In some ways March may well have been my most successful “getting fit at last” month to date. Every aspect of my fitness program showed substantial progress. I have even passed a couple of milestones that mean a lot to me.
So far I have not decided on a way to celebrate reaching these progress points. Surely something will pop into mind soon—something other than going out to eat!
Weight Loss Progress
During March I reduced my weight more than in any other month since beginning my fitness program just one year ago. A couple of times I managed to lose 6 pounds but this is the first time to lose as much as 7 pounds.
The month began with my weight at 206 pounds. It ended at 199 pounds. These numbers are remarkable in that they reached two milestones. First, I passed the 50 pounds of overall weight loss, and second, I got below that unwelcome 200 pound mark.
There are a number of factors at play in this improvement in the number of pounds lost in one month. Two are notable and will significantly affect my long term thinking and overall progress.
First, about a month ago I did some more careful measurements of my calorie intake and made a couple of changes which I have written about in another post, Count Calories by Ingredients. The most significant was my changing the way I prepare and eat popcorn which has been the snack I have used to stave off eating more fattening treats when feeling hungry in the evenings.
Additionally, I changed my cereal choice to one with far fewer calories. This one simple change alone resulted in a 14-17.5 percent in my daily calorie intake, far more than my casual thinking on this point had imagined!
The second factor that should contribute to increased long term success was a serious effort to improve my exercise consistency. In last month’s report I referred to the need for a serious approach in setting an exercise goal for consistency. I have a separate post related to it titled Exercise Goal Motivation. My effort has proven very effective as you will see in the next section of this report.
Exercise Progress
For several months I have done fairly well with my exercising routine. I have exercised at least three or four times a week which is considered good for basic progress in developing good health.
As noted last month, however, my personal goal has been to exercise six days a week so I have been unsatisfied with this. As a result I set out to make some improvements this past month.
Over the years I have studied personal achievement extensively so I knew how to proceed in this case. I set an authentic goal to reach my objective of exercising six days every week and worked out a plan to achieve it. I describe this goal setting process in detail in the separate post so I will not do so here.
The result of following my plan is that I exercised six days every week with the exception of missing two separate days when I had a schedule that interrupted it. The interruption involved considerable physical activity so I decided it was not practical nor necessary to take extraordinary steps to avoid missing my routine exercise those two days.
Even though I consciously tried to avoid thinking about increasing levels or adding new exercises to my strengthening program so I could focus on the consistency factor, I still found myself stepping up my speed on the treadmill a bit on my aerobic days and both increasing my weights and adding a couple of weight lifts on the days I do strengthening exercises.
Other Health Matters
The only other health matter in March was the follow up with my eye glasses. As noted last month, my new glasses proved to be less than desirable, not allowing me to focus clearly at a distance of nine to fifteen inches. Since that is what is needed for reading or working on my computer for the most part this was totally unacceptable.
Fortunately I was able to get them exchanged in just a few days and in the meantime I went back to using my old reading glasses. Now I have the new replacement glasses to use when I drive (my primary need was for distance focus) and they are also useful for other tasks as well.
For the last month and for the next two I am on jury duty, subject to call at any time, so I will not take on anything new that requires appointments until after that. I never know when I will have to go in for a jury session.
Of course that leaves plenty of other areas to focus on. For example, in addition to my weight loss and exercise work, I want to start working more on incorporating a wider variety of healthy foods into my diet. I will be writing a good deal about that I suspect.
And In Conclusion
This is a critical time in my getting fit program. I need to write about it in some separate posts in order to clarify and direct my ongoing activities. I have a few months to go in reaching my basic weight goals but they will pass quickly.
Most people fail to achieve long lasting weight loss benefits because they do not transition to effective maintenance of their weight and other health achievements. I want to do better and I am looking forward to the challenge.