Introductions

I'm tired of starting a healthier lifestyle, complete with extensive gym routine, restricted diet, guilt that I never drink as little as I should etc only to have it all collapse a whopping four weeks later.  If that.

So this time, I'm going to put some pressure on.  I am going to make my efforts public.  I will be honest here in ways I'm just not with my friends and family when it comes to changing myself.  Most importantly, I will be honest with myself.  I will not pretend to myself that I am working hard when really, I know I could give more.

So starting with the whole honesty thing, I finished a slice of home-made apple cake like twenty minutes ago.  It was lovely.

I'm not going to follow any particular diet or anything like that (yet).  I will just clean up my eating, cut out the crap (cake above excepted, there was a good reason I swear), control the drinking and keep an eye on portion size.  I'm not going to worry about having a bag of crisps at the weekend or some heaven sent goodness at the cinema but on a day to day basis all that junk is gone.  If I do all that while still making my main meal of the day as tasty as I can, the diet part should theoretically be easy. 

Except for the controlled drinking bit.  I love alcohol.  What can I say, I'm English.  My favourite memories all involve drinking.  At university (all 5 years of it :D ) doing ten rounds of Stella before going back to our flat, "borrowing" that half bottle of Taboo (dirty stuff) and listening to my mate attempt to peform The Man with the Golden Gun.  Meeting my wife over Sting and Magners.  Rugby 7's at Twickenham (in fact all rugby I've ever been to) involving copious amounts of Guinness.  OMG, Guinness on St. Paddies (as well as Baileys and Jamesons).  My stag do, my wedding, my honeymoon.  The simple pleasure of sitting in a pub garden in the sun with a cold Becks, eating Merguez in Argeles with Pelforth Blonde, a bottle of Malbec with fajitas in front of the TV watching some cheesey chick flick with my wife for the 10th time.  Yeah, I love my booze.  So this will be my sticking point.  Keeping my drinking down low enough to actually make gains in my fitness and drops in body fat, while still enjoying one of the finest pleasures in life.

Where I will make my real gains will be at the gym.  Over the last week I went to the gym 5 out of 7 days, burning an average of 720 calories per hour session (took it easy on the last session).  I'm currently loving the spinning bike and intend to use it as my main weapon.  I'll combine it with warm ups on the rower or treadmill, and through the week I'll finish off sessions with a couple of middling compound weights exercises so that my muscles don't dwindle to nothing in this fat burning stage.

If this blog turns out to be useful to me, I'll keep it when I change up my routine and go for size/strength/conditioning gains, whatever interests me in the future.  But for now, it's all about melting off the fat while staying sane.

Wish me luck.