Another Month Of Weight Loss In 2013 – How Did I Do?

I can’t believe that we have gone through two months (actually a bit more as a write this) in 2013 already! In my first month of getting healthier in 2013, I was able to move toward my health goals despite “only” losing 1 pound. In case you need a reminder you can take a look at my 2013 health and fitness goals.

After having such a great month in January, I was pretty excited to see what February would bring.

My Eating/Diet In February

This month was a great month as far as eating is concerned. I said that January was my best month in regards to eating, and I would have to say that February was my second best month! In fact, I have the pictures to prove it:

As you can see, most of what I ate during the month was whole, unprocessed foods, or those that were minimally processed yet still healthy. For each day of the month, I ensured that I was at or under my calorie target and that I also hit my required macros for the day!

As with last month, I tracked my food daily (here’s a video I did on the importance of measuring and tracking your food) and there were many times where I overcame temptation simply because I did not want to “waste” a large amount of my daily calorie allotment on whatever provided the temptation.

I have incorporated a small amount of flexible dieting, while focusing on my body’s overall energy needs, as well as tracking certain macro nutrients (protein, fat, and fiber) to ensure that I hit certain minimums based on my health and fitness goals. This has caused me to analyze foods in order to make sure that they (when taken in context of my overall diet) are helping me to meet those goals.

It’s almost like having a budget…there are a limited amount of calories that my body can burn in a day, so I have to decide if I want to feed it with high quality food or if I want to splurge on something that is less beneficial and may actually set me back. That is the choice I’m faced with at every meal.

So in looking back at the month, I can say that I continued with the best stretch that I have ever had when it comes to eating.

What about my workouts?

Working Out In February

You may remember me writing about injuring my back early last month. If not, I’ll wait while you go and read that post (no sense in me repeating everything)…

As a quick recap, I’ll just let you know that I wasn’t able to do any cardio for most of the month and I also had to cut out deadlifts and reduce the weight on my bent over rows. I was still consistent with my weightlifting, but my workouts still felt a little incomplete. I’ve suffered through an injury in the past, and I know better than to try and rush through this healing period and risk being out of commission for months.

I mentioned in my previous update that someone gave me a light barbell with some weights. Well, my wife and I have been putting them to good use so far! I have switched over all of the traditional barbell exercises in my routine – I had originally been doing them with my adjustable dumbbells.

I will be writing about the full setup in the next week so that you can get a better picture of what I am working with.

Running

February was a cold month; therefore, there was no running!

My February Weigh In

As I said last month, since I’m not focusing much on my weight this year, I have decided to only post ‘official’ weigh ins once a month.

You may remember that on February 1, 2013 (after my best month of eating), I was 229.4. I was excited to finally see the 220s, because I had been in the 230s since the middle of November!

This time, I weighed myself on March 2, 2013 and I was 226.0! This means that I lost 3.4lbs in the month of February. I’m excited about this number because I went through a few changes during the month. I injured myself and couldn’t do cardio or my full weight routine, I recalculated (and increased) the number of calories that I eat daily, and also, February is the shortest month of the year. Even still, I was able to lose 3.4 times the amount of weight I lost in January!

Here is the video reflecting on February:

I will be posting comparison pictures shortly so that we can all see if there was any change in my body.

Changes

My back has healed enough to where I can do light cardio (a 50-minute TaeBo DVD), and I hope to be able to go back to normal lifting soon. I also want to incorporate the shorter interval routines (I’m using the ZCUT Power Cardio Series 3 Dvd Set) after my weight training sessions, and then on my days off I plan to do intervals and maybe something longer (like jogging when the weather gets warmer) if I have time. It all depends on my back.

I plan to keep monitoring the scale and also my energy during workouts in order to determine the perfect amount of calories, and macro split for optimal fat loss and strength building!

photo credit: freedigitalphotos.net

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