April saw changes in almost every aspect of my fitness. My weights in each category went up quite drastically while my cardio hovered around 45 minutes. I slightly increased it towards the end of the month, but not a very noticeable amount. I will go more in-depth on how to determine when it’s a good time to increase cardio per day in a different article but as a general rule of thumb, when the workout becomes easy (or easier), it’s generally time to change it up.
As far as weightlifting went, my regimen looked something like this:
Chest Day:
10 minutes of pectoral flys (10 sets of 5 reps at 170 pounds).
15 minutes of rowing.
10 minutes of weighted crunches (10 sets of 5 reps at 110 pounds).
15 minutes of rowing.
10 minutes of chest press (10 sets of 5 reps at 90 pounds).
15 minutes of rowing.
Leg Day:
10 minutes of leg press (10 sets of 5 reps at 265 pounds).
15 minutes of rowing.
10 minutes of leg extensions (10 sets of 5 reps at 110 pounds).
15 minutes of rowing.
10 minutes of outward hip abductions (10 sets of 5 reps at 135 pounds).
15 minutes of rowing.
In addition to the workout part, my diet also saw some changes. My weight was starting to stagnate as the last few pounds are always the most stubborn and therefore hardest to lose. I realized that simply working out more wouldn’t fix my problem. I decided that I would cut my calories per day from 1500 to 1200. This was insane. I absolutely hated it. I was constantly tired. One thing I wasn’t, however, was hungry. Despite cutting my calories, I was mapping out and ensuring that I got enough nutrition. I accomplished this via various apps such as MyFitnessPal and StayFit. I simply typed in what I ate for every meal and checked the macros (major nutritional categories such as protein, carbs, sugar, etc) everyday to make sure I was getting the right amounts. I will go more in-depth into macros and tracking them in a different article. All I’m going to say for now is, tracking each major nutritional category is extremely important. Simply put, if I wasn’t able to determine and meet the right amounts of each category, I would become malnourished instead of lose weight. This would then throw my body into a sort of ‘hibernation’ which would reduce my metabolism drastically and prevent me from even dreaming about losing weight.
Overall, this month was very informational and saw a very good amount of progress. I closed out the month weighing 152.7 pounds for a monthly weight loss of 5.3 pounds and a total weight loss of 55.4.
Right: Cutting my calories while still staying nourished was the best thing I did this month. It allowed me to break the hurdle of the last few pounds.
Wrong: This cut in calories was brutal which led to me not working out as hard in the gym. I could have switched to a more cardio-based workout regimen during this month to counter the loss of calories which would allow me to lose more weight.
