the diet I went on when I started P90X. It was a lot of calories — up to 2400 per day, although I shot for 2000 — but I completely cut out products with added sugar, focusing more on protein as 50% of my caloric intake, with carbs and fat at 20-30% each.
After about 60 days of P90X I pretty much leveled out with my fat loss. I moved to a primal diet where I didn’t count calories. I think this was problematic, because I was eating a lot, and taking in more calories that you burn is a surefire way to gain weight, which in my case meant gaining fat. As I said, I had pretty much plateaued, so my situation was not dire, but I sure did want to lose a few more pounds of fat from my gut.
Still, though, I stuck with my diet and workout plan.
Then one day, I came to the realization that I was not meeting my goals. I was doing great, I weighed a lot less than I used to, and I was in possibly the best shape of my life, but that excess gut fat was still there. I had to change something, try something different. Enter Insanity.
I had put off Insanity because I have an arthritic left knee. I felt that I was injuring it with the P90X aerobics and could only imagine what Insanity would do to it. But I finally told myself that I had hurt the knee before and cured it by quitting aerobics — I would try Insanity and, if it hurt my knee, I’d just quit, go back to resistance training.
I’m in my fourth week of Insanity and my knee feels great! I can still tell it’s arthritic, but no continual throbbing pain as I sometimes felt when P90X was my sole workout program.
I should note that my knee does not / did not hurt after I got it warmed up and into the exercise. It never felt weak. The pain would hit later, and it was really more annoying than anything.
My waist size is slowly moving downward again.
So the point? You have fitness goals. You think you are doing all the right things, but you are not reaching your goals. As you get older, you may tend to just tell yourself, “Well, I guess I just can’t do it anymore. I’m old and that means I’m going to be out of shape.” WRONG!
If you are not achieving your fitness goals, don’t give up. Try something different!
On a low-fat diet? Try low-carb. Doing P90X? Try Insanity.
Don’t give in to rationalizations that explain your failure to achieve your goals. Continue to strive for them by changing what you’re doing. You may be very surprised by how successful you will be!
