7:27 PM
Today I tried the slow method to reaching my daily workout quota. My workout quota is a minimum of 200 push ups, 300 leg raises, 100 squats, 20 pull ups, 20 chin ups, 5 minutes of planking, 30 minutes of walking. This is the second day in which I'm doing these numbers, having started it much lower 3-4 days ago. Today I did it slowly, trying to accomplish 5% of this every 30 minutes. So for the push ups, I'd do 10 every 30 minutes, which is 5% of 200, and same for the other workouts.
The idea was to distribute my workouts throughout 10 hours. Even though I tried, I couldn't do it, the pacing just felt too slow. By 3 PM, I was only around halfway through to all of them, and I got very frustrated and restless and decided to just do the rest of them all in less than an hour to get it all out of the way.
Even though I tried to do 5% of the workouts every 30 minutes, I actually exceeded them every time. For the planks for example, 30 seconds would go by so quickly, so I actually did 1 minute planking probably 3 times, so I got my quota done by around 12 PM. It's the same for the other workouts, it was hard to just do 10 push ups, because of how easy it was, so I'd sometimes do 11, and same for the other exercises.
For the chin ups and pull ups, I couldn't just do 1 every of both 30 minutes because it felt too easy, so I did 2 of each every 30 minutes instead. By around 2 PM or so, I had already done 14 of both, so that's when I decided to see how many pull ups and chin ups I could do in a row. I did 7 pull ups in a row, which is a shocking number because I had already done 14 throughout the day prior, plus all the other workouts, so my arms weren't fresh, and yet I did 7 in a row, basically my record.
I don't think I have ever done more than 8 pull ups in a row in proper form, going all the way down, arms fully outstretched, pausing for 1 second, and then going all the way back up, chin above the bar, and repeating. I've done 10 pull ups in a row in improper form, and informally it counts, when casually bragging about how many pull ups in a row you can do to people who won't really take what you say seriously anyway. In a judged event however, these 10 wouldn't have counted, but the 7 I did today would have.
I then tried to do chin ups right after I did the 7 pull ups, and I was only able to do 1 chin up. That shows how exhausted my arms were. I took a 30 minute break or so, and then I did 7 chin ups in a row too. I find chin up to be a lot easier than pull ups, so I could have probably done 10 in a row if I pushed.
The rest of the workouts, I completed after resting for another 30 minutes. I did 100 or so push ups in around an hour, plus 50 or so squats, plus 150 or so leg raises. I think it's so much easier to get it all done and out of the way quickly, rather than distributing such a small amount of it throughout the day, due to the low numbers of this quota. I think if my quota was 500 push ups in a day for example, then it makes more sense to distribute that to 10 hours. But 200? I can probably do all of that in 30 minutes, maybe less, if that was the only workout I was doing.
There are some videos on YouTube called something similar to "I did 100 push ups for 30 days, here are my results" and I'm kind of shocked. Is 100 push ups supposed to be a lot? I am overweight, yet 100 push ups in a day is basically nothing to me. I'm doing double 100 push ups, plus a few other workouts. Sure, it's only my second day, so maybe I shouldn't be talking yet. The hardest part about this is the consistency.
There will be at some point this month where I have to travel, and that would probably slash 10 hours out of my free time. How would I meet this quota on such a day? It would be very hard to.
I think the hardest thing about all of this is the consistency. If I can do this for 30 days in a row, that would be a major accomplishment. Even just 100 push ups a day, is something less than 1% of the population can do, because of the difficulty of being consistent for that many days in a row. Maybe in like 5 days, I am going to feel lazy, and just stop doing all these workouts. That would be disastrous but it's definitely possible.
How come the people only do it for 30 days too? Like they do it for 30 days, post a video, and then they stop. Why not do it forever? I am starting as an overweight person, in my 30s, and these people are in their early 20s. I probably have a strong advantage because I don't eat animals, haven't eaten any animal part in 11 years, so I recover much more quickly, and I feel stronger and I'm more agile, despite being overweight. I'm not even tired as I type this, I don't feel sore, I feel alive and very content and happy. I'm also first place in a math game worldwide, out of 80k players, and I'm in the 99th percentile of every brain training game I use, out of millions of other people.
Anyway, I'd like to complete this quota for 30 days at least. I don't know how to reward myself if I complete this. I know there would be a major body transformation after. I weighed 179.5 pounds this morning, 0.1 pounds less than yesterday. I expected to weigh more, because I ate 3500 calories yesterday. Today I've eaten 2666 calories, yeah that's the exact amount, so I expect to weigh around 178.5 tomorrow.
It is extremely possible to lose a pound a day, I've had it happen to me so many times, the thing is, it often remains at that weight for a few days after. Like I dropped down from 183 pounds to 179 pounds in a single day, and I've stayed at 179 pounds for more than a week now. This could be different for everyone, and it can be heavily influenced by the amount of calories we eat in a day, and the workouts we do in a day. For me, doing the workouts like I did today, combined with eating only 2600 calories, I basically intuitively know the next day I lose a pound. I know I'm going to weigh 178.5 pounds or around that tomorrow.
If I do the same workouts tomorrow, and still only eat around 2600 calories, I know I'd lose another pound. I've just consistently seen this happening, so I know it's possible, and that it is definitely the case. The problem is that we feel a huge hunger surge during weight loss, causing us to eat a lot more, causing us to either remain the same weight, or even gain weight. This is why nearly everyone who is overweight and obese and loses weight, will often gain all their weight back or more within a year. I've had this happen to me many times. It's happened to me several times these past few years.
I've learned lessons along the way though. Prior, I would take my weight loss as lucky and I took it for granted. There would be days like traveling days, where I would lose 10 pounds in a week, due to all the traveling and taking 20k steps per day. Even though I'd still eat a lot of food, eating out at vegan restaurants in the area every day, all the exercises still beat out any of my eating, so I'd lose weight during travels.
Now, I'm taking my weight loss extremely seriously. Just a month ago, on September 12th, I weighed 187 pounds. Now, a month later, I weigh 179 pounds. That's almost a 10 pound weight loss in 1 month. All due to effort and taking weight loss seriously. This is my immature way of thinking, but my immature self thinks 10 pounds in a month is extremely slow. However, realistically speaking, 10 pounds in a month is great, especially if I can keep the weight off. There is a major difference in strength, energy, vitality, appearance, gained from losing these 10 pounds. It's actually sort of subtle if I'm being honest, but it's there.
The reason I added 5 minutes of planking, was because I am overweight. I think once I do lose weight, every single one of the exercises that I'm doing now, will be that much easier. If I can do 1 minute of planking now and it's pretty easy to me, I think if I lost 30 pounds, I can probably do 10 minutes of planking easily. Maybe I'm being too optimistic, but I think it's true.
I can't even imagine what it would be like losing another 10 pounds. Being under 170 pounds would be the lowest weight I've been at in the past 15 years basically. Then losing another 10 pounds in addition to that? And then another 10 pounds in addition to that? I think the changes would be extremely dramatic, but I probably won't be able to achieve it until the end of the year, realistically speaking, which feels extremely slow.
Why can't I just weigh 150 pounds now? It does suck that it takes time. I feel impatient. I want to weigh 150 pounds now. Right now. But it's not possible. At minimum it will take another 3 months. Then what? Then I think I'll just feel happier and better than I've ever felt in my entire life before, maybe. I've never been 150 pounds since maybe 7th grade. I weighed like 140 pounds in 7th grade or something, actually I don't even remember, but I was definitely obese, and I remember being made fun of for that by younger kids. I was a straight A student too, which is weird, because both our mental and physical abilities are heavily impaired when we're obese.
Anyway, I feel pretty good and in charge of my life. Hopefully my CPA files my taxes soon, tomorrow or Tuesday. It's due on Tuesday. I'm pretty stressed out about it I guess, but hopefully it gets done soon.
Anyway, I feel good and happy otherwise.
That was my day today.
You must be signed in to post a comment!