Week 3 - Belief

Week Three – I’m starting to believe….

1 Year Ago....

After 19 workouts, I’m starting to see how this program of training really works...on me.  It’s been an interesting period, learning and working through this program, especially because I have been trying to generate a workout routine that fits with my work and watch keeping routine. I generally workout during lunch time, and eat a green alkalizing berry smoothie after my recovery protein shake. I’ve started saving my breakfast’s boiled eggs for snacking on between meals, plus for the extra protein I’ve been chucking down a small tin of tuna and some nuts whenever I feel hungry too.

2014 Health Challenges

40 Days Clean

It has actually been 41 days clean – no coke, no soft fizzy carbonated drinks, no alcohol. I feel great. I’m way more hydrated, and I’ve even cut down my coffee intake… Wifey will be pleased will this! My energy levels are way more regulated since I have cut this drastic sugar intake out of my diet, and reduced my stimulant intake. So, for those trying to give up their ‘vice’, it is possible – but trust me willpower only works when you believe in the end objective… 100% or not at all.

Local Coconut Water Rehydration - Yummy

Local Coconut

Power & Strength

By breaking up my workouts into a heavy day for each muscle group I’m getting sufficient physical respite before the next heavy day (usually heavier), for the same muscle group.  This means I’m starting to be able to push harder and get more from each progressive session.

Today, on Back day, I just smashed two personal bests – Landmine Inverted Row: 100kg, Deadlifts: 110kg and I managed all 5 reps each set on both! On Inclined Dumbbell Rows I worked up to 32.5kg on each dumbbell, which is also a new maximum! This is development is happening across the board, so it should be interesting when I reduced the weight a little and return to 8-10 repetitions on heavy days!

Endurance & Stamina

I believe that by increasing the number of repetitions and dropping the weight right off, I’m working my muscles differently and the ‘pump’ of doing multiple repetitions is developing a new level of endurance. This is really improving my muscle stamina. It’s getting harder, and in this rotation will push me to knock out up to 30 repetitions. I think this is a huge element in how the ‘shred’ of fat tissue will also occur. I’m not looking forward to this final phase of the third rotation. 

Speed & Fitness

So the High Intensity Interval Training, between each set is really making me feel fit. It’s turbo-boosting my heart rate and my workouts are really pumped up as a result of it. This, coupled with the awesome power of Oxyshred has really made me heat up during my workouts. My speed during spinning, rowing and cross-training has been dramatically improving, although between day 4 and day 6 I struggle a little, but I think this may be mild fatigue! I’ve spinning at around 0.7km per minute, which is like 42kph! So, in 1-minute bursts, for around 15 repetitions, I’m busting out 10km, which is pretty intensive! From a fitness point of view, I’m really starting to see additional fitness gained from doing cardio sets of leg press, and seated calf raise with comfortable weight. I’m feeling stronger in my lower body, especially with all the stairs and long, tiresome rounds I conduct as a watch keeper.

Week One Reflections

Week One – Progress?

It’s only when you take the time to look back at where your journey began that you realize how far you’ve actually travelled. What you think you’re doing, seeing and achieving is probably so much less that you really are. Not a believer? Well, you and me both…until now. To help me demonstrate why I believe now, I’m going to look back over my life (briefly) and reflect on the development as I initially see it and then I’m going to delve a little deeper and prove that the things I personally take for granted are so much more valid than I realize. I want to share some of my secrets with you…..

Why? – Honesty.

I want to be honest. Honest to you, Honest to me. I want you to know. That, and the fact that I’m feeling the reflection and I believe it’s a good time to share – after all “sharing is caring”. I often feel the twang of non-development and guilt for not pushing harder, and as such I lose sight of how far I’ve come in retrospect for how far I still have to travel. Another reason I want to share is because I’ve been holding this in for many years and now I’m letting it out.

My Health & Fitness

In terms of my health, I’ve never really taken it seriously until recently. As a kid I played football (soccer), ran long distance and participated in Royal Navy Cadet sports such as Field Gun. I was encouraged to be active by my parents and enoy it. I was always motivated by movies such as Rocky and the (original) Karate Kid. A an adult I worked out irregularly in the gym, played squash and spent many years teaching and competing as a kickboxer. I don’t think I can remember a time post 18 years old where I didn’t have a belly and excess body fat. One of my oldest friends back in ‘Old Blighty’ used to say she was proud of how far I’d come (of course I never took it on board) – I was the guy who ate dunkin donuts and coke for breakfast, with a cheesy garlic bread chaser, in 1997. By 2000, I’d kicked the donuts and garlic bread but I never realized that until recently…

 I spent my twenties teaching scuba diving, which although physically demanding has a particularly fun and active social side – meaning excess drinking, eating and partying.

As a consequence, my late twenties arrived pretty quickly (in the haze of youthful alcoholism) and I landed in Sydney (after a few drinks on the 24 hour flight) – the most body-conscious city I’ve ever known as a fat heavy drinker. I weighed 118kg but I was loaded with body fat, visceral fat and was not in great shape. Bending to tie my shoe laces caused me to break into a sweat (no lie) and I’d frequently end up huffing and puffing after a short walk up stairs to my apartment. It didn’t improve until I met Winnie. She was healthy, very healthy. She trained Taekwondo and swam fairly regularly. She inspired the change.

My Diet

In terms of my diet, I was always fed nutritious meals at home. Portion sizes were massive and I was raised to clear my plate. Seconds never really happened because we were served big enough portions to leave no excess. Every meal was a mountain to climb. Every bbq was more or less a challenge where survival of the fattest/hungriest would win out. That said I was raised to enjoy veggies and salads (and I make a pretty awesome salad – thanks for that Nanny Marg!). I’ve had a sweet tooth as long as I can remember, and crave sweets, lollies, chocolate, ice cream and fizzy soft drinks. It’s not easy giving those things up. As I grew up my hunger grew too, therefore my portions kept growing too I guess. Then I reached legal age to drink alcohol. Welcome the fun of pubs and bars, enter the beer belly. Dang! Well as I mentioned the diving era was very sociable and as such I drank a lot. A lot is an underestimation. I was binge drinking by modern standards, most nights. Now, almost a decade later, I drink irregularly and I’m proud to say I consume no more than 1-2 drinks per week (more like per month) at medicals I may attend. The other side to excessive drinking, was that I’d stuff myself silly with pies, sausage rolls, chips, kebabs and other unhealthy junk foods late at night, prior to going to bed.  Now I eat a sensible, gluten free restricted diet and rarely consume alcohol. I take dietary supplements and supplements for my training regime. It seems like a huge waste of money to consume those and then ruin it with binge drink/eating.

The Present

I’m deployed. I’m focused, driven to succeed – I’m a proudly serving member of her Majesty’s Royal Australian Navy. I apply myself and test my limits every day. I work hard and smart. I train hard and often. I eat well, with occasional rewards and treats. I usually share them with my fellow watch keepers – which reduces my potential intake and keeps me satiated with small tastes of my favourite things. I stick to my planned training routines and never quit. I have developed a self-actuating mentality and I’m determined to succeed.

In my life I’ve always lived with no regrets. I still keep myself honest with this, but now I look at my own life with a greater appreciation for the present.

The Past is History, The Future is a Mystery…but the Present, that’s a Gift.

SO now, I’m 95kg and I’m not bothered about my weight. I’m bothered about transformation. I’ve been working hard to make 2014 my year of transformation. I have travelled so far, I’ve done a full 360 on who I was, and I’m loving the person I’m becoming. Today for instance, I worked out in the gym. Granted I was motivated by Rocky 3, and the Eye of the Tiger is playing in my head right now, and I pushed harder. The result was an awesome workout, Arms and Abs day flew by in a blur. My arms kill right now, and my body is sore – but that’s making me feel more alive.

I’m the luckiest man in the world. I have a super wicked awesome family, a pretty cool job that I enjoy and the best wife ever. She supports, motivates and inspires. She challenges me and gives me a reason to be better. To prove how good I am to the world. I Love my darling, little bear.

Personal side to my journey has been even more epic, and I’ll save that for another day….

My Goal – Moving Forwards

My biggest, most difficult goal is to transform my life, my habits and my thought processes to being healthy and active. For my future family, I wanna be the kind of dad who runs around with, plays games with and enjoys the journey of bringing children into being. I don’t want to be restricted with aches, pains, excessive blubber. I don’t want my future teenage kids to be ashamed of me, to think of me as a poor role model. Na-uh. I’m going for the opposite.

I want my wife, my family and my kids (one day) to be proud of who I am, where I come from and where I want to be.

“In defence of my country, I will make my family proud”

Next….

Three Questions

To finish, I’d like to pose three questions for you. Take them on board and use them at will for any aspect of your life. It helps me and its part of my meditative practice to mull over them:

1.     What have I learnt?

2.     What am I learning?

3.     What am I yet to learn?

Challenge yourself, push hard but remember looking back to lubricate your journey onwards from now is vital.

Looking Back to Move Forwards

Days 24-28 Easter Burnies!

Easter Burnies

Well, what a weekend - spent with my amazing wife! We did heaps of fun fitness activities, and had lots of quality time together. I love my wife, she's my One in a "Minion"... lol :)

My Awesome-ly NERDY Wife!

Climbing

So, Good Friday, was really good. Winnie and I woke up, went for an early run, nothing crazy just a nice easy 5km run. I t was good to get a nice leg blast first thing in the morning. Took us just over half an hour (31:03) and we were running at a fairly comfy pace of 6:03 per km (9.9kph).

Nice Wake Up? Cool Running Pants!

After a nice breakfast (huevos rancheros) that I prepared for my awesome wife, we headed over to St Peters to the  Sydney Indoor Climbing Gym, for some climbing fun. We decided this would be an ideal way to catch up with Mr Hon and and his bro, so we met them there and got straight into climbing and catching up with whats been going on for us over the past few months.

I wanted to upload a video, but blogger seems to be struggling post easter...I will add to Facebook / you tube at some stage... or if I can Blogger - I may need to edit it to be a smaller movie.... sad face :(

Just so you know....The video I had put together was edited, but I'm not great at that, and was pretty shaky due to the Go Pro being on my hand (goodman handle) whilst climbing or belaying. 

Climbing Video Link

Between this climbing session and the last (pre NEOC) I have increased strength considerably, last time I struggled to do some of the climbs, and especially hauling my fat ass up the overhangs! This time, I made light work of most, but some tested me still. Winnie and Mr Hon made all the climbs look easy!

It was good to catch up and do something active at the same time. Good upper body workout, lots of sweat and a few slips due to sweaty hands.... fun fun fun!

Ocean Swimming

Saturday morning, Winnie and I met up with our Bruv - Ironman - and  went for a little ocean swim. Initially, we were due to swim at Malabar, but weird swells and rips made it look like a washing machine...interesting for my first proper ocean swim! So we headed over to La Perouse for a gander there... the bay, inside of Botany Bay, near to the cafe on the beach (the boat shed) was ripply but calm enough to have a go.

Of course, Ironman was in his triathlon swim wetsuit, whilst Winnie and I were in out bathers - oh yea I hit the ocean in my speedos! I swam, rather struggled to swim 1km, which was 4 lengths of the bay, in pretty chilly water (reminiscent of ocean temperatures in summertime in the UK) in 36:58 which wasn't too shabby - but way slower than my normal Cerberus pool lap speed!

It was good to get our training done early, so we could enjoy the new Captain America movie at IMAX in Darling Harbour. A great afternoon wind down!

Killer Arms

Sunday morning, well most of sunday was spend doing fitness and fun fitness. In the morning, Winnie took me to Maroubra Junction Fitness First (on a guest pass). In return, I pushed her and I through a long arm workout, using the cables and free weights. We worked triceps and biceps to death!

A short while after returning from the gym, we picked up Winnie's  dad to take him with us to Centennial Park. He set off on a walk around the perimeter whilst we went for a run. We did 8km (just over two laps) in 47:20 at an average pace of 5:51 per km (10.2kph). It was good to get the extra kilometres on my legs, and practice my slightly slower than normal pace for long runs... although Winnie thinks its slow due to running with her, but I disagree! I'm trying to get my pace and heart rate to be consistent on long runs - My heart rate didn't exceed 145bpm and my pace was slower, so next run I want to see if I can push my heart rate up a touch without going too much faster....I know what I'm trying to achieve.... I think!

Crank It Suspension Fun

After a light snack with the Fong-Girls (and Archie), I set up and started trying out our new Crank It Suspension training kit. Its basically a slightly improved TRX set up and so we did the usual stuff then Ms Pole and Winnie were doing some Pole moves using the kit, then Ironman was demonstrating some fancy strength moves... We were having quite a lot of fun, whilst getting an all over workout.

Ironman being Ironman

Me trying to be

Me doing a weird chest press..

When I got home my arms were throbbing, and I was feeling a pretty good ache to let me know I'd given myself enough. I dosed up on BCAAs and some aminos and ate some yummy food (sushi) with Winnie and her dad.  A great way to finish our easter holidays!

I like this, its got depth.