Abs Diet Challenge - Complete
I had to lay off the gym the last half of the final week of the challenge, but I still managed to get a bit of a drop in weight. Body weight dropped from 219.4 to 218.4 pounds, a 1.0 pound decrease. Body fat percentage dropped 0.1% to 26.7% while total body fat decreased by 0.49 pounds.
Challenge Totals
- Body Weight: 231.0 pounds down to 218.4 pounds (-12.6 pounds)
- Body Fat %: 28.4% down to 26.7% (-1.7%)
- Body Fat: 65.6 pounds down to 58.3 pounds (-7.3 pounds)
The shin splints are feeling better, although I jogged out to my car on Friday and still felt some pain. So they’re not totally cleared up. The plan for next week is to get back to lifting weights in the gym but I’ll replace my runs with the stationary bike. It’s lower impact, so I’m hoping it will give me some endurance training without doing additional damage.
Tonight I need to start working on the essay I have to send in for the challenge. You only get 75 words to sum up how the diet has changed your life and it counts for 50% of the judging, the other 50% is based on how much weight you lost, physical change (you have to submit before and after pictures) and how well you stuck to the diet. I dropped a little over 5% of my body weight during the challenge, so I’m on the low range of the weight loss spectrum. I’m still carrying a lot of fat around too, so my pictures won’t show any stunning changes (you won’t see a 6-pack). So I’ll have to lean heavily on the fact that I committed myself to the diet for 6 weeks, lost a reasonable 2 pounds per week and plan to continue this lifestyle change for the rest of my life. Some topics I’m sure will come up in the essay:
- I made the time and commitment to exercise 6 days a week (sometimes 7, if you include skiing) despite having a 140 mile (one way) commute to work.
- I didn’t break down and go off the meal plan. I had one cheat meal per week and even that stayed away from my most dangerous temptations (caffeinated soda, fried foods, chips, etc).
- I went cold turkey on caffeinated, non-diet soda.
- I’ve been running more lately than at any other time in my life, including when I was on the cross country team.
- I have a goal to complete a 12k run in March.
February 13th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
Hey, thanks for posting your results. I’m just geting started on my challenge and was glad to read that you had a positive experience and that you plan to continue on the program. Congratulations. I hope to follow more of your progress.