A recap on my health and personal fitness goals 2018 (14 months in)

I wanted to write a review of where I am with my fitness approx. 14 months in after hitting the lifestyle change hard. Overall, I’ve lost about 2.5 stone consistently, which isn’t far off my target. I’m happy that what I’ve actually done is set in stone a lifestyle change which will do me well for the rest of my life. I have however, hit a plateaux, so I wanted to kick start further weight loss by changing things up a little whilst remaining consistent. I put huge amounts of effort into diet & fitness, but I’m becoming a bit fatigued and lazy with this period, so need to push further. I have fallen into the 80/20 trap of being consistent and good 80% of the time always but allowing myself time off. The problem with that is I haven’t yet reached my goals, so the weight was remaining static because I’d be looser on dinners especially over the weekend.

Things have to change again.

So to recap my overall health goals are to ensure I lose around 3-4 stone of permanent weight now I’m in my late thirties. I’ve gone from 19.3st (I’m 6ft) to currently 17.5 which stays pretty consistent. I’m solid with this, it’s been lost correctly and I’m happy. I want to change the shape of my body including my stomach area, chest and back. I achieve this (slow) change through approx. several hours of medium to high intensity cardio a week and properly executed weight training. I try to have 1-2 rest days usually at the weekend. Unless I do a physical outdoor run, whereby it’ll be a minimum of 5k (23-27 mins), on average 7-10k (45-59 mins) and a Sunday 16k run.

From a diet perspective, I eat properly portioned macro-nutrient controlled meals for breakfast and lunch with a balanced meal in the evening which I keep mostly light. I don’t drink during the week, as a rule, ever. At the weekends, (despite what it looks on Facebook) I would only usually consume 4-7 units over the course of a weekend. I say only, this still isn’t good, but it’s what I consume. I also never eat sugar, don’t drink carbonated drinks, (my go to drink is water) and I’m (if I do say so myself) a beast in the kitchen so all my food is natural, fresh, awesome quality, often self-grown with nothing pre-processed ever. I don’t snack on crisps, I don’t like chocolate and I don’t have a sweet tooth.

Sounds bang on right?

I’m doing lots of things inefficiently though which includes having a somewhat unbalanced carbohydrate intake at the weekend, (where I relax a little), I ignore little enhancements I could make to my day to day intake which would be more suited to my goals, for example I eat too little during the week which encourages binging at the weekend. I also know through genetic screening and incredibly detailed body mapping provided by my own company (lifely.io) and in conjunction with DNAFit I know exactly foods I should avoid (for example, I react quite badly to carbohydrate generally with swelling and rapid weight gain) but all of the above was mostly ok because the weight was falling off. Visit here for a full breakdown of this data or read some of that report analysis here

It’s stopped.

So I need to move.

I want to benchmark what the impact would be if for 90 days I completely did everything right 100% of the time. Would this kick start my weight loss again? Would I uncover more about my bodies physiology? How would my approach to my goals change? Could I lose more weight? Remember I’m not totally drilling down into my Macro Nutrients and I’m not looking at building lean muscle mass par se. I also know (again through screening) that I’m predisposed to potential cardiac events in later life and I have increased risk of a raised HbA1c leading to T2 Diabetes so my diet is specific for me, and because of that, some of the usual rules of a weight training diet for example, aren’t quite right for me.

Anyway, here’s what a typical week looks like for me (always consistent, never missing a beat);

Daily Mon-Fri Breakfast 75g plain porridge oats with milk, raisins, and a piece of fruit (usually an Apple or mostly unripe banana)

Lunch – Full macro nutrient prepared with an appropriate amount of protein, carbohydrate, fat. (often this would look like Chicken, Kale, with chili, and green beans or Grilled fish, spinach, lemon and dill with Carrots & Broccoli – you get the idea)

Post workout snack on the way home  – Tinned fish (Mackerel, Tuna, or Sardines)

Evening meal – a small-medium post workout recovery meal with the odd treat.

I hydrate appropriately drinking between 2-5 litres of water a day, 7 days a week. Never a problem.

I underpinned the above with the occasional protein snack and for when I’ve done extended periods of weight training I take on additional whey protein in liquid form.

I’m not a massive tea or coffee drinker, but maybe I’d have 1-2 cups a day max. No sugar. Semi Skimmed milk.

Weekends

Breakfast – either the same as the week or on a Sunday a cooked grilled breakfast

Lunch – Always quite healthy, but often increased carbs and always some type of bread.

Dinner – A take away, or a lazy large comfort dinner, maybe pasta, sauce, and bread.

Alcohol – Typically two-five beers on a Fri, 2-4 large Gins Saturday, very occasional drink on a Sunday.

Now you don’t have to be Joe fucking Wicks to know my weekends are killing my progress, hence why we’re at this 90 day test. So what am I doing? I’m basically taking my week routine into my weekend, stripping alchohol completely and keeping carbohydrate reduced to its absolute minimum.

Next Steps

I’m going to eat several small meals a day to accommodate the lack of Carb’s and ensure my workouts are completed at the best time for my body. (I know I’m better to often do Cardio in the morning, and weights in the afternoon when my body temperature is higher and therefor I get better performance from my body). I know I need to fuel my body more effectively so I’ll pay more attention to the frequency to which I eat. I’ve accidentally (because I’ve been busy with lifely.io and my day to day client work with Rexel) stopped drinking tea & coffee too, so I’m taking caffeine out of my diet completely also.

Carbs will be almost none existent (whilst this is a traditional mistake as carbs are not the enemy but for me, they are a bit more than the average bear, so I’m seeing how I feel with minimal carb input over the course of three months).

I’ll be concentrating on pre and post work out fuel and ensuring my evening meals are smaller including across the weekend restricting my calories to around 1900 per day. I’m in danger of two things, massively under-eating, and over-exercising with not enough rest so I need to work on that but that’ll come.

Your help?

What more can I do, what more should I do? Have a comment, you an expert? Fill me in. Talk to me on Twitter (@mariodc) and let’s see if I can shift two more stone. Follow me on Instagram (mariodc) Oosssht.