Note: If you want to read more about the challenge kickoff, check out the Xbox Fitness Challenge Kickoff post.
Now I know why people choose to start exercise and diet changes as New Year’s resolutions instead of kicking it off in November. I absolutely don’t want to make excuses, but here are the “challenges” that I faced sticking with my plan for November:
- The change of season means coming down with my annual cold, which sapped some of my stamina and put a big damper on my motivation to work out.
- I underestimated the number of days I would be out of town during the month. Being out of town 2 days for a business trip and 4 days for Thanksgiving might not seem like much, but it’s 20% of the days I had to work with in the month.
- My wife was out of town for 2 weeks, which sounds like a great opportunity for fitting in more workouts. Unfortunately, it also meant a lot more time spent prepping lunches for the kids and doing laundry and dishes.
- My diet was obviously a disaster with not just one, but two Thanksgiving dinners, along with at least a week’s worth of leftovers. So much mashed potatoes.
So how did I do versus my goals?
- Fitness Points: My goal was 1.5 million fitness points. I gained a little over 1 million. More importantly, Andrew gained on me by roughly 300k fitness points to trim my lead. As of December 1st, I have 11,784,527 FP and Andrew has 9,585,970 for a lead of 2,198,557 for me.
- Stamps: My goal was 130.5 stamps and I gained 134 for a slim win to keep me on pace.
- Body Metrics:
- Weight: 189 pounds for a loss of 3 pounds over the month.
- Body Fat: 19.6% for a loss of 0.6 percentage points over the month.
- Muscle Mass: 37.7%, unchanged from the previous month.
However, there’s a potentially problematic development. When I started the challenge, it was under the assumption that I had until July 1st, 2017 to complete it. Recently, though, I discovered that it’s possible the majority of Xbox Fitness functionality might be shutting down on December 15th, 2016. If that were the case, then the challenge would be facing an early end. As a result, I’ve added an extra stretch goal for myself. I’m currently on Fitness Card 44 and there’s an achievement for getting to card 50. I’m challenging myself to reach that goal before the (potential) December 15th end date. That’s over 100 stamps in about a week, a pace 3-4 times greater than my previous pace. Will I hit that audacious goal? Will the challenge end in December or carry on into the new year? Check back to find out!
