Man, what a roller-coaster 2 weeks it's been. Concussion isn't fun.

Here's my timeline;

• Saturda. Got hit hard in tbe head. Vision changed for a few minutes, but otherwise it was a pretty weak punch.

• -felt ok on Sunday and Monday. Did some hard training in my own. Probably not a good idea.

• Tuesday- started feeling anxious and sad. Periodic headaches.

• Wednesday- freaky time starts. Scared of my own shadow. Hate boxing, hate the world and all tve people in it scared to make eye contact at the gym.

• Thursday- convinced everyone is laughing at me and has been behind my back for years when I have been boxing. Convinced anyone in the gym could kick my ass (including the 17 year old girls).

• Friday. Took day off work to rest. No exercise except for a walk.

• Saturday and Sunday. Still hate the world, headaches constantly, insomnia.

• Monday- anxious, but improving. Saw doctor and got a scan. Can't handle any light or noise.

• Tuesday. Improving. Can't listen to audio books or normal music. Classical was the only thing I can handle.

• Wednesday. Back on creatine. I think it helps. Mikd headaches, brain fog lifting. Heavy technical day at work handled ok.

• Friday. Mild headaches,but mostly normal.

Still not interested in boxing at all. I hope that shifts soon.

boxing is stupid, this site is stupid. what a colossal waste of time this has been. i fucking quit.

[Coach Gee]: When you doubt yourself like this, what part of you keeps showing up?

I'm not showing up. I've 90% quit boxing altogether. I don't even know why I am typing this here, I guess probably to document the journey of a foolish, oafish old man; from delusions that he could complete a profound challenge and become better and stronger from it, to quitting like a little cry baby bitch.

[Coach Gee]: After the last few tough days, what does 'showing up' mean to you now?

I'm still in a rough patch. I'm in a pretty bad place with my boxing. I know its stupid to think I'm getting worse, but I believe that I am. Last week I felt invincible and now I feel like pretty much anyone could take me. Now I'm back to being that scared little boy i've always been. Pathetic.

I forced myself to box again today and the whole time I'm worried people are looking and laughing at this fat old guy pretending he's a fighter. Pathetic.

[Coach Gee]: After sparring Saturday, what's shifted in your approach, in your head, towards fight night?

That's a good question and one I have been thinking about a lot. I am totally demoralized now and doubt I'll be able to go through with the fight. I can't imagine winning this fight because I am a terrible boxer, so why would I put myself through the embarrassment of boxing in front of a crowd. I'm not even sure I want to continue training at this point.

I went to the gym and boxed on my own for an hour today. It didn't feel good. I felt like everything I was doing was wrong. My boxing is awful. I'm fit and that's about it. Boxing and skipping for an hour really doesn't mean shit.

I did manage to almost get my 10 minute skip done. I tripped at just after 9.5 minutes - gutted! My knees are a bit sore now, but nothing a good sleep won't fix.

Anyway, I think I've cried enough about a bad sparring session. I need to shut up and move on. Tomorrow is a new day.

It was a rainy day today, so not a lot of opportunity to walk. I still got out with the dog in the morning and walked a lap while watching my sons footy game. I also circled the gym in between sets, and ended up with just over 12k for the day.

I woke up with a head ache that's stayed with me the whole day. I got hit pretty hard in the head yesterday a couple of times. I'm still mad about it for a couple of reasons; 1. I had head gear with me and I didn't wear it. I thought the other guy was going to go lighter, but that didn't happen. If I'm going to spar, head gear is mandatory. I'm never sparring again without it. The 2nd reason I'm mad, is I took those big knocks and didn't give any back. I've spent the day questioning the point of it at all. I know if I fired up and went hard I could work him over, but I didn't. Should I have escalated things to a fight? Probably not, but I kinda feel like a bitch now for eating a few punches.

I need to work on taller opponents, specifically how to evade the long jab to get inside. I like to fight in close, so i need more tools for closing distance. This is another thing that pissed me off - I did this 3 or 4 times and got inside and didn't follow up with anything because it was sparring and practice. I got myself into a position to unleash and restrained myself. Then I end up taking hard punches in the head and feeling like I'm a totally shit boxer. Its not really fair. I'm going hard on this dude if we spar again. I'm going to try and knock him out. Or maybe I won't, but I'm still really angry about the whole session.

I had a good strength training session today. I've got stronger in all of my lifts. I probably need to adjust how I go about this workout, and lifting weights in general. I'm lifting like a body builder because that's all I've really known. I think I need to adjust to focus more on functional strength and the kinetic chain. I'll research this week and add a substitute a few exercises.

I feel like shit today. Boxing this morning was terrible.

I got hit in the head a bunch of times by a guy thats not really all that good. I feel like my sparring is just awful. I think I'll pull out of this fight in November.

I could be do sparring every few days and get hit in the head over and over until november fight and for what? To get beaten up in front of a crowd of people.

But i feel like I'd be letting myself down. I planned this for a year long Misogi and now I'm half way and want to quit.

I find sparring frustrating. I'm trying to go lightly, but its not how I hit, so I'm slower than i am on the bags. I dunno, maybe I'm just shit. I get the feeling the coaches think I'm shit too. What a joke I am.

Happy Friday!

It wasn't a bad day today. The sun was out, work was quiet and I got to go to boxing at lunch time.

Lunchtime class was great. 3 of us training today. Not quite a PT session like last week but small enough to get some good attention and feedback from the coach. One of the drills was left shifts. Mine is far from perfect, but its 500% better than when I learnt the move a few weeks back. My cardio was good today, I can go harder for longer and the recovery is pretty quick now. Boxing improvement is hard to gauge, but I feel my cardio at least is at a pretty good level now.

I had a large rump steak, slaw and rice for lunch today. Rump actually has a good flavour. I've been a bit snobbish over the last few years with my steaks, but I'm enjoying the rump steak at the moment. It tastes good and I get a lot more steak for my money. I've got the rice recipe down now too - a little bit of dark soy, a little bit of Ketcup Manis, some garlic, mustard and sprint onions. The slaw, rice and chopped up steak mixed together is a fine meal.

We had left over beef fried rice for dinner. It was a bit carb heavy for an evening meal, but quite nice. I'm heading into training at 8am tomorrow so the rice should give me a good bit of energy for boxing.

t bad.Mood score increased because I changed the scale from 5 - 10 and moved it to a daily rating system. Yesterday was a 7, not perfect, but not bad. today, I'm giving it a 6.5. I had too many potatoes with dinner. And probably too much roast beef. I had a bunch of grapes over the course of the day too - I didn't count them, just grabbed a few here and there.

I guess I shouldn't be so hard on myself. If I look at the day; I did mostly everything right, I just need to control the grabby hands when food is around.

My boxing training was good today. I took coaches advice and am trying to punch from my feet. I'm trying to bounce on my toes, and be light. I'm pivoting well and my shifts are coming along. I've been putting a couple of rounds in with very few punches, just head movement and foot work. Then when moving to the bag, I'm working on slipping, moving and punching quickly as I move around the bag. I can see slow improvement.

I'm still shitting myself about this fight. I'm quite scared really. The more I box and spar, the less confident I feel about my abilities. I probably need to talk to the coaches about it. I doubt it'll make me feel better, but I guess it'll help.

Tomorrow, I'm going to do everything right. I'm going to train hard and fuel myself properly. I just need a few near perfect days in a row.

[Coach Gee]: With no new numbers since May 10th, what did you learn about your performance these last three days?

I learned I only really log the good days! I need to log the bad with the good. Arguably this is more important, but when I'm binging on cake and dairy I don't really want to know how many calories I'm consuming.

But today was good, I'm going to give it a 7. I've taken points off because I ate chicken skin and grapes from the bag. I didn't have any sugar despite seeing a big piece of chocolate cake right at eye level every time I opened the fridge. Its gone now thankfully, but I'm proud that I didn't even take a small pick at it. The sugar is a trap - ever since eating some over the weekend, I've been craving more. I guess I just need to process what sugar I have in my system. Hopefully it'll be gone in a few days.

Boxing was good today. Just me and the coach so we did a few rounds in the ring. I always feel like such a beginner when I'm sparring with him. I'll never get to the same level, but I can see improvements in my sparring, so I guess I'm heading in the right direction.

[Coach Gee]: Looking at 1.5 reps on monkey bars + pull-up, what’s the story there? What are you learning from that number?

Mostly its sore on the hands. I'm focusing on regular sessions on the bars to get my callouses and skin hard. What am I learning? I'm learning it'll be possible in 6 weeks, but I need to both get stronger and lose some more weight.

Today felt like I was starting again. I woke up feeling guilty and disappointed. I looked fatter around my middle in the mirror - but I guess, what did I expect after 3 days of binge eating? The only thing I can do now is do better today.

The good:

• Today I completed my 16 hour fast until 2pm (actually making it 17 hours)

• I had a steak, slaw and rice lunch

• I got to the gym and did a solid 70 minutes boxing, skipping, some ball slams and shadow boing

• I walked 13k steps

The Bad:

• I had a few too many grapes from the bag; maybe 15+

• I picked at the chocolate cake and had a small slice

• I added greek yogurt to my smoothie

I'm still beating myself up over binge eating over the weekend and Monday dinner and then I pick at chocolate cake? I need to get my shit together and focus up here. I'm under 200 days until my fight and eating refined sugar isn't going to help me get to the weight I need to be at.

Do better tomorrow!

[Coach Gee]: Looking at those 40 push-ups, what’s the difference between that day and a day when you push past the point of failure?

My shoulders were sore. Don't give me shit about it Coach.

So today was my daughters birthday. And day 2 of my 5th sprint. I was fully prepared to bypass any unhealthy eating at dinner and bypass the birthday cake. I failed at both. I was hungry when we got to dinner and immediately had some pita and dip The carbs made me hungry, so I had more pita and dips. And then some hallomi cheese sticks and chips and more pita and a few more chips... Then I finished a big main and picked off everyone elses plate. I ate a lot. 

Then we had cake and icecream at home. I had a slice of the chocolate cake, with some yogurt and berries.  I did well to avoid the ice cream. But then I had a few spoons directly from the icecream container. Then a little bit more cake. Then i picked at the chocolate around the cake, and finished the berries. Oh what a pig I was.

Up until dinner, I'd done well. Fasted until 1pm, had a rice, steak, slaw lunch with a specifically counted 10 grapes. I had a good boxing and weights workout and was feeling pretty OK leading up to the evening meal. But I wrecked it. You can't outrun a bad diet and there was no way my 10k steps and 70+ minutes at the gym was cancelling out my binge.

Tomorrow will be better, I will be better tomorrow.    

[Coach Gee]: How did the body feel walking into today — fresh, flat, or somewhere in between?

I felt awful this morning! I hate seeing what smoking a little bit of weed does to me. I binge ate for hours and just didn't give a single thought to the last 7+ months I've spent focusing on becoming better. I woke up feeling physically jaded. Mentally I was a mess too. But I guess whats done is done. Now I need to leave it behind and move forward towards my goals. that 30 hour binge will probably cost me 2 weeks to recover from. I hate weed, I really do. That'll be the last time I smoke it until after my fight. Its only the 2nd time this year, but that's honestly 2 times too many. I'm done with this shit.

So today I walked, I boxed and I ate like I should. I feel terrible and slightly depressed, but I know that'll pass tomorrow.

I had a boxing session on my own today. I used the time to practice technique and focus on hip movement. This was useful and very necessary. It even felt like it was coming together a couple of times. My body rips feel much harder and my balance is a lot better. Left and right shifts felt good too. I'm working on a step + 90 degree pivot and a throwing a straight right hand or left hook (depending on which side i move to). The right side is feeling better - I can land the right fairly well without needing to shuffle my body around.

I'm getting scared about this fight in November. Mainly the risk of head injury and ending up brain dead. I think this is so low probability it's not worth thinking about. But I'm finding it hard to dismiss. I'll have head gear and the fights should be about as safe as they can get, but I'm still worried. Now I'm also scared if I end up pulling out I'll feel like I let myself down. Anyway, just putting it out there - I'm scared.

been stoned most of today. its been a binge and I hate myself a bit for it. But I also think I needed a bit of a binge.

As of tomorrow I'm back to the training routine. New coach, new sprint, new goals.

Its frightening to see how quickly a good diet can turn into a bad diet. I'm fortunate that I have another sprint starting that I can re engage my focus for the next 6 weeks. I've said it before, but if I was on a regular open ended weight loss drive, I think I'd have fallen off the wagon months ago. The re focus / re calibration / transition week has saved me again.

I often think about the lessons I've learnt during the 12 months of AA meetings I went to. "This system demands a rigorous adherence to honesty" or some such wise quote. But it really did, and it really does. I need to be rigorously honest with myself. And this is one of the conditions of the platform I'm slowly, slowly building.

I smoked some weed tonight. Not a lot, just a couple of vapes. But I'm high none the less. This is the first time since January. I dunno why tonight. works been busy and i wanted too. Simple as that.

I had a one on one with coach Z today. Shes so good. I feel like little things get better every time with her. A one on one session was gold! Front upcut break through; rear hip  needs to pivot with rear heal up, weight stats on front foot then hips turn and back foot flattens out. Its kind of awakened my mind on hip movement. I'm not trying to be aware of my hips, as i walk, as I throw, my walking now feels different like i have activated a part of my both that always felt a little disconnected. 

BUT, its a start. I'm aware, and now I can focus on improvements. 

I'm retrospecting this entry. I've been stoned for the best part of a day. I have binge ate, pizza, chocolate, cream bun, sushi. I have a right ole binge today (friday night / saturday).

Like drinking was. I be like "fuck it, I'm messed up now, start again tomorrow". But tomorrow is the start of a new sprint. This binge has put me a week or so behind at worse. Maybe 2. Anyway Fuck it, I'm starting sprint 4 tomorrow.
I almost got away with the night last night and was off to bed without eating after a smoke. I was walking past the kitchen, almost made it to bed then that little voice' "a feed would be nice", and that was it, all over. Reminded me that scene in Flight where Whit discovered the adjoining hotel room and almost does't drink the fridge full of liquor. I almost got to bed, but didn't quite. I had 2 bowls of berries a d powder and oats. Cheese, dates, sultanas, bananas. I hate to estimate the calories. But sunday is a new sprint!

I see how easy a good weight loss regime can be destroyed so quickly. I haven't exactly undone anything, but I can definitely feel a mental shift. A shift that, if left unchecked, would result in me allowing a few extra things back into the diet each week. Maybe this week its an extra few hundred calories, an extra couple of bananas, some peanut butter. Next week maybe I eat a bot later and the fasting goes out the window, maybe I smoke some weed and have a big ole fashioned binge for a few days....  well not this week, not this time!

I've eaten good food and really not all that much more than normal, but it just feels different.  My exercise has been the same with one walk less this evening because of horrid weather.

Boxing today was pretty good. We worked on some advanced stuff at the lunchtime class. The coach picked apart my lead upper cut and hook, which to be fair is by far my worst punch. If always feels awkward and off balance. She pointed out where my head should be and how my rear foot should be on my toes. The power comes through the legs and the snap through the hip. I'm working on it and I'll practice until this feels natural. 

Today was a bit better. It still feels strange eating more. I haven't pigged out on anything out of the ordinary, but certainly feel like I've eaten too much. Todat actually wasn't all that bad, but I haven't been tracking like I should be. 

Gym was good. Had an impromptu pad session with a gym bro. I walked a lot of steps. 

I'm kind of bummed out with this transition week. I was the last time too. I know I'll feel good after the reset, but I like the routine of trying to do everything perfectly. This just feels a bit wrong. 

I don't like these weeks. I eat too much and feel guilty about it.

I guess I'll just get to planning the next sprint and look forward to renewed discipline and motivation.

Day 1 of 7

I feel bloated already! lol. It's not all that bad, but I definitely feel different. I had a Banh Mi for lunch today. This is the single craving I've been having for the last 6 weeks. The local mall does a fantastic crispy pork Banh Mi. Everything about it is great; the bread, port, just the right combo of veges and chilli. Mmmm, mmm chefs kiss. I also had a couple of pieces of fried chicken and extra potatoes with dinner. I also had a pudding; extra whey, frozen berries and yogurt. Now I'm full and feel a bit bloated. I think its most likely the bread as I haven't had much of it since the last Banh Mi I had 6 weeks ago. All in all, I'm still under maintenance calories which is the plan for this week.

I'm still sold on this sprint framework for diet and training. 6 weeks is perfect for me to hyper focus on training and eating well. There's a few big advantages to this approach:

1. I get some wins on the board. Having a massive weight loss goal like 40kg is great, but its a big long mission. It works much better if I aim for 5kg in 6 weeks. If I get there, cool, I celebrate. If I don't no big deal.

2. I get a finish line every 6 weeks.

3. I get to re-assess and re-plan every few weeks. losing weight is a grind. Its much, much better to add in some variety and keep changing things up.

This transition week is all about maintenance. I'll try eat at maintenance most days. I'll rest. I'll reflect and I'll plan. I'll come back next Sunday fired up to get back on a strict diet.

Project Novantacinque

Project Novantacinque: You fought the grind and won.

2026-03-22 → 2026-05-02

Scorecard

• Weight — target < 95kg, result 96.5kg (close). You broke the 100kg barrier and pushed into uncharted territory, finishing just 1.5kg shy of your ambitious target.
• Waist — target < 95cm, result 95cm (hit). You absolutely crushed your waist goal, dropping from 98cm to a lean 95cm, a clear sign of significant body composition change.
• Pull-ups — target > 15 reps, result 12 reps (close). You made solid progress, hitting 12 reps and consistently working on your pull-up strength throughout the sprint.
• Push-ups — target > 50 reps, result 50 reps (hit). You hit your push-up target with a strong 50 reps, demonstrating consistent upper body endurance.
• Plank — target > 3 min, result 3 min (hit). You achieved your 3-minute plank goal, showing impressive core strength and mental fortitude.
• Hips: Snap & Mobility — target Engaging the kinetic chain for power shots and fluid transitions., result Improved (hit). Your focus on hip rotation translated into stronger upper cuts and better kinetic chain engagement in boxing.
• Defense: Head Offline — target Mastering slips and weaves to ensure the head is never on the center line after a shot., result Improved (hit). You consistently worked on slips, weaves, and parries, showing clear progress in keeping your head off the center line.

Coach's Verdict

Alright, Project Novantacinque is in the books, and you, my friend, are a different man than you were 42 days ago. You started this sprint at 100.1kg, battling the ghost of past weight struggles, and you finished at 96.5kg. That's a 3.6kg drop, pushing you into uncharted territory below 97kg for the first time in your adult life. You didn't just 'lose weight'; you transformed. You hit your 95cm waist goal dead on, a tangible victory that speaks volumes about your body composition shift. You crushed your push-up and plank goals, proving that the discipline you apply in the ring translates directly to measurable physical strength. Even your pull-ups, while not hitting 15, saw consistent progress, a testament to your relentless work at the rings. You embraced the intangible goals, focusing on hip snap and head movement, and your self-assessments show clear improvement in your boxing technique. You channeled frustration into output, like on Day 25 when a 'terrible mood' led to nearly 15k steps and dual training. You learned to listen to your body, recognizing the need for #The_Salt_Cramp_Protocol and understanding how late-night habits sabotaged your recovery. This sprint was a mental grind, as you noted on Day 42, but you pushed through. You are building the armor, the skill, and the mindset for your Misogi. This chapter is closed, and you've earned every bit of this victory.

Lessons Learned

1. Recalibration weeks are crucial for preventing diet fatigue and maintaining motivation for subsequent sprints.
2. The 'Whoosh Effect' is real: fat cells can hold water before collapsing, so perceived stagnation can precede a significant weight drop.
3. Mental fatigue and stress from high-level cognitive work can burn glucose and spike cortisol, impacting physical performance and recovery.
4. Ignoring electrolyte balance, especially during intense training, leads to physiological consequences like calf cramps and systemic inflammation.
5. The 'slippery slope' of 'earned treats' or 'hidden oils' can quickly negate caloric deficits and stall progress, even with otherwise clean eating.

Had a great boxing session today. I am fortunate to have access to such a great coach and very small classes. Today there were only 2 of us and the other guy is probably a bit better than we which is excellent. Coach has had a lot of fighting experience and has fought at the international level. Shes tough and very picky about technique, which is exactly what I need. I feel like I've improved a lot since I've been training with her. Today we did some more advanced stuff; throw a combo, step out, come back with a counter. Some blocking work and some left and right shifts. The shifts are feeling a little more natural and it was great to revisit them again today after the first session last week. It was a hard training session, but I know I'm getting a lot fitter as I'm nowhere near as cooked as I was after the same lunchtime class a couple of months back.

It's not looking like I'm going to hit my 95kg weight target for this sprint, but I'm at peace with that. The whole concept of a Misogi is doing something physically demanding with a 50% chance of failure. Setting a difficult, but (possibly) achievable weight loss goal in a 6 week sprint aligns with the Misogi concept I think. I've spoken about being too hung up on the scales before - I know its only one measure, and I know my overall fitness and measurements are a better indicator of progress, but I've spent a lifetime being measured by a number on a scale and it's kind of hard to turn off. At any rate, I said I was going to fight at 91kg or below, and I'll absolutely achieve this by November - I have no doubts about this.

I went out shopping wearing my 32 inch waist jeans tonight - they were not comfortable. They reminded me of all of the years when I couldn't fit into jeans at all. I've got some work to do before these jeans will feel good on me, but overall I'm happy with where things are going.

I think I'm hooked on monkey bars! It feels so great to be able to swing from bar to bar and hold my whole weight with 1 arm. I guess technically my core is doing a lot of the work, but regardless its still awesome to swing from bar to bar like an ape. I am the silver back! I had 2 attempts today; first time i got across, turned and got half way back. 2nd attempt, I got two thirds of the way across. Its a start!

I was chatting with my boss yesterday and another younger guy from work. Boss was comparing lifts with the younger guy and was semi annoyed that, despite his improvements in the gym, he wasn't anywhere near what the younger guy could lift. I'm a similar age to the boss and was able to give some advice based on my own experience. I basically summarized my current philosophy for weight training; I'm training for longevity and health now, I'm in the gym and I'm injury free. I don't need to compete with anyone other than myself. Wise words I need to tell myself on strength training days when I'm doing dead-lifts next to teenagers!

My weight was up this morning, but I expected this. I've been caught before when eating beans and rice. We had Mexican bowls last night which included a good sized serving of a bean salad. The meal itself was healthy enough, but with the bean addition I'm aware my gut has probably holding on to extra water to help process the beans. I started this sprint with a bean bloat from GyG which pushed my weight up close to 2kg for the first week. I expect it'll take a day or two to process again.

I went shopping for work clothes today, because everything I own for meetings is now far too big. I don't often go to in person meetings anymore, but when I do, I want to feel comfortable and not like I'm wearing some other fat dudes clothes. I tried on 4 pairs of trousers and I now know I'm a 34 inch waist, maybe a 32 depending on the clothing. I remember buying 44s and in some miserable cases, big clothes with the elastic in the waist. I feel sad for that younger, fatter version of myself.

I've been on reddit a bit lately and read my same story every day; mid 20's, overweight and hating themselves, but not able to start, or maintain any significant changes. Then you've got the inevitable comments "It's just a calorie deficit", " "you're eating too much" etc. Biologically it probably is as simple as that, and this was certainly something i was aware of - I'm not stupid and neither are these folks on reddit asking for advice. But sometimes its more than just exercising more than you eat, sometimes the easiest thing is the hardest thing to start. I'm hoping what I'm building here can help others to define and inevitably reach their hard goals - whatever they might be.

Day 38 of 42

What is it about Tuesdays that make them suck so bad? Monday is a necessary evil, its the day after the weekend, the start of a new week, but it also comes with a bit of excitement. Tuesday is just the grind day. Today was no exception.

I got to the gym late morning. Its my preferred time to train just before my 16 hour fasting window ends. It was a nice boxing and weight training session. I was reflecting how my weight training has changed over the years. When I was young it was all about lifting as heavy as I can. This was fun in my 20s but caused a few injuries mostly caused by muscle imbalance. I've dialed the weights right back as I've got older. I now, no longer care about lifting heavy. I'm all about training sensibly and building the armor my body needs to train with. The weight training is the training I do to support the real training now. I look at resistance training as an insurance policy for old age. I plan to lift until i die and if I want to do that, I need to approach it sensibly. Sensibly includes no big lifts that cause pain e.g. flat bench press, squats, and more recently overhead press - these all aggravate my neck and/or shoulders so its a pretty easy step to cut them form the routine.

I had a good session boxing last night where we worked pivots. Jab, cross, step and turn 90 degrees while throwing another right. I drilled this as part of my boxing session today until it felt natural. It did NOT feel natural on Monday night. I also worked on my left and right shifts today. Right shift is excellent, I love this move now. Just a quick slip to the right, then kind of a skip to the left while throwing a right - when it all comes together, its a pretty brutal punch. I'm finding alternating a boxing session with the coach and a day to practice on my own is working pretty well. I'm really enjoying the technical sessions with the lunchtime coach. Shes very picky, which is exactly what I need. I'm then able to drill whatever I'm shown on my own the next day.

My weight was 96.2 today. Its good, the lowest its been during this program, but I'm itching to see 95 on the scales. hopefully tomorrow, but I think that's unlikely considering given the salty bean combo we had for dinner tonight - we'll see tomorrow I guess....

day 37 of 42

I'm on the final countdown for this sprint. Only a few more days until... well I'm not really sure. I have a few more days until I can eat a little bit extra, smoke a bit of herb if I feel like it (I probably wont) and think long and hard about what sprint 4 will look like. I had a think about what the physical goals are going to look like for sprint 4, I think I'm settled on these:

• Weight 5kg less than what I finish sprint 3 at. I'm guessing this will be 92kg. This is actually epic for me as it'll officially be the lightest I can recall as an adult. I hit 93kg a couple of years ago through very long periods of intermittent fasting, but I'd lost a lot of muscle and was kinda skinny fat at that point. I feel 92kg will be a lot different this time.

• Waist <92cm. This might be a stretch goal as it'll be 4 - 5 cm off my waist, but we'll see.

• focus on jaw and neck strength - obviously for boxing and absorbing blows.

• 70 consecutive push ups. Now that 50 is semi-easy, time to level it up.

• 15 consecutive chin ups. This is a grind. I've been hovering around 8 - 12 for the entire sprint. I hope I can hit 15 with 6 weeks to do it.

• 10 minutes continuous skipping, no trips. Should help with my footwork, but I'll need to stretch and recover properly as skipping has been causing some pretty bad cramping in my calves lately.

• This one will be fun; Monkey bar challenge. cross 8 bars, turn, chin up - repeat 3 times!

but for now, I need to focus on the diet. No extras!

As expected I was up around half a kg on the scales today. I think this is probably a stress reaction to the boxing and sparring yesterday. It really can't be too much else - maybe water retention from the added salt I had yesterday for recovery. The good new - I didn't have any cramp! I've noticed this pattern over the last few weeks; Saturday is my lightest weight for the week, then boxing for 2 hours and a reasonably big weight increase on Sunday. I guess there is a good lesson here; use the data available to analyze and make sense of any anomalies. I'm understand this increase, and I'm OK with it. I know it'll sort itself out in a few days.

It was a nice morning, so I did a walk with the dog. Monkey bars and chin ups with a stroll in the sun - nice. 12 chin ups today, They're getting easier, but I'm not confident I'll hit 15 by the end of the week. My son plays footy on Sunday which usually involves me walking around the ground while he plays. I also walked between sets during my weights workout and a quick walk after dinner. I almost hit 20k steps today.

I'm in the final week. 7 days to go. I hit 96.35kg this morning. Nice to see a good drop on the scales - its dropped 1.5kg in the last 4 days I think. It always puts me in a happy mood when I get a god drop on the scales. I know I shouldn't be so focused on it, but its what I'm conditioned for and hard to turn off. I'll certainly define a weight goal in sprint 4 - I'm thinking 5kg is achievable again in 6 weeks - that'll put me near my proposed fighting weight of 91kg. I've actually been thinking about that over the last few weeks - why don't I go further than 91? why not aim to fight at 85kg? My sprint system is working, I have the discipline and 85kg doesn't sound as ridiculous as it did at the start of the year.

When I think about being conditioned to past beliefs, I chuckle about saying my current weight out loud, or even in my head. I weigh one hundred and.... no, actually its 97, not 107. I've got used to saying 100+ numbers for so long it seems weird not saying it now. Weird, but great!

Boxing was fun today. Saturday sparring session. Just me and one of the younger kids. Hes done a lot of boxing and is pretty good. Not to be underestimated or switch off against. He likes to brawl and I can see him get angry at times. I felt comfortable against him as I kinda know what to expect (counter puncher, loves the overhand right). Its not hard to counter as I'm taller; pop the jab, keep him at distance, wait for him to get angry and swing wildly then close the distance and beat on him like it was my job. Lol. I don't go too hard on him, but just hard enough to let him know if he gets wild on me, I can turn it up pretty good if I need to. He landed a pretty solid shot to my ribs which I can still feel now.

I stayed for the class after which was fun. We did some ladder work which I SUCK at. I might look into benefits and add some ladders into my training for sprint 4. I guess it can only help.

It was a pretty low key Saturday after boxing; watched some NBA (Spurs are up 2 -1 in the play offs), napped a little, made son and I a good steak lunch, had a walk, made dinner, had another walk, did some app work and finally I'm here typing this up.

Weight in day tomorrow morning + some measurements. I won't be surprised if I'm heavier than today, for some reason I always weigh a bit heavier after Saturday boxing. But meh, I'm aware of that now so I'm not going to get hung up on it. 7 days to go!

Happy Friday! Another work week done. I'm ready for the weekend and more work on my own projects.

Today was a good day for both diet and exercise. I was 97.0kg this morning on the scales. I'm happy with that, but I'll struggle to hit my 95kg goal in 8 days. I'm at peace with that, its a target and if I don't get there, I don't get there. No biggie. Just as long as I don't let it derail progress. I blame the jar of chilli oil and chinese shallots I got a couple of weeks ago. Its taken a few weeks to process all of that and I'm finally feeling better.

I made the boxing class at lunchtime. Today felt good. I felt like I was moving much better than Wednesday. We didn't do anything terribly advanced, which was hood as it meant I could focus on getting basic movements right. The coach has been riding me a lot about hip movement (which I totally agree with). I've been saying "hip" in my head when I throw punches which helps when I remember to do it. Sometimes I zone out and forget and my punches are noticeably less. Hopefully one day it'll come more naturally and I can use my brain to focus on more strategic things. We'll see.

The weather has been nice, so walking has been a treat over the last few days. I've almost finished my current audio book. I think I'll find some inspirational biography next. I'm tending towards David Goggins, but I have the physical book sitting in my "to read" list so it will sting a bit to pay for it on Audible also. But realistically, between training, family and my side projects I don't have a lot of time for reading.

Sparring tomorrow followed by a boxing class. It should be fun.

I'm in the home stretch of this sprint. I guess I should start thinking about the re-calibration week and onwards to sprint 4. I'm certainly going to enjoy a pork Banh Mi, probably some sushi and a guilt free meal out somewhere - I'm thinking Korean BBQ might be a fine choice. 8 more days....

Today I was almost at my lowest weight. It's super frustrating that a week ago I was lighter than I am today. I've talked about the diet slipping for the last couple of weeks, but this week I've been good. The last couple of days the diet has been pristine! My step count has been up, my workouts have been intense. I'm doing everything right but the weight is just coming off slowly now. I guess I should be realistic - I'm in uncharted waters now at 97kg. I've been over 100kg most of my adult life, and aa lot of thyat has been upwards of 120kg. My "ideal" weight for my build is probably around 91kg so I'm trying to lose the last 5-8% now which is going to be the hardest. I think for next sprint I'm going to focus on more cardio and aiming for improvement on a few markers there and not focus so much on the weight.

I had that same lean feeling when I woke up today. I can definitely feel the fat is reducing and my stomach is tighter. I figured I'd be near my 95cm waist goal today, but no! 97cm which was a cm bigger than last time. I know the measuring tape is wildly inaccurate and inconsistent, but its still a little disappointing. Boxing involves a lot of core work, some exercises like bicycles, planks etc and a lot from just the general mechanics of throwing punches - in the right light I can see abs poking through my remaining fat - any day now I'm expecting to get up, look in the mirror and see Ravishing Rick Rude (minus the 80s porn stash) looking back at me.

I've been having interrupted sleeps most nights. I say this as I type and drink a sparking water at 10pm - year, I'll be getting up to pee again at 3am. Last night the dog woke me, she went full Guard Dogg at 4am and had to get out and run around the yard, barking at possums. Not a popular dog today!

Day 32 of 42

Now I'm in a panic. I've got only 10 days left and I still have 2.3kg to lose. That's a significant ask. My weight loss is slow now and I haven't seen any drops greater than 1kg in a while. I weighed myself again this morning and I'd dropped 600g to 97.3kg. Good, but not where I want to be on day 32.

It has made me refine what I'm doing however. Today, I didn't cook a steak for lunch. I was going to have chicken and steak, but opted for just chicken (and slaw + rice).

Boxing training was frustrating today if I'm honest. We did some reasonably advanced combinations including left and right shifts. Some ladder footwork drills at the start and some step left, punch with right type routines. All of this made me feel uncoordinated. It always feels like this when I have to think about feet, hips, shoulders all at once. Nothing felt natural today, I felt like a beginner, a noob.

The first boxing show of the year was on Saturday. The coach went and told me there were some good fighters there. I don't think she meant anything by it, but I took it as a sign that I wasn't ready or anywhere near the level I need to be at. This and the class where I felt like a total beginner has left me quite scared about this fight in November. At this point I'm hoping it doesn't go ahead. That though makes me sad as I feel like if I don't go ahead with it I'll have totally failed myself.

\

day 31 of 42

I woke up feeling pretty lean today. My stomach felt flat and firm as I lay in bed. My wife had bought me a coffee, but I wasn't going to drink any - I wanted to weigh myself and a few sips of coffee would add weight and today I was expected a HUGE drop. I was feeling so lean I started to predict what the scales would say - maybe low 97Kg? this would make sense, I was 97.8 on Sunday. Surely 97.1 today? or maybe lower... maybe 96 point something? I check my tight stomach again - maybe 95 something? I've dropped 2+ kg in a few days before, maybe today is one of those days. i get up and force out an extra long pee before I step on the scales. I do my usual ritual of looking ahead, deep breath in, exhale and then look down at the number.... 97.9kg!! Shit! Fuck!! Shit and Fuck!!! that's heavier than Sunday.

One thing I can take away from the heart break of not seeing the scale move is my reaction to it. Its disappointing yes, but I didn't let a number on a scale push me into a bad mood. I didn't binge eat, I didn't go nuts and try to run 10km to burn off calories. I just processed a and thought about things; I know my diet has slipped a bit, I know I've had a few extras, I had a heavier dinner than usual the previous night. I'm still (probably) processing oil from that jar of chill oil I punished over 5 days. It all adds up. But I'm not about to let it derail me, in fact it had the opposite effect - its inspired me to do better, and thats what I'm aiming to do. Do better, be better for the remainder of this sprint. I have 12 days to hit my weight and waist target. I'm close, but not there yet. Time to finish strong.

I had a good walk in the sun this morning. School is back and I had a quick walk with my son. We chatted about a few things, mainly the NBA and his predictions for the playoffs and finals (Spurs to beat the Celtics in game 7 to win). I carried on with the dog, did my set of pull ups on the roman rings at the park and then home for work.

I did 3 sets of push ups at the gym yesterday. 3 x 20 felt unusually easy. I have an outstanding goal of 50 consecutive push ups which i decided to have a crack at while I waited for my coffee to brew. I counted them out in 10s, the first 30 were no effort which allowed me to think "yea, I'm doing this right here, right now!" and I did, 40 as easy, at 45 I started to slow, but managed to grunt the last few out. I probably had a few more in me, but stopped at 50.

Boxing was good tonight, a warm evening so I got a great sweat going. It was a good technical session, a lot of pad combos and really working on volume of punches tonight. Again, the 45 minute class seemed a bit to quick. Next week I'll stay for 2. Ideally I'd like an extra sparring session or two in after the class - I need to work on finding a few regular partners, ideally near my own weight.

I repeated my same walk after my chicken salad dinner and then home for some computer work. I made some major updates to my tracking app - mainly giving it a way to log progress against sprint goals. I hit my 50 push ups and had no real way of storing this info - now I do.

Not a bad day for Monday.

I stayed up later than normal last night updating a few things on my tracking app. I had a late coffee which was probably a mistake. Late night coffee doesn't really give me the cognitive clarity I was craving - it just keeps me awake. When I decided it was time for bed just after midnight I struggled to switch off and sleep. This is probably another area where things have slipped a little bit. I did not have a coffee this evening for build work and I don't really feel any different.

I had a good long walk this morning with thee dog. Ripped over the monkey bars pretty comfortably, I can dangle now OK one handed which is astounding really as I struggled to hold myself up with 2 a few months back. I did a set of 8 chin ups today, not bad, but not awesome either.

I hit the gym before lunch. A nice 30 ish minutes boxing and 40 minutes weights. I added a few extra core exercises in today. Firstly I did leg lifts while hanging from the chin up bar. I can do 3 sets of 15 comfortably - the trick with this one is the down swing and controlling it. I also did the standard reverse ab crunch on the cable machine. I'm hoping when I finally get the last few kg off, I'll have some massive abs poke through - we can all dream.

I am feeling a bit leaner and I think my usual Wednesday whoosh will happen again this week. I'm not sure why, but I've usually been the lightest on Wednesday morning most weeks during this sprint. I do a regular Sunday Strength session, and I'm wondering if this "catches up" a few days later and I discard a load of water. I'm curious now, I'm going to look into this in a bit more depth.

My diet has been near perfect the last 2 days in a row. But actually thinking about that, it really hasn't. I had a few pieces of cheese, a few dried prunes and some a quarter circle of fried and salted pita bread as extras. I've just logged these extras and they put my calorie count up from 2000 - 2400 for the day. Over a week that's 2800 calories which is near enough to a kg of weight I haven't lost! Tomorrow will be better! I'm going to finish this sprint strong. I might not see less than 95kg, but I'm determined to see 95 point something on the scales in the next 12 days!!

Early start today. First day of footy for my son and he had to be at the ground just after 7am. This meant I didn't get my usual walk with the dog in. Footy takes a while with a bit of downtime so I took the opportunity to get some steps in + it was too cold to stand around. Just under 5k logged for a morning where I'd previously be sitting still and eating dim sims, deep fried potato cakes or some other fried delights. Lol I salivated a bit in my mouth when when I thought about the potato cakes - I wonder if a love of bad food ever really disappears?

I hit the gym later in the morning. Strength Sunday! It was a good session. My knees have been feeling a bit off for the last few days so I was a bit reluctant to do any hard core exercises. I opted for heavy sleds - 4 lengths, 2 forward, 2 backwards with progressively heavier weights. These are probably the best exercises I have discovered for knees. If I don't do them for a week or two, things start feeling clicky and loose. A good session on the sled fixes them right up. Today was no exception.

In other highlights, I did 3 sets of chin ups. I've been doing a single set every few days on my walk, but this was the first time I've used them in a workout over 3 sets. I was pretty happy with 10, 7 and 5 - I'll continue with these on my pull day for the next few weeks. I also did hanging leg lifts - holding me weight is getting easier with every gram I lose! 3 sets of 10 - 15 wasn't a significant effort today.

I weighed in at 97.85kg today. I think there's probably a bit of salty Oporto chicken still being processed so I'll expect a bigger drop in the next day or two. The heavy weights session always seems to prompt a significant drop a few days after. I'm hoping I see 96.x by Wednesday. I'm in the home stretch now for sprint 3, so I'll weigh in almost daily for the next 13 days. almost 3kg in 2 weeks is achievable, but I'll need to tighten the diet up. This stage of the sprint is much easier than the middle 2 weeks. I'm still sold on this sprint and misogi concept and I'm sure if I'd been dieting the conventional way I've tried and failed over and over with, I'd have fallen off the wagon weeks ago.

I measured my grapes, i counted out my dried prunes and I ate soup / gumbo for dinner. Its a good start!

Sparring Saturday! I like the Saturday morning routine; I usually wake up early walk the dog and then head off to boxing for 2 hours. Same routine today.

A new guy came to sparring today. I've trained with him before, hes bigger and taller than me. Maybe 103Kg to my trim 97. Nice relaxed dude, good technical fighter. We had a few good rounds, both controlled and chilled. He knocked my a few times and I did the same to him. My jaw hurt a little when I took the mouth guard out, but nothing too bad. There were a couple of smaller fighters in today; a girl who is super fun to spar with - shes very aggressive and technically quite good and a young teenage boy - hes new, but quick on his feet and moves well (as you'd expect for a 16 year old). It was a nice session. Heavy sparring and then some lighter rounds. I try to work at a distance with the smaller guys and aim to pop the jab on their head gear. I work defense a lot here with slips, weaves etc. Both the smaller guys are quite light and their punches don't bother me too much if they do connect. Its a different story with the bigger dude - Its not so much fun getting hit by 100+kg. He was taller, so my strategy was to slip, weave under and try close the distance. I'm more comfortable when I get set in close and this seemed to work OK with him. My fitness is quite a lot better currently which helped a tonne later in the rounds. I stayed for the class after which was at the usual intensity. We worked on a few nice combinations. My pick for the day; Jab, Cross, Slip left Rip, Left Upper cut, Left Hook. Essential to do this with the hips and legs. This one felt really smooth after I'd done it 20+ times!

I was 97.4kg yesterday. Probably a kilo or more lighter after boxing. I say 97.2 on Wednesday. Hopefully I'll be down tomorrow, but the salt from Oporto last night might mess things up a bit. I'm going in the right direction tho, so I'm happy with that,

I took my son to the basketball court today before heading to the mall for lunch. He had Korean fried chicken. Today I had a small piece. Its not on my normal menu, but it was quite delicious! I figured I'd earned a small treat after a big boxing session.

I've been tempted by many things today. I think the honey chicken was coated in some sugar as I've been craving sweet things. It didn't help when my wife bought home a load of bakery items. So far I've avoided them. All I need to do now is finish my movie, take my vitamins and go to bed.

I'm in a bit of a meh state at the moment. I stayed up late for a couple of nights trying to build software based on a fantastic idea I had. Turns out the idea was stupid and I wasted a whole bunch of time for nothing. Oh well, it probably won't be the last time it happens.

I didn't make the boxing class today. Instead I went to my weights gym and had a session on the bags and some skipping. I think skipping is messing with my calves a bit as I seem to get pretty serious muscle soreness in the night after I skip. Not quite a cramp, closer to a muscle spasm when I move my legs in a certain direction. I've been taking the hydrolytes, salt and coconut milk on the regular, the cramps have mostly gone, but this muscle spasm thing is costing me sleep. I think I probably need to put a bit of time into stretching before bed. Maybe some yoga and meditation would help if I made the time to do it.

I had a low key flex on some guy at the gym today. He's a weird dude. It happens to often to be coincidence; he copies the exercise I'm doing and tries adding weight then gives me a look e.g. I'll do a set of push ups, he'll immediately do a set, but bring his knees up to his elbow like a mountain climber, then look at me when he finishes. Weird guy. I was watching him struggle with sets of 5 chin ups while I was boxing, so I decided to do his routine; I put my gloves away, ripped out 10, then gave him a little nod and walked out. haha.

We had Oporto dinner which is a reasonably good option for me. I shared a whole chicken with a large slaw on the side. Its a bit high in salt, but good protein. I bought my son a doughnut after, but didn't have one. I got a strong back coffee instead which kept me up until 1am working on my software that I've since discarded.

I woke up feeling lean today so measured myself. I wasn't lean :-( or i wasn't any leaner than the last time I measured myself. I've lost a little bit of size / fat everywhere, but its slowed down now - I guess this makes sense as I get closer to ideal. I know I look leaner as I can see a lot more veins up my arms and across my chest now. I guess the stomach fat will have to shift at some point - or maybe it won't and I'll end up with 0.5% body fat on my arms and a belly with it. Its a process, I need to be patient.

I've had a couple of good walks today. I got up early and did my bigger loop. I've been hanging and scaling the monkey bars a couple of times each walk. These are getting easier - it wasn't too long ago that I'd struggle to hold my weight. I also got 12 chin ups today! that's my personal best and a psychological win as its only the 2nd time I've gone over 10. Now my brain knows 10 is doable, so the goal of 15 should roll around pretty fast. This reminds me, I have only 16 days to complete 15 consecutive pull ups and 50 consecutive push ups. I haven't done a push up outside the boxing gym in a week and I probably need to get back onto that!

My second walk at night took me past the roman rings. These are great for posture and boxing. I get myself as flat as possible and pull myself up 20 - 30 times. Tonight was only 20, but it still gave me a nice buzz for the rest of my walk.

My kids are at home on school holidays and it reminds me how fortunate I am to have a healthy active son. Hes 12 and spends most of his day alternating between watching NBA on TV, dunking on the trampoline or shooting hoops outside. He also eats well specifically if he has a game on where he'll strategically eat food that'll give him a boost for game time. I'd like to think I've played some role in educating him about nutrition and sports performance. I'm very proud of that, and of course very proud of my son.

day 25 of 42

Finally a decent weight drop! 97.2kg this morning was a nice thing to wake up to. I was beginning to question everything. This inspired me to keep going and be good today.

Boxing at lunchtime was intense! A hard workout with only me and one other guy with the coach. We drilled some good intermediate combinations mostly on pads for the class. I messed up the pad holding a few times and EVERY SINGLE TIME I messed up, I recalled my brain zoning out and thinking about other stuff. Boxing needs focus, especially when holding the pads for someone else.

I had a morning and evening before dinner walk tonight with my dog. The dogs been a bit of a hassle (shes 2), but I had a bit of a moment with her tonight. I didn't really have anything I wanted to listen to, so walked with no headphones. I think she picked up on that as she kept looking back at me as if to ask for permission for stuff. Shes usually a very reactive dog when she sees other dogs. I've been working on making her sit and waiting until I let her meet the other animal instead of just running off when she feels like it. Tonight she saw another golden retriever (she likes her own kind), she sat, looked at the dog, looked at me. I asked her "do you want to go and meet that dog?", she bark, bark, barked to show her enthusiasm. We had a nice visit with the dog and then moved on. Baby steps I guess.

I need to fix the health sync on this site - I'll add that to my laundry list of tech fixes to make. It synced 6000 ish steps from Google fit, in reality I walked closer to 11 today. My Renpho scale data was synced and retrieved ok (Scale > Samsung health > 3rd party Health Sync App > Google Fit > my AI research assistant downloading via API) - yea, its a brittle flow, but the easiest way I could get it (mostly) working.

Right. Its almost midnight and I need to get off the screen and go to bed.

For some reason my (not so) smart bulb turned on during the night and woke me up 3 times. It put me in such a terrible mood this morning. I had my coffee and then immediately went for a walk before I had a chance to snap at the people I love. A walk always straightens me out. This mornings walk was excellent! I had a seed of an idea planted while listening to a pod cast and now I have a short time to build sass project. I'm not sure anyone is reading this blog, but I am seeing some random visits from the USA in my Vercel analytics console. Shout out to that random person (if its actually a person). I've started a 2nd blog for my technical project here: https://blog.proveitsme.io/churbuilds.

Diet and exercise today was good. I had a nice quick session boxing before my weights. I was reflecting on how much better my jab and left hook have gotten in the last few months. I'm focusing on my overhand right and uppercuts currently. It's all in the hips. I know this now. You can certainly punch with the arms and shoulders only (as I taught myself to do), but the power really comes from your hips. I wish I'd learnt to box as a kid as I'd not be having to correct the bad technique I've picked up over the years. But better late than never I guess. If I could go back in time and give my younger self some advice it'd be - find and train with a coach. My younger self would probably ignore that advice of course. The weights after boxing was decent; 40 minutes or so of push exercises. Low rest, high reps - this is my preferred way to train.

I took another hour walk while my son practiced footy which was good time to ponder my app idea. I'm excited about building this. I have a rule to sleep on any ideas I have. If its still good in the morning, then I'll take action. Tonight I did a bit of pre-work; bought a domain and matching social media accounts. If I don't end up building this specific thing, I'll at least have some socials ready to go for the marketing of the next big idea.

I'm tired, I'm going to turn the smart bulb off at the wall and sleep for 8 hours. Peace!

I got close to the perfect day I planned yesterday!

I fasted until lunchtime after a morning and mid-morning walk.

Lunch was a quite significant omelette with a load of left over roast veges mixed in. It seemed massive, but less calories than the usual steak, slaw and rice I have for lunch most days. I've dropped most dairy from my diet - I used to have a LOT of cheese added to my omelette, but its really quite unnecessary. The cheese doesn't add too much flavour, only calories.

I got to the 6pm boxing class early and hit the floor to ceiling ball for an extra warm up. I had a nice sweat going by the time class started. It was an intense session and I was drenched when I was done. I anticipated the session ad fueled up on salt and electrolytes before I went. I'm feeling OK now at 11pm and no signs of cramp yet. Maybe prevention is the cure here...

Dinner was an insanely healthy beef salad. Greens, lean roast beef, beetroot, corn and a few other misc veges. I added the remainder of my chilli oil to the salad - thats all gone now, so its back to dried chilli flakes for heat if I need it. I had a few extra dried prunes and walnuts as my sweet treat for afters. I could have probably avoided this and just gone for my walk, but I knew I was pretty low on calories for the day and I do like something sweet after a meal!

I had a late night on Saturday working on my app. This app actually. The thing I'm using to log these sprint notes.

I'm still feeling like I've lost my way a little. I'm feeling like the whole process is a bit samey samey now. Back in sprint 2 I was chatting with Gemini on the daily about my training and diet. I learnt so many things about diet and exercise science. The AI chats were super helpful for keeping me accountable and on track. That's kind of the genesis of my app idea. The logging and tracking helps a lot and so does talking to someone about progress and challenges.

Sunday always seems like a bit of a rest day (which I usually need after a long boxing session on Saturday). I still walked near 15k steps and completed a hard weights session. I went back to Strength Sunday after a week off. I enjoy the low reps / high weights once a week, but injury is always in the back of my mind when I train like this. Luckily, I didn't pull any muscles while training, but I wasn't trying to set any records either. I think at 52 I need to accept that I'm not going to be at my strongest and I'm probably not likely to be the strongest person on the gym. I'm happy with top 10, maybe top 5.

My diet isn't as tight as it has been, but I'm not binging on bad food either. A few extra grapes here and there, too much oil added to my meals, over-sized portions of good food aren't the worst things in the world. Every morning I'm in a good position to have that perfect day I need. This week, I'll have a bunch of those perfect days and I'll see 97.x on the scales on Sunday - let it be so!

day 21 of 42

Its the half way point!
I've been talking about turning things around for a few days now, and I know now I need to.
I've eaten almost a full jar of chilli oil in the last week. For the best part of this week I've felt bloated and fat. My gut just feels wrong and it feels like I'm carrying a few extra kg in there.

Aside form the chilli oil and the chinese shallots (which are also delicious, and I've also eaten a jar of them), my diet hasn't changed too much. My exercise has stayed pretty much the same. I'm still performing like an athelete, just eating like a chump.

Tomorrow I won't be surprised or upset about no weight loss, or even a little gain. I'm 100% turning things around tomorrow. No more oil, counting calories for a week.

I need to get back on track. please give me some wisdom and encouragement.

Day 20 of 42

I'm almost at the half way point. Weight loss has really slowed down. If I search hard enough, I know the problem is with me. I've been eating a lot. Its all clean food, but I've been eating a lot of it.

Today I had a big meat pattie and salad lunch with left over Kumera (sweet potato) fries. I mean - this thing was big! I ate from a large mixing bowl! I had 4 patties and most of a bag of salad and a good serving of fries - these were cooked in the oven with minimal oil, so not so bad. What probably was a bit (or a lot) bad was the chilli oil and chinese shallots I've been adding to my meals. I love the chilli oil, but I know I need to put it down. The half way point is going to mean a tune up to the diet. next week will be better.

I'm still slowly losing weight, not gaining, but I know I could be doing better.

My app is coming along pretty quickly now. I need to revamp the food logging. This is a bit clumsy currently. I need to add any food manually and can save them as meals for adding. This is OK if I don't deviate from what I've already added, but doesn't allow me to easily add new things e.g. I ate a couple of boiled eggs today but I can't be bothered to look up what the nutrition info is, add an item, then scroll through a list and add them to my log for today. Too much friction. If I'm finding friction in my own app, then anyone else will hate it. I think this bit can really benefit from AI e.g. lookup of food items, maybe even scanning a photo to estimate the calories. I'll plan this out over the next day or two.

I went to boxing at lunch time today. It was a good session, but the 45 minutes seems too short now. I train hard while I'm there, but I feel a bit short changed after 45 minutes. Tomorrow is sparring at 9 and then class at 10, so I'll get a good long session in. I guess I need to be careful what I wish for because I'll be cooked for the rest of Saturday after 2 hours of training in the morning.

I woke up at 4am with insane cramping in my right calve today. I can still feel it now. I trained pretty hard yesterday and it was hot so I sweated a lot. I should have done better with the re hydration and salt. I need to take my AI coaches advice and up my salt consumption before and during workouts vs as a reactive thing after training. Tomorrow I'll throw a couple of hydrolytes in my water bottle for training.

Day 19 of 42

I had a good sleep last night. Didn't wake up until close to 6am. It's odd, I've been sleeping soundly since I got my tattoo. No idea why.

A lot of weight loss comes out as urine. I remember peeing a lot during the first few weeks. That seems to have calmed down a bit now.

Today was a good day. I got my morning walk completed just before the rain. Managed an easy 30 on the roman rings.

Work was actually fun today. I played with claude code a lot of the day. I worked on this app later in the day. Claude is just outstanding!

Gym before lunch was good; a quick 20 minutes boxing before weights. Boxing felt good today and seemed like my hooks and rips were connecting pretty well. But it always seems good when nobody is coaching me. I'll get a reality check at training tomorrow!

I'm still feeling guilty about my diet. It's not even that bad, but I know i need to tighten things up. I'll work on my food logging component over the weekend.

I WILL reach 95kg this sprint!

Day 18 of 42

Wednesday. Mid week grind day. It seems day 16 through 21 are the mid sprint grind days. I was excited at the start and I remember being excited at the end of the last 2 sprints, but not anymore. I'm not excited, I feel like I'm getting nowhere and I'd super scared I'm just one binge away from a downward spiral.

But for today, I progressed through the grind. I took it one day at a time and did the best I could for today. Well maybe not 100% the best I could, but certainly good. 12k steps, a 6pm boxing class and a pretty clean diet. I had my steak, slaw and rice lunch (with the added miso and chilli flavours).

My weight had dropped back into the 98.x range today. 98.8kg, but 98.x none the less. Its been slow going, but i just need to stay on target. I do feel like I need to change things up a bit. I'd like to get back into some running, but I think it'll probably hurt my knee. I guess I could try some treadmill runs first, but honestly, the thought of any length of time on a stationary piece of exercise equipment fills me with feelings of sadness and dread.

Boxing for 45 minutes seems easy now. Coach is starting a few extra later classes on Monday and Tuesday so I'll be able to train for a couple of hours on those nights. I think 45 minutes isn't enough for me now. A couple of 2 hour sessions should help with my exercise satisfaction levels. I've also got the option to do a kick boxing class before boxing, but its not really appealing to me - I like boxing, kicking aint for me right now.

I did some app work tonight. Claude Code has sped up my progress by orders of magnitude. I tried Cursor early on and hated the lack of control I had. I'm effectively doing the same thing with Claude now, but I've implemented a few processes that keep things a lot less chaotic.

Today was a grind, but ultimately a good day.

day 17 or 42

Back at work today. It sucks even worse than normal when you've just had a 5 day long weekend. I don't hate working, quite the opposite, but not sure I like my job anymore. Or maybe I never really did.

I still felt guilty about my acai bowl last night and lack of steps this morning so I did my longer walk with the dog. I want over the monkey bars again - this is getting easier each time and I can now go forwards and backwards over the 10 - 12 bars comfortably. It hurts my hands, but aside from that, I'm not having too much issue suspending my own weight. I did a set of 10 chin ups shortly after - these are also getting easier, but my endurance always seems to go at rep 9 despite how easy the first few are. My knees were still a bit sore today. The left one had some weird clicking going on which usually happens when there is some swelling going on. I'm glad I rested last night.

I worked all day with just a short break for leftover lamb, salad rice and potatoes for lunch. It was a biggish lunch, but all good food so my energy and focus for the afternoon was great.

I made the 6pm boxing class. It wasn't a super intense class. A lot of focus on slipping and pivots, but I still got a good sweat going. I felt like I was moving pretty well. Slips haven't ever felt really natural for me, but tonight I felt like I made a bit of progress.

Dinner was chicken salad. I had a little bit of gnocci with pesto on the side. And now feel guilty about that. I don't even think it was that bad and it was only a small amount. I'm sick of feeling guilty about not adhering to a 100% perfect diet.

I'm sick of cramping up too. I couldn't rest yesterday as every time I'd start of nod off one of my calves would seize up.

I walked the dog after dinner bringing my step count up to just under 11k for the day. I'm tired and I'm grumpy and I need to sleep.

Day 16 of 42

It's Easter Monday. I'm feeling a bit low today. I feel like things are sliding away and I'm on the verge of falling off the wagon. Or maybe I just don't want to go back to work tomorrow.

I feel fat and gross. I don't really know why. I didn't lose any weight this week, but lost size off my waist. I'm exercising every day with intensity, walking 10 - 15k steps most days, I haven't had any sugar since January. My diet has been 90% good most of the time - if I "cheat" its extra meat, or avocado. I fast every day for 16 hours. I guess it just feels like a grind again. It felt like a grind last sprint at about this point too. 16 days is too far away from the end to be exciting and too close to the start to be exciting too - I'm in no mans land really. I do feel like I need to make some changes and sharpen things up. Maybe add some different training into my routine. I'll think on it.

Again, steak, slaw and rice for lunch. Its nice with the extra chilli flavour. But honestly, I'm sick of writing the same stuff day after day. I'm boring myself here. It's not really boring, its just how I eat. Routine makes things easy to maintain. I'm not really craving any specific food, just a bit of a change.

We had left over lamb and salad for dinner. I really like lamb! I took the kids out for an Acai bowl after dinner This was literally the only "bad" thing I ate all easter and now I feel super guilty about it.

My knee was a bit swollen from playing basketball on concrete, or 3 rounds of skipping, or hard shadow boxing or a combination of all 3. I felt like a walk would have aggravated it, so I sat on my butt watching tv for the evening and felt super guilty about this too.

I did some app work before bed. I ended up redesigning the entire coaching mechanics. I'm not sure where I'm going with this thing now. I guess I'm just in a bit of a rut.

Day 15 of 42

I was back down to 99.15kg today so only a 0.05kg increase this week - thats like a glass of water, so no big drama.

I measured myself today; 97cm waist and all of my other measurements were down too. The scales might not have moved, but I'm dropped some size off my stomach which is arguably more important.

I didn't get to he gym today, but clocked up over 15k steps.

Diet was good; the regular steak, slaw and salad lunch. I bought some chilli oil at the markets yesterday which adds a nice hot spice to the rice. I'm still finding the right quantities and items to mix with, but I think I'm getting close with spring onion, crushed garlic, miso paste and chilli oil. I need to be careful about the oil, I know - but right now I'm enjoying a different flavour in my rice.

We had a roast lamb for dinner which is my absolute favourite. I skipped (most) potatoes and stuck with the sweet potato and carrot instead.

Day 14 of 42

Damn! Weight was up this week - 99.4kg today. I'm not too upset tho. I think my arm is storing a bit of inflammation for the new tattoo and the dinner i had last night felt really salty. I'm hoping both things will work themselves out in a few days. The most important thing is to not let a minor setback derail anything - especially given we're having Easter weekend with a lot of temptations around me.

Speaking of temptations - I'd really love to eat a whole bunch of hot crossed buns this weekend. I love break and something about those salty / sweet buns really does it for me! Hot crossed buns with lots of butter and jam - yummo! But alas, I have other priorities and I know one of those will lead to 5 or 6 of those, so better to just avoid!

I thought it best to avoid my normal Strength Sunday workout today with the new tattoo on my wrist. Instead I did a few rounds of skipping and shadowboxing then a high rep upper body routine. I needed the sweat session anyway and it felt good.

Its Easter weekend, but I still kept to my regular routine; up for a walk at 8, gym at 11:30 and then break my fast at 1pm for lunch. Steak, salad and slaw for lunch - the usual. Then roast lamb for dinner. Its all a bit same same.

Day 13 of 14

It's Good Friday today and I'm not working!

Tattoo feels hot and a little bit weird right now, but looks super cool! I love it! the artist did a great job. I'll need to take it easy for a few days which is timed pretty well with the long Easter weekend ahead.

I trained legs at the gym today. I wanted to avoid any upper body stuff for today and I was due a good leg session anyway.

We went out to the Melbourne markets today. It was a nice outing and I was able to buy some new clothes and accessories. It's actually a really great feeling to be able to buy clothes and not have to look for massive sizes anymore. I didn't eat anything while we were out even though I was surrounded by delicious smelling food. I had my standard steak lunch when we got home at 4pm.

We went out for a kebab dinner. I chose the large meat plate with 6 chicken wings on the side. It turns out this was way too much food so I took half home.

Day 12 of 14

Tattoo Day! I Have a day session booked for 12. I woke up excited and nervous. This will be my first tattoo. I want a mandala design on my left forearm. I have a few specific things I want included int he design that I communicated i with the artist earlier in the week:

• A central star / lighter point. This will use negative space i.e. my skin. To me that will represent my new beginning / origin. I want to look at that spot every day and use it as both a reminder of what my life was like just over 10 years ago when I was at the worst point in my alcoholism, and as a motivation and light for my path forward.

• 6 pointed star / flower / leaf design surrounding the above center star. This will represent my family (Me, wife + 4 kids), the most important things in the world to me.

• Inner Circle surrounding the 6 sided flower / star. I'm not 100% sure why I'm drawn to this shape, maybe its a circle of family, circle of influence, circle of trust, but i feel like I need it as part of the design.

I did my dog walk and then got a good session on the heavy bag in followed by some weights. I'll need to be careful with the tattoo for a few days so I'll not be doing any upper body weights or bag work for a few days. I need a good leg and core session anyway, so probably not a bad thing if I mix things up.

I got to the tattoo studio at 12, the artist had the design finished by around 1. I needed a few bits to be coloured in on paper so I could be sure what it'd look like on my skin. He had nailed the pieces I wanted in the design and I was happy to progress without any changes. We started work by around 1. They print a stencil and then transfer the ink to where the tattoo will sit on the body. Things get real at this point! I loved the design and thought the outline look great on my skin so he started inking my skin. The pain wasn't nearly as bad as I'd expected - it felt like a hot needle. Some of the areas on my forearm were more sensitive than others; closer to the wrist and elbow were tender, but nothing too bad.

I love the finished tattoo! It hit all of my design points and I think it looks really nice on my forearm. I'll probably add it it and am already thinking about a sleeve or cuff. I'll sit with this one until my fight in November and think about adding to it, or a different tattoo in a different spot to commemorate stepping into the ring (and all going to plan, winning!), later in the year.

Apparently you burn a lot of calories getting tattooed. This makes sense as I went through periods of sleepiness and hunger throughout the day. I took some extra food; a couple of sushi rolls, some beef jerky and a couple of bananas. I ate these throughout the session. I was super hungry when we got done at 7pm and had a big munch of pasta and mince when i got home. It wasn't the best day eating, a lot more carbs than I'd usually have in the afternoon and evening, but its not every day you have some guy piercing your skin with a tattoo needle for 6+ hours!

Day 11 of 42

I missed writing my entry on Wednesday evening. I felt like working on my app, so I did that instead. Now I can't think of anything significant to report on what is now 2 days ago.

I don't think it was a bad day, I did all of my standard activities; the dog walk, the healthy main meal for lunch, 16 hour fasting window until 1pm, measured my grapes so kept the consumption within acceptable ranges, lighter dinner with mainly greens and protein, evening walk after dinner, boxing session at lunch time. If I look at that day, its prefect and a day that a 10 year younger version of myself would struggle to comprehend. But now, its starting to feel like there is something missing. I'm putting a lot of energy into fitness, weight loss and boxing which was enough a few months ago, but I have this nagging feeling that I need to do... more.

The lunchtime boxing session was the highlight of the day. I've been working on my lead hook technique and paying a lot more attention to my weight distribution and pivots on strikes. The coach (as always), gave me a bunch of corrections and practical things I can take away and work on. It was hot today which as usual caused me to sweat a lot. I immediately hit the electrolytes and salt while re hydrating for the afternoon.

I spent the day at work feeling cognitively quite slow. I wrestled with a problem for the best part of the day. I solved it towards the end of the day, but I can't help feeling I should have got there quicker. Work is deeply unsatisfying at the moment. There so much more interesting stuff I want to put my energy into - like my own app projects, but when I'm grinding through busy work days with little time available to innovate, play or even really think for very long its hard.

Tomorrow starts my 5 days off work! I'm getting my tattoo done on Thursday and then Easter holiday. I'm planning on keeping my nutrition on point, training, spending my most productive hours working on my app, spending time with my family and getting some rest in.

Day 10 of 42

Double figures! I'm not hating this sprint at all, but my brain works better when I can see an end date to something. So here I am; 32 days to go!

Today was, what is now, pretty ordinary. 2 walks for just under 14k steps, very good diet and some weights and boxing.

I ate lunch early which was a steak, salad and rice. Ordinary, but well balanced and delicious. I have enough daily variance in this lunch to keep it interesting; different steak, different salad pack, maybe avocado, maybe some mushrooms etc. Its also constant enough that I can estimate the calories with a reasonable accuracy. I think repetition is the foundation of good habits. I guess its also the foundation for bad habits too, but I'm trying hard not to have many of those.

My workout was good. I had 5 sets on the heavy bag. I put a lot of focus on my lead hook today. Weight on the back foot, pivot on the front, shoulder meets chin.... When it all connects, they feel great. Low effort, but a nice crisp snap on the bag. I'm also noticing what I'm doing wrong when they don't connect right - this is a good sign I think meaning that I can correct my own technique and hopefully improve.

I finished my session with about 40 minutes of weights; push movements mainly. It was a regular weights day where I keep the reps high at 10 - 15 with a quick lap of the gym between sets. I probably logged 2 - 3k steps doing this while the gym bros sit gazing at their phones.

I did a little app work today. Updated the AI feedback loop to an agentic workflow. I think this will allow me to scale up things a lot easier, but the downside is that it uses 5 x more API requests than the old mega prompt design.

So now its time to take my vitamins and head to bed for hopefully an uninterrupted sleep.

day 9 of 42

It's a Monday and like most Mondays, it seems like a chore.

I did the usual morning routine; dog walk, 30 roman rings pull ups and home. I did knock out my 3 minute plank this morning, which is one of my goals for sprint 3. I guess that small win is something to celebrate for today.

My stomach fat seems squishy today. According to the Internet, this is a good sign and usually a precursor to dropping some circumference. I'll measure myself later in the week.

For lunch I had a really nice piece of steak. it was an eye fillet (which I don't usually buy). I wanted to see what a more premium cut from Aldi was like. My wife is a recovering vegetarian and doesn't have a lot of love for steak so usually buys the cheapest, nastiest bulk packs she can find. A few extra dollars bought me a really, really nice piece of meat today. I also bought a 4 pack of porterhouse's for the rest of the week. In hindsight, I should have saved the eye fillet for the end of the week, now its going to be a comedown next time I eat steak.

I trained boxing at 6pm which meant I was at home working all day. The 6pm class was good; a lot of people in tonight - I guess people binged a little over the weekend and want to train it out on Monday. Not me tho - I had a disciplined weekend and if anything feel like binging out today. I'm feeling pretty tired now which I guess walking for close to 3 hours yesterday will do.

My boxing didn't feel all that good tonight. I thought I had a breakthrough on Friday and was finally getting some power out of my left hook. But then tonight it all felt wrong and awkward again. I felt like I was stepping and putting me weight back on the front foot. A few felt right, but mostly they felt uncoordinated and weak. At least I recognize the fault and know how to start the fix - I guess thats the first step.

Roast lamb for dinner is my favorite of the roasts. Sometimes I miss the roast potatoes that usually go with it, and the gravy, and the mint jelly. But, I've got my eye on the prize and I'm not going to get there without some sacrifice.

I forced myself to walk after dinner and ended up with 11k steps for the day. I think I'll take my vitamins and get to bed early tonight.

Day 8 of 42

Today was Sunday - my first official weigh in day of Sprint 3; Project Novantacinque. I'm happy to say the results were great! 99.1kg today which is a loss of 2.8kg in the first week. I know my initial weight at the start of the week was largely because of GyG bean bloat, but I'm still super happy to be back under 100.

I'll give it another week before I measure myself. The measurements yesterday hadn't moved too much since the previous time I used the measuring tape. I figure if I'm dropping weight, the waist must follow sooner of later.

Its footy season again now and my son was playing 2 back to back games this morning. It was a lovely sunny day so we took the opportunity to walk laps of the grounds while he played. We clocked up 10k steps in a few hours and got some sun and got to watch some kids sport. Not a bad start to Sunday.

I got back home just after 12. I was quite hungry by then, but distracted myself by mowing the lawns and some outside work. I ate at just after 2; Huge porterhouse steak (cooked to perfection), miso rice and a large salad. I usually feel like something sweet after so ate half of my daily allocation of grapes. I've been counting out 20 into a jar each day to prevent me eating a handful here, a handful there and eventually eating half a bag over the course of the day.

I needed a bit of a chill out and a nap after an early start and then hit the gym for my Sunday strength session. I'm getting stronger - in a responsible way. At 52, I'm very cautious of injuries and how easily they can happen especially when trying to lift heavy. I'm sticking to machines where possible for the strength day and staying away from anything that causes any (bad) pain e.g. bench press and overhead press. Strength day = long rests between sets = lots of laps of the gym and addition steps. I hit over 15k by the time I got home.

Dinner was chicken soup tonight. I had a couple of small pieces of bread with butter. I love bread, I know its not ideal food (especially in the evening). I walked after dinner to get me to over 21k steps for the day. I'll sleep well tonight!

Day 7 of 42

My first full week done and dusted. It feels good. Pretty soon I'll be in double figures, then halfway and then it'll be done before I know it. I'm not really in a massive rush, I enjoy the discipline of these sprints and I really enjoy the results I'm getting.

Today I weighed 99.4kg first thing in the morning. I was pretty stoked to see that on the scales. My measurements hadn't changed too much, but I'll take the weight loss!

Not to rest on the small win, I went on a walk with the dog around my big loop. Then boxing; today was sparring and then a class. I like the sparring a lot. 3 other guys there today; one around my size which was good and 2 younger kids. One of the boys wend hard and clocked my jaw pretty good. He liked to get in close and throw big overhand shots. I stopped letting him get near with my jab and that shut him down pretty well. I had to give him a few love taps to show I'm not about to be a punching bag for him. I felt a bit bad hitting a kid, but again, I'm not there to be beaten on because I'm bigger.

I stayed for the class afterwards. It was a nice 90+ minutes boxing today. It was the coaches birthday and one of the girls bought a big cake in. I didn't have any. Not because I was particularly diligent about my diet, but because I knew the sugar would mess me up for 3 days after while I process it. Having the 99.4 earlier was some inspiration too, but mostly it was the fear of the sugar that made it easy for me to say no. It did look like a delicious cake tho!

I weighed myself after boxing - I'd lost another 1kg! Yea, I sweat a lot!

As usual, I was cooked after the double boxing session. I bought some steak and had a normal steak, slaw and rice lunch. I was pretty happy it was raining today which gave me a good excuse to have an afternoon nap and vege in front of TV.

I've spent the afternoon drinking and hitting the occasional half teaspoon of salt. So far, so good with the cramps.

Dinner was a roast chicken and salad, then a walk, a bit of app work and bed.

Day 6 of 42

I'm almost a week in. Its going well. This all feels pretty natural now.

Another night with cramps hitting my calve a few times. They weren't was bad as yesterday, but still getting quite annoying. I'll double down on salt and coconut water today.

I weighed 100.1 this morning, so I'm very close to what I finished sprint 2 at. I still find it a little disturbing that one week cost me 2kg in progress. But it looks like I've recovered OK, I should be back to 99.x on Sunday. I really want to be at the point where I can retain water from eating beans, or a high salt meal and not have it tip the scales over 100kg. I guess that means my dry weight is going to need to be around 97kg, or lower. I'm patient with the weight loss, but also very, very eager to look at myself in the mirror and not hate what I look at. I'm not sure I can actually get to this point tho, theres always going to be something I will be critical of. I guess its better to be this way than not caring and being ok with being 40+kg overweight.

Walk, rings and a few push ups when I got home - the usual morning routine. I thrive on routine. Leaving the house at the same time each day helps me clear my head before the work day starts. I'm very fortunate that I can work from home and get to spend time with my son every morning.

Today was boxing and I'm glad I went. It ended up being a PT session as I was the only one who tuned up. We worked on foot work and my lead hook. I think I have an awful lead hook and I need a lot of work on it. I came away with a LOT of stuff to focus on after the session. My recipe for the perfect lead hook is now:

• 70% weight on the back foot (I was putting far too much on the front)

• push off from the back foot and pivot on it

• elbow up

• head should stay looking forward

• shoulder meets chin

• turn front hip

• try to land front foot and shot at the same time

• bring the back foot in after the punch

• return to closed position after

It already feels better! I'd have been happy to pay 90 bucks for that session! She really is a very good coach!

A good boxing session always sets me up for a nice chilled out afternoon. I got a good workout, but it does seem a little easier than it was a few months back. We did a lot of rounds on the pads which were 3 minutes each. My endurance has really kicked up a level. Maybe I'm putting less effort in and getting more out... I can hope.

I got a shake in immediately when I got home, then lunch. Lunch was leftover chicken, roast vege salad and the potatoes I saved from last night. Work was productive after a good workout and a good lunch.

I ripped out a few sets of push ups throughout the day. I even got 40 in one go! I've targeted 50 consecutive push ups this sprint - that target is looking very, very achievable within the next 36 days.

I had a nice steak dinner with a green salad, then off for a walk with the dog. I hit just under 12k steps for the day which apparently is 9.4km walked. I quite enjoy the walking. I've usually got an audio book, podcast or some music going.

I worked a few hours on my app before bed. A nice productive session and fitting end to another good, high output day.

day 5 of 42

I neglected my vitamins last night and I think I paid the price. I had awful cramp in my right calve during the night which woke me up a bunch of times. I wonder if this is connected to the plantar fasciitis I had last year. Whatever the cause, the cramp sucks a lot. I think the magnesium really helps with it, but last night I forgot, and I paid the price.

Normal start to the day; walk with the dog and the son. I got 30 pull ups on the roman rings half war around. I work these so i am as flat as possible and pulling myself up from directly under the rings. I think 30 is doing ok for a 100kg person.

I did a plank while waiting for my coffee to brew; 2m 39s. Thats now my current record. I used to hate this exercise, but damn - it feels good now! my stomach feels nice and tight after it. I reckon I'll get this up to near 5 minutes before the end of this sprint.

I got to the gym at around 1. I'm pretty hungry by 1pm, so had to have a coffee and a banana to power myself up. 10 minutes on the bike, then 5 sets of 3 minutes boxing for a warm up. I was training next to a young guy today and was honestly in awe of his boxing. I'm struggling to pivot and get my hips into my shots while this guy makes it look super natural. His hooks look faster and harder than mine and I probably out weight him by 20kg. I've got work to do.

The weights session was good, but its kind of the after thought currently. Boxing is where my head is at. I think weights are a necessity though for both injury prevention and longevity. I can see myself lifting weights in some form or another until I leave this earth. Its weird to think about where the older guys train. I don't see too many guys much older than me working out. Do they just stop? or is there some old dudes gym I need to find out about? My gym is full of young university students mainly. Young kids making the same stupid mistakes I made when I was a young kid working out.

Lunch was late. I had left over meat patties, slaw and the rice. I love my homemade meat patties, they are delicious and I've managed to eliminate all the bad stuff that can turn patties into a diet nightmare. I missed my post workout shake, but had a shake after dinner as a catch up.

Dinner was a nice grilled chicken with a roast vege salad and beans. Again, nice and clean and really tasty. I skipped the roast potatoes, but made sure to save some for Fridays lunch!

I made sure to get my vitamins in before bed. I'm hoping the cramps don't wake me again tonight.

Day 4 of 42

I woke up super early today - wide awake at 4:30am, so I figured I'd get up and work on my tracking app for a few hours. Its a nice time of day to work and I got a productive few hours in. Mostly cosmetic changes to layout and a bit of a functionality change for scrolling through past days and data. I'll iterate over the current functions until they are closer to perfect before I move on to any big new features.

I walked for an hour before the day job started. No son today, so i was able to do my bigger loop past his school. When he's with me we part ways earlier as I'm pretty sure he's not going to want his dad walking with him to the school gates! This loop has my chin up bars. I was psyching myself up for 10, maybe 11 this morning, but alas I couldn't quite get the 10th one out. I think I'll start hanging from the bar for a bit after failure and I'll try adding some inverted chin ups i.e. I'll jump and try to lower myself slowly. I've been stuck at just under 10 for a few weeks now, so I need to try something different to progress.

My weight was 100.2kg at 4:30 this morning. Thats a drop of almost 2kg in a few days, so I'm pretty confident the 2kg "gain" i had over my re-calibration week was mostly water weight. I'm confident I'll see 99.x on Sunday now.

I've been ripping out a few sets of 20 push ups throughout the day. I'm not going for any records, just aiming for 100+ a day. I don't think I got 100 today as I can only recall 3 sets at home and one at boxing giving me 80 in total. I'll do 120 tomorrow!

Boxing at lunchtime was OK today. I had a stressful call with my boss on the way to training and walked in to the gym just after hanging up. I can usually shut out work stuff when I'm training, but it was weighing on my mind today. My technique suffered today. I got a good sweat and allocation of cardio for the day, so not a wasted effort.

I worked late and tried some app development in the evening, but I was just fried and couldn't focus enough to get anything done. It wasn't enjoyable so I stopped. I should have walked, but didn't as it rained at my usual walk time. I clocked up just over 7.3k steps today - this is the lowest total I've had n a few weeks.

I feel like I let myself down a bit today, but I guess sometimes rest is a necessity. Tomorrow I'll do better!

day 3 of 42

I woke up today thinking it was Saturday and then realized it was actually Tuesday. Bad start to the day, but it got better.

I did my morning walk with a record 35 roman ring pull ups. I did a set up push ups when I got home. I'm aiming to get 100 done each day.

Work was a bit mental so I didn't get to they gym until 2. I usually like to train fasted late morning, but 2pm is stretching it a bit for lifting weights. I had a banana before i left home and sipped coffee while I trained. My energy was ok, a little tired towards the end. Weights was push today, mainly chest and tricep exercises with an overhead press thrown in. The overhead press is hard for me, I feel like there is some damage to my neck that makes it unnecessarily uncomfortable. Next week I'll change that up for something else.

I ate my lunch at 3:30 today. I was craving red meat so bought myself a nice scotch fillet on the way home from the gym. I had limited time before my next meeting so moved quick in the kitchen; steak, slaw, mushrooms and rice all mixed in a giant bowl. Didn't look pretty, but it was quick and healthy. Who says healthy eating takes a lot of effort?

Dinner was chicken salad. Nothing too special and it left me quite hungry. I had a shake which helped with the hunger, but it was only a temporary fix. I took my son to the supermarket to get some food to feed a few friends he has coming over tomorrow. Damn, everything looked delicious when I was hungry; bakery, sugary biscuits, chocolate... no way I was going to get anything, but I guess its good to at least acknowledge the feelings I had.

I've become very disciplined at curring off eating for the day at 9pm. I'll do this this tonight and probably go to bed early as thats a great way to cure any residual hunger.

I got an evening walk in bringing my step count up to 14.2k for the day - i probably clocked up 2 - 3k pacing around the gym between sets.

Day 3, out!

day 2 of 42

Today I appreciate the re-calibration week. I realize how much that has helped with diet fatigue and how it has amped me up for this sprint. If I hadn't have had the week, I'd be grinding out week 8 now and most likely hating it. But I'm here, fresh start on say 2 of 42. Motivation is high and I'm feeling really good about the remaining 5.8 weeks.

It was a regular start today; dog and son walk, some audio book and 30 roman ring pull ups half way around. I'm loving the rings or chin ups half way into my walk, they give me a nice pump and put a good spring in my step for the remaining walk.

Before I had any food for the day today, I counted 20 grapes into a jar. My daily allocation of grapes! This is some advice I've given myself a few times before; measure the grapes vs eating directly from the bag and today I finally took my own good advice. 20 grapes measured out and only 20 grapes eaten for the day - thats a small win for Monday.

Lunch was some leftover chicken, slaw, rice and some roast veges. It was a big bowl of food which I finished. It amazes me that I can eat a bit bowl of food like that and not get sleepy afterwards. Good food certainly has its merits.

I got to the 6pm boxing class on a reasonably humid day. A good hot and sweaty session. Training was good tonight. I kept hip movement in the front of my mind. I can feel the differences in my punches when my hips are rotating. I can also feel it slip when I get tired and start to revert back to arm / shoulder punching. When that happens, I'm aware enough now to snap myself back into good form. I think I've slightly turned a page here today. Small incremental improvement - thats what I'm aiming for here!

My wife had made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, but they were the store bought nasty kind. I couldn't do it, not on day 2 so i had a big tuna salad instead. I don't love tuna as a protein, but sometimes its the easiest option so always good to keep a few tins in the pantry.

I've started working on my performance goals for this sprint. I cracked the 2 minute ceiling I'd somehow imposed on myself for holding a plank on Saturday. I was cooked at the end of boxing and one of the final ab exercises was an "easy 2 minute plank". My heat usually sinks when I hear these words from the coach as I've not been able to hold a 2 minute plank, well...ever. But Saturday I told myself I was going to do the 2 minutes as I assumed the plank position. That shift from "I hate this and I can't do this stupid exercise" to "today, I'm going to complete this" may have been life changing (in a small way). I completed the 2 minutes which was absolutely the high point of my 90 minute workout. Since then, I've completed a 2m 9s plank on Sunday and a 2m 20s plank today. I've set a target of 3 minutes which now looks easily achievable - I might bump this up to 4 minutes. I've been getting some reps in for the push ups and chin ups also. I'm aiming for 5 sets of 20 push ups each day for the next week, then I'll work out a strategy to get my maximum up. My benchmark was 25 on Sunday and almost 10 chin ups. I'm aiming for 50 and 15 respectively.

My step count was 12.5k for the day between a morning and evening dog walk. I might start going around the block after lunch just to get me closer to 15k each day now.

All in all, it was a pretty good day 2.

day 1 of 42 (Sprint 3)

Here we are! about to embark on another 6 week mission of self improvement, education and fulfillment of some life goals that have always eluded me - until now.

I've always been fat and I've always hated myself for it. I've always longed to be fit, in shape, ripped, jacked, shreaded. Whatever you want to call it, I've always felt I fell short and thats always made me sad. I've lost weight, gained it back, lost it again, and again and again. At one point, at the hight of my drinking and general self destructive cycle, I tipped the scales at over 140kg. I was in a bad way.

I stopped drinking just over 10 years ago and this helped me drop a lot of weight. Initially its quite easy to lose weight when you remove all the unnecessary calories of many, many beers and red wines most nights of the week. For years I sat at between 120 and 130kg as even after quitting booze, I never did much about eating well so the weight only dropped so far.

At the end of sprint 2, I tipped just under 100kg for the 3rd time in my adult life. This sprint, I'm aiming for 95kg. At 95, I'll be close to my idea weight by most conventional metrics. Maybe there'll be visible abs, maybe there won't, but I'll be 5kg, well actually 7kg closer than I am right now. I weighed just under 102kg this morning which was a 2kg gain from the end of sprint 2. I think (I hope), that a lot of this is water weight from the rice and beans dinner i had on Saturday night. I didn't go too rogue on my recalibration week, but there were a few extra treats that I enjoyed last week. But really, I gained 3kg total when i went on holiday for 3 weeks in January and this was a total binge - buffet breakfasts every day and pretty much eating whatever i wanted the whole time and hardly exercising. It's difficult to believe i gained 2kg in a week with only a few (mostly healthy) treats like sushi and bbq while exercising hard every day. Water weight - it has to be!

I thought about smoking some weed last night. I woke up today very glad I hadn't followed through with it. I'd have felt jaded and foggy, probably would have turned the Gyg and Acai dinner into a much, much worse binge. I'd almost certainly want to start Sunday with a puff too which would not be the way I want to start this sprint. Instead I started with a nice long walk in the sun with the dog. I hit a set of 9.9 chin ups midway through my walk and then home to set my initial bench marks for a plan (2m 9s - my official pb) and push ups (25). I'm aiming for 15 chin ups, 50 push ups and a 3 minute plank for this sprint while reducing my weight and waist measurement o less than 95cm.

I worked around the house gardening for a few hours today in addition to walking 16k steps and hitting the gym for my traditional Strength Sunday workout.

My diet was clean, although I did beat myself up a little for eating grapes from the bag - I had around 10, total but I really need to measure a serving vs taking hand fulls. I also had a bit of Greek Yoghurt and Peanut Butter in my smoothie tonight. I don't really need those extras, but I don't think they cost me too much as my calories were around 1700 total for the day - this should be a massive deficit. I'm declaring day 1 of 42 a win. 1 down 41 more to go!

Day 7 of 7

Last day of the re-calibration week and I'm happy its here. My exercise has remained pretty much unchanged with the exception of a couple of night time walks. My diet was about what I expected; still mostly clean, whole foods but a little more relaxed. I had BBQ, I had cake, Sushi, Bahm Mi, GYG and Acai (which actually sounds worse than it was written in a list!), but that was the idea of this week; a reset, a recalibration and a chance to enjoy any food I'd been craving. I drew the line at Korean fired chicken, maybe I'll have that in 6 weeks time.

I had a good 90+ minutes boxing training today. Sparring with some kids and then the class. The kids were fun, but i got hit a lot. It didn't hurt a lot, but makes me think what a 90+ Kg punch will feel like when someone is trying to knock me out. I need to sharpen up on my head movement and moving in and out of range. Coach got me with a massive body shot that I felt for hours afterwards. I don't know if I've ever been hit that hard before. I was glad he got it right on the bell as it would have made any further sparring very, very taxing.

I ate a good lunch; Steak, rice and slaw (the usual). I gave the same to my son and we chatted about macros and stuff while we ate. I'm not preaching to him, just providing a bit of education around food and diet when the opportunity presents itself. He's a sporty kid and I figure it'll help him if he knows what foods will help him perform and train better. I've already noticed he's making some strategic choices on game days e.g a smoothie bowl timed about 90 minutes before his game vs sugar coated serial. I wish I'd had someone able to guide me on food and exercise when I was his age.

I worked on my app over the afternoon. I made some progress today after the 2 hour nightmare I had last night. I updated a few UI components and can now track step count and reps of an exercises in addition to time / intensity metrics. I added this in preparation for sprint 3 where I'll be tracking a few exercises like push ups, pull ups etc. This is a fun side project and very cool that its helping me at the same time.

I kicked the ball around with my son before dinner. Not intense exercise, but every little bit of time I'm moving vs sitting is better for me.

We had GyG for dinner. In hindsight, this was probably a bit of a poor choice the day before weight in. I was hungry and this was my "last supper" before sprint 3, so I had a bowl and burrito. Not gonna lie, I ate some of my wife and sons fries too. GyG is not an unhealthy option, but packed with bans and rice and as I've learned - that'll take a day or two to process and I'll retain water while I process the beans. We went for an ice cream / acai after. This is my first time trying Acai - it was nice, but I'm picking not as healthy as the hype makes out. I'm not going to be too stressed out if I'm up on the scales tomorrow, it won't necessarily be a bad thing to have some water weight I can drop easily in the first week.

I came home and went for a walk which got me to 15.5k for the day.

I gave myself the option of smoking a little weed if I wanted to this week. I sort of felt like it on Saturday night, but the urge passed pretty quickly when I distracted myself. I don't have urges for it much at all now as I know what a land mine it is for me and I really haven't done much of it for a few years now. I'm hoping one day the urges disappear completely as they largely have for alcohol, but I guess its just one day at a time until they do.

Day 6 of 7

Sushi Friday! Sushi was one of the things I've thought about a few times during sprint 2 and today I got to enjoy it. It was nice, but I can now understand why its not a go to healthy food option. I could really taste the sugar thats added in the vinegar, which I guess is the bit that makes it so tasty. I had a nice squid salad, a couple of rolls and a tempura pancake. That will satisfy my sushi cravings for the next few weeks.

I walked around 14k steps today. I got a set of chin ups in on each walk; 8 and 7. I'm not going for any records and I think I've got 1 or 2 left in me each time I do a set. I'm working towards 15 for this next sprint.

Boxing was great today. After I got over the bad fuel I had in my system from my birthday celebration the night before. It was a rough start, but I came right 10 minutes in. I like the coaching I get at lunchtime especially with the Friday coach. Shes really attentive and pulls me up on so many things I'm doing wrong. Its humbling to be corrected so often, but I take something from these classes EVERY time. If it makes me a better boxer, then I'm happy to be corrected all day.

I went shopping for clothes this afternoon. Bought a new knit jumper - another size Medium. I'm no longer looking at the XL or larger and starting to take a glance in the Medium racks. I'm on the big side of medium, but its cool to have a lot more options for clothes.

Dinner was a steak and coleslaw. I avoided my left over birthday cake, but couldn't resist a few reheated fries. I made a bowl of berries, greek yoghurt and a scoop of whey for afters. I can feel myself being hungrier as I've added a bit of treat food over the last few days. I'm looking forward to getting back to 100% clean and dropping a few more kg.

Day 5 of 7

Happy Birthday to me!! 52 years old today and I feel a whole lot better than when I turned 42. I don't remember a lot about my 42nd birthday, but I know from the dates I would have been 45 days sober at that point. Grossly overweight, depressed and generally hating myself. Today, I feel fit, positive and excited about life.

I took the day off work today, it was nice to have my birthday to myself. I did my usual walk with my son and dog this morning. I dug over a patch of garden when I got back which was a pretty good workout in itself. I'm not sure how many calories digging dirt and roots burns, but I got a really good sweat going and cramping hands and forearms later in the day.

I'm getting a tattoo done in a few weeks and went to meet with the artiest today. Cool guy! We seem to have a few similar interests which should make the 6+ hours we'll be together fun. This will be my first tattoo - its a gift to myself as both a celebration of 10 years sober and a mark on my skin to remind and guide me. I have a general idea of what I want; a Mandala design on my left forearm. The center will be a star, or sun, or possibly a compass symbol to signify my guiding light.

I treated myself to a Bahm Mee for lunch. Its one of the things I've been craving through sprint 2. It didn't disappoint! Delicious crispy pork, nice soft bread and that excellent combination of pate,mayo and spices that they do so well.

I had a small nap in the afternoon and then the gym. 30 minutes of boxing and skipping followed by a weights pull workout. I kept the weights light and the rests between sets short - I did my usual walk around the gym between each set which keeps my heart nicely elevated. I see so many people in there on their phones between sets, sitting and scrolling.

I took the family out for karting which was a lot of fun. We went out to a BBQ restaurant for dinner and all ate very well. Pulled pork, brisket, ribs, chips. Damn, it was a mean feed! I ate far too much, but its not every day you turn 52! and, I'm in a recalibration week - I planned for this. I even had a small slice of Black Forrest cake for my birthday. I regret nothing, at least not at the moment. I may regret the bread and sugar tomorrow and Saturday, but thats a problem for tomorrow and Saturday!

Day 4 of 7

Finally I felt lighter and dangerous again this morning. My god! It took the best part of 3 full days to process those friggin oats I ate on Sunday.

Oats soak in water and ferment in the gut. SO i was walking around for 3 days with a load of extra water and 150g of oats slooooowly digesting in my tummy. Never again! I've got used to not eating certain types of food, so best I just stay clear of them.

I had a longer walk with the dog this morning because my son rode to school with his friends. I'd have much rather walked with him, but i guess he's getting older and I'm glad he's made a bunch of new friends. I knocked 8 out on the chin up bar on the way past - these are getting easier, I'm so close to 10 I can taste it!

Lunch was a nice steak, slaw and some mushrooms. It was quite a large bowl of food, but good nutritious food that didn't leave me sleepy or feeling bloated, just nicely satisfied. I went for a quick walk after I ate and then back to work.

It was a busy day at work so I didn't train during the day. I made the 6pm boxing class which was great. Only 2 of us there so I got a good focused session in. It was a bit warmer here today which led me to sweat just a bit more than average. I failed again on the 2 minute plank. I'm determined to get this! I can probably get close to 2 minutes without a prior workout, but usually at training by the time we do planks we're at least 30 minutes into an intense boxing class.

I got called up by the Masters Boxing today. The guy said "we've got you a fight". Turned out it wasn't going to work out as it was for the April show and I'd have to cut 8kg by then. I could probably do 8, but I'd be losing muscle and would probably end up being pretty weak. I told the guy my plan for November and he was cool with it. The thing I noticed about the call was I was actually excited, a little scared, but mostly excited about the prospect of a fight.

Dinner was a chicken casserole with some steamed cauliflower and broccoli. t was tasty, but I think there was probably some flour in it as my stomach is a bit rumbly now.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I've got the day off work. I'm getting a tattoo consultation, going to train weights and then heading out for go karts and BBQ! bring it on!!!

I don't know if i like this re-calibration week. I feel full and lazy and fat and its only day 3. I'm know I'm looking forward to getting back into the "regular" programme on Sunday!

I'm waking up groggy each day. Its been hard to get out of bed. I went on my usual walk today with 30 inverted pull ups on the rings at the park - these are getting easier! I struggled to get 20 out a few weeks back.

My stomach has been upset for 2 days now and I have this persistent full feeling that I hate. Today I changed my diet up and I think I'm finally getting through the carbohydrate binge I had on Sunday and Monday.

Today was closer to my regular diet. Lunch was rice, chicken, slaw and a few left over veges (corn, peas and some mushrooms). This was a bit bigger than my usual serve, but pretty decent taste - I'm getting better at seasoning my rice finally! I ate before the gym today, but as I've learned previously, I need to have at least 90 minutes and a bunch of water before hitting the gym after a big feed.

I trained for just over an hour today; 10 minutes on the bike (this does wonders for my knee), 5 x 3 minute rounds of boxing working on rips mainly. I can feel some improvement when I really focus on hip movement, but its still not natural... yet. I got some weights in afterwards, a push workout today. They didn't feel great. I started with flat bench press which I've not done for years. My rights shoulder felt a little bit pinched after 3 sets. I think that'll be the first and last time I hit the flat bench press for a while - there are plenty of alternatives that don't mess with the shoulders as badly. The gym was average, not my most savage workout ever, but I got there and I got a good sweat up.

Protein shake consumed immediately after training loaded with fruit.

Dinner was satay beef strips and vege with a small portion of brown rice and quinoa. I had seconds of the meat. I probably didn't need it and felt quite bloated half an hour later. I went on another walk bringing me up to just under 14k for the day.

All in all, just a bit of an average day. I'm really not liking how I'm feeling currently. I'm so worried I'm undoing my hard work from the last sprint, but how much damage can I possibly do in 7 days while maintaining good (not perfect) eating and consistent exercise?

day 2 of 7

I woke up super grumpy today. I'm really not sure why. I don't think having extra food including a big dinner helped as I have this weird feeling of going backwards. I know thats impossible in 24 hours, but still, it worries me.

I walked the dog. She was annoying me this morning, just like every other thing in the world. The only positive thought I could muster was for the lunch time boxing class. There is a special guest coach on Monday and he's excellent. There usually aren't many people training at lunchtime, so its a really good opportunity for me to learn. Bigger clasees are fun, but you don't get as much technique specific coaching.

I came back form my walk and decided to get in the pool for some cold therapy. I'm fortunate to have access to an unheated swimming pool. Currently its sitting at around 20 degrees, but it will get down under 10 in the next few months as winter arrives. The water is excellent for so many things and I need to make a point of using the pool more for both training and recovery. Today I hopped around and focused on hip movement and moving my shoulders. I was a bit sore this morning, which I guess didn't help my mood. after 15 minutes in the cold water, my body felt a lot better. As an added bonus, my mood has lifted a little too. I didn't shower after the pool as its better if the body can raise its temperature naturally.

The lunchtime boxing class ended up being a PT session. I love it when this happens - 1 on 1 attention from the coach. She was excellent too. Worked on slips, hip movement and pivots. I have a slip, body rip drill I will now practice. My rips felt a lot better today when I was focused on turning my hips into them. I can feel my form slipping especially when i get tired and a regress back to arm punching. But hip movement is the focus and hip movement is what I'll get better at until hopefully it becomes natural. It wasn't so long ago I had a awful jab, but thats significantly improved, my hip movement can too.

I came home and had my shake, followed by a slightly larger lunch. I added some sweet potato and carrot to my rice slaw and steak. This left me pretty full and kinda sleepy. The afternoon wasn't the usual floating on air after boxing afternoon I usually have after a good lunchtime session. I still felt tired and a bit grumpy.

I did some investigation on my sleepiness and bad mood as I figured it had to be die related. I was right. I've been eating clean food for the last 6 weeks tilted towards high protein and fat with limited carbs. Specifically, limited carbs in the evening. On Sunday I ate oats with yoghurt then a good portion of sweet potato in the evening - this is a lot more sugars than I've been used to processing. My body triggered a reaction to process this quickly which caused my blood sugar to drop rapidly to below its normal levels. This caused my fatigue and grumpiness for most of the day.

I also felt full and heavy after the fiber rich food. Not the good kind of full, but the bloated slow kind of full. High fiber food draws a lot of water into the gut to process it, so I felt grossly full for the next 24 hours after my special oats bowl.

I've also had an insatiable appetite for the day. I guess this is to be expected with high fiber food - I get the same reaction when I eat bread usually. Which is why I've cut almost all bread from my diet.

In summary, I think my experiment with additional calories has been a failure so far. I don't think I went too far over my 3k target, but I certainly chose the wrong foods. For the rest of the week I'll focus on hitting the 3k target, but adding the additional calories from lighter, more calorie dense foods. I'll add back some olive oil, avocado, almonds / walnuts on my salad, maybe even some cheese (I need to look into this one). I'm already eating a few eggs, but I might try adding 1 or 2 with my steak lunches.

The lessons here for a re-calibration week:

• When we add extra fuel to the diet, it should be mostly coming from fats or additional protein. Keep the high fiber carbs to a minimum.

• Keep your meals and food timing the same as you've been doing, just add more calories.

I didn't get an evening walk in today as it was pouring with rain (6k steps total for the day). I'm OK with that for today as I kid of enjoyed sitting in front of the TV for an extended period. Tomorrow will be better

day 1 of 7

Re calibration week is about recovery.

I did a high weights workout for strength. Kept my reps to under 6 with weights that were hard to lift.

i walked 15k steps. I got almost 10 chin ups today - just failed on the last one! I'll get it next time,

Day 42 of 42!!

Ok, it's done. Today was the last day of sprint 3 and it was a BANGER!

I had sparring this morning for an hour. I only had one round with coach and he gave me the usual beat down. I had probably 8 or 9 more rounds with some of the newer guys and smaller fighters. I felt relaxed. It was really fun. I wasn't trying to hit much, just focusing on defence. My fitness felt excellent.

I stayed for the class after and was my usual sweaty soaked mess at the end.

Pretty cooked for the rest of the day. Managed to get 15k steps in tho! Tomorrow, I'm going to get a bham mee for lunch!!!

day 41 of 42

I thought I'd weigh myself this morning. Turns out that was a mistake. Back up to 100.4kg. I know, I know, I know.... its salt, its inflammation, its stress, its a little bit of all of those things, but it still stings to see a weight increase when I ate salads for the two meals I had yesterday and exercised like an athlete. And I know I shouldn't be paying so much attention to the scales, but its almost impossible to turn it off.

I had my usual morning walk with my son and dog with a set of inverted push ups on the Roman rings at the park on the way past. The weather is getting cooler and wetter here, so I'm left wondering about keeping my daily step count above 10k over the next few months. Maybe I'll need to swap that light cardio with some indoor work at the gym. That thought repulses me. Spending hours on a treadmill or cross trainer is not my idea of a fun time. I think combat sports kind of ruin you for any other cardio.

I made the midday boxing class. Its the same coach from Wednesday and Friday. She really is fantastic. She picks up so many little things I'm doing wrong and every class I come away with a list of small things to work on. Today it was pivots; keep on my toes and light on my feet. If pivoting, my hips and legs should end up square so I'm ready to throw. Again, small steps, back foot follows front. All very simple points, but I can 100% see a positive difference when I'm focusing on them.

Lunch was the same as yesterday; rice, steak and slaw. My diet is very repetitive, which suits me fine. I don't crave anything and having a simple meal plan makes it very easy to maintain and track.

I've been bust trying to build my tracking app and have been putting a lot of energy into it. A couple of late nights hasn't helped. I'm now very conscious of the importance of quality sleep so I'm tying to wrap up any computer work by 9:30 to give my brain enough time to wind down before sleep. Its never a good idea to go straight from focused computer work to bed, I need to switch off. I usually watch some TV, but a book is probably going to be a better idea. I have David Goggins' book here waiting, I think I'll start that over the weekend.

Dinner was a nice chicken salad with some sweet potato fries. I wonder if there is pattern for my weight loss when I have a few extra carbs in the evening. Last night I had salad + chicken again, no fries and my weight went up. It'll be interesting to see if it goes down tomorrow. I guess I'll discuss this with my AI coach at some point.

I had another dog walk in the evening and started a new audio book - Red Rising. Seems like a gritty sci fi dystopian story I can get into. I worked late on my app again. It was after midnight before I got to bed. I can't sustain late nights for long, but I managed to finish a pretty big piece of my build, so i can ease off for the rest of the weekend.

## day 38 of 42

Focus up! Thats my lesson for today; focus on this sprint and only this sprint.

I started estimating my remaining sprints leading up to my fight in November. Counting backwards, working out optimum gaps. I started jotting them down in my notebook. I think there were 6. And this depressed me. Seeing such a long road ahead give me a feeling of hopelessness I haven't felt since starting this marathon and sprint framework. SO the lesson there - 1 sprint at a time!

I also had a test body scan on the machine at the gym. I'll do this at the start and end of every sprint from here on to give me some more accurate data to work with. Nothing too surprising in the readings; I'm sitting at about 20% body fat which means my target of low 90s / cruiser weight is pretty spot on. But this also made things look like a mountain - I've got 10Kg to lose which will be the hardest and somehow this seemed to start me thinking things are too hard. 10Kg is hard, its a lot and if i obsess about that number, I'll be in danger of quitting. But if I focus on 3, or 5Kg and a 6 week sprint it doesn't seem so bad. Again, the lesson here is - 1 sprint at a time!

I woke up last night at 3am, this is becoming a pattern and one I don't want to continue. I needed to pee, as I've needed to do every other night I wake at this time. I figured this is the evening protein shake I'm having at 8ish. Tonight I'm not going to drink any liquid past 6pm and see if I get an uninterrupted sleep.

My weight was up 100g today, but as I've learnt - this is nothing to worry about, it happens. And it mostly happens after some intense training and/or elevated salt consumption from the previous day. I trained late in the afternoon yesterday, and it was very, very intense. I can feel a bit of an ache in my shoulder and arms. Boxing is hard. Training boxing, hard for 60 minutes spikes your cortisol which is going to trigger a stress reaction which instructs the body to horde water. Boxing on the heavy bag creates micro tears in your muscles which pull in water to heal. Waking in the night doesn't help either.

I walked 15k steps and hit a personal best for chin ups - 9.8. The .8 came from almost, but not quite getting my chin over on the last one. Pretty happy with almost 10.

My diet was nice and clean; 2 tins of tuna with rice and shredded vege. Not the tastiest meal I've ever eaten, but stacked up pretty well for calories and macros. I had a recovery shake after training and a handful of grapes. Dinner was some grilled chicken and salad - see how I'm living!! No shake tonight and hopefully a nice long sleep and a positive outcome on the scale tomorrow morning.

I had planned on boxing today, but work schedule and family commitments didn't allow it. I don't like weight training in the evening as there are far too many gym bros pumping hard and high fiving at that time. I found 90 minutes between meetings to train.  90 minutes includinhg travel time is cutting it tight, but i managed to get a solid workout in with time to spare:

- High volume push day:
- Dumbell CHest Press + DB flys (Superset) x 3
- Dumbell pullover + dips on bench (superset) x 3
- Tricep pushdown (rope) + tricep extension (rope (superset) x 3
- Front deltoid raise with 20kg plate x 3
- Assisted dips x 3

The dips were the hightligh. I have been rehabilitating a rotator cuff injury for over 2 years now and these used to hurt a LOT. No pain yesterday!

I try to keep my gaps between sets short for high volume days which usually works out to be about 45 seconds which is the time it takes me to walk around the gym once. This adds about 2k steps for the day. With my usual morning and evening walks I hit just over 15k for the day.

My diet was clean for the day:
- fasted until 2pm (I had a shake at 10 the previous day, so a late start)
- protien fruit smoothie post workout + creatine + colegen  
- left over roash chicken for lunch with potatoes, corn, peas and carrots following my workout. 
- dinner was chicken again with chilli beans and tin tomatoes.  I try to limit carbs for the evening meal

A friend  of mine sent me a link to an Instagram post by the Masters Boxing Victoria (MBV). It was showing the 30+ people who went to the first training session on Sunday. If I'm honest, it scared me a little. Everyone looked fit and sharp. I'm not entirely sure what I expected, but I guess this just reminded me that this endevbour to box with these people isn't a joke.  I've been beating myself up a bit for not going to the training session and I can hear that doubting inner voice starting to tell me I'm out of my depth and not good enough...  Thew only way to know is to go train with these guys and I'll be doing that this coming SUnday.

Stay on Target! Stay on Target! Almost there..... It's Monday, not usually a day when I weigh myself, but given what I've learnt about my weight fluctuation I'll be weighing myself every day this week. I consider seeing 99.x on the scale at any time during this sprint a victory. And I'm close, really close. 100.3kg this morning with another 6 days to lose 300g. I measured various areas of myself today also. This has been another important lesson I've learnt during this sprint - weight alone is not the best way to measure success. This is especially relevant when you're training at a high intensity and getting closer to your targets when weight doesn't drop as easily. Heres's what I measured today: - Waist: 98cm (down 1cm) - Chest: 109cm (down 1cm) - Hips: 107cm (the same) - Neck: 43.5 (down 0.5cm) A good start to the day again. Again, I went for my morning walk with the dog skipping down the street singing my own praises. Its amazing how a few LCD digits on a scale can effect my mood so much. I shouldn't obsess about the scale number, I know, but I'm just so close now and I'm in a really happy place. I'm proud of how this system I've been evolving is turning out, and I'm proud of my results from the last 6 weeks. I hit the gym at my preferred late morning time slot. I like this time because its at the end of my fasting window and my energy usually feels pretty good despite an empty stomach. The gym is usually reasonably quiet at this time which is another bonus. Today I hit bags, skipped and shadow boxed. I've been working on the lesson I got last Friday - small steps, back foot always follows. This has been amazing; so much more power and far, far, far easier to slip and weave. I drilled slipping and stepping to get inside for hooks and upper cuts - this works so much better with this one small adjustment. I worked hard today, something like 8 x 3 minute rounds on the heavy bag, 4 x 3 minute shadow boxing and 2 sets of skipping. I finished the session off with 1 10 minute round - I kept the intensity high on this and although I was cooked by the end, my punches still had a lot of snap to them. Good news. I haven't had many solo boxing sessions over the last few weeks. Today was good as it gave me a pretty good idea how both my fitness and technique have leveled up over the course of this current sprint. Lunch was the usual; steak and slaw with some left over roast potatoes instead of the regular rice option. I love roast spuds, but i don't eat that kind of startchy carbs in the evening when we typically have a roast. It was a treat to get some for lunch today. I could have eaten the whole bowl, but showed restraint and only had half of them... stay on target.... The potatoes made me a bit sleepy and I ended up having a small nap mid afternoon. I wanted to work on my latest tech project and needed a bit of focus so had my 3rd coffee at around 3:30 - this may have been a bad move, we'll see how i sleep later tonight. Dinner was a light beef + lamb salad. Delicious, but left me a bit hungry. The hunger vanished when i when out walking. Maybe it was a distraction thing, or maybe i just needed a bit longer to digest the food and signal to my brain I was full. I walked for about an hour which took me up to 12.5k for the day, then a protein shake at 8:30, vitamins at 10 and bed at 10:30 - I'm loving the night time routine!

I woke up early, filled with a mixture of excitement and dread for the impending weigh in. Today I was pleasantly surprised with 100,7Kg showing on the scales. Seeing 100.x was fantastic and really cemented in my mind that I'm on the home stretch for this sprint and its very likely I'll make my targets. After my coffee, I skipped off out for my usual weekend walk with the dog. A nice spring in my step after the positive outcome on the scales. Again, I know weight isn't the only metric, but its the goal I set for myself around 40 days ago and I'll be stoked to achieve it. This slightly longer walk gets me around 5000 steps. I've been thinking about building a platform to help me publish these blog entries. I typically review the entry with my AI coach which has been super useful in gaining insight and support. Today I started building! I'm really excited about this project - more to come on this later. I went shopping for clothes later in the morning. Historically, this is an activity I've always dreaded and hated. I think I've written about it before and how much it sucks being overweight and being unable to ever find clothes that fit. Or finding clothes that do fit you don't really like so your're stuck wearing stuff out of necessity, Or on rare occasions, I'd find clothes I'd like and wear them constantly until worn out - I still remember that 5XL Blue and Yellow striped Adidas polo I wore for those big fat years back around 2013. Today was different, and awesome! I found some jeans I loved and took the 38 and 36 waist pairs to try on. The 36 was a little big, and I ended up buying a 34! I do not ever recall buying a 34 waist pair of pants and I took some pride in this today. In other shopping highlights, I bought a Medium (M) t-shirt! I know sizes vary between brands, but omg! a Medium? I've certainly not bought a Medium anything since I've been old enough to buy my own clothes!! Today, I didn't even look at the XL racks and started peeking at the Ms. It wasn't very long ago I was defaulting to XXL or bigger. Today was a good shopping day. Mall shopping also has an added bonus of enforced walking and I got another 5k in here today. Lunch was a nice chicken salad with coleslaw and a jasmine rice pouch. I let that sit for 90 minutes before the gym. Apparently this is the sweet spot to get the most energy from the rice and vege for training. I hit the gym mid afternoon for my Strength Sunday session. I've grown to love this workout. Lifting heavy, big gaps between sets and an added bonus of clocking up another 5000 steps while I stroll around the gym between sets. I reflected today on how my heavy lifting has changed as I've gotten older and wiser. I'm not stacking weight on my neck, so no squats. Bench Press was my go to as a kid (and seems to be the same for all 20 something kids in the gym), but I've concluded its bad for you and haven't done it for years now. I was never a fan of machine weights as they always seemed less cool / unpure, but for a heavy day these are my default. Most of my weight lifting injuries over the years have been when setting up vs the actual lift e.g. that big flick you need to do to get heavy dumbells up to a position to press. I hit a few personal bests today (since I've been tracking) which shows I'm gaining strength and muscle as I'm losing weight. This is the holy grail of my current training goals. I'd clocked up just shy of 15k steps by the time I walked out of the gym. I didn't need to go for a walk after dinner, but I've become accustomed to it now, so did a quick walk around the neighborhood to help with digestion. For dinner, we had a nice roast lamb. I love lamb - its probably my favourite meat. Roast lamb with a lot of roast veges - I skipped the potato but doubled down on the carrot, onion and zucchini. Bed was at the usual time of 10:30. Another good day today!

Yesterday was a huge day! Double workout, 17k steps and a clean diet. I needed a pick me up for my weights at 5pm yesterday, so i took a coffee. This was probably a mistake! I had a rubbish sleep later, woke at 1, 3 and 6. I also had miso rice, 4 hydralytes and some salt infused drinks to keep the cramping away. After all of this, I knew today wasn't going to be a good time to weigh myself, but I did anyway as I was curious. 200g up, 101.3kg. But armed with the research of a few days earlier, I simply used this as a data point. Observed it and moved on. I'll expect my big Friday benefits to hit fully on Monday or Tuesday. All I need to do now is just keep doing the same and don't derail over a number on the scale. Today was boxing. Sparring Saturday. Me, coach and a newer guy. It was good having someone (a lot) better and someone less experienced. I focused on foot work and defense more with the new guy. The rounds with coach are always tough, but I can feel myself loosening up a little. He clobbered me with a hard overhand right today. It wasn't intended to hit as hard as it did, but I ate it without too much drama. I know I can take a punch. I stayed for the 10am class which was at a typical high intensity and I managed ok. I'd put a couple of hydralytes in my water bottle which were delicious every time i got a drink. I was hoping they'd keep my cramps to a minimum. Maybe they helped, but I still got some pretty painful hamstring cramps which ruined a good nap later this afternoon. The hamstring cramp was bad enough that I took a teaspoon of salt directly on my tongue. This tastes nasty, but it does seem to stop cramps quite effectively. I had my usual post workout shake before heading off to kids sport. Lunch a couple of hours later was a big steak, rice mixed with tumeric, ginger and lime and some slaw. Dinner was grilled chicken and slaw. I had a shake at 9:30 - greek yoghurt and coconut water. I decided to drop the usual 1 -3 teaspoons of peanut butter which didn't really alter the taste and probably saved me 100 calories. Tomorrow is weigh in day. I'm not expecting any great drop on the scales. I understand why, but damn if I'm not impatient to get bellow 100kg finally. Time is ticking now. I have 6 more days after today to hit my goal.

I was almost afraid to weigh myself today after yesterday, but I'm glad I did. 101.1Kg - a drop of 800g since day 33. This confirms the water weight diagnosis Gemini helped me to uncover. I also measured my waist and for the first time in a long time it was under 100cm! 99cm waist and 101.1kg was probably the best start to the day I could ask for. I know I need to just trust the process and not get too hung up on daily fluctuations, but damn - a nice drop on the scales always puts me in a good mental space for the day. I'm in a happy place today, but tying my success to the scales and measuring tape might be dangerous as I get lighter and eventually to the point where weight won't drop as easily. This is why I'm going to add some other metrics into my 3rd sprint. These will be more performance based. I'm currently thinking; a 3 minute plank, 50 consecutive push ups and 15 consecutive wide grip pull ups. I wasn't going to train boxing today, but coach asked me to help him out with some computer stuff and I decided I'd train because I was going to be at the gym anyway. I'm a big believer in the universe providing things if you're open to it, and today was a moment like that for me. I went to the gym early, got started on the computer work and stopped to train. It was a different coach today and man she was tough! really hard session, but very, very attentive to technique and she would spend a lot of time with each of the 5 people training. She helped me with my footwork with a few minor corrections; I step too far, and often anchor my rear foot. A couple of simple corrections, but they had a profound effect on my boxing today The ellusive bounce is not only possible with a narrower stance, but it makes total sense! My hips move naturally with punches, my balance is better, everything seemed to click a little bit today! If I hadn't of been open to helping coach and willing to say yes when he had some time, I'd have missed out on this session - the universe provided a little bit of what I needed today and I am immensely grateful for this. After boxing, I had my shake and lunch. Lunch was a precooked salmon fillet (lots of salt in this, just fyi), slaw and rice with miso, mustard etc (salt in the miso too btw). I had a bit of a rest in the afternoon and then hit the weights at 5pm. Weights were phenomenal with a full tank of rice and steak. I tried to keep the reps to around 15 with a short 40 - 60 seconds rest between (walking a lap of the gym in between sets). Two workouts in a day! both high intensity, high effort. and I walked 17k steps. Dinner was a steak, a good portion of sweet potato fries and slaw. I had a bedtime shake and my vitamin stack at just after 10 and then bed at whats becoming a regular time at 10:30. I'm looking forward to boxing in the morning!

I felt light this morning. Figuring I'd be down to 100.x kg I stepped on the scales. 101.9Kg damn! thats 200g heavier than Monday! I measured my waist - also bigger than Monday - shit! This didn't set me up for a good day. I did my usual morning walk the whole time trying to work out why I'm gaining weight after daily intense exercise and a clean diet. At this stage in my sprint, I know I've let things slide a little in terms of my diet, but I'm certain I'm still in a calorie deficit every day. I'd prefer not to have to count calories, but I'll do that as a last resort if I can't solve this current puzzle. I was a little more level headed after my walk and a bit of a cry, and got to work investigating. I have setup a Gemini Gem which I use as a daily coach and tool to get advice from. This has been the single most useful tool I've added to my routine. I started the usual "I'm fat today and I hate myself" rant and eventually got into the actual facts: 1. I was a little out of routine the day before and ended up taking my usual creatine dose with my evening shake instead of at lunchtime. No big deal, but creatine sucks water into your muscles to repair then. 2. I'd also had an intense boxing session finishing at 7pm where as usual, I sweated a lot - I've started taking electrolyte tablets after a sweaty workout as it helps with recovery and stops me cramping up - again, the hydrolytes are going to suck in water to help muscle recovery. 3. I've been mixing miso paste, spring onions and garlic, maybe some mustard and a splash of lime to make a dressing for my rice. It gives it a nice flavour, but the miso is very high in sodium. Sodium holds water. 4. I was thristy in the evening and because I was thristy and afraid of cramping, I drank a lot. I've tried to stop drinking much after 6pm, but not last night. This had the usual expected outcome of needing to pee at 3am. Broken sleep = a cortisol spike = a stress reaction and holding water. So its water weight! Its good to understand how that would effect the number on the scales. I think the biggest lesson here that I still need to learn is that when you train hard, the scales are going to fluctuate - its natural. I need to remind myself of this, trust my process and not let a 200g increase turn into a binge. For lunch I had a steak, slaw and my miso flavoured rice - I think I have the flavour combo about right now; 1 teaspoon of miso paste, 1 teaspoon of crushed garlic, 1/2 a teaspoon of wholegrain mustard, 1 tablespoon of chilli oil (I'll be replacing this with chilli flakes). I added half an avacado to my slaw and a little left over dressing (I need to pay more attention to how many calories are in this stuff) and a little packet of salad chips we had in the fridge. Then i felt guilty. I didn't need any of those extras and I'd gained weight today - what am i doing here??? I also made sure to have my creatine mixed with water with lunch instead of waiting until my evening shake. I did the 6pm boxing class with a banana to spike my energy about 40 minutes before. I arrived about 30 minutes early and got a few extra rounds in before the class started. My coach game me some NMN powder to try - I felt pretty energized for the session. We worked on a lot of bouncing and quick combinations. I find the bouncing and being light on my feet challenging, I always have. I'd see my current boxing style as more of George Foreman (second edition). But I'm here to evolve and I'll work on the bounce and being light - who knows, maybe this gets easier the lighter I get. Dinner was a a big chicken salad. I had a little yoghurt dressing and sweet corn mixed in. I didn't have avacodo or any oil as I still felt guilty from lunch. I was still quite hungry after this so had my shake a bit earlier at 8pm. Vitiamin stack at 9 and then bed, asleep by 10:30. Looking back, I did everything right today; I didn't let a setback derail anything, I trained hard, I might've had a few extra calories with lunch, but then omitted calories at dinner, 2 cups of coffee only, vitamins, good night time / sleep routine. Lets see how tomorrow goes....

Same, same but different today. Diet was spot on! Exercise was good - 55 minutes boxing, 11k steps. A few push ups, pull ups on the roman rings and a set of pull ups. Nothing too crazy - it really just seems like routine now. I'm approaching the end of this sprint and it had me thinking this morning on how I'm going to approach my gap week and the following sprint 3. I've decided not to call it a gap week as this implies its a holiday which could suggest a binge which could lead to a bad, bad place! I've decided its not a gap, but its a week to plan, to set goals, to calibrate things for the next sprint. Hence, the week in between sprints will forever be known as the re-calibration or re-cal week. During re-cal week, I'll still maintain my diet and eating regime; no refined sugar, daily exercise / walking, whole/clean food etc but with a few changes for the 7 days: - I'll aim to eat closer to maintenance calories which will be somewhere near 3000 calories per day. I don't really know what 3000 calories looks like, so I'll be counting this week. - I'll indulge in some treat food as long as it doesn't put me over my daily calories. I'm looking forward to a Bahm Mee, maybe some BBQ, but generally not craving junk food at all. - This one is troubling me. to weed, or not too weed. I might allow myself a puff on Friday night, but I'm really not feeling like it currently. When i look back at all of the times I've slipped off the wagon and started a downward spiral, weeds always been the first step. I'll spend this week reviewing sprint 2 and planning for sprint 3. What worked well, what was hard, what i will aim to achieve next sprint. I'm also going to re-work my AI prompts to help with training advice. I'm already looking forward to both re-cal and sprint 3 (which I'll come up with a suitable name for closer to the end of re-cal week).

Wow, I'm almost into double figures. The final countdown! I've almost finished sprint 2. Its been a great ride actually! I've lost some weight, gained muscle, increased fitness and learnt a lot about myself and about this process. But I don't want to get ahead of myself - I've got 10 more days to go and I'm planning to finish strong. Today was a weights day. Alternating between boxing and weights is working well for me. I find myself looking forward to whatever I haven't done for a day or two. It doesn't always work out ideally, but thats OK - I've learnt to roll with the unexpected changes. The important thing is that I do something every day. And today was weights. I did a push workout after 4 rounds of boxing. I'm sticking with a high rep (12 - 15) range with a quick rest between each set. I'm walking a lap around the gym between each set which takes 45 - 60 seconds. Walking between sets is great - it keeps my heart rate slightly elevated and also accumulates q steps towards my daily total. The gym laps combined with a morning and evening dog walks got me to just over 15k today. I upped my chin up record to 8 consecutive wide grip pull ups tonight. It wasn't long ago that I was riddled with shoulder pain and couldn't even hang from the bar. I nursed that shoulder for the best part of 2 years. It gave me pain every day and severely limited what I could do physically. At the time I thought the injury was never going to go away. I tried Chiropractor, multiple Physiotherapists, Massage, lifting, stretching all with limited success. I turned a corner with it when i started to see my current Osteopath. It took regular treatment for a few months + a lot of exercises for me to do at the gym, but eventually it started to get better, and better, and better until eventually - no more pain! No more pain and I am closing in on 10 consecutive pull ups. Injuries will happen, its inevitable, but its how we manage them thats important. Note to future self - don't leave injuries unchecked, get on top of them asap. My diet was probably an 8 out of 10 today. A few little extras I didn't need were added to my regular food; a few walnuts on my salad, a few grapes here and there from the bag (I so, so need to stop with this) and a couple of roast potatoes at dinner time. Meh, maybe a couple of hundred extra calories, I'm still in a deficit but tomorrow will be better. ​

Yaassss! 1.2kg lighter today!! Thats 1.5kg in a week which is closer to what I was expecting. That puts me at 101.7kg this morning leaving 1.7kg to lose in 13 days. I'm confident I can break into double figures as planned before the end of this sprint. I took my morning walk with a much happier spring in my step to the solemn trudge I had on Sunday. I stopped by the local park gym and ripped out 20 inverted push ups - I find myself looking forward to these and the chin up sets on my walks. A nice little strength set to break up a low intensity walk. I'm sure there are all sorts of benefits, I just like the little pump I get from it. I limited my coffees to 2 today and 2 green teas (one I didn't finish). I had my last coffee at 11am. I guess I'll find out later if it'll help with sleep. Gym today was a boxing workout with a new coach. She worked us pretty hard plus it was humid so I got a reasonably typical sweat going. I always feel obliged to mop the floors at the gym after class as theres always a lot more of my sweat than anyone elses. If I can, I'll mop, It just seems like a reasonable thing to do. I had my shake after training and something different for lunch. I'm a bit sick of steak today, so switched up to some fried rice, veges a couple of eggs and 2 tins of tuna. It was ok, but i really feel like if i had a bit more knowledge of how to cook I'd have been able to make it taste a lot better with the same calories and the same effort. I went for a walk in the rain while my son was at basketball practice and got an extra hour in bringing my total up to 12k for the day. Dinner was a salad and some left over beef from last night. it wasn't enough. I had a few extra grapes and my protein shake earlier than normal. I feel pretty full after the shake and will get to bed early after vitamins and some mindfulness exercises. I'm not sure I want to weigh myself tomorrow as it stresses me out. Now that I've had the drop, I think I'll just trust the process and go back to a Sunday weigh in. ​

I usually write this entry in the evening in front of TV, but today I need to at least start in the morning while things are fresh in my mind. I ate and drank yesterday planning to get a massive drop on the scales today. But it didn't happen. The scales showed a drop of 300g for the week which was absolutely devastating if I'm honest. I worked hard this week and I deserved more than a poultry 300g drop!! I know weight isn't the only metric I need to focus on, but its the only one I've documented for this 6 week sprint - to reach 100kg. Today I'm stuck at 102.8kg with only 2 weeks to go. I've been really disappointed and quite sad all morning. Its super frustrating when you know you're doing everything right and you don't get the results you want. I even eliminated oil last week thinking it was slowing my progress and that just seems to have slowed things further. I'm grateful I have AI, specifically Gemini to consult with on diet and exercise stuff like todays poor results. So I consulted, consulted and cried and bitched and ranted for close to an hour while I had my coffee. This was good as it allowed me to put things into perspective and uncover a couple of things: 1. I haven't had a dump since friday. Yea, gross I know. but theres a bunch of food I'm still digesting that is contributing to my weight today. 2. It forced me to measure myself. My waist is 1.5cm smaller than the last time I took measurement a week or so back. 3. I boxed yesterday for 90 minutes including a few rounds sparring at high intensity. My body is probably holding water as a stress reaction and processing minor injuries from the heavy shots I took to the body. 4. -300g is at least moving in the right direction. 5. I feel better. My stomach is a lot tighter and sometimes at the right time, in the right light, I don't hate my reflection in the mirror. Most importantly, I need to trust my process now. I don't need to make radical diet changes, workout more or do anything different. I'm doing everything right, the scale data just hasn't caught up. I will adjust my weigh in routine this week is to move from a weekly weigh in to daily. I don't like to obsess over the scales, but I think I'd like a bit more data as to how my body is reacting to various things throughout the week. I took the dog out for her walk early, still feeling sad. I wasn't feeling like audio books or music to listen to today so I chose a podcast I sometimes listen too. Https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=cJl4MpssVaA&si=WKyvRt9MEHABnDSY Ironically this episode is about manifestation and having the universe provide for you. I think the universe provided this podcast episode for me today. I 100% needed to hear this today! I've had the day to think and to process. I'm still a little bit dirty with the 300g drop this week, but I've spent a bit of time researching and thinking. I've settled on a few tweaks for the coming 2 weeks Maybe I need to drink more water. I'm targeting 4L a day for the next 2 weeks. It can't be bad if its not the reason for my stall. Intense boxing and exercise in general causes your stress hormone cortisol to spike. This is OK if you're allow yourself to calm down afterwards. My theory is that mine spiked and didn't unspike for the weekend. My body then held onto water which made me weight heavy. Vitamin C, sleep and lowering stress reduces cortisol, so I'm taking three steps here: 1. Adding a chewable Vitamin C tablet each night to go with my Multi and My 2 x Magnesium and Zinc tablets. 2. I'm going to try Non Sleep Deep Rest before bed - I have a 10 minute podcast to try tonight 3. Caffeine doesn't help to reduce cortisol and I drink a lot of coffee. I think maybe its too much. I'm limiting coffee to 3 per day for the next 2 weeks + 2 Green Teas. Coffee will be finished before 2pm daily. So there, I have a plan. Aside from crying about losing a pitiful amount of weight for the week, i walked 13k steps and did a hard Strength Sunday session in the gym. Diet was good; Steak, rice and slaw (again) for lunch - i made an ok-ish mix for the rice with a little coconut aminos, miso paste, string onion and chilli - not bad, but not great either I added a chewable Vitamin C to my night time stack tonight. I've now got a vitamin C, 2 x Magnesium with zinc and a mens multi. I take them all at night before bed because the magnesium helps with sleep and if you're having coffee (which I'm not at 10pm) it'll mess with the potency of the vitamins. I also tried some de-stressing techniques just before bed. hopefully they helped calm me so that my body releases water and tomorrow I'm lighter. We'll see I guess....

Today has been another good day. In fact it was a tat-trick day of 15k steps! I think thats the first 3 day streak of 15k steps I've had. My phone tells me its 11.78 Km, but I question the accuracy. I do no for certain that I've spent a fair bit of time walking over the last 3 days. I've added a couple of exercises to my walk which has been fun; on my morning walk I do a set of 25 inverted push ups which I guess you can call a pull up - lifting my weight in an upside down push up position. And then in my evening lap with the dog I do a set of wide grip pull ups / chin ups. I started at 3, now today I hit a new personal best with 7. I'm aiming for 10 currently. I had boxing this morning which was a 45 minute sparring class first. I got some rounds in witht he coach and a younger girl. I ended up just working defense and footwork with the girl as she was quite young and much smaller than me and kinda looked like she was going to cry when i hit her with a lightish jab. The rounds with coach went much better, I can see I'm improving in the ring. I'm working angles, slipping occasionally, getting hit less and hitting the coach much more than past sessions. I'm not thinking I'm anywhere near his level and I know he could towel me up if he really wanted to, but I'm getting more relaxed and better in the ring. He leveled up his intensity a bit today and hit me with a few harder shots. The beautiful thing was, they didn't really bother me too much. I'm going to get hit in boxing and the more comfortable I am with that the better fighter I'll be. Today was a good session, I really enjoyed myself. I stayed for the class afterwards and ended up doing around 90 minutes in total. I only had time for a quick shake immediately after boxing, and technically my fast hadn't finished by that time anyway had my lunch at around 2:30; a steak, slaw and jasmine rice. I also had a good serving of salt and coconut water to help with the inevitable cramps I knew were coming. I spent the rest of the afternoon chugging water and resting. Dinner was a nice piece of salmon with salad. No starchy carbs. I'm hoping for a decent drop on the scales tomorrow morning. And as of tomorrow morning, I'll be in my 5th week of 6 - time flies when you're having fun!

Today I've been thinking about what I've eaten and feeling a little bit guilty. I woke up stressed out in the night like I'd binge ate. It felt very similar to the occasionally dreams I have about relapsing and drinking - I'll wake up with that "what did I do last night?" feeling, stressing out half asleep about a night drinking that never happened. This morning I woke up with that same feeling about food. I ate lunch today at around 2pm. It was a good feed of brown rice, chicken, slaw and a left over meat patty. There was a bit of residual dressing on the slaw, but other than that good clean food. I felf full, but not the kind of full where I need to sleep it off mid afternoon. I had nothing else (except a couple of grapes I shouldn't have eaten from the bag in the fridge) until 8pm. Dinner was a steak, some sweet potato fries (cooked in the oven, no added oil) some slaw and half a dozen mushrooms cooked with the garlic and herb butter that came with my steak - maybe this bit is a bit naughty, but dam they were delicious! I had a walk after dinner followed by a protein shake with a (big) dollop of greek (style) yoghurt and coconut water. I didn't get to the gym today as I have tweaked my shoulder doing dips at the park this morning. I racked up just shy of 15k steps. Tomorrow marks 28 days / 4 weeks. bring it on!

What can I say? today was a good day.. hey hey hey hey! Boxing training at lunchtime always sets me up for a low stress afternoon. Theres something about training trough a hard session that makes all the other work bullshit seem easy. Training today had a mix of people, including a couple of new guys. I couldn't help notice how fit I was compared to the new guy. I'm not saying i'm superior or anything, it's just a nice reminder of how much of an improvement I've made. Boxing improvement is sometimes hard to gauge as its always hard. You get fitter and stronger and more efficient, but that all just results in your ability to go harder. My diet was good. again. Rice, meat patties and slaw for lunch with a bit of soy+miso paste for dressing. The dressing wasn't that good if I'm honest, but I'm still learning. Dinner was chicken, a bit of brown rice and salad. No dressing! Its intersting to me how quickly I've adjusted to plain / clean food. I'm also acutely aware how quickly the body can get used to refined sugar and bad food. I had 3 walks today; walk with Son and dog was about 5k steps in the morning. A couple of laps of the local park with the dog while picking up son from sport got me another 5k. I've been doing a set of chin ups on the bars they have at this park - twice around today, 5 chin ups each time - I'm aiming for 10. Finally an additional 5k steps after dinner.

Signature meat patties for dinner tonight I've been making these for years. I love them, the kids love them. They're delicious! I used to coat them in egg and flour or breadcrumbs to create a crust around them. On closer inspection of this, it was a caloric nightmare. The flour soaks in oil and makes them waaaay more fattening than they need to be. I'm using the leanest pork and beef mince I can buy, grated carroit and onions, garlic, some ginger, sesame oil and a couple of eggs to bind it all. Fry in a little bit of oil and finish off in the oven. I had 5 patties with some slaw and sweet potato fries for my dinner. Lunch was a 3 egg omelette with Mushrooms, peas and spring onion. I was about to carve up a large slice of bacon to go with my eggs, but decided against it after checking the calories that delicious piece of pork would have added. Aside from dominance in the kitchen, I did a nice boxing + weights push workout for just over an hour and stepped just short of 13k for the day. Another disciplined day. I'm a little bit stronger than yesterday, a little fitter, a little lighter and a little bit closer to my goals.

Its another day in the middle of my sprint. Nothing too exciting today really. I've been playing around with different dressings and toppings for my rice and salad. Miso Paste mixed with coconut aminos and line juice adds a nice savoury flavour to rice. Greek yoghurt and coconet aminos with a bit of chilli and seaseme seeds works nicely on the top of salad. They're ok, but not restaurant quality at this point. I'll keep experimenting and researching. I guess the important thing to focus on is what i can eat vs what I can't. Maybe I learn a thing or two about cooking and mixing flavours in the process. I went shopping for workout gear earlier as all of my current cloths are too big. Today I didn't even look at the XL or bigger sizes. I even found that a few of the Large shirts were big on me. Who knows, maybe I'll hit an M sometime when I get closer to 90Kg - that is a pretty crazy thought for me. Today was boxing class. It was around 60 minutes including warm up. The intensity was high as usual, but every so often i find myself finding it a little bit easier than it was before. Diet was good; steak, rice and slaw for lunch. A shake after boxing. Chicken and salad for dinner. I also had a couple of handfuls of grapes earlier. This reminds me - should be measuring a daily allocation of grapes. Eating directly from the bag is an easy way to over-eat. Steps were close to 11k, split between the morning dog walk and my after dinner walk. Another day grinding it out. I'm getting closer every day that I do things like today.

I feel miserable today. Like I hate the world and everyone in it. especially myself. I woke up feeling like I've completely gone off track. I ate too much pork for dinner, I had a small roast potato (singular), I had extra fruit yesterday, I didn't really get much of a sweat at any point, just heavy weights and no extra cardio. I also feel fat today. I took my shirt off to record a short "progress" video and honestly, I look worse than i did 3 weeks ago. My chest on the right looks different to the left, my left bicep is so much bigger than the other. I've been working so hard and yet I still can't see any real positive change. Maybe I'm just built to be the fat kid. That was this morning. I'd love to say I feel better after finishing the day, and I guess I do, but not something I'd class as happy. I had the dentist today. I really hate the dentist, especially the bitch who I saw today. She acts cheery, but its totally false and she just annoys me. I'm not sure if she has a speech impediment, but she can't say Teeth properly (she proounces is Teef) - seriously? a dentist with no bedside manner who can't pronounce the 1 word she's spent a good proportion of her life learning about. I shouldn't be mean, I know, but the dental visit put me in a bad place today. I got to the gym for about an hour for some boxing on my own. I'm focused on my jab which is getting both quicker and stronger. I drilled a few rounds in southpaw stance and the right jab felt comparatively weaker and slower (which wasn't the case a few weeks back). I drank a shake when I got home; 50g protien, banana, berries + my creatine and collegen mixed in. Lunch was leftover meat and noodles with a bit of sauce. Mainly peanut butter, some yoghurt, seeds and a few spices - it was tasty. I also scoffed about half a family slaw with a few grapes and cherry tomatoes. All in all, a decent lunch. I usually watch my son practice basketball on Monday, but today I decided to walk instead and racked up around 4k steps. combined with my morning walk and a quick stroll after dinner, i netted 14k steps for the day. For dinner I had chicken and salad. Instead of oil, I made a nice sauce; Coconut aminos, seaseme seeds, garlic, mustard some chilli and greek yoghurt - it tasted pretty good and with maybe 10% of my usual "drizzle" of oil.

I weighed myself this morning, as I do every Sunday. I usually wake super early on Sundays now knowing its my weigh in day. I'm not sure if its excitement or just nerves. Today I was up on the scales at just after 6 (for me, this is super early). 103.1kg today, thats a drop of 1kg in the last week. I'm happy I dropped a kilogram, and over the last 3 weeks, its 5.2kg I've dropped which is great. But. This should have been more. I couldn't help feel annoyance the scale didn't read lighter. I set out to walk the dog and clock up 6k steps before 8am all the while pondering what has gone wrong this week. My exercise levels are great; 4 x weights, 4 x boxing, most days I clocked near or over 15k steps. My diet *should* be somewhere near 2300 calories per day. I estimate (conservatively), that I have a constant calorie deficit of 1500 per day. Over 7 days, this should equal a weight loss of closer to 1.5kg. I guess my clean diet is not as clean as I thought. I haven't been counting calories overt the last few weeks, and I now think I should have. Counting is good if things get off track as it helps me to see where hidden calories are coming from. But today I think i figured it out - its the oil. I've been putting a pretty generous amount of sesame oil into my rice. It gives it a nice flavour, but also easily bulks up the calories. Likewise with my salad, I've been putting a good dose of Olive oil with chilli. As I've just looked up, both of these oils are around 120 calories for a tablespoon. A TABLESPOON!!! I've been pouring these straight from the bottle and I know its a whole lot more than a tablespoon of each per meal! I'm going to guess I am adding 6 tablespoons to each of my 2 meals daily - thats (6 x 120) x 14 which equals a staggering 10000+ additional calories a week. 10k unnecessary calories. I think thats the smoking gun as to why my weight loss is slower than expected. Time for a few tweaks. As it turns out, oil was making me feel full after meals. Eliminating it has left me feeling more than a little bit hungry today. I looked up some alternatives and settled on Coconut Aminos for starters. Its a similar taste to balsamic Vinigar. Mixed with some chilli and rice, it didn't taste too bad. I'll play around with it this week and find the right balance. For the slaw, I stuck with the default dressing, no extra oil. The food tasted fine, but didn't leave me feeling full. I guess thats what the additional fat from the oil was doing. Its going to take a few days to adjust, until then I'll just tough it out. I'm 23 days in and I'm not about to give in to a bit of hunger. In other news, I walked 17k steps and did a high weights, strength workout. I'm going to bed early and home this hunger disappears by morning.

The half way point! I've climbed the hill and now its downhill to the finish line! I feel like this is a big psychological win actually. And once again, I'm feeling sanguine about adopting this sprint methodology to health, weight loss and training. Today I took a morning sparring class. It was just the coach and I in the ring. Sparring is another level in terms of effort requirements. I think I'm getting fit when hitting bags and mitts, but adding a person actively avoiding my punches and hitting me back adds a whole new dimension to things. My coach has had many armature and professional fights with an excellent record. We're not anywhere near each other in abilities and I'm fairly confident he could knock me out without a lot of effort. I guess its a sign of a good boxing coach that can dial back his effort to match a students ability. He had me juggle, or try to juggle tennis balls before we started. This is to try and engage the mind and hands and my reactions. I won't be taking my juggling show on the road any time soon. We sparred for 6 2 minute rounds with a 30 second rest in between. Masters boxing will be 3 x 2 minute rounds with a minute rest, so getting used to 30 seconds makes a lot of sense. I plan on being the fittest version I can be when I step into the ring in November. The rounds themselves were all hard, but if I'm looking at the positives, much better than the last time I sparred with him. I'm still tense, and I'm still getting exhausted by the later rounds, but I am thinking more. I avoided more shots than last time as I was calmer and could see things coming. A little bit of strategy was coming into my game; I was actively working angles and trying to cut the ring off by reacting to where he moved. I landed a lot more shots today, but nothing felt all that good, just seemed like glancing blows, but thats probably more him making me miss than me not knowing how to throw. In summary, I still felt like a beginner, but less of a beginner than the last time I sparred with him! I stayed for the next class at 10am. This seemed easy after sparring; some weights to warm up, mitt work and abs. A solid 90 minutes of boxing training and a great way to start the weekend. I didn't have time to eat after training as I needed to get my son to basketball. I grabbed a banana on the way out to top up the glycogen tank. I've learnt that if I don't eat some carbs very soon after exercising, then I'm at risk of my body eating muscle for fuel. This was a big paradigm shift for me. Historically I'd train and not eat for hours afterwards. Now, I'll try time my big meal almost immedately after working out. I'd run myself late today, so i couldn't eat normally, a banana would have to suffice. About 15 mintes into my boys basketball game and I was ready to eat my arm off I was so hungry. I got my lunch of steak, slaw and rice at around 1pm. I ate a lot of slaw and rice here which filled me up with not a lot of extra calories. I had a small nap and spent the rest of the afternoon doing work around the house incidentally clocking up an extra 3 - 5k steps for the day (I'm guess as I didn't have my phone with me). I had a quick swim, a late evening dog walk after my dinner (Salmon and salad) to clock up just under 15k official steps. This was a pretty active day and it caught up on me by 10pm and I was asleep by 10:30 on Saturday night - party on!

Tomorrow is halfway, and downhill from there. I'm really not finding it all that hard, just a bit repetitive; wake, walk, work, train, eat, walk, sleep, repeat. Today was good. I had a decent weights workout. 5 rounds on the heavy bag to warm up and get a nice sweat going, then a nice back / pull workout. I usually train in a t shirt, but today was hot and I rocked the singlet. I'm starting to look huge if I'm honest. I can see veins popping in my arms and definition I've never had before in my shoulders. Its very exciting. Eating was good today; steak, rice and slaw for lunch then a large chicken salad for dinner - I probably went a bit hard on the oil for the salad, but otherwise it was a pretty solid day for eating. I also walked just shy of 15k steps again.

Its a grind. Everything feels like a grind right now. Work is busy, but not in a good way. Diet / health / exercise is not quite half way, its too far in to be a novelty anymore and its too far from the end to be exciting. Its a grind. I'm happy that I've stumbled across this sprint framework tho. I'm at day 19 of a limited period, 42 days. Its a grind right now, I'm finding it hard, but I can always look at that magical 42 number and I know there is an end. I know after day 42, I can have a burger, I can eat sushi, I can go out to a meal and order whatever I want. If I was taking my old approach of simply aiming on losing 25kg, I'd probably be "taking a day off" right around now, which might extend to a weekend, or two weekends, then a week... Its a grind, but i know I've got just over three weeks left. What will I do after that? Probably take a week off, maintain a healthy diet, then kick into another sprint with a different set of goals. Today was pretty close to perfect I think. I had a steak, sweet potato fries (air fried) and slaw for lunch. A small leg workout which I needed for a it of rehab. A banana before boxing training, then rice salad + chicken for my dinner. I'll probably have a protein shake before bed too. In addition to 2 workouts, i walked 15396 steps today - thats 2 days in a row over 15k. Tomorrow the grind continues!

I'm closing in on half way through this sprint. Its a difficult week to get through for me. I feel like my boxing sucks, I feel like I'm not losing any weight. I'm feeling a touch depressed today and can't really put my finger on why. Thinking about it, I've stopped / changed up my morning routine this year. Last year I was starting each day by making a gratitude list and chatting a bit to AI about it. I need to priortize this as I really think it helps me to put things in perspetive and keeps me in a more positive frame of mind. Note for tomorrow! I hit the weights today in between meetings. I quick 3 rounds on the bad working my jab followed by a push workout of 6 exercises, 3 sets of each. I focus on high reps today and aim for 15 - 20 in each set. DB press, DB fly machine, DB pullover, Shoulder press machine, tricep pushdown + tricep extension (rope) as a superset. The shoulder press thrown in with chest adds an extra challenge to the push day. I threw down a shake and a quick meal of tuna, rice and a few veges before heading back to work. For dinner, I cooked up steaks and slaw. I got garlic bread for the kids and cooked up a few mushrooms. I went wrong with a couple of things 1) I bought an instant gravey which I poured over my sweet potatoe fries and 2) I put some flour and butter in with my mushrooms to make a bit of a sauce. Everything tasted very nice. About 45 minutes after dinner, I'm falling asleep in front of TV. I haven't crashed out after a meal at all during this sprint. I also developed a bit of a stomach ache. Either its the gravy, or probably more likely the flour. I guess my body isn't used to that kind of food anymore. I dragged myself up for a walk and clocked up 15k steps for the day. I'm going to go to bed early tonight and see if i wake up feeling any better tomorrow.

I'm calling this emtry the dysmophia of day 17. I've been stressed all day, its hot and its been hot for a couple of days now. I don't cope very wel with the heat. I grew up in a colder climate and I don't think I'll ever really aclimatise to the Melbourne summer heat. I managed to get a break to eat at lunchtime. It was a 3 egg omellette with a few hundred grams of chicken, mushrooms, corn and spring onion. I used to dump a whole lot of cheese on the omellette which I thought I'd miss, but I really don't. I added a couple of slices of sour dough to up the lunchtime carb intake. I didn't get to train until 6pm boxing class. It was still very hot and humid at 6,which ofcourse led me to sweat a LOT. I worked on my jab, hand return and generally a lot more focus on defense. Another good session. After a protien shake and some dinner I felt fat. fat and bloated. And I look it too. I know I shouldn't obsess over the reflection in the mirror, but after a hard training session I kinda expect to see some adonis looking back, not my bloated stomach. I know its my body holding water in the heat after hard training. Theres probably also some inflamation from training. I know this. I know it'll probably be gone in a few hours, its just frustrating! I didn't quite make my 10k steps today, 9874.

Monday always starts with such promise, and then usually the wheels start falling off by about lunch time. Historically Monday was usually my rest day from the gym and from any semblance of a healthy diet. Today wasn't so bad. I deferred my Strength Sunday session until today and got to the gym at around midday - this is the ideal time for me as it allows me to train fasted and then have my first meal immediately after my workout. THe workout was good, not great, but at least I got there. I added 5kg to my current deadlift maximum, but felt an uneasy ache in my knee. I don't really care too much about lifting a lot of weight anymore (I'll leave that to the bros in their 20s), I'm all about staying injury free now. Weight training should be helping prevent injuries, not causing them - mental note to not try to push for record lifts, just nice smooth technique. Work is a bit crazy at the moment which is causing me to rush and stress a bit. Lunch was crammed into about 20 minutes; Rice, left over beef/pork patties and salad + greens. I was so rushed I didn't have my post workout shake today. I think this cost me a few hours later as I found myself super hungry. I haven't noticed any massive hunger periods while eating clean and this came as a bit of a surprise. I can only assume my body was crying out for the additional 50g of protien I didn't get from my usual shake. I probably overate leading up to dinner; I finished off 3 or 4 leftover patties and then had my shake because I was still hungry, and then chicken + salad + corn for dinner. I was pretty stuffed after dinner and hating myself for overeating. But I guess if I look at the "overeating" bit, I really just had a few high protien meat patties after a high intensity weights workout, at worst I was at maintenance calories for the day. I waddled my out for a walk after dinner. I'd accumulated just under 10k steps by this point anyway with my morning walk + laps at the gym between sets. The additional walk got me up to just over 14k for the day. I put on my new boxing boots tonight and practiced jabs in the mirror. This is useful as it allows me to see what I was doing wrong - my jab usually returned to just below my shoulder. This is bad and I'll correct this. I was also able to really focus on the mechanics vs the power. It starts at the hip, then flicks shoulder out. I can see a speed improvement already. I'm all about loose, fast, strikes now. I WILL get better. Sleep came very easily at 10:30 ish. Tuesday will be better.

Weigh in Sunday. I regret the large Oporto chicken feed last night as the scales didn't reflect where I thought I'd be this morning. I was 104.1kg which is a drop of 0.7kg. I guess by any metric thats perfectly good for a week, but I was hoping I'd see 103 today. The main culprit is the water I'm holding from the salty chicken dinner and I know this will flush out over the next few days. Next Saturday I'm going to strategically eat so I get a good drop on the scales for my half way point. Its good to reflect that I've lost over 4kg in 2 weeks. I can be happy with that. The big event for Sunday was boxing training with Masters Boxing Victoria. OMG what an eye opener! I feel like I'm waaaaaay out of my depth now. There was around 40 people there and I felt like the least skilled, least fit person in the room. A couple of rounds shadow boxing to warm up followed by some defensive drills with a partner. Slip, counter with 2,3,2. then repeat 3 more times before swapping. Both throwing and countering were cardio intensive and it went for nearly 30 minutes. I was cooked at this point indicating my cardio a) isn't as good as I thought it was, and b) not nearly good enough to be stepping in the ring currently. After drills, there was some sparring. If I felt out of my depth with the drills, sparring was another totally new level of out of my depth. I did 3 rounds and then quit. I'm ashamed of quitting now and am still questioning if this is for me. round 1; Jason. Smaller fighter probably around 80kg. I felt so slow, one dimensional, scared. I'd jab, then not return to my guard and he'd pop me. over and over again. occasionally I'd drop my right off my cheek and he'd hook me from the other side. The occasional combo I'd throw would meet a very good guard so really only effective at gassing me out. Lessons learnt: Return jab to guard quickly. I need to move more feints, angles etc. I seemed to just go forwards and backwards. round 2: Big Irish? guy. 113kg (I asked). The headgear sucks! It keep blocking my vision so i took it off. Again, kept dropping hands and getting punished for it. He was slower and I don't recall him landing too many shots, but he was nice and trying to help me learn. I guess he felt sorry for me being so shit. round 3: Tall south paw. maybe 6 foot 2, 95kg. He had a good jab and I struggled with the different stance. once I got inside a few times I let me hands fly with a couple of good combos and caught him a few times. But again, felt like a total beginner. After round 3 I quit. I'd had enough. I was cooked and demoralized and felt like running away. I spent the remaining 3 rounds watching the other guys fight so much better than I did. I need to work on my jab speed. Throw + return quickly. I need shoes. boxing in bare feet in a ring is awful and now my toes hurt. I need to get inside when I'm boxing if I'm going to be effective. Cardio, Cardio, Cardio. I'm sure there are many other lessons I can take from today, but at this point I'm just trying not to cry and give up boxing forever. An interesting side note; I weighed myself after the session. I was 104.1kg at 7am after no food or drink. After boxing and at least a litre of water + a 600ml gatorade after training and a few coffees I weighed 102.5Kg. Yea, I sweat a lot! I just reviewed the above with my AI coach and it raised a pretty valid point. Maybe my cardio isn't the problem, maybe the problem is I'm scared and tense and burning up too much energy. I need to relax and the only way I'm going to get there is by sparring more and getting more ring experience. Boxing is much, much harder than it looks! I was pretty cooked when I finished and I could feel myself cramping up when I got home. When it starts to hit hard like that, the magic formula for me is coconut water and a half teaspoon on the tongue. I had a steak, rice and slaw for lunch, then cooked up 42 some lean beef/port patties for dinner with a side salad and some vege. A pretty good diet day and 11k steps walked and getting punched in the face a bunch of times. Time to sleep and rethink my life!

I've completed the first 2 weeks at the end of today. Its a weird feeling, it seems to have gone quick and slow at the same time. I feel like its just the norm now. Today I had a sparring class at 8:30. What is the once piece of kit you need in addition to gloves for sparring? Its a mouthguard. And whats the one piece of kit I forgot today? lol. no sparring for me. It actually worked out really well as the young coach took me through a pit of a master class in boxing defense. I need a lot of work here, so it was great to focus for an hour + added bonus, I was the only person who showed up to the class, so I got a PT session! In a way it was quite scary coming to the realization that I'm moving from fitness boxing to real boxing. Hitting bags and mits is one thing, but slipping, parries, rolls, footwork, the defensive side of boxing is something altogeather new and exciting (in a scary way) for me. I never cared too much in previous sparring about getting hit, but I'm currently worring about it a lot. I think I just need to turn up, get hit in the face a couple of times and remind myself its not that big of a deal. I have a Masters Boxing session tomorrow morning I'm going to attend. If nothing else to gague my level and assess how much work I need to do between now and November. Diet was good; steak, rice and slaw for lunch. Dinner was Oporto grilled chicken. I ordered a whole chicken (which was shared between 3 of us, the lions share going to me), grilled corn and slaw. I'm sure there are hidden calories in it, but it's probably as healthy as I can get when eating out. I hit 13.2k steps from a couple of walks, had a couple of swims and walk around the pool - I think this is helping a lot with managing my tweaked knee.

Day 13 on Friday the 13th. I'm finding my groove now. The diet is giving me so much energy. It wasn't so long ago I was napping on my sofa most days because I'd have a huge crash in the afternoon. Usually lunch was some eggs with one of the kids muesli bars or a cookie as a desert. I think this sugar was causing the crash. Eliminating refined sugar is really quite magical. It takes a few days for the body to adjust, but when it does things are infinately better. I train harder, I sleep better, my mood is better, I lose weight - I'm struggling to think of a single nagative. I tweaked my knee somehow over the last few days. I think it was probably from the 20 minutes of basketball I played on Monday. At any rate, I have a knee thats teling me to slow down. As much as I hate to listen to this voice, I know now that trying to train through even minor injuries at 51 is a recipe for turning the minor into a 3 - 4 week enforced time off training. I just walked today. I got 14k steps done and a few dips in the pool to try and reduce the inflammation. I know my diet is good enough to still lose weight on a walking only day and besides I'm on a marathon with this, not a sprint. Its all good.

Thursday! almost the end of a stressful week at work. I'm fortunate and grateful for a job that allows me to go train during the day. I think the company gets a good bit of productivity out of me after I workout during the day. First thing in the morning and immediately after working out is when my brain is at its best. Today was weights. A high volume, pull day. I didn't have a huge amount of time and needed to get the workout done in just over an hour. Its totally doable with a high volume day as the gaps between sets I try to keep to around 45 seconds. I also added a couple of super sets today so I ended up getting the weights done in about 50 minues: - Seated row - lat pull down - sb shrugs and db bicep curls (superset) - Back extension with db raise - goblet squats I walked a lap of the gym at pretty quick pace between each set which helped me get to 12k steps for the day. Diet today was good; chicken, rice and slaw for lunch. A small handful of grapes. Post workout shake, then dinner was steak and salad. I had a bedtime protien shake minus the berries. All up, I hit just over 2000 calories creating a defecit of an estimated 1800 today.

I liked typing the heading "11 of 42" of 42 this morning. for a couple of reasons: 1. I'm in double figures and approaching the 2 week mark. I know from some reacearch and from extensive personal experience battling weight and weight loss, that you don't ever get immediate results. Whatever I do thoday (good or bad) takes around 14 days to catch up. As I approach 2 weeks of clean eating and regular exercise I'm starting to get the rewards I banked 2 weeks ago. Once I hit 14 days then I'll be gerring reoccuring rewards and officially in the zone. 2. the 42 bit. I thrive on routine and i am normally very disciplined, but there needs to be periods when i can relax a little, maybe eat some fried food or go out for a meal and not stress about eating a burger. This will be day 43 - 49. I like this sprint system so much better than just settinmg myself a bigger goal e.g. lose 20kg. Setting smaller, more managable goals is working a lot better for me e.g. for the next 6 weeks I'm working on weight loss with a goal to drop to 100kg. After my 6 week sprint, I'll relax for a week and plan out the next sprint. The end of sprint 2 coincides with my birthday, I won't go crazy, but it does give me something to target and plan for. I'm keeping a mental note of food that I'm craving but not eating and I'll make sure I eat them after my sprint (within reason). Yesterday felt a bit flat. I had an awful day at work with a build up of stupid work I'm not super interested in. I went to boxing at 6pm. There were a few new people there, so the intensity was dialed down a bit. I still got a good sweat up, but not a lot of other positives on the training front. But I guess I went, I trained, I burnt somewehre like 800 calories and I managed to destress a little form owrk. The gym I train at is new. The coach is great, and very experienced coaching boxing and kickboxing. I'm enjoying training there. He's new to the internet side of things, SEO, AI etc. We've chatted a few times about tech stuff and he mentioned he'd be happy to take some advice. I'll go a bit of a review of his site, llm and seo and see if I can make any recommendations. I think this would be furfiilling for me. The other bullshit work I have going on is not. I only walked about 7k steps yesterday and I feel like that is a failure. It was raining really heavily last night and despite wanting to complete my 10k for the day, i couldn't bring myself to head out in the rain. I'm not going to beat myself up over it and I'm not going to go nuts trying to make up the 4k today, but I am going to make sure I get my 10k in. Diet wise, yesterday I feel like I ate too many grapes. They're very sweet and delicious at the moment and I find myself grabbing a few after eating a meal. But a few here and a few here adds up to a lot of sugars I don't really need (especially in the evening). Grapes are healthy and probably good to refuel with, but I need to limit them. For today, I'm going to measure a serving and determine the calorie count - I think this might be a bit of a shock. The betterr optionf or grapes will be to put a masured daily allocation into a container to prevent me from taking more than I should. Other than the grapes, the diet was pretty good. Lunchwas leftover beef with a cup of rice. Dinner was slaw with a cold smoked salmon portion and some additional chicken. I also had a bedtime shake with a bit of peanut butter and greek yogyurt. Thinking about the day now, it really seems like I'm closer to maintenance calories vs any significant deficit - some extra food, less steps than normal, boxing that was 75% on normal intensity. I won't lie, I feel dissapointed in myself and a bit grumpy today. But I can't dwell on it, the day is done and its out of my control now. I can only control the day ahead.

I woke up feeling bloated and fat today. It was consusing as I'd trained well the day before, ate well, drunk water - I'd done everything right, but still worke up feeling gross. After investigation, I worked out it was the beans I had for dinner the night before. beans have a load of fiber in them which will draw water into the gut to process. I also had tinned tomatoes which are high in sodium (salt), this will cause the body to hold onto water. The combination of the two things caused my stomach to look rounder than normal. I guess one positive I can take away from it was knowing that I'd done everything I should ahve the day before and to look for answers vs letting a fat feeling derail my progress and using it as an excuse to binge. The fix for the body holding water and bloating is more water. I don't track the number of glasses of water I have in a day (maybe I should), but I made a consious effort to have a few more glasses throughout the day. I usually add some himalyan rock salt to my water as this helps with recovery and reduces cramping after hard training sessions. I trained boxing at midday. This was a great session - probably the best one I've had on this sprint. We worked a lot of same hand combos on focus mits e.g. jab, cross, left upper, right upper, right upper, cross, left hook. Things seemed to flow well today. It was an intense session (as always), and I was drenched after. I only had time for a quick shake after my workout. SOmetimes I don't ahve time (or any desire to) eat immediately after a gym or boxing session, but the shake is non negotiable. You need to replace the lost energy from a workout immediately and the protien shake with a banana + berries + (unsweetened) coconot milk is the easiest way to do this. I ate lunch about an hour later which was a tuna salad and a pouch of jasmine rice. This left me quite full, but not at all sleepy. I had a walk in the morning + another walk with the dog in the evening wheile picking up my son from sport. I've added another small things to my walks today. In the morning I go past a park gym, it has handing rings so I'll add in a set of inverted push ups (which I guess you'd have toi cal a pull up?) - 20 of those took about 30 seconds on the way past. For my eveing walk, I go past chin up bars. I suck at chin ups, but there is only one way to improve them, so I'll do a set every time i walk past from now. I got 3 out. I think 10 is the gold standard here so thats what I'm going to work towards. just over 11k steps for the day logged. Dinner was beef and vege stirfry. Then a pre bed shake. It was quite nice to have a discussion with my son arbout what should go into this shake. He suggested seeds and oats and we were able to dicuss having additional carbs latye in the day and how it probably wasn't a good option at that time. It's great he's learning from what I'm doing.

I had planned on boxing today, but work schedule and family commitments didn't allow it. I don't like weight training in the evening as there are far too many gym bros pumping hard and high fiving at that time. I found 90 minutes between meetings to train. 90 minutes includinhg travel time is cutting it tight, but i managed to get a solid workout in with time to spare: - High volume push day: - Dumbell CHest Press + DB flys (Superset) x 3 - Dumbell pullover + dips on bench (superset) x 3 - Tricep pushdown (rope) + tricep extension (rope (superset) x 3 - Front deltoid raise with 20kg plate x 3 - Assisted dips x 3 The dips were the hightligh. I have been rehabilitating a rotator cuff injury for over 2 years now and these used to hurt a LOT. No pain yesterday! I try to keep my gaps between sets short for high volume days which usually works out to be about 45 seconds which is the time it takes me to walk around the gym once. This adds about 2k steps for the day. With my usual morning and evening walks I hit just over 15k for the day. My diet was clean for the day: - fasted until 2pm (I had a shake at 10 the previous day, so a late start) - protien fruit smoothie post workout + creatine + colegen - left over roash chicken for lunch with potatoes, corn, peas and carrots following my workout. - dinner was chicken again with chilli beans and tin tomatoes. I try to limit carbs for the evening meal A friend of mine sent me a link to an Instagram post by the Masters Boxing Victoria (MBV). It was showing the 30+ people who went to the first training session on Sunday. If I'm honest, it scared me a little. Everyone looked fit and sharp. I'm not entirely sure what I expected, but I guess this just reminded me that this endevbour to box with these people isn't a joke. I've been beating myself up a bit for not going to the training session and I can hear that doubting inner voice starting to tell me I'm out of my depth and not good enough... Thew only way to know is to go train with these guys and I'll be doing that this coming SUnday.

Sunday is my weigh in day, so i usually wake super early with a nervous knot int he put of my stomach. As much as I tryt to go back to sleep, the scales are at the front of my mind so I get up, and after trying to pee and poop out as much additio9nal weight as possible, I step on the scales. Today, I'd expected to be a similar weight to last week on account of re-saturating with the creatine, but I was pleasently surprised with a 3.3kg drop! The scale read 104.8kg which is 0.2kg less than what I was at the end of sprint 1. It always feels great when a weeks efforts are rerwarded by a drop on the scales. I also took a few measurements of my neck, hips, waiste and chest - I'll look at these on the weeks where the cale doesn't move. I had a committment freew day today, so started with a long walk with the dog netting me around 6000 steps. I went shopping for some clothes later in the morning. I remember feeling such despair when trying to buy clothes a few years ago. I could never find anything that I'd like and would fit. Occassionaly I'd find clothes that would fit which I'd need to buy out of necessity. At one point I'd started buying 4 or 5xl shirts through the mail. Shopping was always so depressing; excitement of finding something I liked, then the bitter dissappointment of not having it close to my size. The fitting rooms always made me sad as I was forced to look at a body I was ashmaed of while trying on cloths I couldn't fit. I'm currently in between a xl and large size in most clothes, so at least I can find things to buy when I shop. I still hate the mirrors in the fitting room as they often make me sad about the reflection I see. The best time for me to shop is towads the end of my fast late morning after a walk and a cold swim. Any inflamation, from food, or intense exercise will make me look fatter in the mirror (trying on clothes after a weights session is especially bad). I bought 3 singlets which I'll wear for the gym, a hoodie and new cap. I always reflect how good it feels to buy something new that fits well after I shop. For my workout today its a strength sessionm; Strength Sunday I've named this. 6 exercises covering all body parts with looooong boring rests or 3 - 4 minutes in between each set. I Between AI and me we came up with this list: - deadlifts - 6 sets - shoulder press machine - 3 sets - lat pulldown - 3 sets - fly machinbe - 3 sets - heavy sled pushes - 2 lengths x 3 sets - weighted ab crunch with cable - 3 sets The workout was good. I left hardly sweating on account of the massive rest periods. I kind of see this workout as a bit of a rest day prior to going, but it absolutely frys me a few hours later. I know 2 laps of the gym walking is about 90 seconds, so I do 4 between each set on Sundays. It adds up pretty quick if you consider I have 21 rests between sets! I had my usualy protien shake immediately after getting home and soon after jasmine rice and a mushroom, onion ommelette with a few grapes after to fulfil the sweet craving I sometimes have after eating. I need a lot of water after the workout and steps so plough through multiple cans of zero sugar flavoured soda water after lunch. I checked my phone after lunch and noticed I'd clocked up over 15k steps for the day before 4pm! I didn't clock up too many more until I wook the dog out for a walk after dinner getting me up to just over 19k for the day. Dinenr was a roast chicken, some carrot, peas and corn on the cob. No gravey or dressing. Sleep came pretty easy at around 10:30, giving me close to 8 hours and leaving me ready for day 9!

Its the weekend! I love my Saturday morning boxing class, such a great energy and usually a big turn out. A few of the guys bring their kids in and today I took my son. The session was good. 3 rounds of a circuit to start; squats, punches holding dumbells, medicine ball slams, kettlebell swings. Mainly focus mit work today which was great. As usualy, a solid serving of ab exercises to top it off. 11k steps

Pull workout 14k steps

Tonight I hit the 6 pm boxing class. 2 days in a row boxing takes its toll on me. The class wasn't easy and I still felt unfit, but I got through. I walked a total of 13k steps today and ate pretty cleanly. I was chilling watching TV after boxing and omg! I got the WORST cramp in my hamstring. My whole leg spazzed and went stiff. I managed to haul myself out of the chair, but the cramp would just not let up. I'd been having salt in my water to try replace electrolytes, but obviously not enough. For an emergency cramp ordeal, the recipe that seems to work for me is to take half a teaspoon of salt in my mouth and wash it down with water. I also chugged a good portion of coconut water which also helps. Mental note for today - if you train hard, you gotta replace that salt! I sweat a lot more than the average person.

First day back at work after holiday today. I'll miss the freedom, but work also helps me create a good routine. I can eat and train at the same time each day and distract myself with work if I'm hungry. For workout today I hit the lunchtime boxing class. My cardio felt terrible. Maybe I'm still processing holiday food, but this class just seemed hard. I was looking at the clock 20 minutes in hoping it'd end soon. As hard as it was, and its always hard, I felt great afterwards and for the rest of the afternoon. I've been using the push up handles I got for Christmas and knocking out a few during the day. I had a couple of walks and totaled 10.5k steps. Not bad. Diet was reasonable. Clean food - it hasn't been all that hard to slip back into it after my first sprint (which seems like such a long time ago).

Started the day walking with my son to school. He's just started high school and I know I don't need to be walking him, but I enjoy getting out and chatting with him about everything and nothing on the walk. We walk the back roads with our dog as I don't want him to feel weird about walking with his dad. When we part ways, I'll take the dog to the park for a bit of a run and then home. Family time, exercised dog and I've got myself 5 -6000 steps in the bag before 9am. On most gym days (today included), I'm aiming for a high volume, low rest workout. I want to keep my heart elevated for the whole time and leave drenched in sweat. I try to replicate the cadence of boxing training with these weights workouts. I'll do 2 of these a week. Today is push day where I'll do exercises that require pushing the weight or machine vs pulling (which I'll do on Thursday or Friday). I'm currently using Gemini AI a fair bit for suggesting workouts. Its not that I don't know what to do in the gym, but I like the varied exercises and tips Gemini gives me. I'll usually swap a few things out and end up with 5 - 6 exercises. I start with 10 minutes on the stationary bike each day. This has been helpful for my knee and it gives me a chance to organize my workout plan. I'll shadow box for 3 or 4 sets of 3 minutes with around 30 seconds rest. I'm usually sweating pretty good by the time the shadow boxing warm up is done. Weights will take another 45 - 60 minutes so I'm in the gym for about 90 minutes in total. After these sessions I'm usually pretty cooked! > Add workout from Tuesday I try and workout on an empty stomach, ideally hitting the gym at 11:30, so I arrive home just after my 16 hour fast has ended and I can immediately eat to refuel after the weights session. I had my standard post workout shake today. Then lunch; a steak, slaw and a good serving of sweet potato fries. I'm probably sitting at about 800 calories for the day at this point. As I'm not working today, I take a quick swim and then a nap. If I had the time I'd nap every day, but i usually don't. I take the dog to pickup my son from cricket and we do a few laps of the local reserve. This gets me my remaining steps for the day and I end up with around 12k for the day. For dinner I eat roast chicken breast with some slaw. I try to remove most startchy carbs in my evening meal which means no potatoe, rice, pasta etc. The potato was hardest to eliminate. I LOVE roast potatoes and a roast chicken just doesn't seem the same without the roast potatoes. I had another protien shake just before 9am when my 16 hour fasts starts. For this shake I use greek yoghurt and a little peanut butter. No banana or berries at this time as I don't need the sugar from them for sleeping. I'm happy with this day. its about as close to perfect as I can be. I'm still recovering from travel so sleep comes pretty easily.

Monday was my first boxing class and OMG was it hard!! My coach doesn't mess around, its 100% intensity, 100% of the time. The cool thing about boxing training is that it never gets easy. You get fitter, faster, better, but its always hard. Monday was exceptionally hard! I'd been to the dentist and had drugs before this workout. Apparently thats a bad idea. I think it made the workout exceptionally hard. I actually needed to lie down at one point. The session was pretty typical; bag work, abs, shadow boxing and some pad work in the ring. It ran for about 50 minutes. I walked with my son part way to school in the morning, and then carried on to walk the dog for around 5k steps. I did another walk in evening after dinner for the remaining steps needed. I've got a good audio book I'm listening too when I walk.

Strength Day! This is the day I lift HEAVY! I focus on compound exercises; deadlifts, lunges, shoulder press etc. This workout is usually around 6 exercises with 3 - 6 sets of each. These are heavy weights where I'm aiming for a maximum of 6 reps. I usually go to failure on the last few sets. As this workout is aimed at strength gains, I aim to take 2 - 4 minutes between each set. I hate this! I enjoy sweating hard and a pounding heart rate when i workout and this routine is the oppersite of that. For each set I am fully recovered from the last, my heart is barely elevated. It doesn't feel right to me. I make the most of this time by walking slowly around the gym. 4 laps is about right. I set the timer running on my phone so I can ensure i have enough rest. This walk in between sets nets me over 4000 steps which is 40% of my daily total. 40% of my daily total on time I could have wasted sitting down on my phone. Pretty smart! (I wish it was me that thought of it, but it was something a saw on a youtube video last year) Its a weird workout for me. I walk out, hardly sweating, but then feel absolutely cooked about an hour later.