As 2019 was coming to an end, I saw myself pushing over the 300-lbs. mark. I realized that I needed to take advantage of the concept of a “New Year’s Resolution.” Normally, my annual resolution is, “don’t die,” which has given me quite a bit of an undefeated streak. But, weight loss is considerably more difficult than staying alive, so I was going to need a plan. I needed small, achievable and measurable goals if I was going to succeed.

But what did I really want to accomplish?

Without a set idea, I couldn’t make achievable goals. I realize that I am heavy and stiff, and I haven’t run in a long time. At one point, I participated in a half-marathon—when I was at my healthiest point—and I’d like to be able to run for long distances again. So, I decided running was a must. For stiffness, I decided I would reintroduce yoga back into my life (shoutout to DDP Yoga). Then, of course, I would need a diet plan. Overall, I wanted to be more flexible, faster and 20 pounds lighter by the end of this year.

January: Simple Workouts

I find that if I set the bar too high, I set myself up for potential failure. I needed to feel the need for success. So, I decided this year to set no dietary goals for January. Instead, I kept things nice and simple: just a weigh-in at the beginning of the month, another on February 1, and simple workouts.

For each week, I had to accomplish 1 Yoga session—whether it was 10 minutes or 40 minutes, it didn’t matter as long as it was a full session. For the very last week of January, I pushed the limit and set a goal for myself to have 2 sessions. As for running, I also kept it simple (and perhaps this is a theme that one should follow if they wanted to replicate such a system). For the first week of January, I set a goal to be able to run for 2 minutes straight, with no stopping or walking in between. I continued to build on this time slooooooooowly every week. I cannot urge enough that small victories provide the motivation, skill, and stamina to achieve bigger goals.

February: Tracking Calories

My next weigh-in being February 1st, and my goal was to have lost 2 pounds in the first month. Sure enough, I lost exactly that much.

February 1st, the diet goals began. For the month of February, I decided I would be counting my calories. I use MyFitnessPal— just one of the many great tools out there—as a means of tracking my calories. Counting calories is meticulous and can get aggravating, so I would only keep track of my eating until the end of the workday. I made sure to eat no more than half of my daily calorie allowance, so this way I could eat a solid dinner (and maybe dessert) and not worry about going over my total.

I still continued the concept of 1 yoga session each week, two for the last week, just as I had in January. I also continued running. At the beginning of February, I started with 10-minute runs, building to 15-minute runs by the end of the month.

My goal was to lose 1 pound by the end of the month. I exceeded that. By the end of February, I had lost a total of 6.8 pounds for that month! Diet, I believe, was absolutely crucial.

March: Adding Muscle-Building Workouts

March came around with some conflicts. COVID-19 crept itself into the western world and has since kept a lot of people indoors, including myself, which led to less overall movement. Not helping matters for me was that, by mid-February, I was dealing with a sinus infection that slowly developed into bronchitis, and which lasted throughout all of March. But, what are goals if they aren’t met with obstacles, am I right?

Anyhow, as a result of the bronchitis, I fell behind on my running goals. The goal was to start the month of March at an 18-minute run (which I was able to accomplish), and progress to a 25-minute run by the end of the month (this goal, I did not reach). I do plan to make up those lost workouts throughout the month of April, so stay tuned for the second edition of this Kulmann Chronicle miniseries to see if I make it.

My yoga sessions transitioned to every other week in March, and I filled in these gaps with some muscle-building workouts. Every other week, I would focus on my back, biceps and shoulders, or chest and triceps, or abs. In this way, I felt I could build back some muscle and add some new workouts to keep my body guessing so it wouldn’t ever get comfortable with one routine.

My diet also changed in March. Each week, I added 1 vegetarian dinner to my diet. While I find meat is delicious, it also taxes the body, and a vegetarian diet has its share of benefits. I don’t plan on converting myself or anyone else, necessarily, I just wanted to make a small, achievable goal (there’s that phrase again…).

I had also planned on counting my calories for the last two weeks of March. Instead, I ended up counting them over the last three weeks of the month, because I found I had gorged myself for the first two weeks of March when I wasn’t counting calories— I’m talking Kirby meets Tasmanian Devil meets Cookie Monster kind of gorging.

After 3 Months

The goal for the end of March was a 2-pound loss; I ended up losing 1.8 lbs. Of course, I missed a lot of my cardio due to my illness and the loss of general movement from social distancing. Still, since I was already ahead for the month of February, I did not stress this too much. I was actually just thankful that I didn’t gain weight.

Overall, my goal was to lose 5 lbs. in three months. Thus far, I’ve lost 10.6 lbs, and I’m happy with what I have accomplished. If you want to start your own health goals, I encourage you to please do. If you’d like to follow my approach, just start with small achievable goals and make plans for measuring your own successes from there.

Stay tuned to see how April-June works out for me…