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 51 Yay, I’m over the hump. I swam laps for 50 minutes and had about 1600 calories. Been a very long week. bummed missed my class reunion. Work seems like a black hole. Haven’t been able to spend much time at home either.
100 Day workout challenge Day 52. Found out my TDEE which is fancy verbiage for saying the total calories needed to maintain weight. (also the number I need to stay under to lose) . For a guy my weight (last checked at 318) age and level of physical activity. ( I recorded myself as sedentary even though technically I am working out every day) so the total was 2700. I have been averaging about 1300-1600 per day. Except for today, I am like crazy hungry and already am sitting at about 2000. I didn’t swim today but did do strength training lifting. I would like to say I wailed on my pecs but I’m sure a personal trainer would have just looked at me and rolled their eyes. Frank said the Y offers free help with getting started lifting, I plan on seeing about setting that up this next week. Was planning on putting on some hand weights and doing an hour on the treadmill, since it is raining I can’t walk outside. But I am really feeling weak and tired so I’m calling it a night.
100 Day Workout challenge Day 53. One of the rarest birds in the jungle, the ‘day off’. First one in 23 days. Am I crazy or what? Also, a cheat day on food although still barely passed the 2000 mark so still slightly in deficit. Swam with Jane although we had to share a lane and spent a lot of the time leisurely swimming and chatting, but did 75 minutes and about the last half hour I got a lane and sped up so probably evens out. Frank made steak and we watched a movie “absolutely anything’ had the voices of Robin Williams and the Monty Python crew. Nice to have a down day.
100 Day Workout challenge Day 54. I am pleased with the maintaining the daily physical activity so far but have a couple areas that need tweaking. My sleep pattern is really out of sync. I end up sleeping between 3 and 4am. Get up around 11-noonish which means I miss swimming, and I have had trouble keeping the IF thing going lately. I end up eating when I get home from work and then watching youtube until 3am. Optimally, I would like to get up around 10 go swim be back at the house before noon and then I have about an hour to eat and visit with Jane. I’d like to not have to do my workout when I get off work and then I could be in bed by maybe 130-2am still get 8hrs sleep and be up by 10. As far as the IF is concerned, if I need to find a way to deal with post work stress that doesn’t involve eating. Yoga maybe??
100 Day workout challenge day 55. One of the challenges you face on this journey is eating out. Both in calories and portion size. One of the most common complaints Europeans and people from Asia have about eating out in the U.S. is the portions are way bigger than they normally eat. it’s awkward to being a scale with you when you are out, but myfitnesspal.com does a pretty good job of posting calorie breakdowns of a lot of chain places, I’ve only eaten out once since I started my journey and that was to a Vietnamese place and I was actually able to find the food online. I fudged up the calories by about 10% to be safe. Once I am a bit more solvent I am considering getting a gram scale especially if I can’t find the menu on the web. Veggies I don’t sweat as much so I can also consider a vegan option for the times I am eating out.
The reason I am mentioning is today I went out with some friends to a place food was served. I ate in advance at home and when I got there I was a bit hungry but pulled up the menu on myfitnesspal and the calories were crazy all in the 1000’s with a ton of sodium so I passed. It’s a slow process but I like having a bit of a command on what I eat. Mindful eating for a mindful living.
