So this morning I woke up feeling like crap on top aching from the rucking, so I decided to sleep in until 6:30 instead of walking this morning! I will go for a Ruck at lunchtime instead to have a look at the track to see how the berm looks with its newly tarmacked 3rd berm and other track improvements too 🙂 It will mean that I may get a bit of sun exposure too if I’m lucky 🙂
My weigh-in was a bit disappointing as I stayed at 107.9 kgs this morning which is definitely due to not being strict with my diet yesterday and eating a bought Fry-up Sandwich for breakfast then eating crisps, sweets and chocolate at my parents and having beef stew and dumplings for tea before coming home didn’t help! It was nice though so it was slightly worth it I suppose!
I am still not 100% if I am going to gates at Andover tonight or not so I will play it by ear today!
Even though I didn’t lose weight yesterday I can visibly see that I am shrinking and my legs are getting bigger and way more defined so the rucking is really transforming my body really quickly so I will try and carry on through the soreness as that will be gone in a week or so then it will be a mental game to not get up and walk after that!
My step count was lower yesterday at 11410 steps which is well above 10000 steps but I think that I need to aim for 12000 steps a day from now as walking and Rucking are such a big part of my daily routine it makes sense to aim higher! I also forgot to do my backwards walking yesterday and if I had remembered that would have easily taken me over the 12000 steps for the day! You live and learn!
I am bit concerned that my stomach aching could be the hernia coming back so I will need to keep an eye on that but other than that the rucking is paying dividends! My legs and especially my knees are feeling much stronger and I am getting way less knee pain too which is a bonus! My core and back are also feeling way better and my shoulders seem more relaxed now too and for some reason my arms and shoulders are looking way more toned which I guess is due to fat loss more than them getting worked out as they are not! After shaving off my hair and beard yesterday I have noticed just how bad I have got and I currently have 3 chins instead of the usual 1 or 2 that normal people have! I am now re-growing the beard as quickly as possible to cover them up 🙂
The planned ruck to the track today will take me well over 10000 steps and there is one of the longest and steepest hills in bath at the end of the walk after a steady climb to get there so I am expecting to be blowing out of my arse by the time I get there! But it should be a good workout and burn off all the extra weight that I put on yesterday at least 🙂
I have decided that it is too difficult to start an increased exercise program and a totally new diet at the same time so for the next couple of weeks I will eat sensibly with as few carbs as possible then in December I will go full carnivore once I am used to the increased exercise in a couple of weeks. This week I am mainly Rucking, then next week I will add the gym on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and going to the BMX track Tuesday-Friday lunchtimes as well then in the evening I will go on the rollers on the DK for 30 minutes or so to get used to riding on them.
I am starting to realise that the old adage you can’t out train a bad diet may well be true so once I am up to full speed with the training I will focus on going full Carnivore for as much of December as I can 🙂 and then be full carnivore from January to try and make 2025 the year that I actually manage to drop weight and get fit again!
Looking back over this year I was a long way from hitting my weight goal of 85 kgs but I did get down to 102 kgs a couple of times which is not too bad at roughly 8 kgs but i have learnt that other than diet being more important that I want to admit consistency is the key so I want to build a routine that means that I can consistently work out every week going forwards so the most important things for me are rucking or the gym first thing in the morning and being consistent at the track over the winter at lunch times to get better on the bike. At the moment I make excuses about the weather and don’t ride or just do first straights as they are easy and fun so I need to get more focused when I am at the track and work on specific skills while I am there not just go there and go through the motions which is what I do most of the time at the moment! As the 3rd berm has just been rebuilt I will use this to ride the 3rd and 4th straights way more then I can work a lot on my manuals and jumping to get better at both skills and also work on my flow and pumping as those straights have very few places to get pedals in so are perfect for working on pumping and flow.
I also need to start warming up doing car park skills for 10-15 minutes every session before going on the track to get better at manuals, pedal manuals and bunny hops and also get my head into riding before hitting the track. I will then do 5 pump laps to get fully warmed up then do whatever I plan to do for the workout. That way I am working on pumping and carrying speed every day and then working on manuals and jumping after that. When I did pump laps as a warm-up consistently over a winter a few years back I got way faster so I think its the way to go and it also works on track fitness for when I want to race again.
I actually bought the S&M bars for the OS20 yesterday as it turned out that I didn’t actually pay for them when I thought that I had at the weekend so they will be here by the weekend so I can get the OS20 fully ride-able for me and start riding it more. I am starting to think that I could use the OS20 as a pump track bike as well so I will test it out the next time I go to Little Stoke and take both bikes so I can test them both. If I can use the OS20 then I can sell all my 20″ bikes and bits and just keep the OS20 and the Curtis Cruiser and get rid of a bunch of bikes! I will still have the BlackMarket 24″ jump bike which is good on pump tracks anyway so I will have options 🙂
Talking of 20″ bikes, I have started building the Pro Dialled up it currently has forks headset spacers, headset and forks on it and I have cranks arriving for it by today or tomorrow and wheels in the garage to go on it too.
I will wait until I get the new bars on the OS20 then I will put the StayStrong flat bars that are currently on the OS20 on the Dialled and then build it up and get it up for sale. I may have to get a v brake and some grips but I think that I have the rest of the parts needed in the parts bins and garage 🙂
I have had a quick look online and a complete pro Jet brake system is £17 and includes a brake lever, cable and caliper so I may buy one of them to get the Dialled finished and up for sale sooner rather than later.
The cranks arrived at lunch time so I have fitted the Jet 44t Chain ring that I bought for it and later today I will fit a bottom bracket and the cranks to get the build a bit further along!
The Cranks, chain ring and bolts cost £40 so that’s a bargain 🙂 I will see how good they are later when I get them on the bike and get a rear wheel and chain on the bike to see how straight the cranks are etc.
Some of the other cheap cranks that I have had before were not perfectly equally spaced which caused a really bad tight spot on the chain when setup it will be interesting to see if these cranks have the same issue or not! I have also had cranks that were not drilled correctly so the chain ring was really off centre so the cranks felt bent too.
Both of which I got swapped out and the replacements were much better so I am hoping that these cranks will be fine!
At lunch I did my 10 minutes backwards treadmill then after lunch I walked on the treadmill for a while while I worked then I got changed into my BMX kit and at 4pm I loaded the Curtis onto the car and headed to my friends house to get a lift to Andover for gates.
Had a really good time at gates and by the end of the session I actually made one clean manual on the last jump on the first straight other than that I did OK and felt pretty good. My gates are getting better on flat pedals which is good and I think that I will keep up with riding flats for the winter to see what happens 🙂 From next week I will also try and do a more structured gates session and work on building up to doing full laps out of the gate as Andover is really long so its great for building fitness. I want to start getting into the habit of working through a structured session then playing after that instead of just doing whatever and playing most of the time. I also need to put the transponder back on the Curtis so that I can start timing my gates as well to give me something to aim towards and see how I progress over the season.
Because I didn’t walk this morning and was travelling to and from gates I didn’t get anywhere near my 12000 step goal as I only did 4923 steps all day 🙁