Motley Health's Fitness and Weight Loss Community

OK, so how am I doing? Once again I have hit some stumbling blocks. I managed to catch another bad cold, and that stopped me doing my new circuit training. I also spent a long weekend stuffing my face with chicken soup and chocolate to make myself better. The chocolate was purely to aid mental recovery!

I am still walking home from the railway station everyday as part of my Credit Crunch Fitness Plan. Total savings are about £200 each month (no bus, no morning coffee, cheaper breakfast, cheaper lunches, no kung-fu, less petrol). All adds up.

But there is good news! Yesterday I hopped on the scales after my wife decided to weigh herself, and I was surprised - actually shocked - to see that I had lost more weight. Not sure what the cause is though. I weighed myself again today, to make sure that last night was not just a freaky glitch, and I still weigh 95.2kg.

I think that the reason maybe a combination of diet and walking. As said, I am still walking about 45 minutes everyday working day. But also, I am on a wheat free diet. I spoke to a doc the other week, and he thinks that I have a wheat intolerance, so advised me to give up wheat to SIX MONTHS!!! I happen to think that that is a bit excessive. This means no bread, no pizza, no doughnuts, no cakes, no biscuits. Practically nothing. So my new daily eating regime is more or less:

Breakfast - porridge with raisins and honey / maple syrup
Lunch - jacket potato with some sort of chicken/meat stew on top
Supper - soup
Snacks - lots of chocolate "energy bars".

My fitness plan went pear shaped, again. Last week my dodgy ankle flared up again, and that has put an end to my running home from the station. However, I am still walking everyday - 2.7 miles, or 45-50 minutes. The walk is tiring, and by time I get home I am all sweaty and my legs feel pretty tired too. Anyway, to supplement my walking, and also to try to make up for the fact that I am not going kung-fu, I have started my daily 100 press up challenge again.

I did this challenge last year, I think, or it could have been the end of 2006 thinking about it. Anyway, I did 100 yesterday, but admit only managed 30 today. My 100 involved doing 1 set of 20, followed by 6 sets of 10, and then as many as I could before failing each time, until I got to 100. The 100th was a single press up, as I failed on 99. It was tough, but enjoyable!

Also, I promised my wife that I would do some sun salutations with her too. And September is apparently "Yoga Month", so I really should give it a go. Never done a sun salutation, but they look like a good way to exercise. My wife "does 100's" every Sunday in her Ashtanga yoga class. She says that it is the hardest yoga that she has ever done - so it must be good!

Here is a bit more about the Sun Salutation, plus a YouTube Yoga clip

Been busy recently. Too much to do. Managed to run home from the station 3 times. Also walked home once. Today my right ankle got very sore, the one that I broke in 2006. Still struggling to lose weight. Need more sleep. Been following the Olympics, and blogging it too. Inspirational.

Last night I almost attended a whole kung-fu class. Some business at home meant that I was late again though. It was a fun but intensive class. My fitness is still lagging. The class started with the butterfly knife form, which I feel is finally coming together. Need to buy a paid of knives so that I can practice at home though. We then did some light sparring. This is where things started to go wrong for me last night. There were three other students in the class, and each for them seemed to have the upper hand each time we fought. My sparring seems to have gone to pieces, and this started to get to me. I guess that it is no surprise as we do not do so much sparring now, but my fitness and lack of skill / applying technique seemed to show.

Tonight I did my third sprint circuit on the football pitch on my local park. I failed to time the first, but the second, which was last Tuesday I think, I managed 5 sprints in 12:30. Tonight I did 7 sprints in 17:25. I jogged at an easier pace tonight as my hip was hurting a little from kung-fu last week. New guy in the class tried to crush my hip in a conditioning exercise, then wondered why I was pulling my hip strikes afterwards....

I have managed to gain just under 0.5kg in the last week or so. Got a bit lazy again, and even had some chocolate cake with my coffee last week.

I am making a renewed effort to go along to kung-fu twice a week, tricky some nights as my son is often late to bed on the days he goes to nursery, and those are the days I go kung-fu in the evening.

This is my first blog in several weeks. I have been very busy recently, and not had time to blog, but I have still been concentrating on my diet. Fitness is improving slowly, but I am relying mostly on kung-fu lessons, where the emphasis is on skill rather than cardio fitness. But, this morning I weighed myself, and I am now a pleasing 85.6kg (188 pounds). My target for the 17th June was 85kg, so I am now almost there,

I have now set myself a new target of 80kg. This may be too light, depends on if I get my weight training in order. At the moment 80kg is probably the right weight for me, but I know I will bulk up pretty quick if I do some intensive weight training sessions. Big if at the moment though.

Weighed in this morning. For the last week I have had a cold, and I am still in recovery, with a chesty cough. Also hayfever has been really bad. As a result - no exercise at all. Diet has been OK, although drifting from the low-card routine. But, managed to lose a little weight still.

My target for getting to 85kg was mid-summer, which is now almost a week gone. 1.4kg is not too bad though. Still managed to lose a total of 10.6kg so far. Need to start exercising. I think that I sand that last week.....

First set back is of a technical nature. For some reason, I lost some blog posts, so recent updates have vanished. This is really just annoying. The other set back has been my recent binging. I had a binge last weekend on my son's 1st birthday party, and another binge this weekend. I did lose 0.2kg (almost half a pound), weighing in at 86.4kg on Friday monring, but even so those two binges have not been good for my health, my fitness or my weight loss.

I did do some press ups the other evening. I did 20, and it felt much easier than the last time, so being 10kg lighter must have helped a lot. But other than that, I have not done much.

I am now into week 15 of the Motley Health Fitness and Weight Loss Plan. My total weight loss is now 10kg (22 pounds) and I have gone from a BMI of 32 to a BMI of 28.6.

Well, on Saturday morning I weighed in at 86.6kg. However, Saturday was my son's first birthday party, and it was a bit of a carb and sugar fest really. I think that by the end of the day, I had eaten:

1 bagel
4 scrambled eggs
rice
chilli con carne (my own fab recipe)
a piece of sponge cake with icing and jam filling
a few pieces of chocolate gateaux
a bowl of trifle
about 5 sausage rolls
a few mini onion bhajis, and some other Indian snacks
half a glass of beer
several glasses of red wine
handfuls of peanuts