@Matt Sanders great ideas! I, too, need to track those or I will miss someone!

@Tim Hoelle Love this

@Tim Schultz Do you have recurring themes based on points of emphasis each week?

@Tim Schultz Thank you for the great response!

Well as an avid women's basketball fan for years (multiple WNBA finals games and NCAA Final Four games attended)...I am ashamed to admit that I watched half of a game (game 5 of the finals) all season that didn't have Caitlin Clark in it! 🤣 And watched almost all the Fever games. I legit found it hard to care about the playoffs once the Fever were out. NY was the clear favorite to win the title all year and then barely eeked the win out even though they had 3 All-League players to Minny's 1. Sabrina and Stewie were hot garbage in game 5. Stewie's travel into awful shot that was called a foul at the end of regulation was atrocious, as well. Big props to Minnesota for taking it to the wire though. Here is my dislike button for the playoffs *click* 🤣

Protein, protein, protein! Aim for 1 g per goal pound of body weight. Try to get that protein via solid food, not liquid (I.e. protein shakes). Any time you eat/snack, protein always first. Track your protein intake consistently for several weeks. If you are hitting your protein goal and prioritizing protein first, you probably will not be hungry for a lot of the poor food choices due to protein's satiety factor. (Also, when strength training your body desperately needs those building blocks!) Try to drink around a gallon of water a day consistently. Getting that much water decreases your desire to drink your calories as much...which we want to trend towards. Strength train 2-3x a week full body, especially compound lifts. However, if not currently strength training, even a day a week is better than nothing. Strength training minute for minute is the most effective and beneficial form of exercise for people trying to get in shape. This is because building muscle stokes your metabolism (and makes us look better!). Thereby you will be burning more calories throughout the day simply by having more muscle because muscle is calorie "expensive" to maintain. A cardio activity will often burn more calories during that specific period, but cardio actually works against your weight loss goal (unless very specifically programmed and only for short duration during the year, say a 3-4 week block). Your body is so smart--if you are doing a ton of cardio, it recognizes that it can pare muscle down to make your body more efficient for cardio--we don't want to drop muscle though, we want to be dropping body fat. The scale is not the best way to measure progress, body fat %, pictures, measurements, journaling about how you feel, etc. are all more realistic and accurate ways to see if you are making positive progress! Also, keep in mind, cardio and calorie deficit is not the way to lose consistently over time and get the nice fit look most people want. What happens is your body ends up going into scarcity mode because it's not receiving a lot of calories and then your metabolism slows down, so then to still be at a calorie deficit, you'd need to burn even more calories with your cardio, etc. etc. so it's a never ending circle of bad (fewer and fewer calories, more and more cardio..not sustainable at all and not enjoyable at all!) Conversely, strength training boosts your metabolism and it's much easier to put yourself in a calorie deficit going from say 2800 calories to 2300 because your ramped up your metabolism compared to cutting calories from like 1800 to 1300.

@Mark Cascio 🤣