6 weeks of Hell – Fitness blog.

07 September 2015

I love Food. That’s one of the problems. I know we all like food and some of you love food, but I LOVE FOOD. All food, Not mad about olives, sweetcorn and beetroot but after that I’d eat anything; cheap trashy food, expensive cuisine and everything in between. I  dislike exercise, I find it wasteful when there are so many other things I could be doing with that hour. So this combination of laziness and gluttony have brought me to this impasse in my life. Do I ignore everyone, my body, my health and my children and keep going towards that 20 stone or do I now stop at 50 years old and try and reduce my size, food intake and  level of body fat.

Enter CM Fitness and their 6 week programme beginning today.  So I went for it. Might as well give something a lash. On Sunday evening in Coachford I met the lovely Ciara Murphy and offered my soul to her. She weighed, measured and counted me and the results were  not good. I’m fat. Yes FAT. In fact 33%of my body is fat, I have the body of a 65 year old and my visceral fat is 20 (it should be 8). In fact I should be dead. And there’s more. I’m nearly as wide as I am tall. Ciara is kind. She told me all was not lost and that  she had a plan. It’s  a six week plan. Over the next six weeks Ciara and CM Fitness Nutrition and Sports Rehab want me to walk & run and diet! Or as Ciara puts it,  introduce a new way of enjoying fabulous food.

So this is it,six weeks of Hell,   six weeks of no chips, pints, fries cream cakes and other wonderful goodies.  Instead I’m going to eat fish, chicken, eggs and brown bread oh and drink green tea. God God what was I thinking signing up for this.

I had to dig out t-shirts  today that then refused to go on me and I had to purchase some runners that will probably never see much speed and will be sold on to someone else, advertised as having one careful owner. I was going to just turn up in a pair of jeans and shoes but I have been advised that this is not right and I should at least look the part.

This evening at 6.30pm is the first time I’ll be showing up and seeing how I get on. Will I manage it and not die? Probably. Will I be miserable and cranky over the next few weeks? Most definitely. Will I feel better and thinner by the middle of October? We’ll  see.

08 September 2015.

This morning was my first run out with the gang. I failed to make it on Monday evening due to other stuff going on. So up at 6.30am this morning bright as a button, into the gear and up to the pitch. CM got us to stretch first. OMG as the young ones say. I was lunging and squatting and stretching and extending my chest and rolling my hips! My hips don’t actually roll at least I didn’t feel them roll, too much fat around them I’d say. At one stage I was like some drowning man trying to breach the surface so I could gasp for air to fill my lungs but then it was over almost as soon as it had started. Now fully stretched, we headed off for a walk and jog. Just walking for me.CM was superb, stayed with me and made sure that I wasn’t going to keel over and collapse outside Casey’s Funeral Home. We walked for about 30 mins and then finished off with some more stretching and then home, shower, breakfast and work. Must admit I felt bloody great. Now tonight is a different story . I have pains down  my thighs and in my calves and am a bit dreading waking up tomorrow and seeing how stiff I’ll be (that sounds bad :-)). Diet is going ok. Eating lots of fruit and drinking Green Tea, I’m actually beginning to like that stuff. Looking forward to Day 3.

11 September 2015

4 days off the drink. had two sparkling waters last night. It just doesn’t feel right being in a pub and not drinking but we’ll keep going. What worries me now is the pain. We did some sort of torture on Wednesday night. CM calls it group exercise but it would be more at home in Guantanamo Bay. Lunges, squats,  push ups, planks and some other painful stuff . Do you know that doing planks uses mussels behind your arm pits that I never knew I had, that is until today, Oh Boy I know I have them now!  The class is full of females but in fairness to them they are supportive and like me they are too busy trying to stay alive during the exercises to be bothered whether there are males or females in the group.  Took Thursday off as I was unable to make it but I’m sorry now as today, Friday, was rained off and I’m actually missing the morning walk. it must be the side effects of the torture that is making me feel this way.  CM is really great though, She never insists on us doing stuff unless we want to. She even allows me sit out some of the  torture exercises, well for this week anyway!

The diet is not going too bad, miss the afternoon chocolate, the late night cheese and wine, the snackbox, Ramen, Roast potatoes, humongous bowls of pasta, the odd black Pudding and  the drink. I bought Ryvita last night, That is one scary food item. Looks nice and appetising, tastes like sawdust.

12 September 2015

I HATE BEEPS.

Have you ever done a fitness test. Good God almighty, it’s hell. There is this thing called a beep test where you run between two points and you have to make the distance before a beep sounds. Of course the further you go the shorter the time between beeps. Well last night I and all of the others had to undergo a fitness test or in my case an unfitness test!.Some managed 4 minutes, some 3, others did 5 or 6 or even 7 there was even one who did 11 but me ?, I was lucky to reach 2. My lungs were on fire, my legs in bits and my pride on the floor but after a few minutes that all passed and I forgot about how much I hate this fitness lark. Now to be fair I am at a huge disadvantage compared to the girl who did 11 minutes. I am carrying the equivalent of two CMs on my body each time I run so it is harder to carry all that lard around the place. CM now wants us to double our time in three weeks. She’s surely having a laugh.

I have now taken to reading the back of food packets to see how much fat and sugar are in each of them. The only labels I read up to this were the ones on wine bottles to see the alcohol content (the more the better!). I cooked a stir fry last night and was about to put in a packet of  sauce until I saw there was 22g of Sugar. that’s about 7 spoons of sugar, So there I was thinking about the fitness test and all the extra weight I have to carry around with me on a daily basis and decided to forego the no doubt delicious sauce and instead squeeze in some ginger and garlic and guess what? it was ok. It wasn’t fantastic or gorgeous or the best thing I ever eat in my life, it was grand, it was healthy and I suppose I felt better after it but I would have still preferred the sauce with all it’s artificial flavours and its 7 spoons of sugar. Still a long way to go, but hey, 5 days down and I haven’t died yet!

13 September 2015

Full Length Mirrors should be banned.

There I was feeling pretty good about myself on Saturday. I went for a walk/jog around Leemount on Saturday morning with the gang and then a nice brisk walk on Saturday afternoon on the Greenway with a friend. The walk/jog was tough. I was going to walk all of it but one of the gang insisted that I try jogging for just 20 seconds, then walk to get my breath back and jog again. I did this for a lot of the 3 plus mile route except for Brownes Hill (I’m not a fool!!) and it was bloody tough and hard but again strangely rewarding. The greenway walk was fine, no jogging :-). This morning was a washout and I couldn’t make the planned run in Peake  (some brave souls did, huge respect for them) but tomorrow is another day and hopefully it might clear up later today and I’ll get on the Greenway.

Now back to that unsympathetic mirror. Saturday was always going to be a tough day for the diet. Saturday is a really long day and  a damn good eating day. It’s a day for a long leisurely breakfast or even two if time allows. It’s a day for coffee in town, shopping for goodies, steak dinners and ice cream. But the diet dictated that my regular 3 sausages, 2 rashers, mushrooms, 2 0r 3 pieces of white or black pudding  and an egg breakfast now had to be replaced with scrambled egg and smoked salmon (well everyone deserves some bit of pleasure!) with brown bread and a cup of green tea. I had a bit of stir fry for lunch and a chicken salad and wedges made from one lousy Rooster potato for dinner. I was in McDonalds and eat nothing except one measly chip from my son’s and his friend’s delicious and gorgeous looking meal. I was so good yesterday, I felt good, felt fitter, had myself convinced that the shirts might be feeling a little looser, that the watch was slipping around the wrist a bit easier and it was even less painful bending down to tie the shoe laces and then, last night coming out of the shower I caught a glimpse of myself in that damn mirror…Whoa… what was that? who are the three people in that reflection, no it was just me and my six pack keg. Jesus maybe Karolyne had installed one of those circus mirrors just for a laugh. That full length mirror captures everything, the whole body from tip to toe and every  single pound and ounce of it. It is a cruel device. There really should be a recording that comes with it that should take a look at you and then say complimentary things about what you and it sees, something like ” hey you look good” or  ” wow you’ve lost weight”  or ” holy shit is that you, wow what a body”  or even ” hey don’t mind this, mirrors always add on a few pounds, you look great and sexy” . But alas mirrors don’t lie and it was then I realised that this dieting and fitness thing is a long haul job. Sure I feel better but to lose any serious bit of weight is going to take weeks of scrambled egg and green tea and I reckon it could be 2017 before I see another sausage!

Tomorrow is weigh in day, the day of reckoning. We’ll see then what the last seven days of my new lifestyle choices  have resulted in.

17 September 2015

Oh God this fitness lark is tough. I am handling the diet, well sort of, and the being off the drink is not as bad as I thought it would be but the exercising is so tough.  Monday morning saw me in Aghabullogue Hall at 6.05am. I was late!! Lunges, Squats, Push ups, Hip raises, Chair steps and some torturous things like Mountain climbing steps and Planks filled my world for the next hour. I coughed and spluttered and moaned my way through them. The leg lifts are probably the worst for me because as I lift the legs it pushes the lovely round stomach up towards my chest and makes breathing almost impossible. Add to this the dignity stripping of the t-shirt rising above the belly every time I stretch to show to the world the place where there once was a belly button many many years ago. Mind you I doubt if anyone cares what we look like as everyone is struggling just to stay alive and all have far too many other things on their mind that what Peter Dineen’s belly looks like.

Tuesday saw me walking around Peake and Clonmoyle as dawn lit up the sky and as I reached the gateway of Dan Dennehy’s Farm and looked down towards Peake  I can now understand why those who leave this place always want to return. It is a beautiful part of the country. We walked (sorry I walked, the rest jogged) for about 2.5 miles. CM as usual stayed with me and pushed me, cajoled me and supported me all the way through. She’s a legend. My mind is willing to do the fitness, it’s the blasted body is giving out but we’ll work through it.

last night was another round of Indoor Hell, more lunges, leg raises ,chair steps etc.  There seems to be a lot of work being carried out to improve the Glutes (ass). I have this fear that after the 6 week programme my stomach will remain the same size but I’ll have a fantastic ass. I’ll be so proud of it I’ll be walking backwards  into rooms, bending down in front of everyone at every opportunity (oops that sounds wrong) and hearing comments like ” I hate to see you go but I love to watch you leave”.

The highlight of last night though was the weigh in. So there was the weighing scales facing me  after 10 days of no drink, chips, chocolate, cheddar cheese, chilli crisps and sour cream, sausages, fresh white bread, pizza, Ramen and everything else that is good for the soul but bad for everywhere else. I was in dread.What if i had lost nothing, what if I hadn’t done enough exercise or the quantities of the prawn stir fry or beef curry were too much (which I think they still are). What if I only lost one lousy pound and should I have gone to the loo before I got weighed or should I have worn a lighter t-shirt or even got my hair cut! It all helps apparently.

Anyway up I stepped and dared to look down at the dreaded screen, then looked at CM and waited for her reaction, well…… ” oh well done Peter you’re down 8 pounds” . Eight pounds, oh that wasn’t bad, that’s over half a stone, that’s 4 bags of sugar that I won’t be carrying around with me any more, hopefully!! But I’m well aware that it’s still only a start and everyone looses a lot in the first week so the challenge is to keep losing and to get fitter and to knock more of that unwanted fat off me. After 10 days I feel so much healthier, not that much thinner but much healthier. More energy and more committed to keeping this up for as long as I can. The gang of women are great, full of fun and craic, offer me great support and put up with me, the male intruder in their fitness world.

So it was with renewed vigour and enthusiasm that I set out again this morning in the dark to go to Indoor Hell once more. And was it easier today after getting the great news last night? No. It wasn’t. I’m really not sure if it will ever get easier but it is probably never meant to be.  As CM says ” OK push it and get it done”

20 September 2015

Was I here before?

A version of me must have died during the famine of 1845 – 52. That is the only explanation I can come up with that explains my fear of going hungry.

I have always been surrounded by food. I grew up in a village that had and still has some fine shops. My family were not poor and I never wanted for anything. I never ever remember being hungry so where did this fear come from. Where does the practice of putting three sausages instead of two on the pan?  or put an extra fist full of chips into the deep fat fryer or order a double cheese burger instead of a single one. I have always done so in case I’d be hungry later. “hungry later”  what’s that all about? What am I a camel? Is my plan that if I take that extra sausage, chips or burger that I can store it somewhere for later and release into the stomach when I feel peckish.  But of course it doesn’t work like that, the extra food just stays there and becomes a hump in front of you as big if not bigger than any camel’s one.

Then we also have those fabulous occasions where it is allowed and even encouraged to stuff ourselves beyond belief.Christmas , birthdays and Weddings!! Ah weddings, these are brilliant. A fry up first before we head out, it’s going to be a long day after all! Then after mass, photographs and the drive to the hotel we’ll have  a few pints  and we’ll sit down for the meal; bread rolls, starter, soup and beef or salmon and when we are feeling nice and full, out comes the seconds. ” would you like another bit of beef?” and as you sit there contemplating if you can fit in the other half of the cow that you just eat, you think about the rest of the night ahead, you’ll need the soak-age for the 12 more pints that you are planning to consume and it’s all so bloody nice that you nod and agree to take more cow and ask “would you have any more of those garlic spuds left?” . Then ten minutes later the pants that barely fitted you this morning is now at breaking pint, the tie is off as you are finding it  more and more difficult to breathe and the buttons on the shirt (which fitted you much better at the last wedding three years ago) are in danger now of propelling themselves towards some poor unsuspecting guests face at the speed of a bullet due to the ever expanding bulge from the stuffed beyond belief belly. But don’t worry everything will have settled down in time for the sandwiches, cocktail sausages and wedding cake due around half 11.  But sure I can always work off the meal  with a bit of dancing, no can do I’m afraid, I’m too stuffed!!  And I wonder why I’m fat.

This fear of going hungry combined with gluttony for nice food is still a huge hurdle for me to get over and trying to get the balance right between not eating too much but at the same time not eating too little is tough.

23 September 2015

Week  3 – things are changing

I’m halfway through the six week challenge and feeling great. The muscle pains have mostly gone., I feel a lot healthier and am eating better. Oh  it’s still tough and some of it is still torturous but I must be getting used to it. As usual the weekends are hard going. Drinking sparkling water in the pub while surrounded by gorgeous looking pints of Murphy’s  is like being a devout Catholic child in the Willie Wonka  factory  during lent.

The fitness training continues to be challenging.  Last Saturday we had a HIIT morning. I had no idea what this was but turned up anyway. Boy was I sorry!.  HIIT  stands  for High  Intensity  Interval Training. Jesus wept, that was tough. It was only 25 minutes but the pain in the lungs and the legs felt as if it was  taking an hour.

On Sunday we descended on Carrigadrohid to do a walking / jogging  session. Carrigadrohid is in a valley and this means that it is surrounded by hills.  CM decided we should climb these and at times jog on them. (I really think that girl would be right at home in some dungeon in the middle ages extracting information from poor prisoners). We walked and jogged along the road and I felt as the cars and trucks manoeuvred around me that I should really have had a ‘caution wide load’  sign pinned to me. We then came to a place called Larch Hill. Ah now that’s a hill, this is not your average gradual incline up a gentle slope, this is a hill. And when you are after walking 2.5 miles it is one steep bloody hill. When you do get to the top (and at times I really didn’t think I would)  you are treated  to a fabulous view of the valley and as you descend to the lovely Canovee church, school and the village again you realise that this is one beautiful place. It’s like some idyllic hamlet out of a picture postcard. If only I was less wrecked I’m sure I could have enjoyed it even more..

Monday was a return to Aghabullogue Hall and to Hell. New exercises or new methods of torture depending on how you looked at it greeted us . One was  a hip raising exercise where I and the others lied on our sides and raised our hips skywards while also stretching one arm out.  I swear to God  I looked like an overweight walrus in the middle of a ballerina class. CM also introduced us to the TYRE! This new torture was reserved for us until we were almost finished and suitably wrecked.  I have no idea what part of the weight loss program this fitted into but it must have looked funny to see me down  almost  on all fours pushing the tyre like a hippo trying to move  a bale of straw. It’s not that it is heavy but it’s just the more effort you put in the more you push the tyre into the floor making it more difficult for you and I also have to contend with the imbalance of the stomach weighing me down and threatening to topple me over while at the same time restricting my ability to breathe.. But I got it done and that’s the key to this thing. You just get it done.  Maybe not as fast as some of the others but to improve and to make it worthwhile you must get it done. CM is superb and a terrific motivator and knows what your limit is,  which is about 20% more than what you think your limit is!

Next weigh in is Friday night and already I’m nervous. We live in hope that I’m not after putting some of the hard earned weight loss back on.

26 September 2015

” Sweat is Fat crying”

It’s been a tough week. CM introduced weights to the class. What was she thinking, does she not see that I have enough weight already!. Squats with weights, lunges with weights Jesus, my Glutes are coming on superbly. I’m half thinking of becoming an Ass Double for some movie star, someone like Matt Damon or Daniel Craig maybe.  Mind you having looked at the rest of me, Danny De Vito or Jonah Hill might be more like it.

Last night we got rewarded for our efforts by getting some lovely free gifts  of soup and relishes from Cully & Sully. This was after we had to endure doing 100 exercises each. But you know what, I’m getting fitter. I improved on my Beep Test to 5.2 from 3.6, I’m actually jogging for a bit on the Greenway and some of the exercises are getting more bearable (oh God I hope CM doesn’t see this or she’ll make them harder). The new level of fitness is great. It’s just fabulous to be able to jog for 4 to 5 minutes at a time. CM wants to extend this to 15 minutes, yeah right!!, can’t see that happening any time soon.

Well I’ve lost more weight. Two more Kilos so that is six lost in three weeks and that means I’ve lost 13 pounds. (Yipppeee!!) . Three more weeks to go. But as I said earlier it has been a tough week. Everywhere I went there seemed to be scones with Jam & Cream being given out. Food was calling my name all week. The smell of fresh bread in Murphy’s Centra this morning nearly drove me wild with desire. Chips were brought into the house tonight and I finally gave in. I robbed one measly chip and almost felt guilty eating it. Last night I even enjoyed aero-board with chocolate, some call them rice cakes but to me they’re aero-board. The drink isn’t a huge sacrifice yet! but I am looking forward to having a few pints in three weeks time when this regime is over. The eating habits continue to be not good. I’m still eating too much in the evening. There is a saying , breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper. Unfortunately, I’m having the dinner of an emperor.

So as I head into the second half of the six week boot camp, I’m expecting it to be really hard. CM is going to test us to our limits and I fear I’ve reached mine so I’m heading into week four with real trepidation.  I  hope I continue with the fruit, the green tea and the smaller portions and I lose more weight as I have lots more to lose. Here’s to week 4:-)

04 October 2015

Knees Up

I think I’ve lost weight. I know that I’m down some bit and am hoping I’ll be down even more next time I get weighed and I think my weight loss is beginning to show on my body. During the last very difficult week I have noticed of all things …. my knees.  I was getting dressed the other day and they just looked different, these knobbly unattractive things looked even more knobbly. I never gave them that much thought before now,  I mean they are not the most appealing part of the body and not the most shown off part either.  “Wow do you see the pair of knees on that wan” is not a comment you’d often here a group of lads in a nightclub uttering or  you never see ads on TV selling creams and other aids helping you to make your knees the best that they can be. No, knees are just there quietly doing their job and trying their best not to let us down.   Mine must be under constant pressure trying  to support the upper part of the body but thankfully they haven’t given up yet. I think it was Wednesday that I noticed something different about the essential joints in my supporting pillars. I noticed that I still actually had knees.  You see, weight loss is a strange  thing.  I would ideally love to lose weight of the belly, that’s where I have most of it  but it doesn’t work like that. You lose it everywhere.  Your face, your neck and I have even lost it  from my wrist  and my back and now believe it or not, around my  knees.  I have begun to see my kneecaps again, the fat around them has been pared back a bit  and the shape of these bones have become visible after years of being covered up for so long.  I wonder how many years and miles of walking and sweating  I’ll have to endure before I see an abb  or even a rib :-).

The last week had its ups and downs.  Fitness classes were tough, I was tired and as we headed into week four the novelty of the whole fitness plan thing was beginning to wear thin. I have come up with a lot of reasons to get out of bed each morning and to make the effort to exercise but this week I also came up with excuses not to go. The best I had was on Friday. I got up, put the tracksuit, t-shirt and runners on and was about to head out to the Greenway but then decided that there was no way I could go for a walk due to ……..wait for it…………the FOG. Yes fog. I mean it could be so dangerous walking on a path with no cars on it. So I decided that the safest thing to do was not to bother and get ready for work instead. By Friday evening I had gotten back on track and did the class and then on Saturday I headed for a walk on the Greenway. I had walked to the end, turned around and was heading back when I  met three other members of CM’s group jogging towards me. These three ladies then persuaded me to jog with them. I told them that I don’t really jog and certainly not the length of the riverside walk, but they were very persuasive so I surrendered to them and lo and behold I managed it. Now it was a slow jog but it was still a jog and we talked and laughed all the way and that kept me going to the end. Four weeks ago there was no way on this earth that I would have been able to do that. I mean I was lucky to be able to walk it and because of CM’s training and having the support of the wonderful group I feel I can now try anything.

Four weeks in and the craving for sausages has left me. My favourite breakfast is now melon, pears,  Granola and a bit of Greek yoghurt.  I now prefer a prawn stir fry to pizza and fruit has replaced the after lunch chocolate at work. Have I gone bananas!!!! I still miss the wine and a pint of Murphy’s would go down really well but we’ll stick it out for another fortnight. I don’t know if I’ll have lost any weight over the last week but we’ll see. I’m eating as much as ever but it’s now the right kind of food and I’m feeling better. I still get knock backs, still struggle at times and still have a very long way to go to be considered fit but each day is an improvement.  Two highlights of the week had to be the huge support I’m getting from everyone and the new exercises that CM introduced on Friday. This warm up stuff consisted of stretching and balancing and with me trying to do these things must have resembled a hippo trying to stand on one leg on a beach ball.

The magnitude of the amount of weight that I have to lose came home to me last week  when I met a very slim looking  couple who asked me how the diet was going and then proceeded to tell me that hubby was going on a diet soon as he had put up two pounds since June. TWO POUNDS!! Jesus I’d put up two pounds between breakfast and lunch on a good day not to mind in three months and if he is going on a diet to lose two pounds what does he think I should be doing to lose 20 times that.

Week five begins tomorrow. I can almost see the finish line but  the question is can I afford to stop if and when I cross it.

08 October 2015

Oh God I pulled something this morning. A muscle I think but really it could be anything at this stage. It could be a ligament, a tendon, a ball joint, a giggling pin or a laughing shaft for all I know. What I do know, is that it hurts. CM introduced more weights this week and a torturous exercise with medicine balls. This torture involves lunging, and stretching while pushing the medicine ball skywards as if we are making an offering to the god of exercise and by jesus I’d wish whoever that god is that he’d get up off his ass and come down and take that fecking thing off me.

We are now also doing the crawl. This is tough and involves crawling across the floor almost on all fours. The funniest one though has to be the balancing one where we lateral jump across the hall trying to balance on one leg, It is kind of like the moves you’d see in the  Karate Kid movies but not really. As I try and balance on one leg, the weight of my  belly drags me forward and I end up flaying my arms frantically trying to regain my balance. If I’m not careful, one of these mornings I’ll take off.

Three people returned to work from a week away and each, as is tradition, brought back some chocolates from their travels.. Oh that chocolate looked so gorgeous, almond chocolate, white truffles, bite sized toffee and caramel flavoured mini bars, great  slabs of Swiss milk chocolate made from the produce of lazy cows who graze peacefully high up in the flower laden meadows of the Alps. This chocolate deserved to be tasted. I could hear them calling me as I walked past them , inviting me to taste their delicate sweet flavours , to devour them, to feel their silky smoothness on my lips and tongue and to satisfy my longing for this forbidden temptation of this nectar of the Gods. I had planned on having an apple with my cup of green tea but oh this chocolate looked so damn good. But I went away and  had the fecking  apple. What is happening to me.?

17 October 2015

Extension of Lent

It’s been a tough 10 days. I got sick and was feeling fairly miserable so I had  to forego training for a while. This was a disaster as we were on the final week. I believe I had a a bout of the dreaded ‘MAN FLU’. This is one of the most dangerous illnesses in the world and each year threatens to wipe out our very existence on this planet. The pain and anguish this causes is unbelievable but thankfully only effects men and at least women are spared this debilitating sickness . I attended the GP and I detected from her (mother of four) just a hint of “oh Jesus boy ye men don’t have any idea of pain”  as she handed me the prescription for the lifesaving antibiotic for my sinusitis and a bag of lemons for the man flu.

No Boot camp on last Friday or Monday morning and no Greenway walks on Saturday or Sunday. I was  just sitting at home , eating!!. Nothing major but  no exercise was a killer. Tuesday, I was back in action trying to walk and jog the Greenway. It was good to be back. Wednesday morning saw me up in Aghabullogue Hall at 6.10am eager to get going, After all there was only three days left of this six week hell. I had earlier in the week purchased a nice bottle of Australian Shiraz (I’ve come a long way from the Christmas bottle of Black Tower) to enjoy after the final weigh in on Friday night. The wine was to go with the steak and chips, pepper sauce and onion rings that I was going to fry, yes fry also on Friday night. Wednesday evening wasn’t too bad, the crawl and tyre pushing tortures had disappeared but a sit up hell with a medicine ball had been introduced. At the first attempt at this I drooped the ball on my ankles and felt and looked like a right ejit but I got into the hang of it after a while.

Thursday was a bad day for many reasons. Firstly I woke thinking it was 5.30am , got up and got ready to go to bootcamp at 6am. Got the gear on , brushed the teeth, made the cup of green tea, about to eat the banana and then looked at the kitchen clock, 3.40am….JESUS. Two hours to kill, What’ll I do? Decided to lie on the couch and lo and behold fell asleep until 6am, damn I’m late. Into the Car and headed for Aghabullogue Hall only to find the place in darkness!!! I felt like the horse rider in the Walter de la Mare poem The Listener http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177007 I headed home again from the darkness of Aghabullogue and checked the  Boot camp Viber messages (which I should have checked before heading out) and yes there it was from the previous night a message from CM. Cancelling Thursday morning and instead giving us an extra Monday night and having the final weigh in on Wednesday night. Wednesday night? but what about my wine and steak and pepper sauce and pints of Murphys. Whoah whoah, hang on it was six weeks not six and and a half weeks. My life since September 7th has been gearing up for Sunday October 18th. The pubs in Coachford have ordered in extra barrels of stout in anticipation of my drought being ended.  Extra staff have been rostered for the Sunday evening shift in Ramen. A ‘Smooch’ in Cooney’s Quik Pick has my name on it. I feel like a young boy who has given up chocolate and sweets on Ash Wednesday and stored up all the goodies since then and was so looking forward to eating them along with all the Easter eggs only to be told that Jesus did not rise from the dead on a Sunday morning as previously thought but it was the following Wednesday that he pushed the rock out of the way and messed with the heads of the Apostles.

So that’s it. The wine and steak have another few days to age and mature and the diet goes on. My protests to CM at last night’s Boot camp fell on deaf ears  and I was told ” just Chuck it in the fuck it bucket and move on”. And that’s what I did. Medicine Ball sit ups, weights, shuttle runs, hip raises and one leg squats were all completed and enjoyed. Four days left to the final weigh in , the last beep test and the truth about how much fat I’ve lost over these last six weeks  six and a half weeks of hell. And what then? Well CM is planning a November camp to prepare us for Christmas..

I’ve just realised all our eating revolves around religious festivals, Baptisms, Communions, Confirmations, Weddings, Funerals, Easter and Christmas. JC has a lot to answer for and you wouldn’t mind but there wasn’t  a pick on him.

26 October  2015

It’s finished. 45 days of hell. Well not really Hell. it wasn’t that bad. Some of it was, some of it was very tough, some of it was kind of easy and some of it I never want to go through again.

I’ve learnt a lot about myself, my level of fitness, my eating habits and how I can make excuses for everything. I learnt that doing things like this in a group is the way to go. I was lucky to have a fabulous supporting bunch of people who kept me going through the classes and the walks and runs in the mornings. I was blessed with the course leader, Ciara Murphy of CM Fitness Nutrition and Sports Rehab. Ciara  is brilliant. She is patient, tough, driven, kind and understanding. She never stops working with the class, she constantly gives us tips and advice about how we can get better results. If someone gets injured she gives them the time and attention to help them recover. She’d text you exercises, diets and words of encouragement if she thought you needed them. And there was times when I needed all of the above.

When I started this madness I wanted to lose weight and get healthier. I was fearful that I’d give it up after 10 days, that I’d slip back into the drink and chips and bad habits and that I’d quickly throw my hat at the whole thing. That’s why I told everyone through this blog that I was doing this, the more people that would know would make it tougher for me to give in. I didn’t want to appear as a complete loser in front of so many friends and acquaintances. And it worked. I stuck with it (bar the very odd day). What I hadn’t bargained for was the huge level of support I received from so many people. Everyone I met encouraged me to keep going, to stick with it and that it would be good for me. People gave me advice, they gave me recipes and warned me about the pitfalls. This support was of immense help and is so gratefully appreciated. I have been blown away by the numbers of people who are reading this blog, my ramblings of being fat and how I am trying to battle it everyday.

The battle this week was to try and get from last Friday week to weigh in Wednesday without putting on too many pounds. It didn’t help that I slept out on Monday and failed to make class but I did do some push ups, sit ups, hip raises and star jumps here at home in front of a very bemused cat who just stared at me as if  I was finally after losing it. Tuesday saw me on the Greenway but as Wednesday approached I was more than ready to give this diet stuff a rest and get back to eating some nice full fat food.  I was starting to miss the pizzas, the wine, the chocolate biscuits and the sausages, oh the sausages, those perfect packages of pork. I missed them most of all.

So here I was again about to step up on the truth giver, this digital machine which can either make you or break you. Up I got and CM took the readings and did the calculations. I have lost 18 lbs weight in the  last 45 days, my body fat is down from 33% to 29% and my visceral fat (the dodgy one) is down from 20 to 17 but I still have the body of a 65 year old (Feck that so, I’m applying for the bus pass next week). So  that’s it, 18 pounds of fat gone. Am I delighted? absolutely. Could I have lost more? maybe,… 21 lbs would have been ideal, but 18 is a terrific start. And I also lost over 4.75 inches from my waist, and it really is 4.75 inches. I know we men can be guilty of exaggerating measurements when it comes to  inches but this was verified by CM with a big measuring tape.

So that was it. After just six weeks I had gotten fitter, lost fat and weight and inches off the belly. I had developed a taste for green tea, fruit and ‘rice cakes’. No I hadn’t. I don’t think I could ever develop a taste for those aero board things. I had realised that just because I jog or stretch or walk miles I will not collapse and die. I have met new wonderful people and gotten to know them.

CM told me seven weeks ago that she would have me jogging for 15 minutes at the end of the programme and she did. I have jogged (slowly) along the Greenway and felt so good about doing it that three weeks ago I signed up to do the Runway Run at Cork Airport on November 21 at midnight. Am I  off my head or what? I ran half the Greenway and all of a sudden I think I’m some Kenyan long distance runner, Jaysus Rio 2016 here I come!!!. Apparently there are 1500 people taking part in this 5km run and guess who will be last 🙂    I can see it now, a Ryanair flight from London about to land at 6am ” Hello Cork tower,this is Ryanair flight 226 from London on our final approach are we clear to land”

” Hi there Ryanair this is Cork tower, ah yes and no, you may notice a blob of fat halfway along the runway hooked up to a defibrillator , he’s been jogging there since midnight, just try and avoid him if you can”

Well I have had my steak dinner, enjoyed a Ramen curry, feasted on sausages, gorged on a Chocolate eclair in Macroom on Saturday and enjoyed my pints in the village and now I’m back on the wagon from tomorrow.My next goal is to lose 10 pounds between now and December 15th.  I also need to build up to running that damn Runway, At least there will be no hills!