12-04-30 Days 0-3 Summary
So after basically 4 days doing the 12-4-30 challenge I am amazed how much better I am feeling already! My mood has been severely elevated from the first walk on the treadmill so it was definitely worth the £190 that I paid for the new treadmill 🙂 I have also been feeling my core and legs a lot for the rest of the day after the workout and my stomach, arms and legs are definitely toned up a lot! More importantly than that! For the past 2 days my Fitbit Readiness score was 100 which I have never had before! More importantly my readiness score on Monday was 23!!!!
The treadmill has also made it really simple to be consistent in the morning which for me is really important as I have been in a routine of waking up early and wasting my time on the phone instead of doing something useful before work so now I am up at 5, go to the bathroom, Weigh-in then straight into the 12-4-20 to get it out of the way! For me this is when I am at my most productive and after the walk I am energized and ready to kill the day!
Work wise I have noticed the difference in mood/ mindset as Thursday and Friday I actually got around to finishing 2 tasks that had been in my que for the past almost 2 years so that was great! I am also not just going through the motions as I have been since I stopped my regular morning walks last year! I am also starting to want to learn new technology again which i have been putting off for ages s I was too tired! Not any more I’m now figuring out a regular time to get the study in! I am thinking that after the 12-4-30 is going to be my best window to get proper learning in but I am also going to swap a bunch of YouTube time with learning time! I did this without thinking last night and felt much better than wasting time watching random videos all night!
Weight wise my weight has gone from 107.5 kgs on Wednesday Morning before 12-4-30 to 106.3 kgs this morning so 1.2 kgs lost in basically 4 days with not real diet change at the moment!
So all in all the first 4 days of the 12-4-30 has been really successful!
Sunday 22nd February 2026 – 12-4-30 Day 4
Weight = 106.3 kgs
Steps = 9769 Steps
So I woke up this morning at 5:45 and chilled until 6:30 ish and then got up went to the bathroom and weighted in! I was shocked to see that I had dropped from 107.2 kgs yesterday to 106.3 kgs this morning so 1.2 kgs gone over night! I am guessing that a lot of the lost weight is water weight as I didn’t drink anywhere near as much yesterday as I did on Friday!
I then got dressed and did a 12-3-30 this morning instead of a 12-4-30 to see how it is! I can safely say that I will mostly stick to the 12-4-30 as the 12-3-30 is way too easy and I barely noticed that I was exercising this morning! It is worrying how unfit most of the you tubers that I have watched videos about the 12-3-30 are! They are all young and healthy looking but are struggling to do the 12-3-30 and saying that it is one of the hardest things that they have done! I guess that I cycle and walk a fair bit BUT I am 53 years old and carrying about 35 kgs over weight and carrying a lot of injuries including 2 current torn rotator cuff injuries that I am dealing with and I hardly noticed that I was exercising when doing the 12-3-30 this morning!
I have just finished the 12-3-30 and I am just getting ready to head to Bath to sort out my flat a bit as my Ex wife is coming over to grab a bunch of furniture and household stuff to give to a friend as they have bought a 4 bed house and need furniture urgently!
While I am there I will also start cleaning and organising the flat and then when all the furniture has gone I can really start organising properly 🙂
By dropping the mph this morning I have done about 800 less steps too so I am deffo sticking to the 12-4-30 from now on but I may do 12-3-30 on a Sunday as my rest day 🙂
So I headed to Bath after my 12-3-30 and then started organising my flat and getting the wardrobe and 2 sets of draws ready to get picked up. I also hoovered and mopped the bathroom and front hall and also did a water changed and put in a new sponge filter in the auarium for my Axolotl! I have to hoover it out in the week as there is a lot of mess on the bottom still but at least the water is clean 🙂 I also did some washing and got it dry before going to my parents for the evening.
By the end of the day I was on 9769 Steps 🙂
Monday 23rd February 2026 – 12-4-30 Day 5
Weight = 106.7 kgs
Steps = 9476 Steps
This morning I woke up with my alarm at 5:00 and went to the bathroom then got my weigh-in done and I was up a bit from yesterday to 106.7 kgs so still in the 106’s but moving the wrong way 🙁 I then setup the treadmill and turned on the laptop and did my 12-4-30 while working and watching YouTube. The 12-4-30 was much netter than yesterdays 12-3-30 as I actually felt like I was exercising when at 3 mph it didn’t really feel like i was exercising at all! This morning 12-4-30 went pretty quickly as I was working so I think that that is the way to get it done 🙂
After I finished the 12-4-30 I powered everything down and got dressed and headed to Bath, where I showered and got changed and then grabbed the emtb and rode into work. Riding the ebike is much better than the old ebike so I think I am going to get ride of the old Pure and just use the emtb.
I then worked until about 15:30 then rode home again and then worked in the flat all night until about 22:30.
By the end of the day I was on a not bad 9476 Steps
Tuesday 24th February 2026 – 12-4-30 Day 6
Weight = NA
Steps = 11313 Steps
This morning I woke up and got ready for work and then headed in on the park bike to leave it in the office so I can play in the skatepark at lunch time if it ever stops raining! I can also ride the bike around the office instead of walking too 🙂
The ride into the office was interesting as the park bike is brakeless and I almost died a few times due to miss judging the speed I was going around corners! It made the journey more interesting I suppose 🙂
I then worked until just after 12 and then rode the old ebike home as it was still in the garage at the office from last week. When I got to the flat I got in the car and headed to my parents house where I took the old shed to pieces ready to take to the tip on Friday morning and also organised the garden as I have the new shed being delivered on Thursday so needed to clear some space.
I then did my 12-4-30 and did some work to pass the time. It was hot in my room this afternoon which made the 12-4-30 a lot harder and deffo more sweaty and uncomfortable!
At about 18:30 I jumped in my dads car and headed to Bath to meet my son and take him to Corsham to see where he had to go to do his medical on Thursday. It turns out that its really easy to find so he is happy to drive himself there 🙂 I then headed back to bath and dropped my son off before heading home to feed my Axolotls and grab my jump bike as I am going to go to Andover tomorrow night for a play!
I then headed back to my parents and did a bit of work and then went to bed.
By the end of the day I had done 11313 Steps which is really good seeing only 3000 of the steps came from really walking anywhere and the rest came from walking about at the office and at home! I’m pretty confident that after my 12-4-30 30 day challenge I will easily be able to add the goal of making 12k steps a day as well as doing the 12-4-30 every day which will be nice 🙂
Wednesday 25th February 2026 – 12-4-30 Day 7
Weight = 107.8 kgs
Steps = 6322 Steps
So this morning I woke up at 5:15 and did my weigh-in and I was shocked that I was up to 107.8 kgs this morning after 3 days of drinking loads of Cherry Coke and eating really badly again 🙁 This made me depressed and I went back to bed until 6:30 when I got up and did my 12-4-30 while doing my morning work tasks and updating this page! This made the 12-4-30 really easy and the 30 minutes flew by! I remembered to put my FitBit in my sock today and after finishing my 12-4-30 I was on 3108 steps. In the StepUp app I am on 58 steps so the 12-4-30 accounted for 3050 steps today so adding 3000 steps if I forget the FitBit again will be accurate enough! Yesterday I did 8313 Steps + 3000 for the 12-4-30 which got me to my 11313 step total for the day. The only downside of forgetting is that my FitBit data is off but I can live with that 🙂
I am going cold turkey on the fizzy drinks again today and I will deffo stop drinking them all together as its not worth the weight gain and the way that I feel when I am drinking them! The fact that I put on 1.1 kgs in just 2 days while still being active just shows how bad fizzy drinks are if left unchecked! To be fair I did drink at least 2l a day which is stupid but still none is better than some 🙂
I have also been on the bread, sweets and crisps again and eating mostly takeout and meal deals which is all crap so I need to get back to doing carnivore again asap! I also need to get back to intermittent fasting too as I have been really slack with that since I started doing the 12-4-30 too!
I have just been looking and there are 32 days until the clocks go forwards and we will have light mornings again so I have set a countdown to remind me 🙂 Once its light in the morning I will start walking outside first thing then do the 12-4-30 after that when I am at home. I am guessing that the dog is going to get upset as I will be taking her with me but I think she will get used to it after a few days 🙂
Thursday 26th February 2026 – 12-4-30 Day 8
Weight = 107.0 kgs
Steps = Steps
This morning I was up at 5 and out the door on the ebike by 5:20. I got back to my parents for just before 7 which was pretty good considering there was a headwind all the way 🙁
According to the ebike app I rode for 1:35:41 for a distance of 22.2 miles and an average speed of 13.9 mph! I also climbed 1142 ft so its a fair bit hillier from Bath to my parents than it is the other way 🙂
When I got home I sorted myself out, did some work and then I jumped on the treadmill to get my 12-4-30 done while I was still warm 🙂
It was a bit of a struggle on 4 so I dropped the speed to 3 for today seeing as I had just ridden 22.2 miles I figured I would use the treadmill as a cool down 🙂
5 minutes after I finished on the treadmill the shed was delivered then I went back to work until lunchtime when I put the old shed and some other stuff for the tip in my dads car ready to go to Bath tonight as I have an 8 am reservation at the tip 🙂
By the end of lunchtime I was already on 9600 steps with only about 3000 being from the bike ride as my FitBit is mental and is not recording bike rides very well any more!
Friday 27th February 2026 – 12-4-30 Day 9
Weight = 107.2 kgs
Steps = 7685
This morning I woke up at 7:00 and chilled in bed for a bit until 7:30 when I showered and jumped into the car and then headed to the tip for 8 am. When I got to the tip I was 5th in line even though I was 5 minutes early for my 8-8:15 appointment. We then had to wait until 8:10 to be let in! I then emptied the car of all the stuff to be thrown away and then headed to my parents.
When I got to my parents I did my 12-4-30 BUT was really sore so I dropped the speed to 3 and did a 12-3-30 instead of the planned 12-4-30! When I was done I cracked on with getting the shed base planned out and the sleeper levelers screwed into the concrete. I then had to wait for the bigger sleeper levelers to arrive! They didn’t arrive until after 17:00 so I didn’t have any time left to sort the base out as it was getting cold and dark and had started raining too!
I then chilled in bed for the rest of the day and was asleep by 20:30!
By the end of the day I had only done 7685 steps for the day but I had got a fair bit done!
Saturday 28th February 2026 – 12-4-30 Day 10
Weight N/A
Steps = 12966 Steps
This morning I woke up about 9 am which is unusual for me especially as I went to sleep at 20:30 last night! I then got up and got dressed and made some breakfast and then cracked on with getting the shed base sorted. I ended up digging out the space where the gravel grids were going to make the base as solid as I could.
By 16:00 I was done with the shed base and the sleepers were in place and levelled off but I decided that there was not enough time to build the shed today so I instead sorted out the old wood in the wood shed that needed cutting up and taking inside to burn in the fire! This took me about 1.5 hours to get done and when I was done I remembered that i still had to do my 12-4-30 for the day! As I was hanging and by back and hernia were really sore from all the digging all day I again went for the 12-3-30 again instead of the planned 12-4-30.
When I finished my walk my dinner was ready so I ate and then had a shower to ease the pain in my back and then went to bed and watched YouTube until 22:00 when I went to sleep again!
By the end of the day I was broken, tired and sore but I had managed 12966 Steps for the day!
Week Breakdown
I have consistently managed to fit in the 12-4-30 or 12-3-30 when tired into my day which is really good. However, I have not really done many morning when I get up at 5:00 and do the 12-4-30 as planned so next week I need to try and get into that habit as well as fitting the walk in!
I am still amazed at how much better I am feeling from being consistent with the 12-430 BUT I am thinking that I need to drop the intensity a bit to get the fat burning to intensify as I have actually put weight on instead of losing weigh as I should be 🙁 Although my weight has gone up I am definitely seeing signs of weigh loss so I will not do anything drastic for now other than walk at 3 mph instead of 4 mph for now! I think that the 4mph walking is too high intensity which is bumping me out of the fat burning zone a bit and into the carb burning zone! This would explain all the carb cravings I am having at the moment.