I would say that overall, it has been quite a success! Work from home has allowed me to incorporate morning + evening workouts daily without burning out because I get so much more hours now that travelling around is not a big factor in our lives! While some may think that daily workouts sound excessive, I’m just going to clarify once again that even on regular pre-lockdown days, daily workout sessions are a norm to me! So please don’t go crazy forcing yourself to do daily workouts if this doesn’t vibe with you!
The only difference I’m making, is the transition from a focus in weighted workout sessions to more HIIT sessions and moderate strength training (I’m limited to my 10kg max dumbbell). To me, I feel like the intensity is less because heavy weights really get you sore in ways you cannot imagine for days!!! On the other hand, I find that I adapted back to bodyweight hiit workouts very quickly and now I rarely get sore unless I do weighted + hiit sessions.
Let’s take a look at the pictures!
Firstly, look at that!!! An almost one inch decrease in waist line which is a YAY! But ok the bum area has decreased too, which is not so yay but I give credit still because the lack of heavy weights is one important factor… and this still means I did get leaner! So overall, good job to me!
How does this look in comparison to my starting photos?
Can you tell the difference?! Although it’s not a HUGE difference, but mind you, it’s only a month of hard work and I see the definition coming through! As we progress, I know it will get harder to see incremental improvements, but I’ll definitely press on and take it as it goes!
For the weight tracking, I try not to emphasise too much on what the scale shows. But WE’RE ONLY HUMAN. Girls get affected by the scales somehow… Yes, I did say that my main KPI would be fat percentage of ideally 22% or less but since I can’t measure that now, weight seems like a good correlation. According to my tracking, it seems like over these 2 months, there is a good downward trend, which is positive for me! Looking forward to lean out more as lockdown is going to be for another month more! By then this would become a 90 day journey! Not complaining, and totally loving how I get to track my progress too!
In terms of diet, I started out trying to ensure that I keep to a moderate carb intake, while focusing on increasing my protein intake. I also noted that I said I’ll try to only have 2 meals a day, but life is hard enough to restrict myself! 🙁 And as days go by, I have also learnt a lot from dietitians on Tik Tok (lol, don’t laugh) and slowly finding my way back to embrace intuitive eating. Dieting has been a part of my life since FOREVER – and being afraid of carbs is something I’ve experienced for the longest time ever. Doesn’t that explain all the carb cravings – like my insane love for toasts (I even had an Instagram for toasts previously lol)?! So my point is, restriction leads to cravings! The best way to curb cravings are to NOT restrict. I’m going to admit that this is not an easy journey, but I find myself being a lot more accepting towards foods previously termed as “guilt foods” and I’m satisfied with what I have achieved so far. Let’s see how long I can keep this up, or rather, if such an approach will really finally be my long term sustainable approach!
In order to keep track of my intake, I used myfitnesspal. Here’s a weekly snapshot of my intake:
As you can see, the weekly averages seem to pan out to become roughly 40% carbs, 35% fats and 25% protein. While I try to target hitting 100g protein per day (by calculating about 1.8g of protein per kg to maintain/ increase muscle mass) at least, it still only seems possible with protein supplements for me. This is quite a bit different from the goals I envisioned – which is to have moderate carb intake. But nevertheless, I still managed to drive the scale down slowly but surely! Im positive that this would be a sustainable long term plan, and I’m excited to see how this all pans out in future!
While I continue learning from dietitians’ short form videos on tik tok, I’m also contemplating if i should take a course. lololol. We’ll see! Until the next update!
Xoxo, Shermaine