Sunday Rest Day

Today I decided to take another rest day. I haven't had too many this month and enjoyed the time playing with my daughter and just hanging out. The official race results will be out tomorrow and I will update when I get them.

This morning I'm down another pound on the scale weight. That brings my February total weight loss to 5 pounds. Since October I have lost a total of 47 pounds and I'm really pleased with the progress. A little slower this month then I would have liked but still good none the less. I did make some changes to my diet last week to assist in breaking through a little plateau and so far it seems to be working.

No matter how hard you train losing weight is still about calories in and calories out. I do have people that think I'm crazy for counting calories the way I do but by counting calories there is no guessing game I know how much is coming in and a rough estimate of what's going out which allows be to be as accurate as I can. It's never going to be exact but I believe it's close and my experience proves that for me. Once you figure out what your BMR (Basal Metebolic Rate - the amount of calories you would burn if you stayed in bed all day) is you can then figure in your activity level which will give you the amount of calories you need to consume everyday to maintain your weight. Once you have that number you can then subtract the amount of calories based on how much weight you want to lose each week. If you want a detailed description please read this post. I will lose weight even while training for my events because I've done my math, and because I track my calories I can really dial it in.

I still have about 40 to 50 pounds to go before I stop my cutting diet and go to maintenance or even a bulking phase to add 10 to 15 pounds of muscle. The bulking phase just doesn't mean I hit the weights harder but more importantly it will be consuming more "clean" calories. Your nutrition really has to be dialed in. In fact, if your trying to lose weight my advice is to get your nutrition dialed in before your workouts because it doesn't matter how far you run, bike, or swim if you are still eating more calories then your burning you won't lose the weight. I have been recording my calories since January of 2005 and here is a snap shot of my weight loss and weight gain since that date. Have a great Sunday night. - Jason The Running Man

Jan 2005 - Present (Weight Loss/Gain)