Fat 2 Fit @ 40 - Freeletics rebooted

Update Links
Comparison & Update 1: (Week 4) 

Weekly vlog: https://goo.gl/Vwtp0p

A new chapter starts again! The past year has been a real roller-coaster, finally selling my dream house due to the breakdown of a relationship, being homeless, dad being diagnosed with Dementia, meeting someone new and then finally moving into our new home some 9 weeks after leaving home with the two dogs and a tent and the clothes on my back.

After some training injuries and finally a pulling a hamstring I feel it has been too much of a pause in my fitness so I've restarted Freeletics and over the past few weeks have been doing some cardio and stretching. In case you haven't seen the transformation video from 2014 you can see it here:  http://youtube.com

I thought it would be a good idea this time to give those reading and watching a bit more information about me and my experience rather than what I have been eating and what exercises I have done to get the gains I have got. All too often I see some awesome transformations and wonder to myself how many hours a day that person works, whether they have children, how they fit the times in etc.

A little about me

I'm 41 and work as a software engineer, so a good 8 hours a day is spent sat in a chair staring at screens. I'm not usually my best in a morning, not only are my energy levels usually low but a bike accident some 15 years ago has left me with only 30% movement in my right ankle; so each morning I spend the first ten minutes in extreme pain whilst it begins to get used to being moved again. I love to cook and love to eat but I can be extremely lazy and will eat out of habit which leads to driving to see clients and eating a large bag of jelly babies just for energy. Not the most healthy of lives. Although that does change somewhat when I am exercising!

What changes have I made?

Available time.

To ensure I didn't try and do too many things all at once and therefore set myself up to fail I decided that I would need to make more time in the day. Just one extra hour early has made a huge difference. I get up anywhere from 5 to half five (using a smart alarm) so it wakes me when I'm not in really deep sleep; and I go to bed around half nine onwards, usually 10 but if I am tired or want some quiet time to read it'll be half nine. That's 3.5 hours every morning to walk the dogs, shower, clean the house, drive to work etc.

Eat more often.

One of my biggest downfall when times get tough is comfort eating or unconscious eating. Cold Christmas nights ended up with me on the sofa with a movie on, fire lit, bottle of red wine and a large bag of chocolate (after eating a meal). Another bad one is driving to clients, some are a few hours away so I'll buy a huge bag of jelly babies and by the time I have got there I have eaten them, 400 calories in one car journey!
Organised and calm.

So I spent a month, every evening for a few hours researching how our bodies break food down, how I can keep my energy levels during the day, how much water I need and so on. I wanted to find a way of being the best I can be this time but not cost a fortune in protein shakes or supplements. So now I have a meal plan I am following which means I eat every 2 to 3 hours a day, just small meals and they are all pre-prepared on the weekend. I just pop one in the microwave for two minutes and they are ready. Which has removed the weekly and daily calorie and macro counting and certainly made things easier.

Calm and focused.

One of the issues I had was that work was busy and I would naturally worry about things and bend over backwards to help clients. Leading to me taking on jobs that were nothing to do with me, or worrying un-necessarily. So rather than worry I started to meditate using an app on the phone called headspace, they have a website too www.headspace.com . I had meditated for a while but not daily so this wasn't a new thing. I do it just before work mainly and it gives me a good calm start to the day. Not every time but most times.

I still stress somewhat over work but I do get to 5 / 6 and shut the computer off until I have done everything I need to at home and maybe revisit some later. Certainly the getting up at 8am on Monday and working through with no sleep until Tuesday night has stopped.

What's to come?

Last time the blog posts become a bit repetitive, I guess the same may be said about it this time round but I figure an easier way would be to do a quick video and post that up. If I have chance to jot some notes down on here I will do too. I've got a busy year and have a holiday booked at the start of November which is the end date for it this time, or at least the end as in being overly strict. Once on holiday and afterwards I figured I would just do freeletics every day and maintain my fitness.