Goodbye 2013 - Hello 2014

I think that it is safe to say that 2013 has been one of the best years for me so far. I have accomplished more in 2013 than I have in the last 5 years combined. I completely changed my life this past year, and I want to talk a bit about what I've done, and some about what I would have done differently. I also want to talk about my new plans and goals for 2014. First let's start with what I've done so far. I started my weight loss journey on March 22, 2013 after feeling I had hit rock bottom. I had found out that I was not ovulating and would be unable to get pregnant unless I lost weight, I was close to being put on blood pressure medication, and I was having terrible stomach issues. When I first started I decided that I was going to stick to a low calorie diet and an intense work out regimen. I limited myself to 1200 calories per day, and I was working out 6 days a week doing heavy cardio. When I first started working out, I couldn't run for more than 30 seconds at a time. At that time I was too heavy for my body to be able to handle the amount of exercise that I was throwing at it, and I developed what is called runner's knee. I was forced to take my workouts to the elliptical for a couple of months to allow my knees to heal and to get some more weight off to lessen the impact on my knees. After a couple of months I felt like I was ready to take my workouts up a notch, so with the help of compression sleeves for my calves I began running again. I started doing couch to 5k, and I eventually added in Insanity as well. I was consistently dropping weight and I began seeing health benefits as well. I finished the full 60 days of Insanity and then put my full focus into couch to 5K. I prepared and I finally ran my first 5k on September 29 and finished with a time of 37:24. I continued focusing mostly on Cardio and in October decided to add in some strength training as well to tone up.   I had a couple of issues with illness in the month of November and lost a lot of my motivation. I was still working out and sticking to my diet but I let the strength training fall by the wayside. The scale was still going down, but my progress slowed to an almost complete halt. Towards the end of December I found a new burst of motivation and started T25 and began doing a lot more strength training. Since doing this, I have seen more results in the past two weeks than I have in the past two months. My weight hasn't really changed in the last two weeks but in that time alone I have lost another half inch on my stomach and another half inch on each arm. I have lost a total of 72 pounds, and I am currently weighing in at 148.4 lbs. I am ovulating again, my blood pressure is back in the healthy range, and my stomach issues are completely gone. So that is the rundown for 2013. Overall I am happy with a lot of things, but in hindsight there are a couple of changes that I would make. I follow a youtube channel called TheLeanMachines, and about a week ago they did a video about why low calorie diets are bad for you. I will link that video down below so that you can get a more in depth idea of what I am talking about. The basics of it are that when you do a low calorie diet consisting of nothing but cardio you lose more than just fat, you lose muscle as well. This is something that I can attest to personally, I have lost a lot of weight quickly, but in the mean time I have lost a LOT of muscle as well. When you lose muscle you actually slow your metabolism which in turn zaps a lot of your energy. I have noticed this more and more the last couple of months, and I feel this is a big reason that I went into a "slump". I had no energy or motivation to work out. I still did workout, but I by no means put my all into it. Looking back, I would have not cut my calories so low and I would have introduced strength training from the beginning. If I had done that from the beginning I likely would not be facing the issue that I am now and that issue is, loose skin. Now don't get me wrong, I don't have hanging skin like you see in pictures of people that have lost hundreds of pounds. I do however have a wrinkling in my skin in certain places on my body. This is something that I am not 100% comfortable talking about, but I want to give you a true look into this journey. I have some wrinkled skin on my stomach and at the top of my arms just under my armpits. I am confident that I will not have this forever. It will go away as I tone up, I just wish I had done strength training from the start so that I wasn't having to compensate for that now. So here are the changes that I am making going into 2014. I am upping my calories to 1550 per day, I am adding a lot of strength training, and I am cutting back on my cardio. I will break each one of these down for you quickly because this is becoming a lengthy post. I am upping my calories to compensate for the strength training that I am adding. I need more calories to build my metabolism back up as I rebuild my muscles. I am adding a lot of strength training obviously to rebuild the muscle that I have lost plus some. In rebuilding my muscle I am hoping to give a boost to my metabolism as well. I am cutting back on the cardio because the muscle that I am going to be adding will be burning the fat that I have left, and I need conserve that energy to repair my muscles as I build them up. I had a short conversation with Leon from TheLeanMachines on twitter today, and he recommended that I put the majority of my focus on strength training. I still have a pocket of fat on my belly so I am hoping that adding this strength training will help me get rid of that once and for all. I have exciting plans for 2014 and I look forward to sharing those with you as they come to fruition. I hope that you all set goals for the upcoming year. Challenge yourself and you can see incredible change. I was going through old pictures trying to find the picture I wanted to use for my "before" pic for this post. I came across a picture that I had taken in a Target dressing room last February. The reason that this particular picture stood out to me was because the shirt I was trying on was almost identical to a shirt that I bought last month at Target. I had taken a very similar picture in the dressing room not remembering at all that I had taken the first picture earlier in the year. I didn't buy the shirt the first time because I couldn't button the XL. I bought it the second time in a Medium, and as you can see in the picture I have a little room to spare in this one. This picture is a true testament to what you can accomplish in a year if you put your mind to it. Let's smash it in 2014!!

Thanks for reading,
Sarah

Link to TheLeanMachines video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBLUCbLtCkw&feature=c4-overview&list=UUs_DvR0g9o7wDgmY3fzbhMw