Day 1 (300*)

 Day 1

    Day 1, the first step, the beginning of a journey, a day that everyone in the weight loss community is all to familiar with. I call it "Day 1" but I must of had hundreds of these "Day 1"'s over my weight loss journey. Some of these journeys last longer than the others, but each of them ended the same way...with another Day 1. This blog will be following my journey of weight loss, with a real, no holds barred outlook. Every weight loss journey begins with the same first step, a wake-up call.

    All these days start with a wake-up call, no matter how big or small, it gives you enough motivation for you to start yet another Day 1. A number that pops up on the scale, clothes not fitting, health problems and the list could go on for days. Whatever this call may be for you, it works by making you realize how disgusted/ashamed you are with your own body. You may be 10 pounds overweight, or 400, we all have that same feeling of shame and of thinking "how did it get this bad?". For me, it was looking down and seeing that scale read 409.2. Now my whole life I would make excuses saying I needed the weight for football as I was a high level lineman (this was a lie) but I would usually max out at 330-340. After surgeries and a very static summer, I just packed pounds on and avoided the gym. I feel awful, ashamed, and already defeated. It's natural to hate yourself for this because being morbidly obese is dangerous. Clothes don't fit, everything hurts, and I am depressed due to my body image. This Day 1 will be my last, for that I am sure. Day 1 must start with a plan.

I originally went to school for a Bachelor's in Kinesiology and fell in love with learning about the human body and developing strength in athletes. I was never the strongest on my teams, but I was not a slouch, however when you looked at me, I was grossly overweight. No one in their right mind would look at me and think, "that's someone who knows about fitness!" and if you did...my god. I know everything I MUST do, the fact is I do not practice what I preach. This knowledge is the basis for my plan, a plan I will stick to.

 

This plan starts with a gym and cardio plan, because I love to create workout programs. I created a plan that will coincide with my schooling, starting in the Winter Semester and Ending after Finals of said semester. The gym side of things is simple, 2 weeks dedicated to prepping my body to lift weights again, followed by 4 weeks of severe hypertrophy training (essentially muscle building) and then transitioning to the conjugate method until a testing week with my finals. The cardio begins with one main goal STOP BEING SO DAMN SEDENTARY. Leading up to this, I installed industrial chain link fence. A very physically demanding job, but this just lead to me gorging on food. The cardio begins with a lot of walking, with some running sprinkled in once a week for a change up. I will post my workouts and cardio for each day on this blog. The lifts and cardio will be the "easy" part, as the diet will be the killer.

I have never been someone with control over my diet. I don't think there has been one elongated period where I ate well. There was weeks I would eat 10-20 thousand calories in a day and try to justify it with my job. Even on the toughest days of my work, the calorie burn would top out at 6000...so thats a week of 4000-14000 calorie surplus a day. A whole week of 14000 = 98000 caloric surplus...thats 28 pounds in ONE WEEK, a normal person would eat that many calories in 49 days....A MONTH AND A HALF. This past year was undoubtedly the worst I have ever eaten and the health problems and weight gain are all my fault. With this diet, meal prep will be king, because my lazy ass just wants food readily available above all else. I will be aiming for 2800 Cals a day to begin with, that is an additional 800 then recommended but it is necessary to ween me off my abhorrent intake from before. I will not be doing keto, carnivore etc. but I will be measuring all food I eat to ensure I get an honest 2800. 

The plan is in place, Day 1 was completely dedicated to building it. For the first time, Day 1 wasnt a spontaneous gym session or run, but something concrete. 

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