So after writing about something a little more personal, I’m going to continue talking about data driven fitness!
So, after finding out my actual statistics from the DEXA scan and not making the progress I want, I tried to go back to the drawing board.
Look at the data, look at the target, set realistic goals.
SO I’m going to stick to a routine that’s:
- Easy to do in a crowded gym - It’s hitting summer now and peak times at the gym equipment is pretty sparse. Something that avoided the super busy squat rack and bench would be nice.
- Something I can do at home in a pinch - Sometimes I’m tired, sometimes I’m working, sometimes I’m traveling the next day. Hell, sometimes it’s raining and I don’t want to leave the house!
- Something that is both a cardio and weight workout. Cardio is great, but it’s an easy way to accidentally lose muscle if you’re not careful. The same way lifting weights is great, but it’s hard to use it to burn calories. A super intense deadlifting session is short spurts of effort, and it’s estimated to only burn around 150-200 calories.
- Something super simple - I like the term dedicated but lazy, it’s basically how I do most of my work. I want something that’s easy to setup, but I can keep at without having to tweak to much.
- Easy to track progress - Something where I can see a number go up or down. With any deadline you need acceptance criteria. Weight and body fat is one thing, but that moves slowly and is hard to accurately measure. So being able to see the progress I’m making in the
So I went to the data. Looking back over my weight loss for the last two years, the most I lost consistently was when I was doing a kettlebell routine:
