the baker's abs

30 Day Challenge

I love a good challenge, especially when I'm competing against myself.  With myself?  Same thing.  

It's go time.  

Since I gave birth, back in November, I have lost 36 or 37 pounds.  I only gained 27ish while I was pregnant, which puts me at ten pounds below my starting weight.  The main reason for this, and I can say this with total confidence, is that I'm at home, near my kitchen.  I'm working out just as much as I did before and during pregnancy, and with equal intensity.  The workouts really aren't anything special, in fact, I'd say they're a little bit shorter than they were pre-Beans.  I used to have a lot of time to workout during the day between clients or after work-- 90 minute or 2 hour workouts were a regular thing.  Now I get about an hour a day.  

Back to my point:  The Kitchen.  Because I have my kitchen, which is stocked with green things, I've lost much more weight.  Taking the time to plan meals, cook them, and then sit down and eat them (instead of snacking or foraging) has made an amazing difference.  Even when I was packing lunches to take to work, I wasn't getting results like these, and that's partially because I wasn't sitting down and savoring my food.  I probably wasn't chewing things very much.  Sometimes I don't chew.   And I was probably doing something else while I was eating:  walking to the bank, talking on the phone, checking my email, changing into my running clothes.  

So then, the two things that are different:  1) I eat when I'm eating, and 2) I cook hot meals and fill them with vegetables.  

Now, on to the next ten pounds.  

Once upon a time, I was a stripper.

  

This was back in 2004.  I was twenty-four years old.  I weighed 134.5 lbs. in these photos.  I know that because they were taken on the last day of the last 30-day challenge I completed, nine years ago.  I lost nine pounds in those 30 days, and I'm planning on doing much the same thing this time.  

This time I have a lot more practical training and nutrition knowledge, but other than that, the method will be roughly the same:  eat around 2,000 calories a day (to support my workouts and breastfeeding), lift weights for 45 minutes 5-6 days a week, go running occasionally, drink a lot of water, get a lot of sleep, don't drink any alcohol, avoid sugar, and...

Talk about it.

I'll blog about progress every day, writing down exactly what I've eaten and the workout I've completed.  I'll take photos once a week and post them, and probably weigh in once a week, too-- though not today, because I don't want to know today.  It's important to be respectful and know your boundaries... and I ate a ton of crap yesterday and am super-bloated today, and it would not be good for my mental health at all to see those 2.6 g. of water per g. of carbohydrate that I'm storing.  

Anyway, follow along!  Let's make some progress.