All 2 entries tagged Exercise

Tonight, I went for a run for the first time in 16 years

The “done” thing whenever you do exercise and have a blog seems to be to use some kind of new-agey tech tool to tell everyone about it. That’ll learn you for reading my blog!

In other news, I’ve now lost nearly 4st. I’d lost over 4st a while ago but I then kind of fell off the wagon… time to get back on that horse.

Mathew Mannion : 04 Apr 2009 22:17 |  Tags: Exercise Running |  Comments (8) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Becoming a lean, mean muscle machine – the first 6 weeks

Writing about web page http://go.warwick.ac.uk/matmannion/calendar/weightloss

6 weeks ago today, on returning from a family holiday in Corfu, I weighed 23 stone, I was extremely unhappy and I’d finally resolved to do something about it. I’d had gym membership at Cannons since February but I’d never really used it more than say once a week, and in August and September I only went once in each month, which seemed like more than a bit of a waste.

I’d tried diets before, but I either got bored, lost all willpower or found it unmanageably difficult to maintain a decent lifestyle while doing them (why do all diets make you prepare a meal for lunch? Idiots). I finally ended up on one where I could eat well and not feel like I was missing out on everything I ever wanted to eat. I also decided to burn the gym like never before and set myself some pretty ambitious goals – 3 stone in 2 months so I’d be under 20st for Christmas.

Massive changes in lifestyle are a pretty good way to lose weight at an amazing rate, so it wasn’t really surprising when the first stone popped off in the first two weeks. Since then I’ve been steadily trying to ramp it up, to the point where I’m going to the gym every day now… though that’s having the strange effect where my weight loss is stagnating because I’m growing muscle mass.

Anyway, that’s all boring. STATS!

When I started

Weight: 23st
Heart rate (6.5kph at zero incline on treadmill): 162bpm

After 3 weeks (fitness assessment)

Weight: 21st7lb
Blood pressure: 145/95 (v. high)
Fitness ratio: 45 (not sure how they calculated that…)

After 6 weeks

Weight: 20st6.5lb
Heart rate (6.5kph at zero incline on treadmill): 141bpm

Which isn’t bad, I think!? More importantly I think are some things that can’t really be quantified – my waist size is about 2 inches smaller, I feel much, much better than I did before I started this (endorphins, yay!) and I think I look better too. Hooray!

That said, I am still a fat bastard, so it’s not time to stop yet… Still 9 days for me to lose those extra 6 and a half pounds too, though the Warwick staff party may scupper that…

Mathew Mannion : 16 Dec 2008 22:31 |  Tags: Exercise Fitness Gym Weightloss |  Comments (15) |  Close comments |  Report a problem