OK, I haven’t updated the blog for a while. Truth is, I got blown off course somewhat. Life, stress, distraction…

I fell off the wagon for a few weeks, and paid the price. I’m back up to 15st 7. That’s a definite step in the wrong direction, given that I’d managed to get down to 15st 4 at the beginning of April. I’m nonetheless still more than half a stone lighter than I was in January, so I can still claim progress overall. Now it’s time to get back on track and make another significant step in my weight loss journey.

This is the start of Week 17, which should have been the penultimate week of Phase 3. The target was to hit 15st 3 by the end of Week 18. Truth be told, I don’t think I’m going to achieve that now – shedding four pounds in the next twelve days isn’t going to happen. So, instead, I’m going to scrap that plan and commence a new phase instead. This one is slated to be 8 weeks, taking me well in to June. The target is to drop below the 15st mark by the middle of the year.

Now, in one sense, that’s much slower overall progress than I had planned at the beginning of the year. At that rate, it may be the end of the year before I drop below 14 stone, and it could be the middle of 2018 before I get down to 13st. But…so what? If it takes a little longer than originally planned, then so be it. What matters is that I get there, not how long it takes. And I do still plan to get there.

To start getting the weight off again, I obviously need to get calorie intake back down. So I plan to replicate the phased calorie reduction pattern of Phase 1:

Week	Target calories
1 (17)	3000
2 (18)	2750
3 (19)	2500
4 (20)	2400
5 (21)	2400
6 (22)	2400
7 (23)	2400
8 (24)	2400

It worked before – I got seven pounds off in eight weeks last time, so hopefully it will work again.

On the fitness side, I haven’t let things slide quite so much. I’ve been steadily building up the trampoline work, and I’m now doing 9 x 30sec stints, so I’m still on course to be doing 10x 30secs by the end of Week 18, which was the original target. Still very moderate of course, but I have a plan to build that up to 10x 60 seconds with 30 sec rest periods by the end of this eight week phase.  

Week	Sessions	Stint time	Rest time
1	9	30 sec	90 sec
2	10	30 sec	90 sec
3	10	40 sec	90 sec
4	10	50 sec	90 sec
5	10	60 sec	90 sec
6	10	60 sec	60 sec
7	10	60 sec	45 sec
8	10	60 sec	30 sec

That still won’t be enough to make me ‘fit’ of course – a very long way from it – but I’ll be considerably less ‘unfit’ that I was on January 1. Again, progress is what matters, not the speed of that progress. By Midsummer I’ll have completed the ‘rehab’ stage, and in the second half of 2017, maybe I can go on and actually start to get just a little bit ‘fit’. There are different ways I could tackle that, but one simple option might be to build up to sessions of 20 or 30 mins nonstop on the trampoline. There’s the bike too, which I still haven’t touched since that last disastrous attempt. Maybe I could do a mix of both trampolining and cycling on different days….anyway, I’ll see how it goes. Let’s get this eight weeks finished first.  

Strength is pretty much unchanged, though I have been a little negligent with the weights too, but I’m still able to do the same reps / sets as before.   

So, on with the show.   

Into Week 13, start of the third six week phase. Current stats are as follows:

Weight: 15 st 6

Gut girth: 45.5 inches / 116cm

Yes, I've ended up putting  a pound back on - I let the diet slip last week. Well, it was my 40th birthday after all. Still, 15st 6 was my original target for Phase  2 and I've still managed to achieve it - so I'm not too unhappy.

Fitness-wise, I have to say I don't think I've gained very much. Still, I'm steadily building up the trampoline work, which has to be done slowly to avoid aggravating that hamstring. I'm still only doing 30sec stints, but this week I'll be doing five of them, and by Week 18 I'll be doing ten. Then in Phase 4 I'll steadily increase the length of the stints, from 30 secs apiece to three minutes apiece. I'm also supplementing the trampoline work with a short session of the light aerobics and, as before, I'm, doing cardio 3x per week and weights 3x per week.

So, targets for this phase. Hm. Well, I'd like to say 15st 1 for the weight. That would mean a full stone off from my starting point, and one third of the way to my final goal. Buuut...I'm not certain I'll make that. So I'm going to say 15st 3 as a 'minimum satisfactory' achievement, with 15st 1 as the 'ideal' target. Yes, I know a lot of people will say I'm not trying hard enough, but I say better to set realistic targets that I've got a very good chance of meeting, rather than ambitious ones that I may not hit - that would just be demotivating. And so long as I'm getting lighter over time - even if only slowly - that's still progress, right? I'll only really have failed If I'm no lighter at the end of six weeks than I was at the beginning. So long as I'm making progress over time, doesn't matter if it's slow. It only matters if there's no progress at all. 

As for fitness...well, again, no ambitious targets.  The target is simply to be doing ten 30sec trampoline stints per cardio session by week 18 (and maintaining the rest of the cardio session at the same level as before, so 15 mins of light aerobics for a total of 20mins exercise). That sets me up for the increase in intensity I'll be targeting in Phase 4.

Strength is holding steady. I'm now benching 56.5kg for sets of 7  - which means a theoretical 1RM of 68kg, or 150 pounds. Modest enough, but close to my starting point of 70kg / 154 pounds - and I intend to get back to that starting point in this six-week phase. All other lifts are the same as before and again, the target is simply to keep them that way.  

So, on with the show. 

Into the last week of the second six-week phase. Weight on Monday morning was 15st 5, so slightly ahead of target for this phase, and ten pounds lost since the beginning - almost a quarter of my original target of 42 pounds. Strength seems unaffected in most lifts, and in terms of the bench press, I'm making progress back to my starting point - currently lifting 56.5 x 6, which gives a theoretical 1RM of 66kg, but I'm steadily working towards 58 x 7, which would give me a theoretical 1RM of 70kg - right back where I started, but hopefully at a stone lighter in body weight by the time I reach that point.  

Where I am falling down is on the fitness side. I haven't made much progress there. I am steadily increasing the trampoline work, though, and the hamstring seems to be handling it. Right now I'm doing four 30sec trampolining stints as part of my 20 min cardio session, but I'm increasing that by one stint per week, so by the end of Phase 3 I should be doing ten stints per cardio session. Then in Phase 4 I'll increase the length of the stints gradually, so that by Week 24 I should be doing sets consisting of three mins of trampolining, one min of rest, 5x in a 20 min period, plus an extra ten mins of light aerobics after that. Even that will still be a relatively modest workout, but one I couldn't have hoped to have attempted on January 1.

So, I do have a plan on the fitness side, while on the weight loss and strength sides, everything is pretty much going to plan at the moment. Very slow progress, but definite progress - especially on the weight loss front, where I'm almost a quarter of the way towards my goal

Haven't posted for a while due to work pressures. Suffice to say, weight last week was 15st 7, and this week it's 15st 6. That meets the target for this six-week phase, with still this week and next week to go. Any further loss would be a bonus. Still moving in the right direction, a bit at a time.

Beginning of week 9. Weight this morning was 15st 8, and that’s been the case for the last three days, so I think I can say I’m back on target. All good in that respect.

I completed all three cardio sessions last week, but not to full intensity – I was resting that hamstring. Fortunately it seems better now – still not quite 100%, but getting there. I intend to re-introduce the trampoline this week, but only in very short bursts (30 secs) to start with.

Strength on the bench press seems to be getting back to where it was. I introduced a little extra work last week which I think may have helped a little – a set of ‘strength’ press-ups (5 reps with feet elevated) and a set of ‘endurance’ press-ups (30 reps from the knees) – performed Mon and Fri after three sets of bench press and two sets of dumbbell overhead press. Deadlift strength seems unchanged.

So, a reasonable week overall, but I need to get back on track with the fitness – last week I coasted at best. That was due to the injury and wasn’t a serious setback, but I’m keen to start making progress again on the fitness front.  

Well, weight has bounced around a little this last week. On Tuesday I was back up to 15st 11, by Friday I was down to 15st 8, by Sunday I was back up to 15st 9 and this morning I was 15st 10. I know these fluctuations do happen, and it’s got nothing to do with fat gain or loss. I certainly didn’t lose three pounds of fat between Monday and Friday, then gain two back by the following Monday. So I’ll see how things go over the next week before I start to make any assessment of whether I’m making progress. I have to admit though, it is a bit frustrating to see the scale weight in the same place it was a fortnight ago. Last week my calorie average was a touch over 2500. If I haven’t lost any scale weight by this time next week, it’s really going to be time to rethink the diet.     

Other than this, it’s all pretty much proceeded according to plan, except that the trampoline seems to be straining my right hamstring. I think I might have to lay off it for this week and then reintroduce it slowly.

So, overall, not the best week. I’ll see how the next one goes. 

Beginning of week seven, and the start of the next six-week phase. The aims for this next phase are a) to keep on losing weight, and b) to further increase fitness.

In terms of the first aim, the target is to drop below fifteen and a half stone by the end of the six weeks. I only need to lose another four pounds to reach that goal – and maybe my goal should be more ambitious – on the other hand, this one gives me a margin for error. If I go a week without dropping any weight, it doesn’t knock me off track – so long as it doesn’t happen more than twice (assuming I lose one pound per week on the other four weeks). If I lose any more than four pounds, I’ll consider that a bonus.

I plan to achieve the second aim mainly by increasing the intensity of the 20-minute cardio phase. I’ll do that mainly by introducing short bursts of high-intensity exercise, following the HIIT principle. For the ‘intense’ exercise, the choices are hitting the heavy bag at an all-out pace, or simply jumping / flat out running on the spot.

How much intense exercise? Again, I’m going to introduce this very slowly. By the end of the six weeks, I intend three minutes of the twenty to be flat-out intense exercise. That may not sound a lot, but I’ll increase it further in the third six-week phase.  The 3 mins is in total – I won’t be doing 3 mins in one burst (not really possible – the point of ‘flat out’ is to be going so hard as to only be able to keep it up for a short time, 30 secs or so). So 3 mins equals six flat-out bursts or ‘sprints’ over the course of the 20 mins.

So:

Week 7	Week 8	Week 9	Week 10	Week 11	Week 12
.5 mins	1 min	1.5 mins	2 mins	2.5 mins	3 mins
1 burst	2 bursts	3 bursts	4 bursts	5 bursts	6 bursts

The rest of the session will be a mixture of light and moderate cardio. For the light cardio, I’ll keep doing what I’ve been doing so far, such as the light aerobics. For the moderate cardio, I bought a small trampoline last week. I’ve tested it out and it is indeed pretty moderate exercise – harder work than the light aerobics, not so hard as the flat-out stuff. So a typical session will be a sort of circuit – switching between light cardio, moderate cardio, and a few intense bursts of flat-out cardio.   

I’m also toying with the idea of increasing the overall length of the cardio session – maybe to 25 minutes – but I’ll see how I go with the increased intensity first.  

With regard to the weights, I aim to keep doing what I’ve been doing. Current workouts are as follows:

Workout A

Bench press – 3 sets, 6-8 reps

Heavy dumbbell overhead press – 2 sets, 8 reps

Squats – 2 sets, 20 reps

Light dumbbell workout (lateral raises, rows, overhead press, curls, French press) – 1 40-50 rep set of each

Workout B

Deadlift – 2 sets of 5 reps

Dips – 2 sets of 8-10 reps (these are light / cheat dips – still too heavy yet for proper ones)

Heavy dumbbell rows – 2 sets  of 8-10 reps (intend to replace these with pull / chin-ups when I can, i.e. when I’m light enough to do them again )

Squats – 2 sets of 20 reps

Light dumbbell workout (lateral raises, rows, overhead press, curls, French press) – 1 40-50 rep set of each

I alternate the two workouts, so on one week I do Workout A 2x and Workout B 1x, the following week I do Workout A 1x and Workout B 2x. It’s a pretty minimalist programme, I know, and I’m aware it wouldn’t be much use for bodybuilding or strength gain – but that isn’t the aim. The aim of the heavy stuff is simply to preserve existing strength. When the weight and fitness are sorted, I’ll worry about stepping up the weights and gaining more strength then. The one exception is the bench press – the lift where I think I’ve lost a little strength – I’m compensating for that by gradually increasing the weight and number of reps again on a week by week basis, but I’m still not doing more than three sets. The other heavy lifts I’m not trying to progress on, just maintain the status quo. The aim of the light dumbbell routine is to increase upper-body muscular endurance, and so that routine is progressive. I’m currently doing one 40-rep set for each of the five exercises. When I hit fifty reps, I’ll add more weight and drop back down to 20 reps – then build it back up to 50. After that, I’ll probably go to two sets of 30, and build that up to two sets of 50…that will be over a period of several months, though.     

Well, there’s the goals and the plan. Let Phase 2 commence.