Well, here I am just about 5 months into my intermittent fasting. I've lost about 15 lbs in total since I began intermittent fasting towards the end of August. I hit a pretty good bump in the beginning of November which I'd like to refer to as the post-Halloween Candy Monster. I seriously downed tons of candy every day. At first I was really good and included the candy as part of my calorie count but then like an deep dark secret, it slowly took over and the next thing I knew I was eating 500-600 calories over my target for the day. All the while I never stopped following the New Rules of Lifting For Women program and would start off my day doing intermittent fasting but then obviously lost control later with the candy.
I then struggled with my eating over the next few weeks, trying to get back on track and the next thing I know Thanksgiving hits and then WHAM.....I'm into December and finished the New Rules of Lifting For Women.
Ok, so now what? My workout plan is done (yay!) but my eating is horrible! So then I decide to give a 4 day-split training program a shot. I followed Lindsay Kaye's cutting program as far as the training goes but continued to follow intermittent fasting for my diet.
Around mid-December, I suddenly realize Awww crap! January 1st is almost here and I promised to be under 180 by then. I was struggling getting below 182 lbs. No matter what I did, nothing was letting me get past that number. So my wonderful, hunky boyfriend suggests that I start doing cardio 4-5 days a week and cute calories even more. I am desperate to hit 179 so I agree. I start doing HIIT on the bike or elliptical 4x a week for 30 minute sessions AND I drop my calories to 1,500. Whoosh! On December 22nd I hit my goal....179 baby!!!
Over the Christmas holiday weekend, I pretty much ate this and that and then went off to be with my boyfriend and his family for a week; which meant no gym time. Even though my eating wasn't too terrible at my boyfriend's, I still ended up drinking a lot of coffee with creamer (which wasn't a habit for me anymore) and then occasionally having some Christmas candy that he had laying around the house.
Check out my weigh-in log below to see my progress over the past few months.
Getting Back To My Weight Loss Goals After The Holidays
I returned home to find myself weighing 183 lbs! Yikes! Then just a few days later I weigh in at 185! I talked with my boyfriend about this and he said he felt like we should set some goals by summer. He wanted us to set realistic goals. For him, that means getting a 6-pack and for me that means dropping about 25 lbs.
So, I buckle down the 2nd week of January. I get real serious and my boyfriend even is now willing to try intermittent fasting with me. So, I do my calculations based off of this guy in Japan that is a personal trainer in Japan and follows the Lean Gains protocal. I follow the recommendation of +10%/-35%kCal which gave me 1,700 calories on training days and only 1,023 calories on rest days.
It worked beautifully! I lost -7lbs my first week doing this! Let me just tell you that 1k calories on rest days was extremely difficult to help me reach my daily protein gram goals and not to mention I found myself very hungry still. So, by the advice of a friend on the Bodybuilding.com forum, I calculated up how many calories I ate that week and then decided to redistribute them so that I could lower calories on my training days in order to give me back some more on rest days. So now I am eating 1,550 calories on training days and then I have 1,200 on rest days.
Where The Heck Has My Booty Gone?
Seriously, have you seen my booty??? It was just there before the holidays and now it seems to be slipping away. Honestly, I was getting amazing booty shape with the New Rules of Lifting For Woman and now that I started doing a 4 day-split, my booty has suffered. I've decided to do away with Lindsay Kaye's cutting program and do an upper/lower split twice a week. That way my glutes and lower body will get trained at least twice a week. Once a week just isn't sufficient for me.
So that's where I am now! Check out my video below for full body shots of my progress. If you skip to 7:40, you can see the body photos there.
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