The last quarter

Ok, so the last 27 pounds are proving to be the hardest.  I guess that is always the way it is.  I am at 75 pounds right now and still working hard!  In fact, I am writing this blog because Keith White encouraged me to share it.  The kitchen part of this diet, for the most part, is in a good place.  The workout routine is getting there, and one of the first things of which I am reminded is that it doesn’t need to be a ROUTINE.

I am very much a creature of habit.  I think that is why I migrated towards IT and did so well in it before I surrendered to ministry.  When I talk about comfort zones, I am very much talking to myself FIRST and FOREMOST.  I like consistency and normalcy in everything in my life.

HOWEVER … to keep my metabolism off guard, there HAS to be a level of variance.  The experts around me tell me that if I work myself into a rut in my workout, my body will adjust and will not burn calories efficiently.  They are correct.  I lift weights three days a week and, due to my left arm, I cannot vary that too much.  But I haven’t mastered that by any means, so I am guessing that one is okay.  On days that I lift weights, I do 40 minutes on the elliptical machine as my cardio.  Again, I can vary speed and resistance to help with that.  On my non-workout days, I do speed interval (alternating between walking and running) on the treadmill for 45 minutes.  Again, I can vary the times I run within that workout so it seems to be helping.

AND THEN … Lane Johnson of Anytime and I were talking a few weeks ago about how to help the gut situation I have.  The ol’ gut it getting smaller, but I need to work on it.  I know you cannot target train for fat loss, but what I’ve had going on in that area is not good and has not been.  We talked about the crunch machine, a machine that I can use every day.  Lane challenged me to get to the place where I could do 100 crunches a day.

The first day, I did 40 and thought “NO SWEAT!!”  The next day I did 60.  On day three, I literally could not do ONE.  It was so sore I could barely move.  So I took a day or two off.  That led me to the following Monday, where things seemed to turn a corner.  I was able to do 100 that day but it took forever.  From that point on (it was several weeks ago), I have been able to do 100 a day for six days (I do take Sundays off from workout to allow my body a day to rest.  Plus, there is so much else going on every Sunday that I just can’t pull it off).  In the last couple of weeks I have increased the weight and I constantly vary the number of crunches in a single set.

So, I am still working on all of this.  I have gone from a size 44 in pants to 36.  And I am still working on it.  Slowly, but surely.