Punch the clock, hit the books, hit the weights: my violent life

So I've been slackin on my mackin as of late and haven't had much time to post. So I'm gonna fill you all in on what's going on in my life right now.

School this semester has been relatively easy as far as the workload is concerned, but with the end of the semester approaching things are starting to pickup. In Social Media Marketing Strategies, my personal branding project (the whole reason behind this blog) is going to be due soon, on top of my portion of the group presentation. I've tweeted enough to get credit for this class nearly 50 times over, so I'm really not worried about that, but I have at least one more blog post to create after this one, as well as creating a Facebook fan page. I might even film a couple workouts and upload them to my already existing YouTube page which I'll then link to everything else.

Work has been a complete snooze-fest since august, but training is FINALLY almost over. Next week is the end of this 4 1/2 month nightmare and I finally get to start selling to customers and making commission. I'm excited and nervous all at the same time. For those of you that don't know, when I'm not putting in work at the gym, I work at Echo Global Logistics, a freight management company based out of Chicago. To explain what I do in detail is an entire blog in itself but to put it short, I play the middle man between companies that have stuff to ship, and the trucking companies that want to ship stuff for them.

Now my favorite part, my fitness journey. One of the things I like to do is self experimentation when it comes to my diet. this year alone I've tried being paleo, which is an all natural diet meaning you pretty much cant eat anything that you couldn't kill in the wild or pick of a tree or bush. I've gone 2 weeks without a cheat meal, which wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. I've even gone 2 weeks without eating dessert (now THIS was hard AF).

This time around, I have decided to try Intermittent Fasting. I have an 8 hour eating window, from 12pm - 8pm everyday to get in all of my needed calories and macro-nutrients for the day and I don't eat for the other 16. It's not as difficult as it sounds I swear. The hardest part about it is measuring and keeping track of my macros (i.e. the amount of protein, carbs, and fats I need in a day). My measurements are 313g of protein, 100-150g of carbs depends on if its a training day or not, and 75-100g of fat for a total of 2500 or so calories on non training days and 3100ish on training days. I decided to split my day up into 3 meals, breaking my fast at lunch time which works well for me since I work a pretty standard 9-5. for a more in depth description of IF check out a fellow blogger and personal trainer/nutrition coach here

You're probably wondering why the heck someone would submit themselves to this kind of torture. Part of the idea behind intermittent fasting is by only being able to eat within that 8 hour window, it makes it more difficult to exceed your daily caloric intake because one can only eat so much in 8 hours. On top of that you're body becomes better able to process your nutrients and use them for energy when the greater part of the day is spent fasted.

I've pretty much tried everything else there is already anyway, so why not? I've done low carb, eating clean, eating 5-6 meals a day and everything I said before. The only things I haven't done are gone vegetarian or vegan and I love meat too much to so that sooooo.....yeah. I wanted to try it and see what kind of effects is has on my body and my athletic performance.

Truth is, although fitness is my passion and I've lost TONS of weight in the last few years, I still have a loooong way to go to reach my ideal body. I should weigh under 200 lbs but with my muscle mass and the way my body is built I can carry 200-205 pretty well, so my goal right now is to lose 25 lbs by the end of April.

So for the purpose of adding a little accountability here are my stats:

Starting date 11/22
Starting Weight: 230 lbs
Current Weight: 228 lbs
Goal Weight: 205 lbs
Goal Date: 4/22

I actually weighed less than this over the summer, but I put on about 5lbs of muscle while doing a mini bulk,  but thanks to my new desk job, I put on about 5lbs of fat as well. I am not discouraged though, just more motivated now than ever. I think of it like this: for an arrow to be fired forward, it must first be drawn back.

In case you dont understand IFing still after reading that blog, here's a video to help clarify

I have high hopes for IF, but if it does work for me, it doesn't mean it works for everyone. However you decide to diet, make sure it's healthy and don't half ass it. Remember, if it doesn't challenge you, it doesn't change you.