Posts Tagged ‘fitness’

Today marks the end of the second week, meaning I am half way through the challenge. I have exercised for 10 days and about a total of 7.5 hours. My body feels much stronger and getting into my routine is getting easier each day. Though 10 days or 7.5 hours of exercise is a pretty short time to work out, I can feel the difference. However, it hasn’t been until the last couple of days that I could see any difference.

I have noticed that certain areas are starting to feel a little tighter and some of the fat in my midsection has started to disappear. Looking at the pictures I don’t notice too much of difference. Its partly because of the light. The picture I took today is much brighter and harder to see definition. I can tell that my lower abs are protruding a little more and that my side tend to curve just slightly more. If I look closely, I can see that my muscles seem to be getting a larger (especially the abs), but they are still mostly hidden under fat.

Next week I will focus on losing some of the fat weight. This should happen naturally as I am now burning more calories. I will try and speed up the process by adding some running and calisthenics to my workout routine.

One particular exercise I will do more next week is jumping squats. It works a lot of the body and is killer on the legs. Try a few and you will see exactly what I mean. It also gets the heart rate up very quickly. I did a set of 30 of these today and my legs were shaking coming back up the stairs. Give it a try.

In case you missed any of this weeks posts, you can find them here:

• Getting Fit in 30 Days: Day 8
• Getting Fit in 30 Days: Day 9
• Getting Fit in 30 Days: Day 10 & 11 Secret to Sit-ups

Not much to report on today, except that starting my workout was definitely much easier than it was yesterday. I was actually looking forward to it. I went for a 10 minute jog, stretched, and then did some sit-ups, pull-ups, etc. One thing I did want to talk about (that I forgot to mention in earlier posts) is weight.

Since a lot people judge the progress and effectiveness by how much weight they lose, it may seem weird that I didn’t weigh myself. I actually did (or didn’t do) this on purpose. The problem is that your weight fluctuates. In the beginning it may go down as you lose fat weight, but then will usually go up as you start building muscle which is heavier than fat. After a while it will eventually level out as your body fat gets down to a lower lever and you aren’t putting on as much muscle weight.

If you judge your progress using weight, you are setting yourself up for an emotional roller coaster. You will be excited to see your weight drop. Then be even more disappointed to see it go back up. It also doesn’t take into consideration how you actually feel. The fact you have more energy, feel stronger and actually enjoy working out. If you focus on these things, I think you are a lot more likely to stay with your program.