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!


When Goals Collide

28th October, 2011 - Posted by Daniel Arturi - 6 Comments

Get Stronger... Lose Weight... Both?

After benching 270 pounds this summer, I set a goal for myself to get to 300 lbs by next June. Right around the same time, I set a goal for myself to lose that last stubborn 40 lbs that I have been wanting to lose since I got started. Guess what… these two goals don’t lend themselves very well to each other. What I have found is that I’m not making much progress on either side.

In June I started taking Wing Chun martial arts classes, thinking that would replace some of my cardio workouts at Train with Ron. I’m finding that, at least at this early stage, I’m not burning as many calories doing it as I thought I would. That, plus my less than disciplined eating habits over the last two months, has resulted in my not feeling very good about how I look. Now, I haven’t gained any weight since I started the weight loss goal – in fact, I’ve lost about 5 lbs since I started it – but after seeing myself in pictures lately, I have noticed that I’ve lost ground in the battle for control of my waistline.

I also finished my most recent round of Pure Steel by failing to bench 275 lbs… I was very disappointed there too.

I have also found myself strapped for time in terms of working out, so I need to rearrange some things in my busy life to accommodate for all the exercise, rest, Wing Chun, and music that I want to squeeze in and still make time for Monika and I to have some fun together.

So, all that said, it is time to press the ‘reset’ button. I will not give up on my goals, but I must recommit to them and I think I need to revise the weight loss goal to make it more manageable.

I am going to start with a weight loss goal of an AVERAGE of losing 2 lbs per week for the next 12 weeks (so, 24 lbs off by end of January), and over that same period I am looking to AT LEAST maintain my current strength level by benching 270 at the end of my current Pure Steel round. If I can get stronger while losing the weight, that’d be fantastic but I’ll have to be satisfied with maintaining for now. At the end of January, I’ll still have 5 months to build up the strength to bench those last 30 lbs and I am pretty sure that Matt will be able to help get me there, as long as I stay committed to it!

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6 Comments

Chris Smith

October 28th, 2011 at 2:13 pm    


Thanks for being so honest and up front about your struggles. I know you can do it, Dan! I truly believe we are our own worst enemies. After finding one of my many lists of goals I wrote back in 2006, I deciced to make a goal board instead. At the risk of sounding like a “Secret” fanatic, I decided that writing goals down for myself, doesn’t quite cut it for me. Once I’ve put my goals to paper, I promptly set out for the fridge to get rid of that last pint of Rocky Road ice cream so that I can start checking my goals off of my list (can’t quite remember where I put that list I wrote 20 minutes ago). Five years later, my list of goals then becomes the unanswered proverbial note in a bottle. So, to make a long story longer, I’m starting to cut pictures out of magazines of various things I want to achieve, to paste onto my poster board. We’ll see if I manage to lose that!

Chris

Chris Smith

October 28th, 2011 at 2:33 pm    


One last quote from the “Art of War”:

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.

I’m going to put this on a t-shirt!

Daniel Arturi

October 28th, 2011 at 3:12 pm    


Awesome quote, I think I should tattoo it on the back of my hand! For me, putting my goals to paper has an uncanny way of working out in the long run. I may forget the goals or put them aside, but if I come back to the list of goals a while later its amazing how many of them happen just through the subconscious act of putting them down. It’s as if my mind sorts out the real goals from the “chaff” and works on those specifically. Thanks for your comments, they are always thought provoking and welcome! ~ D

Matt

October 28th, 2011 at 7:32 pm    


Dan,

You set yourself some pretty intense goals, and unfortunately along with work, life, and family achieving those can take more commitment than we are willing to put forth. I am a HUGE believer in goal setting… when I played at NU you bet the at the top of my list was to win the BIG TEN, but guess what only one team can call themselves champs at the end of the year. That doesn’t mean we can’t take giant progressive strides forward, learning about ourselves along the way, adjusting to obstacles along the way, and looking back at a great season.

You do a great job at this, but try breaking down your large goals into smaller consistent goals…

For example, I can’t win the BIG TEN conference by myself or in one day or game. What I can do is break down my effort into smaller bite size portions.

ONE GAME at a time…
ONE PLAY at a time…
ONE PRACTICE at a time…
ONE TRAINING session at a time…

Unfortunately, your goals are influenced by everything that you do: your eating, not eating, nutrients, sleep habits, stress level, social factors, injuries, etc, etc. Self reflection is key in honestly evaluating where you are at in these goals.

In game planning for football sometimes you have to take a step back and brush up on your fundamentals: tackling, footwork, route running, catching. Maybe for you we need to get back to the fundamentals of what was getting you stronger and leaner: preparing meals, consistency in calorie burning, no cheat day/meals, butt kicking TWR workouts 2-4 times a week, gains in weekly pure steel program.

Along with those fundamentals you should start to address the conflict of interest in losing mass amounts of weight and gaining vs losing strength. Although, it is a tough task it can be done. I think it may be time to start being more diligent with things like nutrient timing; recovery shakes afters lifts, protein shakes for snacks & with breakfast to increase/maintain lean mass.

I know one thing though, you are not the type of person to talk a big game and not give it your all! Looking forward to seeing you down another 40 lbs and putting up 3 bills!

Daniel Arturi

October 28th, 2011 at 10:38 pm    


Matt,

Thanks for this awesome response. One thing I noticed is that I broke my own rule for goal setting:

S pecific – did well here, lose X pounds and bench press Y weight.
M easurable – these goals are very easily measured.
A ttainable – (here’s where I made a mistake in terms of execution)
R elevant – being in good shape is very relevant to me so, “yes”.
T imed – I set a specific time frame so that’s good.

If you mess up any one (or more than one) of these five attributes of goal setting, you are drastically reducing your chances to attain it.

I think my goals are attainable but only with rigorous discipline, and lately I have spread myself too thin among too many activities without discipline. This has created a situation where I’m doing lots of things but doing them all poorly. Apparently I’m not a very good multi-tasker.

I think you are 100% on the money when you say it is time to get BACK TO BASICS. I can definitely make enough time to do everything I have to / want to do and still stay disciplined about my eating, sleeping, exercise, and rest habits… I just have to get disciplined about PLANNING better for all of these things.

THANKS AGAIN and I will definitely rap with you about getting the nutrient timing, recovery meals, and better eating discipline back on track.

Ryan Drobel

January 17th, 2012 at 2:35 pm    


I happened upon your blog and I am intrigued by your posts. I am really happy to see that you are working at achieving your fitness goals. This blog is an inspiration in so many ways to a lot of people. I just wanted to leave a comment to root you on Dan.

It takes a while to develop the right habits, but if you work at it consistently, and really take the time to learn a new lifestyle it will pay off.

Stick with it, be consistent, and don’t give up. And if you do, then it should soon become second nature.

You could even try to get your family involved in the fun. And try to do something fun and active with the whole family once or twice a week. That way you can get a fun workout in that gets everyone involved.

Take it a day at a time and just keep working at it. Rome was not built in a day.

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