Day 1 | The Plan

I often describe myself as a sprinter. No, not like Usain Bolt. A sprinter is someone who accomplishes big tasks in a short period of time efficiently. It wasn’t until I was recommended by a co-worker to read the book Sprint (where my SCRUM fam at?) that I knew my procrastination tendencies actually had significant value. So what’s the problem with this habit of mine? Unfortunately, in fitness you can’t get long term results in a short matter of time. You need a road map to get to where you are going. If you even know where you are going at all. You need consistency and repetition. How do I know this? Years and years of failure by trying to succeed with the quick hack versus following and applying a long term, disciplined plan. So today’s post is all about my plan. Again, MY PLAN, I am not a doctor, a nutritionist or a personal trainer. The ideas that I am taking in these posts are mine and mine alone. I just am sharing with you how I am getting to my destination. So please always consult a professional if you’re seeking nutritional and health advice.

So let’s break up my plan into different segments.

• What the heck is the goal anyways?

I’ve learned in life that you should always have a goal, especially if you want to get things done. If you do not have one, you'll just walk around without a purpose to accomplish anything. You may find this surprising, but this decision to get myself in shape is one that I have been trying and failing at for years. Why? I never had a goal. I would pick up weights, run and eat plants for a couple days, only to find myself binge eating and going back to my old tendencies. So what’s different this time? Well, I have a goal. The goal is for me to complete 12 weeks of hard fitness. Why 12 weeks? Well, I’ll be moving to the city in 90 days and I want to look good when I get there in the summer. I want to brim confidence and prove to myself that I can do whatever I set my mind to. After that, I’m going to adopt a healthy lifestyle and allow myself to once a week enjoy the finer things of life. Finer things = Zaxby’s family pack combo, Diet Dr. Pepper and fries. With extra Zax sauce, of course.

• What fitness plan am I following?

More of a lifestyle than a plan, but my calendar will look like the following:

1. Wake up, snap a progress pic and do 50 push ups followed by 100 ab exercises
2. Complete 30 minutes of cardio in the morning
3. On lunch break complete 30 more minutes of cardio
4. Four days a week follow a simple online workout that occurs in the gym, with me completing all of my lifts to failure in addition to cardio
5. Once a week, complete an active hobby for an hour or more like hiking, fishing, climbing, martial arts, boxing or cycling

That’s it. Seriously. I’m keeping it as simple as possible. The big pain will be cardio. So how will I get more cardio done? I’ll just take my cardio stuff with me to work, keep running shoes and a pair of clothes in the car, while being intentional in completing it. I’ll be more likely to run if I have my running shoes at work, versus not bringing them at all. To keep myself accountable, I am following this simple Google Sheet I built.

• So what’s your diet looking like Big Fella?

Again, going with simple here. So my diet is going to look like:

1. No sugar, no booze, no dairy
2. Gallon of water a day and unsweet iced tea as a cheat for flavor
3. For the first two weeks (5 total meals a day):
4. 6 egg whites and small scoop of oats in the morning
5. Fish and veggies for the rest of the day
6. For the next eight weeks, I’ll add a fistful of a carbohydrate to the fish and veggie meals while also incorporating different lean proteins
7. Final two weeks finish off with the fish and veggie diet again

Now, while this is going to be simple. I do expect it to be hard. Extremely hard at that. My body is probably going to go into shock, but I believe I can do anything that I put my mind to!

So that’s the plan, fill out my fitness tracker daily, eat plain and train simple for 12 weeks! Let’s see how this turns out!