Fighting The Flab

Hello folks, sorry I have not been around much recently I will trya nd rectify that. I am still training hard with Stephen Primrose of Lions Pride and also doing some Cardio work out at Evade. Many thanks too everybody at both dojo's that have helped me get ready building up to the world championships next month.

This weekend I took part in the MAI open and got a bronze model



The fight was ok, I did ok and enjoyed myself. My coach was happy as well (which is the main thing as I dont get beasted)

Once again thanks to al the help preparing... Dublin on the 30th October to take part in the 1st WKC World Championships.

Hi folks, sorry I have been so remiss at posting... lots going on. Mainly, the internet and phone system at work has been down for nearly 3 weeks with next to no support from the company that supplies them. In the end I had to fix the issue myself. Not really what I am trained to do but luckily, not to different from the systems I know. Anyhow, long story short, we are back in business!!! Everything seems to be working. No thanks to talk talk enterprises.... I really would not recommend them as a supplier to any business. they mmay be cheap but having failed to return over 8 phone calls when directors have promised to call back always makes me wonder.

Anyhow... what have I been up to? Well I did the Manchester to Blackpool bike ride for a charity called EETEP. It was a great day and I enjoyed most of the ride (the last few miles into a headwind wasnt so much fun) but we did complete it. Here is a picture of Phil Booth (EETEP Chairman) and myself at the finish.



Other than that I have had the dreaded Flu... and survived... but it left me out of shape physically and drained. Just getting back into the training and diet now, weight has crept up to 301lbs (21St 7lb or 136.8Kg's) this is too high as I need to get down to 120kilos to compete properly. So a few changes to the lifestyle has to be made. I will get there, I always do. Just need to stay focussed.

On top of that the funds and sponsorship for the WKC World Championships has not come through as easily as I thought, so I have paid for a lot of the stuff I need personally. I still need to raise about a £1000 to get there and get the equipment I need and as such the TCS has set up a donations page for me to use. So if you would like to help me get to the World Championships and represent my country, please feel free to follow this link and donate anything to help the cause. There is more information here on LionsPride website.

Training tonight, which I am looking forward to and an interclub competition with Evade on Sunday. I have done some photo shoots for magazines and newspapers this last month for The Diet Plate the system I used to drop my weight from 36 stone!!! Like any diet, it only works if you stick to it, but I find this diet easier to stick to than any other diets I have tried and will forever be grateful to them.

Erm thats about it in a nutshell... I will be back more now I hope!!!

Hello... Wednesday, Midweek... OK so I am bored.... but shh don't tell the boss lol...

I trained yesterday twice, once at Evade (which is undergoing some major renovations and installing a fitness suite, whatever one of them is) and again at The Chi Centre in Macclesfield with Steve Primrose... both were very different but good sessions. Heavy pad work session at Evade, and lots of fitness training and conditioning with Primo... All in all today my body aches... not the excruciating build up of lactic acid I suffered a while ago after training at Beast Masters, but it aches, my quads ache and so do my forearms.

So training is back on track... wahoooo... well for this week anyway. Tom Cox, from Evade asked me to go to his lesson tonight as they are sparing, and I am going to try and make it, although I know the timing is going to be tight...

Food... well actually the food side is going OK, I did eat some stupid sugary jelly sweets yesterday, as I missed my evening meal and got hungry and snacked... Dam... Note to all diet followers out there, don't skip meals.... note to self... try harder and do better...
The Diet Plate portions are back on track and I am using the plate and bowl regularly, and I am feeling better for it as well. Just goes to show what balance of food does for your body.

September the 24Th there is a seminar in London by Dan Millman, at the mind body spirit festival, it costs £40 and that's without travel and sorting out digs for the night... :o( So as much as I want to go I guess I wont be... Would be great to meet the man and listen to what he has to say. His books have helped me no end. Especially the now much acclaimed Way of the Peaceful Warrior series...

A quick note of thanks to Claire for the advice and help and kind comments. You can read her blog here

Hello one and all in cyber land..... :o) I hope today sees you feeling revived, happy, excited, and loved.... OK OK So it may be the last Day of the working week for me so perhaps that's why I am feeling so light and happy... or maybe it was today's training session....
Training at Evade today was great, I met Tom Cox first who said he was taking the class, always a little nerve racking as Tom has high expectations and trains like a demon!!! Then Amanda turned up and they decided she would take the class, I think all of us breathed a sigh of relief and a little disappointment, there's nothing like pushing yourself hard to find out what works and what doesn't. Still Amanda had no intentions of letting us slack at all!! She put on a first rate class with a very energetic workout. Good warm up and then straight onto pads, punching combinations and kicking combinations.... the work rate was high and I surprised myself by working through it... I might owe Dan my training partner an apology as one of the side kicks sent him back a few feet.... oops. Went out for a meal last night, had a piece of steak and the most gorgeous salad and fresh fruit for afters, so hats off to Mike Colin for the meal, I knew he was talented but I never realised food was one of his strong points.... And healthy as well!!!! He gave me a book to read, Simon Wiesenthal, Justice not Vengeance, so I plan on starting that this week as well... :o)

All in all a good few days.... :o)

Stay Safe all of you.....

Well Today is a great day to die... well at least that's how I felt after training today... was a good hard basic work out, working on basic Punch's and kicks... fresh air strikes and combinations, then pad work. Good way to burn some calories and build up a sweat....
I love Evade and I love the instructors... Amanda took today's class. After training I went and found Dave Breed and asked about sparing, as I have a fight coming up. He sadly let me know that there is no sparring class at Evade anymore :o( However, they do spar in the Masters class and its about time I came along... So Wednesday, will see me turning up to a new class, full of more experienced people. Although I know some of them and have trained with most, I am quite nervous. And Excited.
Eating yesterday went really well, I didn't cheat, but did eat quite late. I have to stop eating at 9pm, as this does me (or anyone else) any favours what so ever. Portion control is in hand, and weight is striping off, although the scales only show a small loss each week (which all add up to a huge loss) the inch's are coming off. People are commenting again on the fact that I am once again losing weight. Which makes me feel good.... Couple with that with the sunshine and heat... the good news from Evade... and everything else wonderful in life.... And my world is pretty good today :o)

I hope all of yours is as wonderfull as well....
Stay Safe

Hello one and all..... So I said I was going to get back on my diet and I didn't.... I know I know.... However, today is the day!!! Have weighed myself, so not good as I am back up to 21 stone 10 or 304lbs..... that's so not good..... and I have lost a lot of muscle mass as well due to the inability to train.

Hello folks, sorry for the delay in posting, I have been away all week at an exhibition in Birmingham. So hows life going? Lets see, apart from talking non-stop for 3 days (which is amazingly tiring) and being on my feet for 3 days, life has been good. Well when I say good I mean no different really....
I stayed at The Hilton Metropole adjacent to the NEC complex, I was quite excited about staying there as it was The Hilton, well let me tell you folks, save your money. I have stayed at far better Premier Inns. Firstly lets get something straight, the staff were superb, I mean it, absolutely first class. So no complaints there.
So what is wrong with the place? The decoration is old, well if it isn't then it hasn't been cleaned very well, and appears very dated. The price of the rooms was £174/night including breakfast and £199/night including dinner. I booked Breakfast for the first night and dinner for the second. The room was very basic, furniture appeared very cheap almost as if bought from MFI. The Bathroom was very small and the shower had next to no power. Still could be worse.
The first night I went to Millers Gastro Pub for a meal, well there was my first mistake, two of us ate, we had a bottle of wine and a three course meal. It came to £107, expensive yes, but not over the top. Well it wouldn't have been apart from one or two things. Firstly the food was (and I am being generous here) poor. Parts of the food was frozen and to be fair I have had better meals at a local pub who buy all there food from 3663 and is frozen and prepacked. I had a Goats Cheese starter with apple salsa, which I was really looking forward too. The goats cheese was great, the salad was OK... the salsa well, must be a new kind of salsa as after trying it and asking my friend to try it, we both agreed it was brambly apple sauce out of a jar!. We had bread and balsamic vinegar as well, the bread (both pieces) was so dry and hard it was difficult to eat it, the olive oil was nice the balsamic vinegar was cheap. The meal got worse and worse as it went on, and to be fair I am not going to list all of the problems here.
So bed and sleep, all good. Next day I wanted to check my emails, on there web site it says all rooms have high speed access, to be fair it does not say it is free, but that is what I took it as. Wrong to even access emails you have to buy 24hours access at £15. Good news, was at least it was fast. Breakfast at the Hilton was nice, service was good again. (I had mixed fruit and a piece of toast). Then I went to the gym, well tried. The gym there was poorly equipped and having spoke to some people that stay at lots of Hilton's, apparently this is the norm. The pool was great :) No faults there. The spa pools didn't work, the sauna was OK, but not very hot and the steam room stank, I don't mean smelled bad as some do I mean stank. The design must have an open drain somewhere, but now I know why there is never anybody in it. The meal that night was at the Broadway and is a buffet type thing (this is £32) the choices were again average, next to no vegetables tho, the dishes were quite bland and I found the choice very limited. However that being said it was a great deal better than at Millers. The Barbarians were staying that night at the hotel as well, and it was great to see them and talk to a couple of them. Next morning (day of checkout) I awake to find my bill pushed through the door, which was a surprise, I got charged for the meal at the Broadway (which was included in the room charge), 2 days worth of Internet access, the room charges were completely wrong and I had a second bill for another £114 which I still have not worked out, and it had another persons card details on it, in my name. The front desk apologised (and again the staff were great) although it took some time to sort out, finally the bill was made correct, I paid for everything I had and nothing was comped and no offer of anything was made, but after correcting the bill it was over £250 less. The scary thing was I was going to use the quick check out, if I had I would never have noticed the bill as I don't normally read them just pocket them for the accountant.
So all in all..... don't stay at The Hilton in Birmingham near the NEC. There are much better hotels available and at a cheaper rate. The Crown Plaza for one.

OK OK enough about The Hilton. The exhibition was good.
The food at The Hilton was terrible and as such I snacked a lot, and drank a lot of coffee and a fair amount of alcohol. I am dreading Mondays weigh in now. Still, these things happen in life and I am not naive enough to think it isn't going to. Its just recognising them and getting back on it as soon as you can, which is today. :)

The not smoking is going OK, although it has moments of difficulty. Especially I have found when surrounded by reps and drinking then them all disappearing outside. However, I am doing very well :)

I am tired, tho, very tired. I am feeling slightly depressed as well which is not helping but hopefully I can hit the dojo later and work through it. I am grading tonight and I could have done with some respite first, I am sure I will be OK, but grading at Evade is tough, well grading anywhere should be tough, after all we are not training to pick flowers....

Stay Safe folks.

Hello, once again...... I really am getting into the swing of this blogging thing huh? Lets see, training at Evade was great on Thursday, I trained with Dave Breed and he put us through our paces, with a good conditioning workout using weights, some self defence drills and then a blast on the pads to finish it off with. I loved the workout although it was hard, and I have been paying for it over the last two days with a huge lactic acid build up in my thighs.
In the office Thursday I met Simon the MD from PushOn a specialist online marketing company. It was a great meeting, I was really impressed with there attitude and portfolio. After that I had to put the finishing touches on a presentation I was doing for a meeting on Friday.... so after rewriting it at least twice, it ended up 52 pages long and midnight when I thought, that's enough.... Fell into bed and passed out, and strangely enough I don't remember thinking about smoking.....
So the morning of Friday, I was awake and ready to go.... slightly nervous and anxious as this meeting was important for me. Got a text from Steve Primrose informing me he had officially stopped smoking!!!! Great news!!! Keep up the good work mate.... The down side is Steve (King of the ring welter weight kick boxing world champion) Also trains me, the end of the message was want to train Sunday? For the first time ever I thought about this..... by Sunday he is going to be ratty..... this could hurt.... lol. Still he is professional and in both our busy lives I cant afford to miss a training session.... so I will let you know how bad it was on Monday...
So the meeting, it was fine, I did well remembered the main facts and had the figures at my finger tips when cross examined on several points, I think all in all I did well. Dr Ian Campbell was there and it was a privilege to spend time with and speak to the UK's leading obesity specialist.
Friday night was the tester.... went and saw some friends and had a drink.... they all smoke and I have to say so did I, however, I only smoked 3 cigarettes and only half of each of them... I hated the taste and I hate the smell, in fact it almost makes me nauseous. This morning was the worst, how could I have smoked for so long, my mouth felt horrible and the taste, well it was disgusting. I am convinced more than ever now that I will not smoke again.
So what on today's menu? This morning I had my usual breakfast of porridge, using The Diet Plate Bowl. I am out at a Charity event during the day today, so I will try and find a sandwich to eat for lunch, and try and stay away from the cakes on offer!!! This evening I will have an early tea Chicken Korma and rice from my local. I have a treat every Saturday, its not bad as I measure it out on The Diet Plate, I love this diet, eat whatever you want in the right portions. The tag line 'portion control made easy' is so honest and simple. If you want to try it then buy the complete weight management system (it works out cheaper than buying them singularly, like I did).
My thighs still hurt.... have I mentioned that? I took my dogs out for a walk this morning to try and break down the lactic acid, it has helped, but they still hurt....
Oh well, I probably wont get on tomorrow, so I will see you all Monday with the new weigh in.... fingers crossed....

Stay Safe

Today is Thursday, its morning (approx 9am) and I am sat here in the office dieing for a cigarette.... has it only been 2/3 days? I feel better for not smoking, apart from the cough and sore throat which I am told will get better within a couple of months... The cravings are not too bad, but my temper has become shorter, much shorter..... so please bare with me if I rant, rave, threaten and generally act like an idiot....
So shoot me down... I am quite proud of my weight loss, it has been a long hard slog, self discipline, and self control have played huge parts, even self deprivation (OK a bit melodramatic, but that's how it feels). So can you imagine how I feel when I see someone of 70 stone losing half of it, because of surgery? Now don't get me wrong I am all for helping everyone, and for people becoming the best they can be. However for most people to get to that size they eat on average 16k+ calories a day, now to put that amount of calories into your body you have to train your body to take it, pretty much like an athlete trains to get fit, but in reverse. So as much as I feel sorry for them, I also feel they have to take some responsibility for there own actions..... Also someone has to 'enable' them to get to that size, normally a close personal friend/partner or family member. Why is this? Its simple, once a person gets too big to move and is bed ridden, then someone has to a)look after them and clean them and b) bring them food!!! So who is at fault? well its two fold, firstly it is the person for getting that big (yes I know genetics, environment, depression, money etc play a part) and they have to accept some responsibility. Secondly, it is the fault of the enabler, because as soon as they are bed ridden if you only bought them tuna or fresh food or no food, they would have to a) move to get it, meaning they would burn up calories, or b) go hungry meaning they would lose weight. Yes I know this sounds severe but its a fact. Yes it may sound like torture, but then what diet isn't?
Anyhow, that's enough ranting for now.... its now 9:30 and i have to go training at Evade. See you all laters....

Stay Safe

Well, this is not bad, its only Tuesday and I am writing!!! Maybe I can get back into the habbit of this blog thing.....
So today is tuesday, I trained at Evade this morning for 70 minutes, with Lee Price. A good session, working the bags and running. The shoulder stood up to the test (which when using 24 ounce gloves is no mean feat!!) although I did use Muay cream on it before and after training. My fitness level was slightly more worrying as I ended up gased very quickly, but it was hot and I was dehydrated slightly.
Having taken stock yesterday and today about where I want to be and what I want to do, I have decided to stop smoking, as of this morning, well last ciggarette was 10pm last night, so 15 hours in and so far I havent killed anyone :) Which must be a good thing. I will use this blog to keep you abreast of how I get on, warts and all...
Right so back to the diet....
This morning I had porridge, for those wondering I used The Diet Plate Bowl (its so easy, fill the bowl with dry porridge up to the red band, pour on 1/4 pint of semi skinned milk, heat in the microwave, and there you go 200 calorie serving!!) I then went training and then on to work. I didnt have time to prepare a sandwich for lunch so I had another serving of porridge, as lunch is allowed to be higher in calories I filled it up to the yellow line and then used 1/4 pint of milk. This worked out at just under 400 calories which is about right for lunch.
So onto the evening meal, which tonight as it is very warm, is going to be a chicken salad. I am looking forward to it. I am going to have chicken and an egg (which fits into the protein section of The Diet Plate), with croutons and new potatoes (these fit into the carb section of The Diet Plate) then I will have lettuce, radishes, cucumber, spring onion and pickled onions to fill the rest of the plate up.....
Dam I have made myself feel hungry..... Oh well.....

Hope to see you all tomorrow....

Stay Safe