Fitness Goals for the New Year

 What I learned last year.

I turned 41. I learned that my body can get stronger and do more exercise than ever before, but I will pay a price if I don't rest enough. I enjoy my workouts. I enjoy training 5 days a week, and I love kettlebells. I often did 5 days of kettlebells per week if I was feeling good. I learned that if I train hard 5 days a week, my body won't recover ,and I'll gain weight from it. I'm stronger and fitter than I've probably ever been, but I gained 10 lbs this year and my waist is bigger. Geoff Neupert helped me understand what was going on because he focuses on helping 40-50 year old men. He said that this is normal, so you have to cut down on the workouts. 

I thought it was the food that I ate, so I cut out cheese and peanut butter and limited portions. None of that worked.

I enjoyed the workouts from Pat Flynn's book Strong On!, but those workouts don't work for my body anymore. The reps and stress were just too high for my 41 year-old body.

My goal was to do 200 workouts this year. I'll probably do 189 because I stopped training 5 days per week. I now do 3 or 4.

What I'm doing next year.

My goal is to workout 150 times.

I went back to my training log to what I did when I was at my recent thinnest-- May 2023. I'll do 3 strength workouts per week and do sprints one day per week. On other days, I'll just walk, rest, or take an easy bike ride. I started this plan a few weeks ago and my body is already doing better. I found that my body can tolerate peanut butter and cheese if I'm not overtraining.

This allows me to use all the exercises that I enjoy and the equipment that I like such as kettlebells, fan bike, sandbag, suspension straps, and ab wheel. It also keeps me fresher and hopefully will help me lose a little of what I gained over the last 2 years.