Sunday Night, just before bed (After playing around with our new wireless router) I started getting my food together for today, this is to fit in-line with my new 5 meals a day regime, I felt 5 was more realistic than 6, plus I didn’t like another chaps idea of waking up in the middle of the night just to eat. So here is my mound of food (And this doesn’t include lunch as I will be home for lunch)
From left to right, My water bottle (Nothing in it, it’s just there so I don’t forget) Next is my protein shaker, with “Smooth Banana” flavour shake powder in it already, then you see the big box with a couple of Bananas in that’s breakfast for after the gym (I can’t eat before I go I am afraid, makes it to un-comfy for me to workout), and on top of that are two small boxes, these each contain a portion of Dry Roasted Peanuts and Sultanas (One for mid-morning and one mid-afternoon) Plus for lunch I had a sausage sandwich and for dinner I had Pesto Pasta :)
Phew, after all that food you would think I would be stuffed, but I am not… I’m not hungry but I am not stuffed, I feel just about right and what will have happened is that my metabolism will have been burning at a higher rate all day processing these small intakes of food on regular basis thus burning more calories AND more fat, now this brings me onto an interesting point I did some research on this, Everyone is burning fat all the time, none of this “You need to do X to burn fat and workout for X amount of time” Everyone does, however when you understand how the body burns Calories and where they come from (I.e. Calories from Fat and Calories from Carbs (Fast Burn)) you start to understand how you have to work out to achieve the best result, When sitting you burn almost 50/50 fat/carbs, but obviously at only a handful of calories an hour you’re not going to loose much of the jiggly goo, when you begin to exercise the ratio’s change, and you end up burning initially more carbs than fat, this is because the body goes for the energy source that’s easier to get hold of, and burns quicker, cold muscles need fast energy… It’s only once we have been on the go like running for 20 minutes or so that the ratio switches back over and you start to burn more fats than carbs, this is because the fast energy is now becoming more scarce and the fat provides a better fuel for endurance and now the muscles are warm, You don’t need that huge burst of fast energy… Not only this but once your into the fat burning zone, and you end your workout, your metabolism is now much higher, but begins to tail off and start to fall back to normal, it’s while the metabolism is at this high that you are going to be burning calories in the hundreds rather than the tens even when sitting, hence my fascination with keeping my metabolism higher, keep the body working on something all day (yes even food) keeps it busy and keeps the metabolism working and ticking away the calories, all day long!
So that’s enough of the food, and the science behind it, I think more than anything I just wanted to show you that I am not just a greedy sod and there is actually science behind my 5 meals a day… and they are all small meals :)
And now we get onto the morning, I went to bed last night a little later than I would normally in the week at the moment, it was about 10:30 I believe, I was feeling okay but ready for sleep, my body and my mind seemed to have other ideas, and so I couldn’t sleep, I lay there for a good couple hours, last time I noticed the clock it was about to hit the 1am mark, so when the alarm went off in the morning I WAS NOT ready by any means to get out of bed, so I lulled there for a bit, considered not getting up at all but staying there and just going straight to work, I considered how good I had been getting things ready for the morning, by bag was packed, my gym stuff ready to fall into as I climbed out of bed, food ready to pop in my bag, and “The Havens” was calling (Yes that’s actually what the gym is called, well more where it is but it has this on the side of the door, in case you forget where you are I guess) so I climbed out of bed, and got dressed, however I started to feel quite ill by the time I had got downstairs, I guess this was probably my mind trying to discourage me from going and to head back to bed, I pushed on and made a cuppa, and took my morning vitamins and glucosamine. I had decided however, if I was going I was going a little late, and I would just forego the Jacuzzi today, IF I had the energy to do a full workout… The Morning was looking grim.
I stuffed my food into my bag and headed for the car, all the way to the gym I kept on with my Workout Mantra, repeating it out loud “Anything is better than nothing, Anything is better than nothing” expecting to get there and struggle to even climb the stairs to the gym.
But then the morning gone an turned good, I got on the treadmill and started to plog along doing my warm-up, nothing to heavy just a walk I picked up the pace a little, after a minute of fast walking the music in my ear kicked up a notch, so I did to and broke into a fast jog, okay coping with this well so far, for my warm-up it’s supposed to be a brisk walk for 5 minutes,… but then the music kicked up again, and off I went this energy flew in from somewhere the fog cleared and I just ran, well 10 minutes of running late I thought I was warm enough.
From here I moved onto a full set of resistance training, the only thing I missed was the Chin-ups, and this was not intentional just because every single darn time I turned around to use the Chin-up Frame someone was on it, no one used to use it before it suddenly seems to have become very popular lol.
Treadmill time again, so on I hopped and started my “Sennheiser – Thru The Gears” tack (No I haven’t intentionally gone all hip on you the title of the track is spelt that way) this is about a 15 minute run, starting with a low intensity and increasing with pace until you are running like someone being chased by a BIG snarly dog, or like me following the Chocolate cake, just before it all suddenly calms again and you slow to a gentle jog then a walk, just before the electronic woman says “Well Done, Training Complete” love it :) It was now 8:00am time to stretch and hit the showers before I was late for work, But Monday… Mission Accomplished and a total of about 3K run… not bad for a non-run day!
On the way to the changing rooms I bumped into the PT, she asked how it was going and I recounted my disappointment of my run last week, just like the other PT she said that sometimes we have to listen to our body, she also said that the first week of training went very well and it was bound to not run that smoothly, and then went on to say before this week’s run maybe drop it down and have a day or two off before hand, Initially this wasn’t my plan Tuesday morning I had planned to get up and go for a spin session, however my body had other ideas, I was to bed early Monday night and I woke up on time after an brilliant nights sleep… and felt straight back asleep again, only to rise about 40 minutes later (havening already missed the Start of the spin) still in a daze and feeling unable to manage a Spin or Gym session, I decided today was to be my day off and Tomorrow I will go for my next long run!
So the end of another Blog draws to a close… I would like to just pause here a minute to say thanks to all that have sponsored me thus far, but for everyone else… I have a LONG way to go so dig deep so that Asthma UK can keep working to improve the lives of Asthma sufferers everywhere. To find out more about what Asthma UK are up to visit their website at http://www.asthma.org.uk then pop along to my Virgin Money Giving page here http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/JohnClitherow and sponsor me whatever you can.
Until next time,
Jay (Red John).
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