I’ve enjoyed my workouts this month and have been feeling good about dedicating more time to them as I feel like now is my time to get it together. That said, numbers-wise and visually, I seem to be making no progress.
Strength: I’ve gone to the gym for strength work regularly (16 days). I started increasing weights as I tend to do the same routine over and over without really pushing. I usually lift a challenging amount of weight, but not to failure, etc. I tend to do legs 1-2x a week and much harder/longer than other muscle groups as that is where I need the most improvement.
Cardio:
I started a swimming boot camp that kicks my butt….today will be my 5th time going. Side note to any swimmers in the group: I’m kinda relearning my rhythm in freesytle, but why am I so damn slow at this stroke? A couple of the other ladies in the group can barely do a pushup but beat the poop out of me in the water. I think I’m still twisting to much when I turn to breathe, but take in water if I don’t turn a lot.
I generally run 2x a week (4-5mi) with one day being pretty fast for me as I go with a girl who is much, much faster than I am (its her rest day).
I bike the kids to school and home generally everyday as well as bike to the gym, yoga, etc. I also added some resistance biking at the gym after reading (admiring) Jon_snow’s routine/success.
Stretching: I do this on my own as well as 2-3 yoga classes a week (yin yoga focused on deep joint work).
Diet: Week 1 still had some holiday excess as well as Week 3 when we went out of town for a few days. (I also exercised less those weeks). Yet, those were the weeks I lost weight (1-2#s). Weeks 2 and 4 when I was much stricter with what I ate and how much, I gained weight. So when I weighed myself on 29 Jan, I was the exact same weight that I was on 1 Jan. And it seems doubtful there was muscle gain based on measuring tape numbers/photos. I also did a BF test mid-month and it showed a slightly higher BF% (less than 1%) of what I measured back in September 2017.
I’ve been targeting about 1400 calories/day on a 30 carb/40 protein/30 fat split. I followed a keto regimen for about 6 months last year and didn’t experience great results (plus, I was damn cranky on that amount of carbs). So I moved to more of a lean protein focus with the above #s. Given the lack of change this month, I am playing around with the idea of a mostly-vegan approach for the next little bit. ‘Mostly-vegan’ meaning I still plan to use the Whey protein I have on hand to keep protein levels up (I’m trying to see if I can hit a 45 carb/30 protein/25 fat split) and will probably also still use my bone broth until I have some veg broth made.
Thoughts/ideas/suggestions? My main goals are to reduce body fat as I just feel/look too soft and to improve my flexibility (which is terrible).