Assessment 3

Wed 4th Aug was my 3rd assessment and its been 2 weeks since the previous assessment.

I wasn't too sure how I would go - my diet for the most part has been really good - I'm definately getting the hang of the animal protein for brekky and I've increased the amount of protein at lunch and I think I managed to eat broccoli, cauliflower, or brussells sprouts nearly every day.

I've found that if I plan my whole weeks meals on Sunday and cook 2 curries and a spag bol then that pretty much sees me through the week. Its all about being organised mainly.

However there have been some hiccoughs - last Thursday I was at the Weary Dunlop lunch which turned into an all day/nighter on the beer followed by hang over cure food on Friday. Saturday was another big beer session at the Turf bar watching the Bledisloe and I was out again last night with the very cool guy I met at the Weary lunch, so all that combined with 4 days off training probably undid all of the previous good work!

so what were the results?

well I did lose 0.3kg, down to 57.7kg and body fat down a tiny 0.1% - lost a bit on my tummy (1.4mm) and calves, didn't lose anything on my thighs and bizarrely I put weight ON, on my knees!

Apparently that is to do with poor sleep - and that doesn't really surprise me as I seem to have lost that ability recently - 4.5 - 5 hours is turning into a good nights sleep at the moment, which is making getting up in the morning to do training a real struggle.

Hopefully the new magnesium supplements will fix this.

So new stuff to implement, instead of yoghurt for 2nd brekky I need to either have more animal protein or maybe a boiled egg, then the yoghurt I can have with my afternoon cup of tea to stop my body going into survival mode - at the moment I'm finding that after lunch at about 1:30 I'm just not hungry so I tend not to eat anything else until 6:30 - 7 which is quite a long time given how much exercise I'm doing. So just to keep things ticking over, I can have my yoghurt and berries at about 3pm.

Sweet potato, need to add this in to stop getting sugar cravings - not sure where thats coming from as I don't have a sweet tooth at all.

Lastly I need to make sure I'm eating a minimum of 4 cups of veggies a day - I probably am, by the time I have green + raw veg mixed salad at lunch and steamed veggies for tea, but I just need to really load up on veggies.

Again not much change, more of a tweaking really.

This weeks favourite curry - West Sumatran Kangaroo curry with coconut milk and cashew nuts (bet you didn't know they had kangaroos in Sumatra!) - damn I cook a good curry!

so heres me at week 3:

I am becoming seriously tiny! Theres a tiny bit of definition beginning to appear in my upper arms which is one area I really want to change, the other major area I wanted to change was the spre tyre round the belly - well as you can see, thats gone completely! (so has my bum....hmmm..need to work on getting that back!)

so there is progress. I am really going to keep my diet as clean as possible for the next few weeks - the last week has seen too many big nights on the beer, my body just can't handle it anymore and I then have a terrible nights sleep and wake up feeling totally drained and lacking in energy the next day.

I'm going into serious hibernation for the next 5 weeks - until I have climbed Mt Kilimanjaro, no more big nights out - quality over quantity from now on! 

N.B Sun 8th Aug

not going so well on the clean thing - this weekend up in Sydney - disaster! another all dayer watching the rugby, hung over this morning and had crap food at the airport.

At least I had a good curry tonight! my favourite - Saffron chicken - damn I cook a good curry! :-)

best behaviour from now on...

Assessment 2

Tue 20 July

Since the last assessment I have completely cut out the plastic bottles only drink water out of glass - luckily we have proper filtered water at work.

I now tip my food onto a plate before I reheat it and before I put left overs into tupperware for freezing I let it cool down completely or alternatively I just put the whole saucepan into the fridge.

The salty water was a bit weird for the 1st few days, but I think I've got used to it now and I definately like having 2nd breakfast at about 10:30!

Hobbits are on to something...

I've not eaten any tuna at all and have had broccoli, cauliflower virtually every day for tea.

I have had meat for breakfast every day for the last 2 weeks - this is the bit that I'm finding hardest. The whole concept of kangaroo or turkey is a bit alien - must be a British thing, but I have stuck to it. The main thing about the meat is that I'm finding I'm doing so much more cooking - its really eating into my limited time in the evenings which I'm not enjoying at all, I'm just not getting any mental down time as I find I'm trying to think up imaginitive things to do with chicken

The rest of the 2 weeks I probably haven't been as clean as I should have been - at least 3 days i had take away curry for lunch (in a plastic tub..oops!)

I've had to keep a food diary again and I think there were only 5 days that I really did everything correctly...

The assessment went really well, according to the scales I lost 3kg in the interveining 2 weeks (my other gym scales have registered about 1kg) and after doing all the pinch tests, Kat calculated I'd lost 1.5% body fat!

Thats pretty impressive. The biggest area of change was the hammies, but hardly any change on the cavles

Heres me at week 2:

Changes to make to my diet for next time include more protein at lunch, and more fibre - an apple or stonefruit with lunch. Add Chia or flax seeds onto soups, into curries. More fat in the form of avocado or coconut oil and milk.

I think I've hit on the solution to the brekky issue - curry! I love curry and the way I cook it, it is completely healthy - I do everything from scratch - roast and grind the spices, I use olive oil instead of ghee, yoghurt instead of cream, lots of garlic, ginger, cumin and tumeric, tomatoes, onions and if its not a brekky curry I add extra veg even if the recipe doesnt call for it - brilliant!

Last week I had Kerala Kangaroo, Saffron Chicken with cashew nuts and a spag bol (just the bol).

 

I'm eating so much curry now even the Indian guys at work think I'm weird! I'll add the recipes I use on another page.

Assessment 1

Tue 6th July

I met Kat at 5:00 at fitness first and the 1st thing we did was to weigh me - 61kg (3kg heavier than the scales at my gym - odd!), then we went to Kats office to start the measurements on the 12 'fat' sites.

Overall Kat calculated I had a body fat % of 17.5 which is pretty good, and apparently a lot better than virtually all of her clients starting %.

here's me at assessment 1 (abs! I have abs! how cool is that!):

My problem areas are my quads and hammies - which mean an oestrogen imbalance, and my calves - a sleep issue (no surprises there really have always had sleep issues!)

After examining my food diary that I had kept prior to this meeting, Kat explained the changes I needed to make in my diet - increase intake of Broccoli, Cauliflower, Sprouts (yuk!) and Kale. I need to eat animal protein for breaktfast, I can have good quality yoghurt mid morning with berries, but not the banana and honey I was having, my lunches were generally good - but no more tuna - EVER! its chock full of mercury, salmon is good and there are other fish - must look them up 

I could have nuts and seeds but not mixed so its all almonds or all walnuts for a day or two then change

Cooking needs to be done with organic coconut oil and coconut milk is ok for making sauces.

I also had to stop drinking out of plastic bottles or heating food in plastic containers because they contain xeno-oestrogens (bad oestrogen - gives men 'moobs').

Every morning I also had to drink a glass of salted water to stimulate the digesive system.

ok thats quite a lot of information to take in, I think I was quite brain fried by the end of the session!

Pre Assessment

Before meeting up with Kat for my 1st assessment I had to keep a food diary. A typical days food for me would be:

8:00am Breakfast: Full fat greek yoghurt with berries and honey or banana and honey, cup of tea

9:15am: cup of peppermint tea

10:30am: fruit, cup of green tea

11:45am: another bit of fruit

1:00pm: lunch - generally salad of rocket and spinach leaves, raw white and red cabbage, grated carrot, red and yellow capsicum, tomatoes (sometimes), avocado, mixed beans, tuna/chicken/beef/cheese and lemon/olive oil vinaigrette

kiwi fruit

3:00pm: cup of tea

7:00pm: dinner - stir fry (no oil) chicken/lamb/beef/tuna mixed green veg and tomato sauce

8:30pm: cup of camomile tea

and at least 1.5 - 2l of water.

sometimes lunch would be reheated spag bol (no pasta) and then salad for dinner or at least once a week I'd get curry from a takeway place for lunch.

Weekends would be green eggs and ham on gluten free toast + red orange juice for brekky, then whatever I felt like or more likely whatever was in the house

This is really easy food to throw together - doesn't involve lots of preparation or cooking time which is important given that with all my training, by the time I get home from work I only really have about 2 hours before I go to bed - sad but true I'm often in bed by 9:30!