Photo by mezzoblue.

I set weight loss and fitness goals back at the beginning of the year, as many of you probably did. And a very important step of goal setting is to review.

So, here it goes.

I met my goal and now weigh 165 lbs for the first time since 2004.

That means I lost 6lbs this month. I also met my — updated — cardio and weight training goals. I did cardio at least two days a week and weight trained three. My diet continued to be the one outlined in my original weight loss goal post but I have made a few tweaks. The reward for my efforts are glimpses at my upper four abs and a yet to be determined body fat scale.

In this post I’ll detail the changes I have made to my diet/fitness plans and goals and my progress thus far.

Increase in weight training

I decided to reduce the amount of cardio I do and increase weight training. I increased weight training after reading an article about muscle memory and atrophy. I know that I have been much stronger than I am now. At one time I could bench press over 300 lbs and I bet I could barely do 200 at the beginning of 2008. I had been working out but not with a lot of focus in January because I was convinced on a calorie restrictive diet I’d be unable to gain muscle. I found, however, that people who have lost significant amounts of muscle due to inactivity or sickness are able to gain muscle and strength quickly and without consuming over maintenance levels of calories. Since 1lb of muscle will increase my daily calorie expenditure by 30-40 calories I decided to go full steam and increase my focus on gaining strength/muscle. I have been doing a High Intensity Training style workout three times a week — I’ll post details on it in a post next week. The results have been great.

Decrease in cardio

I cut back on cardio mainly because of the new focus on weight training. But also because my wife has changed schedules. She is now working full-time at the preschool so she gets lunch a couple hours after me and doesn’t get home until 6:30. I think resistance training will bring about greater increases in caloric expenditure and metabolism boost in the long run but we still want to do aerobic exercise for cardiovascular reasons. Taebo also hits muscles that weight training rarely hits — like and obliques.

Diet tweaks
My diet changed slightly. First, I increased my calories to 1600 a day for metabolism reasons. Second, I have tried to space meals more evenly over the course of the day although I still eat more in the hours after work. Third, I have stopped drinking Slim Fast for two meals a day. I still drink a slim fast shake for breakfast — 200 calories, 10g protein, 5g fiber. But for lunch I usually have yogurt at Noon (100 calories) and an EAS protein shake (110 calories) when I go back to work at 1pm. I am splitting up the time I eat a little and also getting ~20g of protein around the time I do weight training which is important to me. Fourth, I’ve started using a lot of omega-3 supplements. And lastly, I have started drinking around one gallon of cold water a day.

Rewards
I’ve talked about how important rewards are in goal setting before and this month my reward is going to be a electric-impedance body fat scale or handheld device. I don’t have a lot of faith in them. Their accuracy is usually lousy. They don’t account for height/musculature and the precision is dependent on hydration. But I plan on doing research, buying one, and doing a review on this site. If I decide against it I may buy something for my workout room. Right now I am getting by with a very minimalistic set of equipment — a bench and 4 dumbbells.

Future goals
In March my goal is to maintain my resistance/cardio training and lose five more pounds to 160lbs. It will be the first time since 2002.