End Of The Challenge

A number of co-workers and I embarked on a twelve-week weight loss challenge recently. Here are my starting and final stats.

Starting weight: 235.35lbs, 25% body fat Ending weight: 224.75lbs, 18.6% body fat

So I gained 6.4 pounds of muscle and lost 17.03 pounds of fat at the same time. That means my lean muscular weight is now almost 183 pounds.

Whoah. That’s cool. That’s a solid twenty pounds of muscle as of today (February 16, 2009) from when I first started lifting in on October 15, 2008 with 163 lbs of lean weight.

Averaging this out, that means over the course of this program: * I lost one and a half pounds of fat every week. * I gained over half a pound of muscle every week.

I plan on starting over again on March 2, 2009 with a new twelve-week challenge, to see if I can push myself to the sub-10% body fat range at which I could finally see the six-pack that I know is lurking somewhere underneath this body fat.

To get there, I need to take the next couple of weeks and “re-feed” my body. I need to slowly ramp up the calories per day, and while this week I’m going to keep lifting and doing cardio, I’m going to take next week completely off so that my body can reset to get ready for the next challenge. I want to get back to my maintenance level of 3200-3300 calories per day while carefully monitoring body fat to make sure I’m not putting back on any of the hard-won fat losses. Ideally, I’d like to be up around 4000 calories/day to start my next fat-loss challenge so that I have plenty of room to keep reducing as “pool season” approaches, with a metabolism on overdrive and no worries about starving myself.

I’m totally surprised that, as a 35-year-old man, my body was capable of these kinds of muscle gains in such a short time. As a total beginner at the weightlifting game (other than a few months in high school when I was cheerleading and needed shoulder strength), I knew I’d get some quick changes right off the bat, but this is kind of amazing.

Here I am, six months from when I started just by trying to lose some weight on September 1, 2008, the day I finally looked at the scale after already losing some flab and saw it read 251 pounds. It’s been a fun journey so far.

I hate pain, and I always thought fitness involved lots of pain. Turns out that’s not the case if you do it right. It involves a lot of dietary discipline and a willingness to show up to the gym several days a week.

–Matt B.