Coach Check In: Week 17 of 12

I kind of messed up my blog schedule (and by messed up, I mean I haven’t been writing…oops!). The last update was week 9… and now it’s week 17.

My bad, guys.

Not MUCH has changed since that week 9 check in, except that I’m down an additional 7 pounds. That brought the total weight loss down to 39 pounds in 12 weeks. That also brings the grand total of weight loss to 59 total pounds since January. 7 months of tracking my food consistently, hitting my macros, and not sabotaging my progress with binge eating nights/days/weekends like I used to before.

In the last post, talked a little bit about the things I learned over the course of the 9 weeks. I’d like to expand on some of those things, as well as talk about some new ones. It’s been a pretty fantastic journey for me, and I want to share some of it with you.

I still hate being called skinny. Haaaaaaaaate it. And as I lost more weight, the more that lovely little adjective continued to be thrown my way. I’m doing better about handling it, though. I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t bother me at all, but I’m also in a more sound place mentally after this entire journey. I’m extremely proud of the work I have put in. I’m proud of saying no to my scumbag brain so many times (my brain always tell me pizza is fine for every meal), and I’m proud that I stayed diligent with my weighing and measuring even when I just wanted to eye-ball my measurements (this is a path to failure). 

I’m just pretty damn proud. I feel great.

So you can call me skinny… I’ll just smile and say, “Thanks. I worked really hard.”

I definitely want to put weight back on. The weight loss took me 7 months, but I’m fairly certain I could put back on at least half of it in half the time if I really wanted to (I would just go back to eating exactly how I did before.)… but that would put me right back to where I was 17 weeks ago. Unhappy, heavy, slow, and not at a passable level of fitness for me.

Ugh.

I’ve talked with my coach multiple times about putting the weight back on, and every time Josh says, “This is the slow part of it all. This will take time.” I’m not exactly sure how long it’s going to take to put on 15-20 pounds of muscle (YEARS. IT’S GOING TO TAKE YEARS), but it is probably going to take much longer than 17 weeks. I’m ok with that. I’ve got a long life to live, and instead of trying to do something that’s going to get me there as fast as possible, I want to try and reach my goals by doing things the RIGHT way that will lead to sustainable changes. I’ll get back to 210-215 and hopefully stay as lean as I am now… but it’s going to take some time, patience, fluctuations (gaining and losing through multiple cycles), and some hard work. 

“Balance” has been an interesting word/concept that has come up lately around this whole nutrition and tracking game. What many folks are getting at is they want to track nutrition most of the time, but still have the “balance” to throw down a cheat meal and bask in the glory of instant gratification. I’m cool with that, as long as these people understand and own the fact that this “balance” is going to slow down their goals. Not ruin progress, not destroy weeks of hard work, no no. But it will definitely slow the process down. What you could have accomplished in 12 weeks might now be 14-16 weeks. If your “balance” is going to be a weekly occurrence, your 12 might turn to 24. Balancing your tracking with non-track meals is ok, but you’ve got to EARN it, and earning it takes a long time.

Fun fact: I thought you could balance eating well during the week with completely blowing off your nutrition on the weekends… and then I weighed in at 250 pounds and felt miserable.

My first 12 weeks tracking my nutrition on my own were FULL of “balance.” I’d balance some beers every night. I’d balance some no-track pizza nights. I’d balance over-eating delicious food rather than having the discipline to eat my portion and call it good from there. If you haven’t picked up on it by now, the word “balance” can be substituted for the word “cheat” or “indulge” or “lazy” or “holy crap dude you really don’t need that extra food what the hell are you doing? You’re getting a second beer? SERIOUSLY?!”

The result? Yeah, I lost some weight, but I didn’t lose as much as I could have, and I definitely didn’t improve as much as I should. It wasn’t until I got hooked up with a coach that I got on the right path. I lost 20 pounds on my own, but I lost 38 pounds with my coach. I lost 38 when I cut the balance and committed myself to the program and getting better. Yes, balance in your life can be important to you, but we have to recognize when we actually need balance, and when we need to be pretty strict with ourselves.

This isn’t aimed at anyone. It’s actually more me being extremely frustrated with myself and my old habits… but we learn, and we move on. What helped me learn the most was admitting that I didn’t know as much as I needed to in order to make a change. Then I took action. I latched onto great coaching and learned more about properly fueling the human body in the past 17 weeks than I had in the past 8 years in the fitness industry. Pretty cool stuff.

I hope to see more people take action with their health. It’s important. Like, life and death important. So many people seem to not grasp this as deeply as they should.

If you need any help, please let me know. If I can’t help you, I know someone who can.

-Clark Hibbs

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