Grinding away

Posted on by Dallas

Yesterday I began the 4th week of my BFL challenge. I must say, in all honesty, week 3 was a sumbitch. I got that damn cold last Sunday and it niggled me the whole week.

Monday’s session was chest and biceps again. Apparently I am getting stronger, but I certainly didn’t feel it. On the upside, my shoulder is feeling a lot better, so I am hoping to do more on the bench press side of things. Those machines are just not quite the same.

Something I have noticed is the power of music when I am doing my cardio workouts. If I just listen to the crap they play on the gym audio system I find myself focussing too much on what’s going on around me. If I play my iPhone and select my own up-beat playlists there is a marked improvement in my ability to focus on dropping the time it takes me to do a 10km cycle. In the past week I have been hovering around the 21m50s mark, but I have gradually been whittling that down and today I crushed my old best of 20m32s by almost a minute. I got there in 19m43s. Thank you David Bowie! Your Jean Genie gave me a lift I sorely needed!

 

A near derailment

Posted on by Dallas

The very last thing you think about when starting these body transformation programs is getting sick and how that can undo everything you’ve worked for in a very short space of time. I got back from my cardio session on Sunday morning and felt an all too familiar scratchiness in the back of my throat. A few sneezes during the day confirmed what I feared was happening: it’s time for my seasonal summer cold.

Every year, without fail, I get a cold in the thick of summer. I don’t know if it’s a body thing or maybe just something in the environment, but I can count on at least two or three days each summer when my nose leaks like a tap with a worn washer. I went to gym on Monday for my chest session and I really battled to lift anything, but I was determined not to let some stupid, untreatable human condition stand in the way of two weeks of progress. My trainer was a bit more circumspect and he warned me that training when you are not feeling well is extremely dangerous. People have dropped down dead when over-exerting themselves while carrying colds and flu. Nuff said. I took Tuesday off.

The funny thing was, I felt so guilty about not going to the gym for cardio on Tuesday. It was almost like playing hooky from school. I did keep myself in bed until around 11am, but by then I was already getting restless, so I settled down in front of the Mac and worked on getting some new lens resource pages up on Nikongear.com. I managed to get three done before my nose began leaking profusely again.

Today is day 16 of the BFL adventure and so far, apart from my trouble with the shoulder injury and the nose with the faulty washer, so good. I feel on top of things and I am definitely getting fitter. 6 minutes warming up on the rowing machine before this morning’s shoulder and back workout (at a pretty strong resistance) had me huffing and puffing a bit, but I think back to my first session with Kyle in December and after 5 minutes of low resistance rowing I was just about half laid out for the undertaker. Even better news is that I weighed myself after the workout and would you believe, I am 4.6kgs lighter today than I was on 9 January, 16 days ago.

It’s working.

Shaken, not stirred

Posted on by Dallas

Every trainer I have spoken to in recent times, even before I began the BFL challenge, has said the same thing to me: getting on top of your physical goals all starts in the kitchen. What you put into your body will determine not only how it looks, but also how it performs. Easy to say, not so easy to follow. Especially when you are surrounded with culinary temptation on nearly every supermarket shelf and in every fast food outlet with their bright and shiny signage.

The BFL program dictates that you need to eat 6 times a day. Each “meal” that you have must be composed of a portion of protein and a portion of carbohydrates. For two of your daily meals you need to add a portion of vegetables, like greens or squashes and things that you wouldn’t ordinarily seek out when you visit a restaurant or supermarket. A portion is the size of your clenched fist or the palm of your hand, depending on the food type. There is a BFL list of the types of carbs and proteins you need to be eating and this is where it gets difficult. I certainly don’t want to be eating things like baked potatoes or chicken breasts for breakfast, nor do I want to be separating egg yolks from the albumen either (egg yolk is baaaaad on BFL), so I have to find something that is not only easy to prepare but is also conveniently available. A really good couple of options for breakfast that I have been alternating between are a bowl of regular oats (has both protein and carbs) or a slice of whole wheat toast with a smear of natural peanut butter (no margarine, also baaaaaad).

I’ve also been getting by with the assistance of nutrition shakes, or what they call meal replacements on the BFL program. As I mentioned in my first post in this series, Body For Life produce their own highly regarded supplements in the form of EAS products, namely Myoplex shakes and nutrition bars. Each time you have one of these you’re taking up a meal slot on your daily eating program, which is great, otherwise you’d never get out of the kitchen much. Unfortunately EAS products are not available where I live, so I had to seek out an alternative. I found the Ultimate Sports Nutrition (USN) brand in quite a few outlets. They also make meal replacement shakes which come in a powdered form, which they call Muscle Fuel SRS. These are supposed to give you the nutritional equivalent of your portion of carbs and protein in a normal meal.

I bought two 1kg bags of this stuff, one chocolate and one strawberry. At first I was really enjoying the strawberry shakes and was kind of tolerating the chocolate ones, but then in the past week or so the strawberry product has become nearly impossible to dissolve in water or milk. I have tried using a blender and a normal hand held shaker, but it still leaves undissolved globules of powder in the shake. The chocolate one works fine with minimal shaking. I wrote to USN about this and their response is totally unsatisfactory. This is what they had to say:

Hi Dallas

Thank you for your continued support and patience during this surrounding your product query.

The retention stock of the product was pulled and taken to the labs for testing.
After extensive testing of the product, these were the findings from the QC and Product Development Department.

Please note that as per our policy at USN, we cannot replace a product that is neither expired or a defected product.

The product has been tested in the labs as well as on a number of individuals and has been found to be standards for a product of its nature. The USN Muscle Fuel was found to be up to standard, it mixed 100%, it was smooth, the taste profile was fine and there were no lumps found in the product.

As this is thus an individualised response as there have been no other complaints on the product, we can unfortunately not replace the stock.

Should you have any other enquiries, please feel free to contact me.

Regards,

USN

Now call me selective, but if I am spending over R128 on 1kg of product and that product does not perform as I expect it to, AND this is the kind of response I get from the company that manufactures it, there’s only one thing left for me to do: find another product. It’s really poor form for them to have not even bothered to take a look at my product, not the stuff they still have in their warehouse. But I guess this is the modern way of doing business. It’s not about pleasing the customer these days, it’s all about getting his or her money, regardless of how you do it.

Here’s a few pics showing the problem with the undissolved powder. Click to enlarge.

Freshly made shake after a sip Floaties

Feeling Good and the role of exercise

Posted on by Dallas

For many years I convinced myself that I was born without endorphins. It was a good personal strategy for sitting out PT sessions at school and not being very active for the large majority of my life. I could never understand how people could actually enjoy exercise and do it voluntarily. And yet here I sit, on day 9 of my Body For Life program and I’m not only enjoying going to the gym every day (except Saturday) but I find myself wanting to do additional exercise. What? [insert shocked expression here]

It could be that I am already beginning to see some physical changes to my body. Belly seems to be getting less prominent under my shirt, pectorals are ever so slightly shifting from masses of fat to what I can only assume are larger muscles and those guns on my arms are taking shape too. But I think it’s more than that. I actually feel that my thinking is shifting away from my usual malaise to something resembling (dare I even think it?) a positive attitude. I’m sitting here listening to some old music by The Eurythmics, remembering what life was like when it was first popular, the friends I had, the things we did as young people and it pleases me. Since I began this program I find that I am sleeping better and when I wake up I don’t even think about the humidity that I will face during the day. Doesn’t seem to phase me in the slightest, even though as I am writing this my arms are sticking to my desk and there are literally streams of sweat escaping from my armpits (yeah, gross, isn’t it).

So there’s a fire for life growing in me now. It does take work to keep it going, but as long as I keep putting the right fuel in the tank and running the engine above idle I see no cause for concern. I only see the road ahead and the places it will take me.

I feel good. Are my endorphins late bloomers? Must be. :)

 

Body For Life – Day 8

Posted on by Dallas

I made it past my 1st week of BFL without too much drama!

Last week Thursday and Friday my legs were in shock, yes I think “shock” is probably the best word to describe them, because every time I descended any stairs, or had to sit up or down, it felt like 50,000 volts of juice was being sent through them. Kyle wasn’t joking when he said that I would think of him with every step I take. I even parked closer to the gym on Friday so as to try and avoid the single flight of stairs I have to take to get there. Didn’t help because even walking downhill was agony.

When I finally got into the gym I warmed up on the treadmill for about 8 minutes, walking at a fairly brisk pace (for me). It helped to loosen me up before we began the shoulder and back exercises. I think Kyle took it easy on me though, because apart from a slight bit of tenderness in the left shoulder that only appeared on Sunday morning, I was nowhere near as sore as I had been on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday! We finished off the 45 minute session with some rowing. I did 15 minutes, which is a record for me on that machine. I never thought I would say this after my first experience on the rowing machine, but I actually enjoy it the most out of all the training machines they have for cardio. Those elliptical trainer things just don’t do it for me. I find them awkward to operate and the circles you make seem like very unnatural movement.

I decided to follow my friend Graham’s advice and switch my free day from Sunday to Saturday and I am glad I did. We went out with some family to a dodgy little curry place called “The Thirsty Horse” which is located around the back of the Hotel Brittania on Umgeni Road. I didn’t have a bunny chow, as did most of the other family who we met up with there, but I did have 3 Castle Lite beers and they were great! I suppose I could have had the bunny chow, but you know, I just felt that it was going to set me back too far on the BFL course. I worked my ass off in the gym that whole week and the thought of putting back a whole lot of calories in the form of white bread and oily curry just didn’t appeal to me. I did eat a wors roll later on that evening, but on Sunday I successfully overcame another curry temptation in the form of my Father-in-law’s famous mince curry for dinner on Sunday night. I took my own veggies and had half of one of those Woolies chicken pasta salads. I don’t think the salad quite makes the grade on BFL, but its total fat content was less than 13%, which is OK in my book.

I am using an app for my iPhone called Runkeeper which allows you to track any cardio workouts you do, both in the gym and on the road. Using that app it’s not hard to see that I am improving my fitness levels all the time, but I don’t really need the app to tell me that because I can feel it in the amount of work I have to do now just to break a sweat. Prior to joining the gym if I walked up a flight of stairs I was sweating. Now I have to go hard for at least 8 minutes on the bike before I feel the sweat begin to ooze out of me.

However, in the midst of all this happy news is something more than just a little concerning for me. I cannot train my upper body properly because of this shoulder injury. In today’s session I managed a few sets of bench press, but as soon as I tried to do incline bench press, my right shoulder simply wasn’t co-operating. Since my fall off the ladder in December I have been battling with shoulder rotation. It feels like there is something clicking inside there as I try to rotate it. Any other exercise is mostly fine, except for bench press. So I have made an appointment to see a local GP who specialises in sports injuries and let’s see what he has to say. Hopefully we can get it healed faster with some treatment.

On the nutrition side I am finding it a bit tougher than last week, mainly because of a lack of variety I think, so I also intend looking up some good recipes this week. I guess there’s only so much chicken one can eat!

Body For Life – Day Three

Posted on by Dallas

I woke up this morning in a lot of pain. The muscles on the outside of my arms (commonly known as “guns”) must have misfired during the night and whatever ammo they were packing just plain destroyed any kind of arm contraction ability I used to have. Especially on the right side. The problem with this is that if you want to function properly in the world you need to be able to bring your hands to your face and head, even if it’s to do mundane things like removing sunglasses, washing your hair or (dare I say it) removing a booger or two.

The second day after a serious workout is always the hardest as far as muscle stiffness goes. I used to believe that the stiffness was caused by lactic acid left in the muscle, however after doing some reading online this is apparently not true. The lactic acid breaks down glucose or something like that and the soreness you feel is because you’ve basically micro-torn your muscles by exerting them. This is what causes them to grow, which is why when you’re weight training for muscle growth, you really want to push yourself to the point where you can’t lift the weight anymore.

So day three saw me visiting Kyle for another weight training session and this time we worked on my legs. I am pretty happy with today’s workout because while I did some hectic exercises that had me walking around feeling like I was on somebody else’s pins, I don’t feel anywhere near as sore in the legs as I immediately did in the arms after the upper body workout on Monday. Everyone tells me to wait for Friday, the second day after, for that pain to begin. I don’t think it will be anything like what I am feeling today in the triceps. I hope. Otherwise I am in for a helluva weekend.

I got a little bit hungry this afternoon at about 6pm, but I think that probably had more to do with the fact that the family were having lamb chops for dinner with some other interesting options. At 6.30pm I had my left-over mince and whole-wheat pasta from last night. Tomorrow will be petty difficult – the wife’s family are coming over for an evening of breyani. Damn. Time to roll more visions of pristine beaches and swimsuit models as motivation…

 

Body For Life – Day Two

Posted on by Dallas

The old cliché goes like this:

“No pain, no gain”

Yeah. I can understand the pain part. This morning I woke up and couldn’t move my arms. Trying to raise my morning cuppa tea to my lips was like trying to push two positive ends of a pair of magnets together. It’s amusing at first, but then when you actually want the full functions your limbs were created for, the amusement wears off pretty quickly. I can’t recall being this sore before, but then again I’ve never done any bench press exercises before either.

So this morning I somehow drove myself back to the gym (torture chamber is a more appropriate name at this point) to do my 20 minute cardio workout. It actually didn’t go too badly – I suppose because I was only working my legs on the stationary bike. There was somebody using the rowing machine, which was a blessing because that might just have been a bridge too far for me. I got 9.4kms on the bike in the allotted 20 minutes, alternating between level 5 and level 8 resistance. Not too bad considering I am only half a person right now!

But enough of the complaining! I am really glad I am doing this and barring any unforeseen contingencies I will press on harder and harder through the 12 weeks. I keep myself motivated by drawing visions in my head of a perfectly sculpted me wandering around on those tropical beaches in the Caribbean with hordes of adoring super-models in tow. :)

The nutrition aspect of the program is actually proving a lot easier for me to follow than I had originally thought would be the case. I’m having Jungle Oats and a slice of whole wheat toast with peanut butter for breakfast, then the mid-morning snack is a USN meal replacement shake. For lunch today I steamed baby potatoes and broccoli and then covered them with a healthy dollop of low fat cottage cheese. Nice! 3.30pm in the afternoon I had another shake and then for dinner it was mince bolognaise with whole wheat pasta and grated carrots. All very small portions for each meal and I have not felt hungry at all in these first two days. Only 2.5 hours until the pre-bedtime snack. I could get used to this.

Tomorrow is day 3 and another weight training session with Kyle at Muscle Fitness. Apparently we’re doing shoulders and back. I said to him today that I might not be able to lift anything. He says we work through the pain. There’s that word again…

Body For Life – Day One

Posted on by Dallas

Today it’s my 44th birthday. Some say I might be slightly more than halfway through the natural duration of my life, but given my genetic pre-disposition towards heart disease and stroke, I might actually be a lot closer to the end than I would be happy to admit. My mother died of a heart attack when she was only 8 years older than I am now, and my Dad of a stroke aged 63. Many of his uncles and cousins also died in their 40′s and 50′s from similar things. It kind of puts things into perspective. Getting in shape and changing the way I eat has been something gnawing the back of my mind for years now, but the trouble has always been getting off my ass to do something about it.

I can’t recall when I came across it, might have been a few years ago, but the Body-For-Life program crossed into my radar screen and I was more than intrigued, because here were photographs of men and women who were in worse physical shape than me, going from what looked like amoeba shaped blobs of jelly to really nicely sculpted, athletic looking beings in just 12 weeks.

I won’t go into all the specifics of the program on my blog, but if this interests you too head on over here to check it out.

So, a couple of months ago I decided that in 2012 I was going to do this program and what better time to start than on my birthday. The lead up to this point has seen me doing quite a bit of research on the nutritional side of things because BFL is an American program, so many of the foodstuffs they recommend have a different local equivalent,  specifically on the supplements side. The guys who run BFL over in the States recommend the use of EAS supplements for meal replacements (unless you really are up to preparing yourself 6 meals a day the supplements are essential!) but those products are not available in South Africa, so I had to find something similar. Fortunately Ultimate Sports Nutrition (USN) make the same sorts of things here and they even have their own 12 week program which is very much the same as BFL, but in my opinion a bit too restrictive in terms of entering (you have to pay to be in line for the R50k prize for the best transformation). I’m not in this for the money – I just want to change.

Anyway, I began going to the gym in December and had a couple of workouts with the guy who is now my personal trainer, Kyle. Instead of wasting my time trying to diet and workout over the Christmas and New Year period I decided to focus purely on light cardio workouts (bicycle, rowing machine, treadmill) to get my stamina up because in reality, if I had had to do any kind of aerobic exercise at that point I may very well have been re-united with my parents a lot earlier than scheduled.

I started out with the stationary bikes and the rowing machine, spending about 15-20 minutes on the bikes at varying levels of intensity and then 5 minutes on the rower. That machine is a bastard, but it certainly works just about everything. Over the course of a few weeks I could feel myself getting much fitter. I was still huffing and puffing, but instead of having to sit down for at least 5 minutes after my cycling, I am now able to move directly onto the next machine to get my heart rate up to around 170bpm.

On BFL you alternate training days between weight training and cardio. The weight training you do for 45-60 minutes and cardio only for 20 minutes. Thank God you don’t have to do them both on the same day because today I had my first real upper body weight training session with Kyle and I very quickly realised just how little upper body strength I have. By the time I got to the end of the workout it felt as if somebody had transplanted my arms with things that could easily have been mistaken for magicians balloons. Long thin and fairly useless for lifting anything! Even now, as I type this some 5 hours post-workout I have about as much use of them as I do the cranes offloading ships in the harbour. You should have seen me trying to wash my hair in the shower. Rowan Atkinson; call me. I have some brilliant material for your Mr. Bean character.

Well, on the bright side, there are only 5 days left to my first “free day” and I think I will celebrate that milestone with some form of hypnotherapy or PTSD medication.

Stay tuned for more updates as I progress. :-)