Gobsmacked
I have to admit, I was kinda down about this month’s results on the scale — a big ol’ goose-egg. It seems like I’ll never get to the 100 pound loss mark let alone any of my other lofty milestones and goals. I found myself dragging my heels writing this post, finding every “busy” excuse in the book.
But, ya know what? That’s okay. We saw this coming. We were ready.
One of the galvanizing forces for me is Nathan Womack’s change mantra:
Measurement leads to Reporting
Reporting leads to Visibility
Visibility leads to Focus
Focus leads to Change
But, the dark side of using measurement this way is that it can limit your thinking. It can box you in. It can trick you into gaming the system. What if you’re measuring the wrong thing? What if it’s arbitrary and meaningless without the correct context?
It’s far too easy to confuse Critical Success Factors (CSFs) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Thinking laterally, this is not materially different from strategic goal setting. If you haven’t seen this yet, Simon Sinek’s “Start With Why” talk is insightful.
Anyway, back the topic at hand. Last month, I decided to re-examine what I was measuring. I was becoming concerned that the singular metric of body mass would prove demotivating if my weight-loss rate was traded for some other physiological change. I took some key measurements (neck, waist, navel and hips) to estimate body volume that, along with weight, height and gender, could be used to formulate my percentage body fat.
As of today:
- Weight: 237 lbs
- Neck: 16"
- Waist: 40"
- Navel: 42"
- Hips: 44"
- Body Fat: 31.97%
Since the start of last month, that minus 8 inches and a 2.47% body fat reduction. And yet, zero-change on the scale. Gobsmacked.
So what happened? What’s different? I suspect it was all those monkey-fightin’ burpees I did last month. Yes, I did all 435 burpees. Achievement Unlocked.
This month’s challenge is related. I’ll use the same sequence for crunches as I did with the burpees. One abdominal crunch for each calendar day in sets of up to 10. I’ll break up the sets of crunches with sets of burpees.
So today, it’s 10 burpees, 4 crunches, 10 burpees, 10 burpees. On Christmas morning, it’ll be 10 burpees, 10 crunches, 10 burpees, 10 crunches, 10 burpees, 5 crunches. Then I’ll eat an entire turkey.
All other Primal Blueprint tenets still apply.
Photo by lissalou66
