Before I begin my story I just want to put it out there this post is related to fitness, nutrition, planning via planner or bullet journal.
Here it is going on the 4th month in this new year and I still haven’t loss any weight. I have hit another plateau. My least favorite word 😂 I talked about Plateaus in my Dec 2018 post and how tracking can be helpful. This is where planners and bujo users can relate (those systems we use are helpful for tracking fitness and nutrition related topics).
I couldn’t figure out why I hit this dead stop. My mom (btw she is my support system and to be successful in weight loss everyone should have one). 💜 Anywho …..my mom reminded me how I tracked my weight loss journey so why not go back and look at what I did, after all, this isn’t my first go round with dropping this stubborn weight. 🤦🏾♀️🙄
In the past I use my fitness pal app, planner and a journal to document my changes. I realized at the time that I dropped the weight, I was eating about 1200 – 1500 calories a day (basically breakfast, lunch and dinner no snacks) And I was doing cardio, mainly walking, since that was better for me with my back issues.
Fast forward to now I average about 1500-1900 calories which is fine, if I was doing cardio. I started off the year with just aggressive weight lifting and small amounts of what I call “warm up cardio” (10-15 min cardio before weight lifting). The lifting isn’t a problem because even though I gained you couldn’t tell because I was 1. Toning and 2. Muscle weighs more than fat.
I have now come to realize that for me to keep my weight down and my body toned I have to have a find a balance. That balance is a combination of cardio and weights.
Now that I have identified the exercise it was time for me to tackle the food part. 🙄 I had to figure out where was the extra calories and bloating came from. Although they were healthy snacks a calorie is a calorie. So the snacking had to stop. The bloating was from some gassy foods I love i.e cabbage and broccoli. I also noticed that I ate a lot of red meat which is not my norm. One more thing I noticed was I drinking apple cider vinegar on a daily basis. I thought it wasn’t helping so I stopped, little did I know that it made a difference for my digestive system.
Now that I have adjusted my food (took a break from red meat and gassy vegetables), started back drinking ACV and increased my cardio I feel better and back on track. I have only lost 1lb in the past couple of weeks. I realize it takes baby steps. Besides if your weight comes off slow you can at least keep it off.
After reviewing all my old journal entries, I am seeing a trend with myself that every 3-4 months I have to switch up my routine. My body gets use to one thing and it needs change if I want to continue change.
Tracking is important in my opinion especially if you have a weight goal. So if you are hitting a plateau you can go back to the basics of what you use to do. Sometimes we as people can get distracted with other things and just need a refresher
Check out my pictures below to see the ups and downs I had with weight, my steps (exercise) and Net calories. Which is the actual calories after exercise was burned. This is my life of ups and downs. Trying different things that fit my lifestyle while still enjoying my favorite foods such as french fries, ice cream, pizza and many other things that may not be good for me.🥰😂
Please keep in mind all my information is based off of my own personal experience. During the time I did low calorie I was under a doctors care.
Renew your L.y.F.E 