Yesterday marked the end of week #10 of the Transformation Challenge. Week # 10 brought some new challenges. First, I had to prepare to present a two hour class on leadership in addition to my already busy schedule. Additionally, Friday and Saturday brought a men’s retreat out of town, where I had to conduct my class. During the week, I was up late every night preparing for the class and probably averaged four hours of sleep per night all week, so I was pretty fatigued all week, but I knew my schedule would be tough, so I re-arranged my normal routine so I could get all my workouts in for the week. Even though I was fatigued, I managed to hit all my workouts as planned. I bumped up the cardio to one hour per day and I continued to hit the weights intensely. Since week #6, I have been hitting the same muscle groups on the same days and keeping the sets/reps at 4x8-12, but I have been changing up the exercises weekly to keep the body guessing and prevent adaptation, which seems to be working well.

On the diet front, the men’s retreat provided a challenge with the diet. There was about every type of junk food that exists. I simply prepared my food ahead of time and packed it up there. I managed to get through the retreat without eating a bite of junk food….that’s definitely a win for me. During week #10 I dropped my calories down to 2200 and changed my ratios to 60% protein, 20% carbs and 20% fat, which seemed to work well. The previous week, I only dropped .5 pounds, but this week I dropped three pounds. I am currently sitting at 204.5, which is .5 pounds beyond my original goal of 205. However, after the first couple of weeks on the challenge, I adjusted my goal to 200 pounds based upon my initial progress. So I have 4.5 pounds to go in 2 weeks, which is doable. I am not sure I will be able to hit 6% bodyfat by the end of the challenge, but that will be OK, since I will continue on until I get below 6%. I don’t want to lose too fast and really tap into the muscle. Week #11 will bring another challenge. We are going out of town for the better part of the week, so meal planning/preparation will be the key for this week. I am looking forward to working out at some higher-end gyms. My gym is old school, which I like, but a change of scenery will be nice. It’s crunch time now in the final two weeks. I plan to keep hitting it hard and I will be monitoring my weight closely. If the early part of the week doesn’t bring weight loss, I will be adjusting my diet and bumping my cardio up again. I am shooting for a 2 pound loss this week, which will leave me with 2.5 lbs the final week. I hope everybody has an awesome week….train insane and destroy obstacles.