I’ve harped on before about my plans to get fit, and well it’s been a bit of a struggle. Generally we are capable of starting out well, where it’s gets difficult is to stick to it on those days that you’re feeling tired, crappy, unmotivated, etc. Having a slimming buddy is one good strategy to keep you focused, especially if you don’t want to go down the road of an expensive personal trainer. That being said getting fit is an investment in yourself, and things like gym membership, runners and healthy food all cost money, and of course your time. Getting fit can be done on the cheap, but it’s certainly not free, and needless to say, the resulting benefits outway the cost.

So once again I will say that this is the year that I get fit. Who knows I might even push myself into doing a 10km run somewhere in the summer.

A look at 2011

Below is my weight chart from last year, and as you can see that when last July I posted my progess, I was on track to hitting the 75kg mark in September. But as you can see here, that really didn’t happen.

The gray dots are some of the measured points, and the blue line is the average weight and predicted time I shall hit my goal.

You can see a lot of improvement in the early days & weeks, but after a while it started to slow down. The challenge here for me was to keep motivated and to push on, especially when I was starting to see some real results. You can see here that towards the end of the summer the weight started to creep up. It probably wasn’t helped with being at the Oktoberfest 8 times either 😉

Also throw in the mix in November was a new scales, which miraculously added 2kgs to me. I updated from a mechanical scales to an electronic one, that also does body fat measurements & water weight.

While this result is a bit saddening, it’s also important to note that people’s weights do change in the seasons. It’s the same for athletes, they go through different cycles of building muscle and loosing fat and then recuperating. Now I’m not saying this is what I’ve done, but maybe some of the re-weight gain was due to this natural body craving to store up some fat for the winter.

Life Changes

Besides going to the gym, I’ve started to take a closer look at what I eat, and how much I eat. Portion control is key, and it comes back to the title, calorie accountancy. There is a simple formula to loosing weight, basically you need to use / expel more calories every day than you’ve consumed. If you can manage that, you will loose weight. There’s no magic secret to getting fit / loosing weight, it’s just you have to do it.

Useful Tools

In 2011 I started using the fantastic Weightbot app by Tapbots to record my weight. Generally I try to record at least 3 weights each week, with at least one at the weekend. During the year I picked up, and am still going through, Tim Ferris’ book the Four Hour Body on this recommendation.

I’ve also been inspired by some other people doing the same, reading Pat, Michele, Paul & James on twitter and their blogs has helped me to stay focussed, and has reminded me that there are indeed other people working hard to get fit out there, that I’m not the only one.

Back to the grinding stone

This year I’ve been hitting the gym a lot more often. For the past 3 weeks I’ve been going 4-5 times a week. The results have been good, I’ve lost 3kgs enough so far, but again it’s not the quick fixes that are needed. 74kgs is a more long term goal I know.

The plan for this year is to do at least a small update on my progress every 3 months. So see you in March !