Fit Not Fat For Forty

BigFish75

Hi all,

I hope you don't mind another thread seeking help/motivation for a typical bloke heading for 40 realising time is slipping by and if I don't get in proper shape soon I never will!!

I'm 40 at the end of July and here's the bio and background.

Height: - 183cm
Weight: - 192kg
Not at all fit at the moment and have had a poor posture all my life so would like to build in some weight training perhaps to straighten those round shoulders and improve my posture.

Member of a 'big' gym but never attend. Used to play a bit of social squash up to a few years ago and long (10 years) before that did a mixture of Ju Jitsu, social five a side soccer and cycling to and from work which was about 8 miles a day total.

I am a workaholic (own business) with a wife and young family I adore so when not working I spend all my time playing/messing with them. A typical day will be up with kids @7:30am, SSS, breakfast with the kids, into work by 9am, skip lunch or have a sandwich at the desk, home at 6:30, dinner, kids homework, play with them, put them to bed then open the laptop, work some more whilst having a couple of beers, watch TV for an hour from 9pm (news and something after maybe) then hit the sack and do it all again next day. Weekends are filled with running the kids to and from sports events and I mean it, it's full on for the two days almost except Sunday afternoons when we usually end up out shopping for this or that.

What I'd really like to do is create a fitness program which will enable me to get in shape by the end of July without sacrificing time with the kids. When I do go to the gym I usually spend 10 mins on the fat burn programme on the reclined bike and 30 minutes on the treadmill at 8.5km per hour speed with no incline which includes a 5 minute walking warmup at 5km p/hr and a 5 minute warmdown at the same speed. That's it!! I don't do anything else. My office is near the gym so I guess I could take in some spinning classes or just go do a workout during the day if I wanted to but although I've tried to make time in my diary there always seems to be some reason not to.

Can't believe this is such a long winded post. Can anyone help with practical suggestions or a recommended workout? Ralistically what weight should I be aiming for by the end of July? 82 KG?

BTW - I have had high blood pressure for years. It's fully under control but thought I'd mention it and oh yeah, diet. I have two poached or boiled eggs with brown toast (with butter and marmalede) almost every morning along with fresh orange juice and a cup of tea before going to work. Dinner is usually meat and two veg during the week but weekends is Chinese takeawy x 2 unless we are going out which would then by chinese x 1 and whatever we have in the restaurant. Do I snack? You bet I do. Almost every evening I'll have a couple of chocolate bars of some sort or a pack of Jaffa Cakes!!!

I can see wherer I'm heading and I need to turn things around mega quick.

HELP!!!

Racing Flat

What about when you drop kids to sport at the weekend, get out and jog around as they play? Always strikes me at my running club - lots of parents drop kids then sit in car for an hour waiting, if it was me I'd use that time to exercise...

dellas1979

Ok - after joining a gym last year, I actually gained weight (I know, I was like what the heck!!!?).

Anyways, about 2-3 weeks ago I joined another gym. Its on my way home from work - its not as good as other gyms, but I had a plan made up for me and so far so good.

I asked the fitness coach to make the work out 20-30 mins max in duration - doing this 3 times a week, if possible. If there are days I can do a 40min work out, they have a 40min work out made for me too and, I am surprised too, I have already lost 4 pounds!

BigFish75

Hi Racing Flat,

Of the 5 sports my young lad does I actually train one (unbelievable I know) and the others frown on parents not staying around in case of injury etc. I know that sounds lame but it's a fact, we were given a stern warning by one club as late as last Saturday that they are there to train our kids and not as a creche or drop off service.

Are there any links to previous threads of a similar nature or recommended sorkouts for what I'm trying to achieve?

I suppose I could start by getting up 30 minutes earlier and going for a run. If I did a 20 minute run 3 times a week that would give me some momentum. Any comments?

littlefriend

Hi
I'm not a professional or in any way qualified to give you advice but I have lost a good bit of weight and I'm trying to get fit to another here are a few observations/suggestions:
Lay off high fat dairy & choose wholegrain bread & pasta, brown or basmati rice.
Drink a lot of water. I drink 1 pint before work. I fill a litre bottle when I get in to work and make sure I drink it before lunch. Fill it again after lunch & finish it before home time. Anything else is a bonus.

It looks like you are usually in bed by 11 during the week - if you set your alarm that bit earlier to be up and out by 7 for 30-40 mins exercise you are still getting 8 hours sleep a night. So give that a try. At night you could do a short weights routine after the kids go to bed. You can listen to the news on the radio if you have to.
Bring some lunch to work. Its WAY WAY too long not to eat from breakfast until dinner. My brother has been doing what you do for years & now has type 2 diabetes.
Try to eat something small to take the edge off your hunger before you leave work so that you don't eat everything in sight as soon as you get home.
When you are playing with your kids after dinner maybe you could do that outside - kick a football around or play rounders or something? The weather is getting better now so should be possible to do this.
Break the chinese takeaway habit. Initially cut down to once a week - 2 nights per weekend is asking for trouble. Also, make your own brown rice for it instead of ordering the white stuff. If you really love Chinese food maybe try out a few healthy Chinese recipes at home.

Another thing - maybe get the others in your family involved- get the kids to keep an eye on what you eat at dinner stuff like that?
I've been dieting on and off for a few years and I used to think I was great if I skipped dinner or lunch - now I know that it is totally counter productive as not only are you starving, it slows your metabolism too which makes it harder to lose weight.
You'll be feeling more energetic pretty much straight away which will motivate you to keep going. 10kg shouldn't be too hard to lose at all.
You do mention that you want to do this quickly - believe me I understand that feeling. You are better off looking at this as a new lifestyle rather than a quick fix starvation diet [once I got that into my head I lost about 3 stone and have kept it off for around 3 years].

Best of luck - it'll be worth it

BigFish75

Hey LittleFriend,

Good practical advice indeed.

Will start with the morning run, water and something for lunch. Your comment about geting home starving and eating everything in sight is sooooooo true!!

Agree totally that I need to view this as a long term lifestyle change rather than a quick cosmetic fix.

Regards,

Fish.

celestial

Hey OP,

I'm very tired so will give you some quick-fire tips instead of a long-winded post, it will cover a lot of what you need anyway:D

1. Eat, without fail, a small amount of food every 2-3 hours.
2. Cut sugar out of your diet and the fat will start to fall off - just say goodbye to Jaffa cakes.
3. Chinese takeaway should be once every two weeks for the first while.
4. Wholegrain over white flour EVERY TIME.
5. When exercising, try to mix up high intensity with lower intensity. Do weights if at all possible.
6. Drink lots of water - we often mistake hunger for thirst.

BigFish75

Celestial,

Thanks for the tips. I'm seeing a clear pattern here. Quit the sugary snacks, drink water, drop the take aways. I'm getting withdrawal symptoms already!!

Regards,

Fish.

littlefriend

So Big Fish how did today go?

BigFish75

Littlefriend,

Yesterday was OK actually. Brought the dog for a 25 minute run 5 mins /walk 5 mins /run 5 mins at 6:45am. First 10 minutes were agony. I am not at all supple so jumping out of bed heading into the cold morning and expecting 39 year old leg muscles to just fire up wasn't going to happen. Once I got going it wasn't too bad. Will the time taken to get going decrease asit becomes a regular occurance or should I walk for the first 10 minutes to properly warm up then run?

After I got my breath back at home (the kids thought I was going to die when I opened the back door sweating and huffing) I had 2 poached eggs on nutty brown toast with marmite on them plus a home made smoothie of frozen berries, fresh orange juice half a bananna and an apple. I really felt like eating more but kept it to that and when the hunger pains kicked in at lunchtime I had chicken tomato and cheddar cheeze sandwich on brown with mayo instead of butter a pack of crisps (probably have to cut that out) and half a litre of water. Dinner was white rice with spicy thai beef salad and sauted asparagus thai style all home made. (Eat a lot of Thai jasmin rice and Thai style food as I used to live there and LOVE the food).

Unfortunatley a couple of hours after dinner the cravings kicked in and I had two bottles of Stella and a chunky Kit Kat. :mad:

Didn't do a walk/run this morning but had a similar breakfast and an egg mayo and onion sandwich on brown for lunch and crisps again.

Hope to have another walk/run tomorrow morning and build up to just running 3-4 mornings a week followed by 3 sessions in the gym doing an appropriate weights programme which will help improve my posture/round shoulders.

Marks out of 10 so far?

littlefriend

Very good. Fair play for getting up early and doing that. It'll be awful for a week or so but you might start looking forward to it! Make yourself get up tomorrow morning - its Friday and you'll think you are fantastic all day-GREAT FEELING.
Look at the start of this forum ie fitness. That will tell you everything you need to know. Somewhere in one of them is how to work out how many calories you need for the day - very handy.

Re food: I'm only someone who is trying to be a leaner version of myself so I 'm not qualified to give you any advice. I think in the morning I'd add a low fat natural yoghurt to the smoothie mix & bring it in to work to have at around 10.30 or so.
In terms of lunch go easy on the cheese, mayo and crisps. Have something small around 4pm.
For dinner white rice has to go! Give the brown stuff a go. I cook it in a chicken stock cube w/ a clove of garlic - makes it very tasty. [Actually that can be a dinner in itself if you add onions, peas & chicken]
After dinner think of something you can have so you dont end up eating whatever is in the house. Glenisk do a few gorgeous yoghurts that seem like dessert. Or try some dark chocolate Green & Blacks YUM. Get a few [unsalted nuts in there at some stage too.
When you get to this stage next week you'll be so eager to keep going there'll be no stopping you. If you get up and exercise tomorrow then you score 11/10 for the week.

BigFish75

Whats a dark chocolate green and black?

xebec

BigFish75 wrote: »

Whats a dark chocolate green and black?

That's this stuff.

littlefriend

You can get it all over the place - petrol stations, tesco, newsagents etc