Overview of Research Program

As promised (and late) here is a general outline of what I will be doing over the next 16 weeks, and beyond. You can find a link to the article here

If you don’t want to read the link then basically the researchers with the University of South Australia are looking at how continous dieting and intermittent (on/off) dieting compare.

The inclusion criteria for the research was:

Aged 18+
BMI over 27kg/m2
Healthy of have type 2 diabetes managed by diet alone or stable doe metformin
Not pregnant of breast feeding (I didn’t have to worry about this one)

Exclusion criteria was:

Previous surgery for weight reduction
Drinking more than 2 standard drinks per day and not able /willing to decrease (due to high calorie contend)
Participating in any ongoing dietary studies
Eating out more than once a week and not able/willing to decrease for the duration of the study

As I didn’t meet any of the exclusion criteria is was all go from there.

I am sticking to a 5500kj (1315 cals) diet per day and it is structured out so I am meeting a certain amount of fats/ oils, vegetables, protein etc.

A day for me will be broken down as follows:

Cereal: 50g High fibre cereal (3/4 cup)
Bread: 3 Slices per day
Dairy: 2 serves
1 serve is equal to 250ml skim milk
200g diet yoghurt
20g full fat cheese or 40g reduced fat cheese
Fruit: 2 serves
1 serve is equal to 150g fresh or tinned, unsweetened fruit
150ml unsweetened fruit juice
30g dried fruit
Protein foods:
Lunch 50g cooked meat, poultry or fish
Dinner 150g of lean meat, poultry or fish (raw weight)
Vegetables: 4 Cups (no potato or sweet potato)
2 cups of salad greens and 2 cups of mixed greens
Fats and Oils: 20g of poly or monounsaturated oil or spread

I am now in my third week and already 2.3kgs down from starting weight (I report back fortnightly) and apart from feeling quite hungry initially, I am on the right track now and starting to adapt.

Along with this I am required to 10,000 steps per day, but since my City to Bay Run on Sunday I have not been feeling the best and haven’t been able to train as much as what I would have liked to.

So with this, I have a couple of extra days of “recovery” and time to finish planning my program which will now start from Monday and I hope to add this to the blog at some point over the weekend.

Until next time, happy fitness!

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It’s Been Run And Won!

And no it wasn’t technically won by me. The winner with an amazing time of 34:45 was Liam Adams. Leigh was actually a member of the Australian Commonwealth Games Marthon team in Glasgow 2014. Oh and he finished 7th.

But overall I did win……How you ask?

I won becuase I finished the run. Two years ago I would not have even dreamt (literally as I would have woken sore) about walking the 12km run, let along actually being out there and running it.

Overall my time was 1:22:54 which was below my goal of 1:30:00. The best part about completing the run yesterday was the fact I have to go back next year and beat that time. The run itself (for me) was a little difficult purely for the fact I have never been in this sort of scenario before. I say this scenario because there were 12277 people registered to run.

My run got off to an odd start as I was trying to get in to a rythym so I didn’t have to think so much about the running, but for the first 2kms this was quite difficult weaving around people and having them weave around me too. From around the 3-7km mark I was really in my groove and feeling great, but then I started to cramp up in my calf!

I was a little annoyed as I thought I was in a good place and I could run the distance non-stop, but there was no way I could keep going and run through the pain. So I stopped and gave it a little stretch and kept on going.

After this point I relly couldn’t get my rythym back and was having to stop a few times in the last 4kms. I have run on warmer days before, but have been in places were there was a breeze or shade available or I would take a little time to stop and recover, but I really think the little bit of heat or I may not have prepared well enough contributed to my cramping up.

Once I saw the 2kms to go sign I got a little bit of a lift knowing that the end was in sight. It was a very hard slog towards the end, but thankfully I made it their (just) in one peace with a puffed out chest full of pride for meeting one of my biggest goals set for the year.

I didn’t get a chance to take any photos at the end, but I got a few at the start line, as well as a very worrying one (which wasn’t taken by me) for runners at one point during the race.

This is a look back from where I was in the crowd. It was approximately 200m to the back of this line.

This one is looking forward to the start line which was around 100m in front of me.

Being lined up like cattle waiting to start and I got a little bored.

Some bright spark not obeying the road signs and the fact that there were 30,000+ people on the streets and they were closed for a reason. Thankfully no one was hurt.

From here it will be back in to the gym (working on my new program at the moment) with a run or two per week, and then in the new year it will be full steam ahead to either a half or full marathon. The choice will be made dependent on how my training pans out!

Until next time, happy fitness!

Another day closer

City to Bay countdown – 11 days to go!

Yesterday I went for a nice run (a touch over 4kms) which was a new PB for me. at this time of the training it is really nice to see that I am progressing well and my times are coming down….albeit slowly! I completed the run in 25m25s.

As it is getting closer to race day I am neither unsure or sure about what to expect. One thing I do know is, 12km’s is going to be a test. I know I have the runs under my belt, but what shoudl I be doing in the lead up next week?

I have two runds remaining this week (another approx 5km and 10km), but what will happen next week? I won’t be running next week, but I will head out for a walk and maybe get on the bike early in the week to get the legs moving so I am not sitting around stagnent.

Apart from the walking and bike ride, I am at a bit of a loss as to what I should be doing.

I would love to hear from any runners out there about what they go through in the lead up to a race that helped them out on race day, or just general hints about what to expect on the day.

Unitl next time, happy fitness (running)!

One step closer

As mentioned earlier I am looking to boost my running over the next couple of weeks in readiness for the City to Bay “fun run” on September 21. The City to Bay is a 12km run from the city centre through to Glenelg (you can see the course map here).

So with this comes the biggest run ever, but in the training I have also broken my longest run (previously 7km). Saturday I actually ran for a total of 10.02km. Completed the run in 1h12m with an average of 7m12s per kilometre. I am hoping to stay around this time in the 12km run as there are no hills and on Saturday there were a couple of larger hills to navigate.

It is a weird feeling as I knew it would be a long hard slog as I have never done it before and didn’t know how to go about pacing etc, but I have finished it and feel like I can go in to the run in a couple of weeks confidently.

Yesterday my legs were a little tight but got out for a big walk around the Zoo with my family for Fathers Day which helped a lot in my recovery. Today they are still a little tight, but I think they would have been a lot worse had I not been as active as I was yesterday. Below are a few pics of my day.

This week will bring another couple of big runs before taking it relatively easy next week with a couple of light walks, stretching and foam rolling.

Also this will be my first full week with my meal plan (which I need to set time aside for to write about) so I will do a review about this at the end of the week.

Research meeting and running

Just a quick on today as I had my meeting with the Researchers that I will be seeing over the next 16 weeks in relation to the difference between continuous dieting and intermittent dieting (one week on/ one week off). I had all of my measurements taken (weight/ height/ bmi etc) as well as a blood test and a Dual energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DEXA) scan.

I am pretty sure I will get a little snap shot of my first session with them in a couple of weeks, when I go back for my second visit. ONly concern that I was made a ware of was that my blood pressure was on the low side of being considered too high. Hopefully over the coming weeks this will lower as I get back in to the swing of things.

When I have a few spare minutes, I will do a full post about the ins and outs of the requirements etc and post my full thoughts on what I expect to gain from the process.

As mentioned in my first post back a couple of days ago, I have been running still and I am 3 runs in to an 8 run Corporate Cup challenge here in Adelaide. My 3 runs to date have been times of 47m29s, 46m47s and 45m.54s. I am happy because while I am not running as much as what I should be, I have been knocking out a better time each run for this 7.2km loop (map below). I am hoping to try and get to 40mins flat or at least (at worst) 41mins by the 8th run.

Day 1 in the bag

I made it successfully through day one. It was a wierd feeling purely for the fact that I don’t mind a bit of caffeine and yesterday I really didn’t want it (which shocked me), but my head was calling me every name under the sun and repayed me with a whopper of a headache for 90% of the day.

There is no way I will be giving in, so I will just have to put up with whatever comes my way and deal with each scenario as it rises.

My food was nice from start to finish and I didn’t really find myself overly hungry and really wanting food in between what I had planned for the day. I haven’t organised for anything special for the first couple of days, purely for the fact I want to prepare a lot of the staple foods (veg/ salad etc) in advance so I can focus a bit more on preparing the protein.

Breakfast I had 2 x fried eggs with 100g of shaved leg ham and 1 cup of spinach with a green tea

Lunch was approximately 175g of chicken breast with oregano with 2 cups of brocoli and a roast tomato

My snacks throughout the day consisted of a handful of almonds, banana, carrot and a tin of plain tuna. I don’t know if I will need to cut back my snacks, but I will have them on hand and see if I can go with out them, but knowing they are there in case.

It was a gym day yesterday which was really nice. It was made even better because I hit a new PR on the leg press. I got to update my board from 120kgs to 140kgs. I didn’t go in with the midset of having a go at my PR, but was feeling really strong so thought why not!

I did a circuit of the following for 3 rounds and then finished off with 4 sets of quad and hamstring curls.

Circuit – weight was at 25kgs
15 thrusters
15 upright rows
10 burpee to box jump @ 50cm

Below is a picture of me on the leg press.

Overall I had a good day and have a very good feeling about the month going forward.

Until next time, happy fitness!

Fit Men……Fit Kids??

According to a report recently conducted in South Australia shows that male weight loss prior to conception positively affects the growth of the developing baby. This research was completed with mice and was seen that men play more of a part than just conception. You can read more on this research from Dr Michelle Lane here.

While it is reported that even a minor weight loss can assist with conceiving, I think that you set up good/ bad habits once your child starts to learn. There is no way I would want to bring my kids up surrounded by the lifestyle I used to live. Eating takeaway every other day, and loaded up plates with pasta and meat and pretty much as much as I could get on the plate. Yes, we do still have a treat meal when time is short and to show the kids that it is ok in moderation.

I can tell that we are already winning purely for the fact that my daughter because a fitness training freak when we are down at the park having a play, and that she loves the fact she can “train” with me when we are at home. She loves that when we are down the park we play leap frog burpee, chasey, squats, push ups and all of the fun stuff. Even with my wife and I doing the 30 Day Squat Challenge at the moment out daughter is front and centre either trying to do them, or watching us, and my son is in my arms making things harder for me haha.

It gives me the biggest satisfaction that I know I am creating happy and healthy memories for the kids and that it will go a long way to them leading a happy lifestyle in the future. The best thing overall is that I now tire them out rather than having to stop because daddy can’t play anymore because he thinks his heart is about to jump out his chest.

Below is a picture of me with 2 of the 3 main reasons (my wife being the 3rd) I am putting myself through all of this pain (haha).

Feeling slightly better

The bicep is finally on the mend which is good because it was starting to really frustrate me and affecting me mentally.

It was only 5 days, but I started sliding straight with not being able to train fully (and fall a week behind in my April goals). I need to work something out (within myself) to not go straight to the negative side of not training or my body telling me I need to have a break, as it is happening all to easy.

I did have a little win over the weekend with one of my favourite sport clothing items. I purchased the below top (Adelaide Crows from the Australian Football League – AFL) in 2008. Everytime I wore it I would require 4 people (overreaction) to help paint it on and shower after to wash it all off.

Over the weekend I got a chance to sit down and watch the game and throw my favourite top on and I was so happy to put it on and have it fit loosely. It felt that loose that I could have put both of my children in the top with me.

Now that I am back to 95% fitness, I can’t wait to get back in to it and re-find all the energy, motivation, enjoyment that I had earlier in the year.

Until next time, happy fitness!

The Burn

I have just polished off a little serve of turkey pasta, and now trying to hit the keys to type this post. These two things are the hardest I have had to try and do all day.

Went to the gym with a mate of mine today and we did an arms workout. Now my weight session don’t really venture away from the machines very much so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect (and what he would put me through). It was a hell of a lot different using dumbells, but now I have the confidence, and a bit more knowledge to do this again going forward.

We completed 3 sets of each exercise with 2 sets being to either 10 or 15 and the 3rd set to failure. The exercises were

Bicep Curls
Hammer Curls
Tricep Extension
Lat Pulldown
Preacher Curls
Tricep Pushdown

I think my arms will be a little sore for the next couple of days, but it is totally worth it and I can’t get back in there and do another session like it.

This was just a quick one today and won’t be doing a lot over the weekend apart from a little run and the squat challenge (I have a day of 70 and one of 75). I’ve got a couple days off next week so I will make up for it them in between the things I have to get done.

Until next time, happy fitness.

1st Quarter Done

Where did that last 3 months ago. I am writing this with mixed feelings about my first 3 months to 2014. On one hand I have increased my fitness capacity, my strength (both physically and mentally) and my all around outlook on this whole fitness/ weight loss thing….This is where a contradiction rears it mean head!

While I have done all of the above well, I don’t think I have done it to the best of what I can do it. Meaning that if I was training by myself I wouldn’t push in the last set, or if there was a minute to go that would be close enough. If that was the case I feel I could have produced a far better result overall than what I have.

The good thing about this is the fact that I know in myself that I have more to give and in turn have set up the 5 goals for April. This week has been a good start (apart from forgetting my gym card on Monday), and looking to finish the week off strong with a big couple of sessions in the gym. Saturday I will be having a go at Crossfit Open workout 14.5 which I am excited, but nervous for as I know it is really going to test me…..which is what I want.

I still don’t have my 5 goals (I have 2), but I have enough to get me to the weekend and sit down to work on finalising the last 3.

Finally, an update on where I am with my overall goal list for 2014. My goals are:

To plan a training program and run the City To Bay (hopefully in under 60minuntes)
To attend the Crossfit competition ‘Fitwars’ (I am obsessed with Crossfit, and want to see all the hard work put in during WOD’s etc in to action)
Read all of the Harry Potter books (I love the movies and have always said I want to read the books)
Run 2000km (this will be my biggest test of the year I think)
But my main goal of the year was to get to 100kgs. But after a discussion with a friend at work she said that 99.9kgs would be way better, so I am aiming to get to this weight.

So far I have attended Fitwars, which was awesome, and I will be attending again in June of this year.
As mentioned the 200km running has so far been my biggest test and has really been nonexistent to date. So far I have around 30kms to my name. I really need to pick this up going forward (Actually, I am going to run 20kms in the month of April).
I am up to the 3rd book in the Harry Potter series.
I am currently stuck on 108.4kgs, but feel I am progressing well towards my goal of 99.9kgs.

Please feel free to leave feedback of your own stories/ workouts etc as I really enjoy reading about other people’s successes and it also motivates me.

Until next time, happy fitness!