Week 18 - Update - Mark's Road to Newcastle

Day 126

End of Week Eighteen – 24 November
0.4kg (0.9 lbs) weight loss

Total weight loss, to date
23.6kg (52 lbs / 3st 10lbs)

That’s 21.5% of my starting body weight
Muscle Mass increased to 75.2%
Fat Mass dropping to 20.8%

Last Friday was, yet another, first for me. I was at JD Gym at 7am for my first ever gym class. JD Burn, a hiit boot-camp style class led by Matty the PT.

On Saturday, ParkRun #5 was, once again, another cautious outing for the calf. Half way round through the woodland section I twanged my calf again but continued to hobble round. I knew from my Garmin watch that my pace was still good and I did manage another personal best – this time knocking nearly two minutes off my previous PB.

Sunday evening and back in the gym and back on the treadmill again but the calf was still a very limiting factor. Despite continuing to niggle throughout the week, it did improve with each day. Due to slower pace and shorter durations I tried to fit treadmill in twice a day.

There were the two regular sessions with Matty the PT on Tuesday (he destoyed my legs, once again, but thankfully not my calf) and Thursday (he destroyed my arms).

In fact, Thursday was a particular high point in my week. Matty suggested that perhaps he video me bench pressing, with the view to posting on his social media. After two sets the weight was increased and Matty stood back with phone in hand. 10 weeks ago I could barely move the bar and now here I am with 37.5kg. That isn’t to say I’ve had 10 weeks of training on the bench press. Matty identified my weaknesses early on and worked on them, putting me through my paces with various exercises to prepare me for a later return to the bench press. This was just my fourth time on the bench, so probably less than 30 minutes in total, so far.

Really good to have this first video of my work in the gym. Good for me to see it but great to be able to share it with Coach Ken and others.

“Good effort. Decent form that too. Looks like you’re pushing down through your feet with a slight arch in your back. Shoulders pinned to the bench. Looks decent.”

Cheers Ken, I’ll take that!

37.5kg is now next weeks starting weight and this will be increased gradually with each session. The Law of Progressive Overload 🙂

Monday is now food shopping. It used to be that I’d go to the supermarket and come back with loads of impulse buys. Bags of Haribo, biscuits and other things that are generally quite bad for you (and me). But since starting on this “journey” back in July things have changed dramatically.

That’s now my normal supermarket checkout – loads of meat, fruit and veg/salad.

Body Composition

Key metrics (muscle mass, fat mass, lean mass, visceral fat index and water mass) all continue to track in the right direction.
These all plot year-to-date monthly averages.