New job... less stress. It's funny how much stress actually affects you. I tried to tell myself that I was immune, but that didn't get me that far. Regardless, I've moved and removed some sources of stress, so I'm going to try and lose weight again!
Long story short, I've gotten fatter over the past couple weeks. I went from 210 to 225. Not good. I have a potbelly, and I'm not excited for it. Luckily for me, there's dieting and exercise! I'm going to outline my 3 phase plan, and how I'm going to invest myself in it.
To start, one of my biggest problems is becoming invested in one of my plans. It's super easy to say I'm going to do something, but even harder to actually follow through and do the plan. This is why I've come up with a gameplan, and how I'm going to coerce myself to follow through with it. To begin with, I've start a 9-month plan, in 3 phases. Each phase is 3 months long. For each phase, every month, I'm going to take 50$ of my budgeted personal spending money, and put it into savings. Then, after the phase, if I have hit my goals, I get that 150$ back, plus an additional 150$. If I didn't, the 150$ just sits in savings.
If I complete a phase, then I can use that 300$ on WHATEVER I want. Meaning... this first phase, I'm going to buy myself a new monitor. This is my incentive!
Phase 1: Cutting. I've gotten fat, no use trying to pretend I haven't. So, to rectify this, I'm going to spend my first 3 months trying to lose 12-24 pounds of fat. This will get me closer to my 200 pound mark, which I'm embarassed to say I've completely passed. Here's how I'm going to do that:
Keto! I've started this diet before, and am going to try it again. Long story short, I'm going to deprive myself of carbs, and force my body into enter a state called ketosis. In this state, since I don't have the necessary glucose floating around in my blood stream to support brain/muscle functions, my body turns to the only alternative energy source it has, ketones. In this state, it takes lipids(fats) and energy stored in fats, and turns it into an energy source that my brain (primarily) and body can use. This pretty much means that any calories I intake through food that aren't easily broken down into a glucose based energy source, must go through a process that turns them into ketones.
I've tried this diet once before, and I did experience some nice weight loss. The primary issues are the adaption process which I must undergo to adapt my body to get energy from a source that it's not normally used to getting it from, as well as the fact that carbohydrates are DELICIOUS, and I must resist them.
This will be my only long article on this. I've started this journey, and will see where I end up after 3 months. My goal is tied into physical activity, which is to be able to "job" a 5k within 30 minutes, as well as hopefully objectively say that my body fat percentage has dropped by at least 2%. If I succeed in these requirements, I get my money and will proceed to phase 2. This phase will be working on making my body anti-fragile.
For those of you reading this, I hope to inspire you to follow your dreams. mine is to once again get to a state where I'm happy with my body.
Take care,
Kevin
