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James McQuarrie

A collection of random links and thoughts curated by James McQuarrie

2013 Fitness plan: Day 1 Week 6

The sixth and final week of this round of experimentation has begun. And it began quite well. After the past few days of feeling pretty ill with a grating sore throat, this morning I was determined to get up and run however bad it felt. First thing it was better than it has been, but was still pretty scratchy and cough inducing. After breakfast and a couple of throat lozenges it was less noticeable and so I got ready and headed out into the snow and wind for my run.

The ground was slushy and the falling snow was cold but light. I ran the full 5km slightly slower than I’d have liked, but not as slow as I feared I might having missed my last two runs: 28 minutes 25 seconds in total. That’s over a minute slower than my best time over the past 5 weeks, but to be honest I’m just glad to be back out and pounding the pavement again. Oh, and my throat actually felt better post run than it had before so maybe it did me some good in that respect too.

Food today has been about 90% slow carb accurate:

  • breakfast was 3 eggs, spinach, salsa, 1 slice of wholemeal toast (the non-slow carb bit) and a mug of green tea
  • I had one protein shake post run
  • lunch was a bowl of veg and chickpea soup followed by a packet of blueberries blending in half a pint of almond milk (again, not strictly slow carb)
  • post evening workout I had a second protein shake
  • dinner was a salmon fillet, some boiled broccoli and some stir fried leak and celery
  • through the day I drank 3 pints of water.

Anyone who follows me on twitter will have seen that my evening workout went pretty well. I did:

  • 10 sets of 100 crunches
  • 10 sets of 20 kettle-bell swings with the 28kg bell
  • 10 sets of press ups doing 15 reps for the all ten sets.

That’s the first time I’ve been able to do 15 reps in all ten sets of the press ups. That’s 150 in total. On the first day of this six week experiment I could only do 80 in total. 10 more and I’d be showing a 100% improvement. To be fair, I should hold my hand up and admit that the final set consisted of me doing 12 reps, failing, taking a 10 second breather and then pushing out the final 3 reps. But to my mind that counts.

Morning Measurements

Weight: 95.7kg down 0.8kg since last Monday
Body Fat percentage: 17.5% up 0.6% since last Monday
BMI: 24.4 down 0.2 since last Monday

I’m not too happy about the body fat percentage value being up over the past week, but without the full week of exercise, I suppose it’s to be expected. Ideally I’d like to drop below the 15% mark by next Monday, but I think that may be asking too much.

As predicted though this week I’m really up for this. My enthusiasm has returned as I can see the finishing line so close. I’m determined to make every effort possible to get next Monday’s reading as good as they can be.