The new summer class is here! :D

I've arranged the Thursday venue in Westbury on Trym. Check the class times for details and location.

I'm currently trying to sort a temp hall in stokes bishop as well for Mondays, otherwise we may well have the summer class in Avonmouth.

See you all on the 5th, let me know if you need a lift.


Lyle

Good to see some new faces at the first class back of the year. Don't worry if you ache a bit today even I do a bit. It takes a few weeks to get used to things.


Lyle

Hi All,
  Been a long time since I've had chance to post. I was asked to be best man (again) and had a lot of stuff to sort out with the stag getting in touch with people he hadn't spoke to in ages, etc... The Wedding itself was in Jamaica so that took at lot of sorting and time as well. Then it was getting ready for Christmas and so no.
  Anyway, back to normal now so lets pickup where I left off.

Crash diet
I lost 9 pounds in 3 days, and about 1% of body fat. Pretty impressive. One thing I should note is that as with most crash diets, this can dramatically effect your bowl movements. After the first day be cautious breaking wind, lol. On the 3rd day I ate the same as the second, and spent 1 hour on the cross trainer (to sets of 30mins) and an hour on the bike (to sets of 30 mins). I looked considerably leaner.

Goals update
With the wedding and all training had gone off the rails a little. Although this week I'll be getting back to it.

Running
Bristol 10k is coming up in May, it's an ideal stepping stone if you are thinking about doing the Bristol half. I'll certainly be doing it, and trying to convince as many people to join me as I can. It usually only takes an hour to complete the race, so it's nowhere near as grouling as Bristol half.


Lyle

With all these extra supplements, protein shakes and 6 meals a day, it's important to give your insides a break. It's also important to keep on top of your body fat levels.
  At first I had planned a 1 day a week detox. It worked well at first, but when I started to increase my weight training it seemed to be effecting my muscle gains to much. (The idea of drastically cutting my diet while my muscles were still aching and repairing wasn't good).

So now I've switched to a 3 day a month detox.

I weighed myself this morning at 15st 4pounds (naked weight) and the Fat analyser gave me a 16.4% body fat.

I ate nothing all day, in the evening I did 30mins on the cross trainer, then 30mins on the bike. At night I'd usually have some mixed veg and a small tin of tuna (very lean protein). But today I had some dental work, so instead I had a tin of Weight Watchers Carrot & Lentil Soup (healthiest I could find in the shop) and mixed in the small tin of tuna. If that doesn't sound appealing, don't worry, at this point pretty much anything tastes good.

For the next two days it'll be nothing but fresh fruit and veg (no carby veg such as potatoes).

It's important to keep active, tomorrow I'll fit in running (cross trainer if it's raining) and swimming. Now there is very little food going into my body, and I've spent the day burning up what I ate yesterday, to keep going my body is forced to use the reserves, forced to burn fat.

From experience with these crash/detox diets before I've found it's important to take a good multi vitamin.

I'll update in a couple of days with my weight and fat %.

3rd time lucky as it turns out. After returning the last fat analyser as it turned out to be a fake like the first, I didn't hold out much hope for this latest one. But finally, I've got one that is real!

At first I was worried. When I turned it on it asked for the height, weight and age just like the fake ones. A BMI machine that pretends to analyse fat seems to be very common. It'll ask you to hold two metal plates, it'll pretend to put a small current through your body, it'll wait for a few seconds, then it'll lie and give you a fixed fat % based on your BMI.

But finally this one was different, it did all those things but actually gave a reading that seemed real. I tried it again with a piece of wire, it gave an error! (The others gave the same result). Tried it lying down like it said not to, different result again. Tried it stood up holding it properly, pretty much the same result. Wicked, this one works.

Omron BF306 BODY FAT MONITOR, the cheapest one I could find on Ebay that was genuine.

You've gotta have goals. As this is titled "Getting back in shape", then my first set of goals will be getting back to levels I was at before.


Weight training

I can't remember all of what I could lift before, but here's what I can remember.

Bench press:-
I'm not sure what I can lift at the moment, I've only been weight training again for 3 weeks, the last thing I want to do is push myself too soon and get an injury. In the past I could lift 90Kg. So getting back to this weight is my aim.

Shoulder press:
At my peak I could shoulder press two 20KG dumb bells for 3 sets of 10 reps. At the moment I can manage about 1 set before I have to drop weight.

Motivation

I'm not getting any younger and sorting myself out now will be much easier than doing it later. Also as I mentioned before my girlfriend is in perfect shape. It's only fair that I offer her the same level of fitness that she offers me.
  Being in top shape sets a good example to the students at the club, also going from being quite out of shape now to being ripped again, should help motivate those that are training to loose weight. Sticking any new tournament titles in the local papers would also help promote the club and generate interest.
  + all the obvious reasons such as health, etc...

Activities

Kickboxing twice a week
  Not a lot of choice here being that I run the club :) Kickboxing is a great all round work out, and also come in very handy when you find yourself in a scrape. Doing more circuits in the class will help to loose fat.

Judo once a week.
  Fills in most of the side of martials arts that I don't already know (Kickboxing is striking, Judo is grappling). After all a striking style isn't going to help you much if a fight goes to the ground.

Weights twice a week.
  The only real way to improve muscle strength.

Running twice a week.
  The two main forms of cardio are running and cycling. I've never like saddle sore myself.

Swimming once a week.
  Great for improving lung capacity, all round muscle stamina, and also strength as the water provides resistance.

Let's start at the beginning and figure out what went wrong and why I lost shape in the first place.

Soon after winning my last title I bought my first house of which the term "fixer upper" is far to much of an understatement.
  I also started my kickboxing club in Bristol. So now I have much less spare time on my hands than I used to have. Also the time spent at my club is much more teaching than training, so where as before I spent around 4-5 hours a week kickboxing training, I was now spending around 6 hours a week kickboxing teaching, not to mention all the extra time spent doing admin and promotions for the club.

Welcome to my first blog.


3 years ago today I was in the best shape of my life which cumulated to me winning the World United Martial Arts Federation tournament title of National Full Contact champion.

3 years later and I'm in bad shape. I haven't competed much at all in the last 3 years, and although I won a tournament earlier this year, when I look down at my stomach it feels like quite a hollow victory.

I'm writing this blog to document getting back into shape, how I'm doing it and to keep a log of my progress.