Today I have an update for you on my personal weight loss and fitness progress after giving you my plan and a purpose outline a week ago on January 1, 2008.

Last Tuesday, the 1st, I weighed 163 pounds and my inches totaled 294.25. Today, my stats are:

• Weight – 159
• Inches – 287.375

That’s a loss of 4 pounds and 6.875 inches! I have to say that I’m happy with my start to the New Year. My challenge is to keep up my motivation and continue on the healthy path that I’m on. 😉

How did I do this? I followed the Six Week Body Makeover plan by Michael Thurmond, my healthy plan of choice. This means that I don’t eat boxed, bagged, ready-made processed foods, which further means that I’m off the refined sugar, flour, unhealthy fats, dairy, and all of that added sodium you’ll find in processed foods. I cook up my meals for the week in bulk, usually on the weekend, and then I use portion control per the plan to dole out my meals. I also drink at least 100oz of water per day. I can’t give you all of the specifics of the plan because then I’d be in violation of their copyright, but that’s basically what it’s about.

Oh, and you do exercise but don’t spend hours in the gym “killing yourself”. For example, here’s what my exercise routine was last week:

• Cardio – 5 sessions of paced walking on treadmill, 30 minutes each (I only do one per day, so that’s 5 days a week that I’m walking).
• Strength training – 2 sessions of body sculpting exercises using resistance bands that came with my Six Week Body Makeover kit. Each session takes me 20 – 30 minutes and I only do one in a given day.

That’s the extent of my workouts last week (I went skiing also but that doesn’t count as cardio, even though it is a workout depending on conditions). I love working out at home and I can easily pack my resistance bands if I go out of town, and I can always walk anywhere.

Now I did expect to lose more than 4 pounds this week, however there were 2 times that I did not follow the plan exactly: I has 2 Lärabars on Saturday night (not the best for me because they are quite sweet, but better than candy, and they don’t have any extra ingredients), and Monday night I used a small amount of cream in my coffee. Doesn’t sound like much a deviation you say? Well everything little thing you eat adds up, and your body is either going to use the food you eat for fuel or it’s going to store it as fat for future use.

As it is, if you want to get the excess fat off of your body in a healthy and quick manner, all you need to do is stick to the Six Week Body Makeover plan as it’s written. It’s whenever you deviate from it that you will not get optimal results.

What’s important to me today is that I made excellent progress last week and I stuck to the plan and stayed off of processed food 98% of the time. My goals for this week are to do 5 days of cardio, 30 minutes each like I did last week, 2 sculpting sessions, and stick to my clean eating plan.

I’ll give you another update next Monday, which will be one day short of a week but I’ll be starting an online weight loss support group and we weigh in on Mondays. I only want to weigh myself once a week, so it will work out better to give you updates here at Fearless Fat Loss on Mondays, also.