An Fear Nua

Baralis1

Ok, so I have decided to finally do something permanently about my weight, poor fitness level and unhealthy lifestyle. I have tried many weightloss programmes but haven't managed to maintain any of them and I am almost back at square one.
So I have decided to keep a fitness log on here to motivate myself. Feel free to comment, any advice is welcome,

Age: 28
Height: 6' 0''
Weight: 20st 2lb
Fitness: Poor

Goals:
Short term
To work out three times a week, initially by walking/jogging.
To get to 19st 7lb

Medium Term
To be able to run 5K by 1st April
To get below 18st by 1st April

Workout 05Jan2012
Walked 3.7 miles in 49min 4sec
Jogged 30sec per 5min from 5 to 40 min
This is my own version of the couch to 5K plan. I have tried this before but always went too hard too fast and gave up. This pace was well manageable for me and I felt good after and not too panned out. I will continue this for a week before upping the amount of jogging time.

Example Diet 05Jan2012
I won't go posting this every day but this is an example of the new diet I've started.
Breakfast: Large boiled egg and handfull pineapple chunks.
Dinner: Two 100g mince beefsteaks, fried in low fat spray
Mushrooms and onions fried in a little olive oil
Veg steam in bag (2of 5 a day)
Two large boiled potatoes

Supper: Three slices homemade soda bread
Slice and half sliced cheese
Slice ham
ww yogurt
handful blueberries
cup tea

Tea: Hot chocolate
Banana
Two kiwis
Two finger kit kat.

While there is probably loads wrong with this diet, it's a vast improvement on my former diet.

Onwards and upwards!

Baralis1

I meant to go for a walk/jog today but had a busy schedule all day and didn't get a chance to. Sounds very like an excuse I know!
Fortune smiled during the day however as I ended up with 45mins to kill in the middle of town. So instead of what I would normally do and head to the nearest petrol station for some junk food and a newspaper, I switched on my workout app on my phone and went for a walk around town.

Walk
41min 59sec
2.25 miles
360 calories
3.2 mi/hr

Maybe I have finally changed!

The app I am using is Noom for android phones, which measures calorie consumption and logs workouts using gps. It's probably not that accurate but hopefully it will act as a motivation tool.

Baralis1

So I managed to get up early enough for a Sunday and went for a walk/jog around the local roads. I'm back at the folks so the terrain was much more hilly than my usual urban route. Some of the hills are quite steep and there are lots of them so I found some of them quite tough. I felt great once I had done it though so hopefully I'll be able to keep it going.
I continued with my own version of the couch to 5K.

Walk with jogging 30 sec out of every 5 mins.
3.7 miles/ 5.96km
56 min 29 sec
813 calories
3.9 mi/hr/ 6.3 km/hr
5955 Steps
Climb: 189 yds/ 173m

I'm not sure if I'll get a chance to do anything tomorrow. I might take a break for a day. I hope to attended a fitness class on Tuesday morning.

Diet wise, I've been doing ok. I had a big dinner with dessert today but I've eaten very little junk food in recent days and have been eating plenty of fruit. I've decided to try a more relaxed approach as I've found that if I stick rigidly to a particular diet or system of calorie counting, I may follow it for a while but eventually I will quit and go back to my old ways.

squod

http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/

Map my run has an app. I think. Anyways, if you can plan a walk/run for yourself it might motivate you more. Walked a lot last year meself. Good luck.

concisemum

Good luck with your mission hope you stick to it. Have you considered HIIT training high intensity interval training. Excellent for fat burning and a way to build lean muscle. I lost a stone recently doing this type of training every day. It only takes 20 mins and much more fun than walking the roads in the rain!!! Look up some routines online.

Baralis1

Thanks Squod and concisemum for your replies.
mapmyrun looks very useful. I know I will get sick of the same route so it will be handy for locating new ones and also for cycling routes. I may do some cycling after a while to shake up my routine.
HIIT is something I will also try, especially if I run short on time some day for my walk/jog. It looks like a good technique.

Baralis1

Workout 4 10Jan2012
I had a bit of crisis of faith today. Weighed myself and I appear to be up four pounds to 20st 6. I've no idea how this happened, I know weight varies a bit depending on time of day etc but thats a lot. I'm going to try and stick to weighing myself on a weekly basis from now on. Also the fitness class that I was meant to go to wasn't on.
I got my act together though and went for a walk/jog.

Time: 48.05
Walking with jogging 30sec out of 5 min from 5min to 45 min.
Distance: 3.27miles (this is the exact same route as my first workout so the GPS on my phone is obviously not that accurate.
Calories: 718
Steps: 5268
Speed: 4.1mi/hr
Climb: 97yds

I felt good after this and managed the jogging intervals without much hassle. It was a good workout though. I'll do one more of 30sec intervals and then increase to 45sec. My feet were quite tired and I had pins and needles in them towards the end. A new pair of trainers might make a big difference as the ones I have aren't great.

Dietwise, I know there are are problems in particular with portion size and over reliance on red meat, but I have radically changed my diet. I can tweak it with time.