Things have kind of stalled out since my last writing in mid August. The good news is that I havent gained anything. If this is what maintenance looks like, I can handle that pretty easily. Right away, I can identify easily why Ive stalled out. My eating has become a little more relaxed, but thats because Im not logging anything but my weight. I also havent been nearly as active this month. This same thing happened back in June, when I relaxed a bit from my plan and it shows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Late last month I had a tooth pulled (take care of your teeth). That procedure forced a slight change in my plan because I couldnt eat solid food for a couple of weeks. By the time my gums healed, I didnt really go directly back to my planned routine. Another issue that is common is that after awhile, food gets repetitive. I felt like I needed a slight change. The issue is that I didnt really go into it as strictly as I should have, and decided to relax a little bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having said all of that, I have read before that bodybuilders, when cutting weight, will go into maintenance mode for a couple of weeks whenever they hit a stall in their weight loss. This allows the body to relax and heal a bit. After that, they go back to cutting and start to lose again. I didnt relax things intentionally. The tooth pulling kind of facilitated that for me. I just dialed things back in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I mentioned, I havent gained anything really. Weight fluctuates 5 lbs or so, so Ive been hovering in the 260s for the last six weeks or so. Mentally, its been kind of nice not having to be a slave to the log. But, its a damn good routine to be in and its one we’re going back to starting today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’ve been getting the itch to make more comfort related food lately. Last night I made a batch of chili, which clocked in at around 600 cal for a 600g serving – which is a lot of food. If you’re one that adds shit like cheese and sour cream, just be careful to use lighter calorie stuff. Ive also got the goods to smoke some meatloaf. Once I add that to Cronometer, I’ll have a better idea of how to divvy it out. But Ill prob slice it up and eat it along side some chicken brats I picked up at Costco. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The takeaway here is that a break can be a good thing, as long as you’re mindful about what you’re doing. However, if you havent gotten to your goal yet, then you have to dial it back in and refocus on whats working. For me, being mindful is #1. #2 is getting back to a regular routine of maintaining a caloric deficit, which happens best when I plan ahead, prep my meals, and log my food intake honestly. Additionally, getting back to a regular exercise routine is also important to boost that metabolism and burn those calories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was thinking earlier this year about how I wanted to get back to lifting heavy once the weather cooled off. Im now back and forth about that. I think the driving force there is that I know my shoulder is still not 100%. I really need to stop being a chump about it and start regularly exercising my shoulder. That’s coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I feel like Im also starting to think more about where my weight loss goals are going. I’ve always said that Id start to consider more once I hit 250 what I would do next or where my ultimate goal would be. I think thats going to depend on how I decide to train through the winter months. If I decide to lift more, I may stay around the 250 mark and not focus so much on calorie deficit. I do feel like my strength has taken a hit since losing all of this weight. So Id like to get some of that back. At the same time, getting a little further down, sitting around 230 or so, wouldnt be all bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Immediate focus for today – get back on track with the diet. Smokin’ a meatloaf. Taking a fuckin’ walk. More later. Stay consistent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Things have kind of stalled out since my last writing in mid August. The good news is that I havent gained anything. If this is what maintenance looks like, I can handle that pretty easily. Right away, I can identify easily why Ive stalled out. My eating has become a little more relaxed, but thats […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-fitness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/operationblight.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/operationblight.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/operationblight.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/operationblight.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/operationblight.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/operationblight.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64,"href":"https:\/\/operationblight.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions\/64"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/operationblight.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/operationblight.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/operationblight.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}