A couple of weeks ago I made a breakthrough with my running and this was about 6 weeks before the scheduled date of my 5k Race For Life. Until then I had been tempted to pull out but my breakthrough had convinced me otherwise. I immediately came up with a little plan of increasing the length of the route I run by 0.5k each week until the race. I used a cool tool called GMaps Pedometer to plot my routes.
Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to put it into action. The morning I was supposed to go for my first run I was feeling really ill. I phoned in sick to work and went back to bed. I stayed off work for a couple of days then felt a bit better so went back. I planned to try a run again at the weekend. However, my flu-like symptoms developed into a nasty cough and by Saturday morning I couldn't go more than a couple of minutes without coughing up something gross so I skipped the run again.
This cough has persisted for a whole week and all week I've done no exercise whatsoever. Today I have a wedding to go to and then tomorrow morning we go from the hotel to the airport to fly out to France for a week on holiday. I might be able to do some running in France but obviously I can't do my usual route; I have no way of knowing how far I go so it will be haphazard at best.
When I get back I'll have just 3 weeks before the race. If I was to train hard it can be done, anything can be done. But having thought about it, I am simply not willing to put in that much effort in such a short space of time so I am pulling out of the race after all.
I have mixed feelings about this. Firstly I feel a huge burden has been lifted! But of course the downside is that I feel like a failure. My definition of failure is not missing a goal but but quitting on a goal and that's exactly what I have done. However, when I look back over how I arrived at this situation I realise that I have not failed in my physical capacity to run, but in my planning and training. I simply have not trained for this event. I've done a little bit of running here and there; it has been extremely sporadic.
If I was going to continue running I could take it very slowly. I could go for just one or two runs a week and slowly build up the length of the run. If I did this continuously for a whole year I should be able to run 5k quite easily next year and I feel quite confident about that. I haven't quite decided if I want to do that but I have decided to pull out of this year's race.
Oh well, we can't win 'em all :)
Friday, 22 June 2007
Reducing Exercise: Can I Still Burn the Fat?
I have recently encountered a situation in my personal life which has put sudden and great demands on my time and attention. Having looked closely at where I spend my time, I realised that a large proportion of it is spent on exercise. I'm usually spending about 10 hours a week on exercise. That's not to say that I am physically spending 10 hours doing the exercise, just that when you take into account time to get to the gym, shower, get changed etc, that it all adds up to that amount of time taken out of my week.
I have to cut it back. This is painful for me as over the last few months I have been slowly increasing my exercise just to maintain my fat loss and it has grown into a healthy lifestyle that I enjoy. If I cut back now that it going to hurt my progress and it will also weaken the exercise habit which could have long term repercussions. But the alternative is worse, so I have to figure out a way to deal with it. I recalculated my calorie requirements based on a lower activity level and if I want to continue with my target deficit of 500 calories a day which would allow me to lose a maximum of 1lb a week, then I need to reduce the calories I eat from 1650 to 1500 a day. Ouch!
This is a major nuisance for me, because over the last few months I have tweaked all my recipes to the point where they are all a very similar number of calories so I can just mix and match as I please and my calories for the day work out about right. I have hundreds of recipes, and I'm going to have to tweak them all over again. *Bashes head against desk in frustration*
I believe that life sends us these little trials in order to test us, and there must be something good to come out of it. So I had a look at my food and asked myself the question, "how can I eat less calories and not go hungry?". The answer was simple - eat better quality food. Ever since starting up this plan I knew that my food was not perfectly 'clean'. There's still too much fat, especially saturated fat, still too much sugar and other simple carbs. I had a look through some of my recipes and found that I could reduce the calories without reducing the amount of food in any way by being more strict with the extras such as dressings and sauces.
So the downside is that I have to spend time re-doing these recipes but I'm going to just take it a week at a time, doing just the ones I need for that week. But the upside is that this forces me to eat cleaner. Now what happens if in a few months from now I resolve my personal situation and find that I have more time for the gym again? Then I can exercise more and lose the fat even more easily than I do now. I have a feeling I'll reach my target weight before I get my time back but either way, it's always a good thing to be eating more healthily than before.
I have to cut it back. This is painful for me as over the last few months I have been slowly increasing my exercise just to maintain my fat loss and it has grown into a healthy lifestyle that I enjoy. If I cut back now that it going to hurt my progress and it will also weaken the exercise habit which could have long term repercussions. But the alternative is worse, so I have to figure out a way to deal with it. I recalculated my calorie requirements based on a lower activity level and if I want to continue with my target deficit of 500 calories a day which would allow me to lose a maximum of 1lb a week, then I need to reduce the calories I eat from 1650 to 1500 a day. Ouch!
This is a major nuisance for me, because over the last few months I have tweaked all my recipes to the point where they are all a very similar number of calories so I can just mix and match as I please and my calories for the day work out about right. I have hundreds of recipes, and I'm going to have to tweak them all over again. *Bashes head against desk in frustration*
I believe that life sends us these little trials in order to test us, and there must be something good to come out of it. So I had a look at my food and asked myself the question, "how can I eat less calories and not go hungry?". The answer was simple - eat better quality food. Ever since starting up this plan I knew that my food was not perfectly 'clean'. There's still too much fat, especially saturated fat, still too much sugar and other simple carbs. I had a look through some of my recipes and found that I could reduce the calories without reducing the amount of food in any way by being more strict with the extras such as dressings and sauces.
So the downside is that I have to spend time re-doing these recipes but I'm going to just take it a week at a time, doing just the ones I need for that week. But the upside is that this forces me to eat cleaner. Now what happens if in a few months from now I resolve my personal situation and find that I have more time for the gym again? Then I can exercise more and lose the fat even more easily than I do now. I have a feeling I'll reach my target weight before I get my time back but either way, it's always a good thing to be eating more healthily than before.
Saturday, 16 June 2007
Transformation or Transition?
I'm always hearing about these people who have had a major body transformation; these success stories who have lots several stones in weight and now look like fitness models. For some reason, I also keep hearing the time span of three months - "you can totally transform your body in three months", I am always being told.
Well, in three weeks time it will have been an entire year that I have been on my new food and exercise plan. I have not yet transformed my body. It's changed for sure, but there's no magical transformation yet. I still look the same, just a little smaller. I don't think of myself as fat any more but I've still got over 30% body fat and plenty of wobbly bits to show for it.
So why is that? Why are some people able to "transform" themselves so quickly, whilst others slog away for months (or years) and only make slow progress?
When I think back along my fat loss journey what I see is a slow but certain transition. My diet has slowly transitioned from one of totally adhoc eating of mostly crappy junk food to a well planned diet of balanced nutritious meals. My exercise habits have slowly transitioned from a lifestyle with zero exercise to daily activity and a regular sport. My body has slowly transitioned from a fat, ugly lump that moved slowly and had no energy to a fairly average looking, slightly more energetic thing that's still a bit wobbly here and there.
I suspect that there are a lot more people out there like me than those that have transformations. When I read the stories there is usually a turning point, a wake up call of some kind for the person in question that triggers a total life change. In an instant that personal totally changes everything - they throw out all the junk food, radically alter their diet, charge straight into an exercise plan and they just go for it 100% Wow, just writing about it makes me feel exhausted.
We are all different but a lot of us are creatures of habit. We don't like major changes. If somebody comes along and tells you that you are going to be dead in six months if you don't lose some weight then sure that will trigger a change but I believe that for many of us that doesn't happen. The fat creeps on slowly throughout the years, the exercise peters off to very little or none and we become entrenched in our unhealthy lifestyle. We know we're not happy and we want to look better but there's no real compelling reason. We probably won't die if we stay fat. Or perhaps we will but we don't know that. For most of us, risks like heart attacks etc are just an unknown. They could happen but they might not and its just easier to ignore the possibility.
But for one reason or another here we are, having decided to lose some of that flab. The trouble is, we're not really ready to dive straight into some major lifestyle change; it's just too much. We may have tried several times in the past and failed miserably. In fact I think a lot of people fail at losing fat for this very reason - almost any diet or exercise plan seems like a massive change when you live really unhealthily and people look at the difference and it's too much for them so they give up.
I adopted my changes slowly. The biggest change I made in the beginning was joining at gym close to work and going every lunch time. However, I didn't really do a lot while I was there! I remember my first day. I climbed on the cross trainer (elliptical machine) and almost fell off the bloody thing! I put it on level 1 and started peddling (? peddling, what's it called on an elliptical?) away slowly. There was a lady next to me who was much bigger than me but obviously much fitter too. Her level way way high and she was going for it, pounding away really fast. I meekly continued at my level 1 sluggish pace and tried not to show how out of breath I was getting. 10 minutes was enough and I spent another 10 minutes pretending to stretch and then went back to work. Sometimes I'd use the pool. Oh yes that jacuzzi was very hard work :-) My new gym hasn't got a pool. Shame.
Anyway, I progressed very slowly. Sometimes I'd do a little cardio, other times I'd pick up some weights and play with them and eventually I started doing it more seriously. After a few weeks I started karate which was a massive shock to the system. A few months later I added extra gym sessions in the morning. A few months later still I started running which would have been totally impossible for me a year ago. The point being, I added all this stuff in very slowly.
I took the same approach with my food. I brought my own food into work mainly because I simply couldn't afford to buy stuff from the sandwich shop but I didn't really pay much attention to what I was eating. I have experimented with new recipes and tweaked them weekly for this whole year and the changes have been very gradual.
I feel like I have slowly transitioned from a fat, unfit, unhealthy person into a healthy, fit, and not quite so fat person. I don't think I'll ever see that transformation but if I keep doing what I have been doing long enough then I may eventually transition into what I eventually want to become. Maybe.
Well, in three weeks time it will have been an entire year that I have been on my new food and exercise plan. I have not yet transformed my body. It's changed for sure, but there's no magical transformation yet. I still look the same, just a little smaller. I don't think of myself as fat any more but I've still got over 30% body fat and plenty of wobbly bits to show for it.
So why is that? Why are some people able to "transform" themselves so quickly, whilst others slog away for months (or years) and only make slow progress?
When I think back along my fat loss journey what I see is a slow but certain transition. My diet has slowly transitioned from one of totally adhoc eating of mostly crappy junk food to a well planned diet of balanced nutritious meals. My exercise habits have slowly transitioned from a lifestyle with zero exercise to daily activity and a regular sport. My body has slowly transitioned from a fat, ugly lump that moved slowly and had no energy to a fairly average looking, slightly more energetic thing that's still a bit wobbly here and there.
I suspect that there are a lot more people out there like me than those that have transformations. When I read the stories there is usually a turning point, a wake up call of some kind for the person in question that triggers a total life change. In an instant that personal totally changes everything - they throw out all the junk food, radically alter their diet, charge straight into an exercise plan and they just go for it 100% Wow, just writing about it makes me feel exhausted.
We are all different but a lot of us are creatures of habit. We don't like major changes. If somebody comes along and tells you that you are going to be dead in six months if you don't lose some weight then sure that will trigger a change but I believe that for many of us that doesn't happen. The fat creeps on slowly throughout the years, the exercise peters off to very little or none and we become entrenched in our unhealthy lifestyle. We know we're not happy and we want to look better but there's no real compelling reason. We probably won't die if we stay fat. Or perhaps we will but we don't know that. For most of us, risks like heart attacks etc are just an unknown. They could happen but they might not and its just easier to ignore the possibility.
But for one reason or another here we are, having decided to lose some of that flab. The trouble is, we're not really ready to dive straight into some major lifestyle change; it's just too much. We may have tried several times in the past and failed miserably. In fact I think a lot of people fail at losing fat for this very reason - almost any diet or exercise plan seems like a massive change when you live really unhealthily and people look at the difference and it's too much for them so they give up.
I adopted my changes slowly. The biggest change I made in the beginning was joining at gym close to work and going every lunch time. However, I didn't really do a lot while I was there! I remember my first day. I climbed on the cross trainer (elliptical machine) and almost fell off the bloody thing! I put it on level 1 and started peddling (? peddling, what's it called on an elliptical?) away slowly. There was a lady next to me who was much bigger than me but obviously much fitter too. Her level way way high and she was going for it, pounding away really fast. I meekly continued at my level 1 sluggish pace and tried not to show how out of breath I was getting. 10 minutes was enough and I spent another 10 minutes pretending to stretch and then went back to work. Sometimes I'd use the pool. Oh yes that jacuzzi was very hard work :-) My new gym hasn't got a pool. Shame.
Anyway, I progressed very slowly. Sometimes I'd do a little cardio, other times I'd pick up some weights and play with them and eventually I started doing it more seriously. After a few weeks I started karate which was a massive shock to the system. A few months later I added extra gym sessions in the morning. A few months later still I started running which would have been totally impossible for me a year ago. The point being, I added all this stuff in very slowly.
I took the same approach with my food. I brought my own food into work mainly because I simply couldn't afford to buy stuff from the sandwich shop but I didn't really pay much attention to what I was eating. I have experimented with new recipes and tweaked them weekly for this whole year and the changes have been very gradual.
I feel like I have slowly transitioned from a fat, unfit, unhealthy person into a healthy, fit, and not quite so fat person. I don't think I'll ever see that transformation but if I keep doing what I have been doing long enough then I may eventually transition into what I eventually want to become. Maybe.
Wednesday, 13 June 2007
Why do we self-sabotage?
I plan my food at least a week in advance. I shop on Saturday and I spend several hours on Sunday cooking for the week. I'll also have to do additional cooking and preparation on a daily basis. Food planning is hard work and takes a long time.
I take great pains to improve my recipes on a regular basis. I'm always tweaking them, trying to find ways to reduce fat, eat more whole grains, get better quality protein and get my five a day. So when I spend hours and hours a week doing all of this and then on top of that I spend hours and hours in the gym every week, why on earth would I go and sabotage that by ordering a great big Chinese meal that feeds me for three days?
In this particular case it was because I was feeling ill. I'd been off sick from work, I'd had a crappy day and I just did not feel like cooking at all. Luckily I already had my lunches pre-prepared from the day before but I was supposed to cook an evening meal that would last me three days and I simply did not have the energy so I ordered a Chinese instead.
Now I'm not going to beat myself up about it too much because these things happen but it made me think about the reasons that we self sabotage. I was not feeling well. What does that mean? I was very low on energy. I was totally demotivated. I didn't really care about my fat loss at that point. Do we get those feelings at other times? In my case yes. Sometimes I feel like that if I've not slept well, or if I've had a particularly bad day at work, or if the traffic has been really bad. Usually I can handle any one of those on their own but it's when I get a combination of all three that dinner is usually replaced with a pizza!
What do these things all have in common? They sap our energy levels. If we feel ill, we're low on energy. If we don't get enough quality sleep we're low on energy. A tough day at work, bad traffic or train journeys, arguments with a partner, stress over kids etc etc. All of these things sap our energy and cause us to sod the diet and fitness plan and reach for the comfort food and the sofa. The question is, what can we do about it? I haven't quite figured that bit out yet :-)
But one thing I have been learning in recent months is that the food we eat has a great effect on our energy levels. If we skip meals, pig out on high carb, high sugar, high fat crap then we're going to feel that crash later on and get cravings for more of the same crap. On the other hand, if we feed ourselves with regular meals that are full of all the good stuff we're far more likely to have sustained energy all through the day.
I think that one of the things I'm going to do from now on is analyze my sabotage patterns. Anytime I go off my plan, rather than beat myself up about it, I'll think about why I did it, how i felt at the time and try to think about the real cause. Did I really, really want that ice cream at that point or was I suffering from a sugar craving because my last meal was nutritionally poor? Did I really want to drink a whole load of alcohol or was I just feeling peer pressure from my friends? And so on. I think it's important to figure out why we do things if we're ever going to come up with ways of preventing these sabotaging habits.
I take great pains to improve my recipes on a regular basis. I'm always tweaking them, trying to find ways to reduce fat, eat more whole grains, get better quality protein and get my five a day. So when I spend hours and hours a week doing all of this and then on top of that I spend hours and hours in the gym every week, why on earth would I go and sabotage that by ordering a great big Chinese meal that feeds me for three days?
In this particular case it was because I was feeling ill. I'd been off sick from work, I'd had a crappy day and I just did not feel like cooking at all. Luckily I already had my lunches pre-prepared from the day before but I was supposed to cook an evening meal that would last me three days and I simply did not have the energy so I ordered a Chinese instead.
Now I'm not going to beat myself up about it too much because these things happen but it made me think about the reasons that we self sabotage. I was not feeling well. What does that mean? I was very low on energy. I was totally demotivated. I didn't really care about my fat loss at that point. Do we get those feelings at other times? In my case yes. Sometimes I feel like that if I've not slept well, or if I've had a particularly bad day at work, or if the traffic has been really bad. Usually I can handle any one of those on their own but it's when I get a combination of all three that dinner is usually replaced with a pizza!
What do these things all have in common? They sap our energy levels. If we feel ill, we're low on energy. If we don't get enough quality sleep we're low on energy. A tough day at work, bad traffic or train journeys, arguments with a partner, stress over kids etc etc. All of these things sap our energy and cause us to sod the diet and fitness plan and reach for the comfort food and the sofa. The question is, what can we do about it? I haven't quite figured that bit out yet :-)
But one thing I have been learning in recent months is that the food we eat has a great effect on our energy levels. If we skip meals, pig out on high carb, high sugar, high fat crap then we're going to feel that crash later on and get cravings for more of the same crap. On the other hand, if we feed ourselves with regular meals that are full of all the good stuff we're far more likely to have sustained energy all through the day.
I think that one of the things I'm going to do from now on is analyze my sabotage patterns. Anytime I go off my plan, rather than beat myself up about it, I'll think about why I did it, how i felt at the time and try to think about the real cause. Did I really, really want that ice cream at that point or was I suffering from a sugar craving because my last meal was nutritionally poor? Did I really want to drink a whole load of alcohol or was I just feeling peer pressure from my friends? And so on. I think it's important to figure out why we do things if we're ever going to come up with ways of preventing these sabotaging habits.
Saturday, 9 June 2007
Running Too Fast
Back in April I tried moving my running from the (relative) comfort of the treadmill to the open road and met with great unexpected difficulty. I could barely run for 2 minutes without having to stop.
This really put me off. I tried outdoor running a couple more times and then gave up. I did a bit on the treadmill but found that I just couldn't seem to do what I had been doing before in my old gym. I'm sure this was partially psychological, but it was my reality just the same.
Then last week I managed to get an idea inspired by motivational speaker, Tony Robbins. In one of his books he had a chapter on exercise, (most of which I disagreed with!) and in there he said that most people do not take the time to build an aerobic base and they push themselves into anaerobic levels too quickly. The trouble I have with running is that there doesn't seem to be a way for me to make it aerobic because I just find it so difficult. As soon as I break into a run my heart rate just shoots through the roof.
Then I thought about it some more. Am I just running too fast? It never crossed my mind before because I see so many people in the gym running a LOT faster than me. But it made me wonder just how slow I could go. Perhaps I could find a speed that was barely above a walk that would keep my heart rate in the aerobic zone and allow me to keep going longer.
I tried it out on my next session. Success! I ran 15 minutes straight on the treadmill going about 20% slower than usual. It felt weird going that slow but I kept checking my heart rate and it was quite high but not too high. My stopping point was the pain in my lower legs - I can't stand that burn! But it was much slower to develop and I had no soreness afterwards where usually I'd have a sore calf for a day or two.
This morning I put my theory to test back on the open road. It was still way harder than on the treadmill but I made progress. I ran in blocks of five minutes with a 1-2 minute break between them. Once again it was my legs that let me down but I figure they will strengthen quite quickly. My route allowed me 3 little blocks and I could have gone longer so I'm going to plot out a new one that should add on an extra 5 minutes.
It's still not much but its progress just the same. My mantra with fitness and weight loss has always been "Take Baby Steps" and until now I hadn't realised that the steps I was taking with my runs were simply too large.
If you have hit a wall with some aspect of your physical exercise, scrutinise it and see if there is a way you can cut back on the intensity / difficulty and still make progress.
This really put me off. I tried outdoor running a couple more times and then gave up. I did a bit on the treadmill but found that I just couldn't seem to do what I had been doing before in my old gym. I'm sure this was partially psychological, but it was my reality just the same.
Then last week I managed to get an idea inspired by motivational speaker, Tony Robbins. In one of his books he had a chapter on exercise, (most of which I disagreed with!) and in there he said that most people do not take the time to build an aerobic base and they push themselves into anaerobic levels too quickly. The trouble I have with running is that there doesn't seem to be a way for me to make it aerobic because I just find it so difficult. As soon as I break into a run my heart rate just shoots through the roof.
Then I thought about it some more. Am I just running too fast? It never crossed my mind before because I see so many people in the gym running a LOT faster than me. But it made me wonder just how slow I could go. Perhaps I could find a speed that was barely above a walk that would keep my heart rate in the aerobic zone and allow me to keep going longer.
I tried it out on my next session. Success! I ran 15 minutes straight on the treadmill going about 20% slower than usual. It felt weird going that slow but I kept checking my heart rate and it was quite high but not too high. My stopping point was the pain in my lower legs - I can't stand that burn! But it was much slower to develop and I had no soreness afterwards where usually I'd have a sore calf for a day or two.
This morning I put my theory to test back on the open road. It was still way harder than on the treadmill but I made progress. I ran in blocks of five minutes with a 1-2 minute break between them. Once again it was my legs that let me down but I figure they will strengthen quite quickly. My route allowed me 3 little blocks and I could have gone longer so I'm going to plot out a new one that should add on an extra 5 minutes.
It's still not much but its progress just the same. My mantra with fitness and weight loss has always been "Take Baby Steps" and until now I hadn't realised that the steps I was taking with my runs were simply too large.
If you have hit a wall with some aspect of your physical exercise, scrutinise it and see if there is a way you can cut back on the intensity / difficulty and still make progress.
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