1 day until the 4 week cardio challenge

September was a Wolverine month with 5 strength/weight  trainings a week, but October will be a cardio month to get better results with the fat % and body measurements. I currently have 3 main problem areas: stomach (hardest to lose), thighs, booty. Just to make sure - no, I am after a big booty to shake, but just to get it in a better shape and state.

The routine for next four weeks:
1 hour cardio at 150-160 heart rate 5 days a week, Monday to Friday in the evenings
No more muffin top routine 5 days a week, Monday to Friday in the mornings

I will not add a Tabata routine in October, but we will revisit the idea again in November.

Starting weight: 55,3 kg
Height: 161,5 cm
Age: 28
Gender: Female
Eating: 1500 kcal per day, 7 days a week

Today I bought a pair of pants, size 36, that I almost fit in - I usually do not buy clothes that are right for my size, but whit these pants I made an exception as I will fit into them by the end of these 4 weeks.

I will take a picture tomorrow morning and take down some measurements as well (waist, hip, thighs)

My Journey: 10 pounds in a Year and 4 pounds to go

My weight loss journey: One Year overview

On the 18th September 2013 I weighed 59,1 kg and on the 18th September 2014 I weighed 55,0 kg.

The goal: 53 kg (117 pounds)

Background

I was a healthy child with a healthy weight. I started to have some weight problems in my teenage years as I was diagnosed at the age of 12 with a cyst in my left leg and I was banned from participating in the P.E. classes and e.g. was not advised to roller skate (which I still have not done even though I received the operation in 2003 and do not have any problems any longer). The heaviest I have ever been, around 70 kg (150 pounds), was in 2004, after I had to stay home for months with my recovering leg - in that summer I lost a lot of weight as well as I went from having to stay in bed for days and days to being able to cycle every day (by the end of the summer I was back to around 60 kg). I have been trying to get the weight down for a long time, but I believe to achieve my dream physical condition by my 30 birthday (1,5 year to go). 

It might not seem I have never been that overweight, but it still got me down for years as being in the same class with girls, who are actually even underweight I do understand now, was hard. Especially as it was the teenage years when appearance is more important than later in your life. And I do see what it is to be more overweight as well - my mother, same height as me, a little bit older, weighed 210 pounds. I remember I have wished my mother to lose weight for years and years, but it never happened - I think it has to come from the inside so she never had that moment. Luckily, for her and for everyone around her, she has finally started to lose some weight, but I am not 100% yet if she understands why it is important. She had high blood pressure, high cholesterol (doctor described pills for both problems), early signs of arthritis - this has always been the reason why I want her to lose weight and doctor allowed her to stop with the pills by now, so losing just 22 pounds helped. 

About me:

Gender: Female

Height: 161,5 cm (5 ft 3) 

Age: 28 

Blood pressure: 60/100

Cholesterol: HLD 1,7; overall 5,1-5,4

What have I done  between September 2013 and September 2014?

• I started to play tennis twice a week in October 2013 - I joined a tennis school and as it is quite expensive and I did like as well, I did not skip the lessons and that helped a lot as usually in the wintertime it is harder to keep the exercise routine going (tennis school had a break in Summer 2014 and started again in September 2014, but now I go there once a week)
• I did the Bony to Beastly phase 1 training in April 2014 - the routine has 3 different routines per week + had tennis twice a week as well 
• I had 5-6 training sessions per week in May 2014 - 3x swimming, 2x tennis, 1x gym (weight training)
• In March, I started to keep a food journal - I have done this before as well and my eating plan was pretty clean (I stopped eating sweets (no candy, chocolate, ice cream...) & junk, white bread and products based on white flour (no pies, pizzas, cookies, cakes) in September 2008 and do not eat potatoes nor do not use oil for frying - have a good pan instead where nothing sticks), but I guess now it became even cleaner
• In August, starting do 
• In September 2014, started the Hugh Jackman Wolverine workout plan and have completed 2,5 weeks by now (5 x a week weight training) 

The weight is coming off slowly, so hopefully it will stay off as well. I weight myself every morning (some might advise me to visit me a psychiatrist because of this, but it is just a habit and allows me to track the changes already at the very beginning and adjust my training and eating accordingly). 

Future plans to lose the last 4 pounds:

• I will have a cardio month in October and the aim is to have 5 cardio sessions a week, Monday to Friday. I will try the cardio at 85% from the maximum heart rate which is 157 in my case. Each session will be for 1 hour - one of them will be 1 hour of tennis, other four - probably will try cycling or ellipse training and intervals/HIIT. 
• Eating plan: I have to change my dinner for a lower carbs option so might just switch the pre-workout meal with the after workout meal

This is my current eating plan:

Breakfast: oatmeal (45 g of grains) + a fruit (e.g. half a banana)/berries (usually blackberries or blueberries)/home-made jam (low-sugar)

Pre-lunch snack: 300-400 g sliced carrots, 30 g of nuts

Lunch: 100 g chicken, 50 g cottage cheese, beans, salad (tomato, cucumber, spinach, capsicum, no dressing or 5 g of olive oil, sometimes some beetroot as well)

Pre-dinner snack: 1 apple

Pre-workout meal: 50 g chicken, 50 g cottage cheese, beans, salad (tomato, cucumber, spinach, capsicum, no dressing or 5 g olive oil)

After-workout meal/dinner: 300 g curd cream (Estonians know it as kohupiimapasta) with addition of berries or some fruit should I feel like it

As said before, I need to switch the pre-workout and after-workout meals to get less carbs before bed. 

When it comes to drinking calories then that is not a problem - I drink 2 l of water daily, no juice, no milk, sometimes a cup of coffee, but not often and if yes then with a small teaspoon of honey, no sodas (those I stopped drinking when I cut out sugar, sweets & junk in 2008). 

Good luck to me & everyone else on the same road!

P.S. I think I have found my calling in life as well - to help others with weight & training (some need to lose, some need to gain, some need to maintain, some have health-related problems which can be adjusted with food etc). The start of my journey: I started my studies in becoming a nutritionist. 

How...

... to lose body fat
... to lose 5 per cent body fat
... to lose belly fat
... long does it take to lose belly fat

... so many questions and no easy answers or even if the answers are easy then how to action them

I seem to be losing 3 kg with every year - around 9 kg in last 3 years.
Calorie intake per day is 1500 kcal (has been like this since March 2014 for sure, before that - should have been the same, but were not calculating on daily basis).
Workouts - depends: at the moment playing tennis 5-6 times a week, would like to take up weight training again 3 times a week. Do not like running, but cycling - yes, could do.
Fat %: 28? It does not seem to change which is a bit weird, weight has come off a bit.

Where to get to:
Fat %: 20
Weight: no exact number, as long as the fat % is 20. At some point will be probably 53 kg (currently 56 kg)
Target areas: belly (problems with belly fat)+inner thighs

Sports to separate my time with: swimming (was swimming 3 times a week in May), bicycling (where to find time? outdoor and not indoor), tennis (tennis school 2 times a week+extra playing time?), weight training (3 times a week)

Seems that my training schedule for Autumn 2014 will be like this: 1 x swimming, 2x tennis, 3x weight training

But yes, I still would like to know how long does it take to get down to 53 kg and getting rid of the belly fat? Is it going too slow or am I being impatient?

What to try extra to cardio: for abs and for legs

Starting tennis in 20s: The end of first season

To be honest, I played for half a year when I was 13-14 as well - we had a group of 6-8 kids and played either 1 or 2 times a week with a coach, but I stopped - do not remember how and why, but I believe it was either for financial reasons, time schedule or I just did not like it (might have been because of the other members of the group or the coach or my lack of confidence (I felt I was not as good as others etc)). If I could go back in time, then I would tell the younger version of me to keep playing, but to be more realistic what I could learn from it is that I would make sure that my children start to take tennis lessons young, that they have a great coach and a nice co-players and I would hope they like it. 

Now lets get back to the present - I turned 28 one week ago and I am at the end of my first, or to be honest second, season of tennis lessons. How it started again? There are some free tennis courts nearby and I just went to play there for fun last summer, but then I started to like it a lot and I ended up looking for a tennis school for adults, emailing them and joining a group for beginners. I had the first lesson in September 2013 with my coach Andrus in a group of four beginners - I started with one hour lesson once a week, but then ended taking a second lesson a week as well with another coach, Julika. 

At first, it was all a bit overwhelming. There were so many things to remember and to look out for, so many adjustments to be made and I could only concentrate on one change at a time, but after some time (probably 6 months), I saw that my ability to create power was getting much better and that is the thing I see most potential in - if I can get the technique in place and to hitting the ball in a direction I want it to go and within the lines then I believe I have the potential to be good. I have no intention to become a great player - (unfortunately) the lack of funds is the biggest reason, as it is quite expensive - I could make time to have a 2-hours training session each day, but I could not afford it and if I wanted to create more money then I would have less time, but I am happy with 2 sessions a week as well, and with 3-5 years I believe I could be decent already and join the national lowest level league (IV liiga ehk rahvaliiga) and we will see where I can go from there. I will try to go and see the tournament for the lowest level this summer so I would know to what level I have to get to start playing there. 

I will try to be the greatest tennis player version of myself I could be. It takes time, but that is mostly to do with consistency. And in ten years time I will be happy that I started and did not stop. 

A small list of things still to be fixed (actually I need to improve everything, but these are the ones that are currently my top list of improvements):

forehand: following through (löök ühtlaselt lõpuni (nn peale keerata)), keeping the wrist strong (ranne tugevana hoida (vahel pall keerab ka käes reketi ära)), getting into the shot faster (vähem hoogu võtta (üks neist asjadest, mis paraneb ka tugevamate vastastega mängides automaatselt))

backhand: stability and bringing the ball over the net (with forehand the problem is more that it would not go too far)(stabiilsus, palli üles toomine)

serve: I have seen some pretty powerful ones lately, but - the throw needs to be much more consistent, I am sometimes changing the grip turing the serve. Most important: stability (throwing the ball and hitting the ball correctly) and to always hit the second serve

net play: with this, I need much more practice, but I think I need to get the forehand and backhand correct first and then I will concentrate on net play. lendpall (eriti tagakäsi) ja rabak

running (this is something my coach pointed out in the last lesson - I need to go running (sprint). To be honest I have always been bad at sprint, but I never had a reason to improve so I guess now I have it)

We recently changed to clay court as well as the weather has been getting much nicer, but it is still very unusual to play on clay - the ball comes up much higher, but at the same time you need to run much more. I have only had 2 hours on clay so far, so I need to put spend much more time on clay this summer to familiarise myself with it. 

P.S. I received a tennis racquet as a birthday gift 7 days ago, until then I played with the racquets provided by the tennis school - the new racquet is a bit heavier as the ones in school were too light for me anyway, but still need to get used to the new weight, and it is more powerful as well - but overall the feel is really good. I am playing with Yonex EZONE Ai 98 Lite (unstrung weight 289 g). Review for the EZONE Ai 98 is available here http://www.tennis-warehouse.com/Reviews/YAI98/YAI98Review.html 

There will be a 2 months break from tennis school in the summer and then here we go again in September - until then, I will try to go and play as much as possible myself and if someone wants to join then you are welcome!