BelfastBiker's Fitness Blog.

Found my proper body tape measure, woohoo! 

Waist 
1 inch off my waist this month. That’s 2.5inch this year, or 12 inches in total. 

Hips 
1 inch off my hips this month. That’s 3inch this year, or 11 inches in total. 

Chest 
1.5 inches off my chest this month. That’s 3.5 inches this year, or 8 inches in total. 

Thighs 
No change to thighs, but 1 inch this year. That’s 5.5 inches per leg in total. 

Bodyfat is now 37.6%, down from (near) my starting position of 45% - I didn’t start tracking this for a while into this, so it was likely about 48% at one stage. 

Resting Heart rate down 3 to 59bpm. That’s a reduction of 23bpm this year or 41bpm in total, from my high of 100bpm. 

Blood pressure is 124/79, down from 126/92 last month. It was 131/89 at start of year so both systolic and diastolic figures have shown good improvements. At the start of my journey it was 138/97, I really should have sought the doc then. :) 

Overall, I’m lighter, fitter, smaller, healthier! 

I *knew* I could redress last weeks silly weight-gain!  Even though my lovely work colleagues provided many cakes and buns and chocs and sweets on my birthday. :)

Being MOSTLY paleo diet-wise is helping greatly - also started barefoot running with Couch to-5K yesterday… hopefully get injured less!  My new FitBit is working great, after I finally worked out how to calibrate it, so hopefully it’ll show in all those times I DELIBERATELY walk to someone instead of phoning or emailing them.  

Gonna have four eggs with lots of butter beat-up in a cup to celebrate. :)

Also this month I’ve taken 2” off my chest, 2” off my ass and 2.5” off my waist.  AND my resting heart rate is down TWENTY to 62bpm.

Now, I’m basically at my weight/heart rate/measurement stats that I was at last May 2011. So I’ve just rewound 7 months of neglect in less than a month.  Over 150miles of walking has clearly helped, but I put this down to Paleo eating almost completely, it’s fantastic!!!

One wee thing, I was lighter the previous day - it’s shocking how a salty snack and meal yesterday can hurt a couple of days of dieting!  To think I used to do that at worse each and every day, any wonder I got up to 23 and a half stone. :)

• TOTAL Cholesterol - 151 mg/dl (<200 is good, >240 is high risk.)
• HDL - 39 mg/dl (getting that up to 40 would be best, or higher, work to do!)
• LDL - 101 mg/dl (right on the edge of fantastic - reduced chance of atherosclerosis, heart attack, stroke.  >160 is high.)
• Cholesterol Ratio - 3.9 (well into low risk, less chance of heart disease.  >9.5 is moderate risk, >23 is high risk.)
• Fasting Blood Glucose - 4.6 mmol/L (great result! >7.0 would likely be diabetes.)
• Triglycerides - 55 mg/dl (Lower risk of heart disease.  <130 is what you want, >200 is high.)

So overall, I’m elated at these results.  Apart from HDL which is holding steady, all the other results are lower than the last result mid last year.  The trigs in particular are down from 169 to 55!

I put it 90% down to the Paleo type of eating I’ve switched to - healthy fats, great quality proteins, little carbs, minimal processed food and dairy, lots of veggies.  Obviously my lot of walking is helping too I guess.   Can’t weight to get off the treadmill tonight, sleep, and wake up for weigh-in.  Yeah I know,  rock and roll… :)

Tired.

“Normal.”  Had to ask the nurse to repeat it over the phone.

“Normal.”  Not a winner for talker of the world, or greatest rapport, but I could have kissed her down the phone line.

Waiting for chest x-ray results when you’ve unexplained occasional pains in the left part of chest under rib cage, where you heart is, and recent memory or exactly how your mum’s cancer-ridden death started (with an x-ray), is scary as fuck.

I don’t recommend it, if you can avoid it.

I’ll still need to go to doc to get the constant mild pain in the left jugular sorted, but generally, I trust that shedding the weight will fix the majority of my ills.  so i’ll continue to do so.

Plodding along.  Not loving the dozen or so sharp but minor synchronous pains in left of chest plus upper left back that happened over a few mins on walk to work.  Not terrible, just weird.  Perhaps I’m just a worrywart.  Is that even a word?  

Chest x-ray results tomorrow.  Hope they just say “all clear big lad, come in for further checks to see if we can find what the occasional niggle in chest is, and let’s check out that persistent left jugular pain while we’re at it. Oh and keep on losing weight, it might fix itself as you stop being a fat bastard.”  If they just say “yeah, you need to come and see a… consultant”, well, fuck that.

On the plus side, some of my trousers are getting a bit big, which is a good thing I suppose… but why can’t it happen on PAYDAY??

Cut short today, things to do.  Only walked part way to work, walked to/from docs, walked home.  Ho hum.  Still at it though.

Just a walk to work and back and a bit - bit late posting this, so walk was actually yesterday!

Only 100lbs to go now!  Not even having to count calories at all on Paleo eating.  Been doing well since December.  Down from my starting point of 327lbs to 266lbs currently.  In old money, that’s 23stone 5lbs, down to 19stone dead.  

Yeah, I got this.

Not feeling it today, walk to work and lunch, but couldn’t be arsed walking any more, early night.

Left chest/left jugular niggly pains, so not running for now.  Scan done today, results in a week.  Pain in heart area comes and goes, pulses even, gets worse if I have a big meal so I don’t have big meals any more.  I call it the “scared as fuck of dying diet”.™

Pain in left jugular area is all around there - upper left chest, neck, jugular, left ear, left shoulder.  Is more prominent if I bend over to do things like tie shoelaces.  Thinking of getting slip-ons. :)

Fasting Blood Lipids/Glucose/Cholesterol test pencilled in for Monday too.

Not letting it stop me walking, that’s low-BPM exercise anyhow.  I’ll pause the C25K running program though - my intervals are typically 150-160bpm, which is 75-80% of max HR, so I’m not taking a risk.

Scared.  I’ve had these pains for months, and should have sorted this before now.  But I realise that these pains may be partly the reason for my horribly disgusting nightmares, where I’m dragged below ground, and have things thrust into my lungs, or crawl onto my brain etc.  I literally FEAR falling asleep, so end up falling asleep at 3AMish.

Hopefully, HOPEFULLY, I’m just being paranoid, considering mum’s cough got worse and worse, and her cancer was only found when she was taken in with pains in her torso.  It’s natural I’d be concerned, I guess.

If there’s some sort of thing there, or a narrowing or some bloodline somewhere, and they can deal with that, then knowing now is better than not knowing now.

All good vibes and prayers gratefully received. :)

WEE bit late late of the Week 2 Day 3 of the couch to 5K.  Now just 15miles behind my 7m/day target!  Knee still giving issue, otherwise, I’d do this deficit in two days…

Walk to graveyard, into town, back from town… had to cut short due to shooting back pains. :(

Nearly 5lbs down from last weigh-in, all the right direction!