Week Fourteen: July 19 - July 25

Firstly, sorry about being a little late this week folks. Well another week has come and gone and so has 2 more pounds. With that 2 pound loss I was able to get down to 220 lbs. In the past 13 weeks I have lost a total of 21.5 pounds. Even though my goal was to get out of the 220's at this point maintaining a loss of 2 pounds per week over a 2 week period has to be considered a success.

Right now I am only 5 pounds away from reaching my final goal of 215 lbs for this 16 week journey. Losing those 5 pounds and reaching my goal will be my only challenge for the remainder of my time in Wabush. There are a few reasons for this. One I can't think of any other challenges for myself, two things are quite busy right now with work and trying to complete my work term report for school and three ultimately this is the only goal that really matters in the end. 215 is not may final goal weight though. It is just my goal for the end of these 16 weeks. My final goal weight is anywhere between 200 and 205. I think the last 10 pounds usually end up being the hardest but I think that because when you get so close to reaching your goal people tend to get complacent and less focused because they can see the light at the end of the tunnel and therefore feel like it will come easier. I am going to try to avoid letting this happen to me. I am hoping to be lean and mean by Christmas for sure. I don't think it should take nearly that long considering I have an amazing school schedule for this fall so I shouldn't have any excuses for not getting my workouts in or for not cooking good meals.

Well that just about outlines what is going to be happening with me for the next 2 weeks. If anyone has a challenge that they would like to suggest I am more than happy to attempt it I just don't have the time to think of them for myself right now.

Thank you all for reading and I will be posting again this weekend. As always your feedback and suggests are more than welcome.

Have a great week,

With will power, dedication and hard work, no goal is unattainable.

Shawn

Week Thirteen: July 12 - July 18

Well another week is over and things are progressing nicely. This week I did as I have been doing for the past few weeks. That is weighing in on both Saturday and Sunday morning and taking the average of those days as my weight loss number. My average weight this week is 222 pounds, meaning I lost 2 pounds this week. That puts me right on track to meet my of getting out of the 220's in two weeks.

Over the last week I had larger lunches and smaller suppers and it seemed to work good. I think my number could have been even better had I played a bit less golf and spent time extra time in the gym. But I guess I can't complain with at least a 2 pound loss. Since last Saturday I played a total of 3.5 rounds of golf which is the equivalent to walking about 20 km.

For the week ahead I will continue to strive to reach the goal I have set for myself. This means business as usual. Watching my meals and getting in some sort of activity daily. Well anyways that's it for this week. Hopefully I will have more good new next weekend. Thanks for reading and have a healthy week.

With will power, dedication and hard work, no goal is unattainable

Shawn

Weeks Eleven & Twelve: July 3 - July 17

So this is a special two week blog. Due to my awesome trip to St. John's I did not have time to write a blog last week and also I did not have my usual scale to weigh on it would have resulted in inconsistant measurements. As of this weekend I lost 1 pound over the last two weeks. While this is not a great number I am ok with it. While in St. John's I obviously did not stick with my usual diet or exercise plan so these kind of results were expected. But now things can get back on track for the next 6 weeks.

Two weeks ago I started a challenge to weight train 10 times in 14 days. I was not able to successfully complete this challenge. In 2 weeks I weight trained 8 times. I would have completed the final 2 weight training days this weekend but I was able to play in 2 all day golf tournaments so the weight training got pushed to the side. Anyways I don't think the weight training on it own was enough to get really good results. Another reason I think I only lost one pound in 2 weeks. I am now going back to a more balanced mix of cardio and weight training.

My next 2 week challenge will be to get out of the 220's. Right now I am 224 and In two weeks my goal is to lose more than 4 pounds. It is a seemingly simple thing to say but 2 pounds per weeks is above my usual average so it will take lot of control of my diet and training. I think this goal will be a good way to get back on track with my weight loss and will get me closer to my end goal for this blog of 215 pounds by the end of 16 weeks.

Well that is the plan for the next two weeks. I will be back next weekend with a new update.

Thanks for reading.

Shawn

With will power, dedication and hard work, no goal is unattainable

Week Ten: June 26 - July 3

Well it is hard to believe but when this week ends so will the month of June. I started this whole thing on May 3rd so I will be exactly two months in to this thing. This past week things got back on things got back on track and I lost 1.5 pounds. I am now weighing in at 225.

During the past 2 weeks I completed a challenge of doing a total of 40 kms of exercise. It took me up until the last day to get in that last 3 km but I completed the challenge. A breakdown of all the exercise I did to reach 40 km can be seen in the chart below.

Date	Activity	Distance (km)
June 12	18 holes of golf	5.58
June 13	18 holes of golf	5.58
June 15	Swimming	1.27
June 16	9 hole of golf	2.84
June 17	Swimming	1
June 17	Jogging	5.05
June 20	Swimming	1.32
June 21	18 holes of golf	5.58
June 22	Swimming	1
June 23	9 hole of golf	2.74
June 25	Running	5.14
June 26	Running	3.02
Total		40.12

The new challenge for the next two weeks is a physical one. Over the next 2 weeks I am going to weight train 10 times. Usually I would weight train about 3 times per week so striving for 10 times is a little extra challenging and should hopefully result in some good weight loss numbers.

Well that is it for this week. I am heading to St. John's this wednesday so hopefully that will not throw me too far off track. I am still planning on getting in all of my work outs and will be careful when making my food selections so we will see how things go.

Have a good week and until next week,

With will power, dedication and hard work, no goal is unattainable

Shawn

Week Eight: June 19 - June 26

After a very good week last week as I expected this week was relatively mediocre with a 1 pound lost. I am now weighing in at 226.5. I expected to have a down week this week but I know it was going to be lower than usual when I found out I had a softball tournament all weekend. While playing 2 games of softball per day for 3 days is better than nothing it is not enough to burn serious calories. Also over the past week I didn't have a great diet. Because a lot of the meals I had didn't have left overs for lunch the next day my lunches for the week were not as high in quality as they would usually be.

The 40 km of exercise challenge has been coming along pretty good. As of today I have a total of 29.22 km completed with 4 days left. If I play golf tomorrow and go for a couple more runs this week I should get my 40 km without too much trouble. It is not time to start thinking of another challenge to begin this coming saturday. Maybe a 2 week weight loss goal is in the plans. Next wednesday I am going to St. John's for the weekend so that is a challenge in its own. It is going to be hard to have a good week when taking a trip but I live in St. John's so I am going to have to learn how to do when I am doing in Labrador in St. John's or in that case anywhere.

Well that's about it for this week. Gonna be a quick turn around on the blog this week so there will be another update in a few days. I am going to try to get back to posting on saturdays so that the blog is as up to date a possible.

Have a good week everyone and as usual feedback is encouraged by all.

Thank for reading and remember:

With will power, dedication and hard work, no goal is unattainable

Shawn

Week Seven: June 12 to June 19

This past week was one of the best ones in a while. I weighed in on saturday morning before heading off to the golf course and I had lost 3 pounds this week and weigh 227.5. I now have lost a total of 14 pounds. That puts me at about half way to my end goal of 30 pounds with less than half of my time gone. So thus far I have been able to keep a good pace.

Over the past 7 days I have been doing something active for 6 of them. This past weekend was especially busy. I played 18 holes of golf on both saturday and sunday as well as doing some good old manuel labour clearing some brush off of a plot of land. There is nothing like working in the sun to burn up some calories.

The water only 2 week challenge is now over and I must say all said and done it was quite successful. Now for a new challenge I had a hard time coming up with one this week. I wanted to do something physical as opposed to the norm of having a diet related challenge. I am thinking that over the next 2 week I am going to try to do 40 km worth of exercise. This would include my golf, swimming and running. For running my Nike + Ipod to track my Kms, for swimming I will just simply count the laps (44 laps in the pool here is 1 Km), and for golf I will total the yards of all the holds and convert it to Km and that will count as my Km for golf. Workouts in the gym will not contribute to the Km total. So as of right now I have 2 rounds of golf under my belt for the next 2 weeks.

Well I guess now that the challenge is set for the next 2 weeks I better get to it. Please feel free to provide me with some feedback.

Have a great week and remember:

With will power, dedication and hard work, no goal is unattainable

Shawn

Week 6: June 5 to June 12

Well another week is in the books and I am 1.5 pounds lighter. It was not exactly the kind of week I was hoping for but I will take it. I would liked to have made it into the 220's but I missed it by half of a pound. I am currently sitting at 230.5 down 11 in total from my original starting point.

I am now in the middle of my "no calories from beverages" challenge and I have to say it has been very difficult. I had been in the habit of having tea in the mornings at work to get me awake and because I usually have creamer in the tea I had to give it up for this past week and the next. The first few days were horrible. I had headaches all the time, my face broke out for the first time in forever. The only drastic change I can contribute this to is this challenge. Aside from the physical effects it is mentally difficult as well. I thought not drinking soda was socially awkward but not drinking anything but water is even worse. I don't know how many times I reached into the fridge during the first couple days and pulled out the carton of milk or bottle of juice before realizing what I was doing. Another thing is that not all foods go good with water. Having water with my breakfast is not the best but I guess I can handle it for one more week. Despite how difficult this challenge has been I have still gotten something from it. I will not be drinking as much juices and what not after this if over. If I am just thirsty and not eating anything there is no reason to waste calories on a glass of juice or milk when water will do the job just fine. Even when eating meals I think I will still try to substitute and have water whenever possible.

This time next week I will be starting a new challenge and like always I am open to any suggestions. I think the next challenge should be something physical since all of the challenges to date have been diet related. So if you would like to suggest a two week challenge to me or submit any feedback in general please do so. You can leave a comment at the bottom of the blog, message me on Facebook or twitter @shawn_green. No one has made a suggestion in a while so I hope you are all still reading. Have a good week.

With will power, dedication and hard work, no goal is unattainable.

Shawn