Aaron Posted on August 27, 2025
INTRODUCTION
Week 1 of this fitness transformation program is all about creating a baseline from which to understand the starting point of the subject’s current fitness level, including performance metrics and health metrics. Each day is considered for its structure, regarding:
- Nutrition
- Exercise
- Tracking Metrics
However, today we are going to work on subjective interpretations, which means how the test subject is feeling overall. We are including energy levels, pain levels, stiffness, motivation, and attitude towards progress. This type of tracking will become more and more important as the weeks go by, and we see the transformation change from a more qualitative/quantitative focus, to a more subjective focus. The goal for this client isn’t to lift more weight on the bench press during resistance exercise, it is to have a strong chest to perform activities during daily living or to excel at activities he loves. So after the program ends, he won’t be thinking of how much his bench press is in pounds or how many reps he can do, he wants to be happy with his body’s ability to work. And that is attitude-based, or subjective.
Quantitative tracking will always be a part of this program, however it won’t always be the focus. We need to know the numbers so we know how to continuously increase intensities, and we must always have a body of data to refer to when troubleshooting is necessary. But we always want to have positive subjective information as well. It will be the true marker of a successful program.
METHODS
The methods section is divided to 5 parts: energy levels, pain levels, stiffness, motivation, and attitude towards progress.
Energy Levels: “Energy levels over the past 5 days have increased every day. In fact, energy was quite low the first day. I had to really conquer my desire to NOT go to the gym and start working out. I really didn’t want to. I was used to staying at the house and doing chores, watching tv, cooking, and doing university studies. Once I got to the gym, I had to get through the first ten minutes, then the second ten minutes, etc. By the time I got to 40 minutes on the treadmill, I was rearing to go, and I got a big energy and motivation boost. The Walkfit app, as well as the data I was receiving from my Apple Watch into the Walkfit app, showed me where my numbers were at, and I wanted to go a little further distance which I did, then I wanted to burn a few more calories, which I did, then I wanted to go a little longer time, which I also did. By the time I got done, I was rearing to go energy-wise. Monday, I had more energy and less resistance to getting to the gym. I thought that going to the gym about 10am it wouldn’t be so crowded and I could use all the equipment whenever I wanted, but that was not the case. I did have to go a little out of order to get what I wanted done, but I did, and I had a good amount of energy after, which I transferred to cardio work immediately after. That night, I fell asleep at about 8pm without eating dinner and slept 13 hours. The rest of the week was straight forward and my daily energy is getting better and better.”
Pain Levels: “I have been sore in my legs every day, but not a debilitative sore. After a few minutes on the treadmill the soreness goes away for a few hours. My muscles after Monday’s resistance workout have been very sore every day, and the tendons in my inner elbow have been quite painful. As of today (Thursday) I am still very sore from the resistance trianing.”
Stiffness: My legs have been getting quite stiff after the treadmill work every day, and my arms are stiff from the resistance training workout. The arm soreness and stiffness together have made it fairly uncomfortable to do daily activities at home. However, today (Thursday) I have not been that stiff or sore in the legs compared to other days. I hope that means they are starting to get used to it. Hopefully?”
Motivation: “My motivation was low the first day, but has steadilty been increasing as I see the work I am being capable of getting done. I am starting to feel more and more like my body is accomplishing something-type-pain instead of sitting around soreness which is almost identical in the level of discomfort and feeling. If I am going to feel like that one way or another, I might as well be doing the work!’
Attitude towards progress: “I am happy so far with the progress I am making. From the way I had been feeling before, where i always feel sore and tired and don’t want to do anything, this is a monumental improvement. But..it is slow…and I want the progress to speed up…but I know it is a slow process, that is why I have committed to a year.”
Performance
Walkfit is a mobile app that contains the cardiovascular program of choice for this project as well as the performance goals, and the test subject’s actual performance compared to the goal. It was used today as the sole workout; no resistance training was performed today.
Everfit is a mobile app that contains the resistance training program of choice for this project as well as the performance goals, and the test subject’s actual performance compared to the goal. It was not used in today’s workout; no resistance training was performed today.
Glo hosts Yoga and Pilates-style trainings for daily use to provide stretching, core engagement, and body weight work. It is used as an adjunct program to facilitate another dimension of fitness: overall flexibility and mobility improvements.
Nutrition and Supplements
MyFitnessPal is the nutrition tracking app that will be used for the duration of this program. It has all the possible tracking features one would need to create and maintain an excellent nutrition program.
Lingo Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) is installed on the test subject’s right triceps, and continuously tracks blood sugar all day long, and provides meaningful data on how foods eaten and exercise specifically affects blood glucose levels. Data provided by Lingo’s mobile app allows the user to make informed decisions on what foods to include with daily meals for specific outcomes.
Currently, the test subject is on the followign supplements (subject to change):
- Vitamin B12 5000mcg: Due to low concentrations on last blood screen. 30 days only, almost finished.
- Qunol CoQ10 100mg: circulatory Health, generating ATP
- Nordic Naturals Omega-3 690mg: cognitive performance, joint health, heart health, immune support
- Vitamin C 500mg: Immune System Health
- Creatine 20mg: Energy production, cognitive performance, muscle contraction, recovery boosting
Health Metrics
Fitindex Body Composition Scale is being used to monitor body composition metrics. The Fitindex Digital Tape Measure also keeps track of circumference measurements as well. Both sets of data are input into the Fitindex app and can be measured as often as needed and provides trends in data to show changes between points of time.
Apple Health connects to the Apple Watch as a data collection device and the Apple Health mobile app as a data storage and display center. Many metrics such as oxygen use and cardiovascular data are collected among many other parameters of physical health and stored within the app, and other apps contribute their data for seamless integration in one location. It also provides alerts if any preset metrics fall out of range so immediate action can be taken to stabilize the subject’s health in any situation.
Summary
While at first it may seem like there are a lot of tools being used, and most programs don’t require such in-depth instruction or complicated means, this program aims to collect data on as many data points as possible to provide the most complete body of work possible for a transformation program. Transformation is more than just improving physical health and performance, but changing the way a person thinks about their health is the only way to maintain results for the long term, so attention and care must be placed on mental health and emotional stability during this long period of what can be perceived as stressful, painful, and otherwise unpleasant feelings that are experienced during a program of this nature. So space is created in this program for plenty of time and energy to be spent on introspective topics designed to fortify the mind and create mental toughness and emotional resilience as part of the overall journey.
RESULTS
Fitness Performance
Treadmill Walk via Walkfit
| Action | Steps | Distance | Time | Calories |
| Goals | 6000 | 3.1 | 60 mins | 370 |
| Actual | 8289 | 3.7 | 58.1 mins | 583 |
Nutrition Metrics via MyFitnessPal
| 08/20/25 | Calorie | Carbs | Protein | Fat | Break. snacks | Lunch | Dinner |
| Count | ——– | ——– | ——– | ——– | ——– | ——– | ——– |
| Percent | 100% | 50% | 30% | 20% | ——– | ——– | ——– |
| Goal | 2,130 | ——– | ——– | ——– | ——– | ——– | ——– |
Glucose Monitoring via Lingo
| Average Daily Glucose | Lingo Count: (Goal: Under 60) |
| 99 mg/dL | 58 |
Body Composition via Fitindex
DISCUSSION
Exercise Prescription
For fitness performance on day 5, the focus was on cardiopulmonary work. The intention was to continue to create a baseline data collection from which to start on cardiopulmonary work. Walking is one of the best cardio exercises for fat-burning, endurance activities, cardiovascular optimization, mitochondrial health, and ease of performance both in the gym and outdoors. Intensity can be increased in predictable margins, risk of injury is low (and injuries that might occur will heal quickly), and energy can be effectively produced by the body due to mitochondrial growth and repair or sloughing off of damaged organelles. Other cardiopulmonary exercises will be used in this training program, and routine stress testing for VO2 max evaluations will also occur to evaluate the effectiveness of this aerobics program. However, much of the cardio training will be walking/running to match the specificity of the activity he wishes to excel at: thru-hiking.
Nutrition Prescription
The test subject’s target calories per day are 2,130 kcal, which is calculated by multiplying his weight (202 lbs.) by (13) and subtracting 500. [202.3 x 13 = 2629.9 – 500 = 2129.9 or 2,130].
Macronutrients are calculated as follows:
Protein is the most important factor to get correct for optimal recovery during times of intense exercise, so we calculate that first. [202.3lb = 91.95kg. Estimated 1.75g per kg to start, may increase as resistance work increases. 91.95 * 1.75 = 160g (rounded to the nearest whole decimal)]. 160g per day, or 30% of the total daily intake of food should be protein.
Fats are the next, and they should just be around 50g per day, and at 2,130 kcal per day total, 47g of fat come out to 20% even. So this is where we start our fat intake.
Carbohydrates take up the remainder of the intake, which is 50%, or 1,065kcal, which at 4 calories per gram, equals 266g grams per day of carbohydrates.
This fourth day, meals were not recorded. Every now and then this is going to happen, and that is fine. In fact, once we get to the right point in the program, we are going to stop tracking completely and focus on the skill of intuitive eating. This skill allows you to tune into your hunger cues in your body, and listen to what it is telling you. We have been out of touch all our lives with our bodies, and most of us don’t know how to interpret what the body is telling you it needs. There’s no need to track food forever, that is definitely not a sustainable practice. But it is necessary to see how the body reacts to certain foods, certain exercises, and to be able to troubleshoot if something is happening that we believe shouldn’t be happening (or the opposite). We find that having a large body of data to work with will help us find the problem we are having, make the correction, and move on.
The Lingo glucose monitor kept a running total of all of the movements of glucose levels throughout the day, and came out with an average total of 95 mg/dL, which is much less than the recommended <117. The Lingo count was 49, which is recommended to be <60 which is good. Improvements can be made to stabilize the blood sugar even further. The count represents how how of a spike occurred and for how long, and a total of those counts all day is considered the Lingo count. This is the main area where glucose monitoring is useful for non-diabetic exercisers; less spikes equal better metabolic health and less likelihood of storing glucose as fat.
Body composition readings are input into the chart in the results section. All of the readings can be improved, either by decreasing or increasing the numbers, depending on what reading it is. One of the main goals of this program is to improve health as well as performance and looks. As health improves, so will the body composition numbers. These will continue to be added into the results each day so we can see how these numbers change over time, and compare it to the work being done within this program.
CONCLUSION
This program takes advantage of periodization in an attempt to group goals into sensible action plans. The periods are as follows:
Microcycle: 1 week increments, 52 microcycles in the complete program.
Mesocycle: 12 weeks or 90 days, 4 mesocycles per year. Each mesocycle will contain one week of scaling back to active rest before next cycle begins.
Macrocycle: 26 weeks, 2 macrocycles total. First macrocycle is about dialing in all aspects of health including, strength, size, fitness, nutrition, flexibility, balance, etc. The second macrocycle will have a specific focus to be determined at the end of the 26-week mark.
Each day will contain similar content as this post. Things will change as the needs of the program arise. All data is being recorded in tracking apps, and information published on this blog are summaries to see progress in a digestible form.
