“Working out and being active is now an even bigger part of my life and will always be, I know that I have reached my goals I set for this challenge and am excited to continue to grow and progress to another level.”

No Excuses, No Matter What!

No Excuses! Was my inspiration and motto throughout this entire 90 day challenge. My fitness journey began 5 years ago, my starting weight was 250 pounds, I lost around 65 pounds at my previous gym.  I was at the gym for the past four years and it had a very similar style/community feel while improving your overall body and health. What was lacking was the extra little bit that I needed to go from being “Really Fit” (I had been at this fitness level for two years) to the next level of “Ferociously Fit” that the challenge would hopefully push me to… and it did!

When I decided to join the Fitmania Challenge I knew it would be an opportunity to arrive at the next level. All of the pics and success stories made me realize it was possible but it was going to be a tough road to travel and I was bound and determined to succeed #No Excuses. I had a couple of important goals in mind 1. Find and reach the “next level” of fitness while improving my overall health. 2. Prolong and improve the quality of my life (this is my lifetime health goal). I knew that in order to reach these goals I would have to push myself harder than I ever had and I would do this by making a plan for success and sticking to it no matter what #No Excuses.

 

The Food Plan

I would continue my protein rich balanced eating habits, dropping wheat products (mainly tortillas and bread) and adding a plethora of delicious veggies. I would try to get 50 – 60% of my carbs through veggies, 25% through fruits and the rest through various items.  I would also increase my water intake to over 100 ounces of water a day. Through my diet change I learned a few things, veggies are stupendously delicious and that eating lots of veggies with all six balanced meals makes it easy to turn down sugar filled treats and all the while staying satisfied throughout the day.

The Workout Plan

I would go a minimum five days a week to Fitmania (forgot to log in on quite a few), and do three additional or more workouts on my own. My workouts consisted of various ideas gathered from Fitmania (Century Club, Ten Minute Killer etc…), running one to three miles every Tuesday and Thursday at lunch with my students, mini 1 minute challenges with my class three times a day (these don’t count in my total amount of workouts), skiing and plenty of mountain bike rides. All together including all activities mentioned above I worked out over 130 times during this challenge and found the “Ferociously Fit” level of fitness. I learned through all of these workouts is that the tabata sheet is very important in order to push yourself every workout, Ken is faster than he looks, Strava is my mountain biking tabata sheet, and you can always go farther/harder than what you think you can. I also learned that the idea of #No Excuses needs to be your mindset in order to make it to all workouts and reach new heights.

My Advanced Fitness level has grown so much and am excited about the results. The one that I am most proud of is my flexibility, this past three months I have been really focusing on making a solid effort to stretch after class, and do mini yoga sessions with my wife at night before bed once a week. I improved 5 and ⅜ of an inch and feel that my flexibility is improved but I need to still continue this if I want to reach my lifetime goal of  prolonging and improving the quality of my life.

All of the other advanced fitness tests have improved as well, I increased my run and touch by almost three seconds, my push-ups went up 15, my single leg squats improved five for one leg and six for the other, the mile time is better by eight seconds (should have ran 6:15 but I will next time) and my jumping side lunge went up 15. All of these are because of the challenges that FitMania provides, the tabata sheet and the “mini rivalries” that the competitive people bring to each workout.

Working out and being active is now an even bigger part of my life and will always be, I know that I have reached my goals I set for this challenge and am excited to continue to grow and progress to another level. I don’t know the name of the next level yet, “Ferociously Fit” is going to be hard to top but I am ready for the challenge and excited to get there.

Before:

After: