Train to maintain

Official blog weigh in this morning and I posted another new low of 14 stone 7.6 pounds. Body fat was up a bit on last week, but I think it is just a blip.

I met up with my mum today, who has been away and who I haven’t seen in a couple of weeks. She thought I must have lost at least two stone (obviously not in the last two weeks, but overall) as I looked so different. She couldn’t believe that it was just short of one and a half stone. If I hadn’t been weight training, I probably would have lost two stone, and maybe be a similar size to what I am now. But I certainly wouldn’t have been the same shape.

Hubby was reviewing our Turbulence Training transformation challenge month 2 workout schedule to go on the fridge. I included our starting stats and our end-of-week-4 stats. Just out of interest, because I haven’t posted them anywhere else I don’t think, here they are:

	Start	End Wk 4	Start	End Wk 4
Weight	15′ 0.6	14′ 9.8	13′ 3.2	13′ 1.0
% Body Fat	45.4%	43.6%	21.0%	19.7%
Lean Body Mass	8′ 3.0	8′ 4.1	10′ 6.3	10′ 6.9

He asked me if I’d be happy if I continued to lose weight but my lean body mass stayed about the same. Hell, yes. It is practically impossible to gain muscle mass and lose weight at the same time, because one requires a calorie surplus and one a deficit. It is sometimes seen in people completely new to training and with a lot of weight to lose, but really, the goal of all this weight training (apart from the fact that I like feeling stronger) is to maintain my lean body mass whilst losing weight. I have lost 20 pounds of fat. It’s awesome. So my weight loss might not be as drastic as if I hadn’t been weight training, but my body composition, and hence my metabolism, sure as hell is a lot better.

Today, I had to practically tie my favourite trousers onto my body to stop them coming down over my not-inconsiderable hips. I can’t even have them taken in as they are now pretty much the wrong shape for my body. I suppose this is good news.

I start my new job tomorrow (today actually – it’s the early hours. I’m so excited, I can’t sleep). The uniform consists of tracksuit pants and T-shirts. As most of my trackie pants have holes in them and are not suitable for a work environment, perhaps I will go shopping for some new ones. In a smaller size. I hope.

Vitamin E

One of my goals in the coming weeks is to get 100% of the RDA for vitamin E from food sources, so I thought I’d write a bit about what vit E is, what it does and where to get it. I have used a wonderful resource, the website World’s Healthiest Foods, for most of the information below, but check out the site for more on this and all other matters relating to food and health. Other information came from Wikipedia, the USDA Food and Nutrition Information Centre, the Linus Pauling Institute of Micronutrient Research for Optimum Health and Patrick Holford’s New Optimum Nutrition Bible (2004).

Vitamin E: What it is

Vitamin E is one of the fat-soluble vitamins (the others being A, D, and K – to remember them, ADEK, you can use the mnemonic All Dogs Eat Kidneys; the other vitamins, B and C, are water-soluble).

Vitamin E is actually not one substance but a family name of eight different, related substances. The eight naturally occurring members of the vitamin E family are made up of tocopherols and tocotrienols, both of which come in alpha, beta, gamma and delta varieties. Alpha-tocopherol has the highest bioavailability and is the most studied of the eight members of the family. It should be noted that the majority of clinical studies into the effects of vitamin E have used synthetic alpha-tocopherol, but this may not be a good indicator of the full range of effects of dietary vitamin E, because increasingly, unique and individual functions are now being recognised for the other family members. To confuse matters further, levels of some of the other members of the group are reduced in the blood by alpha-tocopherol supplementation.

Vitamin E: What it does

• Vitamin E is thought to be one of the most important anti-oxidants in the body, preventing free radical damage and protecting cell membranes. Other important anti-oxidants include vitamin C, glutathione, selenium, and vitamin B3.
• It protects the skin from UV rays
• Alpha-tocopherol (but not gamma-tocopherol) has been shown to significantly reduce the risk of bladder cancer, whether ingested from food or supplements. Bladder cancer is four times more common in men than women, being the fourth leading cancer killer in men.
• In contrast, gamma-tocopherol (not usually found in supplements) but not alpha-tocopherol (which is) has been shown to inhibit prostate cancer cell proliferation. These effects appear to be even greater when combined with other forms of vitamin E, such as delta-tocopherol (also not usually found in supplements). This emphasises the importance of getting vitamin E from food sources and not just supplementation, particularly for men.
• Food sources of vitamin E, but not supplementation, have also been shown to be protective against Alzheimer’s disease.
• Vitamin E may also play a part in cholesterol reduction, cardioprotection, immune function and cell signalling.

Vitamin E: How much do you need?

Too Little

Absolute vitamin E deficiency is rare, and tends to occur only in people with digestive diseases that prevent its absorption or genetic mutations that affect the proteins responsible for vitamin E transport. Symptoms of deficiency generally include neurological damage resulting in peripheral neuropathies. Subclinical deficiencies may result in reduced libido, easy bruising, slow wound healing, quick to fatigue and reduced fertility. Around 90% of American adults are estimated not to meet even the minimal RDA requirement for vitamin E (below).

Too Much

It is possible to get too much vitamin E though. Like all the fat-soluble vitamins, if you take in more than you need, it can be stored in body fat, thus building up over time. It is very unlikely that this will happen through dietary intake alone. Symptoms of vitamin E toxicity include severe influenza, malaise, fatigue and intestinal problems. Imbalances of vitamin E and vitamin K (high E, low K) can cause clotting problems, and people taking anticoagulants (e.g. warfarin) or anti-platelet medications should not supplement with vitamin E because of the risk of prolonged bleeding and impaired clotting following an injury. Some doctors also recommend stopping vitamin E supplementation a month before any surgical procedure, for the same reason.

In 2000, the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine established a tolerable upper intake level (UL) of 1,000 mg/day of alpha-tocopherol in any form as the highest dose unlikely to result in hemorrhage in almost all adults.

Recent research has suggested a possible connection between high levels of vitamin E in pregnancy and congenital heart defects in infants. This possibility requires much more thorough and stringent investigation, but to be on the safe side, pregnant women might want to avoid vitamin E supplements.

Just Right

The current RDA for adults is 15 mg per day. This is the amount needed to prevent deficiencies in most people. Patrick Holford recommends an optimal intake of around 300 mg per day. The Linus Pauling Institute recommends about half of this – 134 mg (200 IU) per day for protection against chronic diseases including heart disease, stroke, neurodegenerative diseases, and some types of cancer.

Supplementation:

The amounts of alpha-tocopherol required to achieve these optimal levels are unlikely to be achieved by diet alone. The Linus Pauling Institute, who recommend 200 IU daily of alpha-tocopherol note that supplements containing 200 IU of d-alpha-tocopherol are often as expensive as supplements containing 400 IU of d-alpha-tocopherol, a less expensive alternative may be to take 400 IU (268 mg) of d-alpha-tocopherol every other day.

It is generally thought to be preferable to take a supplement made from natural (d-alpha tocopherol) rather than synthetic (dl-alpha tocopherol) vitamin E. Also, although less common, some supplements now contain a mix of tocopherols.

Vitamin E supplements are unlikely to be absorbed unless taken with food, which should contain some fat.

Medications that prevent fat absorption (for example, some weight loss products) may reduce vitamin E absorption also.

Good Food Sources

All eight naturally-occurring forms of vitamin E are found in food, but the proportions vary. This table, from the Linus Pauling Institute, gives some examples:

Food	Serving	Alpha-tocopherol (mg)	Gamma-tocopherol (mg)
Olive oil	1 tablespoon	1.9	0.1
Soybean oil	1 tablespoon	1.1	8.7
Corn oil	1 tablespoon	1.9	8.2
Canola oil	1 tablespoon	2.4	3.8
Safflower oil	1 tablespoon	4.6	0.1
Sunflower oil	1 tablespoon	5.6	0.7
Almonds	1 ounce	7.4	0.2
Hazelnuts	1 ounce	4.3	0
Peanuts	1 ounce	2.4	2.4
Spinach	½ cup, raw	0.3	0
Carrots	½ cup, raw chopped	0.4	0
Avocado (California)	1 fruit	2.7	0.4

Some of the best food sources

• Excellent sources of vitamin E include mustard greens, turnip greens, chard, and sunflower seeds.
• Very good sources of vitamin E include almonds and spinach.
• Good sources of vitamin E include collard greens, parsley, kale, papaya, olives, bell pepper, brussels sprouts, kiwifruit, tomato, blueberries, and broccoli.

The World’s Healthiest Foods website calculates the best food sources of a nutrient not just on their absolute content of the vitamin, but taking into account how much you’d have to eat to get the amount and the calorie content of that serving size. Based on the serving size, they calculate what they call nutrient density – the amount of vitamin E in the serving per calorie.

The following table, from the website, shows serving sizes and vitamin E content for these foods.

World’s Healthiest Foods ranked as quality sources of: vitamin E
Food	Serving Size	Cals	Amount (mg)	DV (%)	Nutrient Density	World’s Healthiest Foods Rating
Mustard greens, boiled	1 cup	21.0	2.81	14.1	12.0	excellent
Swiss chard, boiled	1 cup	35.0	3.31	16.6	8.5	excellent
Spinach, boiled	1 cup	41.4	3.74	18.7	8.1	excellent
Sunflower seeds, raw	0.25 cup	205.2	18.10	90.5	7.9	excellent
Turnip greens, cooked	1 cup	28.8	2.48	12.4	7.8	excellent
Almonds, dry roasted	0.25 cup	206.0	8.97	44.9	3.9	very good
Collard greens, boiled	1 cup	49.4	1.67	8.3	3.0	good
Kale, boiled	1 cup	36.4	1.11	5.6	2.7	good
Papaya	1 each	118.6	3.40	17.0	2.6	good
Olives	1 cup	154.6	4.03	20.1	2.3	good
Bell peppers, red, raw, slices	1 cup	24.8	0.63	3.1	2.3	good
Brussel sprouts, boiled	1 cup	60.8	1.33	6.7	2.0	good
Kiwifruit	1 each	46.4	0.85	4.3	1.7	good
Tomato, ripe	1 cup	37.8	0.68	3.4	1.6	good
Blueberries	1 cup	81.2	1.46	7.3	1.6	good
Broccoli, steamed	1 cup	43.7	0.75	3.8	1.5	good

Getting the most bang for your buck

High-temperature cooking methods, especially frying, destroy vitamin E, as does factory processing. For example in wheat, most of the vitamin E is found in the germ layer. Commercial processing of wheat into bread, baked goods and pastas removes about 90% of the vitamin E content. Another source of vitamin E loss is exposure to air, and vegetables oils like olive oil, sunflower seed oil, and peanut oil should be kept in tightly capped containers to protect their vitamin E content.

Other inhibitors include air pollution, the birth control pill, an excessive intake of refined or processed oils and some medications, including anticonvulsant drugs (like Dilantin ™) and cholesterol-lowering drugs (like probucol, cholestyramine, clofibrate, colestipol, and gemfibrozil).

On the other hand, taking vitamin E at the same time as vitamin C and selenium may increase its benefits as it works in conjunction with these anti-oxidants.

Turbulence Training 5th Transformation Challenge – end of week 4

Well, it’s now been four weeks since I started the Turbulence Training 5th Transformation Challenge. I have just finished a 4-week TT exercise programme for the first time ever (despite having started a few in the past). Here are my details for this week:

Exercise:

I did all three TT weights and intervals workouts from TT Strength for Women, did yoga for 30 minutes and played badminton with hubby.

I have now finished phase 1 of this workout. Mostly the gains were minor, and in the case of Ys & Ts, non-existent. The only major progress I saw was for pushups, which went from (10,11,12) in my first workout to (23,22,20) in my sixth. Even I’m impressed! I’m looking forward to phase 2 of the TT Strength for Women.

As I have written in other posts this week, the biggest fitness gains have been in my aerobic capacity where I have seen really noticeable improvements over the four weeks which have spilled over into daily life.

Nutrition:

Av cals: 1618
Av deficit: 660 (range ~400 to ~1100)
27% Fat, 23% Protein, 50% carbs, 1% alcohol
Nutrients: >100% RDA on everything except vit E (again) (50%), iron (again) (56%), pantothenic acid (76%) magnesium (82%) and vit A (97%)

The reason my nutrition has been a bit off this week has been a sore throat earlier in the week when I lived off soup (and not home made) for a couple of days. So it wasn’t so much that I was eating the wrong foods, but simply not enough foods – check out that deficit range! – hence carbs up, fat and protein down, and not getting a good range of nutrients. At least not from food. I do take a multivitamin and mineral anyway. But being a bit short on vitamin E and iron was a bit of a recurring theme during month 1, so I will work on increasing these in my diet over the coming weeks.

4 week overview

This is what my stats look like for the first four weeks, courtesy of FitDay.

As you can see, nutrition pretty good overall, maybe a bit low on protein (the yellow segment), which I will work on – in particular trying to get more protein in my snacks rather than mainly at meals. Also over the four weeks I maintained an average calorie deficit of around 550 calories, without trying too hard or being too strict, and you can see the results top right – a nice steady downward trend on my weight graph. Here are the rest of my stats:

Body:

I’ll give you these results for the four weeks, rather than this week only:

• Weight down 4.8 pounds
• BF down 1.9%
• Thigh down 3.5 cm
• Knee down 3 cm
• Calf down 1 cm
• Bicep down 1 cm
• No change in waist or hips

Hubby took some pics but I haven’t had a look at them yet. If there’s anything to see compared with the ones we took at the start, I will put them up some time over the next few days. Anyway, overall some nice concrete gains, and some even nicer emotional and psychological ones. I am making slow and steady progress but am doing it without being restrictive and just adopting a healthier lifestyle – one I can maintain. Despite yo-yo dieting for over 20 years, and getting progressively fatter and fatter, I truly believe this is the last time I will have to lose this weight.

Specific goals for week 5:

1. Go to bed earlier – aim for no later than midnight at least 3 days this week (it’s a start)
2. Get 100% RDA vit E and iron from food
3. Do bonus cardio on two days
4. Get 5 servings of fibrous veg at least four days (only managed twice this week)

A very pleasant Sunday

Just a short one today. Official blog weigh day today (TT weigh day is Wednesday since I started the contest on a Wednesday) and I posted a new low at 14 stone 9 (205 pounds, 93.2 kilos).

Also, tried those pancakes this morning and they were fantastic – really tasty. I had mine with blueberries, raspberries and Total 0% Greek Yogurt, with a sprinkling of flax seeds. They were really filling and kept me going for hours. Also, they were surprisingly sweet – I didn’t even need to add maple syrup, despite the tart yogurt and raspberries, and I come from the school or cooking where there is not much that cannot be improved with the addition of maple syrup. I’m looking forward to having the leftovers for breakfast later in the week. And I’ve added the recipe to my recipe page.

Played badminton with hubby today. He beat me, rather comfortably, four games to nil, and then I won the fifth, but by that point he wasn’t really trying particularly hard! It’s funny – he is quite a gentle, mild mannered individual normally – I’m the fiery one – but he has a bit of a nasty streak on the badminton court, usually on the shot after I’d just won a point. I think I may try body armour next time!

I broke hubby!

When I got home from work yesterday, hubby was already in bed waiting for a cuddle and a nap. He gave me his big sad face (think Puss in Boots in Shrek) and said “You broke me.”

Uh-oh, what have I done now?

“I can’t eat fish and chips any more”, complained he morosely.

Aha, and you know this, how? (As if I didn’t know the answer.) Apparently he caught up with a friend and work colleague who has been away at the pub at lunchtime today. And after proudly telling me last week about how he has been making healthier choices at lunchtime, he decided to order fish and chips. For non-Brits/Aussies, this translates as cod/haddock etc deep fried in batter with fries. And now he had tummy ache. Poor baby! He can’t eat greasy food anymore. I broke him!

But he still loves me….

I wrote this on my blog a few days ago:

Exercise goals for this week: do all three TT workouts, one yoga and at least an hour of a fun activity. Not off to a good start with that last one as nobody at work is available for badminton, and hubby hates it so much, I can’t even bribe him to play. None of my friends live particularly near me. Anybody out there in Manchester who fancies a game of badminton this week???

Anyhow, he got a package in the post this morning. He has ordered a badminton racket so we can play together. I may not have met him till I was 35, but damn he was worth the wait!

Copycat IHOP Harvest Grain & Nut Pancakes

And here is that recipe, from recipezaar.com. It’s actually rather healthy sounding – lots of good stuff in there.

• For the health benefits of almonds
• For the heath benefits of walnuts
• For the health benefits of oats
• For the health benefits of whole wheat

Although there is not much sugar or oil in the recipe, (1/4 cup for the whole recipe), here are some ways, if you wanted, to make it even healthier. You could sweeten the pancakes with a different method, eg. stevia, or reduce the amount of sugar and use cinammon (or similar) to give the sensation of sweetness. As for the oil, choose a heart-healthy oil or substitute apple sauce or pureed prunes for some of it. Here is a link to a fact sheet on substitutions to make recipes healthier.

Anyway, here is the recipe as it first appeared:

Copycat IHOP Harvest Grain & Nut Pancakes

SERVES 4 -8

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup Quaker Oats
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons finely chopped blanched almonds
• 3 tablespoons chopped walnuts

Directions:

1. Lightly oil a skillet or griddle, and preheat it to medium heat.
2. Grind the oats in a blender or food processor until fine, like flour.
3. Combine ground oats, whole wheat flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl.
4. In another bowl combine buttermilk, oil, egg and sugar with an electric mixer until smooth.
5. Combine dry ingredients with wet ingredients, add nuts and mix well with mixer.
6. Ladle 1/3 cup of the batter onto the hot skillet and cook the pancakes for 2 to 4 minutes per side or until brown.

Getting off the wheel

I want to share with you a couple of posts I made on a fellow TT Transformation Challenge participant’s log.

It all started when she wrote this:

I totally totally totally suck

You know, I lost about 9 lbs and a bunch of inches. That was prior to this weekend. Now I feel as if I gained it all back in two days. I hate the lack of control that I feel over my eating habits. I’m so angry with myself.

Another of our fellow contestants (getfit2009) replied:

Relax – there’s no way you can add 9 lbs in a weekend – just get back on track again.

Do you know if there’s anything special that leads up to the situations where your bad eating habits take over? – might be a good place to start to see what you can do in those situations instead.

And I followed with this:

As for the internal messages we take from the words we use – hon, you don’t “totally, totally suck”! You made a poor choice in one situation. But you have made many, many good choices, which is why you are now closer to your goals than you were, say, a year ago. Get it right more often than not and you will get there. If you are trying never to make a mistake, you’re not in the right place. Try Pluto!

If you want to make a better choice next time, like GF2009 said, start to look at why you are making those choices in those situations.

We all still love you. Your family still loves you. Your friends still love you. Here’s to making better choices next time.

Anyway, that seemed to work for a while, but then today came this from our poor benighted fellow contestant:

Frustration rears its uglyhead

Aaaargh!!! Need to vent!!! Doing pretty well overall although not perfect which I’d really like. Was planning on fasting yesterday after breakfast ’til breakfast today. Didn’t happen. Just wasn’t feeling it. I was feeling sesame chicken and ben and jerry’s, unfortunately, which I really enjoyed but probably gained a lb of fat and some water, too. Been trying to do ESE instead of cutting and tracking my calories daily. Prob is, I feel like I get SO few calories to begin with!!! Anyway, I’m fasting today but I’m so cranky. Having an angry fast day which sucks (especially for my kids who are feeling my wrath). Feel frustrated over a lot of things. Torn between being happy for all of your successes and envious that I feel like such a freak. Want to be happy with how I look and feel without having to eat 1300 calories a day for the rest of my life. Hubby will be making whole wheat and walnut pancakes this weekend and I’m angry that I won’t be able to have any.

Thanks for letting me vent……

And my reply made me realise, yet again, what strides I have made in the last few months. This is what I said:

Have the damn pancakes. And post the recipe. Like you said, this is your life. You’re not going to get another one.

I have been unhappy with my weight for nearly 30 years now. I’m 40. I’ve learned to loathe myself whilst getting progressively fatter and fatter.

At the beginning of this year I made a decision. There is a history of heart disease, obesity, diabetes etc in my family. I was 40 years old, my blood pressure had just jumped into the hypertension range for the first time after being ‘normal’ for years, I was carrying around at least 6 stone (84 pounds) above my ideal weight, and I was a statistic waiting to happen.

I decided to make some changes, but I also made a decision that I would not make myself miserable over a number. My husband loves me and finds me attractive. I would learn to be a little easier on myself. I would not do ANY programme that did not let me lead a normal life. I didn’t want my life, and my practically every waking thought to be about food – did i have enough calories/points left? was it over 3 hours since my last meal? did this food have [insert banned food of choice] in it – was it allowed? was there enough protein in my snack? Did I have my cool box with my 24 meals in it for the day before I left the house in the morning? Had I earned my carbs? Etc Etc.

As a result, I am not following a meal plan as such. No ESE. No PN. No Weight Watchers. No calorie counting. Nada. I try to eat more nutritious foods on a weekly basis. Increase my portions of fruit and, especially, vegetables. Drink more water. Choose whole grains. Pick lean organic meats and dairy. Avoid processed foods and words I can’t pronounce. I knew that I would lose weight more quickly by following one of the other programmes, but I’ve been there before, and I guess you have too. By trying to be healthier, you are loving your body and yourself, rather than punishing yourself on a daily basis. This is for ever.

Anyway, I have lost 18 pounds of weight and 5.2% body fat since the beginning of the year. I have eaten goujons, and drunk Dime Bar milkshakes. I’ve eaten out with friends, drunk wine, even had the odd plate of potato wedges with sour cream and sweet chili sauce. Yet I am seeing changes in my body, my energy levels, and most importantly, my self respect on practically a daily basis.

I had an epiphany a while back. I wrote on my blog:

I no longer have good days or bad days, as defined by what I put in my mouth. They’re just days.

And then, after a weekend staying with friends, where friends cooked dinner, and I enjoyed them, the food, the company, the wine and the garlic bread – all in moderation:

I promised myself a month or so back that I would no longer define a ‘good day’ or a ‘bad day’ by what I put in my mouth. A bad day is when a school collapses in an earthquake and 200 children are killed. My garlic bread consumption is just another day in my ongoing journey to be a better me.

You seem to be on a treadmill (or a hamster wheel) of deprivation and regret. You don’t need to work harder to be ‘good’. You need to get off the wheel. It is this cycle that got you to where you are now. Old saying: if you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always got.

I truly hope some of this is getting through to you. One day, on your death bed, you are not going to look back at your life and think, damn, I really shouldn’t have eaten those pancakes. If only I’d lost more weight…

I’d like to recommend a couple of books to you.

The first one is Fed Up and is written by a doctor, psychiatrist and ex-eating disordered woman, and includes a lot about the science of how dieting/restriction affects our moods and our physiology. Despite this it is an easy read, a real eye-opener, and you will no doubt identify yourself in much of it. There are used copies available on amazon.com from $0.01!

The second one is The Body Fat Solution, Tom Venuto’s new book. He is an ex-champion body builder, yet despite his undoubted expertise in the fine tuning of transformation, he has a very common sense approach to the simple improvements that ‘ordinary folk’ can make to massively improve their health and fitness. This book claimed to be about overcoming emotional eating, and that comprises the first half of the book, and it was something in this book that finally got through to me and has been propelling me throughout the year. But there is also some very sensible nutrition stuff in there, general guidelines that will get you to where you want to go without turning it into rocket science. (There’s also workouts, but you don’t need to follow these – they are extremely TT-like with the exception of additional isolation exercises – no doubt, a throw back to Tom’s body building days – that add little other than time to your workout. Still, it is an easy read and I would recommend it.

I think you need to reconsider what you want to achieve in this challenge. Use this time, and the people here, to help you change your life, rather than your body. It is not a race. And most of us will never see the prize money, which, let’s face it, is hardly of the life-changing variety. We are here for the support and the accountability. Use the contest to learn to become the person you want to be.

Sorry for going on and on on your log. It’s just you remind me so much of myself, and I am so glad that I am (mostly) off that wheel. I will always have to be ‘careful’ about what I eat, and continue to workout, if I don’t want to revert to the blob I was at the start. But I now realise that I can do that without giving up the things that make life worth living.

ps. Don’t forget that pancake recipe!

Will let you know if I get the pancake recipe.

I’m getting fitter

I have just been searching for something I remember writing a while back. I eventually found it. Posted July 2007! Had to go back a long way. I found it by checking the comments, rather than my posts, because I remember someone had commented on it. As a result, I’ve just reread a bunch of comments going back two years. There were so many people who I haven’t seen in ages. If you’re still out there, thank you for still visiting, and how are y’all doing? I’m going to have to start tracking you all down and see how you’re doing. Anyway, this is what I was looking for:

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.

Anyway, the day before yesterday hubby and I delivered my old weight bench to a kid (university student) who lives near us and bought it off me on ebay. He lived up two flights of stairs and the three of us carried it up there (it needed all three of us because we had had to take it apart to fit in the car). At the top, despite the fact that he had been living there for a year, this nineteen year old kid was puffing and panting, and hubby and I who live in a ground floor flat with no stairs, were absolutely fine. Hubby actually takes stairs at work daily but for me this is a MAJOR improvement. We both felt quite chuffed with ourselves.

Well, it’s apparently taken nearly two years, but I am noticing these improvements more or less on a daily basis: from walking up the stairs, to dancing at a festival without getting winded, to doing tougher and tougher workouts but feeling better after them than before.

The last couple of days I have had a bit of sore throat and chesty (asthmatic) cough. I’m already off to a bad start for the week with my nutrition goals (more protein, more fibrous veg), having had soup and nothing else for breakfast and lunch today. But following the neck up/neck down rule I did my TT workout anyway. I didn’t much feel like it but just repeated my mantra: thinner, fitter, healthier until it got through. The workout went a little bit better than previously – I did all three sets of step ups without having to swing my arms to give me momentum, so my legs are getting stronger. But the real improvement was noticeable when I did my intervals:

I upped my top speed for my 30 second RPE 9 intervals from 10kph to 10.5kph. I’m not sure what my max HR was because I seem to have exceeded the capacity of the HRM built into my treadmill – it doesn’t seem to go above 169! But I felt better at the end of my 90 sec RPE 3 recovery intervals than I have been doing previously, and my HR one minute after stopping at the end of my workout, was 109 – lower than it was when I got on! Up until now my 1 minute recovery HR has ranged from 116 to 126 bpm after this workout (TT Advanced Intervals Workout A). So despite not being completely well, and running my fastest and furthest yet, my recovery was quicker than it has ever been before.

I’m starting to feel a whole lot better about those measurements yesterday.

Turbulence Training 5th Transformation Contest – end of week 3

I’ve just finished my third week of the Turbulence Training 5th Transformational Contest. Here is an overview.

Nutrition:

Average calorie intake: 1890 – a little higher this week, but that is no surprise

Average deficit: 500 (range -150 to +800)

Macronutrients: Carbs 46%, Fat 33%, Protein 20%, Alcohol 1%

Micronutrients: On average, daily dietary intake over 100% RDA of everything except Vit E (73%), calcium (93%) and iron (96%). It is worth noting that my intake may be higher than recorded because when I use packaged foods, the labels only have the macronutrient values with usually no details of the vitamin and mineral content. (I also take a multivitamin/mineral, a B complex, 1g Vit C and 6g fish oil daily.)

Nutritional goals for this week:

1. Try to increase protein intake. Although I manage over 100g on some days, my average for the week was only 92.7g. My highest so far was in week 2 and that was only 95.5g.
2. Try to get 5 fibrous veg servings per day at least three days this week – only managed it once this week!
3. Get more water earlier in the day – I only hit my goal of 4 cups while at work once too. Aim for five out of five this week.

Exercise:

Only managed two of my TT workouts this week (from TT for Female Strength, phase 1).

Main points of interest (at least to me):

• Push ups went from (10,11,12) in week 1, via (17,18,14) in week 2, to (20,16,16) this week.
• Actually went backwards in body weight row, from (5,5,5) in week 2 to (4, 3.5, 3.5) this week. Oh dear.
• Gradually increasing the weight on my 1-leg DLs and RDLs, but this has more to do with my confidence balancing on one leg than it does with the amount of weight I could potentially lift. I am definitely not lifting as much as I could, strength-wise, but am concentrating on wobbling less and balancing better to strengthen those hamstrings.

I also swam, walked, played badminton, did yoga and boogied like a wild thang to the Prodigy.

Exercise goals for this week: do all three TT workouts, one yoga and at least an hour of a fun activity. Not off to a good start with that last one as nobody at work is available for badminton, and hubby hates it so much, I can’t even bribe him to play. None of my friends live particularly near me. Anybody out there in Manchester who fancies a game of badminton this week???

Other goals for this week: Go to bed earlier! New rule – no reading/posting on forums after 10pm. I just get completely engrossed and before you know it, it’s 2 in the morning!

Body:

It started out quite well this morning when I weighed in. My weight was up only 0.6 pounds on last week and my body fat was down 1.6%. For those of you who have trouble getting consistent body fat readings, mine for the last three days have been 43.3%, 43.5% and 43.4%, in that order. (I was 48.2% at the beginning of this year, and 45.4% three weeks ago when I started TT and the challenge.

So I was looking forward to taking my measurements this evening. But they are almost all the same or up!!!

Up 1.5 cm (:O) on waist, no change on hips, knee, calf or bicep. Possible 0.5 cm loss on thigh. Not what I was hoping for.

Don’t worry, I won’t get discouraged or give up on my workouts or eating. I like the way I am living now and I know the results will eventually follow. But still, it was a bit of a kick in the teeth.

BBG does Download

I have just got back from the Download rock festival. We stayed at a fantastic hotel – well the hotel was basic, but the facilities were fantastic. Cheap and great staff too. We made good use of the extremely well equipped gym. Hubby and I TT’d together for the first time. He doesn’t like me watching him – he gets very self conscious. And on the Sunday, I dragged my unwilling arse out of bed (OK, at 10am) and went for a short swim and a sauna. Before my massage and facial. It’s a hard life!

Also, we did lots of walking around the venue. The parking was actually in a different county to the stages! Seriously – that’s like being in a different State. LOL. And I may have been seen to even jump up and down to The Prodigy. It takes quite a lot to get me to jump up and down. And it occurred to me that a year ago, I wouldn’t have been able to jump up and down without collapsing in a sweaty, panting heap on the ground. The only downside was that I missed a scheduled TT workout that I won’t be able to make up this week whilst maintaining an off day between workouts, so that puts me one workout behind.

The food was less good, as I knew it would be, but with a bit of advanced planning and some sensible choices, I tried to limit myself to one ‘less good’ to ‘OMG did I really eat that?’ meal per day. I took fruit with me and Myoplex Diet protein MRP sachets, which I only had to resort to once. I made one considered indulgence – there was a milkshake concession, and their whole concept was whole milk blended with various chocolate bars – they had mint Aeros, maltesers, minstrels, galaxy etc. And the one I simply couldn’t resist, possibly one of my all time favourite chocolate bars – the Dime bar milkshake. Oh. Wow. It tasted absolutely out of this world.

My one disappointment was at Sunday lunch. It was a self-serve roast lunch. I did relatively well on the mains, but then I went to look at the desserts. Big mistake. They looked so good. And two of them ticked all my boxes – white chocolate and raspberry mousse, and chocolate hazelnut meringue roulade. I couldn’t make my mind up. So I had both. I promised myself I wouldn’t finish them both, and I didn’t. But I still felt sick afterwards. What bothered me was not that I ate them – the Dime milkshake will tell you that if I want something I will eat it, but that the thoughts that went through my mind before putting two desserts on my plate at no time involved, TT, healthier choices, or any other type of considered reasoning. I just wanted them. And I inhaled them. This is the kind of thinking that I am trying to overcome, and mostly doing a good job. So that was my one let down over the weekend – that I ate fattening unhealthy food mindlessly.

Despite being a little easier on myself over the weekend food wise, and eating stuff that I wouldn’t eat at home, like I said above, most of it was done with awareness. Amazingly, after inputting, to the best of my ability, what I had eaten into FitDay, the damage was not as bad as I thought it would be. I was in surplus (only 100-200 cals) on two days, and actually managed a 300 or so calorie deficit on the Saturday!

This morning I weighed in 1.4 pounds up on Friday morning but no change in body fat! Certainly not a bad result after a weekend of festival food and cooked breakfasts. And I’m actually up less than a pound on my weekly weigh in last week but down over one and a half percent body fat. So overall, I was prepared for this trip, handled it better than I would have in the past, and had a great time. I’m pretty happy with that.