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Manifesting Body Diet and Fitness Plan – Day 15

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So it has been 15 days since I started my “Manifesting Body Diet and Fitness Plan” and I just wanted to do a very quick update post on how things are going.

My Personal Training Plan

Firstly, this past week on Wednesday I had my first full length personal training session with Sam from Ivanco Fitness.

I really liked my session with Sam, and found him to be the perfect balance between pushing me to go further than I would ever go working out on my own, but also knowing when to ease off during my workout.

This was my first real workout (strength or cardio) in a really long time so my body definitely wasn’t used to the workout.

We did a full body circuit routine using a combination of my new gym, my barbells and just body weight exercises like squats, push-ups, etc.

The strength training wasn’t easy, since it was my first workout, but the hardest part was getting past my lack of cardio conditioning.

The workout really kicked my butt, and definitely challenged me, but when it was done and over with I was glad I had done it.

Sam is going to be designing two more different work out routines for me to follow for the first phase of my program, and I’ll be rotating between the three to start with.

So that’s going to be my strength training and cardio portion of my plan as a starting point and then I’ll measure results and adjust as time goes on.

My Weight Loss Tracking Sheet

Another thing I’ve been working on is putting together a tracking sheet that is going to give me a more accurate picture of my progress over time.

Why do I need a tracking sheet like this?

Well, I have always found there to be one “flaw” with setting weight loss goals in the past…

…and that “flaw” is that it’s not easy to set an accurate weight loss target goal when doing a weight loss and strength training program if all you take into account is your weight.

Meaning, if you’re just going on a program where you’re trying to lose 10 lbs of or 20 lbs or something, and all you’re going to be doing is focusing on weight loss, then that is easy to track…

… simply step on a scale, take your present weight, and subtract 10 or 20 lbs and there is your target weight.

However, if you’re doing a total re-shaping of your body program like I am doing, then just tracking body weight is not enough.

The reason for this is because a straight weight loss goal doesn’t take into account lead body mass gains – meaning it doesn’t take into account a person putting on muscle.

So what I had to do is design a tracking spreadsheet which calculates a target weight for me based on what I want to accomplish, and then based on that initial target it automatically adjusts itself whenever my body composition adjusts itself as well.

Let me give you a quick example as to what I mean by this.

Let’s say that my starting weight was 200 lbs and 150 lbs of that was lean muscle body weight, and 50 lbs of that was fat.

Now, let’s say that I my goal was to lose 20 lbs of fat.

That would mean that my goal weight would be 180 lbs.

However, let’s say that one month later I lost 10 lbs of fat AND at the same time put on 5 lbs of muscle…

… well if that happened, then my target goal would no longer be 180 lbs, but rather 185 lbs, because now I had put on that extra 5 lbs of muscle.

By creating a spreadsheet which tracks not only my body weight, but also my lean body mass and fat mass and automatically calculates my target weight based on these stats I can more accurately target a specific body weight and not have to worry about any muscle gains actually working against me and my goals.

Now, I am using a Fitbit Aria scale to measure my lean body mass, which means that the measurements aren’t exactly 100% accurate BUT it’s still better than nothing and as my weight keeps dropping the stats will get more and more accurate.

For now though, here are the latest stats that my sheet shows me.

So basically my sheet has calculated out for me that based on my current lean body mass, current fat mass and current weight, my target weight I’m trying to hit is 176.5 lbs…

And since my current weight as of this morning was 241.4 lbs, that means I’ve got exactly 64.9 lbs of fat to lose…

And so far I have lost a grand total of 3.7 lbs since starting this program.

Now, like I said, the lean body mass measurement from this body scale is not 100% accurate so that 176.5 lbs will fluctuate each day depending on what the scale thinks my lean body mass is on that day… however, this at least gives me some indication of how I’m doing with my plan.

My tracking sheet also spits out tracking charts so that I can track the TREND of my weight loss over time.

Here’s my weight loss chart so far:

It’s early yet to try to plot a trend line, but within the next week or two I should be able to plot a trend to see if I’m losing weight or not.

Right now it looks like I am slowly starting to move towards a weight-loss trend, so I’m happy with that.

That’s pretty much it for today’s update.  I should have another one for you guys soon.

 

Athos Performance Apparel Hits the Market

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I am a total technology junkie and when a company pops up with some new type of technology, especially in the fitness niche, I get excited.

One company that recently popped up in the fitness technology niche is called Athos.

Athos makes what they call “performance apparel” that monitors the biosignals from your body and wirelessly transmits them to a smart phone app to help you get the most out of your workouts.

As you can see from the app picture above, in this example of a guy doing bench-press, the Athos apparel was able to detect the amount of effort that was used by the different muscle groups – pecs, triceps, shoulder etc. – during the lift, as well as which side did more of the lifting.

By being able to track this type of data and stats, you will be able to see which individual muscle group needs more work.  For example, your left pectoral muscle might be doing more of the lifting during your barbell bench-press, or your left quad might be doing more of the lifting during your squats.

Here’s a short video that shows the gear in action:

This is one of the coolest technologies I’ve seen since the Aim Sculpt.

I’m definitely going to do more research on Athos and add it to my list of cool toys to reward myself with in the near future. 🙂

To learn more about Athos, check out their website here.

What do you think of it?

Cool tech or not necessary?

 

Manifesting Body Diet and Fitness Plan – Day 7

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It has now officially been 7 days since I started my Manifesting Body Diet and Fitness plan last week.

In this post I just wanted to do a quick update on my progress so far.

Let’s start off with my weight loss results so far.

Manifesting Body Diet Weight Loss Results – Day 7

So far I have lost a grand total of 1.3 lbs in the first 7 days as you can see from my Fitbit graph.

Losing 1.3 lbs in my first 7 days is not a lot compared to some of the other diet programs I’ve been on in the past, but I’m pretty happy with these results based on what I’ve done so far.

Meaning, for the first week of my diet my primary focus was simply to just track all of my food intake using MyFitnessPal.

In other words 90% of my focus was just on tracking my foods daily, and not so much on trying to change what I eat too much.

I just want to first establish and build the habit of tracking my food intake and then I can start making changes.

Of course just by tracking my food intake, I automatically wanted to try to stay within my set calorie goals but that was only about 10% of my focus.

As I started tracking my food with MyFitnessPal this week I discovered something REALLY cool.

The MyFitnessPal and Fitbit Connection

One of the coolest things I discovered this past week that I’m really excited about is how the MyFitnessPal app and my Fitbit tracker talk to each other and work together to give me a much more accurate calorie assessment on a daily basis.

This one simple change solves one of the biggest hidden challenges I had in the past when tracking my food / calorie intake.

Essentially, the challenge I ran into in the past was when I would track my calories on a daily basis or log my food intake I would be following a predetermined plan which would take certain data into consideration at the beginning of the plan and then it would calculate my calorie targets ONCE at the beginning of the program.

So for example, after asking me some questions the program I would be on might tell me that I should try to target 1,700 calories/day, or 1,500 calories/day or whatever the number may be.

This simplistic approach seems reasonable and logical, but the challenge I ran into with it was that it didn’t take into account the caloric needs of my body on a day-to-day basis.

For example, on a day when I would mostly be working at my computer or just sitting around all day those plans would tell me to target 1,700 calories (as an example).

But then on another day when I would be outside doing landscaping work in my back yard, and I would burn 1,000 or 2,000+ EXTRA calories throughout the day, I would still be trying to only eat 1,700 calories!

What that ended up doing to me was that I would get VERY hungry on days when I’m outside working on my yard or doing exercise, and then if I ate a bit more than my 1,700 calorie target I would start to feel like I was cheating on my plan.

So in effect, on any day when I would exercise, or perform activities like yard work / landscaping I would in effect be “punished” because my body would crave calories way more than on a typical day when I’m just sitting by my computer but I wouldn’t be allowed to eat any more than any other day.

Psychologically that is the exact OPPOSITE of what you want right?!

That is one of the reasons I always had a challenge with diet programs that used a calorie tracking system to track your food intake.

But the cool thing with MyFitnessPal and Fitbit is that now my Fitbit tracks my activity throughout the day, and it tracks how many calories I am burning each day by tracking various metrics such as my body movement and heart rate, and it sends that data to MyFitnessPal.

This way MyFitnessPal can actually adjust my caloric plan and adjust it throughout the day.

So for example on a day when I’m not really active, and lets say I’m just sitting at my computer for most of the day, MyFitnessPal might calculate that I should try to stay within 1,500 calories for the day…

… but on a day when I’m outside working on yard work or if I do a workout, and lets say I burn an extra 600 calories ON TOP of my regular base metabolic rate, MyFitnessPal will receive that info from Fitbit and it will give me an extra 600 calorie allowance for that day.

So this way if I exercise or have an active day, I get REWARDED instead of punished by my calorie tracking system — YAAY!!!

Of course you don’t have to use up (eat back) the extra calories you get from exercising, but it just gives you that data so that you can decide what to do.

I love this feature. 🙂

Hiring a Personal Trainer

Another new addition to my plan this past week has been that I have decided to start working with a personal trainer to help me to put together a solid strength training program.

The company I started working with is called Ivanco Fitness.

My wife and I were introduced to Ivanco Fitness and it’s founder – Ivan Mirosavljev – by my sister Agata last year.

Agata has been working with Ivan and his team of trainers at Ivanco Fitness for a while now and has had a lot of positive results and positive things to say about Ivan and his company.

So when I started my program last week, I was speaking with my wife Drea about possibly working with a personal trainer and she suggested that I give Ivanco Fitness a try to see if I like their energy.

I had my first consultation and functional movement assessment today with Ivan.

It was actually very interesting to go through the assessment to gather data on which areas I need to work on.

I’ve never done a test like this before, so it was kind of neat to go through it.

My next steps are to complete my consult with Ivan and get a program put together by him and his personal trainers.

I’m looking forward to getting started on that this week.

Have you ever worked with a personal trainer?

What has been your experience with them?