Britt dropped by tonight to discuss various things, including the moment you’ve been waiting for – the “weigh-in”. She also left me with a few items that I need to think about, plus a rough overall plan. An actual training schedule will follow.
let’s get the numbers out of the way
In true “Biggest Loser” style:
“My name is Gary and I weigh 142.6kg”
Additional stats are blow. These form a baseline against which progress can be tracked.
Date: 24 Jan 2012
Starting weight: 142.6kg
Chest: 121cm
Waist (taken below belly button and beer gut): 123cm
Hip: 128cm
R-Thigh: 68cm
L-Thigh: 69cm
Not the typical profile of a marathon runner I’m sure you’ll agree!
some simple habits
A few items that were raised tonight are simple, though I know I’ll have to work a bit to make habits of them.
- walking – simple things like parking the car further away from the mall entrance, getting off the bus a stop or two early
- drinking water – lots of it, essential to have good hydration plus water really does help take the edge off an oversized appetite
- breathing – this one caused a little discomfort and where it “hurt” made it obvious where and how things were currently wrong
With the breathing, try this exercise:
- Stand naturally with your legs apart, shoulders back
- Touch your belly button lightly with your fingers
- Breathe in slowly while holding your belly button in
- Breathe out – keeping your belly button held in
- Repeat the breathe in and out for a couple of times
- Breathe in slowly again, this time pulling the belly button in further
- Hold in that position and breathe out, in, out etc.
You will probably feel the pull on your sides and a little discomfort in breathing. For me it sent a clear signal just how bad my posture was.
This exercise is a bit like blokes at the beach pulling their gut in when a good looking woman walks past; so it should come fairly naturally to the guys at least!
The beauty is that this can be practiced anywhere, anytime, and will eventually change your posture for the better. One thing I vaguely recall from previous fitness drives is that posture is important for all sorts of reasons, not least good support for your back.
keeping a diary
If there’s one thing guaranteed to send shivers down my spine, it’s being told I need to be organised enough to keep a daily diary. In all honesty this is an unexpected “bonus” because my organisation, time management and journaling need some serious attention.
So while I wasn’t happy when Britt mentioned it, I’m welcoming the opportunity to use this process to solve some wider issues. Also, in the interest of keeping the information in the public domain, where it can be of benefit to others, the journaling will also be done via this blog. Blogging is the method I am most likely to stick with, and publishing my food intake, exercise routines, weak spots, points of failure etc. might just do someone else some good – as well as helping keep me honest!
I guess I already put myself “out there”, so a public diary ain’t so bad.
overall plan
So the plan now is to put down some kind of milestone on Feb 3rd, with me going up to Malaga for the DJ Clubfit session. This is something I will be doing once per month, keeping some kind of contact with other members of the Walkabout Wellness family, and giving Britt an opportunity to check progress.
I’ll also be joining a 24 hour gym so I can gain access to rowing machines and other equipment, and the actual training schedule will be hitting my inbox in the near future.
Finally I also need to get familiar with the Nutrition Complete system, which is online software that will be used to record food intake and allow Britt to track progress on that front too.
So a lot of things to take on board in the next week or so – once the habits and schedules kick in they should be easy to manage. Fingers crossed!