By the time I went to bed last night, the DOMS had almost gone and there was nothing left of it when I awoke this morning, which was encouraging with this Monday AM, Wednesday PM, Friday AM program.

Got home from work this evening, fed the cat (priorities!), got changed straight away, stuck The Biggest Loser workout DVD (I’ll call it TBL from now on) in the player, and started Workout 2: warmup, strength and cooldown.

The warmup and cooldown were fine, but again I wasn’t able to do the entire main section, strength. It’s not particularly difficult, but I was halfway through it before I realised I didn’t have to hold a 2kg dumbell in each hand. My arms were dropping off, which drained me of energy completely. So ~12 mins into that section I skipped through to the cooldown and called it a day.

It’s a little disappointing, but it’s still only the first week so I’m not going to beat myself up about it. The DVD does show that two dumbells is considered hard or advanced, one dumbell (held by both hands) is medium, and the easiest option is empty hands. I’ll use one dumbell on the next strength session (this time next week) and see how we go. I’ll be continuing “Week 1″ of the program until I can consistently do a full week properly.

Regardless of everything, that was 40 minutes of time well spent. It wasn’t a cardio workout so now, about 90 minutes later, my arms and legs know they’ve been worked, rather than the lungs. It’s all good. And so was dinner and the tall glass of Orangina afterwards!

Following on from yesterday’s essay (sorry about that) where I mentioned that I did Workout 1 from The Biggest Loser – The Workout DVD that morning, I had set my alarm to wake up early this morning to start the exercise program properly. The alarm went off, I woke up… and discovered that most of my body ached in a way that I’d forgotten it could: DOMS had come a day earlier than expected. I suppose at my current fitness level even the warmup and cooldown count as exercise that would help bring it on.

So rather than try to push through it, which everything I’ve read said is not advised, I figure that yesterday’s exercise can count as “Monday” and I’ll pick it up from Wednesday PM as per the schedule.

Aching muscles or not, it feels good to have done something healthy to have brought on that reaction. And I find myself looking forward to Wednesday evening for the next wheezing session.

It’s been 2 weeks since I started using The Daily Plate, but it’s a little difficult to tell if I’ve lost much weight as I’ve decided to ignore the decimal places on my digital scales (measuring whole kilograms only)… and the weekends are proving a challenge. In the last 12 months I’ve become fond of a couple of drinks on a Friday and Saturday night — where previously I was effectively a teetotaller and lucky to average one standard drink measure a week — which inevitably leads to poor dinner or evening eating choices. While the week may be spot on or under the daily calorie limit, the weekends can be as high as 1,000 calories per day over the limit, meaning I’m eating 8 days of calories in 7 days.

As I’ve not been exercising, this means I need to be consistently eating almost 300 calories a day (or 400 a day if you exclude the weekends) just to round off the weekly calorie consumption at the right number. Of course it’s not as easy as that, as a day of excess over 100 calories can’t simply be remedied by having 100 calories less the next day, as the excess has already gone straight into fat.

So it appears that I need to do something else or something more. After all, if it was going to be as simple as that, I should now be 121kg. Clearly it’s not, so two changes are required: exercise and addressing the weekend silliness.

Earlier this week I decided to start going out for a walk every evening whenever it wasn’t raining, so I managed that a grand total of twice. The morning after the first walk (1.5 miles around my old hilly run route) I was amazed to discover that my knees were telling me they’d been for a walk the day before — I can’t remember the last time a walk gave me that reaction. The second was a new route (1 mile) with a steep hill halfway through. It’s going to be a fun route once I get to the point where I’m running and looking for a demanding hill.

Also this week I saw my first episode of The Biggest Loser (UK). Normally I make it a point to avoid reality TV (along with I’m A Spoiled Princess: Get Me Out of Here, etc), regardless of whether it’s considered a worldwide phenomenon, but it seems I made a mistake with this one. It seems quite effective as a source of inspiration.

So, to address the issue of rubbish weather preventing exercise — short of reaching the point where I’m motivated enough to “just go out” in the rain or sleet — I discovered that there’s a The Biggest Loser workout DVD. In fact, there are two in the UK: The Biggest Loser – The Workout: The Official Workout and The Biggest Loser – The Workout: New Year, New You. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s become a multi-product franchise in the US and even has its own Amazon Store.

I’ve always been leery of workout videos, perhaps being old enough to have seen VHS tapes from the 1980s with surgically-proportioned Californians wearing leotards and leg-warmers shouting “Woo, yeah!” every ten seconds. However, on Friday I took the plunge and bought The Biggest Loser – The Workout: The Official Workout DVD, which I watched through yesterday and read the suggested schedule and other information that comes with it. I gave it a run through first thing this morning (workout 1: warmup, cardio & cooldown) and was amazed to discover that I couldn’t complete the cardio part of the workout. Almost made it to the 9th minute of cardio (during the skipping rope) before having to take a break, then forwarded to the cooldown and called it a day.

There’s no doubt about it: I’ve felt brilliant all day for just that 30 minutes of exercise, and feel confident at starting it properly tomorrow morning. More to follow.

As for the weekend silliness, I think it probably dates back to my university days: I’ve always felt the end-of-week let-your-hair-down thing, where you have a takeaway and/or a few drinks. Even during the years of hardly any alcohol consumption, I’d still regularly order pizza or Chinese on the weekend. Clearly relaxing on the weekend isn’t a bad thing, but I’m beginning to discover that it doesn’t have to include a takeaway — or perhaps could include better food choices.

My standard pizza home delivery recently has been a large Domino’s Texas BBQ thin crust pizza, a tub of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food icecream and often a 1.5L bottle of Diet Coke or Sprite. Then I’ll normally have half of the pizza and half of the icecream in one sitting, occasionally consuming all the icecream in one sitting. Have you ever looked at the calories in a major chain takeaway pizza or brand name icecream?

The Domino’s website states that one slice of this pizza is 202 calories, with 10 per pizza — 1,010 calories per half pizza. The Ben & Jerry’s website says one serving of their Phish Food is 270 calories, with 4 per tub — 540 calories per half tub. So that’s 1,550 calories each for Friday and Saturday’s evening meal, excluding drinks and anything else I may have during the evening. That assumes I haven’t been stupid and eaten the whole tub of icecream,  which would make it 2,090 calories in one sitting — that’s a day’s energy intake.

The other type of takeaway I tend to get is Chinese food, but finding accurate nutrition information for it is next to impossible, as I don’t think there are any major Chinese takeaway food chains and therefore no nutritional information (the cynic in me thinks that the only reason major chains provide this information at all is because of the flurry of 1980s lawsuits when some people suddenly “discovered” how bad eating 5 monster hamburgers with secret sauce really was for them). There are some online resources, but at best it’s a guess. Looking at what may be my average Chinese takeaway of spring rolls, and half a tub (one serving) each of sea-spiced pork and chicken chow mein, it probably rounds out to about 1,800 calories. Assuming I don’t get silly and eat all of it, making it over 3,000 calories in one sitting. Though lately I’ve taken to just buying spring rolls and a tub of chow mein, making 1,000-1,500 calories depending if I get silly with the quantity.

It’s appallingly bad when you look at all the numbers, and even some of the quantities being eaten (allowing for ignorance of the numbers). I take some comfort in that this doesn’t happen every weekend, and it certainly doesn’t happen every day. Which is probably all that’s saving me.

Looking at the numbers — and laying it all out here as a kind of name-and-shame — it’s clearly a Bad Idea to have popular takeaway, and a Very Bad Idea to have it delivered when you’re home alone. Time to find alternatives, if I must continue with the “bah, it’s the weekend!” type of behaviour.

So there we have it. That’s the facts of the past and the plan for the immediate future. Time will tell if I can manage to combine both the exercise and weekend eating behaviour. Stay tuned…

Oh, and I’ve learned that if you’re on a health-related Internet forum and want to ask for advice or alternatives to weekend silliness, don’t give details or numbers. I did, and watched in open-mouthed amazement as some people went absolutely mental at me, even declaring that I didn’t deserve to consider myself a dieter and a general let-down to humanity. Still, at least they didn’t blame me for World War 2…

Since finally being able to get back into archery, I’m afraid my motivation is still near rock-bottom. From my — albeit illness-enhanced (which turned out to be H. pylori and therefore quite serious) — adult best weight of 106kg, my time off archery, gym and running, and a general lack of “caring” (at least enough to act), I’ve let my weight climb back up to 122kg.

During a chat with a friend back in Perth who’s had his weight progress as his MSN status for months now (i.e. 130/120/90 where 130kg was his starting weight, 120kg his current, and 90kg his target), he mentioned that he’d had gastric band surgery and it had changed his life — he’s lost 17kg at roughly 250-500g per week, and is progressing steadily. My half-sister also had this procedure done, when she was in her teens around the time she was diagnosed with diabetes. State healthcare in Australia and here in the UK will not cover the operation unless your BMI is 40+ unless you have other co-morbidity issues such as diabetes, high blood pressure, etc, in which case the cutoff point becomes a BMI of 35.

I’m very fortunate in that I have none of the health issues often associated with people of my weight, and particularly at my age, but my BMI is alarmingly close to 40. Hence considering gastric surgery (of some kind, as there are a lot of options) as a solution, particularly as all the exercise I was doing requires a lot of time, and that was blighted by illness and, more than once, injury. However, I’m not the type to take such a drastic route without some serious consideration and research.

If you’re unaware, gastric band surgery — often called LAP-BAND after one of the companies who were among the pioneers of the procedure, in the same way that the Crescent, Hoover and Xerox names are often used — entails a laparoscopic procedure that essentially wraps a balloon-containing band around the uppermost portion of your stomach that can be filled or drained, constricting or opening the entrance to your stomach as required. The band is connected to a tube that ends in a port that is typically surgically attached to a chest muscle below your ribcage that allows a needle to be inserted through your skin and into it that either adds or removes saline to adjust the balloon. The result is that you feel full quicker, you can’t “wolf” food down, any kind of comfort eating is more quickly satisfied, and a number of other positive and negative side effects.

There are many other gastric surgery options as well, each with their pros and cons, but from what I’ve read the adjustable gastric band is probably the least invasive, does not mandate specific nutrients and measurement (as is required with gastric bypasses), seems to have the least fatalities due to complications, and the documentation I read says that it has at least identical success in weight loss over 3-5 years to the other methods. You might say it’s the lesser of a number of evils but, as I occasionally say, the lesser of two evils is still evil. So to speak.

Part of the post-operative, life-long changes that must be made as a result of gastric band surgery are in diet and physical activity. Some people find they’re never again able to eat certain foods (some report inability to eat red meat or pasta), as indeed my sister experiences, but she prefers to be vegetarian and doesn’t miss pasta, so she’s not all that upset about it.

Prior experience has taught me that my weight can be handled effectively by taking care of my diet and doing exercise so, as I would have to do that anyway if I had this kind of surgery, I figure I may as well just make the diet and activity changes and do without the operation. It is a logical argument but it’s not perfect in that I can still fall back on my old ways. With a mother, uncle and two younger half-siblings diagnosed with diabetes, and an older half-brother who died from a massive heart attack a couple of years ago, there is a very real sense of the Sword of Damocles hanging over my head. (Incidentally, I mention that they are half-siblings only because there is also he question of inherited diseases, not because I don’t love them dearly!)

So yesterday I signed up to The Daily Plate — now owned by and integrated into LiveSTRONG (as in Lance Amstrong, the Tour de France champion and cancer survivor) — which is a collection of tools to allow me to diagnose, recommend and record my calorie intake, and is also a social network and forum community providing challenges and a sense of both belonging and of someone to hold you accountantable.

I’ve calorie counted in the past and found it too much like what I imagine accounting to be like: picking peanuts out of poo. We’ll see how TDP goes.

However, one thing that struck me today was the fact that without TDP I would have gone to bed tonight having consumed around half the calories I should have been consuming in order to lose weight (as counter-intuitive as that sounds). I’ve consistently read that in order to lose weight, you need to reduce your daily caloric intake by only a couple of hundred calories per day otherwise your body will go into “starvation mode” and not burn anything, but when you do happen to eat more in a day than you should all that excess will be stored as emergency fat. Then when you eat less calories than needed your body won’t shift it, then you overeat one day, and so on and so forth. It has made me wonder if that’s what I’ve been doing: I know I don’t each much at all, particularly when compared to those around me, and so tonight I’d have gone to bed having only had around 900 calories for the whole day. The sums I’ve done say at my current weight and activity I should be able to lose about 750g per week on 1,900 calories a day.

Time will tell. Either way, I’ll most likely share it here. Stayed tuned, if you’re interested…

It was with no small sense of trepidation that I met Tarkwin at his archery club on Saturday for my first attempt at shooting my bow since the ill-fated attempt at resuming archery last year.

That attempt led to months of pain, physiotherapy, and the unhappy expectation that I’d never be able to do archery again (never mind the other aspects of my life it’s affected). It’s over a year since that night and my left shoulder, arm and hand are still not 100%. While there is no longer any pain involved, there is a definite weakness and reduction in motor control. My natural ambidexterity is quite high, but I still find that fine or unusual motion with my left hand (turning a lock or key, crushing a can, etc) requires more attention than before.

Tarkwin had lent me his compound bow — jovially known throughout the archery world as the dark side and its practitioners as darksiders — as, although it requires a stronger initial pull than a recurve, once you pull it to full draw, the total weight on your fingertips is often a quarter of the draw weight (e.g. a 60lb compound only requires 15lb force to hold it at full draw), dependent upon the cams used.

The “dark side” moniker is based upon a number of factors, some real and some perceived:

• Reduced full-draw weight.
• Tilt level bubble to make sure the bow is vertical.
• Magnification lens in the eyepiece.
• Trigger release, rather than finger tab.
• The sense that compound is easier than other styles.
• The weirdness of the bow and attitude of the darksider behind it.
• Compounds seem to be the main preserve of sports hunters in other countries and indeed their target archery, giving it a kind of stigma here in the UK.

It’s probably partly to do with it “being different” (we are just tribal monkeys in shoes, after all) and lack of understanding of the skill required to do it properly. I saw some of the Archery World Cup on TV last year and the compound finals competition was exceptional to watch, even though I was watching it for the recurve events.

Anyway, after 8-10 ends on Saturday I discovered a few things:

• I had no pain at all, anywhere.
• My left arm was incredibly weak, which is unsurprising after over 18 months of favouring it and doing no archery or strength exercises.
• I was able to use the compound quite well, considering it was my first ever attempt.
• Now, two full days later, there has been no aching or other DOMS symptoms.

It’s going to take some practice — a lot of practice — but it might be a viable way to get back into archery, assuming that I actually am unable to resume recurve.

I hope I can resume recurve. Not just because I have 2 recurve bows and an English longbow, but because I do enjoy it. Having said that, if recurve is out of the picture and I have compound as a viable alternative, then I’m not complaining. It just means I’ll have two bows to sell shortly!

Finally got a new battery for my pedometer last weekend and wore it each working day this week, as I was interested to see roughly how much walking I did throughout my normal work week. The magic number of steps widely circulated as ideal to keep fit are 10,000 per day — about 5 miles (8km), or 2,000 steps per mile — so that was what I considered my daily target.

My normal weekday at the moment consisting of: wake, get ready, drive to work, drive a desk for 7½ hours plus one hour for lunch (nearly always at my desk), drive home, do one or more of my usual evening activities (reading, studying, watching TV, playing computer games, writing, blogging, stargazing in the back garden, etc), and go to bed. The most notable thing there is that there is no gym, running, or even much going out and doing interesting things. In all, things are in a bit of a fug at the moment.

With “10,000 a day” in mind I noted my daily and overall number of steps. Imagine my surprise to discover I didn’t even make the recommended daily amount over an entire working week. That is, I didn’t manage 10,000 steps in 5 days, let alone one day. Needless to say, it’s opened my eyes a little with regards to how I make use of my weekday free time — particularly my lunch breaks — and I’m going to look into ways of improving my physical activity before work and after work, regardless of the fact that Summer 2009 isn’t. The idea is to create something active that I do every day as naturally as waking up, not something that depends upon whether it’s a weekday or weekend, hot or raining, or subject to other planning or circumstances.

After the shock of the sub-2,000 steps per day result, I did some additional research into recommended and average steps to keep healthy. It seems that the 10,000 steps a day value is just a Big Round Number promoted by pedometer manufacturers, rather than having any basis in science. Presumably the idea was that by providing a sufficiently large target value, people would buy a pedometer to make sure they do it.

Having said that, a Harvard University study shows that as little as 6,000 steps per day are sufficient to lower the death rate:

A landmark study of 17,000 Harvard alumni suggests that men who burn an extra 700 or so calories a week by walking, playing sports, or doing some other form of dynamic exercise live longer than those who aren’t active. The health benefits continue to increase up to about 2,000 or so calories a week, then seem to level off from there. Information from a long-term study of female nurses shows similar trends for women.

The steps-to-calorie conversion is based upon the person’s weight, with a 120lb (54kg) person burning 85 calories per mile and increasing 10 calories per 20lbs (9kg) of bodyweight; a 119kg person burns about 155 calories per mile. So according to the study’s minimum, for a 119kg person (that would be me) to burn 700 extra calories per week they need to walk just 4½ miles per week, or 0.6 miles (1km) per day.

Excluding physical disability or illness, anyone can achieve that. The average walking pace is at least 3mph (5kmh), so walking just over half a mile should take no more than 12 minutes. That’s walking away from wherever you are for 6 minutes, turning around and walking back again (called an out-and-back), or a loop around the block (providing it’s a 0.6 mile-sized block). Nobody is so busy that they can’t actually set aside 10 minutes every day — after all, we all find the time to take a shower, make multiple cups of tea or coffee, chat by the watercooler, or hit the snooze button once or twice in the morning. It doesn’t have to be at the same time every day — it can be squeezed in before you head to work, before you start the working day, after you’ve scoffed your lunch, before you head home, once you get home, or any time in the evening. But probably best not done within an hour of going to bed, unless insomnia is something you want to try on for size.

So why don’t people do it? We’re lazy. We don’t realise how much such a little change will make. And for most of us, the “dying” part of our life seems so far away as to be something we can deal with later. Much later. But it seems that by spending 10-15 minutes a day in just walking, that day will be even further away.

I wish I understood motivation. I wish I understood where it went. I wish I understood how to generate it.

While chatting with a friend this morning about how long it’s been since I did any archery, I worked out that it was just over 9 months ago, in late September 2008. The same evening that I screwed up my arm.

Truth be told, the main reason I’ve not shot since then is fear of repeating that excruciating pain, and the long, slow physiotherapy process required to simply have a normal arm again. As mentioned in my New Year post, I think compound might be an option, and I’m planning on trying one out tomorrow. More to follow on this.

I then looked at the time I blogged about archery prior to that date and it was October 2007 — back when I was going to the gym 3 times a week, running 3 times a week, and doing archery 2 times a week. I was a calorie-burning and weight-loss machine, burning 3,000-4,000 calories a week on exercise alone, who was spending most of his spare time being active. I’d dropped from 118kg to 106kg and felt fantastic, culminating in the 5km Santa’s fun run.

Now 21 months on I’m worse off and heavier than I was back then, simply because I’ve lost the motivation to just get out there and do it. My running shoes are constantly calling out to me, my pushbike eyes me malevolently whenever I’m in the garage, and my bank statement proudly displays my wasted monthly gym payment, so I know I need to get back into the groove.

I know it’ll happen eventually — it’s how I’m wired. I just wish I knew why motivation ebbs and flows like this.

Slept in on Saturday — a much needed sleep in I must admit — so missed gym on the weekend. Not beating myself up too much about it; I’m just happy to be resembling a pattern of gym attendance again.

Met Tarkwin in the carpark at 7:30pm, as agreed, and I knew straight away that he wasn’t going in. He looked like death warmed up and it wasn’t entirely surprising: he’d recently stopped smoking, was using nicotine patches (which have been making him jittery and nervous), and he hadn’t slept or eaten well for a few days as a result of it. I tried to coax him into coming in just for the treadmill, cycle or some weights so his trip hadn’t been for nothing, but he wasn’t having it.

Still, I applaud him for even coming to the leisure centre. He did so just to see if he’d feel half human after the drive and some fresh air. Guess not. We chatted for a while, then I went into the gym and he went home. Probably the best thing for him.

Tonight I thought I’d increase the times and/or levels on all my cardio equipment, and was actually able to do them all in order this time. There’s no doubt that my cardio fitness is already improving, in a remarkably short time. I was able to do the cross-trainer for the full duration, albeit at the lower end of the range I had recommended to me. I wasn’t quite able to manage the full 15 minutes of run/walk on the treadmill, but came in at an acceptable 12 minutes. The exercise bike was the hardest of all, probably because I’d drained my energy on the previous two machines; though I did 9 of the stipulated 10 minutes at the lowest end of the recommended range.

I certainly knew I’d worked out once I’d completed the cardio machines. Next was the weight machines, and for them I dropped down a weight to allow 2×15; previously I’d been doing 2×10 at the full weight, but it didn’t feel as though I was progresssing. I even managed the full set of planks: 2×20s each of front, left and right.

The cooldown stretching wasn’t as relaxing as I’d have liked, as I was still reeling from the workout. I hadn’t overdone it, but I’d come pretty close. I’d pushed both my cardio and muscles to the limit, and I felt marvellous — but knackered — for it.

The next couple of days are going to be interesting. My arms resemble jelly at the moment — I wonder what they’ll be like with both jelly control and stiffness? Still, it’s all worth it.

I’ve recently bought myself a copy of The Official British Army Fitness Guide (UK|US) written, as its title says, by the British Army. Well, the Army Physical Training Corps.

I read it on the weekend, and I’m rather impressed. Unlike the majority of fitness books and resources I’ve seen, this one is notable by its conspicuous absence of gadgets and special dietary shenanigans.

I’d written almost a whole review of this book before I remember that the Amazon (UK) website already has a number of perfectly acceptable reviews. Get your review fix there, or trust me when I say this book is excellent in its simplicity, range of coverage (aerobic fitness, strength, stretching and flexibility, warmups and cooldowns, safety, cross-training, nutrition, hydration, injury prevention, equipment), and wide-ranging fitness programmes that cover everyone from those who can jog for 1 minute in 4 right up those who can run at 60-70% effort for 40 mins. I use running as an example because it factors heavily in the aerobics component (though they show how walking or cycling can be used instead).

The running part…

It’s hard to believe that it was April 2008 — and while visiting another country — when I last went for a run outside the gym. How depressing!

This morning I awoke newly-enthused, got dressed, strapped on the Forerunner, waited an age for the GPS signal to lock, and began Week 1 Day 1 of the book’s basic aerobic programme. After 4 reps of 1 minute run and 3 minutes walk I was winded, mildly sweaty and happy. Hey… I ran!

I wasn’t paying attention to my pace, though SportTracks tells me that I ran under 10:00/mile each rep (and ~20:00/mile for the walk), averaging 15:23/mile. The average pace was nothing special, but I’m pleased that I managed sub-10:00 on each run part, as it’s so much faster than my previous regular running pace. Obviously I won’t be able to keep that pace up on a continuous run, but it would be nice to improve on my previous 14:30/mile average.

So after a year or so of being part of the wider Internet running community without actually running, I’m no longer a fraud! Well, you know what I mean.

Due to some classes at Tarkwin’s archery club, we’ve switched to Tuesday evening gym for the duration. Swapping is no big deal for me at the moment, and means we can still use each other for moral support. Such that it is.

Tonight was pretty much the same as Saturday, as I kept the same weights, times and levels, preferring to allow myself to acclimatise to the new levels rather than continually adding difficulty. Seems to be working well.