We’re wrapping up 2025, and instead of working on a Christmas-themed challenge, I’m focusing on an End of Year challenge to help motivate me to finish strong…in every regard.
I would love to hit 2026 in the best shape of my life. However, there’s only so much you can do in 94 days. What can I do in three months to improve my health and physique?
The Initial Goal
Primarily, I want to lose the fat that I’ve collected over the past few years and hit my ideal weight. Of course, I’ll have to change strategies once I near the 210 mark. That’s because I have an easy time putting on muscle mass and don’t want to go below a certain point.
It’s not just about weight loss, though. I’ve lived a very lethargic lifestyle for quite some time and would like to be more physically active. I’m not looking to become a bodybuilder or a fitness influencer on Instagram. I just don’t want my heart to stop, and I want to get away from my computer more often.
That’s why this End of Year challenge is not purely focusing on weight loss. It’s also about improving my level of fitness. I’d love to go golfing without getting wiped out so fast, or perhaps camping and having trouble climbing up a slight hill.
Being physically fit doesn’t mean you have to be able to bench press a car. It’s about sustaining the activities in your life without dropping dead.
With all of that being said, I should be able to lose 41.5 pounds throughout the next 13 weeks and three days of this particular challenge. According to the CDC, you should be able to lose up to two pounds just with a basic diet and exercise plan. However, those who are physically active can lose much more while converting fat into energy.
As I said earlier, though, I won’t know what my ultimate goal weight will be until I lose about 30 more pounds. Then, I’ll change gears to focus on hitting 15% body fat or lower.
What’s the Plan, Man?
The Diet
For the first portion of this challenge, I’m sticking with my Net 600 Calorie Diet. It’s based on burning twice as much as I eat and has worked amazingly well for me in the past. Well, I should say it’s worked when I actually put in the effort to follow it.
Essentially, the more I move, the more I can eat. It pits my calorie burn detected from the Fitbit against the calories I consume in MyFitnessPal. On any given day of being “good,” I will eat about 1700 calories while burning more than 3400.
Once I get closer to 215 to 210 pounds, I’ll have to re-evaluate the diet plan, as I don’t want to be in an extreme deficit for that long. Otherwise, I risk catabolizing muscle mass, which is not what I want to do.
The Net 600 Calorie Diet is for fat burn and is not a sustainable diet plan.
The Exercise
Virtually any physical activity can count toward “exercise.” This includes walking, riding, playing the Oculus, cleaning house, and more. I’ve highlighted the activities I use most in the spreadsheet below, and any other “cardio” activity is recorded as such. For instance, cardio activity at the gym could mean my regular warm-up treadmill walk at 3.8 miles per hour on an incline of 5 degrees or so.
As the temps change and the snow falls, I’ll most likely focus on indoor activities, such as playing the Oculus or using the Bodyblade. Both of these are known to increase my heart rate well over 150 bpm.
The point is to be more active regardless of the physical movement. I spend way too much time tethered to my desk and need the cardiovascular workouts.
The Points
I think the point-based system I had over the summer worked relatively well. My issue was that I was eating way more than I was burning. I was also running out of time to consistently keep the points higher than they were the week before. So, I am changing that up a bit.
For the End of Year fitness challenge, the point system is going to be a steady 5,000 per week for the rest of the year. These are based on numerical values that I’ve given for weight lifting, walking, playing the Oculus, and more. Essentially, the more active I am, the more points I make.
I am usually incredibly busy on most days, so getting those 5,000 points is going to be quite difficult.
More Sleep
I’ve gone back throughout the entire year of 2024 to record my average hours of sleep per night. Each week, I need to improve upon that number, which is highlighted in green or red on the spreadsheet. Sleep is vastly important to health, and I want to try to get more of it overall.
Not only does sleep provide the tools necessary for the body to heal, but it’s vital for mental stability. Your memory improves, memory enhances, and you are more rational and less stressed. Since I am trying to balance so many things throughout the week, all of these would be nice to have in my pocket.
Involving the Blog and YouTube Channel More Often?
I am trying to set aside enough time to work on the blog and YouTube channel to include this particular End of Year challenge. All I can say is that I’ll try my best. Now that I’ve added college courses to the works, time is even more constrained than it was when I was trying to manage three blogs every week.
Ideally, I would love to monetize all of my channels.
Anyway, I’ll do my best to keep the content flowing. That’s the best I can offer at this point. There are simply too many variables every week that prevent me from guaranteeing anything.
Collecting the Data
The Blog Content
Each week, I’ll try to write an update on why I feel I failed or succeeded in my weight loss and fitness goals. I would like to get them out by Monday, but realistically, they might not come out until Tuesday or Wednesday.
- Can I Lose 15.6 Pounds in Just Over 3 Weeks?
So, I wasn’t able to go “Beast Mode” starting December 1st. Instead, I was sick for a solid week and am only now feeling good enough to get back on the horse. But is 15 pounds in three weeks too much? - Greatest Challenge Yet: Going “Beast Mode” to End 2025!
During last night’s live podcast, I made the joke about going “Beast Mode” to lose 18 pounds in 36 days. Well, it stuck with the audience, and everyone loved the idea, especially the consequence. - EoY Week 1: Down 3.6 Pounds with Little Effort
Well, despite not putting in a ton of effort to lose weight this first week, I still managed to lose 3.6 pounds. It’s not the windfall of fat that I was hoping for, but it’s forward progress. - Committing to an End of Year 2025 Challenge Instead
Shortly after I decided to try a Christmas challenge, things went horribly wrong from the jump. So, I’ve changed it up a bit and decided we’ll do an End of Year Challenge instead. And I’m pretty stoked.
I’m highlighting everything that worked and what didn’t. Perhaps it’ll help others on their fitness journeys.
Results of the End of Year Challenge
This is an ongoing challenge. At the end, potentially January 1st of 2026, I’ll update this post with the results and what I’ve discovered about myself. I’m collecting quite a bit of daily data and look forward to writing up some blog posts.
How Often Do You Challenge Yourself?
The reason why I continuously challenge myself is to see where my boundaries lie and to prove to myself I can do certain things. While it may look like I fail an awful lot, all of the past incidents only solidify my resolve to keep trying until I succeed.
I am quite tenacious, and I never give up.