All pain, no gain

What a weekend. We had visitors descend from the north and they stayed for several days and we ate food, drank wine (and limoncello) and did very little. OK, not quite true.

On Friday I still did the session in the park at lunchtime, dragging one of the visitors along for the ride. They enjoyed it, despite it being more than they had done for a long time. We followed that up with lunch out, which was only slightly naughty and dinner that night was roast chickens and cauli-rice, so nice and low carb. Dessert was a low-carb version of a fantastic French chocolate cake. Yummo. So food-wise it was not too bad at all, but the beer, wine and limoncello sure added a few carbs and other unnecessary calories. I did over-indulge but not to excess as I didn't want to be a wreck in the morning.

Saturday rolls around, and I'm up fairly early, even after a late night. Some of us decide to go for a walk in the hills, so a quick & easy breakfast is prepared - fruit salad and yoghurt. Sigh, not a low carb breakfast, but at least it's full of fibre and other goodies. We head off to the hills and spend about a hour admiring the views and chatting. On arrival home I whip up a quick frittata packed full of protein and yummie goodness. With a salad on the side it fills a gap and is a nice hunger buster until dinner. More wine and limoncello follows, I do a nice Asian chicken noodle soup for dinner which is chased down with a chocolate cake from the depths of hell! Another day of over indulging. Isn't it easy to fall off the wagon and just keep bouncing along? To be fair, I am trying my best with the food, but when everyone else wants to participate and provide, results become mixed and varied. Another late night, feeling seedy from the food and this is the first day of my pain that could be a horrific end to my 20 week challenge.

Sunday morning. Nothing planned today as people are heading home at various times and it's raining. My blood sugars are way high and get dealt with pretty quickly. I haven't had a high morning like that for weeks and weeks, so it felt like a hangover but was resolved with a glass of water and a decent dose of insulin. The real issue is a recurring 'injury' I have which has flared up during Saturday is is fully painful on Sunday. I won't describe it to you as it's not pleasant and if it's bad enough to stop me talking about it here, you really don't want the details. Suffice to say that any activity is exceedingly painful. Sunday is quiet, we slowly empty the house of people and dispose of the evidence of a weekend of excess. I begin to panic a bit.

This is the last week of the challenge and if I can't do my final fitness test at 100% then has it been a waste of my time? Obviously not, as once I'm better I'll still be stronger and fitter and so forth, but that's like knowing all the answers to the final exam the day after you take it! I have less than a week, 5 days total, including today, to get prepared. I'm going to take it real easy today, put my toe in the water tomorrow and see what happens, then re-evaluate from there. Hopefully things will be much better and I can look forward to the end of the week and the final exam. I know that even at 80% I'm still going to blow my previous results away, but it won't be the real results, and that'll piss me off.

Sigh.

Cramming hurts

Week 19 of 20 and I fully intend to almost do myself harm this week.

• Sunday - hell session, weights @ home
• Monday - even heller session, more weights @ home
• Tuesday - DropAndGiveMe20 session in the park, focus on upper body (ouchies)
• Wednesday - Bike to work (and back) + another session in the park, focussing on legs (more ouchies)

And in-between I have been sneaking in some dumbell raises before bed and when I get up, plus some chin-ups. I'll go for a run tomorrow, plus another home session, and another park session on Friday, then I have a weekend of laziness due to visitors descending on us from northern isles. Sigh, a weekend of sitting, talking and drinking limoncelo. Thankfully I'll be doing all the cooking so can limit the food-based damage so as not to have too large a hurdle for the last week.

Am I happy yet? Yes, not perfectly happy, still not as fit and trim as I'd like to be, but I'll need a lot more discipline to achieve that. Once the 20 weeks is up I can slow down, steady my pace and see what happens. If I can maintain and improve as the year goes on, I'll be a happy boy come summertime. 

Cramming has begun

On Saturday we started the last 2 weeks of the diet plan, meaning I could eat some dairy again, and have a glass of wine with dinner. I don't miss my potatoes, pasta, rice or bread, but it's often damn hard to snack without the carbs. Stupid convenience. We did some measurements and I'm still losing my tummy, which is good news, and my weight has remained under 100KG, which is also good news. My head cold is pretty much gone, and fitness levels are way up.

Sunday was supposed to be a hill walk/jog up Rapaki to compare to our times 18 weeks ago, but just as we were about to head out we got a phone call saying it was hailing and minutes later we received a downpour as well. So, we postponed. Instead, I asked Tracey to give me an upper/middle body workout. Her eyes lit up, she rubbed her hands together and made a weird cackling noise and slunk away to the exercise equipment. Moments later I was give a short circuit to do. Just 3 laps, 60 seconds on, 15 seconds off. I only have a hazy memory of the order of the activities, I was pretty busy sweating and swearing at the time. 15 seconds to collapse, recover and relocate is nowhere near enough time!

I started with mountain climbers, an exercise that is easy for 30 seconds, and not so easy from that moment on. Being that it's a prone hold with actions, I suck at it, but managed it for the full 60. From there we moved on to some kind of squatting, dumbbell swinging thing which wasn't too bad and allowed a bit of recovery time. Then a new one, push-up T's where you have a dumbbell in each hand, using them to do a push-up, and once up you lift one arm up into the air as far as you can, then back down again, alternating arms each time. This was tough. Then we have barbell raises/rows using a bar with a ton of weight on it. Again, 30 seconds is fairly easy, 60 is unbearable. Back down and doing more push ups, but this time raising the dumbbells to your chest after each one, left then right. My core was screaming at this point. Almost impossible... Explosive squats with dumbbells, ahhh, only mildly painful, almost peaceful. Then it was pull-downs, an exercise I find relaxing, until 45 seconds have rolled by, then I find it painful. Then the last exercise of the circuit, inclined push ups. With feet on the bench, hands on the ground, do push ups. Stupidest exercise ever. Despite it being actually impossible, I managed to do several, about 15, before I expired. 

Then I had to do it all again.

And again.

3 laps was deadly. My arms and guts knew I'd been working them hard, very hard, and were advising me they wanted to rest now. During the session I hated it, but afterwards I couldn't help thinking that it had been over pretty quickly (under 30 minutes)

Would I do it again? Yup. Tonight in fact. When I get home I'll be back on the floor sweating and swearing. I think a week of hard-out sessions like this, then a week of more gentle sessions should have me well prepared for the final weigh & measure. Hopefully I'll retain the use of my arms, time will tell!