A personal training & food journal. Read about our weight loss progress at Train With Ron in Chicago, our nutritional habits and the life changes we're making to get in shape and stay healthy!

Setting Out for the Summit

25th July, 2011 - Posted by Daniel Arturi - 5 Comments

On October 5th, 2009, I began to act on one of the best decisions I ever made in my life: regaining control of my diet, exercise, and health. Through Ron, Matt, and DB at Train with Ron, as well as my soul mate, friend, wife, co-writer of this blog, and disciplined workout partner Monika, I lost over 50 lbs and kept it off, lost over 8″ from my waistline, lowered my body fat percentage by double digits, went from XXL to L t-shirts, can climb a flight of stairs without losing my breath, and actually, for a 42 year old guy, I am in some really great shape.

That said, I am not finished.

I think I began to plateau a bit when we did the trip to Hawaii last year.  Up to that point I was still eating very well and was disciplined about it.  I was tracking my meals up to that point as well.  I didn’t care what I ate on that trip, and upon our return, I loosened up a bit.  Now, when I look at pictures of myself on that trip with no shirt on, I am very displeased at how I still looked at that point – but at the time, I had made so much progress, I thought I looked great!  I ended up losing another 15-20 pounds after that trip, over this past winter, and as this summer approached, I was feeling pretty great about my looks and my size.

However, it was in March or April when I was talking to Matt and a couple of other guys during a Pure Steel workout.  We were talking about progress and losing weight, and my attitude (and I said this at the time) was: “I don’t want to lose any more weight, because if I go down to that point, I’ll have to work even harder than I do now to stay there, and I just don’t want to have to work that hard.  I know I said I wanted to get down to 200 lbs when I started this but I just don’t see the point in it anymore – why would I want to lose all that weight if I’m not willing to work as hard as I would have to in order to maintain it?”

Matt’s reply: “So you can say you did it.”

That little seven word sentence became a splinter in my mind that day and throbbed more and more every day.  I couldn’t forget it.  At the time he said it I just kind of tried to ignore it but it was impossible. I can put my truth aside temporarily but that little statement WAS MY TRUTH and I was only going to be able to run from it and hide from it for so long.  I doubt Matt thought about having said that to me for more than a half second, but “so long” came last week when I went to get a full body content scan using a real DXA machine that can measure your bone mass, lean mass content, and true body fat percentage..  What I found was that I still have a lot of body fat and I can certainly afford to lose it. My TRUE body fat is 32.7%.  Now this includes the brain (fatty tissue) so you can knock off about 3% from there, but that leaves my true body fat percentage at 29.7%.  Healthy males should be in the 13%-18% range, with professional athletes ending up in the 6%-12% range. (Women should be a little higher.)

Clearly I have a lot of work to do…

So, starting today, I will finish what I started.  I’m going back to my careful eating diet, heavily reducing (but not completely eliminating) processed sugars and flour from my diet.  I will track my meals and caloric burn, with a goal of losing about 6 pounds a month for the next 8 months.  By 2/28/2012, I will reach the summit, getting my weight down to under 200 pounds for the first time since I was in high school, getting my body fat percentage down to the 13% – 18% range, training HARD for a solid hour, at least 3-4 times a week in addition to my Wing Chun training, and sharply reducing  (if not eliminating altogether) my penchant for late night snacking (usually sugary and always after 11pm).

Why, after all the work I’ve done, all the progress I’ve made, and all the good feelings I’ve gotten from what I’ve accomplished, would I put myself through this?

So I can say I did it.  Thanks Matt!

 

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