iatetheyeti, and it shows: Tracking goals, progress, and diet

[iatetheyeti]

It's taken me a little while to figure out how I'm going to do this, this being the Battle Log as a whole, but now here I am, ready to put myself forward for public scrutiny. Heh, it sounds easier than it is, I think.

 

 

A little bit of back story

 

I've never been particularly lazy, though I do love my bed a little too much these days. Cycling and walking have always been part of my day to day life, I skied every week from the age of eight to fourteen (until the ski slope shut down), and for a good couple of years I attended kickboxing classes. Since mid-2011 I've gotten more seriously into XC (cross country) mountain biking and hiking, and also picked up climbing and kayaking and have continued these things, if somewhat sporadically, into the present day.

 

Motivation is one thing that I struggle with, more so in the past four years than before. I didn't have clearly defined goals to begin with, and on top of that any routine I managed to put together would, without fail, be disrupted by illness or injury. I had major surgery on my jaws when I was eighteen, and it took me months to recover fully. Not only could I not eat solid food for a long time, but I was unable to sleep properly until the swelling had gone down completely (I looked a little like a bowling ball, so it was a good couple of months). I had surgery again, for the same reasons, not long after I turned twenty one. The results weren't quite as drastic, but they were significant enough for me to lose motivation again. Around those two surgeries have been a spree of migraines, two hospital visits for "undefined" damage to my left rotator cuff, three or four concussions (one undiagnosed), a fractured right elbow, and various smaller injuries that would cause me to lose heart. And depression. Fun stuff.

 

 

The story from now

 

I'm not happy with my fitness or the way my body looks. I can't keep up with a woman over twice my age on a casual run, more of a jog, really. I can't lift anywhere near as much as I could even one year ago. I can't tackle a gentle slope on my bike without sweating and panting like I'm crawling through a desert.

 

I can change this, and I will change this. Simple as that.

 

 

Starting figures:

 

Height - 5' 4"

Weight - 11st 3 (about 157lbs or 71 kilos)

Waist - 37

Thighs - 23.5

Stomach - able to grab a double handful and still have some to spare...

Body fat percentage - 30%

Body fat goal (overall) - 21-24%, the generally accepted 'fitness' range

 

My height isn't going to change now, no matter how much I'd like it to. And as for weight, well, I don't so much want to lose weight as I want to lose fat. I don't want to be able to grab hold of the excess there. Now, I had the body fat percentage done properly in February (we get fitness tests as part of our course), but I've gotten a little bigger since then, so I added a couple of percent to compensate. Basically, I'm working on a rough figure until I can figure out otherwise.

 

 

What the routine will look like for now

 

I don't have access to much while I'm living with my parents, no gym, no pool, and most of the time no house space. Unfortunately, I can't afford to do otherwise over the summer period. So I'll be taking advantage of bodyweight routines and the outside world. The general structure will be as follows:

 

Monday - running (pre-set circuit)

Tuesday - strength (beginner's bodyweight routine)

Wednesday - running

Thursday - strength

Friday - biking

Saturday - off day (long walk, bike ride, etc)

Sunday - running

 

I have a set circuit for my running just now. And when I say running, what I mean is sometimes running and sometimes speed walking. It last took me 33 minutes. My aim is to get that down to 25 minutes by the time of the next six week challenge, giving me 22 days, going by the top of this page!

 

The strength workouts will be based on the beginner's bodyweight routine with the aim of progressing to the advanced bodyweight workout, again, by the time of the next six week challenge. It seems optimistic, but I did fairly well with it when I first tried it, so I'm confident I can do it.

 

The biking will be interval training. Five minutes steady pacing to one minute of all out peddling over the course of six miles.

 

That will be the basic structure, though should the opportunity arise, it will be altered to fit in a climbing day here and there, or one out on the water, or maybe even a bike coaching day, should I get any freelance work.

 

 

And last, but not least, the diet

 

I hate the word diet, and I've used that so called reason to eat whatever the hell I want, when I want it. Not so good when you like fizzy drinks and chocolatey, creamy desserts. Operation 'cut the crap' is already in place, that being a gradual removal of all that is disastrous for the body.

 

I've stated a goal of having a 75% paleo diet by the time I start back at uni (September 5th, to be exact). I intend to stick to this, though I will need to plan it carefully to avoid crashing and burning. Realistically, this will be what I struggle with most.

 

 

So let it all begin...

 

It's new, and it's actually quite exciting, and the feeling of going into it knowing I'll do better solely because I want to do better (therefore I will, dammit!) is brilliant.

 

 

[JMcGowan]

Looks like you know the problem, have goals, and set up a plan to achieve your goals. Bravo! Keep us posted on your progress.

[iatetheyeti]

Ok, day one:

 

I woke up today to find the skies dull and grey, the ground sodden, and the trees practically bent over double. So I asked myself, do I really want to run in these conditions when I know it'll be exactly the same on Monday? The answer was no. Neither did I particularly want to run two days in a row. So I tweaked the schedule a little and got on my bike for a bit of a ride.

 

Total ridden with interval training (five minutes off, one minute on) = four miles

This isn't a good thing, though what I do count as good is that I managed to stay upright and not get blown into the road.

 

Total ridden at 'moderate' pace (comp. said I averaged 15kmph) = eight miles

 

What I'm taking away from today is that I need to do more bad weather cycling, because right now I have no idea how to adjust and compensate. I was all over the place. But hey, I'm proud of actually getting myself out there rather despite all that.

 

Food

 

Breakfast = a smoothie (300ml milk, banana, one egg, and a spoonful of lemon curd). I have real difficulty eating solid food in the morning, so more often than not I have a smoothie. One bad days I'll have a coffee, and one worse days I'll skip it altogether. Been getting better at not doing that since the start of this year though, and hoping to continue.

 

Lunch = home made soup (chicken, sweetcorn, spring onion, water chestnuts, ribbon noodles, and some chicken stock).

 

Dinner = ...disaster? I ended up doing a taxi service for my parents as they'd had too much alcohol to be able to drive, and when they went out for a quick meal after they invited me along. So dinner was a lovely tex-mex burger... quite nice, but really not what I should have been eating. The positive side to that was that I drank water with it instead of my usual fizzy drink.

 

 

So I'm not off to the greatest start, but at least it's a start! Looking forward to tomorrow's soggy morning run now...

[iatetheyeti]

It didn't rain this morning!

 

Well, it did, but only a few spots.

 

Today was the first day I timed myself and came out with a result of 30:34.6 for a route that I think is between two and two and a half miles. I've got it divided into six sections, half of which are running sections and half of which are speed walk. I can do the first running section without too much trouble, and today I managed three quarters of the second one. It's the one after it (and keeping my walking speed up in between) that's giving me trouble.

 

The aim with this whole running thing, as I mentioned in the first entry, is to get the time down to 25 minutes. Originally I thought I'd need to be a lot quicker on my feet, but now I'm thinking that just completing the running sections with actual running will do a lot towards that. At any rate, overall I would like to get to the stage where I cut out the middle walking stage and just have my warm-up/cool-down walks.

 

 

Food

 

Breakfast = cereal with semi-skimmed milk. Something I've been wondering about is what I'd eat for breakfast once I got further into my conversion to the paleo diet. I like my cereal purely for the reason that it's easy for me to eat. Give me a full English and I'm likely to throw up. Not sure why it's so hard to eat in the mornings, but still... Anyway, after a little research I found a few things to try out. One of which I'll be giving a go tomorrow morning!

 

Lunch = half a baguette toasted with salami and cheese, and two slices of leftover pizza. Not the best, I admit, but tasty.

 

Dinner = home made lemon chicken.

 

Liquids ingested include two cups of coffee, not enough water, and far too much fruit juice...

[iatetheyeti]

Today has been... interesting. Good interesting as opposed to bad interesting, but interesting nonetheless. I slept in a little longer than I should have, but sleep was disrupted by some disturbing spider dreams.

 

Anyway.

 

Today was strength day and I worked my way through the beginner's body weight workout, three complete circuits of the following:

 

20 bodyweight squats

10 push ups

20 lunges

10 dumbbell rows (weights stacked to make up 7.5kg)

15 second plank

30 jumping jacks

 

(timed: 15:54.4)

 

The warm up consisted of around three minutes of jumping around like a loon whilst kicking and punching the air. Fun stuff. Finished up with stretching after the circuits. Overall, I was a sweaty heap at the end, which is the result I wanted.

 

One thing I did notice in the final circuit was that it got incredibly difficult to maintain a steady pace and keep good form. I know some of my squats were questionable at best. Guess that means I just need more practice!

 

 

Food

 

Breakfast = I was thwarted in my breakfast efforts by a lack of eggs. I had intended to try out a paleo pancake recipe, instead a smoothie happened.

 

Lunch = The last of my home made chicken soup, followed up by tuna and chives with a tiny dollop of mayo.

 

Dinner = herb crusted salmon with carrots, green beans, and a couple of finely diced shallots.

 

Plenty of water and coffee drunk today.

[iatetheyeti]

Got hauled out for the morning run at 6am today, and the first thing that hit me was how stiff and seized up I'd gotten overnight. That strength workout really hit home, it seems. I'm wondering what it'll be like tomorrow...

 

Anyway, today I did the same course I've been doing since the beginning, around two and a half miles in 30:08.2, beating my last recorded time by 24 seconds! For me that's quite an achievement. I figured I'd be slower today given the stiffness, but I managed to run for a little longer on the last section. No improvement on the middle section today, but I didn't stop any sooner than before.

 

 

Food

 

Breakfast = More cereal, but on the plus side, there's now only one box left. Accompanied by coffee.

 

Lunch = Lunch was more a series of snacks, really. I was called in to cover an awkward shift so I didn't get a proper meal. I had some tuna salad before leaving the house, and some beef jerky, half a ham roll, about half a packet of rich tea biscuits (so good, but so bad... I think? I should look that up.), and more coffee.

 

Dinner = Mushroom tortellini with a tomato based sauce and a couple of glasses of water.

 

Basically, not such a great day diet-wise.

 

[iatetheyeti]

Exceptionally long lie-in today, something which may or may not be to do with staying up into the early hours to finish a book that I was about halfway through... The residual stiffness from my last bodyweight workout hadn't gone away by the time I got out of bed. I'm anticipating a lot more of this until my body adjusts to actually being put through actual physical workouts again. At least I've got something to measure progress by.

 

So today went as follows:

 

20 bodyweight squats

10 push ups

20 lunges

10 dumbbell rows (weights stacked to make up 7.5kg)

15  20 second plank

30 jumping jacks

 

Things went a little slower (17:28.6), and it took longer to warm up. I also took longer stretching out at the end to try and prevent an increased build up in being seized up the next day. Aside from being unpleasant, it makes stairs a pain. I did tweak the plank timing though, and I'll continue to do so each time I do the workout  until I feel I'm actually getting a little benefit from it.

 

Food

 

Breakfast = banana and mango smoothie

 

Lunch = cheese and salami on crackers (lots of...)

 

Dinner = slow-cooked pork with apples, onions, and cider sauce, sides of carrots and broccoli

[iatetheyeti]

Rest day happened today instead of tomorrow. I woke up and I could hear how bad the rain was, so I decided to leave it and switch with tomorrow. Can't say my legs didn't thank me, of all the body parts, the circuits have been hardest on them. That said, I'm thinking about adding to it. Not adding as in adding additional exercises and the like, no way am I ready for that yet, I mean adding things in around it.

 

One thing I want to incorporate is yoga, though I'm not sure if it would be best to add it in before the workout or if it would work better afterwards as it is essentially a lot of stretching. If the latter, then that means I need to design a better warm up, something more stimulating than bouncing around shadow boxing for a few minutes. Of course, I'd quite like to keep a little of that, but not have the whole warm up consist of it. When I move back across the country for uni then buying a jump rope will be an option, but for just now I have to use the environment I've got. Running up and down stairs will undoubtedly come into it. I'll have to have a search around the internet, see what I can find.

 

...and it's just occurred to me that I've just talked myself into having a little yoga session after the workout. That'll be less a case of searching online and more a case of making use of my prodigious amount of Waterstones points and buying a book. I do like it when life calls for me to buy a book.

 

I'm also quite keen to get a grip on meditation. A friend of mine told me that if I got the hang of it then I could use it to help myself get to sleep at night, something which I desperately need. There's not much worse than lying there for hours, exhausted, and not actually being able to sleep. This one will require a bit of research though, not least to see if it actually can be used for what I want to use it for. Even if it can't, the idea of meditation itself appeals to me.

 

So, let's have some goals instead of vague declarations:

 

1. By Tuesday I will have worked out a new, expanded plan to work with and around the beginner bodyweight workout.

2. Over the weekend I will do research on meditation for the purpose of getting to sleep. If the conclusion is that yes, this will have a chance of helping, I will then do further research on methodology.

3. By my next rest day (a week on Saturday) I will have everything I need to begin meditation.

 

And not neglecting the food tracker...

 

Food

 

Breakfast = unfortunately, half a slice of toast as I ran out of the door. I woke up late, completely forgetting that I'd told my gran I'd take her to a hospital appointment. We did get there on time, so that was something.

 

Lunch = a ham salad roll.

 

Dinner = spicy parsnip soup.

 

The eating was as messed up as the day itself was... On the plus side, I did pick up a couple of lovely looking bits of salmon to have over the weekend. Now all I need to do is decided what to do with it.

[iatetheyeti]

Today I woke up totally wiped out. Still exhausted now. Fun.

 

I plodded through my morning run managing my usual circuit in 31:01, adding on time rather than taking it away. Even so, I'm pleased with myself for managing it not only struggling to stay awake, but I also managed to get myself a calf cramp halfway through and ended up limping the last bit. Not a fantastic end, but there's not much I can do about that.

 

Food

 

Breakfast = smoothie and toast

 

Lunch = carrot and coriander soup followed by tuna salad

 

Dinner = mushroom risotto

[iatetheyeti]

Today turned out to be a disaster. Last night my father told me he was keen to go and get some canoeing done today, and maintained that view throughout the morning until deciding against it. Therefore the bike training did not happen. Add that to frustrations about securing funding and accommodation for going back to uni, a friend who is the most infuriating and unreliable person I have known, and the fact that cutting things out of my diet that I used to eat so much (processed sugars, basically) is making me a crabby bitch, well...

 

Yeah. So. Anyway.

 

Food

 

Breakfast = a couple of slices of toast.

 

Lunch = leek and potato soup

 

Dinner = home made pizza loaded up with salami and mushrooms, accompanied by a much needed bottle of cider.

 

 

Hopefully the start of a new week will be the start of less frustrations.

[higgins43]

Sounds like you have a lot of similar problems that I have...lots of stuff going on and not all of it going your way

 

One question I have for you is what is your transition plan into the Paleo diet? You seem to have a good plan for exercising, but not a clear and concise plan to go paleo. Something like, every breakfast will be paleo for the next two weeks, then every breakfast and lunch will be paleo for two weeks, then all meals are paleo. I've found that if I give myself some flexibility in diet, I often end up eating the wrong thing over and over because "this is my cheat meal". I need things to be rigid in order for me to follow a proper diet.

 

Not saying you need the exact same thing as I don't know what willpower you have, but if you are struggling with what food you eat, you should try planning out EVERY meal for the week at the beginning of the week, buy food for those meals, and then prepare the night before you need the food (prepare Monday meals on Sunday). This approach helped me a lot because everything was already set up, I knew what I was going to eat that day and it was already prepared.

 

Good luck and keep it up, we're here for you!

[iatetheyeti]

Heh, yeah, unfortunately that is the case.

 

To be honest, I don't have all that clear a plan for transitioning into the paleo diet. To begin with I wasn't sure how I'd go about it, so I figured I'd get myself going, try to clean my current 'diet' up, and figure out something along the way. Thing is, this is the first time I've ever attempted any kind of specific diet before, so I have no idea what I'm doing with it. I like the way you've gone about it, I think that might actually be something I try my hand at. I definitely know I need to start planning my meals again, otherwise I eat crap and feel worse afterwards.

 

Cheers for the advice!

[iatetheyeti]

Monday. Not my favourite day.

 

I've been re-evaluating things. Ever since starting to run I've been wiped out, properly wiped out. It wasn't difficult to figure out why. I don't tend to get to sleep until around 1am. That is to say, I usually power everything down not long after 11pm then grab a book, read until I get sleepy, then turn in. But I cannot get to sleep, no matter how tired, no matter how relaxed I think I am. Hence why I want to figure out meditation. Anyway, adding that on to the fact that, without fail, I'd wake up at 5am on running days and be unable to even doze my way through to 6:45am.

 

That would account for being tired. Then you add in the not eating enough and not drinking enough factors, and hey, you get wiped out.

 

So I'm going to do something that I'd rather not do and count calories, among other things:

• Make weekly meals plans as mentioned in an above post.
• Start off trying to become better hydrated by drinking four glasses of water a day. This number will increase in time.
• Make a proper paleo progression plan. I'm going to shamelessly pinch the starting step of every breakfast being paleo for the first two weeks.
• And this one, while not diet related, is still important, I'd say, and that is to get my ass out of bed at 8am daily.

I'll report on how these goals have gone fully next Monday.

 

In regards to my prior goals for over the weekend, well, an unexpected work shift happened today, preventing me from going on my shopping trip and buying a book. But that's ok. I can do that on Thursday, hopefully. As far as I'm aware, I'm working tomorrow and Wednesday. Heh, got to love working for your parents. Called in at the drop of a hat without regard as to what my plans are. I can't really refuse because I'm staying in their spare room rent free until the end of August. Anyway...

 

I will get there in the end, even if it is a bit of a mess right now!

[iatetheyeti]

Today was a 90% success day!

 

Although I didn't quite get out of bed for 8am, I managed a reasonably early start and got my circuits cracked out at a decent pace. I think I may even be peaking my brother's interest, which is nothing short of a miracle. He's never had any interest in health or fitness before (he's one of those incredibly skinny types who eats utter crap and never moves from in front of the computer), and yet he quizzes me on my workouts. Maybe because I do my circuits in the middle of the living room... And hey, he learned the proper technique for a bicep curl the other day, followed by a lecture on why they're not so good.

 

Anyway. Circuits as follows:

 

20 bodyweight squats

10 push ups

20 lunges

10 dumbbell rows (weights stacked to make up 7.5kg)

15  20 25 second plank

30 jumping jacks

--- x3 (which I haven't specified in the past)

 

I'm pretty sure my squat form is coming along nicely, though I need to remember to film it and double check. Also, ramping the plank time up is definitely throwing in more of a challenge for me. I'll finish up this week, then as of next week I'll add a little weight to the squats.

 

Refined weekly schedule ---

Monday - Run

Tuesday - Circuits

Wednesday - Run

Thursday - Circuits

Friday - Run

Sat - Circuits

Sun - rest day - This is a technicality only, and Sundays will be used for biking, climbing, hiking, or other exploratory actives (literally, there are some caves and bike trails crying out for exploration along the coastline here!)

 

Food

 

Breakfast = bacon. Lots of. There was a packet going unused, so...

 

Lunch = leftover pizza slices x2

 

Dinner = spicy chicken pasta, home made

[Funkl3]

Nice workouts and good job in keeping it up.

 

The diet does seem to flucuate quite a bit.  Do you keep a food journal?  You would be surprised at what is in foods you think are healthy.  I have had success by keeping a journal and limiting carbs by averaging 50 a day.  There are handy apps out there for your phone to track food, calories, etc.  You will tend to eat a lot of vegtables and stay away from the sugars more.  I plan on switching to paleo eventually, but this low carb thing is working for me right now.

[iatetheyeti]

Thanks

 

Yeah, unfortunately, it does. I've never tried to reign in the diet before, so it's kind of a novelty to me. And it really doesn't help that I have little say in the food that gets bought into the house right now (unemployed student holidaying with the parents, unfortunately), so I'm having to make do with what I can. Results are random and will vary... Still, I'm determined to make it work for me. The food journal idea is a good one, though I'll have to track calories the old fashioned way as my phone can only rarely cope with making calls, never mind apps! Hopefully it'll get me on the right track though.

[iatetheyeti]

Funny how doing not much can make you tired... I spent most of my shift today sitting on my backside reading my book, not a customer in sight.

 

Did my usual run this morning, but I didn't set the timer so I have no idea if I've added or lost time. I did the opposite yesterday, switched the timer on for my circuits and forgot about it, so when I eventually did switch it off, it had been going for about two hours.

 

I've made a small list for tomorrow to gather the bits and pieces I need. A new notepad for a food journal for a start, and just maybe a book or two. Hopefully once I've got myself a little more organised then this will really take off.

[iatetheyeti]

Successful day on all counts, I reckon.

 

Not only do I feel like I properly pushed myself during my circuits today (funny how much difference a bit of weight can make!), but I'm getting ever closer to climbing out of that irritating (lifesaving) overdraft of mine.

 

Exercise as follows:

 

20 bodyweight squats - added a little weight in the form of two 2.5kg dumbbells

10 push ups

20 lunges

10 dumbbell rows (weights stacked to make up 7.5kg)

15  20 25  30 second plank

30 jumping jacks

--- x3

 

That lot pushed me more than I'd been pushed since the first time I tried this workout. Afterwards my legs felt distinctly jelly like, and there was sweat dripping into my eyes. I'd say that definitely counts as having progressed since beginning. I didn't expect that in such a short amount of time. I'm going to continue with this, tweaking bits as I feel I should. I'm also going to do two additional things: retrieve my pull up bar and get it set up, and start practising one legged squats. I'm not under the illusion I'll be able to do a proper pull up or a one leg squat at any point soon, but there's nothing wrong with a bit of practice.

 

There's a yoga book on order, meaning I'll be able to construct a proper routine for after my circuits (and maybe some stuff for other days, I miss being all bendy and flexible), and I'm currently planning how best to go about this whole food journalling thing properly. What I have got worked out so far is a meal plan for next week, so that's something.

[iatetheyeti]

It's almost as though the universe is plotting against my campaign to run more (or, you know, at all). Sleep is still a thing that isn't really happening, and when 8am rolled around I was under the impression that it was raining heavily outside. Usually this is easy enough for me to tell as the spare room is pretty much above the conservatory, so the rain makes a racket. I listened to it for half an hour before waking up properly and being informed that it was, in fact, quite nice out.

 

Not good enough.

 

The only thing that even remotely made up for the failed run was the amount of time I spent going backwards and forwards between work and the house. It was nice when a coworker told me that it looked like I'd lost weight. Happy with that! The urge to visit the scales and use the measuring tape was quite strong, but I'm not going near either until the 28th, which, if memory serves, is the day before the next six week challenge. Either that or a completely random date I've pulled out of thin air.

[iatetheyeti]

Slight switch around today in that this turned out to be my day off as tomorrow I'm going canoeing. I haven't been canoeing in a few months, and I haven't been solo in a canoe for longer still, meaning it's going to work my upper body and core like crazy, and I could do without the residual stiffness hampering my efforts. I'll have enough of that on Monday after this... That's assuming I get through Sunday. My stomach has been in knots all day, painful, painful knots, and I haven't a clue why. It's not as if I've eaten anything weird and wonderful.

 

Anyway. Today was a rest day.

[iatetheyeti]

Today wasn't quite as intensive as I thought it would be, but I had a laugh and managed to experiment a bit with camera angles and the like, not to mention actually getting out on the water and fighting the wind for control of said canoe. And the weather was amazing for once! Who'd have thought we'd actually get summer in Scotland?

 

So that would make today's workout two hours of canoeing.

 

Also, BBQ. Meat, salad, and cider.

 

Apparently the yoga book should be here in the next two days, so maybe I'll actually be able to get around to adding that into my strength days. I've also got the pull up bar set up, so I'm currently working out a progression plan (which will probably revolve mostly around negatives for a while yet) and a place to fit in L-hangs.

[iatetheyeti]

My workout practically ripped me apart today.

 

Well... Kind of. It didn't really help that it was roasting to begin with, which isn't quite the norm for weather here, and I was feeling pretty crappy. I figured a bit of exercise would make me feel better.

 

I did the beginner's bodyweight workout, but only two of the three circuits. Partway through my second plank it felt as though my stomach was actually tearing itself apart, and that was on top of the nausea, headache, and general wiped-out-ness. I think it might be because I'm not drinking quite enough for the way the weather's turned (and I know the headaches are down to the weather, I've always been irritatingly sensitive to that), but I decided not to push it. The stomach pains were kind of a last straw there, so I packed it in early.

[iatetheyeti]

Slightly disjointed with exercises today.

 

Morning:

 

2 circuits:

20 squats with 2x2.5kg dumbbells

10 push ups

30 second plank

20 lunges

30 jumping jacks

 

3x8 dumbbell rows with 10kg dumbbell

 

Afternoon (bored at work):

 

3x10 incline push ups

3x10 bodyweight squats

3x10 jumping jacks

 

I had enough trouble getting through the two circuits, not muscle-wise, but due to the fact that I kept feeling light headed and vaguely ill. I'm making an educated guess (with proof in the form of my food journal) that I'm not getting enough calories in, and I've taken steps to combat that with the plan for next week, including healthy snack options. Hopefully that will go towards making a difference. I'd like a little extra sleep as well, but that's not happening any time soon.

[iatetheyeti]

Didn't quite do any routine today, but I did spend a few hours in the sweltering heat trying to sort out the various piles of stuff currently inhabiting the guest room. I even entered battle with a ferocious opponent. ...and by that I mean a medium sized spider snuck up on me, I freaked out, threw a tin of kidney beans at it, and clobbered it to death with a shoe. Then I spent the next half hour very cautiously organising, afraid of being ambushed again. Not that I have any issues with spiders, none whatsoever...

 

My yoga book also arrived, so I'm going to work out a morning routine, and after strength workout routine, and a slightly more extensive one for off-days. Gaining flexibility is important to me, apart from anything else it'll give me a little boost when I'm climbing outdoors. I tend to find climbing indoors can be done using a little forward thinking and brute strength.

 

I'm also trying to get some extra shifts with my family's business to give me a little extra cash so I can buy new dumbbell weight plates. My last circuit weight was 10kg, and I managed all three sets with little difficulty and adding the further 2.5kg has had little effect (and has maxed out the amount of plates on my bar). So I'm ordering two 5kg plates. Hopefully that combination will last me until I get back to the side of the country where they have a cheap, decent gym.

 

Levelling-up-life update, done.

[iatetheyeti]

No spider combat today (so far...), but I've devised a kind of alternate strength plan to switch with my bodyweight circuit days. Also, the bodyweight circuits are being set back to normal (with 10kg for dumbbell rows). What I'll aim for with them is going for an additional circuit. After that it'll start morphing into the advanced bodyweight circuit, though I suspect it will take a while before I can do even one round of that! I tried a one legged squat today, got about a third of the way down and wobbled so much I fell over.

 

My go to warm up, for now, is 5-10 burpess, 5-10 vertical jumps (aim to touch ceiling... and I'm quite short), and short laps of alternated jogging and sprinting. The aim is to cover between 3 and 5 minutes.

 

On bodyweight circuit days the cool down will be a yoga circuit (x3) from my shiny new book. Simple poses and enough stretching to make a viable cool down.

 

The alternate circuit is as follows:

 

3x8 (per arm) bent over dumbbell rows (12.5kg/27.5lbs dumbbell)

-- 1:30 rest between sets

Progressive plank

-- start 20 sec, then 30, then 40

-- 2 min rest between planks

2x5 negative chin-ups

-- 1:30 between sets

1x5 negative pull-ups

 

Now I don't expect to be able to do all of that very speedily at the moment, but it's a step in the right direction. My core/upper body strength kind of sucks, and while the beginner circuits have actually kicked my body into remembering a little of what it used to be capable of, it isn't fantastic. So I'll alternate the two routines, mix in some yoga, maybe get my ass back out for a run a couple of times a week, and keep an eye on my diet. I recently learned that primal eating is in fact a thing, something which sits better with me than paleo. Right now I'm in the process of trying to phase out the grains, but that'll be gradual.