Day 28

Where to start!

Currently sat on the train enjoying my 'indulgence' en route back from a couple of days in Birmingham with work. See pic below. It's after sunset, but it's been a tough couple of days.

First point of note- I lost my band and rope last Thursday. 'Lost' means left them in the gym and they were pilfered. Searched high and low on Friday and Sat but to no avail so I used my back up rope and the bands they have at the gym in the meantime. I got a replacement band on Sunday but hating my sturdy back up rope, it's so HEAVY! I have mastered my crossovers though so not all bad news on the rope front.

Then on Sunday evening I took FIYL on the road for the first time!!! It's been difficult, difficult, lemon difficult as they say, but I've come through relatively unscathed I think. Exercises done at hotel gym before dinner yesterday, then debuted with morning exercises today - it was only skipping admittedly! The diet was more challenging. Breakfast was fine as I could order a poached egg and toast and choose the least buttery grilled tomatoes from the buffet, not ideal but do-able. Lunches were vile, prepared sandwiches lathered in mayo brought to the work event. I had a couple of quarters to keep me going with some crudités then delved heavily into the fruit bag I brought with me. Dinner last night was difficult too, I picked chicken out of a salty curry concoction with some salad while I watched colleagues eat mounds of rice, garlic bread and cheesecake while getting pissed up. Nicky called during this ordeal actually so it was nice to refocus with a like mind.

Anyway, as I mentioned, I'm on the train back to normality and have just picked through a microwaved salty beef offering in the first class carriage that I would usually have wolfed down in a heartbeat. How times change. I remember watching a Rick Stein episode which saw him on a train in south east Asia eating freshly prepared fish cooked by the onboard chef. He waxed lyrical and paid tuppence of course. If only.

Loved today's new diet plan. It sounds like a game changer, I'm pleased with progress so far but want to start getting rid of my gut so pleased we're shifting up a gear. Nicky mentioned in his blog a day or two ago that we're running out of time and weirdly it was exactly what I'd been thinking. It sounds stupid given we're not even a third of the way through but I just feel there's so much ground to cover and these first 4 weeks have FLOWN by.

What else?!?! Lots of thoughts but I'm typing this on my phone so going to sign off, turn up my iPod (techno fan by the wombats, bite me) and enjoy the wine.

Rattle them winches.

x

The Big Reveal

The time has come - see below for the goal physique!!!!!
I figure I can try my very, very best with the body and beard, but the McConaughey tan and hair will likely be a bridge too far! :-)

New photo up. New weight 13st 3lbs/ 83.8 kilos. Not a huge change from day 15 but I can see changes to my shape. The removal of all evening carbs in the week 4 diet may hasten this along!

Massive props to Nicky for his latest photo, remarkable progress.

Breakfast veg

As promised in the week 3 thread last night, I tried a frittata/omelette style concoction this morning. Grated courgette and carrot still very moist after a night in tupperware in the fridge, will probably go longer on the tomatoes tomorrow though, the natural saltiness they bring to the party is crucial. Otherwise, great success! Maybe some parsley tomorrow too.
Pleasing.

Weekend exercising

During the working week I'm finding the routine of going to the gym after work a really good fit. Great.

At the weekend, when I'm exercising at home, I'm battling a bit. Yesterday and today I've ended up doing them in the early evening as I've been busy during the day. It's felt like a bit of a bind having them hanging over me all day though and I've
a) had to really convince myself to get up and just do them
b) not really enjoyed doing them

It's just something I need to think about. The ball's in my court though, I just need to get up a bit earlier and plan my day.

Chicken hates me

Going strong.

A few messages ago, Kev suggested we should identify our inspiration person.

Having scoured the darkest recesses of my mind (and google) I have now done this and in the spirit of openness have decided to go one step further and publish my goal for the world (all 3 or 4 of you) to see. However, before I go through the somewhat homoerotic process of posting the naked torso of a man on my blog I thought I'd run it past my girlfriend :-)

I can feel the tension building… check back soon for the BIG REVEAL!

Who said romance is dead?

'I love you, let's get fat together.'
*sigh*

Day 15

New photo posted to flickr this evening.

Re: weight. As I suspected on day 1, the scales at the gym are too kind. Official weigh in tonight using brand spankers new scales bought at the weekend gave me the following result - 13st 4lbs/ 84.4 kilos.
Much more realistic.

Sick of chicken by the way, lunch was less than enjoyable.

Went to view a flat tonight and found myself looking around for suitable doors to anchor my band, hehe.

70gs of brown rice below. Weeeeeow!

Day 14

Enjoying my night off the excerises - managed a pb on the skipping this evening too by getting through the first 372 before I tripped.

Confession - I've not been weighing all of my meal components. I started but when I realised that in order to meet my target grammage I generally had to eat more than was comfortable, I decided to just go with a satisfactory plateful but ensure it was in proportion to my allotment for that meal.
Having read the emails leading up to week three I don't think that approach was a disaster and I absolutely kept the types of food in check. Going forward though, now the portions have come down a touch, I'll weigh carefully and also try to be more diligent with my breakfast veg as I slipped a few times on that front.

To the food. Tonight I'm coming off fish and chicken for the first time this week as I have large valentines rib eye on its way very shortly! I've enjoyed the salmon, oven baking it with the classic ginger, coriander, chilli, garlic, lime, spring onion combo a couple of times - adding mushrooms and milk once (which left a pretty tasty broth) and adding mango another time. My adventures with chicken have been more standard. Had a big steam session on Sunday night, great success with asparagus and courgette. Broccoli was a bit overdone and didn't last well in the fridge. Ah well.

Recipe of the week.
I took this to work today. Brown rice, steamed asparagus, smoked mackerel. That's it. Unbelievably simple but so tasty! Just rev the rice and veg in the microwave then stir big chunks of the mackerel in to warm through. Place a poached egg on top of all that and this blogger's extremely happy but I'll wait for the weekend to try that!! I suspect smoked mackerel may be slightly too salty if Kev was being strict, but people have been smoking fish for hundreds of years and I'm pretty sure my grans gran would have fed me it ;-)

The exercises are going well, still having a few issues with apparatus but working them out. My door anchor finally arrived today which will help on days when I work out at home.

Motivation still good, particularly during the week. Last weekend was tough as there was so much sport on tv so the pub was calling. I held firm though. There'll be plenty more good weekends of sport when this is done.

10 weeks to go! But I'm definitely not counting down yet.

Picture is of my new wee friend, the spray olive oil! On the very rare occasion a touch of oil has been needed so far I've found this to be the best way of making very little go a long way.

Day 9

Was sitting in the steam room after my workout and had heaps I wanted to report back on... knackered now though so this is going to be shorter than I intended!

Cooked a great salmon dinner tonight, will get the recipe and photos up at the weekend.

Weighed in yesterday, the same as last week, a shade over 83 kilos.

Delighted to read honey and maple syrup are allowed to a certain extent. My dad keeps bees and I have a jar of his honey in the cupboard that screams at me every morning! I shall indulge (in moderation) at the weekend.

Hope everyone's keeping on keeping on.

Swee

Day 7

Week one DONE!

Pleased with my application to the half diet approach and even more pleased to read that it's not the way forward from now on!

Was filled with excitement and emotion when i read todays email as it seems like we're getting started for real now. The exercises have been really ramped up and the diet is fascinating. I have no idea how i'll eat so much for breakfast but it'll definitely get me out of bed tomorrow. Boiled eggs on toast? Yes please!

Got a new rope at the weekend and still getting used to it but got through my 500 tonight with just a few trips.

Right, i'm off to read "Unhappy Meals" as instructed.

Later.

The First Weekend - Days 3 to 6

Well well well... so a monumental slip up on the drinking front on Saturday night as I celebrated England's victory in the rugby amongst the Edinburgh locals! Ah well, onward and upward.

More positively, all exercises have been done, even with yesterday's hangover when I didn't get round to it until around 20:00. It's no good having your exercises hanging over you all day on the weekend so I won't be procrastinating in the future.

The half portions have been adhered to without too much drama. The day 7 email today filled me with a whole new level of nervousness/anticipation about the diet going forward. I definitely feel like we're starting for real now. I may have half a pork pie to sign off week 1 tomorrow, terribly exciting!!!

See the picture below for my latest FIYL purchase - steam deluxe!

Day 2

Another day done but bits of me are hurting. Lunges were particularly sore and I didn't see that coming. They're only lunges - or so I thought! I think my ice pack is going to be a close ally on this journey.

Enjoyed the day 3 email... some good words of wisdom. I'll carry on supping my filter coffees safe in the knowledge they're not on the banned list (yet!).

Attached is a picture i took on my walk to work today - it was a particularly crisp and sunny morning so thought I'd share!

JC

Day 1

So far so good.

Felt odd paying full price for my half empty tub of porridge this morning but hey ho!

Exercises done in the gym tonight although did my skipping outside in the cold as there was a bit of a shortage of space. Sit-ups hurt already! Bad news.

Starting weight - 83 kilos.
Posted photo last night.

Keep on FIYLing!