OK, wanted to chime in on the comments.  I know what JMS is talking about.  I call it the "valley of dispair".  It is like when we built our house, we layed the foundation, imagined where the living room was, what the kid's rooms would look like.  Then we framed the house and could walk through the open walls and the dream started to take shape.  What happens next is a long (months) process of adding electric/plumbing/drywall/flooring before we can actually move in.  This is where you are on the journey.  You have layed the foundation and gone through the initial elation of seeing results in a short amount of time.  What happens next will be gradual as fat transforms to muscle, and muffintops turn into 6packs.  Things on the outside may not seem to be changing, but know that you will see and feel the results in a few short weeks.

This is not my first challenge, so I have evolved into more of a maintenance stage of this journey.  This week, for the first time, I felt "at peace" with where I am.  I can see my abs, my 33 jeans (bought after the last challenge) are now loose fitting, and my diet is second nature.  The scale is only telling part of the tale.  Body fat continues to drop.  While I don't always hit my 10's on the weights, I know that I am building strength.  My cardio has become my moment of zen.  It consists of a good sweat, good music, and peaceful scenery.  

Overall stats are:

6.4 lbs lost (minus 7.5 lbs fat, plus 1.1 lb muscle)  

Body fat at 23.9% (minus3.1%)

Carbs  -162gram/day (too high)

Fat -46 (at target)

Protein - 168 (below target)

Have a great weekend everybody.  We are closer than we have been.

Cheers!

Roosed, I always get a laugh out of your posts, thank you!

Jms, way to go on the jeans fitting better. You'll be in them by the end of this challenge I have no doubt.

Frick, very wise words.

I've gotten all my workouts in so far this week, but didn't do great on my nutrition. The results I get or don't get will be due to my choices good or bad. I feel better, have more energy, and am happy about being in a routine again. There was a TON of food at school all week and I indulged in some. I didn't go over the top at all, but I'm sure it will keep the pounds from coming off. I keep telling myself that I'm a work in progress and I'll get where I want to go. It may just take a little longer than I want it to. I've been putting off buying clothes because I'm going to lose this weight and get back into my smaller clothes. I've decided to get a few new things now because I'm sick of most of what I've been wearing while waiting to get somewhere else. I think I'll feel better all the way around if I do.

Hang in there everybody. This team can do it!

HI EVERYONE!

Past 10 days were awful, there was a horrible bug going around and we caught it, 4 days of fever and 3 days of recovery, phew! NO workout during that week, except i bravely tried cardio right before i caught it, the MR was sick so i guessed id get it too, but the next day i felt like crap and the bug kicked in. Today we are fully recovered, cough and everything but still didnt manage to get the WO done in the morn.

Time to kick some ***!

Food-wise, well it was basically soup and crackers and cereal. not a lot  of protein, but i could hardly stomach anything. also struggling to get back on track.

Good thing is that i didnt gain anything. so it was like a pause button ;)

We have a holiday this week, which of course involves lots of food and family, so prob we will make our free day that day instead.

Hope everyone else is doing better than i am!

Mira

1/2 WAY TO SANTA DAY! ROLL CALL CREW!!!

Happy Sunday! Whew!!! What an insane couple of weeks. I’m soooooooo sorry to have been semi AWOL lately but I’ll be doing my best to get back in the rhythm with y’all! My projects are both nearing global launch finally and there just isn't too much left that CAN go wrong further LOL!

Frick, AMEN on that valley of despair house building analogy…fantastic example of pushing through to the final goal!!! Congrats on those 33s as well man! I’ll be ecstatic the day I can get back into 38s although the goal is 36s.

1HDHawk, congrats on getting in all the workouts young lady! You’re much like I, the work is much easier than the diet part but with focus & effort I have NO DOUBT that with your attitude you’ll get it all put together in no time then you can tell me how you did it!!! Lovin hearin about the energy levels & you feeling better! Those are traits that really mean you’re getting it done and by acknowledging & experiencing those are exactly what it’ll take to keep making this “For Life”!!!

Pie Princess & Prince, so sorry to hear of the bug but glad you’re still with us in here! Tis the Season for the creeping crud and look on the bright side…you’ve got it out of the way and now you’re ready to blow through the Holidays with a full head of steam! Speaking of Holidays…good luck with your upcoming Holiday and just choose wisely! Outstanding attitude of flexing your free day to maintain forward progress!!!

As for myself, it’s time to shuffle the mental deck and figure up some progress! This weekend marks the ½ way point for this Body for Life Challenge and 6 weeks into the OBF Transformation Challenge I’m in as well that goes until late January.

This past week was quite a marathon in sleep deprivation and there was one day that time constraints eliminated cardio while another day the turned out to be all cardio so basically I got it all done 5 days this week instead of my usual 6 but considering how low the ZZZs tank was running I’m still calling it a win!

So, for the past 2 weeks I have managed to shed 6.0 inches of bad (chest, waist, hips) but have only added 1.0 inch of good lean mass (BIs, & TRIs) which isn’t surprising since my meal / calorie intake this week was not where it needed to be at all, having missed several meals and having actually come up short on calories several days. I’m just hoping I’ve turned the ship around quickly enough to keep the metabolism fire from going clear out as everyone knows it’s MUCH harder to start a fire than it is to stoke one up!

This week I rearranged 357,375 LBs of iron averaging 71,475 LBs daily. I burnt off 1,106 Dreadmill cardio calories averaging 221.2 daily while climbing 806 vertical feet averaging 161.2 feet daily.

All of the movement this week, when combined with my ½ hearted attempts at diet, yielded a loss of 3.4 LBs and based upon last night’s measurements I believe that I’ve managed to hang onto most of the recent lean additions.

So far for this 6 weeks total I’ve dropped 12.0 LBs total, averaging out to 2.0 LBs weekly, which is exactly what my caloric goal is shooting for so at least something’s working out these days LOL!

Time to get this train wreck back on track once again and rock on!

Have a GREAT week crew and make sure you chime in, even if it’s just to say HOWDY!!!

Pie! Glad your crew sounds like it's in recovery mode. It's a pain to be sick and worse when the kids have it too!

Another so so week for me. Good grief, we're halfway through and I've made little to no progress. I need to clean up my eating big time. I got in 4 out of 6 workouts this week. The good thing is that 2 of those were before work which is my preference. It's harder for life to get in the way at that time of day. I've spent the weekend reading "The Fatloss Troubleshoot" by Leigh Peele. I listen to the Fitcast (podcast) and she is part of that show. It's an ebook I ordered through her site. It's given me a few aha moments and reinforces the fact that I need to move more throughout my day and not just get workouts in. I'm going to order a Go Wear Fit (like a body bugg) just because I'm a gadget girl and I know it will motivate me to be more aware of what I'm burning each day.

I'm not saying this is a loss because I'm finally back into working out and food has improved to the point where I'm losing a little and not gaining anymore. Will I have amazing "after" photos come Christmas, probably not. Give me another 12 weeks and I'm hoping I will by then.

Roosed, you did great for all you've been through at work. It's really tough to even feel like working out when you don't get enough sleep. You're losing a lot of inches and pounds. Congrats on that!!!

My goal is to be down 8-10  lbs. by Christmas and to get a grip on my food intake by then. Guess I'll have to to meet my goals.

I'm hoping to save enough $$ to go see my son in Phoenix mid March. He's out there for school and I've never been. I want to look good in case I have to put on a swimming suit.

Everyone else....hope to hear from you all.

Kim

Me again! I decided to pop over and see if Rob and Jen had any new progress pics. You 2 are rockin' it!

Cute new haircut by the way Jen and cool matching tats as well!

Thanks Kim and Jen says a big thanks : )

You are doing AWESOME also!!! I’m with you on the ‘moving more’ during the day! That was a big issue I had being a stay at home Dad I spent a lot of time on the computer with the kids and being very sedentary. I would get my workouts in, but felt that wasn’t enough…so since you’ve read some of our blog you may have seen where I added in a ‘daily goal’ list which consisted of 500 pushups on one day, mountain climbers on the next and air squats the next…I would do this for 6 out of 7 days and this way I wasn’t JUST getting in my workouts. I have actually stopped the ‘daily 500, kill myself routine’ for the last week though due to the fact that once we changed up our workouts a bit, I simply did not have the muscle strength to attempt them : ) I am considering and was talking to Jen last night about starting them back up and if nothing else, bring them back in a limited manner!

I’m sure you’ll have that 8-10lbs off by Christmas : )

Way to go Frick…those are very impressive results!

Mira, I know how you feel…everyone, except me, had a bug the past week or so, it’s been rough to say the least! Hang in there…it gets better! Now…time to kick some ***!

Roosed, I hope this week is better for you and WAY to go pushing through!!!

This week has been busy for us and most everyone has been overcoming sickness as well!

We did end up with an overall GREAT week though and our challenge is going AMAZING!!! I know it seems, especially this time of year that everything comes along at once to derail us all, but we can do this!!! Stay the course and remember WHY we started this journey in the first place! AND for me and some of you this is just the first challenge of the new YEAR!!! Just imagine where we will all be at the end of 2011~!

We did post new progress pics on the blog if you guys want to check em’ out!

Keep rockin!!!

~Rob

Just popping in to say hello!  I'm reading all your posts and they help keep me on track!  I'll be back later with measurements and pictures.  On my profile I have a couple of progress pics.  Last week I got in all my workouts and did so-so on eating.  But, man I'm just not losing any lbs.  But I loved the analogy about building a house.  I'm hoping that there's some serious structure going on.  

Hi Everyone.  Welcome to Week 6.

I had a girls' weekend over the past few days.  So, what that meant was LOTS of forbidden foods.  And I do mean LOTS.  I did get cardio in on Saturday -- running up and down hills.

Today I am back on track.  I just hope I didn't add TOO many calories over the weekend AND get my mindset off track.

Last week, I got on a high-end BF calculator scale with the trainer.  Now, I know it is not perfect, but it was actually only 1% off what I did with the BodPod 3 years ago (when I actually weighed less).  I am going to use this same scale to track my  BF percentage over the next few weeks.  Unfortunately, I just tracked this on week 5 so I don't know what it was on week one.  It was an astounding 33% BF.  I can't believe that -- I may as well be an amoeba.  I was also at 187# (at 5'9").  I'd love to get down to 20-22 % BF on this challenge and then lower on the next one. However, I am getting REALLY nervous over the next few weeks as the holidays approach.

My goal this week -- absolutely positively NO forbidden foods (especially sugar) until my free day.  And even then, I'd like to be responsible.

Have a good week everyone!

Roose, you are always an inspiration.  You must be a freakin' machine in the gym.  I get a kick out of your stats.  I struggle to move a fraction of what you do in a workout.

I have joined my coworkers as part of a health challenge at work to maintain wellness through diet, exercise, and for some reason, community service.  It requires eating 4 whole grains, 5 veggies and exercising.  It is in line with what I do for BFL, but I have to eat a few more carbs than I normally would.  I haven't eaten oatmeal since I was about 4 LOL! and am turning into a rabbit with all of the romaine.  I thought I was going to be the ringer, but there is a vegan, a fitness fanatic, and a borderline diabetic (extra points for inches lost) that will probably outscore me.

May everyone get over your respective bugs this week.  Get that energy level back up and lets rock this joint for the second half of the challenge.

Cheers,

Rick

Sounds like everyone here is plugging along nicely. I decided today that I was at least going to walk around a few blocks during my very short 20 min. lunch. I walked about 10 min. and will walk the halls indoors when it gets too cold (which will be in 1 more day)! I feel like I've been run over by a truck today so that may be all the workout I get in. I'm determined to keep my eating right on track this week. I weighed the same this morning as I did last week so I haven't gained any weight. Thought I might after last week. Kick it up a notch this week everyone! You know what the next week brings.

I have been quiet- busy with my truck that was in an accident, my Pc’s power supply burned out together with my 2 x disc drives ;-(

Not sure how it happened.

Anyway, BFL is still going very good. Had a feeling of “lost” last week and would have been easy to stop. Felt a bit down and things were not moving as fast as I expected- but then I look at the before and 5 weeks and I am motivated again. But I see everyone sort of hit the valley of dispair.

Difficult to start again after a weekend for me.

But we are training harder than ever and I am pushing myself to the limit every day with every set.

Still coming down, but last week was a hard “drinking” week for me- messed up- felt so good and then it took me three days to get over my hangover.

But up till now I have not skipped one workout or cardio- and that is the most important to me.

Thus far I have a gr8 week- energy levels are high, gym strength is up almost double from where we started. I lost 15.75kg of fat and gained about 10kg lean mass.

I can feel it in my body and see it with small things like tying my shoe strings, the way my towel goes almost three times around my body :-)  Ok I’m kidding, but you know what I mean :-)

I will get back later this week or weekend with new photos and stats.

HAve a good week everyone!

PS: If you do feel down or need motivation - remember- you are working on your body for life, not just for 12 weeks- things can only get better :-)

Hi Guys, hope you're all doing well.

First things first for me - I owe all of you an apology. I feel like we started this journey together, and though I've been reading your posts in this thread every day, I haven't stopped by to offer encouragement for quite a while. Why is that? Probably because I've just been in a groove - the days are ticking by, the workouts are coming and going, and feeling like I haven't needed much encouragement, I haven't offered any either. So I'm sorry to all of you for that.

That said, it's great to see so many of the faces who were here at the start of this thread still hanging in there, and by hook or by crook getting to the end of the 12 weeks. Over halfway through now (for those of us who didn't re-start), and I don't know about you but it feels like the last few weeks have flown by. I have positives and negatives to report:

The Good

• Still batting 100% for eating clean and workouts. This has taken much, much less willpower than I thought - my gym is a pleasant environment, I hit it every day after work, and I'm not tired of the chicken & brown rice diet, which seems to be my staple day after day.
• Lots of muscle growth. I don't really know how to quantify it, but my biceps, triceps and pecs are all noticably significantly larger. Lost some fat off the stomach too, which is nice, though there's still more than enough to loose.
• Myoplex. It just tastes great. Last time I tried this challenge, I used another product, that simply was nowhere near as tasty, and a much, much less appealing meal choice.

The Not So Good

• The weight loss has more or less halted over the last few weeks - I know I'm getting more muscular, but after quick early gains on the scales, things have really slowed down now.
• Whilst I've lost enough belly fat to go down at least one trouser size, and I'm not THAT big anyway, that six-pack still feels a LOOOOOOONG way off.
• The workouts are becoming a bit more difficult to motivate myself for. The temptation is getting stronger to slack off, and whilst I haven't given in yet, this is a trend I NEED to halt. I don't want this to be a 12 week programme that ends at Christmas (though I'm planning to take a week off between christmas and new year), I want it to be a lifestyle that lasts for years, so I HAVE to get my motivation on a steady level.
• Free days are still a bit wild. I'm still eating meal 6 late, late at night (if at all). I'm still getting around 6 hours sleep a night. All 3 were problems at the beginning and are not improving. Must do better.

So, I guess I have to kick it up another notch over the closing weeks of the challenge, to REALLY make sure I get what I want out of this. This means...

• Adding one more interval to my HIIT - i.e. go an extra sequence of 6,7,8,9,10 - it's the hardest part, but I want to burn off that fat.
• Calming down a bit on the free days - easier said than done, but maybe subbing in a bit of a workout where I can, and not eating QUITE so much crap
• Being sensible in the build-up to Christmas. This was always going to be tough, with work parties week after week, but it really needs to be done.

Any more advice, particularly on losing that troublesome belly fat, would be much appreciated (cutting carbs? adding in extra ab workouts?).

Take care guys, LBWO this evening - powering through!

1HD, Congrats on those 4 out of 6 awesome workouts! I’m betting those 8-10 LBs will be hiding in fear well before Santa shows up! Diet is THE toughest part for the VAST majority of us, me included. Good luck on that swim suit young lady…something tells me the HD won’t stand for Harley-D by Christmas!!!

Rob & Jen, Jan 2nd will kick off the next challenge I’m intending to light up as things are finally settling in at work. You two would be AWESOME charter members of the “2011 ROCKS” challenge! (as would EVERYBODY else on this AMAZING team!!!)

Utah, congrats on those workouts, it IS however 75% diet and like 1HD & I said earlier, that is THE hardest part, especially this time of year but that’s why we’re ALL here! Every time I begin to cave I just think of y’all and it’s much easier to stay tough!

KelleyW, Don’t be nervous young lady…just ROCK ON!

Frick, Thanks man! The iron is what really keeps me going through the stress lately! Congrats on the Health Challenge too man! My summer corporate challenge team members ask me to captain our Santa’s Challenge team which promotes fitness while raising toys and funds for kids around here.

Ondier, Rock on!!! It IS FOR LIFE…for sure!!!

Asaldo, welcome back dude!!! The main advice I’d have would be try to following Mr. Phillips latest advice by spreading your free day across 3-4 free meals spread across the week to avoid going overboard!

As for me, Well pals, here it is Thursday, LBWO in the new rotation…YAY!

Awoke this morning after 6.5 GLORIOUS HOURS of almost congruent sleep with a pounding headache. Go figure!!! For some reason the master bathroom (shower) window was left open last night and it was freezing in the bedroom so it was prolly a combo of that & a sleep hangover since that’s by far the most sleep I’ve gotten in one night lately LMAO!

Got up, dressed for the gym, gulped a pair of 12 hour Alieve and headed north. By the time I got to the gym the pounding was down to a dull annoyance so I just eased into it and didn’t crank up the iPod quite so tight today.

Today’s LBWO netted 98,280 LBs of iron ground @ 1.1 Tons / Minute and the HIIT cardio before and afters totaled out to 324 calories @ a new Dreadmill record of 16.2 Cal / Min & 222 vertical feet climbed at an average ascension rate of 11.1 Ft / Min so overall not too bad for a headache day LOL!

Keep grinding crew!!! Santa’s getting ready for his run at us!

Roosed I am in my last week but wanted to offer you some words of encouragement. My journey has been arduous but nothing worthy is easy. (I will be posting my tranformation soon) May you find strength and courage to be the best you can be! Go for it!!

Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.

Best of luck!