Monday I was still feeling wiped out from the previous week’s vacation, travel back home (13-hour drive), and the weekend plus I had 120 emails waiting for me in my work inbox (I deleted the “junk” while on PTO) so I decided to sleep in Monday morning and focused Day 1 of the week on my diet. I have two personal mantras that I live by in regards to diet and exercise.

1. “Numbers don’t lie.”
2. “You can’t outrun your fork.”

With the help of myFitnessPal I track calories through the day (it’s a good habit to track caloric intake). On Monday I successfully had a calorie deficit when I went to sleep that night with little exercise for the day save for walking my dogs. That being said, I still took in ~1,640 kcals and had zero hunger through Day 1. Add that to being well rested and I’ll call that a success for Monday!

Tuesday I kicked in the new training schedule with a full-body lifting session plus 30 minutes on the elliptical. I again focused on my diet and came in around 1,535 for the day. This is actually a little low for caloric intake considering I burned 343 kcals on the elliptical alone, but my protein needs were met, I hydrated well, and again I had almost no hunger cravings until I was about ready for bed at 9:00pm. I resisted the craving, had a glass of water, brushed my teeth, and went to sleep a short time later.

Today, Wednesday, I hit the gym again and walked a bit before running a little over a mile on the treadmill. After the treadmill I did some core training and focused on glutes as well. I finished with a 45-minute spin class which ended up being closer to 37-minutes due to a broken clip on the spin bike pedal.

I will admit that it was a bit of a challenge getting out of bed this morning, but I prevailed against that voice in my head that was adamant that I needed to go back to sleep…he can be a jerk sometimes. My diet is going well for the day so far. Two small meals are finished already and I have lunch planned as well. I’m having leftovers from last night…baked chicken with red and Klondike potatoes from our garden, and a bit of broccoli. I’ll probably add some applesauce as well to up the calories a little.

I’ll check-in again before the weekend and probably weigh-in as well. When I am honest with myself and look at the numbers, cause numbers don’t lie, then I see gains and losses as I should much more often than when I fudge the numbers or ignore them.

Happy Training,

Brian