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August wasn’t the best month but I still had some pretty good progress. I did forget to take some pictures so I won’t have those for August but I will be sure to have some for next month. Here we go!
The Numbers
- Current Weight: 199lb
- August’s Weight: 204lb
- Starting Weight: 247lb
- Goal Weight: 160lb
- That’s a 5lb drop for August and an overall drop of 48lbs. 39lb to go!
- Current Body Fat: 36% (Female standards)
- August’s Body Fat: 39%
- Starting Body Fat: estimated 50%
- Passing Body Fat: 32%
- That’s a 3% drop for the month and a 14% drop overall. 4% to go!
- This month, we decided to also start tracking my body fat in the male standards since we should be getting close to that changing. So here is where I’m at for that.
- Current Body Fat: 32%
- Passing Body Fat: 22%
- 10% to drop there
- Current Tape
- For those that don’t know, the female taping standard measures the neck, the smallest part of the waist, and the biggest part of the hips. The male standard measures the neck and the biggest part of the waist.
- From my last tape, I lost 0.5in around the neck, 1in around the waist, and 1.5in around the hips. Losing inches around the neck isn’t very helpful but it’s a natural part of losing weight and I still lost body fat so I’m pretty happy with it.
The Struggles
As I said before, August wasn’t the greatest month. Sure I lost 5lb and 4% body fat overall but that was with some weight gain in the middle. I weighed in on 09.06.19 at 199 but I also did that on 08.17.19 and then went back up to 203 before managing to get it back down.
I’m not really sure what caused me to go backwords so much there in the middle. I don’t know if it was a lack of motivation, drive, or will power. I helped give myself a little more drive and motivation this past week by getting my commander who just left for a different unit to make a deal with me that if I’m promotable by the end of the year, he would come back to promote me which will mean a lot to me.
I know I definitely lacked in will power when it came to food for a bit but it did help a lot when I started to plan in a cheat day rather than ending up willy nilly doing them and then doing too many of them. Another thing I did that seemed to help that was I replaced one of my Profile bars with an MRE Bar. I think it has both better fueled me for workouts as well as helped keep me a bit more full. You can check them out here, use code T20ShayS for 20% off.
Another big struggle this month has been my 2mi. With the plan I created for myself, I may have unintentionally started training my body for short intervals. All the running I did, I was doing good and gradually improving those workouts but when I went to run another 2mi, I had actually started running it worse. So I decided to drop that workout plan and switch to one that is focused on improving APFT scores. It’s a 4-week plan and I plan to do it twice to really get a good cut into my run time. I really want to be passing male standards by the end of the year.
August’s Goals
August’s goals were as follows:
- Lose 2lb a week, putting me at 196lb
- Lose 2% body fat, putting me at 37%
- Run 2mi in 18:00
- Workout at least 4 times a week
- Try at least 2 new vegetables
I only managed to meet two of them, I lost 3% body fat and I consistently worked out at least 4 times a week every week. I got pretty close with the weight and the 2mi time wasn’t even close. I plan to fix both of those in September. Veggies are hard for me but I’ve been trying to focus on them more lately and I plan to continue to do so in September.
September
This month, I want to go hard. As I mentioned, I want to be able to pass the APFT by male standards by the end of the month. From what we know, my gender marker should be changing fairly soon in DEERS and I don’t have to have to worry about getting flagged for PT right away. With my 6-year mark coming up, it wouldn’t only affect me getting promoted, it would also affect my ability to reenlist. I’ve finally made up my mind about wanting to reenlist and I don’t want that to be ruined by me being flagged again.
With the holidays close approaching, I know I need to make some big moves now so that I can continue to be motivated to be strong during them as to not destroy all of my progress. The better I do now and the sooner I can pass height/weight, the less stress I will have about it during the holidays and nobody wants extra stress during a time that’s supposed to be fun and relaxing.
That being said, here are my goals for September:
- Lose 2lb a week, putting me at 193lb
- Lose at least 2% body fat, putting me at 34%
- I’m going to try for 4% to be passing tape but I know that 2% is a bit more reasonable of a goal
- Run 2mi in 17:30
- Run 3mi in 30min
- Workout 5 times a week with at least 1 of the off days being some kind of active recovery
- Eat more veggies
For those of you interested in my non-fitness related goals, I am also going to try to really limit my spending this month so I can make a bigger dent in my student loans. My 2019 financial goal is to have them paid off by the end of the year and with 3 months left, I still have quite a ways to go so it’s time to get extra serious there, too.
Sorry for being a bit late on this report but hey, better late than never, right?
As always, I’m rooting for you! Go out there and do great things!