Alright, first month without the extra motivation of the weight loss challenge, so time to see how everything is going:

I’ll admit, I was pretty surprised by this. I eased off the gas nutritionally, both treated and cheated a few times. Doing so made my weight fluctuate a LOT, which took a toll on me mentally, but I never skipped a gym day and would get back on the nutrition horse without beating myself up too much.

Looking at the weight graph on MyFitnessPal, the raw weight loss has slowed dramatically, and I’ll admit, that bummed me out quite a bit. That’s why all the fitness guru’s out there say to not obsess about the number on the scale and have other metrics. That’s where me making notes about how I feel during/after a workout and basic stats about the workout itself has really helped out.

Muscle gain vs fat loss can really mess up the scale, add in eating poorly leading to water weight gain, and it’ll mess with you. My weight would gain, then I’d only lose half a pound in 3 days, then a couple days later I’d be down 3 pounds. Despite all of that, I noticed my cardio was getting better, I was improving speed, and I was improving with the floor exercises, so just pushed through and eventually would get past the dip.

The pictures, while can be embarrassing and just downright painful to look at really is helpful. Comparing the two, you can see the ripples of the shirt hanging as opposed to being stretched out and further slices into the gut on the side view.

You can see a little bit of some muscles coming out from hiding underneath all that fat!

Keeping everything in perspective and looking long term.

Current Weight: 264.6

Lost since last month: 7 lbs

Total weight lost since Jan 2015: 37lbs