Background
First of all, the before/after pictures above were taken about six and a half years apart (July 2010 - December 2016). It has not been a straight gradual path from point A to point B. Those of you who have been friends with me (on Facebook) since 2011 might have read about the early part of my fitness journey as well as a later surge when I incorporated P90X (as well as a short follow-up).
So to continue from that point, I felt really good for most of 2013, but I was doing more running than usual and toward the end of the year (just before moving back to Grantsville), I began to suffer from IT Band Syndrome (Derrick Favors, I feel your pain). That put a damper on my ability to run and some of my motivation to work out. I put some weight back on and was basically forced to rest until I healed well enough to run again (I did do elliptical some during this time, which didn't bother my IT band as much).
For Christmas that year, I received the Beachbody Body Beast workout and started doing that at the beginning of 2014. It is a 12-week program, so during 2014, I basically alternated between Body Beast and P90X (a 13-week program). During 2014 and 2015 I essentially did Body Beast from January - March, P90X from April - June, Body Beast from July - September, and P90X from October to December.
That seemed to be going pretty well, but I typically run one half-marathon and one full marathon each year and I noticed that when I did Body Beast, I tended to put on weight. This was particularly true during that time when I wasn't really doing anything as far as nutrition and would justify eating too much because I was "bulking". Toward the end of 2015, I decided I would just change when I did the workouts and kind of target a bigger, more muscular winter body (when I usually don't run any races) and a leaner summer body for when I run my races. My workout schedule changed to Body Beast from January - March, P90X (2 rounds) from April - September, and another round of Body Beast from October - December.
So I started 2016 with a round of Body Beast, but was again eating too much. I got back up to 220. I will say that I was still in fairly good shape, I still ran 20-30 miles per week. But I was definitely heavier than I wanted to be. At around that time, I changed my life insurance policy and because of my weight, I did not qualify for the super preferred rate that I had previously. I decided that I needed to do something differently. That's when I discovered Lose It!
Exercise
I've pretty well described the programs I do and when I do them. In addition to the weight programs I do, I also run six days a week, for 48 weeks out of the year. I take 4 weeks off from running, spread throughout the year. If you're interested, I've made my exercise calendar and a Google Spreadsheet I use to track my Body Beast workouts available. The time of day I exercise has varied based on my work schedule, but generally I prefer mornings. Currently, I go the gym at about 5 AM.
I do my lifting and running back to back, mostly out of convenience. I researched a little bit about whether it was better to do cardio first or last. I think the overall conclusion was that it doesn't really matter, but there was something that said that if you lift first your protein and glycogen levels are down so that your cardio will primarily burn fat. I don't know if that's true, but that's what I do. There was a time that I ran first and then did weights and I definitely feel that running afterward is more effective, but the ideal might be to separate them by a few hours. I just don't have the time to do that.
Nutrition
I feel this has been the biggest game-changer for me personally, but at the same time, I don't feel I do anything too crazy. I don't have any "prohibited foods". I still eat sugar, butter, ice cream, cake, etc. I do count calories and that is where the Lose It! app has come in. I'm sure there are other apps (My Fitness Pal, for example) that do something similar, but basically I am able to put in my height, weight, and age, and then what I want to lose and Lose It! gives me a target calorie intake for the day. Then I just have to enter everything that I eat, as well as the exercise that I do and keep my net calories under the target.
I don't claim that it's easy or particularly fun, but I do feel it is effective. At the end of the day, you have to be aware of how much you should be eating. At that point, you can either pre-plan all your meals to make sure you stay under that number or you can track everything as you eat to make sure you stay under that number. I've chosen the latter and that has worked for me. I don't feel that any weight-loss or weight-maintenance can be effective unless you're aware of how many calories you should be consuming and taking steps to make sure you are consuming around that number of calories.
The only other thing I do is during my Body Beast cycles, I will do a protein/creatine post-workout shake. I just use Six Star Vanilla Whey Protein and Six Star Creatine X3 that I get at Wal-Mart. One scoop of each in 20 oz of water is what I do. During the Beast phase of Body Beast (the last four weeks), I drop to half a scoop of creatine. Nothing fancy.
Consistency
Like anything else at which you want to be successful, consistency is the key. I've come to the realization that this isn't something that I can "finish". If I want to be fit and healthy, it is something that I will have to work at for the rest of my life. (Shout-out to my dad, who is 67 and goes to the gym six days a week). You can lose weight, but once it's lost, you immediately move into maintaining that weight loss, which is just as and can be even more difficult.
Conclusion
I don't claim to be any kind of expert on exercise and nutrition. I see people at the gym every day who are more fit than I am or probably ever will be. I just had some people ask about my routine and how I made the changes that I have so I thought I would share what I could. If there's anything else you want to know, don't hesitate to reach out and I will answer the best I can.
