THE BEST LAID PLANS
PLANS don’t always come to fruition. I think that might have to become my mantra from now on. A depressing one yes, but painfully true.
Six months into my campaign to slim down for my wedding next year and all is not well. It started with a bang and I felt like there was no stopping me. But the moment I took my eye off the ball for a second it all went wrong. I didn’t just fall off the wagon, it came back and ran me over a few times for good measure.
Going to the gym three mornings a week was easy at first but missing just one visit once seemed to take all my enthusiasm and drive away. Watching what I was eating went out of the window with the regimented visits to the gym. Pizzas and kebabs crept back into my diet, desserts reappeared at meal times. Bags of crisps and bars of chocolate appeared back on my desk at work.
I felt myself getting fatter and now I feel like I’m back to where I started. My gut is bothering me a lot again. I feel bloated to the popping stage and it’s a heavy drain on my confidence and good feeling.
However, like the majority of people with a weight problem, I cannot stand the sight of myself but doing something about it isn’t something that I can push myself into. It’s hypocrisy of the highest order really. How can you spout so much self derision and not do anything to change it? It’s so funny how these thoughts suddenly disappear when you have the choice of dragging yourself out of bed to go the gym.
Fortunately for me, the weight loss gods must be smiling on me because I haven’t actually put any weight back on. You wouldn’t believe how surprised I was when I stepped on my old friend Wii Fit after a month of estrangement and that beautiful little white board told me that I was exactly the same weight. I even made sure by getting weighed on two other sets of scales.
The scare though was still enough to point me back towards the gym. The thought of my hard work, the blood, sweat and tears (ok, no blood but a lot of chaffing) amounting to nothing just a few months down the line.
The real tipping point for me has been realising that the first half of what was supposed to be a year long plan has been and gone and I’m merely a quarter of the way to reaching my goal. So now is the time to pick myself up, dust myself down and get back into the early mindset that brought me success early on. Easier said than done of course.
I have found my way back to Dearne Valley Leisure Centre. It turns out that it’s in the same place it always was. I’ve pushed myself hard when I’ve been there, probably a bit too much. I think you’re supposed to feel the aches when you’ve finished, not when you’re still on the cross trainer.
The fact that it’s getting warmer does not help me with the sweat problem I have when training in that room. Just after the photos were taken at the gym I got on the exercise bike for 20 minutes and was a dripping mess by the time I got off. Not a pretty picture.
So, six months down, six months and a little more than three stones to go. I’m under no illusions that the target is perhaps slightly out of reach, especially after the falling off the wagon incident a couple of months ago. But a stone every two months does sound achievable so I’m giving it a good go.
Me and Sharon are going to team up and tackle some of the classes at Dearne Valley Leisure Centre. There’s a bit of a buzz about the spin classes that I’ve heard are big in America. You’re on an exercise bike and change your speed and levels at different points. It sounds like hell but it should do the trick.
If a year from now as my wedding approaches I am not between the 12 and a half to 13 stone mark I will feel that I have let myself and my future wife down. I know that my weight doesn’t really bother her but I told her that I would get down to that weight for the wedding. I was emphatic about it. What amounts to pure idleness is not a good enough excuse at all for not fulfilling that goal.
So if in a months time I am not reporting weight loss in this column, you have my permission to roll up your copy of the Times and hit me over the head with it on Mexborough High Street.
I will most definitely deserve it.
Published Date:
31/07/2008
Modified Date:
31/07/2008
WII FIT
I recently took time out from my obviosuly busy fitness schedule to review Nintendo's contribution to the world of exercise, Wii Fit.
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Losing weight and getting fit is hard. Finding the motivation to do those things is even harder. But now something has come along which can help you drop the pounds and stop uncontrollable panting all in your own living room and is fun at the same time.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the future of home fitness. Welcome to Wii Fit.
The people at Nintendo have done it again and produced another highly interactive gem for their revolutionary home entertainment console. But this time they have produced something that may change the dynamic of personal fitness forever.
Wii Fit will put you through your paces in yoga, muscle and aerobic workouts as well as a selection of fitness games that are both fun and effective at getting your blood pumping.
Without question, Wii Fit will shake up the lucrative fitness industry and perhaps put an end the workout DVD side projects of yo-yo dieting celebrities. So sorry Janice Battersby, you’ll have to come up with something else to boost your Coronation Street pay packet.
For the first time ever you can have your own personal trainer in your own home for a one-off fee of £70, someone who will monitor your progress, give encouragement and provide timely telling offs when you fall off the wagon. Something that even workout legend Liz McDonald cannot offer.
That personal trainer just happens to be the Wii Balance Board which monitors pressure and weight distribution to keep an eye on your progress. This thing is obsessed with good posture and after a few plays you will develop the same dedication.
After entering all your personal details and using your little Mii character, the Balance Board weighs you and gives you your body mass index.
Your Mii starts off skinny but inflates as you are weighed. I personally thought that mine was not going to stop until it filled the screen but when it did I wish it had kept going until it blocked out what the data was saying. Yes, I’ll have to spend a lot of time with this new baby.
After finding out about my obesity, I was put through some basic balance tests which is the basis of the Wii Fit philosophy. Most of the tasks it gives you are based on keeping your balance which initially seems easy but quickly becomes near impossible.
Then you are presented with your fitness age which is a bit of a lottery really. This is one of the weaker aspects of the software as your age seems to be entirely based on balance. I know people that have tried this who can run for hours but then got ages ten to 15 years older than they are because they cannot keep their balance while I - someone who cannot run up the stairs without getting out of breath - was once told my fitness age was just three years older than I am after I had a good session of balancing well.
Once the setup process is out of the way, the fun begins.
The yoga section begins with teaching you the basic breathing principles but soon you will be standing on one leg with your other doing all manner of things. True yoga fanatics may balk at this but it is a good introduction to a difficult discipline.
Muscle workouts target different areas of the body with multi-rep exercises, some of which are torturous, especially the ones involving press ups.
The aerobics session gets the blood flowing but is also a lot of fun. Step aerobics takes the dance mat craze to a new level by stepping on and off the board and watching people with a lack of rhythm doing this like myself is a good laugh. This idea is taken a step further with rhythm boxing where you use to Wii remote and nunchuk to throw punches while stepping back and forth, my personal favourite part of Wii Fit. Using the Wii remote as a step counter you can also run around an island on screen while jogging on the spot in your living room, something which the people in the flat below me probably do not appreciate.
Then there are the balance games which generally involve shifting weight on the board to move your on screen character. Included is heading footballs kicked at you, downhill skiing, ski jumping, tight rope walking and even meditation. All of these are easy to pick up but difficult to master and thinking about balance and weight distribution becomes part of your life.
Each section is good fun and does the job of stretching you out, working muscles and getting you well on the way to being out of breath.
All that saying, Wii Fit is not perfect. The biggest omission is a feature to sequence exercises such as the yoga positions to give you a full workout without breaks to select the next routine. You are told after some exercises that it would be useful to pair it with others to work certain sections of your body but then you are not given the option of going straight to those. Also, this is really a one player piece of kit because switching users is fiddly and takes too much time which really prevents group fun.
The lure of watching Liz McDonald on the cobbles means that other things will often take up your TV screens so it may go by the wayside on some occasions. It also becomes much easier after several weeks of use and fails to challenge you as effectively after a while. Wii Fit makes a good side project for more serious exercise or something simple to keep you ticking over.
But remember that this is only the first version of Wii Fit and it can only improve. The popularity of this piece of hardware will undoubtedly see further versions of the software developed now that the Balance Board is in so many homes. A yoga only version would be greatly welcomed as would one that got the heart pumping with a lot of different games or more strenuous aerobics.
You may even see a Sonya from Eastenders version if she’s got any business sense.
Published Date:
31/07/2008
Modified Date:
31/07/2008
GETTING THERE
Motivation is a difficult thing to find no matter how hard you search inside yourself. If it's not there, it's not there. Sometimes other people have to give you that motivation, and that's what has happened this week.
Since last week's revelations in the paper about my slack attitude and lack of action in shifting weight over the past six weeks I've had family members, friends and members of the general public telling me to stick to it and pull my finger out. Motivation found.
Early on in this quest I said that having my progress watched would be a good thing because it would keep me on my toes. To be honest I've hadn't realised that anyone was paying any attention until last week, but now the pressure is starting to tell.
So this week I've thrown myself back into the gym, working hard and trying to watch what I eat. I'm still going for the watch what I eat during the day as much as possible and enjoy my normal meals for tea philosophy and it seems to be doing alright. I could hardly move after my first session at the gym for a few weeks. I thought swimming made me ache but it was twice as bad after the gym. But I keep working through the aches and pains and hopefully by this coming Monday the scales will be heading in the right direction.
I've had a bit of help over the last ten days or so from a new friend. I luckily got a pre-release copy if Nintendo's Wii Fit and it's been putting me through my paces all week. It's a fantastic and ingenious piece of kit that I would recommend to anyone, not only because it gives you a half decent workout but it's also a good laugh. Standing on a little white board swivelling your hips to try and make an on-screen cartoon version of yourself keep a hula hoop up is great to do but even better to watch. The yoga and muscle exercises sections really make you stretch as well and you can tell that you've done something. How people in the flat below feel about me running on the spot for five minutes every night I can only imagine? But I've got work to do.
I think this piece of kit could spell the end for fitness videos, so Liz McDonald, Janice Battersby and co should start looking for a new venture to boost their Corra pay packets. The biggest attraction to Wii Fit is that it's completely personalised to you and it monitors how you're doing, giving you tips and encouragement along the way. I'll be giving it a proper review for my next column for the paper after I've had a good few weeks at it.
If I can stick to this three visits to the gym, one swim and at least half an hour on the Wii a night I should be fine. But of course, motivation might have something to say about it.
Published Date:
25/04/2008
Modified Date:
25/04/2008
MUCH WORK TO BE DONE
I’ve always thought that it makes more sense to start a diet and fitness programme in March rather than January because conditions are more in your favour. Nights are lighter, temperatures are (apparently) warmer, things that help you get out of the house and reduce the need for stodgy food.
But as I’ve discovered over the past few weeks, it’s in no way easier in March.
This has been the month when the wheels fell off my campaign to get in shape and I’m in serious need of a thorough mental service to get me back on the road.
March kicked off with my birthday and I have never really got back into the swing of the exercise and eating thing since then after a weekend of beer and my dear, recently absent friend pizza. As a reward for my hard work I finally allowed myself to have what I had so painfully denied myself and I cannot explain how good it felt. Absence certainly does make the heart grow fonder.
That little weekend of indiscretion, which I thought I deserved after my earlier progress, ended up derailing my whole programme and I am still barely out of first gear on the road back.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve still been keeping up the gym aspect of the weight loss but the eating side of it has gone a bit out of control. Before I was being really good and refusing the delicious temptations at nearly every turn but now saying no is really hard. When you’ve got friends staying over for the weekend it is rude not to make them a bacon sandwich or two. And, of course, when you’re stood there with the rashers sizzling away how can you resist? It would be equally as rude.
These are the thoughts that go through mind of all dieters everywhere and that is why yo-yo-ers exist. Justifying those little sins is so easy but once you let one pass it’s difficult to stop. That one trip to Pizza Hut has damaged my willpower and now saying yes is easy.
Without exercise I know that I would be back to square one because luckily I’ve managed to stick around the same weight I was pre-birthday transgressions. Unfortunately I am now filled with dread at the thought of walking into the gym because of all the hard work I’ve got to do to start shifting in the right direction. However I finally decided to make use of the pool at Dearne Valley Leisure Centre and now that has become my new baby.
There’s something about swimming that means it doesn’t feel like too much hard work - that is, until you get out of the pool. I might currently look like a manatee swimming up and down but I quite enjoy myself and the aches afterward assure me that I’m actually doing something productive.
I also was lucky enough to get a Nintendo Wii for my birthday and that is another thing that gets the sweat flowing without you actually realising it. It’s a bit disappointing when a games console gives you a fitness age 25 years older than what you are but it certainly encourages you to try and reduce the gap. Hopefully this will become a decent supplement to my other weight loss methods as it’s always easier to motivate yourself in front of the tele.
I’ve got to get this thing back on track but at the minute it’s like turning a bus around in a cul-de-sac. Ultimately it’s the desire that has diminished and it’s just finding a way to get that back to what it was before. Swimming is doing a good job and hopefully when I start to get a bit bored with that, the gym will seem like a more desirable place.
Hope is what I will cling to.
Published Date:
16/04/2008
Modified Date:
16/04/2008
BELLIES AND WOBBLES
I seem to have hit a bit of a brick wall.
Last Friday was the first time since this whole thing started that I couldn't force myself out of bed in the morning to go to the gym. I hadn't had much sleep and I just couldn't face it. But when I finally got up I was really disappointed in myself, and I still am to be honest.
I dropped a stone in the first month of the weight loss plan and I was really happy about it. But I know that it's really unlikely that I will achieve similar results in the months to come because it gets harder to shift the weight once you get going, and that's a difficult thing to accept. Now, I'd be happy to lose a couple of pounds a week for the next six months and get to where I want to be, but I'm quite impatient and I want to look good now.
This impatience could be the root of why many people fail with dieting and exercise just weeks into their programmes. Gym membership sign-ups jump rapidly in January for the New Year's Resolution stuff but cancellations hit their peak in April when people finally realise that not going to the gym that you pay for each month is a bit of a waste of money. Results are great at first because if you've not done exercise before weight drops off when you start, even without drastically altering your diet. But then your body gets used to it and the weight loss slows down. That's when the impatience sets it.
Then impatience becomes 'why bother?' and it becomes even more difficult to drag yourself onto the treadmill or bike. A lot of my disappointment last week was out of the fear that this was already happening to me and that the determination and drive that I had shown over the previous five weeks would all amount to nothing in the long run. It sounds really melodramatic but that's how I felt.
To make matters worse I couldn't get to the gym on Monday. During a night out at The Pastures Lodge in Mexborough on Saturday (I avoided a huge meal and instead had a chicken tikka, which is a big achievement for me when steak is on the menu), someone broke into my car, stole my radio then nicked one of my alloy wheels. This left me without the use of my car until Monday night so I missed the normal Monday morning visit.
That made getting myself to the gym on Wednesday really important. But when I got there and got to work, it was like starting all over again. I huffed and puffed and struggled like I hadn't done in weeks and I really ached when I came out. I didn't even bother getting weighed because I know that the results won't be very good. I'll wait now until next Monday to see what's happened.
To make this experience a little more interesting I am attempting to try different things each month that are supposed to help weight loss to see if they really work. Last month was the Weetabix Week, which proved largely unsuccessful. This was probably down to me eating three at a time - something which I have been properly ribbed about. It's also really unpleasant because that's a lot of Weetabix in a week. Putting that behind me I've started with something else that I was in two minds over doing and I'm still not that sure now I've started. I'll report back over it as the weeks go on but just for now I'm waiting to see what happens.
Right now I'm trying to pull back that determination that characterised my first few weeks and get myself back comfortable at the gym before kicking on and working even harder. This is the difficult stage of it all and I must push through it I know that. I'd like to think that this stage wasn't even a wobble but a minor aftershock from the starting quake.
Published Date:
28/02/2008
Modified Date:
28/02/2008
REACHING THE MILE-STONE
Five weeks into this trek and I’m still huffing and puffing away three mornings a week at the gym, trying to avoid those evil foods that threaten to derail my ambitions and leave me depressed. I’m still working on the cross trainer with my eyes closed while floods of sweat cascade down from my brow and trying not to fall off when my legs suddenly go all wobbly.
But so far I’m winning. I’ve lost exactly a stone which I’m very happy about and I feel much fitter in general. I am now able to walk up the two flights of stairs at work without getting out a breath, too much.
When the gym is good, it is very good but when it’s bad it is torture. Some days it is harder than others and it is quite easy to beat yourself up when you don’t do quite as much as you might hope. One day I might not be able to wait to get off the bike after just ten minutes but the next time I go I could be doing half an hour and not be ready to stop. Hopefully it all balances out over time.
It might be hard work in a morning, or at any time really, but I feel so much better on the days when I’ve been to the gym. If I did not get up in the morning and stayed in bed I would probably get around 45 minutes more sleep but I feel far worse than when I’m out early and get the blood pumping. By the time I’ve done in the gym I’m usually sweating like mad but once I’ve had a shower it sets me up nicely for the day ahead.
The good thing about trying to lose weight in the public eye is that people comment to you that you’ve lost weight and that they can notice the difference. This gives you a nice boost and there is no better question someone can ask than ‘Have you lost weight?’ But the bad part is that the pressure is immense. Because you know that people are aware of your plans you feel like everyone is watching and waiting for you to fail. If you tell people that you’re on a diet or trying to lose weight, it seems to become something to prove to them so failure would be humiliating.
To speed things along with the weight loss I decided to try the Weetabix Week - one of several diet suggestions by the cereal companies that involve having a bowl for breakfast and a bowl for lunch.
Now I like Weetabix, I can easily eat them without sugar and would gladly choose them when I go to the supermarket. But ten bowls in five days is a lot of low fat, low sugar, high fibre goodness for one person to handle.
I am typically a hungry person at both breakfast and dinner time so two ‘Bix are not enough to satisfy my large appetite. Therefore I have been eating three in each serving meaning last week I ate 30 Wheetabix in five days. Now I am royally fed up of them.
As the week went on, whenever dinner time approached I kept thinking about the nice sandwich I could buy but then I would remember the commitment I had stupidly made and shudder before opening my desk drawer and taking out that damned yellow box.
What is worse is that it has been of little success so it seems that it could have all been a bit of a waste of time. However, along with avoiding pizzas I did manage to prove to myself that I have a small amount of willpower when it comes to food and I can take this forward over the next few months.
Myself and pizza have gone through a big change in our relationship. I love it a lot and I was recently going through a stage of eating at least once a week. But when starting this push to lose weight I realised that I would have to cut them out of my diet until they were just a rare treat. Everyone has their own personal food weakness and mine happens to be pizza, with the more greasy meat and cheese the better.
Luckily I have avoided the temptations - and there have been many - and stayed away from them. It has now become a bit of a test of my resolve and I intend to see it through as long as possible. Well, maybe just until my birthday when a day off from the gym and a visit to Pizza Hut may be in order.
Published Date:
20/02/2008
Modified Date:
20/02/2008
STILL GOING STRONG
My name is Liam Hoden and I am a pizzaholic. It's been three weeks since I had my last pizza. I've been using the distraction of self-torture at the gym to get me though the hard times but I still cannot shake that craving. The cheese, pepperoni, oh the pepperoni, how I miss it. At some point I know that I will crack, it's inevitable. How is it possible to resist picking up a pizza after a night out? And seeing that make-your-own pizza counter at Asda when doing the weekly shop is driving me crazy.
Other than pizza being in my head every tea-time, things are going well. I've yet to miss a planned session at the gym, though it has involved a lot of mental jousting when the alarm goes off at six in the morning. I seem to have awoken the little angelic slim imp and his counterpart the tiny fat devil and they go back and forth on my shoulders each morning. So far the slim figured character with the halo has won out but that little devil is getting stronger every morning.
Once I'm in the car on the way to the gym everything is fine and I arrive with quite a lot of gusto, immediately heading for the exercise bike, before getting on the cross trainer. Me and the treadmill have fell out and I'm avoiding it altogether at the minute. It tries to make me do too much and I'm sure it wants to hurt me. So I just hammer myself on the bike and the cross trainer while watching Sky Sports News. It's ok and I seem to be sweating more and more until I can't see and my eyes sting. So I suppose something is happening.
I had the big weekly weigh-in on Monday and I have hit the 16st mark. I'm quite chuffed after three weeks to have shifted nine pounds, especially having a bit of an off weekend with the old watching what I'm eating and drinking lark. When you're tucking into a three course meal and downing lots of beer and wine all for free then the voice of the little angelic imp on your shoulder goes awfully quiet. I've got another meal coming up this weekend and I'm sure when I pick up that menu to see what's on offer, my cherubic friend is going to be silenced again.
Next week I'm going to be aiming to shift quite a bit of weight by doing that Wheetabix diet thing that they keep going on about in the adverts. I already eat them for my breakfast every day so I might as well see if I can get through a week with them for my dinner as well. Hopefully both the Wheetabix eating and my gym sessions will do what they're supposed to and I will drop quite a few pounds. Ideally I would have liked to have lost a stone after a month but with five pounds to go it doesn't look like I'm going to meet that target by Monday so a blitz next week would make up for it.
Published Date:
08/02/2008
Modified Date:
20/02/2008
AND SO THE REAL WORK STARTS
It's been two weeks since I first walked through the doors of the gym and started on my planned route to my ideal weight.
And it's so far, so good.
I've stuck to my initial plan of getting an hour of workout in before work on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday. That's something I'm quite proud of at the minute because I hate getting out of bed in the morning but I'm feeling really good. Now I'm much more awake when I get to work even though I'm out of bed an hour earlier and I notice a big difference to the days that I don't go when I tend to be quite sluggish. I know that I would not have the motivation to go after work when the gym is packed and honestly, I can never wait to eat my tea.
My time in the gym is divided between my holy trinity of cardio machines: the treadmill, exercise bike and the cross trainer. I seem to be able to do a bit more every day and I've really taken to the cross trainer as it seems relatively easy, although I'm always soaked with sweat when I climb off it. The treadmill is a bit of a thorn in my side because I can never seem to do as much I would like to do on it. Walking on a treadmill seems to be a bit pointless to me and I feel daft when I look around and everyone else seems to be running at Paula Radcliffe levels. But when I run for a while, the top half of my body pounds my knees, shins and ankles. This happened before when I decided that I was going to run for half an hour a day from my mum and dad's house but I had to give up less than a week into it as pain seared through my shins and I struggled to even walk. I didn't tell many people about that fitness failure. Hopefully as I shift a bit of weight I can start picking up the pace on my new nemisis.
Since Monday I've been spouting the philosophy that if I eat sensibly during the day (i.e. Weetabix for breakfast and a ham sandwich for lunch) then I won't have to think too much about what I'm eating at night, within reason. My girlfriend Leanne has her doubts over this one, but if I stick to at least three visits to the gym a week I should carry on losing weight for a while at least.
The thing I need to concentrate on food-wise is cutting down the portion sizes I have for tea. I don't particularly eat a lot of rubbish but I eat a lot of what I eat. If I can reduce my appetite it will do me the world of good not just now but in the future as well. Hopefully this new stage of watching what I eat will produce even better result.
One of the main motivations about going through this weight loss regime in the public eye was that I would have an obligation to see it through and as a person that is not easily motivated I thought that it would give me the kick up the backside I need. But I could not have imagined the pressure this has piled on me.
Since the first article appeared in the South Yorkshire Times loads of people have spoke to me about what I'm doing so paranoid as it may be I feel that people are going to be watching me to see if my belly starts shrinking. Through work, there are people that I see only once a week and I think these are the people that are going to notice most if there are any changes in my size. I've even been interviewed by a bloke from newspapers website holdthefrontpage.co.uk about my monthly column, this blog and my weight loss. Sitting at home and thinking about it all, I began to see myself as a bit of a performer with a standard to reach. This is what I wanted to happen but it is still scary at times.
I got weighed on Monday, two weeks after my fitness test at Dearne Valley Leisure Centre. Then I was 16st 9lbs, slightly below the 17st I thought I was. Now I'm down to 16st 2lbs, so I've lost half a stone!
I can't believe it really because I haven't really noticed any change in my size. My jeans are still tight and I still shouldn't be wearing a few of my favourite T-shirts that are a bit figure hugging for a man with a family-size-pack for a stomach.
Also, in the first week I did not drastically change my eating habits. I was still having the odd chocolate bar at work and could not resist a bag of Chilli Heatwave Doritos. But, I have avoided having a pizza for the last two weeks which, trust me, is a massive step forward. If I carry on how I've been going, I might reward myself with a visit to Pizza Hut, although that is really undoing my hard work.
Published Date:
30/01/2008
Modified Date:
30/01/2008