motivation

Challenge Accepted!

This is my official acceptance of the new fitness challenge which will henceforth be known as FitBet II.

What follows are the terms of the new FitBet II as laid out by my benevolent and apparently modest friend Rick in his response to my recent post “220.0 – what Now?”

Rick’s proposals are listed in print form, whereas my responses are in italics.

Rick: I am willing to give you one LAST opportunity. You are gonna have to show some resolve and rekindle that FIRE you had in the spring.

Andy: Appreciate the final chance.

Rick: I will give you until the FSU game (on November 30th, 2013) to lose the weight. I think the new goal should be for you to get your weight under 200 lbs.

Andy: That seems more than reasonable.

Rick: We will discuss another bet to get you to your ultimate goal if you are able to achieve this one. I want you to win one for once, so please take this opportunity. 170 ( was actually shooting for 175, but I get the point) is just too daunting and too big a number to hit, so lets take this in increments. 199 is your number.

Andy: 199 by November 30th is the goal. Accepted.

Rick: If you do not hit your goal, you will wear the FSU shirt to the FSU game and get your picture taken in front of the Steve Spurrier Statue wearing it (this is, of course, assuming we are able to get tickets). If not, I will likely be in Tallahassee for Thanksgiving and you will go down to the Bobby Bowden statue and get your picture taken in your Nole regalia doing the tomahawk chop and you must post it to your blog and on your Facebook.

Andy: I’m willing to do either of those things if my initial goal is not met.

Rick: I also would add the following conditions:

1) I am out of the bet. I lived up to my end of the bargain. You’re failure is not my responsibility, so even if you do manage to win the FitBet II, I no longer have to wear the FSU shirt.

Andy: To be honest, I was never going to make you wear that godforsaken shirt even if I had won the initial FitBet. So, you are absolved from having to wear the Chief Assahola t-shirt.

Rick: 2) You must blog your weight EVERY Saturday, Monday, and Wednesday. No excuses, miss once and you forfeit the bet.

Andy: Fair enough. Official Weigh-ins every M, W, & Saturday – beginning this upcoming Monday (9/2/13) after this weekend’s College Football extravaganza in Gainesville.

Rick: 3) You must BLOG all the JUNK FOOD you eat. If you eat clean, no need to BLOG it. You’re supposed to be eating clean. This includes sodas (any type), chips and the like, Little Debbies, cookies or desserts of any kind, any fast food, restaurants, etc….

Andy: No matter how monotonous this seems, I know it will keep me accountable, so I agree.

So there it is, the official terms to FitBet II as proposed by Rick and accepted by Andy. This new challenge begins Monday, September 2nd.

213.0

image

Three steps forward, no steps back. So far so good. Nearly down 3 pounds in as many days.

So next week Rick and I start the second half of Insanity. Workouts get longer, tougher. Currently in the middle recovery week, Core Cardio and Balance. Like the workout but getting nervous about the workouts to come. I still wasn’t able to do all the prior workouts 100% without taking breaks so I can only imagine what next week will bring. Guess I really will have to “Dig Deeper!”

210.4 – Official Weigh-in

image

The steak has come to an end. My perfect record of always being at or below my weekly target weight to remain on schedule to hit my FitBet goal weight 170-175 by August 30th when I head down to Gainesville for the first football game of the year.

According to my Gator Tracking, I needed to be at or below 209.8 lbs on today’s weigh-in to still be on track. However, I’m only behind the 8-ball by about a half a pound. I will have to double my efforts this week to make up that lost ground.

On a positive note, I’m down over 28 lbs now and at my lowest weight yet and right around the corner from breaking into the single digit 200’s! So today is still a great day!

Our family is heading over to Jacksonville today to see my wife’s older sister Leslie compete in a Tough Mudder which will only make me look like a wimp doing the exercises that I do. If you don’t know what a Tough Mudder is, you should look it up.

216.6 – Calories In vs. Calories Out

image

Kept the calories in check yesterday, drank lots of water, and got in some decent cardio. The result? Now officially my lowest weight yet so far!

Now sometimes I know I could be eating better. Cleaner. But I often wonder is it really what you eat that determines your body composition? Or how much you eat?

Researching it, you’ll find arguments for both sides. But what I’ve found, at least so far, is that it’s simply “calories in vs calories out”. Meaning, if you burn more calories in a day than you consume, you’ll lose weight. It doesn’t matter if it’s 2000 calories of twinkies or 2000 calories of chicken breasts and broccoli. Your body doesn’t know the difference between French fries and salmon. It simply uses the energy from calories to do what it needs to do in a given day.

That being said, you can definitely eat more of the healthy stuff than the junk food due to there being fewer calories in it per general. Like I posted a while back, there are the same amount of calories in 4 chicken breasts as there is one large doughnut. Which one of those do you think will keep you fuller longer?  Plus protein takes longer to break down than simple carbohydrates which burns more fat.

I found this article which summarizes it up fairly succinctly.

http://www.biolayne.com/nutrition/is-a-calorie-truly-a-calorie/

Here’s a good video on it as well