16 miles of hell summed into a few photos

I went on a run yesterday, the longest one to date, on my 8 week mission to a marathon and thought I would display the sheer agony of parts of the run via photo (was a bit tricky!)

Getting my game face on....

16 miles requires a few essentials...

The first hill (Matthew Bank)...

Nice long stretch along Great North Road...

Running with the cows in town moor...

Down into the city centre....

I made a friend on the tyne bridge...

Into Sandyford...

Snack time at the top of Shields Road...

Hills, hills and more hills...

Escaping down into the Dene for a while...

The hill of death out of the Dene (pictures don't do this beast justice)...

Through to Gosforth High Street, only a few miles to go!

Got a bit lost and ended up coming out from here...

Less than a mile to go...

Homeward bound....

Finished thanks to these little champs!

Racing to my first marathon

I’m never one to do things the sensible way, so when I slowly began to progress from my half marathon distance I decided that I would attempt to run a marathon while it was easy to train and adapt my body in such a way. I usually rush into things, with my head in the clouds and blag my way through but I decided that this time I wanted to do this properly and really enjoy the experience having trained properly. So one random day in April I signed up for the Brighton 2012 marathon, thoroughly satisfied that with a year to train I would be in tip top condition.

I started training hard and fast increasing my distance significantly past the 13 mile wall and found that I hit a new wall, 16 miles. Frustrated with myself and mentally never being able to push myself past this point I tried to understand why psychologically my body wouldn’t let me go further in this distance and over the past few weeks the realisation that my goal is too far away to make me push myself hard enough. 

So me being me and never doing things the normal way has signed up for a marathon. Fair enough I hear you say, surely you’ve got 12-16 weeks over the year that you set yourself to train, which is still more than enough time. Aha! Here is where the problem lies, as I only have 8 weeks….

Is it doable? I have no idea; the body can do strange and wonderful things when you really want it to. Will I get a good time? Probably not but I will be happy just to complete it! So for the next 8 weeks I will blog my very short but sweet journey to my very first marathon.

Wish me luck!

 (I might not win but I can dream big!)

9 Reasons why the gym doesn’t necessarily get you fit

1.     1. You end up spending up to the equivalent of a workout getting there! The majority of people live at least 5-10 minutes away from their chosen gym, total this up over the week and you get at least an hour’s wasted travel time that could have been spent running in the great outdoors.

2.        

      2. Are you sure you have an effective workout? 9 times out of 10 the people that I see in gyms, either do the same thing every time they go into the gym and without variety and a challenge you will hit a plateau and your workouts will have no effect, or have no game plan go in and just wing it. A lot of thought should go into your workouts, with a full body approach, challenges and progression in every session.

3.        

      3. I’m super fit I can run at 14km an hour on the treadmill….wrong. For all you gym cardio demons, get outside!!! When training outside you work twice as hard, particularly all you treadmill runners. With the right trainers to take away the impact on your joints, there’s no excuse. The treadmill does half the work for you, due to the pull back of the belt, not only meaning you burn less calories than the treadmill tells you, but also putting you at risk of injury due to muscles imbalances particularly in the quads.

4.        

      4. It’s a waiting game. Take a stop watch in with you the next time you go to the gym, and total up on a busy night, how long you spend waiting for all the equipment that you need. Bet you actually spend about 20 minutes in total hanging around, so that hour long workout you told your friends you did was actually only 40 minutes.

5.        

      5. Just because you’re on a piece of equipment doesn’t mean you’re working hard. The amounts of people I see in the gym that don’t even break out in a sweat….what are you doing? If you’re not sweating even a tiny bit then you certainly not working hard enough! If you’re excuse is that you are super fit, up the incline and the speed I bet that problem gets sorted quick enough. Sweating is the body’s way of cooling you down when your heart rate has increased and the blood is pumping round your body, it’s also a way of showing that you’re working at an intensity that will have a health benefit for your body.

6.   

            6. Nutrition, nutrition, nutrition. This is the main part of a healthy lifestyle mainly because it’s the biggest. A twenty minute, high intensity cardio workout burns just over 200 calories. A bottle of orange lucozade has 280 calories. Drinking a bottle of lucozade while running on the treadmill for 20 minutes, you still have consumed 80 more calories than you have burnt off…..get my drift?

7.        

      7. Useless equipment. You pay that massive monthly fee because there is lots of fantastic shiny looking equipment that surely you will use. Truth is the majority of it is useless and can be done with free weights which get you to work harder and are better for you long term.

8.        

      8. Mirror syndrome. Mirrors mirrors everywhere. The majority of people train what they see. The result is bad posture that long term can result in severe back problems. A full body approach should always be used and you should never train what you can see in the mirror alone, remember we have back muscles that need strengthening people!

9.        

      9. Gyms don’t have me.

Exercise and Nutrition...one won’t work without the other

As a personal trainer I often find a lot of the marketed materials that are around for health and fitness. I get bombarded with questions from friends, family, clients and social media contacts, asking about either exercise or nutrition.

More often than not the question will be based upon the general scenario that an article or piece of advice has been put in to practice and not been effective. The question is usually why or what can be done to make it work. Here is where I go back and place emphasis on the fact that the question is about exercise OR nutrition.

One OR the other. The truth is one won’t be effective without the other.

Scenario 1: You take a fitness regime from Men’s Health or Zest, it looks spanking and is probably a pretty good workout, it guarantees results in 4 weeks. 4 weeks down the line you don’t really see or feel much difference.  

Scenario 2: You take a nutrition plan from Men’s Health or Zest, it looks great, tasty, nutritious, so surely the pounds will melt away like it says. 4 weeks down the line you don’t really see or feel much difference.

Conclusion: 4 weeks of either scenario 1 or 2 not working and you decide to scrap it and go back to the way you were. What a waste of time!

In the fitness industry there is masses of information about exercise and nutrition. Don’t get me wrong it is all in its’ own way right, but there is a gap in the education that people are receiving about how to live a healthy lifestyle. There are so many quick fix diets and exercise programmes being advertised, that people’s vision of a healthy lifestyle is either leaning towards diet or exercise.

The truth is that you can’t have an entirely healthy lifestyle if you are only focusing on one without the other. You will never see the true benefits of those hours in the gym if during your workout you are consuming a high glucose drink and then go home and have a meal that doesn’t have a balance of carbohydrate, protein and essential fats. You won’t see the true potential of all those painful hours poured over food labels and calorie counter books if you aren’t exercising to burn fat and build muscle.

Another truth is, that if you have a healthy balance of both, neither should be painful. If your diet is good 80% of the time and you exercise then that 20% is counteracted. If you only exercise for 30 minutes a few times a week but you have a fantastic diet then it is balanced out. Neither of them need hours of blood and tears put into the calorie burn and count because a healthy lifestyle is about finding a balance.

So the next time you spend three hours in the gym and restrict you calorie count to 1200 calories a day, remember that your body needs adequate nutrition to help see the benefits of all that exercise, and a low calorie diet is not the answer. Or you reduce your calorie intake and don’t exercise, remember that despite being slim, you can’t be toned and fit without building muscle through exercise.

One won’t work without the other.

I did it!!!!!!!!

So ladies and gentlemen! As previously mentioned in my blogs, I was attempting to get down to my racing weight, otherwise known as my optimal performance weight to improve my speed. Well let me tell you the body does crazy things!

The experiment is officially over, why you say? Because I’ve reached my target body fat percentage. EH?

Starting Stats: (when we made the faux pax, so I’ve just put my starting weight and BMI)

Weight: 62.2 KG / 9 Stone 11.2 lbs

BMI: 22.1

Starting Stats: (correct ones done a few days after the start of the experiment)

Gender: Female

Age: 21

Height: 5ft 6 inches

Weight:  61.69 KG / 9 stone 10 lbs

Total Body Fat Percentage: 19.9%

Fat Mass: 1 stone 13 lbs

Muscle Mass: 7 stone 5.6 lbs

Hydration: 59.8 %

Bone Mass: 5.4 lbs

Metabolic Age: 12

Visceral Fat Rating: 1

BMI: 21.9

End Stats:

Gender: Female

Age: 21

Height: 5ft 6 inches

Weight:  60.87 KG / 9 stone 8.2 lbs  
Total Body Fat Percentage: 17%

Fat Mass: 1 stone 7.6 lbs

Muscle Mass: 7 stone 8.8 lbs

Hydration: 61.7 %

Bone Mass: 5.8 lbs

Metabolic Age: 12

Visceral Fat Rating: 1

BMI: 21.64

How the hell did that happen?

Well I’m not entirely sure myself! The first idea is that I’m a machine, which I’m not going to disagree with. The second idea is based partially around the no sugar experiment as I think the clean eating that I have carried on has affected my body in ways I never anticipated. The final idea, protein shakes.

When you should consume Protein Shakes

I’ve been against protein shakes for many years, partially due to an initial bad experience with them in which I actually gained weight and fat over muscle. Reason, because I wasn’t training right and my nutrition at the time was poor, but based on a bad experience I have avoided them like the plague for as long as possible. Here is where the problem lies as I am a vegetarian and I have to say I found getting adequate amounts of protein in my diet quite a struggle. When I analyzed my food diary it became clear that I was trying to get my protein mainly from nuts and seeds and sadly my fat intake was through the roof! Although in the short term this won’t have affected my health I’m glad this issue was addressed earlier rather than later. So I started consuming to protein shakes a day (just one scoop) and the difference has been phenomenal. I was quite clever with how I went about deciding on my brand and type of shake, as I’m still trying to consume as little refined sugar as possible and protein shakes are notorious for being pumped with about 15 different types of sugar and the content per 100g makes me feel queasy! I found a brand called Phd Diet Whey which was perfect for me. It gave me high levels of protein with no fat or sugar and I could consume my carbohydrate from more natural forms of sugar like fruit. Yes they do have some sweeteners in, but beggars can’t be choosers and how clean my diet is currently, the sweeteners in the protein shakes will be having little effect upon my body. 

So not only has my recovery improved, my muscle mass has gone up and my fat down. Marveloos!

But you didn’t reach your target weight how are you at your optimal performance weight?

Good question! The problem with estimating your optimal performance weight, based on your starting lean muscle mass, is that it calculates your optimal weight assuming that your lean mass is to stay the exact same and all you are to do is loose fat. This is why I have reached my optimal body fat without having to lose as much weight! Basically what has happened is that being a lucky girl I have gained quite a bit of muscle with the help of improving my protein intake, and this has helped to improve my muscle to fat ratio, hence my body fat percentage now being fabulous!

Results:

 So since starting the experiment I have lost a total of 3 pounds and dropped almost 1 point off my BMI. The main point is that I have dropped my body fat percentage from 19.9% to 17% so lost a total of 2.9%. WOWAWEEWA! It happened fast and I didn’t expect it, but it makes sense when I think how my running speed has improved, as has my strength and endurance. Not to mention that I’m now in the 80^th percentile of body fat for females my weight, meaning that my body fat is lower than 80% of women my age.

What you going to do now then?

Simple, have a curry (I’m not kidding). I’m going to treat myself after almost a month and a half of experiments, and a nice big margin of body fat to play with.

On a more serious note, I will be upping my calorie intake to 2600 calories a day. This will allow me to keep my training the same (the most important thing) but stabilize my weight. Going any lower than 17% for someone that doesn’t compete in athletics is pretty pointless, as a female it messes with my hormones and is far too much pressure than I need, so now I’m going to kick back and relax! But of course still be nutritious and eat clean!

An afterthought: For all those thinking I’m crazy for eating clean and not having sweets etc. Watch Jamie’s Food Revolution Goes to Hollywood, episode 3. His homemade ice cream sundae made up of the real ingredients that go into those Sundaes will make you think twice before putting sweets in your mouth!