I've been a bad boy, now it's time for punishment!

Well I've let myself down this week. No one else to blame. I trained hard, but failed to hold my discipline when it came to scoffing my face:

I was sure I had managed well whilst off on a small holiday with the wife to withhold my urges for fatty foods and beer. Then I stood on the scales, the accurate ones, the ones that don't lie. 1lb. 1lb! I lost less than if I had just sat at home and done a 'no. 2'. Looking at my food diary it is no real surprise.

So, enough of the crying, time for punishment. 3lbs is a healthy amount of weight to lose each week, and frankly, should not be too challenging. Therefore, every time I fail to lose at least 3lb in a week, a punishment will be issued. This coming Saturday I am off to watch the Wales vs South Africa game when it would be rude not to over indulge on everything that fits in my mouth. That means the run up to Saturday has to be hard. Maybe even a bit stupid. But hey, that's how I role:

"This week I will mostly be eating cereal."

In fact I will only be eating cereal, 150g for breakfast, 115g for lunch and 75g for dinner. No arguing, no 'I'll just pinch one little crisp', that is it, that is all I am allowed to eat for the next five days.

However, this fails to address my over enthusiastic drinking habits. So bugger it, no drink! Nothing but water for five days. No squash, no pop, no vodka, no whiskey and God help me, no beer *sob*.

So the punishment was set this morning and so far is going well, the lack of lucozade during my triathlon today made me realise that this punishment is going to be really hard hitting. Good.

I had planned on using this blog to attempt to explain the unimaginable pain caused by a near master of karate double slapping your chest when you least expect it (thanks Sensei). My apologies, but these things have to be prioritised. To make up for it I will use my Friday evening of not drinking to tell you all about Thursdays training. Of course, you don't want every detail of the principles taught, you want pain. Then pain you shall have:

"Sensai Banfield, this Thursday, June the 3rd 2010, treat me mean!"

Oh Dear, what have I set myself up for?

Below are my training and food diaries for the week:

Training

24/05/10

Karate. Only 1.5hrs as I had to get home and pack for our holiday. It was a basics session, focusing on relaxing during movement to achieve perfect 'Kime' (everything moving as one). It also included the hardest, most heart felt slap of my life!

25/05/10

First day of our holiday was spent in Alton Towers so there was no time for hard training. However, it did mean that we were standing and walking for 8 full hours. We didn't allow ourselves to sit down once and by the end of the day our legs were ready to walk to the nearest bench with or without the upper half.

26/05/10

Down in Bristol to see our favorite band 'Alkaline Trio', an intense punk rock band. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the punk rock scene, it is not gentle. It is three hours of pushing, shoving, and lots and lots of jumping around like an idiot. I also had the idea of wearing my jacket zipped up for the entirety to ensure ultimate sweat!

28/05/10

3 mile road run in 26min, 42 sec. Not bad, about three minutes faster than when I'm on a treadmill (go figure!).

29/05/10

10 mile cycle in 1hr, 52sec. A fair time considering all the *!&£ traffic lights in Cardiff. I don't know what I'm going to do yet, but they will fear me. Oh yes, they will fear me!

31/05/10

Full triathlon - 10 mile cycle, 3 mile run, 800m swim in 1hr 45min 36sec. This includes all transitions (swapping from running gear to swim gear etc).

Food

24/05/10

1 scrambled egg, with 1/2 tin of beans on one slice of wholemeal toast

1/2 a beetroot sandwich

Jacket Potato with Coronation Chicken

Can of Pepsi

1/2 Beetroot Sandwich

1/2 Egg Sandwich

1/2 Egg Sandwich

25/05/10

75g Dorset Cereal and 2 crumpets

2 x Worther Original

1 x Diet Pepsi

Salami & Peperoni Roll

3 x Lindt Chocolates

Handful of Pringles

Salami & Peperoni Roll

Large Sherbet Straw (shared with the Mrs of course!)

Chili Burger w/ curly fries

Pint of Stella

Diet Pepsi

26/10/10

Dorset Cereal and a Strawberry muffin (I'm a bad boy and I like it!)

2 x Worther Originals

2 x Jelly Beans

1/2 Gourmet Chicken Burger in Weatherspoons (shared it with the Mrs cause I can be a good boy.)

Pint of Carlsberg

2 pints of mind blowing Cider on a floating bar

4 cans of Grolsch

Lindt Chocolate Ball

27/05/10

Dorset Cereal

1 Worther Original

1/2 Jacket Potato w/ cheese and 1/2 Steak and Onion Baguette in 'The smallest pub in Bath'. A beautiful little pub with a relaxed atmosphere and decent, home cooked food (receives Mikes seal of approval)

Pint of Denkel in a glass with a handle (gotta love handles on glasses)

Small dark chocolate guitar made fresh that day

1/2 Ben & Jerry's ice cream (I'm sure you can guess who had the other half!)

Glass of Fanta

Cup of coffee with one brown sugar

1/2 thin peperoni pizza with 1/2 garlic bread and 1/2 bowl of fries

2 pints of Denkel in those cracking glasses

2 cans of Kronenberg

28/05/10

3 coffees, each with one lump of brown sugar

The most impressively presented fry up I have ever seen - 1 sausage, 2 bacon, fried egg, slice of toast, croissant, bowl of muesli

1 Worthers Original

1 bottle of 7up

A chili pasty

1/2 a slice of Nougat from an Italian Market

35g of pasta with a handful of cheese

1/4 pint of pretzels (I could find the scales so used the measuring jug instead)

29/05/10

Slice of Toast and a Crumpet with jam from the market

Cadbury Brunch Bar

Handful of Pringles

1 can of pepsi max

A chunk of lasagna lovingly microwaved by my mate (cheers Dan)

10 pints of lager

Lamb Donner kebab meat with chips (well I had had 10 pints, it's only natural!)

30/05/10

Sunday Roast (Beef... Goooooooooooooooooood)

Pint of Fosters to help it down

5 more pints (in case some of it got stuck)

Thin crust pizza

Kettle crisps

Chocolate Covered Raisins

3 vodka and cokes

31/05/10

150g of Dorset Cereal

115g of Dorset Cereal

75g of ... Dorset Cereal

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ahhhhhh, thank goodness that's over. Time for something cool, no funny, ooh, something cool and funny! Well today I read the most hilarious quote of my life, so here it is along with some other personal favorites:

"I'd ask God if he could fight, and if he could he'd get it straight in the bollocks!"

"The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on."

"The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not."

"Last night I lay in bed looking at all the stars and thought to myself 'Where the hell is my bed!'"

"Gene Police 'You! Outta the pool!'"

"There is a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot"

Chunkers can be Fit Too!

Well I'm back and life's going good!

My exams went well (cheers for asking) and I have had chance to sit down and consider my training requirements for the triathlon and the more important World Championships in October. So lets start this blog with some hard facts:

• I am massively over weight, in fact I weigh more than I have done in around five years. Here are my specs:
• Waist - 40in
• Weight - 16st 5lb
• Body Fat (%) - 25.9

• I eat and drink like a starved lion in a brothel (see food diary below):

However, on the plus side, this is only the beginning of my training and these are items that will improve over the next couple of months and therefore hopefully encourage you to sponsor the odd penny or two.

So, onto the good stuff. As you know on Tuesday I had an exam and was unable to do any training, then on Wednesday I had my final exam and once again was unable to go training. Thursday was a horrible day as a result of too much post exam drinking with those damn student folk! However, Friday came along and I kicked things off with a BANG completing an entire body workout including both muscular endurance and cardiovascular endurance. Followed by a cardio focused training session on Saturday. All in all I am happy with my fitness levels and now need to focus on picking up the speed.

The only worrying moments were during the running on both days when I found myself becoming lightheaded and dizzy. Neither time did it become bad enough for me to stop but it is perhaps a warning that I should not look to improve my running time for a while, or at least not until I can do it without feeling like a drunk in a brothel being attacked by a lion.

As far as food and drink goes I have been a baaaaarrrrrd boi! I was supposed to begin my food diary on the same day as my training diary. However, thanks to my mate Dave I drank and ate so much I decided to postpone by a day (we're talking hot dogs, chilli dogs, crisps, nachos, chicken chowmein, several ciders, and even more beers!). So yesterday wasn't as bad, I did drink a lot although it was afternoon/evening drinking and I only had that ice cream because my gorgeous wife forced me to, threatening to steal the duvet all night if I didn't give in to her every will!

Today (Sunday) is going much better in terms of food, although I have taken a rest day from training as tomorrow I have three hours of merciless training down the club after work. That's right, after work! So whilst you're at home chilaxing to the max I will be under the ever watchful eye of Sensei Banfield who will no doubt see to it that I learn through visual, audio, and pain stimulus. At least it will make for an interesting blog next time :)

Below are my training and food diaries so far:

Training Diary

21/05/10

2.91 Mile cycle to the gym in 16min 55 sec. This would have been a damn site faster had it not been for the 20 traffic lights between me and the gym that all hit red as I approached *angry face*

Cross Trainer on lvl 6 for 10min

Crunches with 25kg weight - 3 sets of 20

Oblique crunches with 15kg - 3 sets of 20

Bicep Curls with 15kg - 3 sets of 10

Shoulder Press with 15kg - 3 sets of 10

Shoulder Curls with 12.5 kg - 3 sets of 10

Triceps Pull with 45kg - 3 sets of 10 (OW!)

Treadmill Run 3 miles - 30min 04 secs. Not a poor time but I will be aiming to get this down to at 25 minutes

400m swim - no clock.

22/05/10

2.91 mile cycle in 20 min 06 sec - those damned lights again!!! I peddled till my thighs burned hot enough to melt lead!

Treadmill Run of 3 miles - 29 min 44 sec - I actually began to get light headed during the final 10 minutes of this run but managed to hold it together for a fair time

800m swim - 18 min 30 sec - Not bad at all, hopefully I'll be able to get this down to 15 min.

2.91 mile cycle in 18 min 30 - guess what... Damn them all!

Food Diary

22/05/10

wheetabix x 2

teaspoon of sugar x 1

Brothers Strawberry Cider x 3 (my new favorite summer time drink!)

Steak Pie (only a small one!)

Bulmers Cider x 1

Carlsberg Export x 1

Tuna Sandwhich

White Wine x 2

Ben & Jerrys Ice Cream (Shared with the wife, so I could have only had half of it at most!)

23/05/10

Five baby potatoes boiled

Tuna

Teaspoon of Mayonnaise x 1

Pint of Lemonade

Slice of Toast x 1

Scrambled Egg x 1

Beans - Half a tin

I'll probably finish off that bottle of wine in the fridge (well I wont have time to drink it tomorrow I've got training!)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aha, now for those of you that have continued to read on I have a treat for you. I first fell into martial arts through the sport of Kick Boxing which really is a lot like boxing only you can kick the bugger as well! Below is a link to the greatest kickboxing video on You Tube:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqUedB35YBs

The Explanation

So, this is it? The Blogger world in all its glory. Well between you and me I'm terrified!


Not only is this my first attempt at blogging, but it is a mere four hours before my Accountant In Business exam, the biggest, baddest exam there is. If it were a bowling ball it would weigh ten stone and have teeth:

As I have mentioned in the 'About Me' section of my profile, I am a member of the 'Association of Shotokan Karate (ASK) Cowbridge' club. We are a small team of highly dedicated karate ka that compete in traditional karate tournaments called 'Shobu Ippon' (one point match). This is a fast, hard-hitting sport in which the aim is to throw one technique that a referee believes would end a real fight instantly. As most dedicated karateka enjoy a bit of drama you will also hear Shobu Ippon tournaments referred to as:

"One Hit One Kill!" and "SUDDEN DEATH!"

This year alone we have walked away with gold’s in The Legend Tournament (a tournament of legends) and The International Tournament (an international tournament).

So now we're looking to go serious, now we want to take on the world. Literally. In October 2010 there is a Shobu Ippon World Championships being held in France and we have our sights set on bringing back some trophies in the name of Welsh Karate (it's a dirty job but someone has to do it). Not only will this be a dirty, gruelling, sometimes painful job, it is going to be a very costly job, costing approximately £400pp. With seven of us going we're talking a massive £2,800!!!! That excludes the costs of training, buying decent gear and getting our hair cuts to make us look "well 'ard!".

Naturally we're all doing our best to raise money for the club which can be put towards all the costs involved. Personally I am planning on spending the next five months pushing myself to my limit in every possible way and telling you all about it right here. I have been told that there is a way to receive sponsorship through pay pal and as soon as I've figured out how that works I'll include a link in each blog.

I'm not a massive talker so I invite you to provide me with feedback, requests and suggestions of what else to do to make this more interesting for you to follow. At current my plans include:

• Running a triathlon (3 mile run, 10 mile cycle, and 750m swim);
• Building up to 100 push-ups five mornings a week;
• A food & drink diary along with details of weight loss;
• Honest descriptions of all my training.

Toward the end of each blog I may include some links to cool karate stuff, funny videos and maybe even have a 'joke of the blog' kind of thing going on. I won’t be able to give you a blog every day, but I promise to provide at least one blog a week (that do anything for ya?).
For today here's a link to the News section of our club:

http://www.cowbridgeshotokankarate.com/news.html

For those of you not too sure about karate take a browse down the page for some awesome "One Hit One Kill" videos, and there's even a picture of Sensei Banfield showing off his tan for the ladies!

Finally, a massive GOOD LUCK to my class mates in the final exams!

Hope you've enjoyed my introduction, I'll post again by the end of the week.

P.s. Sorry for the formatting of the page. I copy & pasted into Word to do a spell check and it freaked out when I tried to copy & paste it back in :?/