starting point

I'm keeping this blog to journal my progress from "flab to fab" as they say (or at least I hope that's where I will end up). Accountability is important to me, and so is the ability to look back and say HA! when my goals are achieved. *fingers crossed*

There are tons of women just like me out there. After a couple of kids my body sort of settled into a comfort zone much "softer" than I had ever been before, and then came 30. And back to work full-time. I eat healthy 90% of the time but my life is relatively sedentary and that last 10-15lbs just hangs around all the places I don't want it to be... couple that with zero time for the gym, and bam! Welcome to mommy body.

But I'm over it, and it's time to take care of business. I'm pushing 33 and now that the kids are approaching school-age, the lack-of-time excuse is faltering. I have realized that if I don't develop solid fitness habits now, it's only going to get harder anyway!

I met with a friend who happens to be a personal trainer at a big gym in my town, and he ran me through a body analysis machine so that I could have a baseline from which to measure my progress over time. The results were horrifying but not altogether unexpected:

Weight: 132lbs
Height: 5'3"
BMI: 23.9
BMR: 1311 kCal
Body Fat: 27.3%
Waist: 26.5 in
Chest: 31.5 in
Hips: 37.5 in
Thigh: 24 in
Calf: 15 in
Bicep: 11 in

Boy, writing those in a public setting is painful. I never expected 27% body fat!!

INITIAL GOALS: Drop 10% body fat (~13lbs). Run 3 miles non-stop. Do 5 good pull-ups. Hold a handstand steady for 30 seconds or more.

In short, I really want to be near-athlete body composition, strong, and have high endurance...more on the handstand thing later.

I have a 14-week workout schedule planned and right now I'm 2 weeks into it. I basically alternate between upper body, lower body, and core training throughout the week with cardio almost every day - for burning extra calories and building endurance.  Weeks 7 and 14 are "breaks" focused around cardio and yoga.

Fitness FYI: if you want to lose fat, you have to create a calorie deficit. Period.

For a lot of average folks, simply dropping their typical calorie intake by 500/day will lead to fat reduction on the order of 1-2 lbs/week; unfortunately for me, my calorie intake is typically at my BMR already, so I can't/shouldn't really go any lower through food alone. Which means I HAVE TO WORK OUT. Basically every day.

Key tools that I depend on for my journey:

• MyFitnessPal (app on the smartphone)
• tracks calories in vs. out and helps you set goals
• Fitness Blender workouts (hooray for YouTube)
• they have hundreds of workouts ranging from 5min to 1.5 hours, all free
• Runtastic (app on the smartphone) 
• uses GPS to track distance, speed, and estimates calories burned; I use it for running and biking
• Dumbbells - I have 5lbs and 3lbs so far but I know I will need a heavier set soon. However, you can do a lot with bodyweight alone.
• Jump rope - Picked it up the other day and I think it will be very handy for at-home cardio.

I've decided not to measure more than every other week to track my progress. My frame is very small so even 0.5lb or 0.25" actually makes a difference, but those things are difficult to track and I don't want to get frustrated.

I'll talk about nutrition, and what I've learned about fat loss, next.