Final Tally, Whole Life Challenge Ends

• My score for the WLC-recommended 11 minute performance baseline workout increased by 10.9%, a respectable gain in speed and reps.
• According to the measurements of our nutrition coach, I lost 4″ off my waist and 1″ off my hips.
• My score for compliance with WLC guidelines was also high, averaging somewhere around 10.6/11 points available daily. (Points were added up based on nutrition, working out, mobility, supplementation, and other lifestyle factors like sleep and hydration.)

Based on these three variables, I was declared the overall winner of our box’s event! I was stunned to see how much sleeker and more athletic my fellow participants were looking today after their 8 weeks of hard work.

According to the WLC workout, my performance improved nicely. The rest of the story behind my weight loss progress comes when paying a closer attention to how I organized my food intake (while still eating foods permitted by my chosen level of difficulty – intermediate – in the WLC).

I ate according to Eat to Perform principles. I ate according to caloric needs for my build, my lean body mass, and my activity levels. On more active days, I ate more calories. In anticipation of hard workouts first thing in the morning, I front loaded lots of whole food carbs. What does this look like in practice, for me, a 176 lb. female whose lean body mass varies between about 125 and 139 lb?

Definitely not starving. Watch the carb grams over time! (Numbers are estimated only for my own ballparking, and not definitive.)

• I tried to keep my protein around 130 g/day or higher on average.
• Higher activity days (say, CrossFit WOD and hot yoga on one day) saw carb intakes over 200+ g/day. Read Halfway Point: Whole Life Challenge + Eat to Perform Principles for details on the types and quantities of carbs I was cycling in, in general.
• Low activity days saw much lower carb intake, with fats stepping in as the preferred fuel over carbs.
• My calorie intake generally ranged from 1800 – 3000 calories per day, depending on activity levels. 

• As mentioned above, my score for the WLC-recommended 11 minute performance baseline workout increased by 10.9%, a respectable gain in speed and reps.
• I reached a deadlift 1 rep max personal record of 280 lb., a 25 lb. gain over my last deadlift PR of 255.
• I reached a deadlift 3 rep “tap and go” max personal record of 245 lb.
• I achieved my first toes to bar EVER during the challenge, and within days begun to learn stringing them together.
• A 112# atlas stone lift – which I have only done one other time once, a year ago, before a back injury that had me on temporary CrossFit hiatus. Along with the deadlift PR, this signifies to me a return to my original strength (only now leaner!).
• Did “Diane” (a benchmark CrossFit workout) with 185 lb. deadlifts – the prescribed weight for women.
• Got my first freestanding headstand in yoga, and a few half second crow poses.
• Maintained a 3 minute, 15 second plank in hot yoga during our instructor’s “plank challenge”. Her challenge included permission to shift back and forth from forearms to palms, so it wasn’t a static plank, but it represents to me a huge increase in core strength overall.

The second indicator that I have of a decent (fat-loss-dominated) weight loss is I have gotten smaller as a side effect of concentrating on performance.