Well, I'm inspired fellas.
I haven't been around these parts in a couple of years. I used to be a "train 5 days a week" kinda guy. Used to eat like it too, but I was 71kg and used to burn those calories training plus working a pretty demanding diesel mechanics job.
Fast forward to the start of 2022, I started a new role doing tech support for machinery importer. Going from being on my feet all day, lugging around heavy parts and fixing machines turned into working from home sitting in front of a computer. At first I thought "brillant, I'll be able to train even more effectively!". But how naive I was...
It turns out there is a fair bit of travel required with the new role. Dealer visits both here in Aus and NZ, putting on training in head offices of both countries, plus (and this is also a perk) training in Europe. But all this travel means it's near impossible to be consistent with training. Doubly, when traveling you are constantly living out of pubs and cafes for meals, which while nice, the calories per serve are crazy.
I write this literally by myself sitting in a restaurant, half way through a steak and veg, in Melbourne for another round of training. Oh, let's not forget the beer perched in front of me too.
Now I'd still been getting rides in, just not consistently and not what you'd call training either, just rides. I even turned to the devil and tried running since it's easy enough to pack shoes while traveling. It started slow, but now I can run 10km without blowing out my knees, but it's not what I'd call enjoyable, and I still find it hard to get consistency around it.
So here we are, with my bad eating habits, poor training routine and with a change to a sedentary job, I'm now sitting at 83kg. For those keeping count, that's about 11-12kg more than I weighed 2 years ago.
I was at the Otway Odyssey over the weekend supporting my wife. It's the first one I've missed in years. It's hard to describe the disappointment I had internally that I wasn't racing that day. All the missed training, the time away from family, the weight put on. It was a really good reminder to me that work isn't everything.
I honestly went home that night and wrote up a resignation letter. I haven't talked to my boss yet, and I'm still not 100% I want to take that step, but over the weekend it made so much sense to me to go back to a more normal 9-5. I'm just finishing up 4 weeks in a row of training here in Melb. That's 4 weeks living in a hotel during the week, 4 weeks away from family, 4 weeks of inconsistent training. I say after this week I'll be back at home and can focus again, but I know for a fact it won't be long until I'm in another state helping setup a machine or diagnose a particularly troublesome one.
But how about this, I'm committing myself to lose this extra weight and start training properly again.
Things I'll be focusing on
- eating smaller portions
- no snacks in between meals (a bit of fruit or veg if desperate)
- timing macros to suit my training (used to do this so hopefully fall back into it)
- beer only after a hard ride (makes it taste better)
- training consistency
The goal is to get back to mid 70s for now. I've decided to start doing some races again and just be content with being the slow guy for a while.
I just need to get back on the horse.
)
