January 2024 Challenge
Make the change!
It’s time if you’ve been putting it off; if you’ve tried and failed many times - give yourself a chance at a better life.
I’ve already described how to count calories and how to determine your fat-burning heart rate zone. Let’s see how you can use this information.
First, let’s take the simple rules I built (and still build) my lifestyle change on: try it; analyze it; if it works, adopt it; and start over.
I think you decide which one you choose:
- OR you shoot for your daily calorie intake and try to stick to it for two weeks; if it’s sustainable, you adopt it. If it’s not sustainable because of hunger, then you increase 100-200 calories and try again - that’s January ticked off.
- OR you choose to exercise and try to burn 2000 active calories a week in your fat-burning range. If you can’t fit exercise into your schedule for even two weeks, you should count calories in the second half of January instead.
IMPORTANT! Choose one at a time. If you do it all at once, you’re more likely to fail and may not even know what you’ve done wrong.
You can track your calories on paper, on the myfitnesspal website, or on a mobile app. But on mobile, you can also try yazio.
Accumulating active calories is another matter. Consider looking at the app for your heart rate watch. If you have a Xiaomi Smart Band, the Zepp Lite app will be your friend; if you have a Garmin watch, Garmin Connect; and if you have an Apple Watch, Apple Health. Etc.
I also definitely recommend measuring your weight: I measure my weight every morning, after coffee and after defecation. Our scale is digital and smart; it’s not always accurate the first time, and I stand on it at least twice because of it. I’ve gone off the scale if it reads the same twice in a row. If not, I step on it again (or several times) until I have at least two of the same value. Everyone has a little compulsion, and I have rules about using the scale.
And where do you record these values? I made a Google spreadsheet where you can enter your weight, active calories and calories consumed each day. You can make a copy for yourself at this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aWERCrgoQ3Zpjz-7ycrYz04KBuQC1p9XyXsA5OgWZp8/copy which you can later find at https://drive.google.com/drive/home. Importantly, when you make a copy, that spreadsheet will be yours and not shared with anyone else. I will also not be notified if someone copies my spreadsheet - feel free to use it; you don’t have to worry about anyone else looking at your data. You can create a new spreadsheet for yourself as many times as you press the button - just press it once.
The spreadsheet has two sheets, the first for entering data and the second for graphing your results. Speaking of data, the Google spreadsheet has decimal points, not decimal commas.
I will also keep a spreadsheet, you can find mine here (you can’t edit this one): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_Mf3InIGH8bbJEBbQas9IPDoF0LWkMguxKR93ifdyjE/edit?usp=sharing.
Go for it!