Excellent, I'll follow with interest as I've recently started training towards doing some races next year, starting with a sprint in April and full distance in July (my log's in the forum if you're interested).

I have some questions....

Are you going to follow any particular training plan?

How much emphasis do you put on strength training? I started off strength training before starting the tri training, was doing both but then injured a finger and couldn't lift for a while. Now I can lift again I need to work out if I actually need to, and how much I should do.

Do you have any plans to go longer than standard distance?

I don't really use a schedule. Olympic swimming girl said she doesn't use her legs during a triathlon, and that to do this you need a strong lower back, so my plan to improve my squat works out well. *Definitely* get some bike/run bricks in, since it's a massive shock the first time you do it.

I try to go longer than the individual distances during training, e.g I'll swim 2500m, makes the actual event much more manageable. Do I have plans to do longer than an olympic tri? No, but I think I'm a strong favourite to do a half ironman at some point.

BTW my overall rankings (100th percentile = bottom of the pack).

Swim - 88nd percentile
Bike - 73rd percentile
Run - 89th percentile

Happy enough with the bike, an extra mph or so will have me up to 50th percentile, unhappy with the others, run will improve with fitness, swim is perplexing but I'll practice, and lose weight, hopefully that will do it.

Ate super well today. Clean and light. Expecting to wake up very hungry. Took the day off, but actual feel fresh enough to get a workout in, which is great. Happy.

Average day nutrition wise (not enough veggies), 3.5 mile run/walk ... early workout tomorrow + 3 sparse calorie days before thanksgiving.

Good day of eating, 225 * 5 * 3 squat (p.r), 155, 160, 160 * 5 BP, 45 minutes at ~15.6 mph on stationary bike (harder than it should have been!). Happy with where my squat is (~3 weeks ago by goal was to hit 225*5*3 by EOY), planning to focus on DL, BP, diet and cardio for a while.

So-so diet for the last few days - not as good as I hoped, but not that bad given thanksgiving + Brazilian steakhouse was involved. 5 days to fit in to those jeans - I think I'll do it.

Yesterday was my first workout in a whole - 235 * 1 * 5 DL (awful considering my SQ), 160*5*3 BP (want to get this up to at least 170 by the end of the year). 40 minute bike at > 16 mph.

Yesterday's diet was meh and I didn't exercise, today I ate clean, did 205*5*3 SQ, 155,160,160 * 5 BP (last rep was ugly). 42 minutes stationary bike, 18 minute elliptical. Good day. ~72 hours to get in those jeans.

*BP yesterday was 160,165,165.

170 5 3 bench press, plus some FL. Last set felt surprisingly easy, should have gone for 7. Are well, about 2moro calories, makes me realise how many calories I must have between packing away when not dieting. About 32 hours until the jeans go on!

Member appreciation day at gym = free pizza and chicken = hard to resist = not my best diet day. Not a full YTF style meltdown. 210*5,5,2 sq, 750m swim, ~1500m row (was going for 5k). Feeling under the weather, might have a nascent cold, might just need a rest. Should know more tomorrow, which is jeans day. Really hope I fit, get the impetus for a nice December challenge, and then work myself in to genuinely very good shape within a few months.

Ran my usual 2.6 mile route. Last few times I've tried it, I had to walk some, this time I completed it in 28:45, which is slow in general terms, and also by my standards (I did either a 25 or a 24 a few months ago), but I'm happy to have completed it. Weather might prevent me completing it, but I'd like to do 26:00 by the end of the month, as well as BP 180*5*3, SQ 235*5*3, and DL 265*5. Diet has slipped the past few days, but today is super solid so far!

28:55. Reasonable considering 1 day of rest + I had some left in the tank. Clean diet today.

Serious cravings for chocolate right now. Bad carbs too.

Yesterday no exercise, ate clean despite the cravings (made a spinach, asparagus, beetroot, homegrown red peppers & chicken breast salad with a beetroot infused olive oil with truffle salt mustard vinaigrette),

Today had a massive but clean breakfast (1 lb baked potato with 300g cottage cheese, an almost skinless chicken thigh, and some red pepper) + a meal replacement (lol) drink, gym was 215*5*3 squat (very hard), 165*5, 170 *4,5 bench press (didn't have a squatter and had some breakables underneath the plates for the second set), 235*5 DL. Whole Foods started stocking white grapefruit again which makes me very happy and augurs well for my diet.

BTW, I've definitely found dieting hard the past week. I'm craving unhealthy food, and craving any food when I'm not that hungry and so on. Being fat, and having a slow metabolism really sucks. I'm deeply jealous of the guys that eat fish and chips 3 times a week, never workout, and fit comfortably in to 32 inch jeans.

Good 2 days diet, exercise less so, went to the gym yesterday, 175 * 5, 4, 5 BP, DL was just a disaster, nothing there, went for a run at 2 a.m when it was snowing (I'm a little strange), it was slightly too much so I turned back after half a mile, one mile in 9 minutes. Will try to get a big workout in today.

Idk when they do research on this they tend to find that the people who say 'I can eat whatever I want and not put on a pound' tend to end up consuming less calories than their fat counterparts.

This is definitely the season for craving unhealthy food, particularly if you are in a cold climate. Its understandable.

I'm really curious about this. Studies have shown that basal metabolic rate definitely varies across people, but I'm sure there is some truth in what you say too, i.e that these guys eat 1200 kcal of burger and fries 3 times a week but otherwise pretty sparsely, whereas a guy like me is eating a bunch of 800 kcal meals - still what I'd give for a 'free' 500 kcal a day!

Good diet day. Treated myself to an 8 oz burger served in lettuce leafs with mushrooms & cottage cheese. Was unreal good. Getting to my desired weight (at most 80kg) won't happen immediately so I'm just aiming to get down to a number I'm happy with by the end of year. Not weighing myself until then since I've eaten well for a while and there's a chance it's something really shocking (like 230 lbs) that will set me back.

Some OHP and some weak (215 *2!) squat + 30 minutes on the bike machine (went to move car before returning to gym then got stuck for 10 minutes and decided to go home). Eyeball test shows a loss in weight. Aim is 90-91kg by the middle of February.

Metabolism varies from person to person but not by too much afaik. The main thing that alters it is body composition. So if you take two guys of the same weight, one with 12% bf and one with 22%, the 12% guy will have a higher metabolic rate.

I do agree a bit with the theory though that some people just appear to eat more by stuffing their face with burgers or whatever, but not snacking on biscuits and chocolate during the day.

Took a day off from exercise (might do some planks, press-ups, bicep curls etc before bed, but nothing heavy) since my body felt tired. Will get something nice in tomorrow. Ate well, had bain-marie scrambled eggs (with almost no butter) along with 4 oz burger for breakfast, 3 more egg whites + 1 egg yolk, another 4 oz burger, 240 cal soup along with some sushi rice (don't ask), a meal replacement drink, and just now when hungry I had some brussels sprouts with aubergine and brown rice. And a grapefruit. Minimal amount of oil. Probably around 2000 kcal?

Good news is clothes are fitting better. Bad news is a took some shirtless photos and NOT GOOD! Pretty gross actually, but at least I can see it would look significantly better with 20 lbs good and probably a damn side better with 10 lbs gone too. The guys who get up to 380 lbs or so, I can understand why some of them never sort their **** out, realistically you're going to need to be disciplined for close to 2 years to not look like ****.

(Watched Masterchef UK and this girl made an amazing chocolate pie cake thing and it had me drooling and seriously craving going buying some desserts but I didn't because I can envisaging looking semi-respectable by the middle of February and pretty damn good by the end of May should I just adhere to discipline).

Tweaked my back during squat warmup so that's out for a while, BP 175 * 5, 4, 3 (think I'd do a 4th with a spotter), 180*3. Did about 1k on elliptical, then 1500m swim. Really happy with how the swim went, easily the best I've felt in the pool since August.

Diet was OK, went to a middle eastern place and picked up some veggie heavy stuff, asked if they had falafels and they said yeah, then I realised how unhealthy they are if fried, said 'no ty', was proud of myself, sat to eat my food, guy says 'Hey, have these' and gives me 4 falafels! They're currently in my fridge so we'll decide what to do with them.



Had a cornish hen for breakfast and ate a bunch of yoghurt throughout the day. First time feeling overfull for a while right now, but giving my workout, a pretty decent day.

Another good diet day, went for a run but it was too cold (I have a balaclava somewhere that would prob do the job), went for a row but my back ... will get a swim in tomorrow, really looking forward to that. Might enjoy myself one day this weekend too. Right now focus is on NYE, have the weighin then and looking for a weigh that gives me a shot at 90kg by the middle of feb, also want to wear those jeans (they fit but I'd be much more comfortable in them if I had 6 lbs less fat. And look a lot better too ).

Back feeling better, will try squatting again around Monday if things go well. !75 * 5,3,5 BP, 180*2 (just had abs nothing left).

2 * 1k swim (short break in between). Felt pretty good but now I feel really tired.

Ate well. Happy. Should really start to show/I am expecting to get some comments in 4 weeks if I keep this up.