OK - so the headline is a bit cheesy but my new watchword is ’sustainable fitness’. I wanted to register the domain name sustainablefitness.com but it seems there is a bootcamp in the states using this name - shame! That could have been the name for my new company in Australia.
I’m really beginning to have some success with my fitness and weight goals - It has been just over 2 months since starting and I feel like a different person (lots of energy, MUCH better body, stonger, more confident). Sounds like a sales pitch but it isn’t - I don’t have anything to sell except my personal story 
But the most amazing thing about it is that I feel like everything I am doing now is sustainable - it isn’t just a blast for a couple of month to lose a bit of weight - then slowly let myself get fat again - then another blast next Spring. I could carry on doing what I am doing for the rest of my life and not feel like I am sacrificing anything. When you do have treats you really enjoy them - I went to the pub last Wednesday and drank 6 pints of lager and had chicken pakora on the way home - not exactly ideal for the body beautiful but I know I ma working bloody hard for the rest of the week and that it shouldn’t really affect me. The key is being able to control it so I don’t do that every night.
I had my body fat percentage measured last week and it was down from 20% to 18.3% over a month. That is great progress I think. I have not lost any weight during that time so have obviously put on muscle mass and stripped fat, which is exactly what I;m supposed to be doing. A sustainable and realistic goal for body fat percentage for me would be 10-12%. That will give me the full six pack without having to devote my life to my body (getting below that is cover model territory and I’m not sure I will be going down that route).
This week I am training 6 days out of 7. One extra personal training session to replace a missed one when I was injured plus one good run. I’ve done 3 days so far and am feeling the difference (not in a good way - I am really tired). But I put that down to not getting enough sleep. I’ve only had 6 hours sleep a night for the last 3 nights and I should be getting 8 hours when I’m training hard. I’ll go to bed early tonight and see where that takes me.
My Achilles pain has subsided today - I iced and stretched it last night and it seems to have done the trick. Another day or so rest for it and all should be OK I think.
Fortunately it is upper body training tonight so it shouldn’t clash. I’ve moved it from 7.30 to 4.30 so I can watch the Champions League Final tonight. Couple of beers in the pub - probably Sportsters in Stirling - should be a great night. I’m a neutral but I will definitely be siding with Man United tonight - North vs. South 
I went for an early morning run with a couple of friends this morning. They run marathons and I don’t - so it was always going to be fun
Anyway - they were realy good and I was having a great run, various hills, new route, gorgeous morning! After around 30 minutes I could start to feel a dull ache in my achilles tendon. It got progressively more sore over the next 10-15 minutes and I had to call a halt to the run. To be honest, I was only planning on a 45 minute run anyway so the time and the pace was perfect. My breathing was just fine so I should be easily OK to do the 10K in 4 weeks.
I got home and put ice on it for 20 minutes but it has been stiff and tender for most of the day. I’ll try to rest it as much as possible and re-ice it tonight. Hopefully it should be a problem. It may be a sign that I need new trainers (I’ve been thinking that for a few weeks anyway).
I’m doing upper body training tomorrow so I should still be able to rest OK.
Cheers, Mark
I did sprint training this morning and it was going well except I kept getting a very sharp pain in my head at various points - I used to get this during basketball training when I was in my 20s. It turned out it was low sugar and drinking a sports drink or eating a Mars Bar fixed it. However, I had my usual porridge and banana with a smoothie this morning before sprints so I would have thought I would have enough energy on board - but not this time. So I’m going to try half a bottle of lucozade before the next sprints session to see how I get on. I had my Maximuscle Cyclone after the session but was still getting pains for at least 30 minutes afterwards.
I did improve a little on my times from last week though (roughly by 1 second for each set of sprints). We also did some acceleration training (just over a 10 metre track but concentrating on ‘bursting’ and keeping a low posture - as if I was a 100 metre sprinter - as if!).
I’m due out on a run at 6am tomorrow with a friend of mine who runs marathons - I’ve not run with him before (I usually prefer to just run by myself). However I think that a run once a week with him may be a good motivator for me - he likes to run early in the day so it’ll give me a good reason to get up in the morning. I’m doing upper body training on Wednesday so even if I do a hard run tomorrow it won’t affect the rest of my training.
Cheers, Mark
This week has been pretty positive - I managed good interval sprints on Monday:
- 1 sprint (approx 36 secs), then 1 walk (same distance) - repeat 6 times.
- 5 sprints up and down very steep small hills, running between 4 points of the compass
- 1 sprint (approx 36 secs), then 1 walk (same distance) - repeat 4 times.
My thigh strain was a little sore so I put ice on again afterwards but I was really happy that I made it through the session.
On Tuesday I went for a full round of golf which is a pretty good way to keep your muscles warmed - my standard of golf is pretty shit though so I need to get some benefot from it!
On Wednesday I was back to the original upper body session which went really well - I can feel myself getting much stronger (especially my chest and shoulders). I’ll lay out the full workout here for you to see exactly what I’m doing. I felt a bit of a twinge in my left hip as I was doing the exercise where you stand with legs apart and weights in hand, then stretch down to each side for 15 reps. It has been a bit nippy since then and I think it is my hip flexor muscle - it is buried way deep inside and wouldn’t really benefit from ice.
It was twinging again this morning during my boxercise session but I manged to push through - I think it’ll be OK by next week. Boxercise was fantastic - I haven’t done it for 4 or 5 weeks and it was unbelievable how much more stamina I have now. I could have gone on for longer than an hour which is incredible.
Also, the 10 minute warm up run hardly even registered which makes me feel good about the 10K on June 15th in Bellahouston Park. This weekend I’m going to go out and do a proper road run to see how my stamina is for running - if I can do a good 40-45 minutes without dying I’ll be happy. Then I’ll build it up over the next couple of weeks.
Cheers, Mark
I have had a bit of a rollercoaster ride over the last week or so…
I had 4 days away on the Isle of Mull - absolutely magic and a great family holiday. I took this as a ‘treat’ weekend and allowed myself to drink wine every night and eat 3 course meals too. I tried to keep my carbs low in the evening and not pig out too much. It did feel like a treat but not so much that I wanted to throw all my good work away. The biggest treat was buying fish and chips from the van in Tobermory - that is a bit of a tradition and they are seriously the best fish and chips in the country.
Anyway, I did one set of core exercises and one 30 minute run (including hills around Calgary Bay - beautiful - I felt like I was making a movie it was so stunning).
I came back ready for a really good session on Tuesday - ready to hit my targets for this month and make sure I am not on a plateau. Straight into interval sprinting and I manged to strain my quad/thigh muscle during the first set of sprints. Not sure how I did it - I was well warmed up and fed. It was pretty sore - I couldn’t put any stress on it at all so we had to abandon the training session after 10 minutes. To say I was really pissed off is putting it mildly - I was raging! All I could think about was being out of action for a week or two, losing muscle and getting fat.
I came home and put an icepack on my leg for 20 minutes, then off for 20 minutes and repeat 3 times. By the following morning my thigh was really stiff and I was walking with a bit of a limp but by mid afternoon (ie, 24 hours later) it was beginning to fade. I put more ice on again last night and it seems to be much better. I will possibly be looking at leg training again tomorrow which is amazing. I don’t know if it my desire to get rid of the injury that made it heal so quickly or just the regime of ice and rest.
Anyway - last night I did really focused upper body training - Chest, biceps and shoulders. 4 sets of 15 (where I could) with 2 press ups after each chest exercise and 10 seconds of shadow boxing after each shoulder exercise. I really feel like I pushed myself to the limit and it felt great. Afterwards I did some assisted stretches to ensure my chest doesn’t become too tight - they were bloody agonising. But I do feel good today so they must have done something right.
I’m taking Maximuscle Cyclone (protein shake) within 20 minutes of each training session to build muscle and recover quickly. I’ve been doing this for around 10 days now - let’s see if there are any obvious results at the end of the month. The protein shake tastes pretty good in Orange flavour.
My weight doesn’t appear to be shifting much and I think I have been a bit heavy on the portion sizes in the last couple of weeks. I’ll try to focus on that for the next few weeks too.
All looking good and feeling great now though!!! Summer holiday to France in 7 weeks so it is time to push on for those goals - I want to look great in a red pair of Diesel boardies - call me shallow - I don’t care. I don’t think I’ve ever looked good just in shorts so this could be a life changing moment for me