We are now into the first weekend of August, I am back at work but only have two weeks left of my current job. I'll be moving back into the personal training world after a week's holiday at the end of the month, and my life will be en route to where I want to be.
Over the last few weeks I have been getting into regular training, but haven't posted the workouts as I have been playing about trying to improve my speed, strength, stamina and skill. I now feel that I'm beginning to get there. I have also been on quite a strict diet to help improve my recent ill health, it also has the benefit of guaranteeing weight loss.
The diet is from the book Eating Without by Barbara Cousins that aims to tackle a number of health complaints. The principle is to cut out all of the things that can stress the liver and digestive system, allowing your immune system to return to full function. Currently I am dairy, yeast, gluten, caffeine and alcohol free and make sure I steer clear of added salt and artificial additives of any sort. My diet consists of meat (limited amounts of red) and fish, vegetables and fruit (trying to limit to two portions a day, but struggling with this!), nuts and seeds, water and herbal tea. Sounds hideous, has taken some adjustments, but has been surprisingly doable! The time when I struggled the most was when we were out for a picnic for someone's party. We were assured there would be fish etc, so hadn't bothered preparing anything ourselves, when we got there it was salmon encroute and lots of other lovely stuff that I couldn't eat! It was miserable, I won't lie! For me I either need to be far more prepared or steer clear of the temptations all together! However, I have been doing this for three weeks now, coupled with the exercise, and I am 9lbs lighter, which I assure you helps to keep you motivated. I am pretty sure that I'm feeling better in myself as well, but it's hard to distinguish from feeling so bloody virtuous!
In future I am going to post my body measurements and some key exercise measurements once a month or once every other.
Saturday 7 August 2010
Monday 19 July 2010
No. 4: The One With The Resources
Just a quick post to share with you some of my favourite resources on the web:
- CrossFit (www.crossfit.com/www.crossfitendurance.com)
- One of the best fitness regimes around and also one of the best free resources on the web
- I wholeheartedly agree with their philosophy to exercise and nutrition
- Posts a workout every day, has forums, journal articles and great instructional videos
- www.bodybuilding.com
- Enormous online resource for free & isn't just bodybuilding, but fitness in general
- Great workout and metric tracker and free training/nutrition article library
- Bodyspace hosts a huge online community for support and inspiration
- www.bodyrock.tv
- Great catalogue of home workout videos with some nutrition information as well
- Has a workout video every day with people posting their scores
- Peak Performance (www.pponline.co.uk)
- More sports performance and sports medicine oriented and generally quite in depth and scientific, but a great resource if you're that way inclined
- Good articles and forums
Happy browsing!
Sunday 18 July 2010
No 3: The One With The Hows
I have decided that I will put overviews of everything in this blog with more detailed information about my training and how I'm progressing on bodybuilding.com. It is a great, and free, tool for tracking your training and your body metrics, whether you are aiming to lose weight or to increase size, it can all be logged there. And if body building isn't your thing, don't be put off by the name as there are plenty of users who aren't body builders either and there is a huge amount of information on all sorts of training. My username is garethunderhill and you can search for me in the bodyspace section.
I will aim to keep posts more short and sweet in future, but this will remain a place for my ramblings. As I develop my skills at this and get more into it, I will use various methods for updates. You can post comments and questions to this blog, or to my Gmail account if you wish for more privacy, which is greu79@gmail.com. I will put stats on bodybuilding.com as mentioned above and will update any interesting information, news and events to twitter where my username is @greu79. And, if I get really carried away with all of this, I may well start posting videos on youtube, where my username is garethunderhill.
No. 2: The One With An Excuse, An Epiphany & A Start
So,
this first update comes a bit late, correction: a lot late. I have managed to come down with a virus and then have been suffering with "post-viral fatigue" for a month since then. This has meant that the start of my new lifestyle hasn't quite panned out as expected, however it has given me plenty of time to contemplate and has led to some more drastic action.
As mentioned before, I have been working in an office environment for the last year and I think it's safe to say I haven't flourished in that time. Far from it in fact, and I think it's no coincidence that it has led to this low point in my health and wellbeing. It has led me to make some changes and as of September I will be working back in a gym as manager on a part-time basis, taking some exercise classes and trying to set up other bits of related business. It will put me back into an environment that I love, mean that I can be more active and allow me to work much closer to home. As with everything, this is no perfect scenario as I am taking a pretty hefty pay cut, so we are having to tighten the purse strings, but I'm positive that given time I can turn that around. It's all about priorities as they say.....
Importantly, and potentially more relevant to the point of this blog, is the fact that I have started making small inroads into becoming more active again. I worked out both days of the weekend last week and have just done the same this weekend. I would have liked to complete some workouts during the week as well, but had under estimated just how out of shape I have become and paid the price in terms of pain! What they call Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) almost crippled my arms, a typical man response I know! To be honest, I'm not sure if I overdid it or if I was too slack on warming up and cooling down properly. Pretty poor for a personal trainer, but it is a lesson learned and I'm hoping I haven't repeated the same this week.
this first update comes a bit late, correction: a lot late. I have managed to come down with a virus and then have been suffering with "post-viral fatigue" for a month since then. This has meant that the start of my new lifestyle hasn't quite panned out as expected, however it has given me plenty of time to contemplate and has led to some more drastic action.
As mentioned before, I have been working in an office environment for the last year and I think it's safe to say I haven't flourished in that time. Far from it in fact, and I think it's no coincidence that it has led to this low point in my health and wellbeing. It has led me to make some changes and as of September I will be working back in a gym as manager on a part-time basis, taking some exercise classes and trying to set up other bits of related business. It will put me back into an environment that I love, mean that I can be more active and allow me to work much closer to home. As with everything, this is no perfect scenario as I am taking a pretty hefty pay cut, so we are having to tighten the purse strings, but I'm positive that given time I can turn that around. It's all about priorities as they say.....
Importantly, and potentially more relevant to the point of this blog, is the fact that I have started making small inroads into becoming more active again. I worked out both days of the weekend last week and have just done the same this weekend. I would have liked to complete some workouts during the week as well, but had under estimated just how out of shape I have become and paid the price in terms of pain! What they call Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) almost crippled my arms, a typical man response I know! To be honest, I'm not sure if I overdid it or if I was too slack on warming up and cooling down properly. Pretty poor for a personal trainer, but it is a lesson learned and I'm hoping I haven't repeated the same this week.
Ramble over! I hope to have as many people join me on my journey soon and also for them to share with me theirs.
Sunday 13 June 2010
No. 1: The One That Explains Why
I am a personal trainer. And I'm getting fat!
Let me clarify this a bit; I currently work in Health & Wellbeing for the police and my job is working towards keeping everyone else fit and healthy. However, because it's office based, because my commute takes me over an hour each way and because I have a young family waiting for me when I get home I'm getting less fit and healthy, instead more fat.
Now I know that this mirrors the reality of many people's lives, but when I worked as a personal trainer, I just did not have a clue! Don't get me wrong, I'm very good at what I do, but I just haven't faced these challenges myself before. So here I am, at the point that many people reach; deciding that I need to turn my life around!
This blog is my way of sharing my story, of keeping me on the straight and narrow, and hopefully of inspiring others who have been trying at this for a while and need some help themselves. I'll be sharing my exercise, my nutrition, my thoughts and feelings, my successes and failures.
Hopefully you can join me along the way.
Let me clarify this a bit; I currently work in Health & Wellbeing for the police and my job is working towards keeping everyone else fit and healthy. However, because it's office based, because my commute takes me over an hour each way and because I have a young family waiting for me when I get home I'm getting less fit and healthy, instead more fat.
Now I know that this mirrors the reality of many people's lives, but when I worked as a personal trainer, I just did not have a clue! Don't get me wrong, I'm very good at what I do, but I just haven't faced these challenges myself before. So here I am, at the point that many people reach; deciding that I need to turn my life around!
This blog is my way of sharing my story, of keeping me on the straight and narrow, and hopefully of inspiring others who have been trying at this for a while and need some help themselves. I'll be sharing my exercise, my nutrition, my thoughts and feelings, my successes and failures.
Hopefully you can join me along the way.
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