Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Clarification

Clarification on Dehydration ( makes a good rhyme ;p ). I mentioned in an earlier post that I was wildly de-hydrated after lots of trainng in a sweat suit, but didn't make it clear that I'm not deliberately de-hydrating myself. I'm drinking gallons of water, but I have a natural tendency to drink too little, and I'm always really dehydrated first thing in the morning. So, I promise I'm not being too silly :)


Training's going .... O.K. this week - I'm working hard, but I'm totally knackered and feel like a great big Pile 'O Shite. I'm hungrier every day, and really really tired, but it's having the desired effect. Weighed in this morning at 10 stone 3.2, which brings me down to about 64.75 kilos, and I think I could reasonably have reached 1o stone / 63.5 kg by next Monday. That gives me almost 2 weeks to lose the last 2.5kg.

And, AND! It's Thursday tomorrow! No training! Resting! Spaghetti Bolognese! There is only one bad thing about Thursday: it's almost Friday, which is 6 whole days away from Thursday.

A x

Monday, January 28, 2008

Ah HA!

Wooooo!

Monday Morning Weigh-In: 10 stone 4.6/65.5kg ... 4 lbs off, which is nearly 2 kilos :)

My measurements are also down about an inch everywhere, which brings my BMI down to 23.4 and my bodyfat down to 20.7%, which is OK for a woman.

This is starting to look more achievable...

Huzzah!

Sunday, January 27, 2008

urg....groan....

It's been a week of ups and downs with the weight-cutting, but I think I've pretty much got the hang of it now.

Wednesday, I cycled to and from work, but the cycle home was a complete nightmare: heavy head wind, driving rain. I was soaked and miserable by the time I got home, following a ride that was nearly twice as long as it would normally be. After that, I was sorely lacking in energy, and for the first time since Saturday, my body noticed what I'd been up to and started shouting "OOOOOOOOW! ME HUNGRY! ME SORE! ME WEAK!!!!". I can honestly say I've never felt hunger like it - really deep and serious hunger. So, I cracked and went about 600 calories over for the day, but didn't feel I'd had much choice.

Thursday is a rest day anyway, and not having anything to do in the evening is always a killer if you're dieting, so again, 400 calories over.

Friday, back on the wagon, didn't cycle to work, and cycled rather than ran to training to ease myself back in, but trained in a sweat-suit, and kept to calories.

Saturday and Sunday, more of the same. Lots of cycling, swimming, running, training, drowning myself and by-standers in sweat (pleasant for all), and when I weighed myself this evening after training I was 10 stone 5. Tomorrow I'd expect to be much the same as although I'm carrying food in my body at the moment, I'm also wildly de-hydrated, so that'll balance out over the night.

Official weighing and measuring day is tomorrow, so we'll see what the official loss of pounds and inches is this week, and hopefully I'll beat it this week coming.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Philosophical Question.

How do we cope with the innate uncertainty of life?

People tend to get stressed out by day to day uncertainty, I know I do. Not knowing what is going to happen in the next hour, or next day is something that I find difficult.

What am I teaching next? Where am I supposed to be at 4.30? How do I get to the hairdresser's? Are you coming over or not?

A study, used as an explanation for the shocking statistic that the average life-expectancy for a teacher post-retirement, [assuming they have taught for their whole career] is 9 months, showed that rats exhibit higher levels of stress when faced with uncertainty than with greater effort.

The rats were split into two groups, and measured for stress levels when running on a treadmill. In the first group, the rats ran quickly, but for a set length of time every day. They, I think, were also played a tone at regular period so they learned how much longer they had to run.

The second group ran less quickly, but for different lengths of time every day, and without a beep to tell them how much longer they had to go.

The study showed a higher level of stress in the rats that ran slower but never knew how long they'd have to run for.

So why, therefore, do we find it so difficult to cope with day-to-day uncertainty but have no problem with the knowledge that we have no idea how long we have to live, or what will happen next?

Anything could happen tomorrow - something terrible, like a terrorist attack, or a death in the family, or your husband or wife leaving you. Something amazing could happen: you could win the lottery, have an epiphany, inherit a fortune. No-one knows, but we're ok with it.

Why? Do we just not think about it unless we absolutely have to? If we all walked around, fully aware of the uncertainty of life would we live the same?

We tend to assume that everything will be the same tomorrow - the sun will rise, we'll live another day and everything will work out in the end. Is that optimism, or denial?

I promise I'm not being all depressive, but it's not something I've truly considered in any deep sense before.

What do you think?

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Good start

3 days in and the diet is going well. So far I haven't gone above 1200 calories per day regardless of exercise and I'm starting to see some results on the scales already.

Monday am - 10 stone 8.6
Ran for 50 minutes in a sweat-suit, trained 5 x 3 on the double pads

Tuesday am - 10 stone 7.4
Cycled home from work, 30 minutes (not *to* work because I'd left my bike there a few days ago), Cycled to and from training, 35 minutes
2 hours training in sweat suit (double pads, skipping etc)

I feel..... pleased that I'm showing so much self-control, but bloody tired. But I'm always tired, so I can't blame that definitively on the new routine.

Let's see how another night of training affects the weight and the tiredness. Looking forward to Thursday as it's my night off from training - hurrah!

A x

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Christmas Karma

Newton's 3rd Law of Motion suggests: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Newton was a clever chappie, we know this because he discovered gravity and made up a fantastic game about apples, so we can trust him on this one. Now, because I too am a clever chappie I've made own Law, based on Newton's work:

If you eat like a numpty for a month and do no exercise, you will have to suffer in equal quantities to the amount of enjoyment you had whilst slobbing out.

I had *alot* of fun slobbing out. I ate chips, ice cream (many flavours), Thai, Indian, burgers, toast, full-fat cheese, chocolate, crisps... pretty much whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it. Admittedly it wasn't all fun - I was aware of the changes to my body and I really, really wasn't keen, but I needed to get it out of my system after a full year of non-stop dieting and fight training.

Now, to make weight for this fight, I am going to have to really, really suffer.

This week I'll be conducting my very own weight-loss experiment. The kind that I would never recommend, because it's daft, but at least I know this, and Paul is warned and I'm well-prepared.

For one week, I'm going to be eating the calorific equivalent of Fuck-All, and exercising a Shit Load, and we'll see where we are this time next week. I'll be eating 1,200 calories per day, which is my normal amount, but I usually add on my exercise calories and eat those too (as is only right and proper). This week I wont be taking exercise into account. I'm going to eat 1,200 calories and be burning off about 1,000 through exercise. This is very silly, however, those 1,200 calories will at least be very high protein, low fat and heavy on the fruit, veg and lean meat, so it will be at least healthy.

I've actually already started, today, and I think I can handle it, but I'm going to be grumpy, tired, depressed - this I know. But, to be fair, what's new in that?! I'm always grumpy, tired and depressed, so maybe I'll at least be skinny as well.

My plan is to document my progress this week, share my exercise and my diet for one week and how it affects my mood and energy. It's been done before, sure, but not by me.

So - Sunday 20th January - 10 stone 9.4 - 1,200 calories in, 40 minutes cycling, 40 minutes running, 60 minutes training in a sweat suit. Tired, but not starving.

Sunday, January 06, 2008

2nd Time Lucky...




As you might recall, last year I was supposed to have my first fight on the Ladykillers show in May along with 2 or 3 other girls from the gym, but pull-outs are common and my opponent pulled out at the last minute, leaving me both in the lurch and in a very, very bad mood.

Well, several of us SMTC girls are matched again this year on the Ladykillers II, and here's hoping that we're all still matched when the day comes, because I know we're all keen to go down and fight with some different gyms, on what is a very unusual show, given that it features an entirely female line-up.

Women are obviously less common in this sport/martial art (that's a debate for another time!) than men, and our fights tend to be fewer, further between and subject to greater change. Because there are fewer opponents, therefore there are fewer options when your match falls apart, and many many women miss out regularly on fights because their opponent pulls out and nobody can be found to take their place in time. So, 6, 8, 12 weeks of training are not put to immediate use, a match is made for a show in another couple of months time, and you carry on training.

It's something you're supposed to get used to: every fighter will experience it many times, and at the last show I basically acted like a twat because I was disappointed. So, whatever happens this year, I promise not to act like a twat. I think that definitely needs to be one of my New Years resolutions: not to be a twat.

But between now and then, alongside my ongoing war with twattery, I mostly intend to train my ass off (metaphorically and literally, because it's currently HUGE), and do the best fight I can on the 16th.

Cue Rocky music...