I started a 100-day Workout Challenge last year and this is a record of my experience. I’ll post five days at a time Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays until I am through it, then I will update where I am now and will start posting real-time weekly journals thereafter.
100 Day Workout Challenge Day 36. Here’s something I didn’t factor in, What about a night where I didn’t get any sleep. How do I work out the next day? I guess the answer is, unfortunately, I just have to do it. I had a fairly stressful night at work (nothing new there) and could not get to sleep the whole night. I finally was able to sleep from 8am to noon. I had a long 4-5 mile walk after work to decompress and I really felt it when I got home. That and I may have dehydrated myself. I do believe that I may very well stress getting below 300 more than actually making my goal weight. for the last 14 years, I have gone between 300 and 330. (with me hitting my highest recorded weight of 345 right when I started this. So having lost 24 pounds so far is nice but it’s familiar territory. I won’t truly believe I broke the yo-yo string until I get below 300. In the meantime, I need to not be so hard on myself. I have to keep remembering what Jane said about self-love. I plan on a short walk after work to keep me on task but I’m not doing any more than the minimal 30 minutes tonight. I hope I get a better night’s sleep tonight
100 Day Workout Challenge Day 37. First, updates, My calories were in the 1600 today which is over the 1200-1500 preferred range, but not going to let that bother me. I also swam laps for 50 minutes and walked for about 45 minutes. I have read that a major problem people have in losing weight is they tend to overestimate the calories they burn exercising and underestimate the calories in the food they consume. I wanted to state that I use the website “Myfitnesspal” for my quotes. I think the amount of calories I burn working out is too high. ( ‘light swimming’ is 900 calories in an hour. That seems a bit much) What I do to help the fudge is I deduct 10% of the calories burned from exercising and add 10% to the calories it says I have eaten just to be safe. So far I am still losing weight, so I am not worrying too much at this point.
On most nights that I work, I usually go for a walk on the circle drive on the unity grounds. It’s pretty quiet and almost never any traffic. I put on my headset and listen to old recordings of ” American Top 40 with Casey Kassem” It’s a nice way to unwind a bit. Depending on my energy level and if I have or haven’t worked out already that day I will usually walk between 1 to 4 miles. There is always some wildlife that can be spotted on my walk usually deer, opossum or raccoons. The problem lately is there have been a lot of skunks. They usually like to hang out by the road and hunt for bugs. The problem is they are increasingly getting aggressive. I had one charge at me the other night which scared me. Not that I couldn’t take him or her, but that they were going to spray me. Then last night one walk on the road and I almost stepped on them. Perhaps I need to stock up on some tomato juice. ( the only thing that stops the smell. Or at least based on that episode of the “Partridge Family” I saw as a kid.)
100 Day Workout challenge Day 38. In an effort to ensure transparency, I will have to admit I fudged slightly today on the challenge. to wit: Yesterday I did to workouts I swam for 50 minutes and then when I got off of work (which was after midnight) I walked for 45 minutes. So today, I was feeling extra tired and slept past the time I needed to be up to go swimming before work. When I got off work it was raining and I was feeling very stressed and was coughing a lot. So I applied the walk that was technically the same day to that day. So I can still say in every 24 hour period I have worked out at least once. But tomorrow Sunday, I can’t do that. But that should be fine as Jane and I have pretty much made swimming a regular thing. As far as the diet, I blew it. They had Braunschweiger at work and that is like freaking catnip for me. So I exceeded the 2000 calorie threshold, but counting the walking in made it pretty close.
100 Day Workout Challenge Day 39. I can feel day 51 approach, that will put me past halfway. Actually, it hasn’t been too bad so far, I love the swimming, and the walks after work are relaxing. I want to add more weights and eventually biking when I lose some more and eventually JOGGING!!! I miss that some people hate it but not me, and biking is fun too. I really think that the more the weight comes off the more active I will be. But for now, it’s still day 39 and I don’t want to get ahead of myself. “One day at a time” and all that jazz. Jane and I did indeed go swimming and my calories are at 1380 so all good will try the IF again when I get home. I like eating but really don’t like stress eating so trying not to eat when I get off of work is actually a pretty good thing IF or not. especially since it’s past midnight when I finish my shift.
100 Day Workout Challenge Day 40. I am actually writing this the next day, Day 40 was a real H.A.L.T. kind of night and I didn’t want to subject anyone to that level of maudlin lachrymosity. For lack of a better way to say it, although you could just say I was in a real pissy mood, there fixed it without the 5$ words. Today’s much better. I did actually make it swimming before work so it was just a rough day at work and it just put me in to a depressed mood about the whole process. I mean it’s going to be a while before anyone notices i lost weight. I mean I’m down 24 pounds so far, but it isn’t that noticeable yet.I really have to just focas on the day to day and not think of the weeks, and months i have to get to my goal. Even then it’s a lifelong change so I am just going to have to adapt.
