I've decided to join Leigh Peele's 30 Day Challenge and am creating this journal to track my progress. I've been following her OPT program for a couple of weeks already and started listening to her advice and fat loss recomendations about a month and a half ago.
GOAL: The biggest thing driving me at this point is my desire to be a pro cheerleader/dancer. I feel a bit silly admitting it, but that is truly my biggest ambition at this point in my life. I have been a part of a university-level dance team and a dance team for a semi-pro basketball team and really enjoyed both. I know that to make a team I am going to have to be able to wear the tiny uniforms and make them look good. If anyone has any experience in this with professional sports dance or cheerleading teams I would love to hear from you.
Right now I want to focus on fat loss and, once my body fat is low enough, bump up my calories to maintenance and hit the training harder. I've previously tried to work on losing fat and building up my strength/fitness level at the same time and seemed to burn out before I could make much progress.
I'm thinking about 5 lbs of fat loss would be great, but this is just a guess and I am not hung up about the numbers on the scale. What I care most about is the "look" of my body and my measurements.
TRAINING: I will be following the OPT strength program from Leigh for 3-4 sessions/week and attending about 3-4 dance classes a week (1 hour to 2 hours each). I may add in some HIIT training if I have the energy or time, but this will be low priority to me until I get the fat off.
PICTURES
Current pictures- These were taken earlier today
. If you compare them to the pictures below I think you can see that I have already made some progress (although the fact that I am a bit tanner in the more recent pictures may have helped
)
Older pictures- These were taken at the beginning of September
STATS
Age:26
Weight: 115
Height: 5′6″
Neck: 12″
Arm: 9.5″
Bust: 32″
Under Bust: 28″
Waist: 26″
Stomach (bellybutton): 30″
Hip: 33″
Thigh: 19.5″
Calf: 12″
ABOUT ME: I am in a pretty big transition time in my life and have had several major life changes occur recently.
-New Job: I changed jobs in August and moved to a new city as a result (about 2 hrs from previous residence). This job is waaay better than my previous one. I am basically a school counselor at two elementary schools and I love interacting with the kids.
-Boyfriend Deployed: My boyfriend was deployed to Iraq in September. He will be gone for about a year. This has been tough on me emotionally. The only good thing that has come as a result is that I have more free time to focus on my goals and I do not eat out as often now that he is not around.
-Social Support: My social support network is limited as a result of moving to the new area. My parents also live in the city I moved away from, so that has been a bit hard as they are an important part of my life. This may sound awful, but I have become pretty picky about who I choose to associate with outside of work. I've realized I am just much happier when I spend time with positive people who have a similar outlook on life and who have similar interests.
I feel like I wrote way too much; once I get going it's hard to stop me!
In closing, I just want to say that I am totally open to feedback and would be happy to hear suggestions from others on how to improve my progress. Thanks for taking the time to read this!