I know how my body usually reacts to a week-end like that, but it surprised me this morning. I do believe my body is turning into a fat-burning machine. It finally “gets” what I want it do!

Here are my starting measurements, plus last week’s and this morning’s weigh-in:
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As for my fat loss goal, it’s harder to lose the fat as you get lower down in body fat. I’m assuming I may not be able to achieve a .5% average of body fat percentage loss per week, so I’m going to be a bit conservative in my goal. But I could be wrong and make my way down even further!

So, without further ado, my fat loss goals and starting measurements for this 9 week challenge:
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Some of you may note, I’m calling it a “fat loss” challenge. I know a lot of people focus on weight, but, to me, it’s all about losing body fat. I don’t want to lose weight, if it means losing muscle. But I’ll kiss that fat good-bye without a second thought!
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So, first things first: I didn’t quite make my body fat percentage goal. My goal was 18.27% and I ended up at 18.80%. I’m off by half a percent… but I’ll take it! Ha!

I didn’t re-read my original goals daily, which I know would have helped even more. Amazingly enough, the daily soy does seem to have helped my hot flashes; I am drinking more water. But I haven’t been taking my omega-3 pills — although I do eat salmon once or twice a week, so that’s good.

What I’m most happy about is regaining the strength I lost when I broke my wrist back in December. I’ve been weight training 3 times a week (the majority of time) and doing my Cardio Coach twice a week. That has paid off in spades! My body is so much stronger than it was 12 weeks ago! Quite the difference!

Here are the final stats for these past two weeks (including pics):
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Here are my stats for the end of Week 11 (beginning with my starting measurements):
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I was pretty sure that my carb-overload weekend threw off my Week 9 weigh-in and measurements last Monday — and I was right. I weighed myself and took some measurements mid-week, on Thursday, and couldn’t believe the results. It’s as if my body had shifted gears! I went from 139.6lbs (63.3kg) on the Monday down to 137.4lbs (62.3kg) on Thursday. Body fat % went from 20.8% to 19.30%!

This week’s measurements saw even more of a drop. The interesting thing is that my tape measurements aren’t moving too much. I’m hoping this is due to some muscle gain — I’m definitely much stronger than when I started this challenge back in July!

Here are my stats for the end of Week 10 (beginning with my starting measurements):
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I had weighed myself for fun during the week and know I was doing well. My weekend bad habits (temporarily) ruined that! It’s not that I ate a ton of pasta and gained tons of fat, but some overeating — especially when it comes to pasta — just causes me to gain weight that usually goes away after a couple of days, as long as I get back to my good eating habits!

(Just a quick aside: has anybody tried Miracle Noodles? I became an affiliate and just ordered the angel hair noodles. It’s a zero-calorie substitute for pasta (pure fiber). I’ll let you know how it tastes!)

I knew my Monday weigh-in wouldn’t be great… and I was right!
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Putting aside the fat gain/lean body mass loss, I’m feeling pretty good! My injuries/soreness are getting better and this morning I started Stage 2 of New Rules of Lifting. It was great to start some new exercises — and a lot of them are more difficult variations of the ones I’ve been doing. If you’ve been using the same workout routines for awhile, you need to SHAKE THINGS UP! Not just because of exercise boredom, but also because your body adapts to what you’ve been doing.

One example of change: I was doing regular squats, but now I’m doing front squats. Love em! Another examples is instead of regular lunges, I’m doing a lunge with my rear foot slightly elevated. You wouldn’t think it would make much of a difference… but it does!

Here’s my end of Week 8 measurements:

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