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NTA

Flew to Adelaide Wed/Thu for my grandmother's funeral. Sad occasion (made me think of Dad) but good to catch up with family I hadn't seen for years, who were all genuinely happy to see me. So it finished on a high. Plus a road trip behind the wheel of a Commodore SV6 which was nice to drive, even though it was only about 150 klicks each way out of Adelaide.
 
The scales weren't thrilling reading this morning - 97.1kg - so its time to genuinely get back on the horse instead of lying to myself while eating chocolate. 
 
I've entered this year's City to Surf here in Sydney, 14km run from the east side of the City to Bondi - up Heartbreak hill - in August. This is my long-term goal.

In the meantime I need to restore my core strength, up the body weight work, and start off doing some sprinting work to build the leg strength. All this muscle work should help shed the fat (with an appropriately sugar-free eating plan) to drop the weight in the first instance. I don't fancy going for a 10km run at anything above 95kg to be honest. Nor should anyone.
 
Weight goal by end of May is under 90kg. So I'll need nearly 1kg per week which I haven't done since the very early stages. So this will be a test, and I think the secret is to build into it rather than try to smash it from day 1.
 
But I seem to say that every few weeks...

mooshld

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I don't fancy going for a 10km run at anything above 95kg to be honest. Nor should anyone.
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This.
 
I ran two half marathons when I was at 106Kg. Times of around 2 hours 15. Could barely walk for days afterwards
 
I run a half now at about 1 hour 30 at 78Kg Genuinely have no idea how I finished 30 kg heavier.

NTA

96.2kg, Chest 110, Waist 102, Hips 107. Bit of work to do there.

NTA

Dropped a piece of timber on my foot today while wearing my Maori safety boots (jandals to you lot). So decided not to run today. Instead did some body weight:
 
Dual set of 5 x pull up + 10 x pushup then rest: 3 sets
Dual set of 10 x 10kg sandbag lift* + 10 push up then rest: 3 sets
Tuck jumps x 10: 2 sets
 
Took 13:19 to complete that. Trying to concentrate real-world exercises with explosiveness - hence the tuck jumps, which are hard for a fat bastard with no ankle flexibility to squat properly, and therefore no technique. But it was tough.
 
* Not sure what to call this, but basically I have a 10kg bag of gravel that was meant to go on the garden. Start in a deadlift position, bring to chest while standing, then press up. Take it back down in reverse order until it touches the ground.

NTA

Charity cricket for work yesterday, played at the local indoor arena under indoor rules. Won one, lost one to the eventual winners. Fuck!

Anyway, I've now got a few niggles to add to the sore muscles from Saturday night, but to all come good for a run tonight if the rain holds off

NTA

Decided to recover instead of running. Toe is still a bit bloody from the timber I dropped on it. Might get a walk in tomorrow and see how it holds up

NTA

Another quick body weight work out tonight:
 
Dual set of 5 x pull up + 10 x pushup then rest: 3 sets
Dual set of 10 x ??kg paver lift* + 10 push up then rest: 3 sets
Tuck jumps x 10: 2 sets
 
Time was 13:52.
 
Bleah - too much resting time
 
 
* Same type of lift as the other night, but the 400mm concrete paver is probably not 10kg ...

NTA

So after karate on Tuesday which I didn't mention, I wasn't doing a lot of exercise leading into the weekend, because I had a hike planned.
 
The last two years a mate and I, sometimes with others, hiked the trail up around Mt Kosciuszko which is quite a unique environment. Both times we'd done it in summer, and since then the prick moved to Adelaide (his missus has family there) so I had to recruit new people and go later in the year. Can be a bit of a risk with the potential for early snow but mostly it was the low temps and rain that were the issue. They'd had a couple of inches over the previous day so it certainly was damp underfoot.
 
This time, not knowing the experience levels of those involved, I was a bit hesitant, and sure enough a couple of them looked completely unprepared. Thankfully the two lasses along were pretty positive (not to mention HAWT) and took everything in their stride. The two guys along were pretty chilled too, and I could always play the trump card of "man up, princess" if needs be.
 
The weather was closing in a little though so I decided we should ditch the tents and stay in Seaman's Hut, which is an emergency shelter for people up that way (<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaman's_Hut'>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaman's_Hut</a>). To get there the road is pretty easy (the National Parks guys use it for access) so it took a bit over an hour to cover the 6km. Not before time either as cloud shut down all the way past us at 1600m. I was only carrying a fly and ground sheet for my shelter so would have gotten fairly damp I reckon. The hut has an old pot belly stove, so we stoked it up and my companions broke out the red wine, Sailor Jerry, and Honey Bourbon, and along with some random guy who was already at the hut for the night, cooked up a meal and didn't get to bed until after 10PM. He didn't know what hit him.
 
I was the only one of our group with an air mat, and I only got about five or six hours' sleep. Had to duck out for a piss at 3.30AM, and was disappointed that the cloud hadn't dropped enough to reveal stars. Still, when we woke up at 0530 (DST having checked out) it was well fucking worth it. Breakfast, then a walk up to the highest public toilet in Australia before hitting the summit. Then nearly 13km back to the car, with the last climb of 110 metres done in the space of about 600m (18% gradient). I have climbed that hill three times in my life and am unlikely to do it again. Particularly while carrying a pack.
 
Total moving time over the two days was approx 3 hours and 5 minutes, covering a distance of just over 22km. Lot of fairly gentle slopes but some of those big climbs with a 20kg pack on is a stark reminder just how hard that shit would have been to a fatter version of me.
 
The fact that I also had to do close to 7 hours' driving at either end was quite the mental challenge, but besides one instance of getting noddy behind the wheel, I blitzed it. The X-Trail seated all five of us and never had a bad moment.
 
Couple of photos: one is an old road marker from when the road was publicly accessible. Its had a twitter filter applied to it.
 
In the second one you can just see the red roof of the hut left of centre, then if you look just to the right of the rock outcrop above that, the tallest hump in the distance is Kosciuszko itself, a bit under 2km away as the crow flies.

NTA

On that hike I must have strained my left glute a little, as I was feeling it when I went for a run tonight. It started to really heat up, all the way down to my calf, about 400m in. Pushed through to 1km but had to stop at that point and walk home (which was most uncomfortable). No more road work until that recovers...

NTA

Glute feeling better, but decided to avoid overworking it and did some weights at home instead:
 
Deadlifts x 20 @ 45kg
Wood choppers x 10 each side @ 18kg (using a dumbell - shoulder to hip) 
Bent row x 10 @ 45kg
Weighted lunge x 10 each side holding 18kg in each hand - left leg struggled as I think the glute isn't keen on activating
 
5 pull ups
10 pushups
5 pull ups with full hang and pause
10 push ups with full pause at the bottom
10 half down pull ups
10 pushups
 
Then punched out a few of the Goju Ryu Kata: Chudan, Gedan, Kake Uke, Gesai Ichi, Gesai Ni.
 
Those kata really make you sweat when you haven't warmed up using actual karate.

NTA

Odd bit of exercise here and there, but mainly relaxing for the week off. Got out to the Royal Easter Show to reconnect to the farmer boy roots, but spent most of the time minding the kids while they went on rides. Can't complain - at least they're at an age now where we don't have to carry them or push a pram! So I stepped on the scales after what you'd call a pretty good week feeding in the top paddock, and have to say I was more excited last time I was 99 kg, as it was on the way down. Got on the bike and hammered out 21.65 km in 56:03 (23 km/h) and felt better. Lots of water and protein today, and severely limited overall intake, with as little sugar as I can manage. Time to get all Spartan again if I want to get back near 90kg by the time my birthday rolls around in June

NTA

Easter Sunday involved chocolate, but I only had one beer and plenty of water.
 
This morning did 3km in 16:27, which is crap but my left glute was giving me gyp again in the first km so I moseyed on and was happy to go under 5:30 per km.
 
Got home, stripped down to shorts and hopped in the pool. Which was fucking cold, but good for muscle recovery I'm told. I stopped sweating pretty much as soon as I got up to the calves!

NTA

Body weight without tonight using a 10-1 theme: sets of 10 then 9, 8, 7, etc Pull ups - cheated hard starting on 8. took 12 minutes anyway! Push ups - 6 minutes Tuck jumps - 7 minutes The hardest thing about tuck jumps is taking a break. Serious oxygen debt.

NTA

Run tonight was awful. 3 km but just never got going. Took 16:47! First two klicks were almost 5:40 but pulled it back one I got my second wind in the last km

NTA

Couple of weeks just getting back into things with the dodgy glute and eating whatever chocolate is left :) Bit of karate now school term is back, and a run tonight - 3 km in 16:23 which if back up to 11 km/h. Fairly happy with that and will look to extend to three days this week before starting to build into 5 km

NTA

Karate last night was good, except my calves were quite upset with me over Monday night's run and decided to fuck with me. Consequently, the run tonight not so much fun either. Got to 2 km in 11 minutes then decided to walk another km home.

NTA

Been a fortnight since last update. Not much going on except pushups here and there, abs, and a couple of karate sessions, including grading to my green belt which now puts me into intermediate levels. If I want to grade further I have to start doing tournaments and shit so we will see how that works out. Went for a run tonight - 3 km in 16 minutes even. Realise now how sick I must have been last time I went running.

JK

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Matt Dunning! <img src="http://www.daimenhutchison.com/rugby/public/style_images/master/attachicon.gif" alt="attachicon.gif"><a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.daimenhutchison.com/rugby/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=1671'>uploadfromtaptalk1389318949284.jpg</a>
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Heard dunning on the radio today and he said he lost about 35kg over the first 4 months did it primarily due to diet which was a protein shake for breakfast and then another for lunch (said 240cals each) and then a proper dinner but restricted to 600cals..... no wonder he lost weight. 1100 or so calories is dammmmm low! Worked tho.

NTA

Yeah that is moderately insane. Still, if it shifts the weight you gotta be happy, provided you can deal with the maintenance once you're at goal weight. Weight has been going between 98-99 lately. Really got to sort myself out mentally, so this week I'm starting back on the calorie counting to rein it in, and planning the exercise better. We are having some fucking awesome autumn weather here so no excuses

mooshld

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="NTA" data-cid="429990" data-time="1400677889">
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Yeah that is moderately insane. Still, if it shifts the weight you gotta be happy, provided you can deal with the maintenance once you're at goal weight. 
Weight has been going between 98-99 lately. Really got to sort myself out mentally, so this week I'm starting back on the calorie counting to rein it in, and planning the exercise better. We are having some fucking awesome autumn weather here so no excuses
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Catch the slide before it gets out of control NTA. Its a long way back I use old photos of myself at my heaviest to convince myself I need to buckle down. Works every time.

The Silver Fern

Project X