Last Updated on July 8, 2025 by Michael Brockbank
This first week, I’ve only lost 0.6 pounds. Though, I’m not surprised, given my lackluster performance for eating and exercise. It’s a slow start, but that doesn’t mean I can slack off the rest of the challenge.
The hardest part is trying to get back into some positive habits. For a long time, I was quite dedicated to going to the gym every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Now, it takes a great deal of convincing just to play the Oculus.
In a lot of ways, I feel like I’m starting my fitness journey all over from scratch.
Despite not having my whole head in the game for the Summer of Fitness challenge, I have been keeping track of everything I have eaten. I’m determined not to have any “red” days in the spreadsheet, which denotes giving up trying to track anything.
Why I Only Lost 0.6 Pounds This Week
Week one pretty much centers around overeating a bunch of junk. My average carb intake was 287g per day for the week, which I know doesn’t bode well for fat loss. I know that if I want to burn off more fat while maintaining my diet, I need to keep the carbs below 200.
To add insult to injury, my average protein intake was only 85 grams per day. It should be closer to 192 grams of protein per day, according to Harvard Health Publishing.
That’s an awful lot, especially since I’m not a bodybuilder. Nonetheless, according to the experts, I’m not eating even half of what they think I need.
Needless to say, my week was quite poor in terms of eating healthy.
What about exercise? Well, that fell to the wayside as well. Even on the days when I played the Oculus, I never went over 9,173 steps. In fact, my average step count for the week was 6,089 per day. That is quite paltry for someone who wants to ramp up physical activity.
So, when you add low physical activity, high carb intakes, and barely eaking out burning more than consuming for the week as a whole, it’s not going to burn a lot of fat off the body.
Identifying the Problems
Part of growing is learning from your mistakes. The other part is taking action to correct the problems. That’s where a lot of people fall short, including myself, in many instances.
So, what prompted the piss-poor performance for week one?
A Lack of Time Mindset
One of the things that holds me back from exercising regularly is the idea that I’m losing time. Every minute I spend on a physical activity is one that is taken away from one of my many projects.
This is precisely why I swipe to turn off many of my alarms. It’s a problem that I’ve had for several years now and just can’t seem to shake it. I know what needs to be done, but I shrug it off.
Part of this mindset is that exercise doesn’t help me generate income, whereas everything else I do in the day does. And some of the things I’m doing right now are vital to my development as an author. So, it’s difficult to prioritize my fitness at the same level as something like finishing my next book or working on designs for new merchandise.
On the flip side, though, I still burn more time than I should watching random YouTube videos or playing around on social media. This is especially true when I take my breaks in the backyard throughout the day. I don’t need to play on Threads when I could spend that 15 minutes walking.
Not Enough Proteins and Veggies
I’m obviously not eating enough protein. And if I want to increase my physical activity, I need to increase the minerals and vitamins from proteins and vegetables. Seriously, this last week was horrible in terms of eating. If you follow me on MyFitnessPal, you’ll see just how bad it was.
It’s not that I don’t have plenty here to eat, mind you. I have a commercial freezer full of all kinds of meats and frozen veggies. Not to mention a big bag of chocolate protein powder. But it’s been really easy to fall back into some horrendous habits throughout the day.
Having a high carb count wouldn’t be so bad if I were physically active enough to burn them off. I’ve demonstrated this point a few years ago, and I suppose that’s one of the driving points of the Summer of Fitness challenge…that I still know what the hell I’m talking about. So, maybe I should pop my head out of my butt and prove my point.
I still need to eat more protein, though.
A Massive Migraine for Two Days
Last Tuesday and Wednesday, I was plagued by a pretty bad migraine. It lingered throughout Thursday and Friday, but to a much lesser degree. Needless to say, I didn’t feel like moving in the slightest. In fact, I didn’t even work a quarter of what I normally do.
Obviously, those two days are going to have some poor numbers associated. I averaged about 4500 steps per day, and most of those were from going up and down the stairs to get coffee or taking the dog out to go potty.
When you’re in that much pain, you don’t give a rat’s ass about a lot of things. In this case, I wasn’t overly concerned with losing weight. I still recorded everything I consumed, but I wasn’t stressing about burning anything off.
What Can I Change for Week 2?
OK…we have a clear picture of why week one went kaput. Between the migraine and the lack of effort for being active, it’s kind of impressive that I lost 0.6 pounds.
Now comes the fun part. I need to learn from those mistakes and take action.
Well, aside from the migraine part. I believe that was mostly allergy-related, and I don’t get them very often. Still, I’ll keep popping regular allergy pills, I suppose.
Make Exercising Part of My “Workday”
To get out of the mindset of wasting my time, perhaps making exercises part of my “workday” can help. After all, I am recording data from the Fitbit during exercises for a few different types of articles I want to write. I can simply call exercising part of the research for those specific case studies.
That means I need to jockey a few things around every week. However, it’ll be worth the effort as I’ll get into the mindset that exercise is not wasting my time and I’ll be able to write those articles much sooner than if I sit around with my thumb up my butt.
No More Social Media During Breaks
When I go out to have my breaks in the backyard, I need to stay off social media. I wind up burning more time than I would otherwise while sitting, hunched over in a chair. I need to get back into the 15 to 20-minute walks with my music while thinking about my books.
It’s a long story, but essentially, I visualize what my books would look like if I were to make a live-action trailer or music video for them. The process has helped me come up with some awesome scenes in various stories.
Anyway, the bottom line is no more social media during breaks. There is plenty of time after the day is done to goof off on Threads.
Get Back to the Damn Gym
I would love to get back into the habit of going to the gym. That’s going to be the most difficult to achieve, I think. I’m paying for a monthly membership despite only going maybe two or three times this entire year.
A lack of sleep is often the culprit. If I were to get to bed at a reasonable time, I’d have no problem getting up and out of the house early in the morning. So, I suppose this can be two-fold: get to bed at 9:30 pm so I can get up and get to the gym the next morning.
In any case, going to the gym regularly will help me keep my points in the green. Based on my scores last week, it shouldn’t be difficult to achieve.
Let’s Make it Happen, Cap’n!
Half a pound of loss is still moving in the right direction. And if I implement even half of what I just covered, I should lose more than that during week two. The Fourth of July and my niece’s wedding might set back progress a bit, but if I tackle the rest of the week with gusto, I probably won’t even notice.
According to estimated data, I’ll only lose 13.5 pounds by October 1st (the end of this challenge). I am positive I can do much more than that. I suppose all that’s left is for me to prove it.
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