new years resolution 2026

Making this blog was not my new years resolution. But getting in good shape was. Or I should say is. I’m still going strong since the beginning of January. For the last 4 or 5 years I have been telling myself “I really should get into shape”, and then proceed to never do. This time something clicked. On new years day, I spoke to my long time family friend who has become a body builder and personal trainer/coach, and he basically sent me a plan for free. It’s not complicated, a spreadsheet with a few tabs. Daily check-ins for things like weight, calories/macros, mood, etc. I don’t track calories by the way but I have a good estimate of how much I eat and how much protein I intake. The other prominent tab is Training, for all the workouts you do and the reps and load you do. At first I didn’t like tracking the weights because it felt like I was just trying to beat the number instead of focusing on actually getting stronger. Like I was afraid I would cheat and do half-reps just to get that number higher. But it turns out not to be that complicated. Just focus on the metal.

I lost all this weight once before. About 6 years ago. It was not done with any real plan, basically just intermittant fasting. I still ate the same type of food, I didn’t really work out. Although at some point I was walking a lot, and toward the end I was doing a lot of cardio. The last month I remember doing an hour of cardio every day, aiming to burn 1000 calories in each session. I lost 30 lbs that last month, which was pretty insane looking back at it now. It was not a great experience, I had lost a bunch of muscle, although admittedly I still looked considerably better after the weight came off, so it wasn’t a total loss. But it was pretty atrocious for sustainability and hard on the mind. I had a lot of brain fog and lack of focus. Although I was a student with a month long winter break so I didn’t have much going on.

The hardest part of the current plan is actually getting 10,000 steps in. For a job as sedentary as mine, I have to walk roughly 65-75 extra minutes a day to get those in. And the Chicago winter has not been super kind this year. But I think I made it through the worst of it. I found ways to make time for it throughout the day. I walk for 10-30 minutes before work (if I can), I walk 30-40 minutes during lunch, and anything I need to make up, I can do a stroll in the neighborhood after work. Instead of trying to cram it all into one hour long walk in the cold at night after work.

One of the easiest parts is actually the diet. I never thought I would be able to lose weight on, what feels to be, a sustainable diet. It turns out the secret sauce is just eating a shit-ton of protein and voluminous foods. Well it feels like a lot to me compared to what I used to eat. I was always a bread/carb-loving guy with a voracious sweet-tooth. But believe it or not, I don’t crave bread or sweets much at all. In fact because of how much volume I eat, I feel full almost all the time. I aim for 200 grams of protein a day. Technically meat-heads like to say you should eat 1 gram per pound of bodyweight but that’s too high in my opinion. I am eating the amount I should be eating once I reach my goal of 200 lbs.

Most days, my lunch is 440 grams of potatoes and 170 grams of chicken, with as much broccoli as I can stuff in my steamer, and however much hot sauce and onion I feel like adding. Believe or not, that’s still going to be only around 600 calories. so I can really eat that 3 times a day if I wanted, but that’s actually just too much food. It’s really tasty though, especially the garlic salted potatoes. I get these little gemstone potatoes that make it feel almost like I’m eating waffle fries. Anyway, I can go on and on, but I won’t.

The training is fun, and not too bad. I’m still only lifting weights twice a week. Thinking about moving it to three soon. I don’t think I would increase it beyond that, I’d rather just increase volume or intensity during the sessions. I’ve taken a liking to lifting weights, it feels good to progress, so I’ve made some strength goals for 2026 as well.

These numbers were taken from a video from professional strongman Mitch Hooper. Who based them on 1x bodyweight for bench press, 1.5x for squat, 2x for deadlift, 0.65x for overhead press. although I changed 0.65x to 0.75x now that I am looking back at it. There were also minimum numbers he chose based on a 200 lb man, so if you are less than 200 lbs technically you should still hit the same numbers I have listed above (except 130 lbs for overhead because of my mistake). Mitch basically says if you can hit these numbers than you are technically “strong enough” and apparently stronger than 90% of people in the gym.

You may notice I already reached the overhead press, although it was a shoulder press so I’m not entirely sure if that’s the same movement. I am also inching close on squat. I don’t bench press or deadlift in my workout plan so I’ll have to test or start training for those at some point.

One thing I can say is that after I reach all of these numbers, I’m probably not going to stop there.

I’ve lost 25 lbs so far, and I’m starting to see some muscle definition which is exciting. But I started at a high weight, so 45 more to go.

By the way, I’m not going to exclusively make fitness blog posts, I’ve just been focused on that for a few weeks now. Tomorrow’s post will be about something else. Not sure what yet.

Soon, I will become Boone from animal crossing.