So after the love-fest that was November, I just have to go and wreck a good thing and change it up.  Rather drastically even.  Why would I do this?  Because, dammit, I want to freaking lose some weight already.  I made peace with my body wanting some time to stabilize, and I’ve definitely not stopped losing inches (hello there, size 10 pants, haven’t seen you in at LEAST 10 years if not more…but we were reacquainted last weekend!) but I’m sick of 160-something on the scale.  It’s time to get closer to the 150s, and while I don’t expect epic progress this month, I would just like to see some new numbers, ya know, below 165.  It’s time to shake the snowglobe and present December’s Plan!

Change #1 – going back to tracking food, mostly.

I am so happy I took last month off, because I know I can, I won’t miss tracking when I don’t have to do it anymore, and I was able to maintain my weight (more specifically gain on vacation and lose after – and not really trying) without keeping a count.  If you’re familiar with the Hacker’s Diet, I think my EAT watch is actually fixed after just over a year.  However, I think it will be VITAL if I want to lose, to get back to counting what goes in my mouth.

The exception to the rule is going to be one day per week, I am going to not track.  I’m going to aim for it to always be a hard workout day.  Reason being – I loved that “more fuel for the fire” feeling, and I think if I have one day a week I can eat more, it will help me not feel bleh the rest of the week.  The goal of this day is not a “cheat day” (I’m not going to start with bacon, pancakes, and hashbrowns, eat a lunch of a burger and fries, and then have tacos for dinner and have desert at each meal), I am going to just going to give myself permission to eat more (hopefully) healthful food.  I’m only anticipating 2-3 Holiday parties before Christmas itself (which is just my parents and some lasagna, which I can fully handle), so it won’t be as hectic as last year, but I have the option to not make myself crazy trying to figure out how to incorporate those into a calorie-restricted diet if I so choose.

Change #2 – 4 Day Work(out) Weeks

I’ve always felt like I’d love 4 day work weeks.  I figure I spend a lot of time getting up, getting dressed and ready, prepping my things, driving to work, walking to and from the parking lot, driving home, putting away the stuff I brought, and generally decompressing and getting settled in at home.  It doesn’t sound like much, but in my quest to be as efficient with my responsible time as possible (meaning time not spent at home, on the couch, being a slacker), it puts a thorn in my side.  I am up at 8am and do nothing but responsible until about 8pm, when I’m done with my shower after the gym. I work for 9 hours a day (with a lunch) and workout for about 1.5 max.  That’s 1.5 hours disappearing into the ether!  Such inefficiency offends me!

I also spend some of that time collecting my workout items and clothes, packing them, putting them on, driving to and from the gym, showering, and changing into normal person clothes and generally de-sweatting myself.  Since my employer will probably be the LAST company EVER to change over to 4 day work weeks, why not try 4 day workout weeks on my own?  Maybe I can save myself a little time, which I can then spend enjoying myself?  Besides results in terms of weight loss and progress there, I’m going to track if I feel like I have more time.

The difference is that while working is easy to just incorporate the 2 extra hours per day in the workdays, the logistics are a little different with workouts.  First, I can only physically do so much per day so it’s not as if I can do an interval run AND a long run in one day.  Second, some things I do at home, some things I do at the gym, so while I think there is just going to have to be a day or 2 where I do both, I’m not sure how I feel about that.  The last thing I want to do after a good gym workout is a DDR session.  I’m already home, I should be done, dag nabit.  So here is what I have to work with:

-1 hour long run

-2 x 30 minute interval sessions

-2 full body strength sessions

-2 x 20 minute yoga sessions

-2 x 40 minute DDR sessions

The rules are as normal – cannot work the same body part 2 consecutive days, cannot do 2 runs on the same day, every day must end with a stretch, either yoga or just a stretch session tacked on the end.  I am going to add two provisions this time – that 20 minutes of DDR can be converted to Cybil the arc trainer, and everything must be done in 4 days.  So in day by day plans, this is what it looks like:

Day 1: 30 mins intervals, full body strength

Day 2: 60 mins DDR, yoga

Day 3: long run, yoga

Day 4: 30 mins intervals, full body strength

The only thing missing is either 20 mins DDR or 20 mins Cybil.  So I will leave it up in the air and either plan 10 mins at the end of day 1 and 3, and get up one morning and do 20 mins of DDR before work.  Knowing me, I will chose Cybil.  I am going to attempt to do Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturdays, but as usual, these are flexible as long as they happen.

Change #3 – It is not ok not to lose weight this month!

October and November I gave myself a break after the trainwreck that was September.  But I’ve been stalled now scale-wise for 3 months!  I’ve refueled!  I’ve stabilized!  I’ve tried being nice to my body!  It is now time to start chipping away again to get closer to my goal.  1500 calories on weekdays, maximum, and try for closer to 1200.  I would have liked to hope that I really and truly wasn’t eating enough to lose weight, but I just don’t think it’s the case outside of Quix’s magical fairlyland where sugar plums count as fruit. I’m much happier eating more, but happy doesn’t move the scale.  I just have to remember that last month, I felt how it was to maintain, and it was good.  Just a few short months of…ummm….less happiness and I can go back to that.  While I don’t believe in extreme measures to lose weight, I can probably, after over a year of good habits, restrict calories a little more (but still safely, of course) to get there and be ok.

I told myself last month it was ok to maintain, and it was.  I’m very pleased with it.  I don’t harbor any secret resentment towards myself.  It was not the all-out frustration I had in September, and not the quiet sulking of October, it was actual contentment.  But this month I’d like to take things back up a notch and continue down to 150-ville before I get too comfortable here in my size 10s.  I look in the mirror and think HOT, generally, but I can certainly see a few things I’d like to have shrink more before I’m done, that I can’t see shrinking without the scale going down just a bit more.  At this point, I don’t care how slow it goes, as long as it starts going again!  My goal is to lose 3 lbs this month.  I would like to end the year below 162.

How will I fare? Well, yesterday I hit the gym and did 30 minute intervals, 10 mins on Cybil, and a full body strength session and while I felt like I was at the gym for a long time, I didn’t poop out in the middle of a workout and still felt like I had just about as much time as if I would have done a normal session.  How will the rest of the month go?  Stick around to find out!