Friday 30 March 2012 - Day 8 to Fitness

Well today was a busy day. I started off at 6:30am with a 30 minute fast walk with the dog, followed by a quick chest workout. The CrossFit WOD (Workout of the Day) today was a difficult one, and would take more time than I had so I changed it to a chest workout followed by a 4 minute Tabatta.

My chest workout was Bench Press,  5 rounds of 5 reps. The weights I managed were;

70kg, 75kg, 80kg, 80kg, 80kg.

Diet wise was spot on again and got an early night tonight. My wife was out with some friends so it was just me and the kids by the time I got in from work at 21:30. I was in bed by 22:00 to catch up on some lost sleep.

I'm looking forward to my weigh in on Sunday morning to check my progress so far.

Thursday 29 March 2012 - Day 7 to Fitness

Well today is a day off from the gym. I had planned to go for a long walk with the dog with some weight on my back, but that didn't work out because of all the problems at the petrol station, I'll explain;

I finished work at 10am this morning and left at about 10:45 after having a catch up with someone I hadn't seen for a while. I was already low on petrol when the government, in their infinite wisdom, decided to tell people to stock up on fuel. So I went to a couple of petrol stations on the way home and after queuing up for fuel for 20 mins, they ran out. Was a little angry at this point because 1. I only just had enough fuel to drive the 50 miles home, so if I hit any traffic I could end up running out, 2. there is NO strike planned yet by the fuel lorry drivers. All this panic is because people are just listening to their friends and hearsay and not looking into things themselves. If the lorry drivers do strike they need to give a week's notice, so what's the point in filling up your car now, unless you plan on not driving for a week!!!

So anyway I drive home, and make it with 5 miles left on my fuel counter, and have to queue at my local station. By the time I get in it's 12:30 in the afternoon and I get into bed at 13:00, very tired!! I was planning on getting up at 15:00 -16:00 and going out with the dog for a bit of light exercise (walking) but was too tired and didn't wake up until my wife and kids came home at 18:30. Not much of a worry as it was my day off from training anyway.

I had a protein shake when I woke, with the usual 300ml of milk, banana, peanut butter and added a teaspoon of coffee granules as my protein powder is cappuccino anyway. It went down a treat and was just what I needed to wake me up from that groggy feeling you get after only a few hours sleep. For dinner my wife treated me to a steak with sweet potato and butternut squash oven baked chips,and cheese covered potato skins. OK the cheese covered baked potato skins are not an ideal choice but when you consider that since 9am that morning all I'd had was a protein shake due to sleep, it's not actually that bad. Off to bed again at 23:00 to sleep and switch my body back over to day time shifts, then up again at 06:00 to train again.

Good night All!!

Wednesday 28 March - Day 6 to Fitness

Well today was a pretty uneventful day on my road to fitness. I managed to get 5.5 hours sleep, but was woken up a few times due to it being roasting hot in my bedroom and once by the dog who decided to lick my face while I was asleep. I wasn't too happy with that, but she's such a sweet dog so I let it go!

Diet wise today, well tonight was spot on. Training should have been a 2km row but as I don't have a rower a good substitute is to do Sumo High Pulls with a 25kg bar, each rep being 10 metres, so I did 200 reps. Here's a demo of what a Sumo High Pull is.

All in all, apart from the lack of sleep (which is the norm for me when I'm on night shifts to be honest), another good day!

Diet and Nutrition

As mentioned earlier I will be outlining my plan, nutrition wise. My aim is to lose body fat while maintaining as much muscle mass as possible. The reason for this is that I am already relatively fit, well for my size anyway, and have a good foundation of muscle underneath all that fat. This has been built up over many years of resistance work in the gym and is a bit of a requirement for my job. I need to be fit and strong

So what am I basing my diet on?

Well I've taken quite a precise approach to this, basing my figures on nutrition guidelines that I've read over the years for bodybuilding. I will be basing my macro nutrient (Protein, Carbohydrates and Fat) ratios loosely on the Paleo diet. I say loosely because although I feel that the Paleo way of eating is probably the easiest way to heat a good healthy diet, it's not great if you don't always have a lot of time, so for me, I eat Paleo, but then add in some protein supplements.

How much food?

To work out how many calories worth of food you need for each day, you need to work out what your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is. Your BMR is a rough guide to how many calories you're body will burn throughout the day. The formula for calculating your BMR is below;

For Men:  BMR = 66 + (13.7 x bodyweight in kg) + (5 x height in cm) - (6.8 x age in years)

For Women: BMR = 655 + (9.6 x weight in kg) + (1.8 x height in cm) - (4.7 x age in years)

My weight at the start was 134.5kg. So 13.7 x 134.5 = 1,842.

My height is 190cm and when multiplied by 5 = 950.

My age is 30 years and when multiplied by 6.8 = 204.

So the figures we now have are, BMR = 66 + 1,842 (13.7 x 134.5) + 950 (5 x 190) - 204 (6.8 x 30)

That leaves me with a BMR of 2,654. You then need to work out your activity levels for the day and use the multipliers below to get your total calories needed for the day.

Activity Multiplier
Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (little or no exercise, desk job)
Lightly active = BMR X 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)
Mod. active = BMR X 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)
Very active = BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)
Extr. Active = BMR X 1.9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.)

For me I have chosen Light Activity. The reason being is that my work is not very demanding physically, but I workout 5 - 6 times a week. So my total BMR is now at 3,649. Now a point to note is that for the severely muscular or overweight this can be very inaccurate. It will tend to over-estimate calorific needs for people with excess fat (me) and under-estimate people with high levels of muscle tissue (bodybuilders). The reason being that fat needs less calories than muscle, and visa versa, and this formula takes into account your total bodyweight, rather than your lean mass. There is a method for calculating your BMR using your lean mass which I will go into in great detail in a later post. What I advise you to do is use this as a guide. If you're aim is to lose weight, then drop your calories by 500 per day to start off with and see how your weight loss and energy levels go for a couple of weeks. If your weight loss is around 2lb per week then your good, if it's less, then drop your calories a little more, if it's more than increase your calories a little. For me, I know that I lose a good amount of weight each week while maintaining good energy levels at just over 2,000 calories a day, so this is what I stick to. 

What Foods?

Remember earlier on I mentioned protein, carbohydrates and fats? Well these are the basic blocks of all foods and they all do different things to the body. Protein is used for muscle tissue repair, carbohydrate is used for energy, and so is fat. You need protein to maintain and repair broken down muscle tissue from your workouts, and you need fuel to feed those muscles for their workouts. Protein and Carbohydrates both contain 4 calories per gram. Fat contains 9 calories per gram. It is recommended to eat between 0.8g and 1.5g of protein per pound of lean body mass (LBM) to start off with. I have previously had my body fat worked out as about 30% fat so I use that to work out my LBM. this works out as about 209lbs of LBM. I personally aim for 0.9g of protein per lb of LBM so aim for about 188g of protein per day. I then try to keep my carbohydrates as low as possible and make the rest of the calories up in fat (fat is not as bad as everyone thinks). I stay away, as much as is possible, from processed carbohydrates such as breads, pasta, rice.  Here is my diet so far and the macro nutrient profiles for the day;

Meal 1 : 1 scoop whey protein, 1 banana, 2 scoops peanut butter, 300ml milk, 2 handfuls of ice

Meal 2 : 3 boiled/poached eggs

Meal 3 : 1 baked sweet potato, 1 can of tuna, drizzled with olive oil

Meal 4 : Chicken Breast with veg, 6g fish oil

Snack : 50g Almonds, 1 piece of fruit

(if hungry at end of day, will add in a whey protein shake mixed with water)


The supplements I use are Iron Science Whey Concentrate, Iron Science Fish Capsules, Holland & Barrett Green Tea Extract Capsules and Centrum Performance Multi Vitamin. 

Calories = 2095

Protein = 189g

Carbohydrates = 118g

Fats = 83.6g

So there you go. Got there in the end. This is my plan food wise, but you'll notice over time that I won't stick to this religiously. As I've said before, I've lifted weights for years now and am nutritionally aware, so to speak. Because of this experience I have I am quite happy making substitutes if need be while out an about with work etc. All it takes is a little bit of dedication and the checking of food labels before you buy items and it's quite easy to get the same nutrients.  I will also, every now and then be having day's off from the dieting and will indulge in whatever foods take my fancy. The reason for this is that, as demonstrated last week, it's OK to have a little bit of "undesirable food" every now and then without it effecting your dieting goals. It also helps to keep you sane, and has even be suggested to boost your metabolism back up. 

Tuesday 27 March - Day 5 to Fitness

Not much to report today. Diet was as planned and training was good. As I'm on night shift's at the moment I only manage to get about 5.5 hours sleep, so have no time to go for a walk pre-workout, and that's the norm when I work nights. No where near enough sleep, but needs must, and it's part of the job, unfortunately.

As I said, training was good. Tonight I done Annie (I do all my training upon waking).

As quick as possible complete

50-40-30-20-10 rep rounds of;

Double Unders (Skipping)
Sit-Ups.

I managed to complete this workout in 15.23.

Monday 26 March 2012 - Day 4 to Fitness

Well Today was a good day and the start of a new week. I weighed myself after my bad choices of food last week and weighed in at 291.6 lbs, which is good considering some of the "not so desirable" food I ate. To be honest though, I was expecting this. Remember in my first post I said that I actually did have some solid nutritional knowledge, but that I just hadn't applied it to myself?! You see to loose weight, all you need is a calorie deficit in your diet. That means that you are burning more calories than you are eating. And it is as simple as that to lose weight. Well not quite as simple as just that for someone like me, because I want to hold onto as much muscle tissue as possible. I'll go into more detail in an up and coming post but the principals are to just ensure you eat less calories than your body needs, and ensure you get enough protein in your diet to sustain muscle tissue.

Training today consisted of a 45 minute fast paced walk followed by a CrossFit workout.

3 rounds with no rest in between sets, so a straight through run of

21 - 15 - 9 reps of
97.5kg Squats
12kg Kettlebell Swings

After this workout my legs were like jelly. A good feeling in the sense that I knew they'd been worked hard!!

Diet wise was good. I had my planned meals, although today was slightly different in that I start a run of three night shifts tonight. What I do is eat my planned food like normal until 15:00hrs when I go to sleep until 18:00 then I start my meals again beginning with breakfast. Today was a little different as I didn't get my 3 hours sleep before starting night, but the meal frequency and principals remained the same.

I'll be doing "official" weigh in's and picture every 1 or 2 weeks depending on how busy I am with work, but my next weigh in and pictures will be on Sunday 1 April (no joke!!).

Sunday 25 March 2012 - Day 3 to Fitness

Woke up this morning and took the dog out for her walk. Only a short one today as my wife had is running a half marathon and needed to leave early so I couldn't leave the kids on their own. I was also picking my niece up and taking her shopping for her birthday so was really pushed for time, but I'm not too bothered by that as it  is my day off from training.

After taking my youngest girl (4) and her cousin (10) round the shops we finished the morning by sitting in the sun and watching the runners pass the finish line of the Fleet Half Marathon, me reminiscing about how I use to run 10 miles every weekend and thinking maybe I should sign up for next years?! My wife finished with a time of 2:21, she was not very please with that as it's 20 minutes slower than her time last year and slower that the first half marathon she did 2 years ago, but in her defence, she has done no training for it whatsoever and only decided to go through with it the night before the race!!

Diet today started good my drifted off course!!

Breakfast : Protein shake

Lunch : Hot dog

Dinner : BBQ (the weather too good not to!!!) Chicken kebab, salad, burger in wholemeal bun, baked sweet potato, I then shared some ice cream with my daughter!!

I'm not too worried about the diet today because as I said in a previous post, you can have little bits of naughty food and still loose weight. you just need to moderate how much you have!!

Saturday 24 March 2012 - Day 2 to Fitness

Nothing special happened today. Was at work all day, but managed to get in a 40 minute fast walk with the dog first thing, followed by 5 sets of 3 x Overhead Squats and then finished off with a 4 minute Tabatta on my stationary bike. A Tabatta is basically a 4 minute workout comprising of 8 rounds of 20 seconds flat out work and 10 seconds rest. Despite the short time of the workout it's actually quite tough (I will discuss the origins and benefits of Tabatta training in a separate post).

My Overhead Squat weight were;

50kg, 52.5kg, 55kg, 57.5kg, 60kg

Not a bad start to the day. Diet has been pretty strict today as well,

Breakfast - protein shake

Mid Morning - 2 curried chicken drumsticks, home mad pita bread (home made)

Lunch - 3 boiled eggs

Dinner - baked chicken breast, green beans

Snack - 50g Almonds

Friday 23 March 2012 - Day 1 to Fitness

Started today with a 4.8km fast pace walk with my dog over the local Army training area. It's quite hilly so you can get a good sweat on. When I got home I completed the CrossFit workout called Grace. This consist's of 30 reps of Barbell Clean and Jerk at 62.5kg as fast as you can.

Here's a very impressive video from YouTube of someone completing the workout in 1 minute, 29 seconds.

Sadly my Grace time wasn't quite as quick as that. My time was 5:44. Not as quick as the video above but I'm pleased with that time as it is a 59 second knock off from my last time. 

Diet today wasn't great. I had the day off and my wife has the afternoon off so we met for lunch and went to a Chinese all you can eat buffet, but don't worry. As I said in my opening post I have been training and "dieting" for a while now and this day was planned. Today's meals consisted of;

Breakfast : Protein shake

Lunch : 4 chicken skewers with peanut satay sauce, stir fried sweet chilli mushrooms, 2x small pancake rolls, small portion of chilli noodles, stir fried vegetables and a diet coke.

Dinner :  1 quarter lime, chilli & coriander chicken (recipe to come), green beans,

So apart from some undesirables at lunch, not  a bad day all in all. I'm  not too worried about the food at lunch either, if there's one thing I've learned over the years is that some so called "bad food" is OK to have once in a while. 

Why CrossFit

You'll notice that in my posts so far I have stated that I will be using the CrossFit method of training. The main reason for this is that it suits my lifestyle very well, which I'll go into more detail about later, but for now I'll just be discussing what CrossFit is and why I think it's a good way for me to reach my goals.

So what is CrossFit?

For those that don't know, it is a very intense form of working out (basically circuit training), and despite popular belief has actually been around for a long time. It uses a combination of resistance and cardiovascular work combined into one workout to create a very high intensity workout. The training sessions progress and also utilise lesser intensity type training. If you follow the CrossFit website, as I will, you'll be doing 3 day's of working out, followed by one day of rest and then repeating.

What is high intensity training? 

Well is just what it says on the tin and is often performed in short periods of time, for example, most CrossFit workouts rarely last 20 minutes in time. I can almost hear people saying "but surely 20 minutes isn't long enough?" Well if you just poodle along then no, a less than 20 minute workout isn't going to improve your fitness that much but studies have shown that if you put in 100% effort for a short time, then the benefits can be great. Combine that with longer sessions of steady state exercise and you're on to a winner. A study over at www.bodyrecomposition.com showed that this type of training can be beneficial, especially when combined with longer, lower intensity training sessions. But there is a bad thing to this type of training, in my opinion. If you do a 10 minute high intensity interval workout such as one of the CrossFit workout's, but really can't be bothered to put in the effort, then you won't gain much from it. You really have to give this training your all to gain from the cardiovascular side of things. Another thing to consider if you're reading this thinking you might give CrossFit a go is that some of the lifts that are performed during a workout are very advanced lifts. I have been lifting weights for about 12 years now on and off and have very good form so transitioning to this type of training for me was pretty easy. A beginner with no experience in this type of weight lifting could find themselves injured very quickly. I'd recommend anyone starting CrossFit to take it very, very slowly to start with, practising the lifts as you go.

Other forms of exercise I will be undertaking is walking/Tabbing (a TAB is a military term for basically walking somewhere with lots of weight on your back) and eventually running. I won't be doing much running to start with, only what is involved in the CrossFit workouts, until I get a bit lighter due to a knee injury from my Army days. It's not a severe injury but at the weight I'm at now I just don't want to put too much shock through it by doing too much running.

So why CrossFit?

Well aside from some of the benefits listed above, it really does fit into my lifestyle really well. I have a wife, 3 kids and a dog, and I make time for them all as much as I can. Combine this with up to 14 hour days adding on 2 hours of travelling each day, and you don't need to be a mathematician to see that I don't get a lot of spare time. The hours are due to me working in the personal security industry and working shifts, so when I'm working nights I'm lucky if I get 5.5 hours sleep on a training day. I simply don't have the time to do 1 hour training sessions. Another aspect that draws me to this type of training, and particularly the CrossFit way, is the challenge of it. The workouts are very hard and very intense, and because it is a different workout each day, it never gets stale. I finish a workout knowing I've given it everything I could, rather than just going through the motions. 

Starting Point

Well I'm at the start of my journey and so far it's started well.I will discuss in later posts my plan with regard to food and training. But here is where I am at now.

Today's weight is 293 lbs / 132.9 kg

I started the day with a 30 minute fast paced walk with the dog at 07:00, then I jumped in the gym for today's CrossFit workout which was;

Complete as many reps as possible in 7 minutes of the following rep scheme;
45kg Thruster x 3 reps
Chest to Bar Pull-Ups x 3 reps
45kg Thruster x 6 reps
Chest to Bar Pull-Ups x 6 reps
45kg Thruster x 9 reps
Chest to Bar Pull-Ups x 9 reps
45kg Thruster x 12 reps
Chest to Bar Pull-Ups x12 reps (This was as far as I got and I only managed 2 reps.)

So all in all a good start to the day. My diet today has been good as well.

Breakfast : Protein Shake (1 scoop whey, 300ml milk, 2 handful's of ice, 2x Tablespoon peanut butter, half a banana, handful of spinach)

Mid Morning : 3 Boiled Eggs

Late Lunch : Baked Sweet Potato, 1 tin of Tuna

Dinner : Chicken Breast, Green Beans

Snacks :  half a Banana, 50g Almonds

I'll go into more detail about my diet in a later post.

Introduction

Welcome to my Blog. This Blog will be a record of my journey from Fat 2 Fit. I will be logging everything I do to achieve my weight loss goals, including recipes for food and the training I will be carrying out. On the subject of training, I shall be following CrossFit as well as a very loose version of the Paleo diet, which I will go into further detail about later on. For now, welcome and I hope you find my blog either interesting or an inspiration to help you on your way to your fat loss goals.

Thanks for stopping by,

Mike.