Rapid weight loss success

In my last post which chronicled my own weight loss stories, I mentioned that I'd started on a radical new rapid weight loss regime, and that it was, to date, highly successful.

You may notice that at the top of the right hand column of my blog, I'm now posting my daily weight so that you can keep track of how I'm doing in my weight loss quest.

Also, here is a graph which charts my weight loss over the last three weeks.



So, basically I've lost 5.4kg (12 pounds) of weight in 3 weeks. Given where I want to get to (around 85kg or 185 pounds) that means I'm a third of the way already - and in only three weeks.

How have I been doing it? In essence, it's based on the principles which I identified in my last post which worked for me so well in my teenage years.

• Be active


• Eat less


• Get support

Be active

I have massively increased the amount of activity I do. I used to be lucky (if I'm honest) to get two runs or workouts in each week. Now I'm prioritising my health to the same level as my career success. This means that I'm running the Wimbledon Common Time Trial on a Saturday, having another run on Sunday, and then working out in the office gym two to three days a week. I'm following the principles of Turbulence Training which mean that I get a hell of a lot of exercise done in the gym in a short space of time. The Turbulence Training workouts are different to what I'm used to in three key aspects:

• Supersets. Supersets are combinations of two exercises which you do one after the other without a break. Normally they use different or opposing muscle groups, so that's why you don't need the break. For instance, bench press followed by abdominal crunches. Different muscle groups used, so why do you need a break? You don't. This means I can get through around 30 sets of exercises well within half an hour.



• Compound movements. Turbulence Training focuses on doing exercises which use a lot of different muscle groups at the same time, and also involve moving a lot of weight over a large distance to increase the amount of work you do in the workout - it can be rather intense! For instance, rather than using the hamstring curl machine, it advises doing a Swiss ball hamstring curl or Hungarian deadlifts - both of which force you to use many more muscles than just the hamstrings, and they also force you to stabilise your body through every move (so more of that 'core stability' we're all meant to be getting more of).



• Weights before cardio. I always used to do cardio before weights. Of course, if you want to put maximum effort into the weights, then you should be doing it the other way around. What I do find, however, with this is that the cardio suffers a little. Turbulence Training advises to do hard cardio intervals after the weight training, and sometimes it can be extremely hard to push out the final interval at high intensity, particularly if there have been a lot of leg exercises in the workout.

Overall, however, I'm very happy with Turbulence Training - it has opened my eyes to a lot more free weights exercises and body weight exercises, is very balanced across the major muscle groups, gives me a clear plan of what I'm going to be doing every time I step into the gym, and gets me out of the gym in the shortest amount of time possible.

The guy who wrote Turbulence Training - Craig Ballantyne - has a very good phrase to remember:

You can't out-train a bad diet

So in my next post, I'll cover what I've been doing on the eating front - it's worth reading as it's rather controversial.

Faster running following strength training

How do you balance weight training with running if you want to be a faster runner? Surely, if you want to run faster, then it's better to spend time running than time doing weight training? And if anything, weight training could cause you to gain weight and slow you down?

Well that's what I've been thinking for a long time now, and the reasons that the vast majority of my exercise for probably 5 years or so has been cardio - either running or cycling - and very little weights work.

As people who have been reading this blog will know, however, I have been doing a really fun bodyweight routine while I was on holiday (sadly I'm now back to the London greyness...). The routine was put together by Craig Ballantyne of Turbulence Training.

The 'rules' of the routine say that I shouldn't do the workout on consecutive days, but one day last week (the day after an intermediate bodyweight circuit) I was anxious to do something, so put on my trainers and went out for a 4k run which is definitely my most common run when I run in Sweden.

My normal time for the run is around 23 to 24 minutes depending on how much I'd been training. As I hadn't run since the Samrun 10k race, which was over 3 weeks ago, I wasn't expecting much. However, I came back in 22 minutes and 49 seconds, only 8 seconds slower than my personal best time which I set last year!

So how did this come about? Well it cetainly didn't 'feel' that I was running towards a (close) PB, but I just felt more 'solid' particularly in my hips. It felt that more of my energy was going into my legs, and they were pushing between the ground and a relatively stable pelvis, whereas previously it felt more like my pelvis would collapse a little on every foot strike.

There are a number of exercises in the turbulence training bodyweight workout which could have had this impact. One of the key things in the workout, however, is because everything is done with the absolute minimum of equipment, there is a lot of emphasis put on balance and compound movements, all of which have seemed to stabilise my pelvis and led to this improvement in running times.

What this has taught me, however, is that I really should be incorporating some strength work into each and every week in my training if I'm hoping to be able to get quicker. I'm even wondering whether this was the 'missing link' which was stopping me from getting my 5k time down to below 29 minutes? We'll see!

How much do you use weight training in your running training programme? Let me know by posting a comment!

Before/after weight loss photos

I just HAD to share this with you - it's one of those before/after shots which are used to sell various types of weight loss and/or fitness products:

As you'll see, not only does the advert show what (at least to me) seems like an unrealistic amount of weight loss/muscle gain in only 30 days, but also the program appears to make you lose your body hair and get a tan! If only!
I actually went to the website, and they are using the same two photos but claim the results take 49 days...
These photos are clearly cause for concern. And obviously these are not the only weight loss/muscle gain people to use before/after photos in which the 'after' photo has better lighting, better posing, fake tan etc. And that's not questioning whether the results were achieved in the time stated and using (just) the products advertised or not.
Anyway, as I'm currently pursuing the turbulence training bodyweight program, I thought it made sense to take a 'before' shot for two reasons. One is to give me something to compare to as (hopefully) my body composition changes. And the other is to give you a real before/after comparison.
I'm really looking forward to taking the 'after' photo - perhaps in 3 months or so?

Home made gym

Just a short post today to show you the home made gym I've been using for my turbulence training workouts over my vacation in Sweden.

I'm lucky enough to be staying on a farm, so have built my gym in the old barn.

In the foreground to the right, you'll see the dumbells I use for when I want a bit more weight. Since moving up to the intermediate bodyweight circuits in the turbulence training package, these haven't been required. The workout is tough enough as it is!

To the left of the photo is a sheet of chipboard - I use this for when I need to get down on the floor, as the floor boards may have quite a lot of splinters. Exercises which use this include the plank, the side plank, bicycle crunches, as well as push ups.

In the middle of the photo is a box on its side - this gets used as my support for bulgarian split squats - a great way of targeting the quads.

Behind that is a higher box - about 18 inches high, which is used for step-ups and one-legged squats. Actually it is an old box which used to hold dynamite (!)

And finally, there is a wooden horizontal bar which is floating towards the right of the picture. It is suspended by some blue rope, looped over one of the rafters in the barn. Right now, it is used for inverted rows, but will hopefully in time be used for chin ups too...

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the tour of my gym. As you can see, it's rather basic, but has a great "rough and ready" feel to it. I've got two more workouts in it until I unfortunately have to return to London...

What gym equipment have you 'created'? Let me know by posting a comment!

Getting fitter on vacation

Some people find that over the vacation period it is really hard to keep the weight off and keep fitness levels up. It's all too easy to find other things to do than work out - after all, we go on vacation to have a break from our 'normal' lives don't we?

I'm currently on vacation in Sweden, and have been trying to work healthy eating and exercise into my daily routine.

So far, I've been 50% successful. Why 50%? Because the exercise is going well, but the healthy eating doesn't seem to be going so well.

Vacation exercise

This vacation, I haven't been able to run so far - the blister I gained in the 10k Samrun is only just healing (it stopped weeping a few days ago... gross...). So to keep exercising I've switched to a bodyweight exercise program put together by Craig Ballantyne at Turbulence Training. It's one of the bonus reports you get when you buy the full package.

I started off last week on the 'beginner' bodyweight program which I thought would be very easy, but I thought I'd do it to just 'ease myself back into it'. Well I surprised myself - certain parts of it were much tougher than I expected!

I think that what this shows is that my previous weights work has been focused on just a few body areas, and my untrained areas were seriously exposed by the exercises.

One of the great things about the program is that it focuses a lot on single leg body weight moves. Not just do these mean that you are putting twice the stress on your legs than if you were doing the exercise with both legs, but it also means that you need to balance yourself much more throughout each exercise, so making the muscles work even harder (as well as activating all those core muscles which I neglected in my previous gym work).

I've only done 4 workouts so far, so shouldn't expect results yet. But I do feel stronger, and a little more defined.

One of Craig's sayings, however, is that you can't out-train a bad diet, which brings us on to the part of my holiday which has been less succesful.

Healthy eating on vacation



Other than a few days in the middle of my holiday, when my mother in law was cooking, I felt that I'd been eating and drinking fairly sensibly, and along the lines of my 6 eating rules I talked about before.

However, over the course of a week, I've only lost 2 lbs. It felt like it should have been more. So I've restarted using a food diary on Sparkpeople (it's totally free) to make a much bigger effort in recording the food I actually eat, as well as being meticulous about portion sizes. Just this morning, for instance, I found that I was eating 100g of muesli each morning - which is over 300 calories!! It's not so much effort to put the bowl on the scales each morning, pour in muesli until it gets to 50g on the scale, and then pour in 0.1% fat yoghurt until it gets to 150g total. Easy!

So let's see if in the last week of my holiday I can achieve a bit more weight loss!

Three week weight loss challenge success!

I weighed in this morning at 99.9kg, 20 days after starting my three week weight loss challenge. Therefore, I've lost 3kg! Not quite the 6kg I was hoping for when I first started, but it became clear that that target was neither sensible nor achievable in a sustainable way.

My belt is looser, my 5k time is a bit quicker, I feel better when I see myself in the mirror in the morning - all good!

I think the eating rules which I set out in my Three week weight loss challenge post have a lot to do with it. In fact, those eating rules seem to have generated quite a bit of discussion in the blogosphere.

One of the things I liked about them was that it was very easy to remember them, and therefore live by them. Any book you read on the subject is 150 pages or more of "eat that, don't eat that" with long "do/don't" lists at the back - impossible to memorise! But my handy five rules are so simple that anyone can remember them.

Within the discussion that my eating rules (note that I call them eating rules, not diet rules!) a few good thoughts came out - so I'm going to amend my eating rules (and add a sixth).

Firstly, I wasn't clear when I mentioned no carbs after breakfast. The carbs I was talking about were those calorie-rich carbs (processed and non-processed) like pasta, rice, cereal, potato, cous cous etc. I wasn't referring to other vegetables that also contain carbohydrate.

Secondly, I should have included a rule to always grill, bake, steam or stir fry whenever possible, and don't saute or deep fry.

So, my six golden eating rules for weight loss success are:

1) Lots of water - your cells need it, and your liver needs it (and as your liver controls insulin, sugar metabolism and fat storage, it's a good idea to keep him happy)
2) Not too much alcohol - lots of calories, dehydrates your liver (and makes him unhappy) and makes doner kebabs too appealing to resist
3) Lots of vegetables - generally low calories, and packed with minerals and vitamins and stuff
4) Restrict high-calorie carbs (pasta, rice, cereal, potato, cous cous) other than for breakfast - not for any special reason other than (i) they are packed with calories which you probably don't need at any time other than breakfast, and (ii) when I eat carbs at lunchtime, I feel sleepy in the afternoon
5) Restrict chemicals, additives and 'unnatural foods' (processed foods, any drink which isn't water, tea, or fresh fruit juice) - I'm not saying here that it's impossible for our bodies to deal with chemicals (as some diets try to say) but that they need to be filtered out someway, which puts more pressure on the liver
6) Always grill, bake, steam or stir fry whenever possible, and don't saute or deep fry

I'm now setting myself the next target - another 3kg in 3 weeks - which means I need to weigh 97kg by 12 June - which also happens to be the day before my birthday! I'm also going to be upping my exercise levels over the next few weeks (especially now that the weather is becoming so much better) and have found a couple of great websites/guides which focus on using compound exercises and 'functional' exercises for increasing fitness and strength and burning fat. I'll tell you more next time. Wish me luck!

Energy for life

At work a few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to attend an 'energy for life' workshop, which talked about some of the things you can do to have a bit more energy at work - very useful for me given my normal working hours regularly exceeding 70 hours a week.

A cynical view of what the trainer said was "Eat better, exercise more, go to bed earlier", but I think that vastly over-simplifies what, for me, was a great session.

A couple of things which I found really useful:

What gives you energy? At this point we weren't talking about food, but more about what are the things which happen at work which make you more excited or energetic. We started off by remembering something in the last week or two which really got us buzzing. For me, it was making a plan to help us target a new market. The trainer then asked a very simple question - why don't you do more of that? I'd got so caught up in thinking about what I need to do to make other people happy that I'd never stopped to ask myself about what are the things in my day that make me happy, and how can I do more of them. Promise to myself - make sure I carve out a few hours each week to set a big plan in motion.

How do you feel when you eat? Very interesting question. Some people said "guilty", others said "calm". For me, the answer was "relieved" because I'm typically ravenous whenever I eat. Again, something I'd never thought of before. Promise to myself - try to have a little bit of fruit throughout the day, so that I'm less ravenous when I sit down to lunch and will hopefully make more sensible choices.

Why don't you exercise more? Again, lots of interestng answers, but mostly "I don't have the time to exercise". That was my answer too... Most of us were thinking that it's hard to carve out the 75-90 minutes we need to go to the gym or to go for a run, and that was our rationale for not doing more. That was when the trainer asked her follow-up question "Do you have 15 minutes a day to be able to do some exercise?". It's hard to say you can't find 15 minutes. She showed us a routine you can do with one of those exercise bands which you can do in 15 minutes in your office which works most of the major muscle groups. Okay, so it didn't feel like you were going to get a cover-page body by doing these things, but it's got to be better than doing nothing! We also discussed the things I was talking about in my last post on Combining exercise with daily activities, like walking to work (even just a bit of it) or using the stairs. Promise to myself - always use the stairs in the office. Unless rushing to get to a meeting, always get off the tube one stop early (morning and night).

She also covered nutrition - more on that in my next post.

Gym at last

The Fat Runner got to the gym today - and feels soooooo good!

It has been a long time since he has done any exercise given his plantar fasciitis. But the pain seems to be subsiding so he decided to risk going to the gym - and everything went really well!

30 minutes on the bike
20 minutes on the elliptical trainer

Total of 630 calories burned if you believe the readouts on the machines.

And then 3x10 hamstring curls, 3x10 glute extensions (are they called donkey kicks, can't remember) and 3x10 quad extensions - all designed to build up his lower legs after so many weeks off running. Also to build up his strength because he was told that he was weak in his hamstrings and glutes by his podiatrist...

Also, the venom hyperdrive diet pills came in today. You're meant to take 1 a day initially, and then increase to 2 per day. TFR had read lots of reviews saying that people felt 'wired' on these things, but this hasn't happened, even though he took 2 the first day. Well perhaps he won't sleep tonight - we'll find out!

Finally, he's also taking green tea extract. So unfortunately it may be hard to disentangle the different effects of these things - let's just hope that there is an effect!

For those who want to keep tabs, TFR weighed in at exactly 99.0kg this morning...

Stitches out!

Great news! My stitches came out yesterday! I was a little nervous before I went to the surgery to get them removed. Not because of the procedure - after all I've seen a doctor poke her finger through by cut and knuckle-deep into my leg to make sure the muscle was still attached - but because he might decide not to do it.

You see, up until yesterday, it hadn't really healed. Each night when I took the bandage off, there was fresh blood. But luckily there was no fresh blood at 5pm last night which is when my appointment was!

Already, it seems easier to walk. Not sure if it's psychosomatic, whether it's just part of the healing process, or whether it is just slightly easier to walk without the stitches, because it allows my skin to flex more naturally without the four bits of string trying to pull it back.

Anyway, for whatever reason it is, I'm happy, and think there's a good chance I'll be running again by next weekend. I might try to get some light cycling in beforehand just to do at least a small level of cardio...

And the weights are continuing! I've found it really easy to keep it up actually, because it takes so little time. And already it's having an effect - my upper body is lifting back into the shape it should be. There's a concept I remember reading about called 'muscle memory' which says that muscles that have been big/strong before 'remember' that they were big and strong, and therefore respond very well to training. In other words, it's easier to rebuild muscles that have already been built than it is to start afresh.

One of the things I hadn't told you so far is that I used to play American Football. Yes, in the UK! Ok so the standard is not much to write home about, but we had US College division 3 starters in our team who were not obviously better than us... So the standard wasn't too bad. Anyway, because of this it meant that I'd done a lot of weight training and it seems like my muscles are remembering it!!

Anyway, a good day today, all is right with the world. I hope your day is going just as well!

Running injury getting better!! Starting weights...

Great news!!

TFR's leg is getting better already!! Ok, so there is no way he's going to be able to do the 5k race he was hoping to do this weekend in Battersea, but his range of movement has increased.

He did some research on the internet into calf strain yesterday, and the symptoms described of gastrocnemius strain matched exactly. When he pushes his toes up towards his knee, he gets pain in the middle of his calf, rather than lower down which would probably be soleus strain. For those who don't know, the gastrocnemius and soleus are the two major muscles in the lower leg.

So he now feels better because he understands a little more about what is wrong, and how long it will take to fix - approximately 1-2 weeks before the strain goes away.

TFR has booked an appointment to take the stitches out next Tuesday, so hopefully a week after that he will be able to do some light training on his leg...

In the meantime, however, the TFR has temporarily become TFWT - The Fat Weight Trainer! At the weekend, he had bought some weights from Argos (a UK-based catalogue store) and started using them last night.

Weight training routine (for someone with no weights bench, and unable to use his legs...)

3x15 alternate standing press with dumbells
3x15 concentration biceps curls
3x15 lateral raises
3x15 reverse flies
3x15 front raises
3x15 single arm rows

Whole thing takes about 40 minutes including a rest period. TFR (TFWT) is keeping the weights relatively light for the first set until he gets more warmed up, and then slapping another plate onto either side of the dumbell...

And his wife likes feeling his muscles once he has worked out and his muscles are pumped with blood ;-)