Since hitting maintenance, I haven’t had much to blog about. Things are roughly the same. I am still hovering around the 129lb range, give or take a few pounds. It’s definitely more give than take, but I am okay with it. I am still continuing to lean out. I haven’t made any drastic changes, but I can tell that even my size 4 pants are getting a little roomy. So, somewhere inches are being lost.
Let’s see what I have done since my last writing? I got my body fat tested. An acquaintance of mine from Topeka Civic Theatre is a fitness instructor, who owns her own studio. She was kind enough to do the testing. It tested out to 16%. That’s athletic range, so it was good news to me. She suggested that I not go below at least 14%, which I am okay with. So, what does my crazy mind think about the whole situation? I make the 14% body fat my next goal. I know, I am crazy!!
So with my crazy thinking in mind, I wondered how I am going to reach this body fat loss goal. I am seriously going to have to change up a lot of things I have going on in my diet. While thinking of all of this, it made me think of my friend, Kim. She went through her own weight loss journey last year. She basically just decided one day that she was tired of the crap going into her body, so she decided to ditch all refined sugars and white flours from her diet. At the time, I thought she was CRAZY. I couldn’t do it. She even went one month of doing everything unprocessed. It was easy-peasy for her. I have to say I am extremely proud of her. She lost about 50lbs. Just amazing!!
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| Kim and I in Sept 2010 and after transformations in Jan. 2012. |
So with her story in the back of my mind, I decided I was going to take her story and inspiration and take it one step further and go…..GLUTEN FREE! Yep, starting March 1, I am going to get rid of the gluten products. I have done a ton of research. I have read many blogs and websites. Recently these past few weekends, I have tried several gluten free recipes. They were pretty tasty! I am thinking to myself...... I can do this.
Along with changing my diet to gluten free, I plan to also cut out some foods that will affect my body fat loss in a negative way. I have cut out most dairy. I still eat yogurt and cottage cheese. Giving up yogurt will be hard, since that is a staple in my daily food diary. I will have hard time cutting fruits and nuts, but I eat fruit sparingly as is. Nuts, I will go crazy about. I LOVE my peanut butter. Through many readings its suggested that I eat 1 gram of protein per lb of body weight. I do this already, so I plan to get this more from meat and less from protein shakes. I do love my Shakeology, so this may mean that I only take in that shake and not use my Whey protein. I have always monitored my carb intake, so I will be watching and taking in about 25-30% of my total caloric load of carbs mainly through my pre/post workout meals. I am going to try and limit my fat intake and keep it extremely low to nil in the pre/post workout meal, as I want things to hit my system fast. Too much fat within those meals will slow the nurtrient absorption. I absolutely love avocados, but I hear they are a no-no for leaning out. DANG!! I read that somewhere on a CrossFit blog. But I am a little leary on this one, as my Beachbody coach eats avocadoes everyday and he is so lean. Plus they are so rich in the "good fats." I will try and keep my entire fat intake with saturated fat (ie. animal and coconut) and mono-unsaturated fats in the form of olive oil.
Other things I have to think about….I always try to drink 1 oz of water per 2 lbs of body weight. This is a slight hindrance as I have a hard time drinking water, but not staying well hydrated is a major player in the fight to lean out. Sleep of course is important, so getting 8 hours sleep, at minimum. I am on the path to ditch anything responsible for bloating. So goodbye to beans, gluten (of course), corn, rice, processed sugars or anything else I cannot pronounce in the label. This will be hard since, going gluten free, the wheat is normally replaced with corn or rice products, but I will do the best that I can. Lastly, I will cut the drinking back or ditch all together. This has never been a problem, so I am not too worried about the alcohol.
Workout wise, I am still doing the same things. I have been going to Combat Fit at least 4 days a week. The one other workout per week is on my own, which normally ends up being an Insanity video and then 2 rest days. I have increased my weight levels drastically during our weight/circuit training. I take a pre-workout formula drink to assist and push me through my workouts to get better calorie burns. I feel the classes are challenging still so, I don’t feel a need to have to change this up yet.
So, that’s the game plan. I have lots of planning ahead. Wish me luck.
