Why are you not losing body fat? FAT. Fat. F. A. T.
Why are my muscles not growing?
Well. What are you feeding them? Yes... FEEDING them. You fed the fat for so long... why not rethink the science of our machines and evaluate what you are giving your muscles to grow on.
The answer is simple.
Food.
Do you have annnnny idea how many grams of fat, carbs and protein you are consuming PER day? Per week? NOT CALORIES. DO NOT COUNT CALORIES. SERIOUSSSSOULY. UGGGH...
Did you know that there are 3 macronutrients that have EVERYTHING to do with your body composition?
If you need help to get that scale to budge (haaate that so many rely on this, myself included)... those jeans to loosen up or for that nice little definition between the bicep and tricep.. well.. let me challenge you.
I dare you to be honest with yourself. Completely honest. Log your food for 7 whole days. Log the FAT, CARB and PROTEIN of every ounce that goes into your pie hole. All food, drinks, vitamins, tastes of brownie batter, etc... all of it.
At the end of the week review what went in. Were you eating too many carbs? Too much fat? Too little protein.
I think you will be surprised.
There's something that I want to try to obtain MY results.. which may not work for you. It's called If It Fits Your Macros (IIFYM); google it. It asks you to weigh every single gram of fat, protein and carbs that go into your body. All of it. It depends on if you wanna bulk, cut, lose fat, etc.. for what your numbers are to be.
But I do know that when I plugged my numbers in, my expected intake was far HIGHER than what I was doing. I have always despised the 1200 calorie rule to lose weight, it just doesn't work. I knew that I needed to eat 1 gram of protein per day per body pound. And I have been increasing my protein which is why I am seeing results. Now if I were to take on the challenge myself of logging every little detail (and I don't mean into My Fitness Pal).. and looking at the 3 macronutrients needed... I would be pretty surprised.
Lately, I have been eating what I want, in moderation. I've even added more SALT to my diet because of the long distance running that I have been doing. Yeah, salt. I hate salt. Anyone that knows me knows that I hate salt.
Anyways..
I challenge you to lift heavier weights, eat more protein, check out IIFYM just so you have an idea of where you should be at.
Nothing feels more girlier than going for a wax today, having lunch with the girls, only to come home and lift some iron. Bam.
Just a few short weeks out from the Marine Corps Marathon (26.2 mi)... 10 to be exact. Yeah. Yikes. My longest run to date has been 15 miles. It. Was. Awful. I didn't start until 10:30 am because I had a goal of making it to Goodyear Lake at 1:00 for a 31 Party. YeaH, I had the genius idea of running from Worcester to Goodyear Lake. At mile 8 I called Jeff and asked him, "what the effff am I doing?!" We chatted a bit and we came to the conclusion that I needed some fresh h20. Mine was warm and was watered down Vitamin Water. I needed something more. So, I kept plugging along until he found me... at mile 11. He asked me if I wanted to come home with him. I thought about it for about 2 minutes and knew that if I went home I was going to have to clean. I told myself I had just a little over a 5k left to do. So, I sucked it up.
When I got to my destination... I was 14. something. My watch NEEDED to be beep at 15. So I kept running back and forth in front of camp until it beeped. I walked into camp and my sister-in-law said, "Did you just run all of the way here?!" Yes. Yes I did. And it was all worth it at that moment.
That handsome guy in the picture has been joining me for most of my shorter, weekday runs. Tomorrow we will run 8 together. And then... it only goes up from there; 15, 17, and uppppp.
I'm hoping that a local will join me in my journey of competing in the 39th Marine Corps Marathon. These long runs are getting super boring and lonely. It would also be nice to travel with someone and split costs (ughghghg money). I haven't decided if I am going to have the children join in on the events or not. I'm thinking it might be TOO much chaos and running around for them. I don't know yet. :-/
Anyways, I just wanted y'all to know where I'm at and that I haven't thrown the towel in. I actually feel pretty good. I had to take a week off because emotionally I was spent. I also was FAR too sore from a TRX class. Crazy how sometimes we feel overworked and other times we feel on top of the world. Every day is different and so is each workout.
So, plan for the week, hold onto the day and seize the moment. It's all you've got.
