2018 Is Shaping Up!

2017 was a difficult year for running.

At the start of the year, I ran Country to Capital for a 3rd time and it was an utter death march to get to the end of it. My slowest showing on that route, despite the pretty good conditions. I needed to grit through it despite having nothing to prove, I did need to use the experience to feel the discomfort of finishing in pain when I just wanted to stop. It wasn't going to cause lingering injury, so it was fine to push through it for 24 miles of unpleasant slog to learn how to do it for when there is actually something to prove. Then I was persuaded to run The Moyleman (which I'd failed to finish the year before - I'd had enough at half way and got a lift to the finish), which was actually quite fun despite the fact I'm not much of a fan of the South Downs. After that, it was a few longish weekend back to back runs before getting on with the job of running the length of the British mainland, from bottom to top (Land's End to John O'Groats - LEJoG).

Things didn't go 100% to plan with that, and I had to take a few weeks out in the middle which extended the impact of it further into the year than I'd intended. I did finish and I have a lot of writing about it that I need to find time for still as well as dealing with all of the photos, but it was now mid-August and I had nothing planned for the rest of the year. With no idea of how LEJoG would go, if I'd be injured, or need weeks or even months of recovery, I deliberately kept the calendar empty. 4 weeks after finishing, with no target or pressure to do anything in particular, I entered a half marathon on a whim while I was abroad for work. And pulled out a PB, got cocky and entered a local marathon which I promptly DNFd (did 3/4 laps - just didn't fancy finishing in the dark and the laps were getting tedious). The final race of the year was another half marathon, at which both my husband and I managed to fall over and scrape up our knees. And that was the last run of any note in 2017.

My Training Plan (red = not done, yellow = sort of done, green = done correctly)

And I lost my mojo. The following weeks I found it harder and harder to get out for a run. Despite having recovered physically just fine from LEJoG, I was getting tired a lot and making poor eating and drinking choices which didn't help. Though I'd already decided that I wanted to train for a faster marathon in the Spring, I just ran out of giving a crap about running enough to do much of it, or with any decent quality.

However!

Strava featured me in a couple of their social media posts, which brought a few more folks to see my long run of the summer, then they featured me in their "2017 in Stats" blog post which was nice. And in the same breath as Sandra Vi who just beat the trans-America running speed record. (though they somehow decided I'd broken a world record with my run, which I haven't and never said I did anywhere, and that I'd run top to bottom, which is back to front! I'd also had to stitch together the individual days running into one GPX file and call it a "hike" instead of a run so it didn't mess with my annual running stats as I wanted to keep the individual day entries with the photos and messages from other people)

And RunUltra posted an article of my run (word limits are hard!)

And here we are, in the last days of 2017 and 2018's running calendar is shaping up pretty well actually! I've entered a few races and have a few targets to hit:

• April - Rome Marathon. Targeting London Marathon Good For Age (03:49:59)
• May - Cape Wrath Ultra. 8 days, multi-day, 250 miles
• August - GB Ultra, Race Across Scotland. 214 miles in under 100 hours
• October - Autumn 100. 100 miles, aiming just to finish

So the first few months of the year will be training to try to get me quicker again (it's a long time since I managed 22:36 for 5000m) but without losing endurance base for the longer stuff that comes afterwards. And I'll want to chuck in some fun stuff before, in between and afterwards - there are some work trips abroad which could present some fun race tourism opportunities.

Oh, and I've been nominated for a Run Ultra Blog award, so if you like what you've read here, please cast a vote for me (and you could win a shiny, new Suunto watch)!

LEJoG 2017 - 10 weeks to go!

Mmmtea!

I've got just over 10 weeks to go before I start running from Land's End to John O'Groats. That came around quickly!  Training, in as much as you can train for this sort of thing, went through a bad patch for a couple of weeks but is turning a corner again now.

I had a stretch of maybe two and a half weeks where every single run was awful.  I couldn't hit the pace on any efforts, everything felt really hard, I was too tired and stressed to fit in all my planned runs and I was getting really wound up about it all.  But then, as with all endurance events, things started to get better again.  Running to/from work is helped by great views like these, now that the days are getting lighter:

Hello goosey!

Turns out it's quite good running on that bank in the morning before the tourists descend

And my local trail haunts are gorgeous:

North Downs Way - my absolute favourite so far.

This run stopped me from going totally bonkers recently!

A few administrative points are coming together too; I have found a charity I would like to support and I'll talk more about that in a few weeks time once they've sorted out Gift Aid applications and I can link to a donations page for folks to help the cause. Looking to get one or two companies to support a little too, waiting to hear back from folks who know how to do that sort of thing because I have no idea how to go about it (too damned English and self-effacing!).

I've tested out putting up my tent and my tea/hot food making capability:

Needs a bit more practice with the roof tension.

Super roomy, length-wise and I'm not short.

This little fella is my best friend! And my trusty Asics :)

And after a false start with a different 30L one, I've found a pack to run with that fits properly, doesn't bounce around when I run and has perfect capacity for what I want to take with me.  It makes me feel a bit self-conscious when I run with it at the moment as it's designed for and marketed towards the Marathon des Sables market, but it's perfect and thanks to MyRaceKit for shipping swiftly so I could get on with using it and getting used to it!

Raidlight 30L Ultraraid Vest (shown here with iSIS Freeloader solar cell)

I've also put my spreadsheet skills to good use with a tool to figure out pack weight depending on what I'm carrying.  I just select the number of each item, it calculates the total weight and it's reusable for any event or training run :)

LEJoG 2017 - Filling in the blanks

Once upon a time, when I was a teenager, I learned how to use a map and compass. I was intending to do a Duke of Edinburgh bronze award and went on a course to learn how to navigate. I have no idea why it never went any further than that and I never ended up using those navigation skills in anger. I didn't end up going on expedition and I didn't get a Duke of Edinburgh award.

That was 30ish years ago (ow. that sounds like a long time!). And with various races across unmarked trails or off my comfort zone with three various barriers to navigation I've tended to stick to races or routes that are marked in some way; either by race organisation or it's a National Trail and had those lovely acorn signs all the way along.

Now I have a Very Long Way(TM) to run later this year, on a route of my own design that is not marked in any way. I don't want to get lost. I don't want to waste time and energy on taking wrong turns or missing right turns. I need to be able to navigate and not fall apart if my technology fails. Errors add up and I've only got 6 weeks to get the job done!

So I'm off to Cumbria to take a basic navigation course; map, compass and the landmarks of the countryside. I'm hoping to learn a bit also on rough navigation without map and compass, just general geographical direction. Let's see how I do!

LEJoG 2017 - starting to plan

With 120 days or so to go, planning is kicking off now!

Things to plan:

• Route
• Kit
• Emergencies
• Training
• Sponsorhip?

Kit - I've had an initial think about kit. I'll need the flexibility of camping and sometimes camping not at a camp site, so that will appreciably add to my pack weight. This could get tricky and it'll mean getting used to a decent pack weight carefully without injuring myself.  I'll also need to figure out how to put my tent up (paved garden means I can't do it at home) and try it out a good few times.

Route - I want it to be as off-road as possible, but not being stupid about taking a trail route that's 25%+ longer and way more difficult than roads in places like the South West. e.g. I *could* take the South West Coast Path, but that's really difficult and appreciably longer than going inland a bit, staying North of the A30, and taking some back roads in between footpaths & bridleways.  Ideally I'd like to be on National Trails where practical as they're generally scenic and well-marked, so navigation is easy. I see the Pennine Way and Offa's Dyke or maybe the Cotswold Way featuring at least in part.

Training - I'm chatting with my coach this coming weekend, about the shape of this year and how we did a good job for Thames Path and North Downs Way the last two times.  In some ways, you can't really train for 40+ days on your feet, but you can sure make it easier at the start.

Emergencies - will depend on routing as to what provisions I'll need.  More thinking once the approximate route is taking shape.  Suggestions and recommendations welcome when that happens!

Sponsorship - I've been considering whether to raise money for a cause and/or ask for help from outdoors companies.  Though I generally sit on the side of doing sport for the love of it, I'm leaning on the side of choosing to raise money for PHCuk.org through this challenge. Public Health Collaboration is doing stuff I really care about and I'd like to support that.  LEJoG will be a genuine challenge for me - previous events and races I've been pretty sure of completing, but this is a different game altogether.  If I decide to go through with that, I'll set up a JustGiving page for it.

It's also going to be expensive to do this run. 4ish weeks of unpaid time off work (after I've used up my holiday allowance for the year), plus kit and consumables adds up.  I've no experience asking for help from companies, so no idea how that might go.  It'd really help to get a few items covered though and there are some companies products I already love and swear by that I'd love to evangelise (Icebreaker, Petzl, Garmin, Haglofs...).  If anyone can help with that, please let me know!

LEJoG 2017 - a 1,000 mile training run

[Not the actual route as all on road would be miserable.  More off road is appreciably longer!]

I've wanted to traverse the length of Britain on foot for quite some time and a couple of years ago a window of opportunity almost came up, but then I got a job again so it didn't even get to the planning stage.

Due to an extremely flexible and accommodating employer, I have the opportunity to do it this year.  Starting in May-ish, through June into early July-ish (depending on unforeseen circumstances and work schedule in May).  I've got 44 days to get to Land's End, run to John O'Groats and get home again, and that's including contingency.  It'll take a day to get to the start and a day to get home afterwards, so that's 42 days to cover something around 950-1100 miles, depending on the route I end up with, and a lot of elevation.  And carrying all my own stuff.

Of course, finding a route is the hard part.  I've already spent a day getting really frustrated with trying to get out of the South West using trails and avoiding the South West Coast Path (because it's really super hard!).   It turns out most of the roads in the area have no pedestrian facility either (thanks Streetview!).  So I now have OS Landrangers 203 and 204, up to 182 (thanks to a buy-one-get-one-half-price offer), which I will be laying out on the lounge floor to try to get a much higher level view of where the trails/off-road paths are in relation to each other and have another go.  Once I'm out of the South West, routing gets a whole lot easier with some good other National Trails in Offa's Dyke, the Pennine Way etc.

It's all an elaborate training run for Deadwater at the end of July though!  And an excuse to blog a bit more in the planning and the running of it, and take a bajillion photos.

Checking In/How does this all work again?

Training is happening.  2x strength and conditioning sessions every week, 7am Tuesday and 7am Friday mornings.  Like clockwork.

Running is happening for most sessions - though there was a week where things didn't line up so well for it.  I did, however, manage the scary session that was hanging over me since I saw it in the plan a while back...  Yasso 800s, the speed session of dooooom!

Green graph is pace, the thick squareish route is god knows how many laps of the rec.

The lack of racing going on is making me feel a bit weird, but life just seems too busy to manage even the day-to-day stuff without worrying about race logistics too.  I have no idea how I managed to train for 70.3 Zell Am See and do things like washing, cooking, occasionally going out, seeing Mr TOTKat for more than 5 mins a day whilst awake; but I had a different job then, and so did Mr TOTKat.  My current job is quite relaxed about hours, but there's no gym close by so swim/turbo isn't possible at lunch time; still I manage to have no time in the evening when I get home around 19:30 or later.  When I want to be getting up at 05:45 every day, to make the 2 days I have to do it for S&C much more routine, I need to be in bed by 21:00.  This is *hard* to schedule and make work and not end up resenting one thing or another.

I wanted to cycle commute at least a little bit, but it's not in my training plan and I'm prioritising sleep a lot of mornings too.  So, I'm also a bit sad that I'm not doing any cycling at the moment.  This tiredness thing is quite demoralising having been feeling great this time last year with 6am starts every weekday and quite a bit of training load in the week.

I'm going for a bit of a check up to see whether the reason I'm tired a lot is simply lack of sleep or something else related to needing to supplement vitamins given the amount of exercise I'm getting.  My gut feel is that it's just sleep as I'm actually not doing a lot of exercise in the grand scheme of things - averaging 6 hours a week including 2x 50mins S&C.  But we'll see what comes out of the blood work, I'd love it if it was something as simple to fix as needing more vitamin D or B12 or something!

Planning a running tour

I've decided that I'd like to take a week out, running a National Trail, self-supported.

As with Ironman races, I'm thinking the safest, easiest thing is to start near home in case of cancellation, needing to bail out early etc. and keeping the costs down a little.  Handily there's a nice National Trail that ends near to home enough for it to be easily viable.  And I've already walked half of it a while ago (when I was 34kg heavier and not fit in the slightest).

I've chosen the Thames Path - it's well marked, has relatively easy stop off points to stay overnight and shouldn't be too hard logistics-wise.

My first error was to choose half term week - I thought the B&Bs wouldn't be too booked up but it turns out that's wrong.  So, I'm shifting it back a week and starting on the day of Rowbotham's Round Rotherham (ah well, another year!).  The loose daily plan so far is this:-

Day 1: Source to Lechlade; 23.42 miles

Day 2: Lechlade to Oxford; 30.48 miles

Day 3: Oxford to Streatley; 29.5 miles

Day 4: Streatley to Cookham; 33 miles

Day 5: Cookham to Teddington; 35.34 miles

Day 6: Teddington to the barrier;  30.85 miles

This feels achievable at the moment, having walked a good chunk of it in the past when really unfit and overweight.  Yes, I had aching hip joints in the mornings, but that's fine and I'm in a very different place now.  It'll get refined as I investigate the B&B situation in more detail, but I'm mostly OK with how it looks so far with a gentler day to start off and the longer days towards the end.  I'll be running for no more than 8 hours in any day (35 miles at 14 min/mile worst case) and I don't plan to take a lunch break due to it being hard to start up again if you sit down.  So if I start around 8am, I'll be done in the afternoon and have lots of recovery time (and likely cold baths wherever I can).

I also have an evolving kit list which, thanks to the wonders of merino (warm and/or cool, and wearable for days in a row even when running), is lighter and shorter than it could be!  I have to carry it all with me, so I need to pack minimally as is practial.

• 1x pair multi-terrain running shoes
• 2x pairs wool/merino socks
• 1x buff (heavy or mid)
• 1x merino bra
• 1x pair merino shorts
• 1x pair merino leggings
• 1x merino long sleeved
• 1x technical t-shirt
• 1x waterproof jacket
• 1x body warmer
• 1x waterproof trousers
• debit card
• cash
• salt tablets
• 2x 750ml water bottles
• (Clif bars maybe)/cheese/nuts/sausage
• 1st aid kit; blister treatment specific
• Map
• Foil blanket
• Hat
• Gloves
• Phone
• Extra battery, cable & plug
• Garmin watch and/or 800 & charger

This will likely evolved and change as things spring to mind and there's always the weather considerations as it gets closer.  But a plan is starting to come together, and the running training is too.

Race Report - Virgin Active London Triathlon 2013, Saturday surprise sprint relay

What a weekend!

I'd always intended to race the Virgin Active London Triathlon this year and had entered previously, but since then I won the Virgin Active competition to become the 12th member of Team Freespeed Virgin Active and that meant it was more than just the Sunday Olympic race on the cards.

Saturday was now a day that I was now going to be taking part in team duties; helping out on the Virgin Active stand at the expo and perhaps filling in on a relay team for the VIPs if there were problems for any of the teams with people unable to race.

Saturday morning, Mr TOTKat headed off to parkrun at Wansted Flats while I went to the expo to register, find the stand, meet the team and some of the sponsors.  The guys at Skechers were brilliant; knowledgeable, enthusiastic about the new range of Performance shoes and really helpful with sizing.  I've been running in the GoRun Ride for a couple of weeks now and I think Mr TOTKat is going to kill me if I mention how incredibly light they are one more time!  Looking forward to trying more of the range soon.  I bumped into Stuart and Richard Hobson at the Skechers stand, closely followed by Dec, Cat, Dion, Ali, Matt, Charlie, Jamie, Jenny and Richard Melik.  Tim arrived later and Sam was racing in IM Switzerland (and a great result he had there too in hot conditions with a no-wetsuit swim too).

We all headed upstairs to split into groups to help with the VIPs and Virgin staff competing in the race - offering tips, advice and making people feel comfortable about their first race as there were quite a few. Jenny,  Jamie and Matt headed into the VIP area to help with a couple of the celebrity relay teams who had missing members for various reasons and I helped in the staff room.  Shortly after that, there was a problem with one of the Cosmopolitan magazine relay teams who had lost their swimmer and cyclist both.  Richard Hobson was going to step up and take on the job but had no idea where his bike was, so I volunteered and then had to trot back to the hotel (about 10 minutes jog) to get bike, helmet, wetsuit and bike shoes.  So exciting!

Poor Holly having been dumped by the rest of her team had me come to the rescue :o)  Not quite the same standard as the rest of the Freespeed team, but not too shabby in the end nonetheless.  I wasn't expecting to race, so putting in a bit of an effort and coming out 57th (overall - mixed age & gender) in the swim and 57th (overall - mixed age & gender) on the bike of all the sprint teams (253 teams in total) I felt pretty good about thatand it put Holly in a good place to have a nice run and finish well before a lot of the other teams.

The swim was a nice surprise and I got on someone's feet and drafted pretty much the whole way around for the first time ever - I was trying to take it easy but put in a decentish time for sprint relay team.  I had a bit of fun on the bike, though the sprint course was very short at the first turn end so there wasn't much chance to get any speed up but the other end was quite fun and the promised rain didn't come.  Richard Melik took a cracking shot of me on the bike in the sunshine in my borrowed race top (thanks Matt!).  I also ended up borrowing swimming goggles (thanks Jamie!) and snaffling a race number belt as I really wasn't prepared for racing that day.

Holly (from Cosmo) was ready and waiting in transition for me when I came in off the bike and she had a lovely run out in the sun and seemed to really enjoy the whole experience.  Shame I didn't get a photo taken with her really.

I can happily say that the sprint was great fun and I was very pleased to have been able to help out someone who might have missed out on the experience of being part of a relay team otherwise.

But Sunday... I had an Olympic distance race to do!  (To Be Continued...)

Planning planning and preparation

I'd be buggered if I didn't plan and prepare.

Every week, I make sure I have the week's training schedule laid out in advance.  Yes, there is room for flexibility and shuffling sessions about if it needs to happen due to work and real life not being 100% predictable, but the week has a shape and set sessions from coachJez's programme (or mine if there isn't one from Jez).  Without a plan and a schedule in place, my training would be directionless in general (which, by itself, is an enormous long term problem) and on a day-to-day basis I'd have no idea what to pack in my sports kit bag.

The same goes for food.  Breakfasts are relatively easy and cookie-cutter (no, I don't have cookies for breakfast!).  Lunches and daytime snacks generally have to be sorted in batches in advance; making lunch and snacks every morning for that day at work is a heck of a drag and relying on that energy being there every day just doesn't work.  So, every couple of days I make lunch base of all the vegetables and fruit and the protein gets added on the day.  I have a couple of snacks in the fridge at work and pots of portioned out nuts and a pile of fruit alongside a big plastic box of other safe snacks like wholegrain and seed breads, mixed nuts and seeds, cereal bars etc.  And dinners are planned on a daily basis, to a rough weekly cycle to cover getting in some oily fish, red meat, white meat and eggs.  But again, if left to when I get home from work to think about it there's a requirement for a big surge of emotional energy required to think it through and sort it out, when I'm just tired and hungry and likely to just go for whatever's easiest at the time.  There's weekend batch cooking that covers a couple of meals a week and the rest is quick to cook from scratch (usually 30 minutes or less, e.g. omelettes, frittata, salmon fillets with couscous & veg, steak and veg, sausages and root veg mash).

Without that planning and preparation I'd fall by the wayside; I'd train less, I'd eat badly more, I'd get stressed out by it all more often, I'd make much less progress.  There's so much energy needed to do the training and the showering and the working and the eating and the cat feeding and the recycling and the commuting and the washing and the sleeping and the putting the washing away and the shopping, any savings that can be made by bundling planning and preparation up and doing things when the energy and inclination is there in advance of when they're actually needed are well worth having.

It sounds a bit bloodless and mechanical, but it's not.  There is always room for spontaneity, it's just not compulsory to get through every day.  Spontaneity is hard to do all of the time.  Planning and preparation is what successful people do to be successful.

22 days to 9 months of teetotalism

From 1st January 2012 to when Ironman Wales 2012 is over, I will not be drinking any alcohol.  (There may be 2 nominated exception days - the day after Ironman UK 70.3 and perhaps 13th January - I've not yet decided whether I will do that or not.)

It's just going to be easier that way.  Easier to keep to my planned nutrition - alcohol tends to lead to eating more than required/planned.  Easier to keep to my planned training schedule - alcohol leads to poor quality sleep, lack of enthusiasm the next day and is pretty poor nutritionally.  It'll just be easier all 'round if I don't drink at all.  Drinking a bit, setting a weekly/monthly limit isn't going to work.  It's all or nothing 'cause that's how I am.  I'll miss the wine, for sure, but some things are worth quite a bit of sacrifice.

Stopping right now isn't something I need to do, nor is it all that practical when there's wine in the house ready for Christmas, so the date is set for 1st January.

ohdear...

Lots of wine on Saturday.  No more than any given night when we were on holiday a few weeks back, but it bit hard on Sunday.  Spent most of the day on the sofa, watching telly and doing not very much at all.  (well, my version of not very much which included lots of laundry.  And for a really badly hung-over day, I did very well on the food front.  3 meals (wholemeal bagel with a poached egg, wholemeal granary sarnie of ham cream cheese and lettuce, wholemeal pasta with beef chilli followed by a small dollop of 70% chocolate ice-cream), 1 snack (greek yoghurt with fruit compote) and nothing "bad".



A lot of yesterday's telly included 3 episodes of Jamie's 30-Minute Meals.  Anyone else seen any of those?  I'm pretty impressed, to be honest.  Really good meals, 99.5% made from scratch (tiny cheats in pastry cases already made in one of the 3 I saw), and all in under 30 minutes.  We were so taken that we're going to get the book.

This morning, I'm still feeling a bit delicate and the week is looking to be heading away from my plan already: Mon - gym, Tue - cycle, Wed - gym, Thu - cycle, Fri - gym, Sat&Sun - rest.  And already, Tuesday is looking doubtful.  Hey ho.

Weight Loss: How to do it!

I'm currently featured as a weight loss "success story" on the Weight Loss Resources web site.  And as a result of that I've had a few questions, mostly around "how did you do it?"  and "I've tried and tried and I can't seem to get the weight to come off and stay off, how did you manage it?".   So I wrote a little piece on it.  (It's a permanent article for reference in the articles section down the side for future reference.)

This is pretty much how I did it...

It's both very simple and really difficult at the same time.  The real keys are brutal honesty with yourself and planning.  The final bit is maintenance; the changes you make to lose weight must be sustainable as you will need to hang on to those changes to keep the weight off forever.

• Logging - very very very important that you brutally honestly log absolutely everything that passes your lips, having weighed it to be certain of how much you've had.  That last couple of spoons of yogurt from the kids' dessert at dinner -does- count; that bite out of your best friend's hot-dog while you're out at the cinema -does- count; but it is -so- easy to forget that you had them, forget to log them and then wonder why the numbers seem to add up but the weight loss isn't happening.  It is a well known phenomenon that people almost never log everything they eat, not because they want to lie or cheat, but because they actually do forget things because their brain doesn't see it as important at the time.  So, if you're out and about and don't have access to your online logging resource (in my case Weight Loss Resources - WLR), keep a notebook, write things down and then enter them into WLR when you can. And weigh everything. Portion sizes do matter.  Seriously, take a look here.

• Exercise - can make it harder to be sure of staying inside your allowance; the calorific value of food is a reasonable guess, based on burning food to see how much heat it gives off.  Not exactly the same way your body processes it, but near enough for an estimate.  The same is true for exercise; the effort required for two different people of the same size, weight, height and age may differ based on so many other factors.  The estimates in WLR for exercise are quite variable and if you want to be closer to a more accurate estimate, invest in a heart rate monitor if you can.  But -do- exercise as it will help to maintain your existing muscles while you're losing weight; it's no good losing lots of weight that's muscle as you won't get any definition in your shape and it's less "good" for you to be losing weight through muscle loss than fat loss.

• Snack.  Regularly.  Seriously.  If you don't allow yourself to get hungry during the day, by eating little and often, you end up eating less overall to feel satisfied and lower the likelihood of splurging.  Or to put it another way, if you leave it too long between meals you will most likely eat bigger portions and with less careful choice in those meals.

• Planning - Plan your food and exercise at least a day in advance, if not for the week.  If you plan, it's harder to have little "oops" moments and you can plan in for treats to keep you from straying too far off the path or help you make informed choices when spontaneous things happen.

• Eat enough - It can be worth trying for a slower pace of weight loss as you may not be getting enough energy to keep your metabolism working properly.  Many people have switched from 2 or 1.5lb loss rates to 1lb loss rate and suddenly the weight starts coming off properly.  It varies a lot from person to person and giving it a go for a few weeks is really the only way to find out what will work for you.

• Have a "down" day/week every now and then.  I was lucky that I never really needed to do this, but very many people find that their bodies are clever and cotton on to the fact that they're getting less food/more exercise and adjust your metabolism to deal with the reduced intake vs. output.  Keeping your body guessing (but do stay on or under maintenance kcals) can help break out of that learning behaviour and kick your metabolism back to where it should be.  If you're doing heavy exercise 3/4 times a week, maybe take a week off from it every 10-12 weeks.  Or plan in a "cheat" day every week or fortnight where you do eat up to or even a bit over maintenance kcals rather than sticking to loss. 

• Weigh everything.  Unless you have the most amazingly accurate estimating skills, your portion sizes WILL drift.  And usually upwards.  It will start to add up to a few more kcals every day than you're logging and again you'll wonder why the kcals seem to add up but the weight loss isn't doing.  In effect, you're kidding yourself.  Stop it.

• Don't rely on the scales for the measure of success.  Take body measurements periodically, maybe once a month, and keep track of that as well as weight.  You may find there are times when the scales don't shift, but your body changes shape and you lose a few cm around bits of yourself.

• Patience - with yourself and with the people who will try to, knowingly or not, sabotage your hard work.  You are only human; you will have off days and that's OK.  Just as long as they're not every day ;o)  And other people may not understand what you are trying to do, how or why and they can in a well-meaning way end up trying to sabotage your efforts by offering you food, tempting you out of exercise or saying "oh come on, you're not fat!".  It's down to you how you deal with it; I wasn't very good at that part, to be honest, I just hid and didn't go out!

There -will- be hard times; I remember many many tantrums and fits of tears during my main weight loss period.  The forums on WLR can really help with that and with advice and support when the going gets tough or you have questions.

So remember... plan,  Log EVERYTHING and be honest with yourself.  Losing weight isn't rocket science but it isn't easy either.  You can do it.  You will get there.  But you have to really want to change your lifestyle and keep it changed for life.

Work-day packed foodz

I pack lots of food when I go to work, to keep me going throughout the day; alongside a big plastic box with dry munchies like beef jerky and pistachios which lives in my desk drawer. I eat -lots- throughout the day and it all needs planning, packing and keeping from leaking, breaking, stinking or making a big mess in general.  So here's today's haul.  You can see a a pot with 3x hard-boiled quail's eggs in it, wrapped in kitchen towel to protect them; a Dr Karg crisp-bread that miraculously didn't break; 2x carrots, one Dorset Cereals berries and cherries bar; one tub of cottage cheese to go on the crisp-bread; one tub of Waitrose houmous with about 1/3rd left in it to go with the carrots; and a box of salad with lettuce, cherry tomatoes, roasted chicken and Food Doctor Herb Boost.  What you can't see is the shaker with whey protein powder in it for after my weights session.  Good haul, eh?

My gym session today was slightly awesome!  Someone was using the only pair of 12kg dumbbells (oddly, there are multiple sets of every other even numbered weight except for the 12s), so I had to use a 14kg one for my squat with swing.  Then I decided that my side-planks with rows needed a bit of a boost, so I used a 5kg dumbbell for that instead of the usual 4kg one.  And I pushed out 3x10 on the clean and press as well as 2x 5 negative movement pull-ups (OK they were definitely not all 4 seconds long, ohhh no, but still I tried!).  Adding in those pull-ups tips the balance on the timing so I've cut the cool-down on the cross trainer to only 2 minutes instead of 5 or so at the end but still managed the usual stretching on the power plate.  Good session!

I (and my team) moved desks in the office today, right down to the other end of the building, so... there were cakes. So I had a tiny one; a Thornton's Caramel Shortbread thing which was all sticky in the warmth and really really sweet. Thankfully, dinner was quite light: chicken breast wrapped in 2 slices of chorizo and on a bed of mashed butternut squash.  I overcooked the squash a bit so it was really soft and gooey when it got mashed :o)  Lotsa black pepper on top and scoffage ensued!

Slight oopsage in that when I got home I fancied wine.  So I'm sipping wine right now, and it is nice.  We'll see how much I end up having, it depends on how I feel and how nice it is (and it is nice!).

OK, so if I drink wine today I won't lose as much fat as I wanted to this week, but hey, I feel good at the moment and I'm not -too- fussed about losing fat really quickly.  Of course I have to look fabulous at a couple of weddings later in the summer, but that's only the icing on the cake of being fit and feeling stronger than I have ever felt in my life.  I think I might have got the muscle back now that I lost while losing loads of weight 4 years ago.  It's taken a year, but it's back and I feel great!

B - greek yogurt with 1 scoop MP Max, fruit compote and flaked almonds
S - cottage cheese on a Dr Karg cheese and pumpkin seed crisp-bread
L -salad; lettuce, cherry tomatoes, Food Doctor Herb Boost, chicken breast, quail's eggs
*gym*
S - 1 scoop MP Max in skimmed milk
S - carrot and houmous
S - Thorntons caramel shortbread biscuit, Dorset Cereals bar - cherries and berries
D - mashed butternut squash with a chicken breast wrapped in chorizo slices

Exercise - 55 minutes gym

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1910 2239]
Protein (g)	157.5 (34.4%)
Carbohydrate (g)	155.0 (31.7%)
Fat (g)	44.7 (12.9%)
Fibre (g)	22.6
Fruit & Veg	10.4

Half day!

I've got a half day off today to go to some filming in the early evening; yay!  It means some careful planning is required around spacing out meals today so I don't get hungry.  Handily, we buy lots of chicken breasts and roast them up in batches so it's really easy to make salads, sarnies and stuffed pitta breads which is exactly what I'll be doing for later.  It is a lowish fruit and veg day, but I'm usually extremely good with that, so I'm not going to cry over a day that has only just 5 portions :o)

Nommy lunch today:-

One other new thing is that in an attempt to cut out even more of the more highly processed foods from my diet (though TBH as we make almost every meal and snack from scratch and make sure pre-made stuff, like cereal/nut bars, doesn't have crap in it there aren't many there now - low fat mayonnaise, low fat spread, whey protein powder, the odd slice of supermarket bread, the occasional glug of low fat salad dressing), I'm going to try ditching low fat spreads/margarines in favour of real butter for spreading (and stop being lazy about honey & mustard salad dressing and make it myself instead of reaching for a bottle of pre-made stuff).  I've already made the change a very long time ago when baking breads and I use cold pressed olive oil as a baking fat and now it's time to try changing what I spread on things.  The tricky part will be that I like a thick spread on my toasted bread products and butter is much more calorific than the things I've got used to, so I'll have to be a bit meaner with my spreading and at least initially weigh it all.  And the other tricky bit is storage so that it's neither like rock nor a greasy puddle.

B - porridge made with water, raisins, banana, splash of milk and 1 scoop
L - salad; ham, boiled eggs, lettuce and pomegranate seeds with mayonnaise
S - beef jerky
S - tangerines
D - wholemeal pitta stuffed with chicken breast and lettuce
S - Dorset Cereals bar; 3 berries and cherries
S - 2x slices of wholemeal granary toast with butter and Marmite

Exercise - yep, still resting!

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1712 1779]
Protein (g)	135.9 (33.0%)
Carbohydrate (g)	191.0 (35.0%)
Fat (g)	43.3 (32.0%)
Fruit Veg	5.7

Ain't nothing without a goal

And therein lies the problem.

I -do- have some goals for this year and the first one is coming up real fast now; first ever triathlon in 6 weeks time.  The problem is that that goal conflicts in some ways with the one I'm really keen on, which is losing body fat.

I need to pack in more cardio training than I have been, otherwise I am going to fail at the triathlon, but there are only so many days in the week, it's still dark in the evenings and I dont't want to drop down from 3 weights sessions per week and still keep at least 1 rest day in the week whilst also being quite fatigued around exercise at the moment.

Running practice can be fixed by getting off a few tube stops early on the way home and running the rest of the way.  Yes, that take a bit of planning, but it's not a big deal.  It also won't impinge on my weight training sessions at all.  Swimming, I can squeeze in at least once a week on either Tuesday or Thursday as a cardio session.  The problem is the cycling.  And as that's the longest part of the triathlon and one of my weaker disciplines, it's going to have the highest impact on my overall aggregate time.

So. I think I may have a bit of a plan to get me through the first triathlon, but it's all a bit muddy after that.

Nice, pretty salad today though:-

And because we went swimming...

 

Haagen Dazs Summer Smoothie that's separated a bit after being in the freezer for a good few months now.  Still rather nom!

B - greek yogurt with 1 scoop and Dorset Cereals muesli
S - banana
*gym*
S - 1 scoop in semi-skimmed milk
L - salad; spinach, sweet peppers, celery, capers, pomegranate seeds, chicken fillet, walnuts and lemon juice
S - pistachios and tangerines
S - beef jerky
*swim*
D - beef chilli with couscous, peas and sweetcorn
S - sorbet/ice-cream thing (Haagen Dazs Summer Smoothie)

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1880 2382]
Protein (g)	173.2 (37.9%)
Carbohydrate (g)	185.2 (38%)
Fat (g)	48.0 (23.6%)
Fruit & Veg	10.4

Change of plan

With all of this weight maintenance, fat loss and staying fit there's a lot of planning involved. It's not just plain, simple and effortless you know! Anyway, the plan today was to head out to a birthday thing in a bar after a quite long and hard day and have a couple of cheats in some wine and a restaurant chicken Caesar salad. Except the bar was just far too difficult after today. So abominably loud that any conversation has to be yelled, plenty of places to sit if only everyone wasn't standing up and they serve food, but you can't eat it due to the aforementioned everybody standing up around the tables.

So I came home instead. And had a beef chilli and a bottle of wine because A. I'd planned for it as a mega-cheat and B. it's actually been quite a tough day.

B - greek yogurt with 1 scoop vanilla, fruit compote and flaked almonds
S - Nakd bar - Berry Cheeky
L - salad; lettuce, sweet pepper, celery, capers, chicken fillet and honey&mustard dressing
S - a pear
S - beef jerky
D - beef chilli, couscous, peas, sweetcorn and a bottle of wine

Exercise - 49 minutes gym (HRmax 184, HRavg 160)

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	2246 2207
Protein (g)	175.2 (33.3%)
Carbohydrate (g)	194.2 (32%)
Fat (g)	27.3 (11.3%)
Alcohol (g)	73.3 (23.5%)
Fruit & Veg	9.0