Battle Report: Myrdinn vs Fitness

[Myrdinn]

Monday August 8th

 

Exercise: Bodyweight.

 

3 x 8 Deep Step Ups. Form was poor on these, I was basically having to cheat every rep - push off with my non-working foot to get myself off the floor and drop myself back down the last few inches. I was getting better by the end when I'd started to figure out what I should be doing. Going to dial this back to 3 x 6 next time and really concentrate on doing all the work with my raised leg.

20 bodyweight squats just to really get my legs burning.

2 x 35 second planks (Jay on Strength Unbound reckons you can get by on two sets of core per session but he's basing that on bicycle crunches, so I might switch to them next time round)

3 x 6 decline push ups (done as a superset with the step-ups)

3 x 8 bent-knee bodyweight rows. I still feel like my arms are doing most of the work here, compensating for my back, but I'm going to take the plunge and move up to the straight-leg version next time to see if that helps.

6,4,3 elbow-in push ups. Started out doing these as supersets with the rows but that wasn't working. I'll do them as a completely separate exercise next time round.

 

Food: Bircher, Tuna and spinach salad with red pepper, cherry tomato, diced carrot and pesto dressing, curry for dinner - a roti, some veggie pakora, half a poppadom, half portion of chicken curry and half portion of saag paneer. Also had a flat white and a handful of walnuts. According to myfitnesspal I was under my calorie goal by about 400 calories.

Fun: More Olympics. And frankly I am really enjoying the bodyweight workouts at the moment, so being out in the sunshine doing that was great.

[Myrdinn]

Tuesday August 9th

 

Rest Day

Food: Not the best day. Bircher, two rounds of tuna sandwiches for lunch, pizza, garlic bread and coleslaw for dinner, with a starbucks latte in the morning. I have started tracking what I eat on myfitnesspal and this works out to about 450 calories over the 2000 I am aiming for to cut weight.

Fun: The Olympics seems to be providing me with 16 days of solid entertainment!

[durfette]

Getting out in the sun and oohing and ahhing at the Olympiads is what this summer is all about! What is bircher?

[Myrdinn]

20 hours ago, durfette said:

Getting out in the sun and oohing and ahhing at the Olympiads is what this summer is all about! What is bircher?

 

Bircher is Swiss-style muesli soaked in fruit juice overnight, served with grated apple and yogurt. I use a variant on this recipe but add goji berries and chia seeds for a bit of superfood-ness.

 

[Myrdinn]

Wednesday 10th August

 

Exercise: Annoyed with myself this morning. I had an upset stomach all afternoon yesterday and skipped the workout I had planned, which is the first time since I started exercising again that I've missed one. I am busy tonight too, so can't play catch-up this evening and will probably only get two workouts in this week.

Food: Left the house in a rush so skipped my usual breakfast. Grabbed yogurt, granola and berries from the staff canteen. Work lunch at a pizza restaurant but had the 'skinny' pizza option (just under 500 calories). Made veggie burritos for dinner: wholewheat tortillas, refried beans, fresh guacamole. Incredibly filling and about 1000 calories (!).

Fun: Tough day, to be honest. Mrs Myrdinn works in international development and is off on a trip to East Africa next week. The planning process is driving her mad and I am having to provide a lot of TLC - which I don't mind but isn't exactly relaxing!

[Guzzi]

On 9 August 2016 at 9:20 AM, Myrdinn said:

 

You are indeed. Any feedback on the workouts? I am flying blind here with a couple of websites for guidance. I know you do more barbell work, but any thoughts would be helpful.

 

Hope you're well?

 

Your workouts look good to me, but to be honest I don't feel "qualified" to give you any feedback.  

 

All my work previously was done with a personal trainer with recovery in mind, I never got to the point where I really felt able to go it alone, and it's been nearly two years since I've even touched a barbell... Gulp!

 

21 hours ago, Myrdinn said:

Wednesday 10th August

 

Exercise: Annoyed with myself this morning. I had an upset stomach all afternoon yesterday and skipped the workout I had planned, which is the first time since I started exercising again that I've missed one. I am busy tonight too, so can't play catch-up this evening and will probably only get two workouts in this week.

 

I know how frustrating this is, especially when you had a perfect run until now but on the bright side... That's a bloody good run! You can still be proud of what you've accomplished there and know that it wasn't really by choice that you missed that one workout. Well done!

 

21 hours ago, Myrdinn said:

Fun: Tough day, to be honest. Mrs Myrdinn works in international development and is off on a trip to East Africa next week. The planning process is driving her mad and I am having to provide a lot of TLC - which I don't mind but isn't exactly relaxing!

 

Good on you for being there to support her. I'm sure she really appreciates it and although it's maybe not the relaxing evening you had planned after a long day at the office, I'm sure it pays off. 

[Myrdinn]

@Guzzi cheers mate. Planning to get a bodyweight session in this afternoon/evening and to go for a run in the morning if I get up in time, so might manage three this week. And I guess if working out is becoming a regular enough thing that I'm annoyed if I miss it, that can only be a good thing. Mrs M much better last night as well so that's all good.

[Myrdinn]

Thursday August 11th

 

Exercise: out in the evening so nothing.

Food: bircher and a latte for breakfast, sushi for lunch (I was extremely naughty and couldn't face eating the cheap, healthy leftover bits from last night, so I treated myself!), chicken, spinach and pesto pasta for dinner. And four pints of beer after work with a mate. 

Fun: Did I mention the four pints after work? Followed by getting home to more Olympics. Plus we had a new bed delivered yesterday morning and I slept like a baby in it.

[Myrdinn]

Friday August 12th

 

Exercise: Nothing

Food: bircher for breakfast, leftover chicken and pesto pasta for lunch, a slightly odd picnic-style dinner of smoked salmon, prawn cocktail, burrata, tomato salad, tzatziki and pitta bread with a couple of glasses of white wine in the evening.

Fun: Evening in with my wife. 

 

Saturday August 13th

 

Exercise: A good long walk during the day (about 6 miles) then a bodyweight workout in the afternoon.

 

6 deep step ups with each leg, then switched to doing sets of 6 beginner shrimp squats. Had to balance myself on the back of a bench, and I was definitely assisting the working leg quite a lot with my arm at the bottom of the movement, but these felt like harder work than the step ups and are closer to the pistol squats I'm working towards, so will persist with these.

3 x 4 straight-leg bodyweight rows: couldn't quite get my chest up to the bar on these so will try again with the same number of reps next time out.

3 x 6 elbow-in push-ups. These were fairly comfortable. Up the reps next time.

1 set of 20 bicycle crunches (should have done two sets but I was running out of time)

1 dead hang - literally found a tree branch to hang from on the way home and stuck it out until my back was screaming at me. I've done this a couple of times at the end of recent workouts and not logged it but I am going to start making it a proper part of my routine from now on.

 

Food: 3 boiled eggs with a green salad for breakfast, with a small latte on our walk. Bad lunch of a supermarket chicken wrap (which was hideously bad for me and didn't even taste nice). Had a friend's birthday drinks in the evening so ended up eating a cheeseburger and drinking about 5 beers.

Fun: Great night out with friends celebrating our pal's birthday.

 

Sunday August 14th

 

Exercise: Day off

Food: Avocado on toast for breakfast. Veggie mac and cheese with cauliflower and spinach for lunch (with two small lattes and a chocolate brownie). Pizza and coleslaw for dinner, with a couple of glasses of red wine in the afternoon.

Fun: Lovely pub lunch in the sunshine with our friends and their very cute new baby!

[durfette]

On 8/11/2016 at 3:40 AM, Myrdinn said:

The planning process is driving her mad and I am having to provide a lot of TLC - which I don't mind but isn't exactly relaxing!

You are a good man Myrdinn!

 

Man, some of your meals sound delicious so I'm gonna steal them for my own meal plan! pesto chicken pasta. yummmmm. 

[Myrdinn]

12 hours ago, durfette said:

some of your meals sound delicious

 

I bet the ones that sound good are restaurant meals and probably not that healthy! The pesto chicken one is the laziest meal in the world actually - cook your favourite pasta and trow in a pot of fresh pesto from the supermarket and a couple of handfuls of cooked chicken. Stir it up and serve - I usually throw in a handful of spinach as well for extra vitamins.

[Myrdinn]

Monday August 15th

 

Exercise: Walked home (about 4.5 miles) but didn't do a proper workout as I was helping Mrs M pack for her Africa trip.

Food: Bircher for breakfast, tuna salad for lunch, smoked salmon sandwich as an afternoon snack and chicken and prawn burrito bowls with sweet potato rather than rice for dinner. Plus the obligatory ice cream in the sunshine on the walk home. 1849 calories, 41% carbs, 35% fat, 24% protein (113g).

Fun: Watched GB win a couple more medals!

[Myrdinn]

Tuesday August 16th

 

Exercise: Bodyweight.

 

20 bodyweight squats to warm up.

3 x 6 beginner shrimp squats on each leg. Still having to assist both balance and the bottom of the movement on the way up and down with my arm on the back of a bench, but I'm concentrating on doing as much of the work as possible with my active leg, so I think this should be getting me somewhere.

4,5,4 straight-leg bodyweight rows. I wasn't getting my chest to the bar on the first set, but adjusted my position slightly and concentrated on the pull on the second and third sets and managed it on all of the second set and most of the third.

1 dead hang of (guessing) about 15 seconds. This really killed my shoulder - I think I need to add something for the shoulders back in, probably decline push-ups.

3 x 7 elbows in push ups - these were killing me when I started them but are starting to get easier.

2 x 45 second planks

 

Food: 3 poached eggs on 1 slice toast in the office canteen for breakfast (£1.50! Bargain!). Couple of sandwiches from the supermarket for lunch which had too much fat and too many calories really. Baked sea bass with asparagus, sweet potato, cherry tomatoes, red pepper and capers for dinner, which was amazing. Followed by an ice cream which I really shouldn't have had but couldn't resist.

 

Fun: Enjoyed the workout, and watching GB's cycling team win all the medals. Mrs M flew off to Africa yesterday evening for 10 days though, so I'm on my own for a bit *sadface*

[durfette]

4 hours ago, Myrdinn said:

Mrs M flew off to Africa yesterday evening for 10 days though, so I'm on my own for a bit *sadface*

Ugh, I'm sorry! my husband spent a semester in Jordan last year and at first I was like "this will be fine! I'm an independent woman!" but it was way harder than I expected it to be. Does she go on business trips often?

 

Baked seabass for dinner?! daaaang you're getting fancy! That sounds delicious! Hang in there the next few days! Your wifey will be home before you know it.

[Myrdinn]

19 hours ago, durfette said:

Baked seabass for dinner?! daaaang you're getting fancy!

 

Interestingly it's basically the easiest meal in the world. Just chuck everything in an oven dish and shove it in the oven for 20 minutes. Then eat!

 

Mrs M doesn't go away often but she works in international aid, so when she does it tends to be quite remote parts of Africa, Asia etc. It's always fine and I'm really proud of her, but it's very off the beaten track so I tend to worry about her.

[Myrdinn]

 

Wednesday August 17th

 

Exercise: rest day

Food: Bircher for breakfast, tuna salad with cottage cheese and pumpkin seeds for lunch, baked chicken with fresh guacamole, tomatoes, red peppers and sweet potato for dinner. And an ice-cream (I needed the fat, what can I say ...) Pretty much bang on my calorie target and my macros.

Fun: Watched the first two episodes of Gotham. Very good.

 

 

[Myrdinn]

Thursday August 18th

 

So yesterday was not a great day.

 

Exercise: None

Food: Bircher for breakfast, Chicken salad for lunch. Four pints and a pizza for dinner - ended up over a thousand calories over my goal! Consoling myself with the facts that a) not long ago I wouldn't have thought twice about that evening and I would probably have been eating and drinking like that the entire time Mrs M was away and b) actually it would probably have been far worse because I'd have drunk two or three lattes during the day and eaten a horribly unhealthy lunch. I guess it's no surprise that I'm overweight when I was eating and drinking like that all the time.

Fun: Drinks with a work friend I hadn't seen for ages - we had a great chat.

[Myrdinn]

Friday August 19th

 

Exercise: None

Food: Peanut Butter on Toast for breakfast, roast chicken legs with a couple of store-bought salads, pitta bread and hummus for lunch, tuna mayo sandwiches for dinner.

Fun: Went up to Oxford to visit a friend and play a game of Warhammer, Age of Sigmar (which is great).

 

Saturday August 20th

 

Exercise: Worked out in a hurry but managed to hit all the major muscle groups.

 

3 x 40 bodyweight squats (I'd read somewhere that there's no point trying to work towards a pistol unless you can rock out 40 squats at bodyweight so thought I'd test myself)

3 x 8 elbows-in push ups - time to move onto diamonds next

10,7,7 bent-knee bodyweight rows - I've been doing these with straight legs but was working out closer to home to save time and the rail there is much lower, making it much tougher.

 

Food: 3 egg omelette with a spinach, tomato and pumpkin seed salad for breakfast, cheeseburger and fries for lunch, cooked roast chicken and a pouch of cooked lentils for dinner, plus a couple of beers in the evening.

Fun: Went to visit my brother in Brighton and stuck around down there for the evening to hang out with my friends and their awesome dog.

 

Sunday August 21st

 

Exercise: Did the first episode of Yoga With Adriene as part of the stretching and flexibility goal in my new challenge. It felt great and worked out lots of the crunchy bits in my neck and back. Recommended.

Food: Chorizo omelette with cherry tomatoes for breakfast, roast chicken and goats cheese salad for lunch and a turkey and vegetable stir-fry with rice for dinner. Frustratingly I wound up hitting my calorie goal almost exactly, but with way more fat than I should be aiming for: 144g protein (31%), 117g carbs (25%) and a whopping 92g fat, at 44% of my total calorie intake. Damn fat.

Fun: Watched Serenity, which I'd never seen. Very good.

[Myrdinn]

Monday August 22nd

 

Exercise: A very satisfying body weight workout. I went out with the express intention of really pushing myself and it paid off.

 

6,6,8 Beginner Shrimp Squats: I haven't been feeling the progress on these too much since I started working on them a couple of weeks ago, but yesterday I moved to just balancing on the back of a bench with my fingertips rather than gripping it and taking much of the weight. This worked nicely and I felt like the loaded leg was doing almost all the work. I'm going to work up to doing 3x8 completely unassisted before I move on but felt like I was approaching doing these properly for the first time.

8,5,4 diamond push ups. Loved these - this was the first time I could really feel my chest working in a push up. 

7,6,5 straight-leg body weight rows. Getting there with these although I am yet to really feel my back engaging while I'm doing them, so there's still something to work on. I might go back to the bent-knee variant and try to focus on getting my back working.

2 x 60 second planks, so I'm ready to move on to a more difficult variation. Going to try side planks next time out, which are the next step suggested by Start Bodyweight.

For next time, I also want to add in some decline push-ups to start working on my shoulders and moving towards that wall handstand.

 

Food: Had a good day in the kitchen. Bircher muesli for breakfast, a roast chicken salad for lunch, the other half of the turkey stir-fry for dinner, then a small pot of natural yogurt and a handful of raspberries as a snack. MFP tells me that's 36%/157g carbs, 35%/67g fat, 29%/123g protein, for a total of 1697 calories (I am targeting 1,816, which is the number that IIFYM spat out for me).

 

Fun: Watched a bit of Gotham. Chatted to some friends on email. Low-key day but hey, it's a Monday. And I really enjoyed my workout.

[Myrdinn]

Tuesday August 23rd

 

Exercise: Rest day (did consider going for a run, but it was swelteringly hot so I left it). I did do a bit of work in the garden which must have burned a few calories.

Food: Bircher muesli with raspberries, chicken salad, tray-baked fish with couscous, sweet potato and roast veggies for dinner. And the inevitable ice-cream.

Fun: Rewatched The Matrix. I was actually slightly disappointed, having not seen it for years - I remember it being completely mesmerising as a teenager but felt a bit flat in everything but the big set-piece action scenes this time around. The big action sequence at the end is still amazing though.

 

[Myrdinn]

The following does not make for pretty reading, but I am going to log it just the same. Probably my worst week since I started posting, including only working out once, but the difference here is that while in previous goes at sorting my health/fitness/life out this would have been the end of it all and I'd have been back to no exercise and a beer and cheeseburger diet, this time I am not going to let this throw me off and am going to keep on trucking. However, for posterity:

 

Wednesday August 24th

Exercise: Day off.

Food: Bircher Muesli for breakfast, tuna salad for lunch. Sadly things went downhill from there: met friends in the evening so had a chicken burger en route to meet them (they're big drinkers, so didn't want to turn up with an empty stomach, a cheeseburger and fries in the pub and five pints of ale. That's 1000 calories just of beer. No wonder the advice on losing weight always including giving up alcohol. Had a bowl of yoghurt, raspberries, walnuts and raisins when I got home because, y'know, I really needed the extra calories.

Fun: Was good seeing friends.

 

Thursday August 25th

 

Actually one of the good days in the past week.

 

Exercise: Nope. Cleaned the house in preparation for Mrs M's return home on Friday morning instead.

Food: Bircher for breakfast. Tuna salad for lunch. Turkey mince and sweet potato chilli for dinner. Pretty much bang on all my calories and macros.

Fun: Nothing specific.

 

Friday August 26th

 

Strange day for all sorts of reasons, largely because I got up at 5:30am to meet Mrs M at the airport and she left her phone, full of really important information and recordings, in the cab on the way home, so we spent most of the day on the phone to Uber, Apple and our network provider trying to get it back/recover the data (successfully on both counts in the end)

 

Exercise: None

Food: Starbucks latte en route to the airport, Goats cheese and mixed veggie sandwich for late breakfast, pork belly sandwich from a street vendor when we went out for an afternoon walk, chicken kievs with baked sweet potato, broccoli and asparagus for dinner.

Fun: Awesome having Mrs M home.

 

Saturday August 27th

 

Had friends round for a barbecue. This always ends badly, from a health perspective.

 

Exercise: None

Food: 3 egg omlette with chorizo, pepper, olives, red onion and a little bit of goats cheese for breakfast (seriously tasty). BBQ-wise I think I had 2 burgers in buns, a couple of sausages, one cob of corn and a pork rib. The killer was drinking about ten bottles of spanish lager. 1700 calories. Eek.

Fun: BBQ was fun.

 

Sunday August 28th

 

Exercise: Bodyweight workout. I did this in the house so it was slightly half-assed but better than nothing. No warmup, 3 x 8 bulgarian split squats, 7,5,5 diamond push-ups, 1 x 60 second and 1 x 55 second plank, 2 x dead hangs.

Food: Sausage sandwiches for breakfast. Skipped lunch, ate an ice cream in the sunshine in the afternoon, then had a curry for dinner - a roti, some chicken dhansak, saag paneer and a samosa. Bit too much fat but on target for calories.

Fun: Lovely long walk in the sunshine.

 

Monday August 29th

 

Exercise: None

Food: Skipped breakfast. Went out with the in-laws for lunch and I made bad choices. Plan was no starter, a salad and no alcohol, but no plan survives contact with the enemy. So I ended up having a prawn cocktail, a chicken burger and sweet potato fries and a couple of beers, followed by a couple more beers in a bar over the road with my father in law while my wife and her mum went shopping for an hour. Sausage and beans on toast for dinner.

Fun: Nice to catch up with the in laws.

 

So there you go, that's the sordid tale of my last week or so. Back in the saddle today though - I've just eaten two poached eggs on toast for breakfast and I am planning my workout for tonight. Also, small bonus - I weighed myself at the end of last week and I'm down about four pounds since I started posting. Winner.

[Myrdinn]

Tuesday August 30th

 

Exercise: Bodyweight.

 

3 x 8 beginner shrimp squats - form is gradually improving on these. I am just using a hand to balance myself, although as I've now hit three sets of 8 I am going to go back to the beginning with no supporting hand and try to get through at least one set of 4 without any additional support.

8,8,6 diamond push-ups. Getting there. Aiming for 3x8 or maybe 3x10 before I progress to the next thing.

3x8 bodyweight rows, bent knees. Have moved my workout to a close location to home but the rail there is much lower, so I am going backwards slightly before I move forwards onto straight legs. My back is still the muscle group that's progressing most slowly, but I'm keeping going.

1 min plank

 

Food: Toast and two poached eggs for breakfast. Avocado and salmon wrap with a crayfish and salmon "protein pot" thing from Pret a Manger for lunch. Burrito bowl for dinner, followed by yoghurt, walnuts and dried fruit as I was under my calorie count for the day. Doing well on calories still, less so on macros (still too much fat).

Fun: Workout was good. Also spent some time reading up on guitar rigs - a friend and I are looking at getting back into playing some music.

[Myrdinn]

Weds August 31st

 

Exercise: rest day

Food: peanut butter on toast for breakfast, tuna salad for lunch, vietnamese for dinner - summer rolls, fried squid and a chicken noodle bowl with salad. Had some yogurt and fruit/nuts in the evening too.

Fun: Lovely dinner out with my wife and the cultural phenomenon that is the Great British Bake Off on the TV!