A weighty issue 24th March 2012

A weighty issue 24th March 2012

My training for the ironman (http://ironbadgers.wordpress.com and ironman.com) is continuing apace. I am fit, and getting lean. Since the new year I have lost 10 kg, so that's 10 kg in about 12 weeks. Now that sounds impressive, but really it is a reflection of me having 10 kg to lose. I have been fighting, well fighting is a very strong word, but I have been fighting my weight for a long time. When I went to uni I weighed in at a cheeky 10.5 stone, I can't be bothered to do the real conversion, but I guess that it's about 67.5 kg. Some time during this last internment in the prison in which I am located now, I peaked at 95.7 kg. Impressive. When I was rowing, my racing weight was around 82kg, and my best was around 78 kg. One time I leaned down for a lightweight indoor rowing competition and hit 73.9 kg on race day. That was a strange one and took a lot of stupid effort. I was bet maybe 8 months previous by a rowing chum that I could not make it to Henley regatta without drinking - this was about 3 months away. Of course, that challenge made me push it and I made it through. After this I carried on, leaning down, and had a good system - Sunday to Thursday I was tight - breakfast was fruit and meat, lunch was meat and vegetables, and evening meal typically was tuna, onion and peppers. Friday and Saturday I could do what I liked. It worked well. After the 3 months was up I carried on a little, and entered a veteran lightweight indoor rowing event, but with maybe 3 weeks to go I was well over weight. However, one serendipitous night showed me that I could do it. It was the annual rowing club dinner, I won rower of the year, and sat on the head table with Bill Mason as special guest. Of course, the award of a bottle of port lasted no time at all and I was as sick as a dog the next day. Then I weighed myself and found that I was almost at weight. So this gave me the impetus to carry on. Actually I had been performing extremely well that year, no doubt helped by my low weight and won my single sculling novice pot, and several other sculling pots too. So, I decided to carry on to the race, but it was tight. The night before I was at my parents, and I hadn't eaten for nearly two days. The morning of the race, I took a really really hot bath to get the last liquid out of me. I drove from Nottingham to Birmingham with a cup that I collected spit and threw out of the window. In the end I overdid it - I was 73.9 kg at weigh-in rather than the required 75.0 kg. The race went ok, and I came 5 th in the national championships, but I was weak, and could have done better. Of course, I was sick as a dog after, but then I always am after a good hard training session.

Here's a photo of around that time - I had just won my novice sculling pot - happy days!

And a photo not long before I went to uni!

That was about 8 years ago.
There was a time about 4 years ago when I got down to 79 kg and was thinking of going for the nats again, but I was a little too late, so did not, so soon ballooned again.
When I was dieting about 8 years ago I bought a set of scales with fat measurement. I still have the same set of scales and have a lot of data of my weight from that time, plus other data from before. I have a little religiion of taking my accurate weight as being taken first thing on Tuesday morning, naked, post-evacuation. This is to get it far from the weekend and seems to work.
About 2 years ago I was doing a marathon and again got to a good weight of about 81 kg.
This year, well this week's weigh in I am at 82.6 kg, and still losing more or less. I have not drunk a single drop of alcohol this year - which is shocking. After I got ill in August last year I think I went for about 3 months when I was drunk every night - happy days! So, no booze, and for the past 6 weeks or so I have been on a quasi-paleo diet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleo_diet) - essentially this means for me no booze, no dairy, no bread and no pasta (great idea whilst living in Italy JJ!!). It's fine and I like my diet. I eat a lot of fruit and veggies, and I am actually thinking of going the next step and maybe going vegetarian - we shall see.
I am listening to lots of podcasts that help me through this. Here are a couple.

Livin' la vida lo carb
http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/

Garden variety tri
http://www.gardenvarietytri.com/

Zen and the art of triathlon
http://www.zentriathlon.com/

These are but a few, and they all help. People seem to pity me but I am absolutely loving it. There has only been one difficult part so far - a couple of weeks ago I attending an audit with work south of Rome. Breakfast there was very little but I ate some fruit and meat, and for lunch we only had sweet things with cream and local pizza. Of course the locals are very proud of their local pizza, and I avoided eating any and drove home starving marvin. The next day I was heavy. I think I had pushed my body into starvation - sub-optimal. One of coaches whilst rowing who helped the GB women used to say that you can run at minus 1400 calories per day, but anything less than put the body into starvation mode where it stopped burning fat and started burning muscle. This time I crept in.

Of course, there are worse things about this - when you burn heavy amounts of fat, and doubly so with protein, you release lots of organic acids, essentially you breathe them out, as well as sweat them out - and they stink! Anorexics are known to stink - the burning of the protein produces lots of ketoic acids which causes it.

Otherwise, people seem to think it must be the toughest thing in the world to be on this "diet" - but really it isn't. Sometimes it is a little difficult, but I am eating TONNES of food, and am making sure I snack healthy - so fruit or nuts or dried fruit and nuts, and it's ok. I am a bit of an outcast at times, but I am generally very happy with it. It can be difficult in public, but thankfully we don't spend much time with other people so it is not a problem!

I never planned to stop drinking. My plan was to limit my boozing to just one night per week, but it has just so happened that I haven't drunk and now it is easier to maintain it there. Schweeet.

My fear is that I know full well that my exercise is a pendulum - as sure as it swings one way, I am very safe in the knowledge that it will swing the other way soon. And it is a double-edged pendulum too - when I am exercising I eat very well, and get into good shape, when I am not exercising I eat absolute rubbish so the weight comes on double. Classic addictive personality - and a lot of triathletes seem to be the same personality type - if I do something - I do it right, and I do it hard. And then I turn it off again.

"This too shall pass"