So, onto the next phase I go!

It's time to set new goals! After 15 months of a diet and exercise overhaul, I decided to have a re-evaluation of my health and fitness done.  I was more than a little nervous about what was to come of it. I've worked so hard but it's quite possible that it just wasn't hard enough.

Here are the results:
I've lost 46 lbs of fat (yay) but I also lost 10 lbs of muscle (not so fabulous)  While my body needs a few more calories per day to survive, my metabolism hasn't changed significantly - even though I really exercised and worked my butt off the last year. I lost 11% of my body fat.  That's a lot but, it isn't quiet enough. I have to be honest, while I was feeling proud that I'd done what I'd done, I also felt slightly defeated at the same time. How was it that I hadn't done enough? I've worked so hard, probably the hardest I've worked on any single thing in my life and I'm still short of where I should be.

The woman who did my evaluation gave me a high five at the end and said I should be very proud of how far I've come. She said it was refreshing to hear that I'd done this without the help of Dr. Bernstein or another quick fix weight loss plan you pay lots of money for.

I've lost many inches and I've lost a lot of weight but it appears that my weight loss journey isn't quite over yet.  So, here I go, tackling another 10lbs of weight loss. This time though, I'm tackling body fat more than I am pounds.

Ideally I should lose 28lbs of fat (holy cow!) but at the same time I need to gain 15lbs of muscle (oh yippee!) so net, when all is said and done, I will be down about another 10lbs from where I am right now.  I'm going to spend the next few months trying to get myself there. In that period of time, I should also be dropping another 20% of my body fat.... it seems really daunting.  I know, what's 10lbs right, once you've lost 56lbs? It is actually taking a lot for me to wrap my mind around. I thought I was close to nearing the finish line. I though I was in better shape than I am. I just have to keep going.

The fitness plan consists of me giving up doing lots of long distance running, it's unfortunately eating my muscle and that's not good.  I'll be replacing it with H.I.I.T (High Intensity Interval Training) with sprinting (walk for 1 minute, run as hard and as fast as I can for 1 minute, walk.. repeat) and then back to where I started, lots of full body weight training. Weighted squats, lunges, leg raises etc. I will literally be using my lower body as a calorie burning machine.

As the quotation at the beginning of this post states, the mood that had me committed to being so intense has most definitely passed but, I committed to myself that I'd make this life change and I'm going to finish it.