Jump Out of Your Skin

I was feeling tired an bloated last night from lack of exercise and bad eating habits.  I sat down and watched “The Biggest Loser”  (don’t laugh) on TV.  Actually I do not watch it all the way through as I always record the episodes (who watches live TV these days !!) then I fast forward through most of it bar the exercise bits and the actual weigh ins.  The teary bits where they express joy at their weight loss is a bit ‘heavy’ going.

However it is amazing watching the contestants lose weight over the weeks of the program.  Some of them lose from 30-50% of their body weight.  So last night as I sat on the couch digesting dessert (ice cream) I decide to see what sort of weight loss I could achieve in 7 days with exercise every day á la biggest loser (they do a mix of aerobic and weights every day) and following a similar careful diet.

So today Wednesday 28th January @ 16:00 GMT till next Thursday @ I am going to keep a daily log of exercise and diet and see what the results are.  I am currently 96 Kg (211 lbs) so we will just see how we do.

Tonight I plan to run for 25-30 minutes and do a small portion of the Mens Health Belly Off Weight workout.  Report in tomorrow with diet for this evening and results of promises (I often do not get beyond the plan)..  Comments and messaages of support welcome.  If I get enough commens I will go further and do a sponsore wieght loss for charity in work and I might even post Before and After photos !!!

A bit of a dramatic statement above but I am in my January slump along with tens of thousands of other people and my runners are covered in dust having only been out a couple of times this year and only then in a half hearted manner.

Its all very well having the GPS tracker on the Iphone but when the only movement is in a car it doesn’t help the fitness Odyssey. Tonight I will run for 2 short miles to stretch the bones and get motivated again.  As I type this freezing rain is falling outside but that shouldn’t stop me as I have every possible piece of equipment to wick, keep heat in even though it is on my list of many excuses for not running.

Lance Armstrong is in the middle of his comeback.  Here is a picture from Twitter of his bike (or one of his bikes. 

I installed RunKeeper on my IPhone recently and below is a personal review of how I have fared with it so far.

First and foremost it has an easy to use screen with large  buttons for Start/Pause and Resume.  This is useful when you are all thumbs when running and just want to prod it and keep your activity going.

Starting off it can be  little slow in determining your GPS location and in one run it kept my previous location and I was not sure if the data was accurate. You can play your music while it is running while still retaining the RunKeeper interface which is a must have for me. 

It would be nice to be able to lock the buttons to avoid accidentally touching them and stopping it – this happened to me a couple of times. 

I  use it on my IPhone and I need to get an arm holder at some stage for it as it jiggled around in my jacket pocket when I was running which was mildly annoying.

It was easy to register on http://www.runkeeper.com a site that allows you to post (from the Ipod/IPhone) your routes and share them with others if you wish. There is a settings button that allows you set the GPS strength and your activty type.  This information is added when you upload to the
the web site.

I have only done a handful of runs with it to date but it has potential for me and is free which is great.  It has stopped me paying for a Nike+ type gizmo (it isn’t compatible with the Iphone anyway) or buying an all singing dancing GPS watch.