Manifesting Body Diet and Fitness Plan – Day 15

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.