As I said in my earlier post, it was a good weekend as far as my leisure time went. My teams won (NC State, Everton) and I got to watch some boxing and MMA.
Floyd Mayweather knocked his challenger out in a technically legal fashion but it wasn't very sporting as Ortiz was looking away and then proceeded to almost get in a fight with a 70 year old man immediately afterwards. There were also some pretty eventful MMA fights in the UFC event. I mention these things because this does tie-in to my health and fitness routine.
My Motivation
My initial reason to start changing my eating and work-out habits was not fitting into my clothes anymore. Medium shirts had started getting very tight on me and I was going to have to start buying new clothes if I got any bigger. Ironically, I have actually had to buy smaller clothes but I guess that's a problem I will accept.
I also mention MMA and boxing because, beyond being something that I am interested in and entertained by, the fighters in those sports seem to be some of the best conditioned athletes around. They follow work-out and diet plans in order to make a certain weight. So through my transformation, I have been able to set goals at different weights in order to be able to meet certain fighters in the ring theoretically. That brings me to my next tool, goal setting.
Goal Setting
Goal setting is a very important part of weight-loss and becoming more healthy. It is important to challenge yourself and have a "finish point" that you can work toward.
Your goals can be almost anything that you would like that is health related. Mine generally have been related to weight but I have also expanded them to other things as I have been more successful.
My first goal point was to drop from 207 lbs. to 185 and my attitude initially was not a do-or-die, get there at all cost drive. I was thinking "Let's see if I can do this." because I had never really lost that much weight before. Once I started losing quickly though it definitely became a specific goal. When I reached 185, I saw that I wanted more muscle definition and still had some weight to lose so I set my next goal at 175 and tentatively at 170. When I reached that, I was happy but it was at that point that I challenged myself to get to 155 and changed my diet to a more extreme level.
I chose 155 because it is the weight limit for 1ightweight fighters in UFC and I have said if I can get to 155, I will have an MMA fight at that point. I have also looked at more things that I would like to do that are now possible because I am in better shape. I would like to ride my bike to Wilmington or to Hanging Rock State Park, camping along the way. I have also looked at duathlon events (run-bike-run instead a triathlon's swim-bike-run), there are several around the state and I would like to do a few within the next year.
So your goals can be pretty much anything, it is just important to have them just as long as it is something that you want and something that is important to you.
Measures of Health
I am adding this final section into this entry because there are some alternative measurements to physical health than just weight.
The most basic, after body weight, is size, as in waist, neck, wrist, etc. If you are dieting and working out you potentially could be stagnated as far as weight loss but you could be seeing results elsewhere. I have gone from wearing 36 inch pants very tightly to now wearing size 32 pants. My neck and head have also shrunk several inches in circumference.
Another very basic measurement is Body Mass Index (BMI). BMI was developed by the insurance industry to determine a person's health and is based solely on a person's height and weight. You can find out you BMI here. Numbers between 18.5 and 25 are considered healthy and the official definition of overweight and obese are also determined by BMI. Obviously, since this is based solely on height and weight, it is not close to the best health indicator but it is an okay starting point.
The one that I like the best is body fat percentage. It is exactly what it says, the percentage of your total weight that is fat. You can get an estimation of your body fat here. A more accurate measurement of your body fat can be had using electronic devices that are available commercially, even on some scales. But the best way to accurately measure your body fat is through a caliper pinch test that measures your skinfold. I am currently trying to get a body fat percentage of under 10%. For people ages 20-40, a healthy percentage for men is 8-19% and 21-33% for women.
No comments:
Post a Comment