16 August

Feeling really unmotivated at the moment. Really finding it hard to care at the moment :/ Made myself exercise and did well though, so that's a positive.

AM: 3x10 situps/hindu pushups/hindu squats. 25 boot-strappers.
PM: 3x 5 reverse pushups/10 incline pushups/ 5 burpees. 10 kneeling jumps

Food
Meal 1 (0800) : Porridge. Water. Green Tea
Meal 2 (1000) : Shake
Meal 3 (1330) : 2 soy meat, tomato and spinash sandwiches on rye
Meal 4 (1500) : Pepsi Max (!)
Meal 5 (1700) : Lentil loaf, pasta, salad
Meal 6 (2000) : Natural yoghurt w/ banana
Meal 7 (2300) : 2 nutella tortillas

15 August

Exercise
AM: 3x10 situps/hindu pushups/hindu squats. 25 boot-strappers.
PM: None

Food
Meal 1 (0800) : Porridge. Water. Green Tea
Meal 2 (1000) : Shake
Meal 3 (1330) : 2 soy meat, tomato, cottage cheese and spinash sandwiches on rye
Meal 4 (1500) : Coffee (!)
Meal 5 (1700) : pasta, broccoli, sweet potato
Meal 6 (2000) : Natural yoghurt
Meal 7 (2300) : 2 tortillas w/ nutella

Coffee happened because I didn't plan ahead. Only other option where we were was cupcakes.

Fell apart a bit tonight. Had to call Mum tonight because she started chemo today, and didn't get off the phone till quite late - too late to exercise. Really feeling down and not caring, hence the nutella.

14 August

Exercise
AM: 3x10 situps/hindu pushups/hindu squats. 25 boot-strappers.
PM: 3x 5 reverse pushups/10 incline pushups/ 5 burpees. 9 kneeling jumps

Food
Meal 1 (0800) : Porridge. Water. Green Tea
Meal 2 (1000) : Shake
Meal 3 (1330) : 2 soy meat, tomato and spinash sandwiches on rye
Meal 4 (1500) : Protein bar
Meal 5 (1700) : 2 soy sausages, broccoli, sweet potato, carrots
Meal 6 (1730) : 200g chocolate freckles (10% 4)
Meal 7 (2030) :

Was going well until the freckles! Don't want to think about my PCF/cals... gah!

Exercise was really good again though.

13 August

Exercise
AM: 3x10 situps/hindu pushups/hindu squats. 25 boot-strappers.
PM: 3x 5 reverse pushups/10 incline pushups/ 5 burpees. 9 kneeling jumps

Food
Meal 1 (0800) : Porridge. Water. Green Tea
Meal 2 (1000) : Shake
Meal 3 (1300) : 2 soy meat, tomato and spinash sandwiches on rye
Meal 4 (1445) : Protein bar
Meal 5 (1700) : Scrambled eggs. Baked beans, spinach, mushrooms.
Meal 6 (1730) : Natural yoghurt w/ strawberries
Meal 7 (2030) : 2 slices of rye toast w/ peanut butter



Cals are high, but PCF is good. Happy though, because we spend most of the day out of the house and I managed to stick to the plan.

Exercise was really good. The AM session is getting easier, and although the PM session is killing me, it's feeling great. Pushed out 3 extra kneeling jump which is awesome.

Overally a good day, especially compared to last night's blowout.

12 August

Exercise
AM: 3x10 situps/hindu pushups/hindu squats. 25 boot-strappers.
PM: 3x 5 reverse pushups/10 incline pushups/ 5 burpees. 6 kneeling jumps

Food
Meal 1 (0800) : Porridge. Water. Green Tea
Meal 2 (1130) : Protein bar
Meal 3 (1230) : 2 vegemite and cottage cheese sandwichs on rye
Meal 4 (1445) : Shake
Meal 5 (1700) : Scrambled eggs. Baked beans, spinach, mushrooms.
Snack (1800) : Muesli bar (10% 1)
Meal 6 (1930) : Crumpets w/ vegemite
Snack (2000) : Tortilla w/ nutella (10% 2)
Meal 7 (2200) : Bailey's and milk (10% 3)

Hadn't intended to split exercise into am/pm, just worked out that way.

11 August + Stats

Stats
Weight: 77.9kg (base + 0.8, last + 0.3)
BF%: 18.1 (base -1.5, last +0)

Exercise
AM: 3x10 situps/hindu pushups/hindu squats. 25 boot-strappers. 2x6 'reverse pushups'. 10 incline pushups. 3 kneeling jumps.
PM:

Food
Meal 1 (0800) : Porridge. Water. Green Tea
Meal 2 (1000) : Glass of milk
Meal 3 (1300) : 2 vegemite and cottage cheese sandwichs on rye
Meal 4 (1430) : Shake
Meal 5 (1700) : 2 soy sausages, mashed veggies
Meal 6 (1930) : Yoghurt w/ banana
Meal 7 (2200) : Crumpets w/ vegemite



Cals good again, PCF is quite decent too.

Feeling pretty sick this morning, run down, and very gassy! Don't think the chips and beer agreed with me 8- Because of that I couldn't stomach the idea of a shake at 10am, so settled for a glass of milk.

Exercise was hard to get into, but still good. Decided to play with some new exercises at the end to see if I wanted to add them in to the regular mix. 'Reverse pushups' (ie lying on back, pole between 2 chairs, pulling up with body straight) were good fun. Could only manage 6, but it will be nice to add something in for my back.

Using the same pole between chairs (though at a lower height) I did some incline (feet raised) pushups, and was quite surprised how well them went.

I also tried kneeling jumps for the first time - hard, but good fun.

So, I think I'm going to add them all in, making the routine something like:

• 3x10 situps/hindu pushups/hindu squats.
• Boot-strappers to failure
• Rest
• 3x(max) 'reverse pushups'/incline pushups/burpees
• kneeling jumps to failure

Burpees have always done evil things to me, and I've been looking forward to putting them back in :)

This will start from tomorrow.

10 August

As I said, scheduled 'off' day today.

Exercise: none

Meal 1: Porridge
Meal 2: Poached eggs, english muffins, cheese (10% 3)
Meal 3: Mushroom risotto, beetroot salad, chips, 2 beers (10% 4)
Meal 4: Protein bar
Meal 5: 2 nutella and peanut butter tortillas (10% 5).

Had a great day today, just not in terms of food and exercise :) That said, I don't think I did too badly, apart from the beer and chips. Probably didn't eat enough, but I was so stuffed from lunch (at around 2) that I didn't eat until 9:30!

PS - the 10% meal thing. 10% of my meals are allowed to deviate from my general plan - 7 meals a day, 7 days a week gives 49 meals - 10% of which is (close enough to) 5. The aim is to allow enough flexibility to keep you sane without negatively affecting things too much.

Credit to JB, whose 7 habits article (revamped into '10 rules' in a PN article) is the basis for my diet.

9 August

Exercise
AM: 3x10 situps/hindu pushups/hindu squats. 25 boot-strappers
PM:

Food
Meal 1 (0800) : Porridge. Water. Green Tea
Meal 2 (1000) : Shake
Meal 3 (1300) : 2 vegemite and cottate cheese on rye sandwiches
Meal 4 (1500) : Protein bar
Meal 5 (1700) : Baked beans, refried beans + spinach. Mashed veggies.
Meal 6 (1930) : Cumpets w/ vegemite
Meal 7 (2200) : peanut butter, 1 slice rye bread



Pretty happy with today. Food was pretty damn good - cals and PCF are on target. Especially pleased as I don't have any soy products to give me high P/low C+F meals.

Realised today that the rye bread we buy is actually much better than the tortillas - that wasn't the case with the bread I checked against ages ago. Goes to show that it's worth reading the labels.

Exercise today was really good. Powered through it, and I'm looking forward to changing it up a bit come Saturday. Moving the shake to the morning seems to be working wonders.

I'm purposefully making myself wait - I have a tendancy to tweak my program without enough info to base the tweaking on, so I'm limiting it to at most a change at the start of the week (Sat).

Tomorrow is another 'break' day with my wife, and I'm going to a footy game tomorrow night. I expect to use up my remaining 10% meals tomorrow.

8 August

Exercise
AM: 3x10 situps/hindu pushups/hindu squats. 25 boot-strappers
PM:

Food
Meal 1 (0800) : Porridge. Green Tea. Water
Meal 2 (1000) : Shake
Meal 3 (1230) : Omlette w/mushroom and spinach. 1 slice toast with tomato and acovado
Meal 4 (1530) : Crumpets w/ vegemite.
Snack (1600) : Tortilla with nutella (10% meal 1)
Meal 5 (1700) : Baked beans, refried beans, spinach, broccoli, sweet potato, mushrooms
Meal 6 (1945) : Natural yoghurt, banana
Meal 7 (2230) : Tortilla w/vegemite and cottage cheese
Snack (2300) : Tortilla with nutella (10% meal 2)

Gah, thanks to that 10% meal my fat's up a bit. Need a low fat, low carb high protein snack...
which I sorta did, until I decided on another snack. That's 2 of my 5 10% meals for this week gone in a day...



Hmm, PCF's not fantastic. Cals are way over the top - by around 700! I think the tortillas have to go... almost 500cal from the 3 I had today.

Feeling good today, other than the sugar cravings. Didn't have a morning nap, good energy levels all day.

7 August

Exercise
AM:
PM: 3x10 situps/hindu pushups/hindu squats. 25 boot-strappers

Food
Meal 1 (0800) : Porridge. Green Tea. Water
Meal 2 (1000) : Shake
Meal 3 (1230) : 2 vegemite, cottage cheese and avocado sandwiches (rye bread)
Meal 4 (1700) : Omlette, baked beans, refried beans, spinach
Meal 5 (2000) : Natural yoghurt, tsp jam
Meal 6 (2200) : Crumpets w/vegemite

Skipped meal 4 (~1430), got distracted.

Out of interest, I put today's food into fitday. Results were:

Not too bad, but could do with some tweaking. An extra 2-300 cals, and a touch less fat and touch more protein. Ideally I want approx 1800 cal, 40/40/20, though 35/45/20 or even 30/50/20 are OK.

Moved my carb heavy meals earlier in the day, other than crumpets. Still need to et a bit more creative, especially for my last meal. Ideally it would be peanut butter, so long as I can keep the fat down during the rest of the day.

6 August

Exercise
AM:
PM: 3x10 situps/hindu pushups/hindu squats. 25 boot-strappers

Food
Meal 1 (0800) : Porridge. Water. Green Tea
Meal 2 (1000) : Protein bar. Water
Meal 3 (1230) : Lentil loaf and broccoli
Meal 4 (1600) : 2 torillas with tomato, mushroom and cottage cheese
Meal 5 (1700) : Lentil loaf and proccoli
Meal 6 (2000) : Natural yoghurt w/ passionfruit. 2 pieces of chocolate.
Meal 7 (2200) : Crumpets w/ vegemite

Need to come up with a better Meal 7 - crumpets are too carby. Actually, I ned to put some more imagination into the whole day to try and cut back on carbs in general. Always a challenge with my vego diet, but not impossible.

5 August

Exercise
AM: 3x10 situps/hindu pushups/hindu squats. 25 boot-strappers
PM:

Food
Meal 1 (0800) : Porridge. Water
Meal 2 (1000) : Dahl. Water
Meal 3 (1230) : Omlette w/ mushroom and spinach. Water
Meal 4 (1430) : Shake
Meal 5 (1700) : Lentil loaf, pasta, steamed broccoli, natural yoghurt w/ passionfruit
Meal 6 (2030) : 2 tortillas with vegemite and cottage cheese
Meal 7 (1230) : Glass of milk

About 1.5L water.

Back into it today. Feeling average. Up late watching the F1

3 & 4 August + Stats

3 August
Today was a scheduled 'bad' day. My wife and I have managed to arrange 2 days off together before we move back to Canberra. We had a ball, but the diet went a little out the window. It ended up being something like:

Meal 1 (0800) : Porridge
Meal 2 (1230) : Chickpea open burger, fries
Meal 4 (1430) : Icecream sundae w/ chocolate brownie
Meal 5 (1800) : Protein bar

Sleep was terrible - started on a little project to move my media PC into a new case. Of course things didn't go as smoothly as they should have, and I didn't end up going to bed until 2am :(

A good day though, but on our next day off I'll be a little more careful about the diet.

4 August
Stats
Weight: 77.6kg (base + 0.5, last + 0.5)
BF%: 18.1 (base -1.5, last -1.5)

Thankfully, despite yesterdays indulgence the figures are the same as my mid-week.

Exercise
AM: none - slept through my usual exercise time :(
PM:

Food
Meal 1 (0800) : Porridge, green tea, water
Meal 2 (1000) : Protein bar
Meal 3 (1230) : Dahl
Meal 4 (1430) : 2 protein bars
Meal 5 (1800) : Soy pattie, pasta, mashed veggies
Meal 6 (2000) : Muesli bar
Meal 7 (2240) : Crumpets w/ vegemite

Went to the footy today, hence the 2 protein bars in the middle of the day.

Let myself down today.

2 August + stats

Thought it had been a week since I took my weight and BF measurements - forgot that it took me a couple of days to do it. Anyway, I took them again this morning, and although mid-week results aren't exactly reliable, it's confirmed that I'm heading in approximately the right direction.

Stats
Weight: 77.6kg (base + 0.5, last + 0.5)
BF%: 18.1 (base -1.5, last -1.5)

As you can see my weight's gone up slightly, but that usually happens in my first week or two as I get the 'easy gain' muscle. What I'm happiest about is the BF - that's a very decent drop in a week, and means that the 500g weight gain was all muscle (plus some!).

Hopefully the end of week stats will show the same numbers, and this isn't just a mid-week mystery.

I'm planning to measure weekly and take photos fortnightly. For ease I'll make the Saturday the start of my week, when I'll measure, take photos and increase sets/add exercises.

Today
Exercise
AM: 3x10 situps/hindu pushups/hindu squats. 20 boot-strappers
PM:

Food
Meal 1 (0800) : Porridge. Green tea. Water
Meal 2 (1000) : Protein bar. Water
Meal 3 (1230) : Omlette w/ mushroom and spinach. Water
Meal 4 (1430) : Shake
Meal 5 (1700) : Lentil loaf, pasta, steamed veggies
Meal 6 (1930) : Natural yoghurt, 1/4 banana
Meal 7 (2200) : 2 crumpets w/ vegemite

Up very late last night, almost 2 hours after my 'bedtime'. Grr.

2L of water today.

1 August

Exercise
AM: 3x10 situps/hindu pushups/hindu squats. 20 boot-strappers
PM:

Food
Meal 1 (0800) : Porridge, green tea, water
Meal 2 (1000) : Dahl, water
Meal 3 (1230) : 2 tortillas with avocada, cottage cheese, tomato, mushroom, spinach, mustard. Water
Meal 4 (1430) : Shake
Meal 5 (1700) : Lentil loaf, pasta, mashed veggies
Meal 6 (2000) : Natural yoghurt, 1/4 banana
Meal 7 (2240) : Crumpets w/ vegemite

Really pumped all day today, energy levels were the best they've been in well, as long as I can remember. That's despite being in bed half an hour late..

Did some cooking today, so I now have protein bars as a healthy, portable snack. Pretty tasty too :)

Drank 1.25L of water today. Will up it to 2L tomorrow.