Goals
This one is simple:
- Loose weight
- Gain strength
- Make is sustainable
Those are my main goals. My weight fluctuated in the past 10 years between 69 and 82 kilograms. Reflecting on it I remember that I feel the best at my lowest weight. 69kg is not necessary, but 72-74 range is good enough. When I cary less weight I feel energized and more mobile and even more strong. In 2024 I realized that now for me it's way harder to loose my weight.
In 2022 I was able to go from 82kg to 76.5 in just 2.5 month. I did running and skipped meals and it worked. In 2024 it doesn't work anymore. Even with a higher running mileage. So I'm adjusting my target weight to 78kg for now.
I like the feeling of lightness and energy it brings. So that is my main goal.
Strength is just a side effect of losing weight, feeling more energetic and actually doing exercises. I don’t care that much how my muscle look, but I like the feeling of strength. When I can win the goal playing football using my body, or pulling my body weight on various bars. Or being able to do surfing (requires tons of strength). I like that feeling of being able to climb difficult mountain on my bike or being able to run distance I never imagined.
And obviously I want those things to be sustainable. I don’t want to loose my weight fast and then get it back two month later. The same with strength. I don’t need to become strong very quickly if I’m going to loose it again later.
Observations
- Volume over intensity. I noticed it with running. When I do easy runs without trying to die, there is way higher chance I will run tomorrow. And my speed and distance automatically increase not by intensity of my runs but by quantity. Whenever I did regular common runs regularly - my numbers always increased.
- I automatically loose weight when I skip one meal. Usually if I skip dinner(don’t eat after 6) I see that my weight goes down. If I do it few times per week - that usually is enough. It’s also possible to skip breakfast. Idea here is to prolong window when I don’t eat. Can be 14-18 hours. This basically sends signal to the body to start burning fat.
- I actually enjoy feeling of being slightly hungry. I told to my friend and he couldn’t believe me. But it’s a familiar feeling. When I don’t feel full, but slightly hungry I’m more energetic.
- Changing my diet is not so important. Whenever I trained I still allowed myself some pastries and it all worked out. Don’t need to restrict myself heavily. As long as I skip one meal 3-4 days in one week and do exercise 3-4 days per week I’m going to get closer to my goals.
- I cannot run when I had any type of spicy food (even moderately spicy). I always have stomach issues and it’s a challenge to run.
- I cannot run when I eat some fatty food. Once I ate chocolate croissant before a half marathon and struggled with a stomach pain for the whole race.
- Having specific goal help to train. In 2023 I set a goal to run half marathon. After I did it I had no more goals and stopped running. Make sure to have another goal(s) lined up.
Challenges
- building routine is hard in general. It’s even more difficult for me since I move around a lot. Sometimes it takes time to find new running route, or place to do pull up. Restarting routines in a new place is challenging. Flights mess up sleep, first few days in new city I go out more, so it takes around one week to adjust.
- Too much information online. I watched tens of hours of Youtube videos. Sometimes I watch more videos on the topic than actually do exercise. What helps me was starting to organize information. Eg if I like some exercise I will save it to this wiki.