Day 1: The initial numbers, and what my plan is to reach my goal

Good morning everybody! Or good afternoon, rather. I slept quite late last night - all the holiday festivities have ruined my sleeping schedule. I've been sleeping closer to 3AM than usual, and that's definitely needing to change before I head back to work once my vacation is over.

I have done some measurements for myself today so I can keep track of my progress as the year goes on. 2020 is my year - I can feel it. 2020... clarity, vision.. may losing 20 lbs? Whatever symbolism there is in the year, I'm going to achieve the weight loss that I want.

Also don't forget to check out my "About My Weight Loss" to learn about my history with weight loss. I'll be making that page today. Huzzah!

The Measurements

I own a nifty scale that allows me to measure not only my weight, but my fat composition, water weight, muscle, visceral fat, and more. I know a lot of people will tell me that these measurements are probably inaccurate, but after getting some numbers, they will at least tell me if I'm going in the right direction.

• Weight: 210.8 lbs
• BMI: 33.1
• Body Fat: 19.6%
• Fat free body weight: 169.4 lbs
• Subcutaneous Fat: 15.6%
• Visceral Fat: 15
• Skeletal Muscle: 51.9%
• Muscle Mass: 161.0 lbs
• Body Water: 58.0%
• Bone Mass: 8.4 lbs
• Protein: 18.3%
• BMR: 2029 kcal
• Metabolic age: 31

There are of course a lot of numbers here that don't matter to me. For example, I don't think I want a significant increase or decrease in bone mass.

If you're interested in knowing what device I used to get these numbers, I used the "Feelfit" app and I got one of their scales off of Amazon. Maybe I'll make an article about it later on how to use it and what not if you guys are interested.

My Plan

You can read a lot about this on my "About My Weight Loss" page, but I have been trying to lose weight since 2011, and I have experienced a pretty significant amount of success but a large amount of failure. 2020 will mark the 9th year I have attempted to reach my goal body.

I am currently about 211 lbs, which is the heaviest I have been since.. 19? If I remember correctly.

The lowest weight that I have been in my adult years was 165 lbs, and that was about 5 years ago.

So as you can see, significant weight gain in the last 5 years. Not OK.

The one thing that made me lose such a large amount of weight back in the day was that I was writing an online journal. I was part of a forum (the name escapes me at this time) and I would post, practically daily, everything that I was doing. All my exercises, everything that I was eating, and I loved it. Absolutely loved it. I felt like I had an audience and an obligation to do well. 

Unfortunately, after about a year, I stopped, but I remember losing about 30 lbs or so. It was amazing! To be in "onederland" (being under 200 lbs)... I crave to be in that range again. 

So, my first plan, is to keep a journal. I also have a little bit of background history in website owning and making, so an online journal is perfect. And I love interacting with readers, so it works out for me. I do want to try posting daily, probably late at night after work. I am not a professional blogger and I think the last thing I want to do is spend a lot of time perfecting articles and editing blog posts... being sedentary and sitting down is not a good way to lose weight! So I'll probably just put all my thoughts on a page, proofread or not, to save time. And I think you guys are smart enough to get the jist of what I'm saying, haha!

Secondly, I need to exercise daily, even if only for 20 minutes. I'm following a StrongLifts program that has been responsible for the vast majority of my muscle gains in recent time, and I plan on continuing with this exercise program. I know the stronglifts program says that I need to exercises only every other day with muscle lifting, so I'll supplement with light cardio. I'm the kind of person that is all-or-nothing, so I can't just go to the gym "every other day". I need to make a routine, exercise daily, so I can get used to it. It takes 2 weeks to get used to a routine, so I plan on starting that ASAP.

Thirdly, I need to focus on eating well and following a clinically-proven healthy, sustainable diet. I need to continue my research as I don't know what diet I will be following yet, but I heard great things about the Mediterranean diet and the Paleo diet, although I feel like the Paleo diet is quite restrictive already. I used to do Keto back in the day and I did lose a lot of weight, but I apparently didn't do it in a healthy way and I ended up losing quite a bit of muscle... which is probably why I'm still so weak at the gym to this day. Yikes!

But that's what I'm doing. Nothing fancy. Weight loss in itself isn't hard when it comes to understand what to do. It's 90% mental, but I'll conquer it. I'll see you guys later tonight with some food and exercises updates. I have a cold right now so no heavy lifting for me, but I will definitely entertain myself with some 20 minute cardio.