I am very much a goal-oriented person. I am likely to succeed at anything I put my mind to as long as I have a specific result in mind. For the past what seems like a year now, I have been just been trying to focus more on a balanced lifestyle. As much as my strength has significantly gone up, I now feel it’s time to again focus on an aesthetic goal – getting leaner. I will always be an advocate for goals to be more about how you feel than how you look, however, I now feel like I am in an appropriate headspace and fitness level to take on the challenge of an aesthetic goal.
Why am I telling you this? To hold me accountable, of course! It has been 2.5 years since I’ve truly set out on a fat loss quest. I successfully lost 15 pounds, but I did it in a way that made me feel miserable. I refuse to do this in an unhealthy way, so what’s changing this time around? Let me tell you!
I am prioritizing my strength. I worked really hard for the first 4 months of 2020 to get stronger, and boy have I ever. I’m not willing to throw that away in order to drop a few pounds of fat. I realize that I might not get stronger during this period, but my goal is to maintain my strength for the time being. If my strength remains the same or goes up, while my weight goes down, I know that I’m doing something right.
I am going to track my macros religiously. Most days I start tracking and then by the end of the day I just stop because I get lazy and then I never truly know my accurate intake for the day. Just like being goal oriented, I love seeing numbers and that way I can adjust from there. Typically, 1-2 times a week I end up eating things like cereal or homemade bread in mass amounts that are unacceptable and make me go way over my macros. Tracking will hinder this from happening. There are certain foods I cannot have around because I lack self-control with them.
What it really comes down to for me is food consumption. I have no issue being active, in fact, I think I’m a chronic over-trainer. I’m not going to kill myself with cardio, as I already get 10-15k steps a day. I am simply going to track my food intake – notice I said track, not restrict. Right now I know that I eat when I’m not hungry and that is what I am cutting out. I’m excited to see the progress and will be definitely sharing it along the way providing tools that help me.