A good day

A good day today, despite sleeping most of the morning. Still only four feeds (so far) but that’s because I got up so late. All PN-compliant. I just luuurrve the sesame crusted salmon from the Gourmet Nutrition cookbook. With sweet red pepper, onions, mushrooms, sugar snap peas, and spinach. I think this may even be my favourite meal.

Did my Turbulence Training workout for 45 minutes this morning. And I did FULL push ups, instead of kneeling girly ones!!!! Then this evening, I did 15 minutes on the turbo trainer, plus 30 minutes of standing pilates. Although according to Dr John, I can’t count my pilates in my 5 hours minimum. So that’s 2 hours of ‘real’ exercise, plus half an hour of pilates so far this week. And I feel great.

Will try and get to bed before midnight for a change. ‘night all.

Learn more about Precision Nutrition
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TurboTraining

Another day where I spent more time asleep than I did awake. Only 4 feeds – baked apple super shake from Gourmet Nutrition for breakfast. I am sooo sick of eggs! Pecan-crusted salmon with steamed spinach from Precision Nutrition ‘5-minute meals’ for lunch. Sleep. Woke up craving carbs and had cereal with sliced banana. Cheat meal 1 for the week, and it’s only Monday!

Didn’t get my workout in till after midnight! Made up the interval training that I missed yesterday, for 20 minutes. Continued with steady state cardio to take it upto an hour. Last feed Chocolate Peanut Butter bar. Yum. Although best not to dwell too much on what they look like! Hubby made these for me while I was on the treadmill. I don’t think I could do this without his support. At least, it would be much more difficult.

Didn’t get on my bike today, but as promised, here is my new turbo trainer. And here is my guilty secret: I can’t write a bike! I never learned as a child since we lived on a busy main road and mum and dad were worried we’d get flattened.

I’ve since come to discover that learning to ride a bike is something that is best done when one is light as a feather and completely fearless. He bought me this bike over a year ago, with a view to teaching me to ride so that we could go cycling together. A few humourous, but eye-watering attempts later, still haven’t got much further than going round in circles in the driveway. Not always intentionally, I might add.

It is just sooo painful. That’s something people don’t talk about. I guess they learn young and get used to it. We’ve experimented with different saddles – the very very nice people in the Manchester store of the Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative (stores around the country, plus online, check them out) spent a good hour putting different saddles on a bike for me to try, for what would likely have been no more than a £20 sale (around 30 bucks). None were much better than the ‘ladies’ saddle I already have on my bike, so ended up buying a gel saddle cover and decided on a different plan of action.

I decided that trying to learn to ride, balance, not fall off, steer, getting hot and bothered, and dealing with excruciating pain all at the same time was just too difficult, and experience indeed shows that this method tended not to produce much progress, since I couldn’t stand to be on the bike for more than about 2 minutes at a time and then couldn’t walk again for a week. So hubby told me about turbo trainers, not to be confused with Turbulence Training (a fast, effective, kick-butt workout whatever your starting point or goals). For the uninitiated, a turbo trainer is a stand for your bike that, in effect, turns it into a stationary bike. It has a little rotating belt for the rear wheel where you can increase the resistance too. But they are really expensive. After a few botched attempts to buy one for £50 or less on ebay, hubby secretly ordered me one online for, he assured me, less than £100.

“How much less?”, I asked reasonably.

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly say”, replied he. No doubt £99.99. He really is wonderful. So yesterday we set it up in the living room and I spent 20 minutes puffing and panting as he cheered me on. Something of a breakthrough really. And not too sore today.

So once I get used to it, then and only then will I try again outside. I don’t really see 100 km bike rides in my immediate future, but it’s a start. And it’s one more cardio avenue open to me.

Anyway, nearly 2.30am. ‘night all.

Learn more about Precision Nutrition
Learn more about Turbulence Training

Week 2 Results

Weigh and measure day today, end of week 2. And I’m up a pound since last week. But surprise, surprise, my body fat is down. I actually put all the calculations onto a spreadsheet today, so I wouldn’t have to keep doing it by hand. Probably just as well, since I appear to have made a mistake last week. So the good news is that last week, I dropped 2.1% body fat, rather than 1%, and I’ve dropped another 1.3% this week. So altogether, down 3.4% in 2 weeks!

What’s more, I seem to have gained a total of 6lbs lean mass over the 2 weeks. Given the intensity of my workouts this seems rather a lot. Perhaps it has more to do with measurement errors. After all, it is quite difficult getting reproducible skinfold readings, and hubby, who is doing the honours, has no training in this. And his knowledge of anatomy is of the boy-meets-girl variety. Oh well, over a period of 4 months I guess we will see patterns emerging.

Compliance… Oh dear. It’s been dreadful. A combination of poor preparation, illness and bad luck. Although, in fairness to myself, the poor preparation has had more to do with the illness than with lack of determination. So how bad was it? 77%. Definitely not good enough. Two missed meals and five cheats. There were a couple of days where I was sleeping during the day and hence missed feeding opportunities. Not sure if I should count these. I suppose from the point of view of blood sugar stability I probably should, but I’m going to cut myself some slack. And it’s not like I woke up ravenous for carbs and stuffed my face. I got up and had a PN-friendly meal right after.

Exercise was also pretty dreadful. Only managed my weights today, no intervals. Taking my total for the week up to 3 hours 10 minutes. I scheduled my workout for late afternoon as we were having guests over for dinner and I wanted to be able to eat the rice with the healthy Chinese food I was making. But spent so long cleaning the house etc. that I had to cut my workout short to start cooking. Planned to finish it later this evening, but it is now 1.20am and I am going to have to go to bed soon. And after all that, I polished off 4 glasses of wine – it was so good, white merlot. So it counted as a cheat meal anyway. Note to self, do workouts in the morning when you are more likely to get them done. Plus, start the day feeling fabulous, and not a little bit please with myself. Also, try cleaning the house a little more often, perhaps?

‘night all.

Ups & Downs

It’s been a couple of days of ups and downs. I didn’t manage any additional exercise on Thursday besides walking to the shops and back, but at least that was 30 minutes of brisk walking, taking my exercise total for the week to 1 hour 10 minutes. Dire.

Friday, I was feeling a bit better and got in a 40 minute Turbulence Training high-intensity weights and intervals workout. 1 hour 50 minutes so far this week. Got one more TT workout to do on Sunday.

Saturday not such a good day. Got up late and had breakfast around 11.30am. Had to drive down to Birmingham, normally about a 90 minute drive, for a 2 o’clock chair massage exam. No time to prepare snacks and all out of protein bars so informed my hubby (chauffeur and test ‘body’) that I would need to eat immediately after the exam finished instead of driving straight home.

Well, not all went to plan. We got stuck in traffic all the way down, arriving 35 minutes late. No time to stop and buy food. The exam took longer than planned, was rather painful and emotionally draining, but I managed to get a pass and my chair massage certification. Yay.

Well, it was already 4.30, 5 hours since I last ate, scoring me a ‘missed meal’ tick and when we got to the services (restaurant and shop complex on a highway where you can refuel car and body) all I wanted was ice cream as a ‘reward’ for all my suffering. Checked all the outlets and found that Burger King were selling ice cream. OK for dessert but I wanted real food first.

Chose a restaurant and on the way in passed a fridge compartment with Eton Mess. This is a mushed up mix of strawberries, whipped cream and pieces of meringue. Yummmm. Put it on the tray. Then I thought, oh **** it, and added OJ. It feels kind of strange that freshly squeezed orange juice is a rebellious choice. Got to the hot food counter and decided to at least offset my carbs with a moderately good option – barbecued chicken, roasted veg, no rice or potatoes.

Luckily, the people before us had ordered food that needed cooking freshly, the girl serving was practicing for a slo-mo championship and we had to stand for ages. As the other options were a burger joint and a fish and chip shop, we waited. And as we were waiting, I had time to think, and reconsider. I’ve been so good, and tried so hard, and I must learn to stop feeding my emotional issues. So much to hubby’s amazement, I put back the Eton Mess, put back the OJ, and picked up a bottle of water. Damn, I wanted that Eton Mess. He, however, didn’t put back his chocolate cake and clotted cream.

The chicken was lovely, followed by a small fruit salad I’d picked up, and then I ruined it by having a bite of his chocolate cake. And then another. And then I licked out the pot of clotted cream. Oh, hell. This was followed by a bathroom break and quick swizz in the newsagent. And you know what they had? Pick and mix sweeties (candy to you yanks). Well, after that impromptu dessert, I couldn’t really kid myself that this wasn’t a cheat meal, so a few sweets wouldn’t hurt… And I did only have a few. But I felt so sick afterwards. And I was really really glad. If I can’t eat sweets, that doesn’t half make the choice not to a bit easier.

Got home at 7 and crashed out. Woke up at 10pm, nothing prepared, and wanted something sweet. Crunchy nut cornflakes to the rescue. Bringing the total for the day to 1 missed meal and 2 ‘cheat meals’. Quite an achievement. And tomorrow is weigh and measure day. Can’t wait.

Finally managed to get back on plan, at least to the extent that the plan included staying up till 3 in the morning! Have just finished 40 minutes steady state on the treadmill (walked 3 km, at an average speed, therefore, of 4.5 kph, or just under 3 mph. Goal: get up to 6km in an hour by the end of the challenge). This was followed by 20 minutes on my new Turbo Trainer!! More on this tomorrow. Exercise for the week now up to 2 hours 50 minutes.

Having my delicious 3am feed – actually, I really like cottage cheese with microwave-exploded blueberries and raspberries with a sprinkling of flax and hemp seeds, and am happy to eat it most nights. Surprisingly tasty with a good mix of textures. OK, bed time. ‘night all.

Hiccoughs

Well, I got back from my trip very proud of myself. I’d managed to eat clean and work out as scheduled, and it was with some anticipation that I got on the scales on Wednesday morning, expecting to have dropped below the 15 stone mark (210lbs). Instead, I was quite horrified to see, I was up 1.5lbs from Sunday. And it was fat, not lean muscle that had changed.

And to make matters worse, I felt rough all day and didn’t manage to work out. In fact, I slept for most of the day. As I had planned to go to the supermarket, after my trip, this also meant that I didn’t have very much food in the house. Veg in particular was either all used up or all gone off. So food in my few waking hours was a bit of a problem. I had to resort to a couple of shakes, using Beyond Greens, but still managed to use up the rest of my cheat meals for the week, plus one. Not a good day. At least I felt bad about it – I wanted to eat properly, so that’s something I guess.

This morning, I was down 0.4lbs, but it was LBM, not fat. Must get back to my workouts. Still feeling a bit rough though. Need to go to the post office and to pick up some dry cleaning, and since the weather is quite nice I think l’ll walk instead of drive. If I feel a bit better later I will get my overdue weights workout in this afternoon.

In the past, hiccoughs like these would have sent me straight to chocolate bars and fried food. This time, I don’t want to give up so easily. So that’s my triumph for today. Like Dr JB says, it’s attitude change that will carry you forward and get you results.

Cookies, cheeseburgers, and that sinking feeling

Hi All,

Back home, back on my own computer (Mac’s rule!!), links all sorted, supershake down me, and ready to face the world, as seen from my pillow. Absolutely exhausted, but travelling with my mum will do that to a person!

I had a breakthrough moment yesterday that I want to share with you. After lunch, I ordered a coffee and it came with a mini chocolate chip cookie on the side. Normally, it wouldn’t have even touched the sides on the way down, but I let it sit there, and simply eyed it suspiciously. You would simply not believe the dialogue that went through my head, inspired by this tiny little cookie, about the size of the circle made by putting your thumb and forefinger together.

I looked at it… I resisted… I counted the chocolate chips… I drank my coffee…Well, I thought, I can’t eat it now, after the long lectures I’ve been giving my mother – she knows I’m not supposed to eat it… and not after all the fuss I’ve made thus far about getting PN-friendly food… Maybe I could just slip it in my mouth and she wouldn’t notice?…Wait, do I actually want it?…I certainly don’t need it…Nah, I don’t want it, I’m being sooo good, and I’m really proud of myself…But it’s just sitting there, looking at me…It can’t be more than 50-odd calories, what could it hurt?…I am not controlled by a cookie, I have my own will…I wonder what will happen to it if I don’t eat it; will it get thrown away? Shame to waste it….No, I can resist, I don’t even LIKE chocolate chip cookies particularly…Oh, mum’s gone back to the room…she wouldn’t know if I ate it….

And then I got up and went back to the room too, leaving that poor, lonely, chocolate chip cookie sitting on the side of the saucer by my empty coffee cup. This was a very symbolic moment in my life. I don’t think I’ve ever done the like before.

Afternoon snack was good and healthy, but by evening I was ravenous and craving carbohydrates. OK, I thought, let’s make this one of my ‘cheat’ meals. For non-PN readers, we are allowed 4 meals per week which don’t comply with PN guidelines. So I ordered a cheeseburger, fries, 2 scoops of coffee icecream, and a pot of hot chocolate. This was in a nice hotel, mind, so the burger was really good quality ground beef and the cheese was gruyere. Can’t do much with the fries, though. Do they count as a serving of veg??? Probably needed to wait after the burger to let it go down, but the ice cream was melting so rushed that down too. Damn, did I feel sick after all that. That would have been a pretty normal meal for me before Precision Nutrition. I was still feeling rough a couple of hours later. Skipped my evening snack and went to bed early instead. Perhaps I should have eaten the cookie.

One last thought. Today, on our way back to the UK, we came through two airports. Everytime I rounded a corner and saw a flight of steps my heart sank. When there was an escalator too, I took that. At one point, waiting for my mum to come out of the ladies’, I watched various people, of all shapes and sizes, young and old, come round the corner and walk straight up the stairs, ignoring the automated version completely. That’s my goal. I want to be one of those people.

Week 1 Results

 Hi All,

 Apologies for not posting yesterday – I tried but was having technical difficulties. I am away with my mum for a couple of days and couldn’t get into my account from the hotel’s computer. All sorted now.

 So, end of week 1 and how has it gone. 

86% compliant with PN guidelines. Click here to learn more about Precision Nutrition.

Did my 3 beginner TT high-intensity weight and interval workouts for a total of 2 hours. Click here to learn more about Turbulence Training.

Did an additional 1 hour 35 minutes steady-state cardio (walking on treadmill and recumbent bike), giving a total of 3 hours 35 minutes exercise for the week. Short of the 5 hours minimum recommended with PN, just under 72%.

Lost 20mm in total from my 7-site caliper total, equivalent to 4 lbs of fat, a just over 1% body fat decrease.

Gained 1/2 lb of lean muscle.

Plan for the next week:

1. Prepare better for when I am away from home, as this was the source of all my non-compliant meals.

2. Get the exercise up to 5 hours a week.

‘night all.

Challenges 1

Oops, I posted this a couple of days ago, then forgot to upload it!!!! Guess that’s what carb deprivation will do to you. Anyhow, here it is, a couple of days late.

Today I’m going to talk about challenges, in all shapes and forms.

Challenge number 1: The Precision Nutrition challenge.
A 16-week body transformation challenge based on the principles of Precision Nutrition. This was the reason for the ‘Before’ photo. I have been following the principles of PN for 6 days now, tomorrow is day 7. Monday would be weigh and measure day, but I will be away from home, so progress report tomorrow instead. Well, actually, I haven’t been following all of the principles. See challenge number 2….

Challenge number 2: Exercise.
PN calls for a minimum of 5 hours per week of moderate to high intensity exercise. In my first week, I haven’t managed to reach that at all. I am following Craig Ballantyne’s Turbulence Training programme. This is a high-intensity training programme that allows you burn loads of fat, build tons of muscle and feel fantastic in 3 workouts per week, each lasting under 45 minutes. It’s in e-book form and comes with loads of workouts suitable for different fitness levels, different goals, for men and women, and so on. There are also equipment free workouts, in case you don’t belong to a gym, and lots of other support and information. And with so much content, the whole thing costs less than a meal out at a nice restaurant. And for us Brits, yet again, “GO STERLING!”, it’s practically for nothing. Click here for more information.

I’ve started on the 4-week Beginner TT programme, and hope to progress up to intermediate, and maybe even advanced during the course of the 16-week PN challenge. I’ve been enjoying the workouts so far, and always feel fantastic when I’m done. I’m drenched, not-too-fragrant, and grinning from ear to ear. On paper, they seem quite simple, but darn, they work a girl hard. So that accounts for around 2 hours per week. For weight loss, I need to add in some regular cardio. And I’ve been a bit lax there. See challenge number 3.

Challenge number 3: Getting in my cardio.
I need to do around 3 hours a week, minimum for maximal effect. And till today, I’d managed zip, zilch, zero. So first, the sob stories….I have a bad knee – no cartilege, so I can’t run. That leaves cycling, swimming, walking. Walking would be the easiest, despite the weather, since my Chrissy present to myself was a cheap treadmill off ebay. It was made in China and says things like “Converging healthy dynamism to all users” and “Bringing a good luck to all households” on the control console. But it works. Still, if I overdo it, my knee flares up and then I’m no good to anybody for a week or two. So in the spirit of not overdoing it, I’ve been not doing it at all. Well, all that changed today. I promised myself I’d do 30 minutes and see how I felt. Turned on Radio 4 and started to listen to a rather disturbing play about a murderous middle-class housewife in the early 1900s, who knocked off an old lady tenant, got her husband convicted and hanged for the crime, married her lover, and ran off with him, the inheritance and hubby’s life insurance to a new life in California! Well that got me to an hour on the treadmill and feeling very pleased with myself. Get fit to Radio 4. (For all you yanks reading this, Radio 4 is one of the BBC’s serious, non-music radio station, the kind that your parents listened to in the car when you were little and bored you senseless. Apparently I am now at THAT AGE. You can listen online if you like, just click here.) Anyway, that’s walking taken care of. I’m going to try and do 30 minutes every day minimum. I’ll fill you in on my swimming and cycling sob stories another time, or this post could get out of control.

Challenge number 4: Tomorrow I go away on a 2-day trip with my mum.
I’ve just found out that the hotel has a gym, so should be able to get my workouts in. But I’m a bit nervous about getting PN-friendly food outside of regular meal times. But I’ll take some protein bars with me, drive room service a bit mad, and hope for the best. So far, have been 88% compliant with the nutritional recommendations. The aim is for 90%+. I’m quite happy with that for my first week, and don’t want to ruin it tomorrow in transit.

Anyhow, I will try and keep posting while I’m away and let you know how I’m getting on. Better get to bed now – early start tomorrow for weighing and measuring. ‘night all.

Precision Nutrition

So there I was, toying with the recommendations in the Metabolism Advantage. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Not very much of the other. Then I decided to check out the forums for users, and this led me to a separate site: Precision Nutrition. If you need answers to any nutrition or exercise question, this is the place to go. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of members log in, swap information, give advice – you name it, either this very well educated public or one of the team of moderators will be able to help you with it.

So what is Precision Nutrition (PN)? It’s a complete system to help you build a healthy, lean, high-performance body in record time. It comes complete with 7 guidebooks, a gourmet cookbook, an online digital AV library, membership to the online forums, and loads more. Click here to find out more about Precision Nutrition. Or if you just want to be tempted by gorgeous, body-sculpting meals and drinks, check out the cookbook, which you can buy as a stand alone e-book. Click here to find out more about Gourmet Nutrition.

British readers take note: With the strong pound this stuff is a steal. If you’re thinking about doing something about your weight, either getting it down, or bulking up, you’d be CRAZY not to check it out. Here are those links again:

Precision Nutrition
Gourmet Nutrition

That’s it for today. More tomorrow, including the PN challenge. ‘night all.

The Metabolism Advantage

Well, I’m back. Another year older, and hopefully a little wiser. This may well have been the first birthday where I didn’t gain a few extra pounds along with the age increase. I took advantage of a 2-night spa break that I won in a competition and went away for a couple of days of R’n'R with my poor, long-suffering hubby. After 4 years together, he finally endured his first massage and facial, plus 3 days of healthy food. Oh well, he may as well get used to it – he’s going to be seeing a lot of it from now on.

And so, to the plan. For those of my dear readers who have come here from the Precision Nutrition forum, this will all be old news to you. But for anyone else searching for THE ANSWER to their weight-loss prayers, this is for you.

Like most fat people, I like to blame a slow metabolism and big bones for my excess weight, not really wanting to admit to being a lazy pig, after all. So when I came across a book called The Metabolism Advantage, “An 8-week program to rev up your body’s fat-burning machine – at any age”, my interest was piqued. I may have even eschewed Amazon’s free delivery and got them to send it Next Day Delivery. If I could have driven down there and picked it up, I would have.

So was it worth it? Was it just another diet book filled with old news reworked with lots of ‘motivational’ waffle by some wannabe guru cashing in on us poor, desperate, calorifically challenged folks? It sure was! Nah, just kidding. It was brilliant. It was scientific, well researched, and well written. Even more than that, it was actually inspiring. It made me want to go out and make those changes.

And for maybe the first time ever, I did. Not all of them at once, but I started to make changes in my daily life. I started exercising again. Cooking metabolism-friendly meals. Upped my intake of the recommended supplements. And a strange thing happened. I wanted to do more.

So now you have two choices. To find out what happened next, tune in tomorrow for the next installment of my blubberbegone makeover. Alternatively, to start your own, go out and buy the book! You can learn a bit more about it here:

Click here to learn more about The Metabolism Advantage, or click here to buy The Metabolism Advantage at Amazon.