Over the Barrel

Yesterday

kombimankenny — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 07:35:16 +0000

Just a quick catchup from yesterday.

Weight: 94ish (need a better set of scales which I now have)

Food:

• 1x slice thick cut raisin toast
• 1 nespresso coffee
• 1x carmens muesli bar
• pub burger and chips
• 1 schooner coke
• 1x ‘funsize’ mars bar
• red rooster peri peri wrap

Exercise: none (meant to get some kettlebells and exercise at home, but just didn’t happen)

Back on my Bike

kombimankenny — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 00:06:29 +0000

*sigh* So here I am again, after resting on my laurels for the last 9 months I have lost all semblance of fitness and have gotten in even worse shape than I was before I started. It’s now time to get back up and put some solid effort in to achieve my goal of being fit enough to join the Navy. As always, some form of accountability is needed and this blog is going to be mine. My plan is to track my weight each day, what I eat, and what exercise I take. Each week I’ll take a fitness test consisting of a shuttle run, pushups, and pushups to see how far I have to go to reach my fitness level.

I’m using CalorieKing to track what I’m eating and I’ve just found out that I’ve already eaten enough crap food for breakfast and lunch to have reached my calorie goal for the day. I had no idea that thick raisin toast was so incredibly bad! So its a good thing I’m going to the gym this afternoon.

Weight: 95kg

Food:

2x slices thick raisin toast (496C)
300ml Coffee (96C)
300g Spaghetti bolognese (396C)
1x Carmen’s muesli bar (200C)
50g Dried fruit and nuts (200C)
2x cans of V(240C)

Exercise: 30 min at the gym (10 min treadmill, 10 min rowing, 10 min bike)

I’m Back, Baby!

kombimankenny — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 12:05:19 +0000

So I’m finally back to somewhat normal. After having the metal plate inserted in my wrist (turns out the technical name for what happened is a ‘distal radius fracture) and having a temporary cast on for a week, I only had to get fitted with a removable splint for the next five weeks.

It turns out that I lucked out with the public hospital system and managed to land a surgery spot with one of their senior surgeons. So the bone has been set perfectly and there are no complications. The only signs that I broke anything are an infinitesmally small range of motion in my wrist and a rather gnarly scar.

Despite the general lack of activity since the operation, after weighing myself this morning I was pleasantly surprised to find I am under 80kg! This means I’ve lost over 12kg and am back to the weight I was when I left highschool 8 years ago (not that I was all that fit or lean back then, but still a great step). This puts me over halfway toward my final goal weight of 70kg.

Help I’ve Fallen 2

kombimankenny — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 01:58:18 +0000

If last week was sucky, then Saturday really topped it off in the only way a single day could top off a week of suckiness .. and that is with more suck. But in order to truly top the week off it couldn’t just be awful, for that is already expected. no, Saturday proved to be far more cunning than I realized. You see, it started out with me waking up feeling energized and happy, ready to face the day and banish the spectre of the working week. I git up and went for a jog, had a lovely breakfast, cleaned the kitchen from top to bottom, and tidied up the bedroom all before midday.

My wife and I had been playing a 3 week long game of “No YOU go do the grocery shopping!” and since I was feeling so great I decided to graciously allow her to win the game, and as an added bonus for her, I took our son along to give her a bit of peace and quiet. I got the shopping done and spent the rest of the day enjoying some guilt free relaxation before heading off to youth group.

As it was the last night for the term, we usually do something a little bit special and this time it was ice skating (yeah, you can see whats going to happen now). After merrily going around a few times I decide to retire for the evening when one of the kids begs me to head back on to the ice for another couple rounds. I oblige and while on this second vaunt around the rink, another youth pilfered my hat, necessitating a chase. I admit to not being a great skater, but confident enough. However, Saturday had lain in wait for this perfect moment to strike, and did so with a vengeance. I began to slip and fall backwards. In a natural but vain motion I extended my left arm behind me to attempt some stabilisation, but gravity and Saturday in a duo of perfect destruction, simply pile drived me into the ground.

Normally this would be a chance for some mild humiliation and bruised ego, but as I said before, Saturday had it in for me, for when I got up I could hardly feel my left arm. I quickly got off the ice and rolling up my jacket sleeve to determine the damage, found my wrist doing its best impression of the letter ‘U’ that I have ever seen it perform. Needless to say a quck trip to the Emergency Dept confirmed that I’d broken it spectacularly and would need a metal plate screwed onto it to stabilize it. Now I am home and the opiates have put me in a much more pleasant state and I can safely say that last week was a royal bastard.

To the Weekend, and Beyond!

kombimankenny — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:46:43 +0000

For all I care, yesterday could have gone and died a horrible death and its corpse left to decompose in ditch for a week before someone found it, and in fact it should have. I had a far more productive day at work, but I’m currently on thin ice with my boss (my own fault, I’ve not been doing a good job the last week) So any of the little things I do wrong that could have slid by, are getting picked up so I’ve got to be on extra good behaviour. I also read the world’s most depressing article about parents who’d accidentally left their children in cars (not the kind who know they’ve left their kid in the car and say “But I was only gone a minute” but the ones who had been busy and honestly forgot they’re kids were in the car)

So all in all a depresso day.

Weight: 83kg, I should be down another 1kg mid-late next week

Diet: 3x Weetbix for breakfast, BBQ chicken wings + rice for lunch, McDonalds caesar wrap for dinner.

Exercise: None

I woke up this morning and did some exercise, ate breakfast, cleaned up, did errands. It’s all been a good day (which I’ll put in more detail in another post)

(This is yesterday’s update)

Weight: 83kg, I’m nearly back to the weight I was last time I started to try and lose weight about 3 1/2 years ago.

Diet:

Help I’ve Fallen …

kombimankenny — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:34:51 +0000

Have you ever experienced something for the first time and then thought “So THAT’s what everyone was talking about!”? Like the time you proudly announced to a friend that you’d never had a wedgie, and he promptly obliged in enlightening you. I had one of those experiences this morning when I passed out on the train as I headed to work. I’d been feeling pretty crook most of yesterday with a fever and headache, but when I woke up this morning I felt well enough and thought “Damn! I’m going to have to go into work today.” So I get ready for work (even being really good and actually having breakfast) and head off to board the train to work. It’s fairly packed most mornings and this was no exception. As the train makes its journey, and more and more people get on board, I start to feel a little light-headed. I write it off, but as the feeling grows I realize that I’m probably going to hurl if I don’t get off at the next station. When everything started to go dark I started to get really worried and then … I wake up to find myself flat-out on the floor of the train with everyone looking at me and talking loudly amongst themselves and at me. “Are you OK?” “He just dropped like a rock!” “It’s the anthrax!!!” (OK, I made that last one up). I get off at the station, and the staff were really good about making sure I was alright and didn’t need anything. Needless to say I headed straight back home and have been in bed for the rest of the day trying to keep up on liquids and eat something.

So I obviously haven’t been out exercising today or yesterday, which is a shame. I felt like I was just starting to get into the routine of making exercise a priority and doing something each and everyday to improve myself. Hopefully this won’t stop me from getting back into it, it’s just one of those things that feels really good to get into the swing of and disappointing to have something stop that.

Weight: 83kg. And that’s officially too, no more guess-work. I hopped on the WiiFit and it told me so.

Diet: Nothing but the weetbix I had for breakfast, I’m not sure I’d be able to keep anything else down.

Exercise: Falling to the floor, then getting back up again.

Punched Another Hole

kombimankenny — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:39:27 +0000

One thing I didn’t think about happening is that as I started getting fit and shedding weight, was the effect it would have on my clothes. I say this because once upon a time, I wore extremely baggy shirts. The kind that made me look like I’d stolen the Subway guy’s old fat clothes. Even though I wasn’t very overweight I was self-conscious about my hanging gut and man-boobs, and of course I’d rather wear hideous clothes than do something about it. Fast forward to me meeting my future wife and her subtle insistence that the baggy shirts had to go (by subtle, I mean she took them and hid them away when I wasn’t looking). So I started wearing shirts that actually fit and got over the self-consciousness.

Since December I’ve lost nearly 10kg [22 pounds](Hooray for me!) and my clothes are starting to once again drape off me like curtains. I’ve told my wife this was all part of my evil plan to get back into baggy shirts without her noticing, and needless to say she was not amused. To add to the fun of ill-fitting clothes, I had to punch another hole in my belt (the second one I’ve had to add), and in doing so missed out on a fun-filled day of the “Hoik My Pants Up Every 10 Minutes” Game. All in all, not a bad problem to be having.

Seeing as I haven’t posted over the weekend (you can give me a collective slap on the wrist and a stern “Naughty boy!” warning) I should probably update on my activities. For the life of me I cannot remember everything I ate over the weekend, I should just say it included a few things I should really not be eating too much of but all of it in moderation. I spent most of the weekend finishing up the bits of the garden that weren’t finished last weekend and mowing again. In protest of my job last weekend, the grass decided to band together and grow at an alarming rate. In the end I was victorious and it looks once more like a civilized place to live.

And in breaking news, I went for a jog this morning! My little son, bless his heart, must have known that his dad was probably going to snooze his alarm again until the last possible minute. So he took it upon himself to wake dad up at the perfect time of 5:20AM, enough time to change his nappy and get him a bottle before unceremoniously being dropped next to his sleeping mother and for me to get out for a morning run before heading off to work. After the last time I went jogging (and then promptly stopped due to shin splints) I decided I would do it right this time and slowly work my way up through the Couch to 5k program and I’m happy to report I’m feeling really great.

Weight: ??kg. I haven’t weighed myself since last week. I’d love to say that because I’m feeling so good I must have lost another kilogram, but I’ll wait until I get home to find out.

Diet: 2x pieces of deep-pan pizza for breakfast, cheeseburger for lunch, low-cal pizza for dinner, ice-cream + mini muffin for dessert.

Exercise: Garden work over the weekend, 20 minute jog this morning.

A Little Piece of Home

kombimankenny — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 03:12:52 +0000

I don’t know how they do it, but there are so many organised people out there. They manage to have a routine and stick to it for the most part, and even when they don’t they somehow manage to adjust. I mention this because everyday at work, the office is filled with a variety of delicious aromas from people who regularly remember to bring lunch from home. From that girl who brings curry everyday, to the guy who occasionally brings a really strong-smelling fish (You know, the one that smells like a cross between a bucket of prawns and bucket of crap both left in the sun). This midday assault on my senses makes its way to my belly, who decides to rumble in protest at not being able to partake in the festivities.

I then have to walk (good thing) to one of the takeaway places (bad thing) in the city to combat the growing growls of hunger. Fortunately, I work in the city so there is an amazing variety of stuff to choose from; however, it’s not until you start to try eating healthy, or at least calorie count, that you realize that the vast majority of takeout food is deep fried, loaded with sugar or some unholy combination of the two. Once you take out those, the only thing left is that limp, sad-looking garden salad that someone made up in the morning and left there as a token to the massive “HEALTHY OPTIONS” sign they have sitting out the front that gives you the impression that its innate healthiness might rub off on that double quarter pounder, large fries and drink you just ordered.

As you can tell, I have nothing against bringing lunch to work. It’s cheaper, it’s healthier, it’s more convenient. The question is, why is today the first day I’ve done it in months? I’m feeling so good I managed to do this, that I don’t even care about the face that it wasn’t a particularly amazing lunch, or that I didn’t do a workout yesterday. I even brought a couple snacks along to tie me over until it was lunch time, how good is that!?

Weight: 84kg, I finally had someone ask if I’d lost weight today! Strangely, it’s one of those phrases that I can’t help but feel as though the person saying it is being completely insincere or mocking me (especially when they say it and I certainly haven’t lost any weight)

Exercise: Walking up the stairs? Picking up my baby boy? Yeah, I didn’t think those counted.

Diet: Orange poppy seed muffin for (late) breakfast, Skipped lunch, BBQ Chicken wings & rice for dinner. No dessert.

Better Late Than Whenever

kombimankenny — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 03:22:17 +0000

Yesterday was all about my self-control in not having that orange poppy seed muffin. In celebration of my triumph, I was going to go for a run or bike ride in the evening, something I think would have been worthy of a ticker tape parade through the streets of Brisbane. Unfortunately, a meeting to discuss the preparations for the parade took up my entire night so we just cancelled the whole thing. Instead I rewarded myself this morning with aforementioned muffin, and it was scrum-diddly-umptious and mostly guilt free (as long as I can resist having one tomorrow).

If there’s one thing that gets me fuming on a work day, it’s when a piece of work lands on my desk around 3:30 – 4:00 and it looks up and says “Hey, I’m an easy bit of work, you could get me done right now and you’ll win major brownie points!” And like a fool, I believe it and tell the person that I can indeed get it done right away. Of course it’s once they’ve turned their back that the work looks back at me and says “Hahahaha! Sucker! You are mine!” And it naturally turns out to be way harder than it initially sounded and involves more work than it should have and has me staying at work until 6:00. Grrrrrrr!

Speaking of work, I should probably get back to it before it finds a mate and begins to multiply.

Weight: 84kg

Exercise: None, meant to get a jog or bike ride in but just didn’t happen.

Diet: 4 Weetbix for breakfast, Small Seafood Noodle box for lunch, 2 crumbed frozen fish fillets and baked chips for dinner. 2 ANZAC biscuits for dessert.

Addiction

kombimankenny — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:52:35 +0000

I’ve never had a problem with addiction before. I’ve never smoked, or done drugs, not been a big drinker, never been a huge fan of coffee/tea. Having said that, I think that after years of depriving myself of these things my brain has decided that we’ve missed out on something and has latched onto something in a desperate attempt to be ”in” … the orange/poppy seed muffins from the café above my work.

These things are absolutely deadly. First of all, they’re made in the store fresh everyday and that means they have to be good for me right? I mean, everyone knows that fresh = good. Second, they have bits of real orange throughout them so it technically makes it as “fruit. Lastly, I don’t know the recipe (God help me if I ever found out) but there must be a full tub of butter in each one as they are just so darn delicious (I wish there was some saving point to this, but there really isn’t)

Everyday without fail, by 10:30 (earlier if I skip breakfast) I start daydreaming about that muffin and how good it would be. And then I begin to ponder if I could possibly have it delivered intravenously and I realize that I have become an addict. And even more than the muffin itself, the glass of milk that I have with it (yes, I am still a 6-year-old boy in many ways) is absolutely vital. In fact, just writing about it is making me want it even more, and the only thing that’s stopping me is that I don’t have the change to buy one and I don’t want to go to the ATM and get money out just for the muffin (because that would mean I have a problem, and I totally don’t! I can stop anytime I want!).

Unfortunately they have not yet started a support group or detox centre for people with my affliction, so I must soldier on and suffer in silence and try by sheer force of will to limit myself to one hit a week.