First Weigh-in!

8.2 Pounds!   Down 8.2 pounds in week one!!!   Obviously I'm not gonna lose that much week after week, but it's a great start in the right direction.  I'm actually happy I passed my goal to be at 225 or less because there's one stat I wasn't so happy to see....

My current body fat percentage:  

Oy!!  25%!!!  That's quite depressing, but what else could I expect from not working out for months and shoveling spoonfuls of peanut butter and Nutella in my mouth, downing a jar per week.  That's the reality of a diet when over 50% of my daily calories was coming from fat and sugar.  That right there is a recipe for disaster for poor body composition while not exercising.  

So what are my go-to food choices while doing fit2fat2fit?   Glad you asked. :)  The majority of my food choices will be "clean" (unprocessed or not prepackaged).  Here's a list of foods that I will generally eat for 90% of my meals:

Carbs: fruits, veggies, oatmeal and a very limited amount of  breads (basically treat meals only).

Proteins:  eggs, tuna, lean ground turkey, chicken breast, whey protein.  I will stress that 90% of the meats I choose are plain, unseasoned, unprocessed that I cook myself (no hot dogs, breakfast sausage, lunch meats etc).

Fats:  almonds, olive oil, eggs, peanut butter.

From past experiences, I've noticed that when I choose to eat cleaner I have:

*greater energy for my workouts

*burn more fat while retaining muscle

*faster results

*most importantly, I feel much better. 

It's now time for me to go do some sprint intervals (fast paced walk for 1 minute, then immediately do an all out run as fast as you can for 30 seconds).  Repeat 12 times for a total of 18 minutes.  Finish with a 2 minute moderate paced walk cool down.  Then stretch.  Oh joy.   Haha.  

Oh My Soreness

Praise God we made it through the first week of working out (completed week 5 of fit2fat2fit).  Overall I'm feeling pretty good.  Even though I've done these workouts before, they were a lot harder than I thought they would be because I didn't realize just how out of shape I've become from just a few months of not working out.  And did I mention oh my soreness?   Haha

Tomorrow's my first weigh-in.  Even though I started this past Monday and it's only been 5 days, I wanted to get in the habit of weighing in on Saturday mornings.  Knowing my body and from past experience, I'd be surprised if I lost less than 5-6 pounds tomorrow, with most of it being loss of water weight from dropping my carbohydrate and sodium intake.  So my goal is to weigh 225 or less.   

As for the remainder of the plan, my goal is to lose 2-4 pounds per week or about 10-12 pounds per month.   Breaking it down even further here's the dates and my goal weight that I plan to achieve.  Remember, fail to plan, plan to fail.  My plan is to succeed.  

June 27--225, 25% body fat

August 1--215, 21% body fat

September 5--205, 18% body fat

October 3--195, 15% body fat

And hopefully happy 40th birthday to me with a goal weight of 185 and 12% body fat or less, on Friday November 6th.

One more thing I realized, this blog is titled "forever fit by 40."  So the thought came to me this week that I need to set more goals after my birthday.  Otherwise, I'd be failing to plan.  So I'll be keeping that in mind leading up to it.  

Well, that's about it for today.  So now we wait for tomorrow's weigh-in...

Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail.

First things first... Praise God I made it through Day One while staying on track with my diet and completing my work out.  YAY!

AND I just completed my baseline mile time... I actually did a lot better than I thought I would.  I was hoping to break 9 minutes and I blew it up.  8:08!!!  I was VERY SURPRISED!!!   More praise to God for that.  Even though it's 2 minutes slower than my fastest mile last November, I'm happy with it and I know I'll get there.

Now let's lay out the plan that I'm going to use during this fat cutting phase.  For the majority of it I will be following Drew Manning's fit2fat2fit workout plan.  He's a trainer that was in great shape all of his life... until he decided to do an experiment to better relate to his clients.  He stopped working out for 6 months and ate the typical american diet during that time.  He gained 76 pounds!  Crazy.  Then for the next 6 months he followed his own personal workout and meal plan to lose all the fat and return to his original weight and body fat percentage.  He made all of this info available free to the public.  Check it out at www.fit2fat2fit.com.   It includes meal plans, workout plans, how to videos of the workouts, and even his weekly weigh-ins where you can watch his body transform out of shape and then back to his original starting point.

If you did check out the website, you'll even see a testimonial.  Yep that's me, and yes it is very humbling to admit I gained a lot of weight back that I lost last year.  Quite embarrassing, but I'm believing this is the end of yoyo dieting for me.  I know his plan works, so I'm going to do it again.

So here's some of my weekly guidelines:

*Acknowledge God daily.  I need His strength and grace for transformation.

*Weight training 3 days per week

*Cardio 2-3 days per week

*Not to exceed 1000 calories over my caloric goal on myfitnesspal on treat days/holidays.

*Be true and honest in logging my food intake

*Become best friends with those who are already doing what I plan to do for accountability.

That's pretty much it, but it's a lot for someone who's not used to doing all of these things over the past few months.

Day One!

Ciao!   My name is Nick Riccio.  I'm turning 40 this coming November 2015 and I've decided to blog my health and fitness goals and the progress I make along the way to achieve those goals.  I promise to be honest with myself and to this blog, sharing my strengths and weaknesses, my victories and any challenges along the way.

I've been fit before (great health and 10% body fat), but for the past few months, I've really slacked off with my diet and exercise and the pounds came on quickly.  Originally, I was going to title this blog, "Fit by Forty," but my loving, supporting wife who wants the best for me, convinced me to question myself with "why end at 40" and challenged me to stop yo-yoing.  She's right about that.  I've pretty much yo-yoed my entire life with my weight while struggling with food addictions, splurging in secret etc.

So with a positive, victorious, champion mindset, I'm ready to run into battle and conquer these obstacles once and for all.  I will say, for this to happen, I'm fully depending on God's power for my mind to be renewed, to be set free once and for all from the bondage of food addiction, and for His grace to give me the strength needed to follow through with the lifestyle changes that are required for lasting results.

So here are my fitness goals to reach by November:

Reach a scale weight of 185 with a body fat percentage less than 12%.

Run a 7 minute mile.

Here's where I am now.

Today's starting weight, 232.6.

Sometime during this week I plan on running a mile as fast as I can to establish my base time. 

Just completed my first workout.  BRUTAL!!!

I plan on updating the blog weekly with my current weight, my weekly workout plan, and sharing my victories, struggles, etc.  Next weigh-in, Saturday, June 27th!