[FITNESS] Know your body: how to get effective results from workouts & nutrition

What’s good everyone,

My fitness journey this year has been inspiring and insightful. I have a wide array of data that I collected from my food and fitness journals. I see trends and patterns and I finally have a better grasp on what works for me and what doesn’t. I haven’t recorded my workout log in a few weeks, but I plan to do it in 2 weeks, purposely taking a month off to see how applying these methods to my fitness plan work for me. I notice a few things when reviewing all my data over the past few months that will help me with my goals moving forward:

I Have to do cardio in order to maintain/lose weight

This is something I suspected already but after the past few weeks it’s confirmed. I have to do at least the minimum 3 days a week of cardio for maintenance purposes. My body is used to being very active, and for whatever reason, I gain weight easily, especially when lifting weights. So, to minimize that effect, I have to do cardio. No getting around this fact.

The less calories I eat, I may gain weight

This is the effect of starving myself. Not on purpose, but there will be days when I don’t eat even the minimum amount of calories I need to function. Insert any excuse you want, but on days where I workout twice a day, I have to make sure that I get a certain amount of calories, so I’m not placing my body into starvation mode and retaining unnecessary fat.

I have to eat and train consistently

I look at the weeks where I made the most progress, and I ate consistently. I had breakfast every day. I cut carbs in the evening. I accounted for heavier calorie foods throughout my nutrition plan. It was balanced. I also worked out at least 4 times a week also, with equal amounts of cardio and weight training.

I also looked at the weeks where I “failed”. There were more “bad foods” those weeks, less working out (or lighter loads of exercise), and no balance. The nutrition is VERY important and without balance, there will be no progress

I have to drink more water

This is self-explanatory. Water flushes out the toxins in your body, hydrates you, satiates you (which helps you to resist overeating), and is good for you overall. Isn’t the body like 70% water or something like that (too lazy to google it)? I want to drink at least 3.5 liters (almost a gallon) a day.

I have to do double the cardio

Reviewing my notes from years ago when I first started doing heavy cardio and got all the way down to 170 (which I never want to be again), I saw that my cardio was ridiculous. You would’ve thought I was training for a marathon! I ran like 7-9 times a week, sometimes 2 a days, and lifted weights! I did this for a few months, hence the massive weight loss. I definitely lost lean muscle mass along the way as well, which is a no-no for me. For the next six weeks, I’m going to commit to at least 6 days a week of cardio. Between my Insanity Max workouts, treadmill, stairmaster, elliptical, row machine, and basketball, I will have my fill of workouts! I will also weight train at least 4 days a week (some weeks 5) and do ab exercises 3 times a week. I want to get maximum results over this 6 week push.

We have 3 weeks until Memorial Day, and six weeks until June 21 (the official start of summer). I have talked about doing some of this stuff before, but life happens, and I’ve slacked somewhat. No more excuses and no more expectation pitfalls! I have all my journals modified for these goals, and I’m more focused than ever.

See you on the right side of success!

About Streetz

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Streetz is the is the founder of Streetztalk.net. His passion for storytelling and diverse interests are driven by both his life experiences, and his desire to motivate and be inspired. His tweeting is ferocious. His defense is impregnable!!

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