Monday, May 26, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Reading a book while working out
I was watching a girl reading a book on the cross trainer tonight at the gym.
Just put it down for goodness sake and work out!
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Tuesday morning check-in
I've got a bit lazy with writing my food diary. It actually does get a bit boring after a while. Actually, that's the wrong adjective. It gets a bit too much of a commitment to blog every day, maybe several times a day, on exactly what I've eaten. So here goes:
Monday
Yesterday, went to the gym. Did 45 minutes of exercise. That's not bad. Also a shoulder weight exercise. But mainly cardio.
Got home, had salmon and mange tout.
Friend came round for an hour, un-announced at 10.30, so we had some wine (maybe 2 glasses for me), then a midnight snack before bed - a wholemeal roll, with turkey, coleslaw.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Food diary for Sunday (& today so far)
Sunday evening
Not a great food day on Sunday. After the Vietnamese noodles, I had a few beers in the pub, finished off by a slap-up Chinese restaurant feast. Too much beer. Too much greasy food.
Monday
7am Porridge & coffee.
10am Skinny Latte.
1pm Tuna sandwiches (burgen bread) and bean/tuna/kiwi fruit salad.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Food diary: Sunday (so far)
I woke up today about 11am (it's a Sunday, so that's ok).
So far I've eaten:
- Porridge
- A coffee
- 2 boiled eggs on toasted burgen bread, with soy sauce and blue cheese.
Divorcing yourself from the drink
I stumbled across this website today, and it really came at a good time for me.
I wrote a short article, which is as yet unpublished, on whether I should reduce my drinking. Am I an alcoholic, is the main question I ask myself. Though increasingly I'm thinking it is an irrelevant question.
Sid Richmond's story, Divorce, talks about his observations of people's relationship with Alcohol, including his own.
I relate to that. I like to drink in the evening. Not (usually) a lot, but just enough to forget. To numb me.
Thanks Sid, good inspiration.
Food diary Saturday 17 May 2008
Late breakfast
Started the day with 2 boiled eggs with 2 slices of toasted burgen bread.
Mid afternoon snack
I had an almond croissant and coffee.
Evening
Pizza & 6 beers throughout the evening. Finally a little yoghurt bar.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
Food diary: Friday 16 May 2008
Breakfast
I started the day with the usual porridge and coffee.
Lunch
I had a packed lunch today, 4 slices of burgen bread with margarine, ham and tomato. I toasted them at 1030am and 1230pm, and also had a couple of skinny cafe lattes.
When I got home I had a small bowl of muesli with milk.
Dinner
For tea, I had Broken Rice with Grilled BBQ pork ribs, egg, shredded pork skin, steamed egg cake served with sweet fish sauce.
After Dinner
I drank maybe a bottle of wine, or more, and some beers - out at a friend's place till the small hours.
Didn't do any exercise today.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Food diary for Thursday 15 May 2008
8am
Started the day with some porridge and a home brew coffee. Then grabbed a skinny latte on the way to work. I took the train for the first time in ages, so the whole romantic notion of a take out coffee from a coffee stand just grabbed me.
1pm
Lunch I had leftovers from the other night. Tuna bean salad.
2pm
And some sardines on 2 slices of burgen bread.
2.30pm
Another skinny latte.
6pm-9pm
4 (or 5?) strong European beers
9pm
followed by a big Mac at 9pm. Then a quarter pounder cheese, and small fries. It took till the quarter pounder to feel full. That's drink for you.
And then some Smiths crisps when I got home. See, drink always makes me eat!
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Food diary
10am skinny cafe latte
1pm. 2 slices burgen with Turkey
3pm. Skinny café latte
4pm. Small tuna and bean salad
Beans beans are good for your heart
Beans, beans are good for your heart, the more you eat, the more you fart.
When I was very young, that was a little rhyme we used to say over and over again. Beans are a great source of fibre, and as such they really will help you pass wind. Help you even if you don't really want to be helped.
A recent article on Ananova claims a man lost 6 stone by eating beans. It's one of those things - if you eat just one type of anything, you're likely to lose weight. Its very hard to gorge yourself on just one food type.
Now I just wonder how much weight he would have lost if he had his baked beans with good old Burgen bread?
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
What is your favourite piece of gym equipment?
(courtesy of flickr)
I'm going to try something new today. A reader poll.
Everyone has their favourite piece of gym equipment. For some it's something simple, like a skipping rope or football, for others its a complicated weights machine, like the Fly or Shoulder press. And for others it's a piece of cardio equipment like a rowing machine or Cross trainer.
What's your favourite piece?
Food diary. A skinny latte
I have a sore throat this morning, or at least the start of one. I know that having a good coffee can really help me with these kind of ailments.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Food Diary: Bean and tuna salad and a boiled egg
After the gym tonight, dinner was a boiled egg, with Maggi Seasoning soy sauce.
... followed by a kidney bean, tuna, salmon and green bean salad. Yum.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Food diary: some drinking
Bit of a late night tonight. Started off with some beers at home - 5 beers in total.
I had a whole tub of peanuts - 0.140kg of peanuts to be exact.
Its not really helping the cause much - I then had 3 vodka and orange drinks in this club we're in. I suppose its probably the healthiest drink I'm gonna get, but who knows what in that orange juice.
Finally I had a red bull soft drink towards the end of the night. Not too bad a drink binge?Saturday, May 10, 2008
Food diary: Budweiser
Well it's Saturday night, we'll be heading out tonight, so I'm having some beers at home.
Budweiser is likely to set back my weight loss plans a couple of day. Never mind, I'm still going, generally, in the right direction. Can't be a saint every day?
Burgen is a healthy bread
I've been eating Burgen bread for the past few years, but only recently with my health kick and weight loss plan have I moved to eating Burgen as my *only* source of bread (except for some occasional lunches out, you'll notice).
I've found this page, which describes the health benefits of Burgen.
Burgen does well as it is a "low GI" food, and as such it is a fantastic food for weight loss.
(Another link to a Burgen description)
Food diary: Late lunch
This afternoon, being a Saturday, I had lunch a little late, around 3.30pm. It wasn't the healthiest food in my quest for weight loss - a margarita Pizza slice, with half a cheese ham and tomato focaccia, and a skinny latte.
That's ok, it's only Saturday. My last few days have been full of good diet foods, helping towards my weight loss.
Food diary: Mid afternoon snacks
How to make your iTunes library manageable by culling
As an aside today, I thought it's worth mentioning what I'm doing with my iTunes library. The library goes up and down over the years, and at the moment is sitting at 83.30GB of music (that doesn't include all the audiobooks and podcasts I have that don't show up in the main iTunes window.
Every so often I perform a "cull". That is, I go through the library, very quickly, and delete as much of the music that I can - music I know I don't really like in the end, have tried but have gone off, or just never really liked in the first place. The problem with having so much music at your fingertips, easy to borrow, easy to download, easy to buy, is that you end up with too much, more than you can handle. It's the iTunes equivalent of Information Overload. Not to mention the fact that it is taking up vital hard drive space, space which I don't even include in my Time Machine backup.
So for the next 10 minutes, I'm going on a culling spree .....
Food diary. Start the day with Porridge and twinings tea
If you are a man trying to lose some weight, a very good super food to start the day with is porridge. You can make porridge with milk, with plain water, and add other foods to taste, such as sugar, salt, honey, raisins. Just be careful what you add though. I'm having plain porridge at the moment, as I try to get the weight to fall off.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Food diary: Some nuts
Since coming home after some drinks, I've eaten some nuts and raisins from the fruit mix. Not the best recipe for weight loss.
But I'm starvin marvin!
Also had a couple of "nibbles" when I was out for drinks - brought round by the girl with the plate of food ...
Food diary : Friday drinks
I went out and had a few drinks tonight with some friends, a glass of white wine and maybe 3 or 4 beers.
That was me holding back somewhat. Not bad though, that's the first drink I've had since ... hmmm .. maybe Sunday last week, before I started this food journal.
Food diary: Beef salad
Tonight I had this tasty beef salad. Slices of cooked beef, some sticky rice and vegetables. Yum.
Food diary: Half an avocado on 2 slices of burgen
There was half an avocado left in the fridge, so I spread it onto 2 slices of Burgen Bread.
Burgen bread - my magical weight loss secret ;-)
Lunch
4 slices burgen bread, with jarlsberg and turkey. No butter, Marg or dressings.
If I have to eat bread, I'll make it Burgen, the weight loss bread.
Breakfast
I've run out of coffee, so this morning for breakfast I'm having good old porridge, and a cup of tea. Twinings English Breakfast tea, with a dash of milk.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
A healthy dessert - strawberries and hot water
According to David Zinczenko:
Strawberries contain (a) valuable form of fiber called pectin (..) in a study from the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, subjects drank plain orange juice or juice spiked with pectin. The people who got the loaded juice felt fuller after drinking it than those who got the juice without the pectin. The difference lasted for an impressive 4 hours.
Charting my progress
Take a look at this chart.
(I'm using Google Documents to dynamically generate this chart)
Medicine ball crunches
Ah, my favourite! This one isn't as bad as it sounds, though I generally don't enjoy ab exercises.
3 sets of 10 with a 5kg ball.
I think I'm done in here.
LifeFitness Chest Press
This machine, the LifeFitness Chest Machine, works anterior deltoids, triceps and pectoralis. The whole top row.
First set. 25 kg. 10 reps. Easy.
Second set. 30kg. 10 reps, still not too hard.
Final set. 35kg. 10 reps. First 8 are ok, the last two are torture. Ok, that's probably more like it.
Horizontal leg press
Onto an old machine now, no signs or branding on it. But its clearly a horizontal leg press. This machine is working leg muscles. Leg muscles, I've heard, are like engines. They will work your whole body out, turn that fat loss engine on if you build them.
First set. 10 reps of 60kg. Ok, I could work harder.
Second set. 10 reps of 65kg. Harder. I'll stick to this weight.
Final set. 10 reps of 65kg. Good. What's next.....
The LifeFitness Pulldown machine
Onto a new machine today. Keep it easy for now. 35kg. This machine works the biceps and latissimus dorsi. Mid back that is.
First set. 35kg. Ok. Quite easy compared to last machine.
Second set. Up to 40kg. Still ok, a strain but not too hard.
Final set. Up to 45kg. Still not that hard, though my triceps are hurting?! Anyway, my head is light. A good sign.
Next....
Fly machine
I'm back on the fly the next day. Not recommended I know. The muscles still *hurt* 35kg, reps of 10
First 10. Ouch. Sore at the side of the pecs, near the arm.
Second set. Sore just to stretch back and grab the fly machine handles. But 12 reps aren't that hard.
Final set. 12 this time. I squeezed the last out, knowing I would be blogging it here. Knowing someone is watching seems to be motivating.
Is chewing gum a food?
Does chewing gum count?
Elevenses
Before I get too hungry, I get half of my packed lunch out of the fridge.
A sandwich (2 slices burgen bread - the weight loss bread), with turkey and jarlsberg cheese.
With some nuts and raisins on the side.
Breakfast - coffee and porridge (again)
Started the day, today, with some Uncle Toby's porridge, and a large mug of Lavazza Coffee Espresso home brew coffee.
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