My excuses are invalid.
I stopped training three times a week at the start of June having achieved results I has happy with based on how I started. Stopping then made sense as I had a few things on in June that were just going to make things difficult. Then there was work which meandered between intermittently stressful and disruptive so training and proper eating went semi out the window (the diet hasn’t descended to where it used to be but i’ve started taking too many liberties), then I injured myself and then and then and then and then….
See what I did there? I explained it all away with excuses. This is unacceptable to me so it’s back on the wagon. I’ve joined a gym locally which i’ve started going to and i’m far more active now than I was before. I’m making the Sunday group session a regular fixture of the week (it’s great fun) and i’m generally doing way more stuff. It’s the diet that’s slipped a bit. Bread at lunch, a fascination with raspberry ripple ice cream and not enough preparation.
I’ve seen the good side through hard work and now i’ve caught the start of the slide back to complacency. This is a good thing, i’ve been educated enough through this process to realise what’s about to happen and i’ve been educated enough to know now what to do.
My excuses are invalid, I made the time and put in the effort once before with tremendous effect. If you’re making excuses, there’s a good chance they’re invalid too.
Update: Great minds think alike. Paul just posted this.
@markhamnolan (in blue) and myself (panned out on the ground in black) at the Sunday Session.
Source: facebook.com
Back to work!
I started back at the Sunday group sessions three weeks ago. June sucked to be honest, I think there was something on somewhere every weekend or I was in a car heading to Cork. What ever it was, I was never in Dublin and it annoyed me. I quite enjoy the group sessions so it’s nice to be back in some sort of a pattern, even if it is once a week.
I brought @markhamnolan along to one two Sunday’s ago too. He played a blinder in fairness, having gone mountain biking on Friday, road biking on Saturday and then having everything else beaten out of him on Sunday it was a strong performance! He probably didn’t want to speak to me for a while afterwards but ten days later, he’s smiling so it can’t be all that bad :)
I’ve joined my local gym too, I’m pumped for next week when I go back to the Monday/Wednesday/Friday sessions. There’s a lot to be said for the three session week. Apart from the total obvious benefits of faster results, greater fitness etc, the more subtle benefits like feeling better, having more energy and all that…they all add up, even if all you notice is that you’re generally more positive about your daily grind then it’s worth the hassle. I’ve noticed that it’s something i’m missing now, and there’s only one way to fix that.
I know a few people who have discovered Paul and Body Rock Performance in the last few weeks and it’s really cool to see them all going for it. It’s not easy. This I realise as well as the next man. @krystlehealy, my better half, is going in for her first session tomorrow morning. Props to @SusanO_M who is bringing her along while still feeling the pain from being in week one.
I might see if I can get one of them to do a guest post…hmmm :)
Down, not out.
It’s been a while since i’ve posted anything. Things have been all over the place for a while since the start of June. Not a good enough excuse I know but things will start to get more regular next week.
Circumstances have changed a bit since the beginning of June. I had been working closely with a client from their offices for the last 11 months so when I started this whole change it meant altering my patterns in an already foreign work environment. The client was extremely supportive with time (I wasn’t in the office until 1030 three mornings a week) but i’ve moved back into my own office again and the old routine that existed in there is long since dead.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, with change comes opportunity. It’ll just take a while to bed in I think.
It’s been almost 4 weeks since I was last in the gym too. I’ve been active enough despite this, the bike has seen some action and the diet has stayed decent. Not as super clean as before but good. I haven’t put on any weight. In fact, i’m still getting lighter but much at a slower rate.
This “break” was planned for a while. June was always going to be a busy month for me as work was expected to be a bit bumpy and I had some travel on the cards. Our rough plan moving forward is to re-establish the physical routine. I actually miss it if you can believe it but the weekly sessions are really worth the effort. I’m going to join a gym locally here in Dun Laoghaire (I tried joining one that was right by the office but in hind sight it was a really bad idea, i ended up loathing the place) and start up the three work outs a week, probably at the same times. Paul will set the routines and i’ll aim to start classes instead of 1:1 sessions except for maybe one a month to track some metrics and see how progress is going.
The back of this was broken in May, following through doesn’t feel like it’ll be such a big deal. It’ll be tough but i’ve seen what it’s like from inside the trenches. Perhaps perversely, I quite enjoyed it once we got going :)
Here’s to an active July!
So, what’s all this about?
I’ve gradually been getting heavier since the winter of 2007. I blamed a lot of things but rarely myself. How on earth could it be my fault? It all came to a head in October 2011. I had a bit of a health scare and things got a darker in my head for a while. I’m not a psychologist but I’m fairly sure I slid into a depression for a few months.
By the time I was finished with doctors, I realised that avoiding action was entirely in my control and not theirs. Step one was my physical condition. It just had to change. To look at me you might not have thought it but I was obese for sure, as much as 60% fat in some places and 115kg (254lbs) at my fattest, which was in February this year. How can I do that? I tried the gym, I lost interest. I needed help, so that’s what I went looking for.
If you are here looking for the TL/DR version then you’ll be interested in the results so far.
For the more curious, I suggest starting at the beginning and reading up the timeline from there.
As I write this, it’s been 7 weeks since I started down this road. The results have been astonishing from my perspective, both physically and mentally. I’m a very different person to the Adam that walked into a gym in March wondering what I should do to try and fix myself.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask me here or find me on twitter.
Lastly, thanks to the people who really helped start me off on this path, they know who they are. I owe them a lot more than I’ll ever realise I suspect.
Meet Paul…
As has been obvious from previous posts, I wasn’t alone when I was doing all this. The brain that cracked the whip in the gym and changed how I think about my body was Paul Moran of Body Rock Performance (www.brp.ie)
I got in touch with Paul in March this year (after a stellar suggestion from @krystlehealy) and he suggested I drop by his gym in Sandymount for a chat. I think it was two days later when I went to see him.
To be clear, I didn’t have a clue what I was going to ask him. All I knew was that I was seriously overweight and I had to do something about it. We had a very frank chat for 35 minutes and without going hard on a sales pitch, Paul was able to highlight a few home truths about nutrition and how the body works. We spoke about a potential schedule and I signed up on the spot. The deal was simple. I do everything I’m told for 6 weeks (eat what i’m told, work out when i’m told…everything), we hit the gym hard every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and the results will follow.
It’s important to point out that I needed professional help with this, I’ve tried to take myself on before but I never had the motivation or discipline for it. I’m a big fan of the “right tool for the job” mantra and its something I can happily be accused of practicing my entire life. In this case I needed instruction and I certainly don’t know enough about this stuff do go it alone.
Paul has built his business on having these expertise and that fact was abundantly clear after a few sessions with him in the gym. I’ll also say this; he hasn’t been wrong once since I met him. Everything that I was told would happen if I put in the work has happened and it’s given me huge confidence to carry on and make this the start of something big for me. Even more critically, that confidence gives way to trust and ultimately respect - remember that you’re the one putting yourself out there in order to change or better yourself. If you can’t trust or have confidence in the people you bring in to help you then you’re already at a loss.
If you’re on the fence about doing something similar, or you’re already super fit but need some strength and conditioning for something, get in touch with him. Bullshit aside, Paul & BRP has made me think very differently about how I look after myself.
Apologies for the total bullshit sales video but it’s the only one SunWarrior had on their website. I asked Paul about my increasing hunger demands and he knocked me up one of these right at the end of our last session. It did actually work, with a bit of discipline I should be able to make lunch times without munching on a load of fruit in between meals.
And for the record - it is not that tasty! :)
Source: sunwarrior.com
Burnout is about resentment. It’s about knowing what matters to you so much that if you don’t get it that you’re resentful.
Measuring up.
So, after 6 weeks* it’s time to measure up. I wasn’t quite sure how this was going to go down to be honest. I do still feel my body changing and getting smaller but I also noticed it getting a bit harder to shift kilos as I feel a bit more static a lot of the time now. This is no reflection on actual % fat loss by the way as muscle has been coming on steadily too. As has been explained to be several times before - it’s not about the KG, it’s about the % fat!
The numbers here show the drop in fat at 12 positions on my body over the first 6 week period and the corresponding weight loss. My blood pressure is also down a bit and my diet is way better :) The eagle eyed will notice that my calf measurement went up a bit at the end. The medial calf here indicates growth hormone levels and sleep quantity & quality, something i’ll be keeping an eye on.
*Over the course of this initial programme, I was out with the flu for 3 sessions, which ended up being a week, hence week six’s measurements were done on the first day of week 7
My name is Adam McCarthy. I'm a 30 year old software engineer and i've been overweight for years. It took a little nudge from a medical scare and a thump from the common sense stick to realise that I had to change something. This is a record of what's happening as I try to change my lifestyle.
