R8D37 – Bracing For Impact

I know it’s only October but let’s be honest, Halloween is a week away, after which it’s only 7 weeks until Christmas then a week until 2012. That means it’s time to get a little more serious. There will be meals out, parties that will interfere with the schedule, cold weather that will make workouts on the deck all but a faint memory, all of that will conspire to prevent me from making my 2011 ultimate goal, to be 220lbs for New Year. At that point, it will be the first year in my memory that I will not have “lose weight” as my primary New Year’s Resolution.

We have 68 days to go until 2012. I have around 12 lbs to lose. That should be easy.

Well, it would be easy at any other time of year, but the end of the year is always more of a challenge. In order to rise to the challenge I need to change a couple of things to get me to the end. I think one needs to be less nuts and seeds, it’s an easy calorie win and if I replace those calories, or part of them, with more fruit and veg, it should make a significant difference. I also need to drink a little more water and get more sleep. In fact, I think that getting more sleep may be the biggest untapped resource I have for my weight loss. Typically I get around 5 hours of sleep a night, but it’s getting to the point where I am napping when I get home from work, a sure sign I am not getting enough shut eye at night. I don’t like to nap, when I nap my body thinks that the day is over and it goes into sleepy mode, something that is not conducive to doing a workout later in the evening. So my lack of night time sleep is directly affecting my performance, not only because of lack of energy but also because it’s throwing my schedule off.

Last night I did a very short workout at gym with the kids, they did some dumbbell work doing squats, curls and presses while I did some clean and press plus some snatches with the 45lb kb. Tonight, despite being on just 3 or so hours sleep thanks to a core switch upgrade this morning I think it’s time to revisit with Shaun T. Seriously, I think the last time I did an insanity workout was when I picked up my calf strain in August. It’s long overdue!