Recently in diet and exercise Category

For the first time in a week and a half, I can stand up without my back aching. I spend very very little of my life actually on my feet, I'm either lying in bed asleep, sitting in the car, sitting at my desk at work, or sitting in front of the television or computer at home. I probably spent about 5% of my time (if that) on my feet. So that probably explains why my back has taken so long to get better, it's at the wrong angle most of the time. I guess that doesn't really make a lot of sense, but it did to me when I was thinking about it earlier!

Anyway, the point is, I should be able to get back to the gym later in the week. I'm working tomorrow, then I've got a week and a bit off. I'm planning to spend a lot of that time at the gym, not exactly making up for lost time, just making good use of my membership. I might knock the weight training on the head for a while, and concentrate on cardio and fat burning exercises. Because at the end of the day I really do want to see the numbers on the scales go down.

There won't be a weight update this week, as I've twinged my back, probably carrying my son on my shoulders for half an hour last weekend. So I've not been to the gym at all this week, so I've probably not lost any weight. Normal service will be resumed as soon as I can walk again.

With no further ado, no beating about the bush or procrastination, I'm going to dive straight in and tell you how much I weigh. This is after a not-so-successful week at the gym, which started well and then all fell apart yesterday morning. To summarise, I had a big weight-training workout on Saturday morning, spent the rest of the day being unable to move (due to lack of energy more than aching muscles), did the cardio workout Monday morning, weights Tuesday evening, had Wednesday off...... then overslept Thursday morning. Bugger. That's thrown the plan of action all out of kilter, hasn't it? I was busy Thursday evening so couldn't go then. This morning was another late start.... so I'm definately 100% off down to the gym tonight to make up for it all. And I'm going to go tomorrow and Sunday as well.

I feel like I'm starting to let myself down, and it's not even been 72 hours since my last visit. I don't want to get out of the habit of going, I'm not going to let myself get out of the habit of going, and I'm bloody well going to go. Even if it kills me, heheheh.

Anyway, I've done three workouts since the last weigh-in, so what's the figure looking like to today? Well, pretty much the same as last week I think, 16 stone 3lbs (227lbs). Acutally, no, not the same as last week. I've lost a pound! Which is a step in the right direction I suppose.

I'm definately feeling better for going to the gym. I'm sleeping better, and (usually) going to bed earlier in the day. I'm not sweating and dripping as much as when I started, and I don't feel like a eunuch in a brothel when I'm there.

Onwards!

It's all gone a bit pear-shaped this week. Just a litte bit. I've not gone pear-shaped, I was that shape to start off with! I weighed myself and discovered I'd put on 2lbs since last week. So I got off the scales, got a pair of scissors and trimmed my goatee. But no, still 16 stone 4lbs (228lbs).

Since my last weigh-in I've been to the gym four times. I had my hour with the Personal Trainer on Saturday, I did some more weights Monday evening, and a cardio workout Tuesday morning and Thursday morning. So the weight gain is down to one of two things: either I've lost fat and gained muscle (possible but unlikely since I haven't been pushing myself hard enough in the weight training to ache all over afterwards) or I'm still eating too much of the wrong foods. Perhaps that Kentucky Fried Chicken last Saturday afternoon wasn't a good idea, and all those potato-salad-and-cheese-filled pitta breads I like to snack on when I get home from work could have been a mistake, and I really should start having my breakfast cereal first thing in the morning instead of last thing at night, and probably 100 other food disasters as well.

I minor blip, I think, and I'll try to learn my lesson from this. I'm still feeling pretty good, though, nowhere near as bloated as I was a few weeks ago, and I can do my belt up another notch without feeling like all my insides are being squashed together.

The plan of action was to go to the gym again to lift some weights this evening, but I'll have to check if my jogging pants are dry first. I've got some others, but they were cheap rubbish I bought at the start of the summer and they've shrunk in the wash. I had no idea how much they'd shrunk until I was on the treadmill and caught sight of myself in the mirror - I nearly ran out in embarrassment at my hideous fashion faux pas. I know the point of the exercise is to lose weight but I'm unlikely to lose height as well. But what the heck - it was 7:30 in the morning and there were only about a dozen other people in the place. But I definately need to get more gym apparel, if only so that I'm not running the washing machine an extra three times a week :-)

I intend to go to the gym three times between now and coming back to work on Monday, once today, once over the weekend and once on Monday morning. If I don't go tonight, I'll go twice over the weekend. Got to keep the momentum going!

I've said before that I'm not going to the gym purely to lose weight, I'm going in order to get myself fitter. I may switch from posting a weekly weight update to posting a monthly measurement update, so I can see how my waist/chest/biceps etc are changing from the exercise.

But first, some new gym clothes are in order I think.

I had intended to go to the gym first thing this morning, but I overslept, waking up at 7am. Ha ha, I've just read that first sentence back to myself. How times change. Only a few weeks ago I'd have considered waking up at 7am a major success, giving me plenty of time for a shower, a shave, and breakfast. Usually one of those three gets missed! These days I have the alarm set for 5:45am, and the alarm on my phone set for 6am. In fact this morning I did wake up at 5:30, I opened my eyes and wondered why it was all quiet. Once I'd looked at the clock and realised why it was all quiet, I went back to sleep. And I slept through both alarms for at least an hour. Ah well, no time to go to the gym this morning, but everything was packed and ready so I threw it all in the car and planned to go this evening.

And indeed I did go this evening. I read somewhere or heard somewhere that if you want to lose weight then you exercise in the morning, and if you want to gain muscle then you exercise in the evening. I've no idea if there's any truth in this at all, but my opinion is that exercise at any time of the day can't be bad for you.

This evening I tried to replicate the workout I did with the personal trainer last Saturday. I started on the treadmill, doing two minutes on and one minute off. I was only on it for 12-13 minutes however, not the 20 minutes I did on Saturday. My legs still ached when I got off it though, so I'm not letting myself get off easily. I worked my way round all the machines I was shown at the weeked, but not in the same order. I've no idea if the order in which you exercise different muscles makes any difference at all, but after starting on the treadmill I was in the mood to do some work with my arms and shoulders.

Even though the gym was busy I didn't really have to wait for any of the machines - if the machine I wanted next was already in use then I'd switch to a different machine, or take a break for a minute or two. I worked my arms, legs, stomach, back, shoulders and, er, that was it I think.

At the moment the plan is to get to the gym early tomorrow morning for a cardio workout, we'll see if that actually happens or not!

Also, I mustn't forget that I'm giving the big boss man a lift into work tomorrow - we're going to the office via the Bentley dealership so he can get his car back from the shop. It wouldn't be a good idea to piss off the guy who signs your pay cheques!

This morning I went back to the gym (pretty soon I'll be living there full-time heheh) for an hour with the Personal Trainer. He started me on the treadmill, and not for the one-minute fast, one-minute slow that I'd been doing before. He had me walking at 6.5km/h (4mph) on an incline of 3 (I presume this means 3%, or a one-metre rise for every 100 metres walked) for two minutes, then at 4km/h on the flat for one minute. This was ok for the first couple of repetitions. Then my legs started to feel the burn. Speed up, slow down. Drip sweat. Speed up. Aching legs. Can I do this? I have to. Not for the Trainer's benefit, but for mine. This is what I signed up for, this is what I want. But why does it have to hurt so much? On the third repetition I told him my legs were starting to ache a bit and he slowed it down to 6km/h. Which, let's face it, is not much of a reduction in speed. 20 minutes I was on that thing, and when I stepped off my legs were definately on the wobbly side. While I was walking I told him about my 5lb weight loss, and about how often I'd been and how much I was enjoying it. Of course, that was while I was still able to talk. I managed to tell him that I wanted to do some work on strengthening my back and stomach muscles. It's easy to work on th arms and legs, the back and sides tend to get left out.

He showed me several weight-training machines. He put on heavier weights than I'd have done if left to my own devices. He instructed me to do 15 reps. It's a good job he was counting, because I was too busy trying not to break the machine, break my body or break my resolve. Finally he showed me some exercises which used my own body weight to provide the training. After 15 lunges on each leg I started to feel light-headed and he sent me outside for a few minutes fresh air. Of course I was feeling light-headed because my muscles were using up oxygen, and I wasn't always breathing properly. This happened 45 minutes into the hour, so the last 10 minutes were spent with him showing me some more exercises but not pushing me too much.

However I did gain a lot from the session. I learned how to use a lot more of the machines. I learned how to breathe (although I didn't always remember to breathe!) and I learned that I can push myself more than I thought I was able to. As I write this it's 12 hours since the session started, and so far I feel good. I'm not aching anywhere at the moment, but I fully expect to ache all over tomorrow!

Talking of tomorrow, I promise I'll post about something else other than the gym! I'm sure you're all getting sick of reading about it by now....

First, a recap. I joined the gym last Thursday weighing 16 stone 7lbs (231lbs). I had a session with a personal trainer on Friday, and he showed me a cardio workout which included cycling, treadmill, cross-training and rowing. I worked this session on Sunday, Monday morning and yesterday morning. On Tuesday night I spent 45 minutes trying my hand (and bum and legs) at spinning. Wednesday I had a day off. Yesterday afternoon I spent lugging tables around the office and taking box upon box of ancient paperwork and other assorted old rubbish to the skip. Believe me, yesterday was the most active day I'd had in work for a long time! This morning I stepped on my bathroom scales.

I stepped off them again. I rubbed my eyes in case I was still dreaming. I moved the scales to a different part of the bathroom floor in case they were originally placed in some gravitational negativity force-field. I stepped on them again. H'mmm.... same readout. I allowed myself a little smile as I got dressed.

This whole workout thing is actually working out very well. I'm enjoying myself, I'm not feeling self-conscious at the gym (everyone feels like an imposter when they first join a gym) and I've been made to feel very welcome there. I've managed two early-morning workouts this week, and I'm extremely pleased with myself about that. I'm the laziest bugger in the world when it comes to getting out of bed in the morning!

I'm going to see if I can settle into a routine of going to the gym Monday morning, Tuesday evening, Thurday morning, Friday evening and one day over the weekend. I feel that if I leave it more than two or three days between visits then I'll get out of the habit, but this morning's weigh-in will certainly keep me motivated. Having said that I plan to go on a Friday night, I'm not going to go tonight because I have a one-hour session with the Personal Trainer tomorrow morning. After that I'm on my own, I have to pay extra for more sessions with the PT.

Oh, and the weigh in? A very respectable 16stone 2lbs (226lbs). Yes, that's right, I've lost 5lbs this week, and that's purely from exercise, because I haven't changed a thing in my diet (ok, I'm having Maltesers mid-morning instead of a Kit-Kat, so shoot me!)

Yay me :-)

I really should get in the habit of blogging stuff on the same day that it happens... here's another 24-hour late update. I managed to get out of bed really really early yesterday morning and was at the gym by 7am. I worked my way through the cardio workout the Personal Trainer gave me on Friday, and had time for a shower and a sit down before leaving for work at ten past eight. Bloody hell, I was impressed with myself.

I've also jumped on the iPod bandwagon. This is another example of the sort of thing "other people" do, but it's never been for me in the past. I used to have a Walkman cassette player, in fact for years a walkman was my only form of music equipment. I listened to it on the bus on the way to school, during break time and in the evenings. I always had a pair of headphones either on my ears or hanging round my neck. Then I just got out of the habit. Maybe I just started socialising a bit more. I didn't miss having a portable stereo up to now because when I go out for a walk I enjoy the peace and quiet, and when I'm cycling I need to be able to hear traffic and other people coming up behind me. So why buy one now? Well, I saw the new iPod nano advertised and really fancied it, but it was a bit expensive for me. I looked at the rest of the iPod range, and thought that an iPod shuffle would be a pretty cool and trendy thing to own, so with credit card in hand I went shopping. And very impressed I am with it too. The headphones only just stay in my ears though, so I think I'll get some new phones later in the week. I got it to listen to while I'm exercising at the gym - some loud Metallica should help me keep the revs up on the exercise bike! So far, it's working very well :-)

Last night I slept like a baby (no, that doesn't mean I woke up every four hours and wet the bed) so I didn't manage to get to the gym this morning, but I am going to go to one of the classes this evening. I'm torn between something called "body pump" and something called "spin to win", whatever that is. I'll find out later, I guess. Got to get the most out of this membership, it's costing me enough!

I've had the week off work this week, and done a lot more than think about LPG and moan about Yahoo Messenger. On Monday I met my parents at my late grandmother's flat, to see if there was anything I wanted that wasn't specifically mentioned in the will. While I was there my mum got me to take the tv set to the golf club (mum's on the board of directors on the golf club, which sounds a lot grander than it actually is). The golf club TV had broken, so mum arranged a replacement. After I'd put the "new" tv set in place and plugged it in, I took the old one to the tip. However, throwing the tv set over the wall and dumping it in the skip wasn't as satisfactory as it could have been, because the skip was full and it only fell about three feet. As a result, it didn't break into a million pieces as I was rather hoping it would. So, only a little bit rock'n'roll then.

I had planned on joining the gym on Tuesday, but in the end I spent most of the day being a bit lazy (only a little bit lazy, mind). I felt a bit guilty about this so I went out for a cycle ride in the evening. Did an impressive 16.5 miles! Which isn't bad at all considering it's the first time I'd ridden the bike in about six weeks. Well, it seems like six weeks.

Wednesday........ what happened Wednesday? Can't remember. Must have been a humdinger of a day, Wednesday.

On Thursday I finally got round to joining the gym. I'd been thinking about it for a few weeks now, and decided that unless I get off my arse and do something about it, I'll end up putting on a good few pounds over the winter. Hell I think I've even managed to put on a few lbs over the summer, and that's with a bit of cycling. Anyway, I was introduced to the various machines, and spent an hour doing a fairly leisurely work out. I booked a session with a Personal Trainer (three half hour sessions are included in the joining fee) which leads me to......

.... today, when I had my first half hour with the PT. He showed me a cardio workout which takes half an hour, and includes the cycle machine, treadmill, cross trainer and rowing machine. I felt like I got a better workout in half an hour with the PT than I did in an hour on my own, which is exactly the sort of help I was hoping to get, so that I know I'm doing myself some good when I go. I think I'm going to enjoy going, I certainly don't feel out of place in there, or feel like I'm the odd one out or anything like that. All I have to do now is keep it up! By the way, current weight is 16stone 7lbs, or 231lbs. A further weight update next week, folks!

I think I've got writer's block. I'm sitting here staring at a blank screen and I can't think of anything interesting to put on it. Actually, that's not quite true. I can think of lots of things to put on it but I can't work out how to make each of them into a blog post on its own. So here's a collection of snippets from my life as it stands on this Saturday morning.

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I still haven't found out who the mystery speed dater is. I sent a message to a girl with the same first name as mystery dater, and got a reply three days later which basically said "what are you talking about?". So I don't think it was her. I also think that the real mystery dater has either given up on me for not replying to her messages, or given up on the speed dating web site for not delivering them in the first place. Either which way, I haven't heard from her since.

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There's plenty of stuff happening at work. The new boss man started about six weeks ago and has spent his time writing a report for the board on where the company is now and where he thinks we should go in the future. He wants to upgrade the server by splitting the load across three servers instead of one. He wants to get the retail branches onto broadband and effectively make them part of the office network. He wants to get all the computer systems at head office in line so that they can talk to each other properly without me having to write little programs to convert the data from one format to another all the time. He wants to do all the things I've wanted to do for the last three years but not had the time or the confidence to go to the board and say "this is what you should be doing."

He presented his findings to the board last week and they agree with him about everything. We're going to be buying new hardware, we've kicked the new order entry system into touch because it was basically crap and we're going to be hiring a third person for the IT department to help us develop a new system in-house because basically we know exactly what we want it to do.

I've wanted to develop a new system in-house for years, and I've basically got the skill set to do so, but I've never had the time, what with everything else I've had to keep running at the same time. The new guy comes in and says "do it all my way" and they listen to him. They never listened to me when I was the manager, and they never consulted me when they chose to go with this new system they've just binned. Admittedly I was in the doghouse at the time, but I get the feeling the board don't realise how valuable my input is to a project like this. I've been with the company nearly seven years now, and I've come up with a lot of the glue that holds everything together. My new boss recognises the effort that I've put in to keep everything going, I just hope that I'm going to get the credit that's due to me.

In fact, stuff the credit, I want a pay rise.

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Regular readers may have noticed that I've not been updating you with the results of my weight loss program recently. That's because it's all gone pear-shaped, as indeed have I. I've got no-one else to blame for this but myself (and the weather, heheh) but I really really do need to do something about it. I know for a fact I'll put on more weight over the winter unless I get myself more active, and I'm currently 3lbs heavier than I was when I first started talking about all this. Grrrrrr. I went to have a look at a local gym last week, and despite being very impressed with the facilities, I just can't afford to join. I'm in a rut, I know I'm eating all the wrong foods and not getting the energy I need. I've got the incentive (i.e. I hate the way that I look and I don't want to have a heart attack in ten years time) but a three-month commitment to the gym is going to cost me at least £165, and I just can't afford that at the moment.

I definately need to have a word with someone at work on Monday. I want to make sure that they know how valuable I am to them, and I want them to pay me accordingly. That'll make me feel better from the start, and give me the kick I need to get everything else sorted out. My life is starting to just coast along again, I need to take back some control over it.

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Now, I don't think I actually had writer's block. I think it was more like writer's constipation, and as you've just seen for yourself, it seems to have cleared. That feels better......