The Suburban Yeti

Stunt Blogging.

Just got back from a run. As in three minutes ago. I’m sitting here with sweat pouring off me as I try desperately not to electrocute myself whilst typing. Stunt blogging; a new sport. See the risks I take for you? Since Christmas I’ve dropped 5.5kgs (12bs) via changes to my diet and a little more cardio. 2007 saw me pretty much living in the weight room as far as my training was concerned and sneak my way up to 100kgs (220lbs) just before Christmas. I had a bunch of extra muscle (compared to 2006) but also a little more fat than I wanted. The muscle – good, the fat – not so good. I’m sure there’s a correlation between time spent blogging and the size of my waist.

It’s official; blogging makes you fat.

That’s my story.
So the day I saw the big one-zero-zero make an appearance on the scales was the day I said to myself, “Hey Australia’s soon-to-be fattest fitness expert, time to put the brakes on this bad boy before it ends up a train wreck. Not sure how credible you’ll be when they have to roll you on stage for your next speaking gig.”

Okay, I wasn’t that fat but I didn’t feel fantastic, so I decided to drop a few pounds. Depending on how much weight-training I’m doing and how much muscle I have at the time, I can weigh anywhere from 80kgs (176lbs) to 100kgs (220lbs) and be in reasonably good shape. Generally I feel my best at around 90kgs (198lbs) – strong enough and aerobically fit enough. When I wrote Fattitude I weighed about 80kgs but I was running my ass off and probably a little on the skinny side (for me).

The Suburban Yeti

It lives.

So on December 26 I dragged my rather large and sorry self out of the weight room, away from my much-loved dumbbell rack and around the burbs for possibly, one of the ugliest sporting performances of all time – my jogging comeback. Kind of like an injured Yeti with sneakers on. Not quite as pretty or as fit though. Don’t know why I assumed that a Yeti would be fit. Probably all that snow training. Anyway, I’m sure I traumatized passers-by. I traumatized myself! People looked at me with pity. They had that whole “oh well, at least he’s trying” look on their face as I lumped my considerable mass passed them. I felt like I was trying to run whilst breathing through a straw. A very small straw – there just didn’t seem to be enough O2 in the air.

While I have a few familiar running courses around my area, I have one 5km (3mile) trek that I’ve been running the most lately. It was the one I ran on day 1 (Dec. 26), so I consider it to be a good gauge for my progress. That first outing felt like I was running in quicksand with a Hyundai on my back.

So this is how I’ve progressed over the last 5 (and a bit) weeks.

Week 1: 5km run time – 28:54 (sadly), weight 100kg (sadly), RPE – 10, RT – 9 minutes

Week 3: 5km run time – 26:41, weight 97.2kg, RPE – 8, RT – 5 minutes

Week 5: 5km run time – 23:58, weight, 95.2kg, RPE – 7, RT – 4 mins 15 secs

Today: (in 6th week) 5km run time – 23:02, weight 94.4kg, RPE – 6, RT – 3 minutes

*All a bit tragic when you consider my best 5km time of 17-ish minutes (a lifetime ago)!

Note:
RPE - Is a standard measure used in exercise science. It stands for Rate of Perceived Exertion – how hard you feel you’re working. I am using a simple 1 to 10 scale, with 10 being the hardest.

RT - Stands for Recovery Time and is the amount of time it took for my breathing and my heart rate to return to normal (66 bpm) and for me to feel relatively normal.

So the good news (there is some) is that today I sit here in my current sweaty state, considerably lighter and leaner, noticeably fitter, lower resting heart rate, drastically improved recovery, much better energy levels and with an overall feeling of wellness that I haven’t enjoyed for quite a while. Interestingly, my strength is the same in the gym and I seem to have lost very little muscle. All good things.

So what’s the point of this monologue about the state of my body?

Well, it’s certainly not to tell you what an awesome athlete I am and what a freaky body I have, because clearly I’m not and I don’t! No, today I want to emphasize once again how amazing this organism that we call the human body really is. Yes, I’m talking about your body too. All we need to do is stimulate it the right way (consistently, not for three days) and it will change. Drastically if need be. Our body is an incredible, complex and capable machine which is constantly responding and adapting to an enormous range of stimuli every second of every day. Weight loss (or gain) is a simple example of our body adapting to a new or slightly different stimulus. Improvements in fitness, strength and flexibility are simply positive responses to stress (exercise of course being a form of stress).

If I can take an endomorphic (genetically pre-disposed to higher body-fat levels) male body in it’s forties, pull it away from the weight room and the computer for a while, put it in some running shoes occasionally, decrease it’s cheesecake intake and see some significant physiological change in a relatively short period of time, then anyone can start to realise how adaptable the human body is – irrespective of age, sex, genetic disposition, previous experiences or exercise history. I have worked with people in their eighties who have created truly amazing results, so don’t you start talking yourself into failure. Force yourself to find a way to achieve, rather than a reason to give up (or not even start).

If only our mind wouldn’t get in the way, we could do some amazing stuff!

It’s true; for too many people their mind gets in the way of (what’s possible for) their body. For many morbidly obese people their fat, unhealthy body is a symptom of their fat, unhealthy mind (attitude, thinking, beliefs, excuses, fears, choices, addictions) and when we fix the head stuff, then invariably we see the body change – you know that. When the thinking changes, the behaviours change, the habits change and the body changes.

I know that I repeat this message often but it just isn’t preached in the wider community and the majority of people still don’t get that the most powerful tool we have (for losing weight or improving health in general) is the mind (suprisingly, it’s not the fat-blaster 7000). Most health and fitness professionals still waste their time focusing entirely on the body. Until they realise that (very) often the external reality (a person’s physical condition) is merely a consequence of the internal reality, then they will continue to bark up the wrong tree.
Woof, woof my learned friends.

Today’s take-home messages?

1. If the Endomorphic Suburban Yeti can shape up, so can you.
2. Our mind needs to get in shape just as much as our body (we need to train it too).
3. Systematic, logical, consistent, progressive training works (short-term, emotional bursts of exercise don’t).
4. Anyone, even the experts (I use that term cautiously) can get out of shape – ’cause it ain’t about knowledge, it’s about what we do with it.
5. It’s possible to create significant results in a relatively short period of time when we give our body what it needs (every day), rather than our head what it wants.

Anyway, I’ll keep you updated and let you know when my six-pack arrives (it’s due Tuesday week).

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