JCC 2014 Fitness Goals

Today was my second day of Insanity on Xbox One. My body feels brittle. My heart, flailing desperately inside my chest.

 

Unfortunately, I might not be able to run today due to business. Grrrr

 

9.3 miles today in 1:31:42

 

Mehhh... I'm totally late for this party and the goal setting, and I went to post in the old thread originally, tool that I am (hence loads of you receiving 'likes' for ancient posts)!

Last year me and my other half were talking about what we'd do this year as we both wanted to lose weight... I believe that my weight may have been a factor in me repeatedly injuring myself as soon as I recovered from my previous one.

My fiancee wanted to do a thing called diet chef. Basically you hand over loads of money and get your (tiny) meals supplied for you. I told her that instead we'd do 3 months my way and, if no progress is made, then sure, we'd try her thing (knowing my way would work, ye ken? ). We started the first full week of January (festive food hangs around for a while after Christmas, so I didn't want to be stupid) and so far so good!

In 2 weeks (weekly weigh-in takes place on a Monday) I've lost 13 lbs to go down to 15 st 12 lbs, while my fiancee has also lost consistently.

I haven't really done any exercise as part of the routine, to be frank, it's all dietary.

In the 2013 thread I made a post about athletes switching to low carb diets to teach their bodies to burn fat primarily, and use carbs as a second energy source, and that's what I've done, but there is a bit more to it than that...

It ain't too complicated, the key things we've done are:

1. Drink more water - 2 Ltrs a day or more. Easy to break down if you do a pint with breakfast, 2 pints during the day at work, and a pint in the evening.
2. Lower Carbs, Up Protein - We're not using supplements...
3. Shrink portion sizes

Breakfast - Still have cereal, but bran flakes, semi-skimmed milk (see, not completely cutting carbs!). The box has the weight of a typical serving on it and we stick to that. The first few times almost made me weep, how could there be enough? Lol.

Lunch - Typically consists of a salad (tomato, rocket/arugula (only found out you yanks call rocket arugula after I'd been to NYC, lettuce, avocado, cucumber) with meat (Tuna, Chicken, Turkey) and sometimes a cheeky twist of mozzarella or green pesto. One tip for this - buy a whole chicken and roast it, then keep it in the fridge and it'll make lunch for a few days...

Dinner - Like I said, smaller portion sizes has helped but I have taken a lot of our 'regular' meals and tried to remove the bulk of carbs from them. When we had lasagne, for instance, we'd have nothing but that and we'd have a big slab, now we have half the amount with steamed veg instead. I also did some digging on lowish carb meals and found a wicked one that's quite easy to do.

For 2 -

2x Chicken Breast fillets
2x Bell Peppers - Deseeded and cut into chunks
250g baby carrots - halved (I just use 2 normal size ones sliced)
1/2 Red Onion - sliced into thin wedges
2x tsp Green Pesto
Parmigiano reggiano cheese (parmesan, lol)
Some fresh basil

Preheat oven - 190 c / fan oven 170 c / gas mark 5
Cut a pouch into each chicken breast fillet, spread a tsp of pesto within.
Add thin slices of the cheese within the pouch as a layer on top of the pesto.
Add basil leaves on top of the cheese within the pouch.
Place all the veg on a baking tray and ensure they've got a coating of olive oil, place the chicken on top and put it in the oven (near the top) for 25-30 mins.

Super easy, and it doesn't leave much washing up either

So yeah, so far so good. Once I plateau with the weight loss I'm going to start lifting weights and stuff (at home) and get back out running. Ideally, I want to get down to below 14 st, then I'll have a foundation to build on.

 

Wowsers! Is there a reason you don't enjoy it? Have you considered talking to a psychiatrist to identify a way you can combat the issue? If it's got this bad then something drastic needs doing (I know, you know this already )

 

I'm bad for enjoying this mocha drink. Very bad.

 

Good luck with your plan, Jedi_Matt. Without a doubt, what we eat will have the biggest impact on our waistline.

Today marks 50 km for the month. I'm pretty stoked. Also doing really well on my goal of eating base ingredients meals. My crock pot is working overtime this year!

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Side note, I'm seriously impressed. I'm looking forward to breaking 6 miles one of these days.

 

Thanks, I'm in between projects so I'm using the time to try and up my mileage.

 

Well done guys, good work! Gotta do some training this weekend, I've been studying for a Microsoft exam which I passed today, so now I've got some time back .

 

I will report back later and say I finally got back out to run again. Not having a gym membership or any access to a treadmill in the coldest winter in memory while there is ice and snow on the ground is frustrating.

I have done my exercise DVD's everyday this week and rode my bike. Either the cold is effecting my scale or I actually lost 2 pounds this week

 

The snow and ice on the ground is frustrating because it's pretty dangerous to go running at the moment. I keep thinking it'll melt soon (this being Virginia and all) but nooo... grrr

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Yea, I am in Virginia too! I was just thinking when I looked out the window how rare it is for there to still be snow on the ground 5 days after it fell. Luckily our main neighborhood road is clear enough to run in daylight. Often I run after dark, after my kids are in bed, but weekends give me more opportunity to run during the day. There's still too much of a possibility of not seeing an icy patch in the dark for me to brave running at night.

 

Sweet! Virginia is normally pretty gorgeous to run around. Most of our roads here are pretty clear and I could probably navigate the random ice patches in the daylight. I'm just a big whuss.

On the upside, we're supposed to get up to 41 today, so maybe I'll run this afternoon. If not, tomorrow morning is supposed to be perfect!

 

7.1 miles today. I think this is my limit as I found it very difficult, though I think that's more because of the hills I encountered rather than the distance.

When I got back home I checked my watch to see how long it took me, only to find I'd hit the wrong button.Very annoying. I'd guess it was somewhere over an hour, which I'm quite proud of as I used to think I'd never have the endurance to run for that long.

 

The indoor track was being used for the girl's track meet, so I had to run on a treadmill. Ugh

 

4 miles Neighborhood was much less icy than I expected. According to the weather channel we hit 33 degrees today, was so nice to get out for a run.

 

I heard that was true as well....
I run on an incline of 5.5 - 7.0 any time I use a treadmill, though, so I simply disregarded it.

I figure it would be just to match the effort level, because the treadmill tends to have cushioning as well as a consistently level surface - unlike outside. I'm not positive on that, however.

 

Thank you
It's actually pretty odd, I usually get shin splints if I run any lower than 4.5. I just worked up from there. I increased incline by 0.5 every 8 or 9 runs, or when I could feel that my body was used to the new incline level.