I’m looking forward to Monday – the next “new beginning”

I’ll admit it – there should be a law against looking forward to Monday Mornings, but I am.  I used to be one of those folks who hated Mondays, but I got over that a number of years ago.  But, this one is a little different.

Now that I’ve figured out what’s wrong with my shoulder, and have a bit of a plan, it’s time to begin the next run of workouts tomorrow morning. The Highland Games at the Great Plains Renaissance Festival served as my goal for 15 weeks.  Now it’s time for a 52 week cycle that’s broken down into a couple of phases.

Phase 1 is PROBABLY going to end up being 30 weeks long, possibly longer.  That’s going to be my tear-down phase, and I try and strip something like 40 pounds of fat off my frame.  And, if I need any motivation to keep going, the picture for this post is a good one.  I’ve still got way too much fat on me (for my tastes, anyways), and I feel like I look a little… well, toadish.  That’s the best way I can describe it.  Some of it is stuff like how my belt has slipped down on my waist, and the kilt hiding part of my legs making me look more center heavy than I usually do.  But, that’s still a pretty good sized gut.

But, it’s also a good sample of progress from my previous workouts.  When I put on my belt (it’s a belt someone cut and put holes in for me), I couldn’t get it to buckle – then I realized that was because the hole I was trying to use had never been used before, nor had the one before it.  I am apparently about two inches smaller around the center than I used to be last faire (actually, last three fairs – that’s how old the belt is.)  I’ve known before that I’ve lost weight – some of my older jeans fit again (some still fit poorly, though, and are still in the drawer awaiting their turn to be deemed worthy), but I tend to sort of forget that in about a week or so.  Being reminded again was nice.  And, while I’ve got too much extra fat in the connective areas of my arms, I can still see the bulge of the bicep and a little of cut on the tricep in the picture – strip that weight off, and 17″ arms will look quite a bit bigger 😉

For a while, this is mainly about calorie control, and sweating.  Neither one am I opposed to.  On Wednesday I’ll restart the “countdown” for my workout posts at 52 (a rough guess, since the Spring Faire date is unknown to me at the moment.)  After I reach my body fat goal, I’ll switch back to stacking on raw muscle (probably for about 22 weeks, if I’m at all close on my guesses for body fat loss) and prep for the 2016 Wichita Highland Games.  Hopefully, without further injuring myself 😉