Entry the 1st.
Where I was at.
So I've decided I'm going to blog my journey in weightloss and my ambition to become fit. Today I am 27 years, 8 months and 9 days old. I've been fat since I was about 10 (end of primary school) and considering I was quite skinny before then it seems like it should be possible to change my appearance, change my body shape like I did when I was younger.
You see my life for a long time has been about convenience, to be fair that's pretty smart right? I've always considered myself fairly intelligent when it comes to things. I like to cram lots of things in my life, so having convenient food like take-away works when I'm always out and about, exercising get's in the way of socializing and so fourth. During my youthful years what started out as me being a fairly sporty child then turned into a gaming child which took a spiral, football turned into playing fifa, running turned into playing sonic and I guess all time I could have been doing athletics I instead worried about the 'stamina' levels of my created characters on video games.
I actually don't hate video games, I still play them to this day, but it's important for me to try and think about the causes of my body being the way it is, being rotund, having bitch-tits and generally not being overly impressed with my physique. We're just talking about aesthetic's here too, physically I have always considered myself strong and somewhat blessed with a decent-ish body that can perform, over the years though the Domino's pizza's, the chinese buffets and the copius amounts of Big-Mac's, Jaffa Cakes and other such delights have taken their toll. This came to a head when I got The Phoenix PT involved.
The Stat's.
So I want to document what I'm doing about it, The Phoenix is infact Mickaela Pellett, founder of The Phoenix Personal Training and the person I selected to help me on this journey. She helped me where I am at with my body and what I need to look at.
+++NOTE TO UPDATE THE BELOW WHEN I FIND THE ORIGINAL SHEET+++
After searching around my flat for the best part of 20 minutes I can't find the original paperwork, mainly because I have no lights in my living room right now (cheers Simon 'Sparky' Skipper!) but I'll update it as and when. Essentially when I first planned on losing weight I was 23 stone. I'm now 20 stone 3oz.
+++NOTE TO UPDATE THE BELOW WHEN I FIND THE ORIGINAL SHEET+++
So this is a blog for me, but it's also a blog for anyone who has an interest in a fat chunker trying to lose weight or an interest in losing weight/changing their lifestyle for the better. These are the following credentials to look at...
Height: 180.5cm (5'11")
Age: 27
Weight:
BMI:
BMI:
Body Fat %:
Visceral Fat %:
Visceral Fat %:
Clothes Size: 44" Jeans, XXL Shirts
Neck:
Chest/Bust:
Waist:
Hip:
Bum:
Bum:
Biceps:
Thigh:
Thigh:
Knee:
So let's quickly refresh myself on what this all means and why it's relevant...
Height: to help me work out the proportions and what my target weight should be.
Age: to remind me I'm not getting any younger, also will help me keep a long term track of things.
BMI: Body Mass Index, this is a good tool for me to work out if my body is 'trending' the right or wrong way, BMI in large is something I've been told to ignore at times and I've been told is 'way off' but from my experience it's a number, a number that I can lower if I put my mind and body to it. It is a number which makes me happy when it's lower than it was last week and it's a good measuring block. If I have a crap week and eat crap food and do little exercize the number goes up, if I have a good week, eat great and do a few walks/jogs/runs then it goes down and brings a smile to my face.
Body Fat %: the sum is total mass of fat divided by total mass of person. For example a 100kg person who has 50kg of body fat has a 50% body fat percentage. Currently 34% of my body is fat.
Visceral Fat %: Visceral fat is basically the fat which hugs your internal organs, we've all got it but us folk with high percentages of it are more likely to die in painful ways, Visceral fat has links with Diabetes and heart disease etcetera. This bad boy is the one I like to see lower every time I get on the scales. I want to discuss what an ideal human's visceral fat should be with my PT, quick research online suggests under 13.
Clothes Size: This is important because it's the most satisfying for me, when I go into a clothes shop and have to buy a set of jeans because the last ones don't fit, or that I have to go a lower shirt size is one of the greatest feelings.
Body Measurements: I think this is mainly to do with keeping my body proportionate and just keeping track that the exercises I'm doing are hitting all areas. For me personally anything around the bum/stomach is good to lose inches!
The Regime
So with the info above I'm going to talk about my strategies to tackle those numbers, to understand Luke May is to basically be playing a RPG (Role Playing Game) on your computer, a game like 'Final Fantasy' or 'Skyrim' where the basis of the game is to improve your stats like strength, dexterity and the likes. Well in my so called RPG in real life I'm hoping to push my weight and fat stats down, that's what I'd consider a level up. Levelling up my body is hopefully going to be the smartest move I've ever made as I'm essentially trying my best to give my body a fighting chance when I'm older.
The mandatory :-
1hour/1.5hour workout session with The Phoenix usually on a tuesday, this is a high energy workout which leaves me feeling absolutely shattered but really up for the week ahead, it's a series of circuit training with muscle building at the end. A typical session will be as follows...
Warm-up 2-3mins
Stretches 2-3mins
Kickboxing/boxing 10-15mins
Circuit's 25-30mins
Weights 10-15mins
Floor Work (Plank & TRX) 10-15mins
Stretches 2-3mins
Let's talk about what happens, so a warm-up is literally a walk into a jog into a run, enough to make me out of breath during the end of the jog and then a push-for-it with a run for about a minute. This gets my heart-rate up and I catch my breathe during the stretches. Stretches are important as it makes me feel good during/after the sessions, I stretch out my arms/back/legs and then I'm ready for more. The boxing side of things gets me moving quickly as I'm dodging and ducking, punching and kicking, the beauty is that I don't want to stop unlike a circuit because I'm having so much fun, all of my body gets used and I can control the pace. Circuit's are basically where I have a series of workouts combined with running/jogging. It's really hard work and leaves me feeling completely out of breathe but is the main part of the session. It works my stamina and builds my lungs and legs/arms which will turn my body from a fat sack into a lean muscled fine-tuned machine (I hope!), Weights are brilliant after circuits because it's something which let's me catch my breath but I'm still working out. Floor Work is where I feel I do the most 'toning' up, I can literally feel my stomach muscles ache and tighten during and after Floor Work, most work on my core I think happens here.
The walks :-
1.5hour/2hour walks seems to dominate my workouts away from The Phoenix and in a walk I like to add a couple of jogs, a run and an outright sprint. Walking for me is usually along the picturesque seafront of Eastbourne or up the south downs national park. Walking is a frame of mind and people like me who love their music (so most of us) will be able to get their teeth into some good music, prefferably with a decent/high BPS (Beats per second) and I find myself enjoying a "powersong" which is essentially the song(s) I use when I want to push it, the running and sprinting happens when a decent song hits and usually I try to last the entire song. Parkway Drive's "Wild Eyes" is a phenominal track for this if your into good metal. Also techno works well. I do enjoy Rammstein for running too.
So that's where I'm at so far with today's entry, I have so much time to make up for though, many entries may come in retrospect.
This week I've already done my PT and I've done a walk... I plan on squeezing in 2 more walks. Next blog I'm gonna shout out about food and portions, my struggles and my plans to deal with.
