In the begining... my first weigh in

The fog of the hangover haslifted, after an 11 hour drinking session in Durham on Saturday for mybirthday, with some of my nearest and dearest. The same nearest and dearest, i should add, that clubbed together £18 for a ‘dirty pint’, i.e. a pint glass filled with as manyfoul tasting shots as possible, with a tequila chaser. Needless to say, it was a good birthday, but was the pain I suffered the following day worth it? I have never been a big drinker, however when I do drink, I do it to the extreme. Needless to say excessive or binge drinking isn't healthy and isn't going to promote fitness and certainly is not part of my Fit4Thirty plan.

Never mind the hangover though, here comes the truly painful part, my first weigh in on this plan. I'd like to think of this as my 'before snap shot', so in the coming months I can look back and feel proud and motivated to keep going.

Body

First off I've taken some body measurements including weight, width measurements and percentage body fat. I only have a goal for percentage body fat, because this is something we can accurately state impacts healthy and fitness as appose to weight and size, which varies greatly from person to person depending on height and how much lean muscle they carry. I have included these other metrics as they should give a good indication of improvement over time.

Body Measurements	Current	Goal
Weight	187 lbs
Left Bicep Flexed [a]	13.4"
Right Bicep Flexed [b]	13.5"
Left Thigh [c]	21.11"
Right Thigh [d]	21.11"
Waist [e]	43.3"
Hips [f]	40.8"
Total Inches (TI) [a+b+c+d+e+f]	153.22"
% Body Fat	24.5	8-19%

Running

To determine my current fitness level in running I have simply taken my personal best times for 5K (Middlesbrough Park Run, May 2011), 10K (Leeds Abbey Dash, Nov 2011) and the 1/2 marathon (Great North Run, Sep 2010) This may not be the most accurate way to determine my current level, as the Great North Run was done with very little training and when I weighed ~32lbs more than I currently do. I aim to update these as and when I complete events, in addition I will look at organising a beep test in the coming weeks, which will better test my cardio vascular fitness.

Distance	Current	Goal
5K	25 min 50 sec	<25 min
10K	53 min 9 sec	<50 Min
1/2 Marathon	3 hour 2 min	<2 Hours

Strength

I am loosely following Mark Sissons Lift Heavy Things (LHT) progressive workout, which is based on a series of primal movements. A copy of which can be obtained for free by signing up to Marks email newsletter (www.marksdailyapple.com). In all honestly its worth signing up for, for more reasons than the Primal Fitness Ebook. The aim is to complete two sets of the goal number of reps for each 'Essential Primal movement', to test where I'm at I attempted a maximum number of reps for each exercise. I wasn't able to complete any pull ups or chin up (I've never been able to do them, so this is going to be a big one for me to aim for), but it isn't an issue as the nature of the plan I'm following allows for progression from not been able to a single pull up to knockiing 50 out in one go (we shall see!)  

Exercise	Current	Goal
Push Ups	17	2 x 50
Shoulder Press Push Up	12	2 x 12
Plank	90 Sec	2 x 90 Sec
Side Plank	45 Sec (each side)	2 x 90 sec (each side)
Squats	57	2 x 50
Pull Ups	0	2 x 12
Chin Ups	0	2 x 12

So that’swere I am in terms of health and fitness and where I want to be this time nextyear. Hopefully, as I’m not far off some of these targets, I will see some successwith them sooner rather than later.

To stop me focusing too much on what the scales say I'm limiting weighing myself and taking measurements to once every 10 days. Has anyone else fallen into the trap of starting a diet or exercise plan on the first Monday of the month, had a slight hiccough at weekend (beers, takeaways?) and not wanted to weigh themselves the next Monday? Changing the day that I weigh myself on will give a better representation of what I actually weigh and remove any guilt in having a slip at the weekend (when and if it does happen!). So next weigh day is the 22 Mar 12. I will update before then on what my diet and exercise routine actually looks like.

Until then - stay frosty!

Ant