Property Investments, Landlording, CrossFit, Nutrition & Safety

I’ve not done a Zone Diet update post for a while, but that’s not because I’ve stopped following a Zone Diet plan. As I mentioned on my last zone diet post, I had sort of reached a plateaux and got “stuck” if you will around the 13st0 (182lb / 83kg) mark and about 17-18% body fat. You may recall that I started the Zone in March 2007 at just under 15 stone and 30% body fat (my waist was 43 inches at the widest point). I set myself a 12 month goal to get to 12st7 (175lbs / 80kg) at 15% body fat. Clearly I didn’t make it.

Of course getting stuck was entirely of my own making, as I’d become complacent, no longer weighing food but measuring my zone blocks by eye only. My alcoholic intake was also far too high (being measured in bottles of wine per week) as were my occasional chocolate treats. The sad reality was that “occasional” was getting ever more frequent, like 2-3 times per week, and “treat” was probably more accurately described as typically 3 different chocolate bars each time!

So 3-4 bottles of wine a week + 8-10 chocky bars a week + of course Friday curry night, it’s no wonder really I wasn’t losing any weight. It is however a testament to the zone that I wasn’t gaining any either. All that changed 4 weeks ago though…

4 weeks ago I started working full time for my new client in London and so have been working away from home and preparing every meal for just myself. The main consequence of this is that I’m rather lazy about what I eat. That doesn’t mean sandwiches and take aways, that means lots of cold meats, fruit and nuts.

Yes there are the exceptions to spice things up, like shallow fried fillet steak (cooked blue of course) with cream cheese… for breakfast! Hmmm yummy. It’s not that extravagant either. For a typical 4 block breakfast, take just 3oz of steak, quickly fry it with a minimum of olive oil (with a bit of salt and pepper and herbs to taste), smear some cream cheese (lowish fat) on the top when done, have with a cup of milk, an apple and a peach (or similar). A very quick and very zone meal.

You could legitimately argue that the cream cheese is not the best choice for a fat source and you’d be right. Everyone has to find the right balance in their diet and personally I like a sauce of some kind with my steak, 3 tea spoons of Philadelphia Light fit the bill for me. You go ahead and have nuts instead if you want to.  😉

Anyway, back to the point: I’ve also pretty much knocked the chocolate on the head completely and only have a drink a couple of times a week now. So 4 weeks of much more strict zoning and guess what: I am now at my target weight of 12st7 with a waist measurement of 35 inches (and 8” loss) which according to the charts in the back of the Zone books, puts me at 15% body fat exactly… I’ve made it! I’m finally at the target I set myself. 🙂

So great, I’ve done it, time to come off the diet, right? That’s what “diets” are for aren’t they, for losing weight, then abandoning when you’re done? Sounds silly doesn’t it? And indeed it is.

It’s a shame that the Zone is called a “diet” at all, but it is for obvious reasons. The word diet simply describes the food you eat. Everyone reading this blog is “on a diet” whether that’s a conscious weight loss one, or an unconscious one of pie and chips, being dictated by cooking programs on TV and what the super markets currently have on offer.

I’m not “on a diet” in the common vernacular in that it’s a temporary thing to be discarded when an arbitrary weight is reached. Rather I have permanently altered the way I eat: I eat a balance of protein, carbs and a little fat with each meal and I’ve almost completely removed what I call Junk Carbs from my diet (starchy carbohydrate sources designed to simply bulk up a meal, e.g. bread, pasta, rice, wheat, cereals). Let’ call this a Zone Eating Plan and dispense with the word Diet altogether. This has resulted in a weight loss of 2.5 stone, a loss of 8 inches off my waist, and a drop from 30% body fat to 15% percent.

BUT this leads me to a small dilemma: clearly I have yet to reach a steady state whilst following a Zone Eating Plan, unless of course its effectiveness is offset by eating chocolate and drinking too much wine! As a result, if I continue to eat the way I have in the last month, I fully expect to continue to lose body fat. Here’s the rub though, several people have said to me that I shouldn’t lose any more weight, but it occurs to me that everyone who has said this is (if I can be crude) fatter than I am and so I wonder if there are (conscious or unconscious) ulterior motives behind their statements. What is an ideal target to aim for now?

I consider body fat percentage to be the better measure, rather than absolute weight, as it takes into account muscle vs fat. But now that I’ve lost half the fat I started with, what next? I still don’t have a six pack… maybe some vanity can be afforded now that I believe I have the tool to expose it? I say expose because Crossfit has given me the muscle definition already, it’s just currently hidden behind a (now not too thick) layer of stomach fat.

Or perhaps I should consider weight? More on this another day but I am going to be entering the Northern British Masters Weight Lifting competition next year and the closest weight category boundaries areat 77k and 85kg, so I’m within range of the lower 77kg category. Maybe that would be a good target?

The issue here is that I know I work well with a target in mind, as my Dad is fond of saying, “Aim at nothing, and you’ll hit it every time!”. So which target should I set?

This is jaw droppingly amazing!

Since I started working in London, I’ve been hunting for a good Gym. I define a “good” as:

• one which has some Olympic Weightlifting bars
• the space and the will to let people use them for Olympic lifting (Snatch and Clean & Jerk)
• has Crossfit style equipment: rower, dumbbells, kettlebells, pull up stations
• close to my flat, i.e. around Farringdon, Clerkenwell, Islington, Euston or the City
• Not exorbitantly expensive.

After spending some time scouring the web, I collated the following list of gyms. It’s included here along with my notes on the ones I visited, over 2 sodden nights pacing the streets of London in the evenings. Obviously the prices were what were given to me at the time:

A. UCL Bloomsbury Fitness Centre http://www.uclunion.org/leisure-fitness/bloomsbury/index.php 020 7679 7221
3rd Floor, 15 Gordon Street
£255 for annual offer anytime membership or 3 months for £115
£200 for off peak offer anytime (excludes 11am – 7pm Mon-Fri) or 3 months for £85
Free induction. “Baz: we have rubber dumbbells ranging from 2kg-40kg and 2 Olympic bars with range of discs on a squat rack and bench press. Unfortunately we do not have kettle bells.”

B. City University, http://www.city.ac.uk/studentcentre/saddlers/join/prices.html
No Oly bars “Free weights to 48kg”
Annual: £370.00 Monthly: £37.50 Direct Debit: £32.50 £6.00 single visit
5 free weight stations. Pull up station. 3 rowers, some bars but narrow, not full length.

C. MAXIMUMS GYM LTD 82 ST JOHN STREET ISLINGTON LONDON EC1M4JN
Wasn’t there !

D. Juno, 61 Turnmill Street, London, EC1M 5PT. 020 7250 3489
Was women’s only Gym, but now appears to have closed.

E. THE CURZONS GYM 55 GRACECHURCH STREET CITY OF LONDON LONDON EC3V0EE – 020 7621 0911
Didn’t visit

F. The Fitness Exchange, 9 Devonshire Sq, London, EC2M 4WY. 020 7626 3161
Didn’t visit

G. Vie Health Club, 122 Clerkenwell Rd, London, EC1R 5DL 020 72788070, viehealthclubs.co.uk “comprehensive free weights area”.
6 free weights areas, some detachable bars, £63/month + joining free of zero to £100 depending on how they’re doing.

H. Aquaterra Premier Gyms, 1-11 Ironmonger Row, London, EC1V 3QF 020 7253 4011
Big swimming pool but small gym, only 2 free weight stations.

I. Slim Jims, 1 Finsbury Avenue, London, EC2M 2PF. 020 7247 9982
Didn’t visit

J. The Health Studio, 1 Pardon St, London, EC1V 0LR. 020 72531223
Actually called Drakes. Personal Training only. Very small place.

K. Chariots, Fairchild Street, London, EC2A 3NS. 020 7247 5333,
Didn’t visit

L. CUTLERS SQUASH & GYM CLUB LTD, 020 7614 4275, LAMBS CLUB, 1 LAMBS PASSAGE, ISLINGTON
LONDON EC1Y8LE – 020 7614 4275
Didn’t visit

M. CHAMBERLIN & GRANT LTD 1 FINSBURY AVENUE CITY OF LONDON LONDON EC2M2PF – 020 7247 9982
Didn’t visit

N. KINDER GYM (UK) LTD 20 LINCOLNS INN FIELDS CAMDEN LONDON WC2A3ED
Didn’t visit, suspected it’s a kids gym

O. Citypoint Club, Citypoint, 1 Ropemaker Street, London, EC2Y 9AW. 020 7920 6200
Didn’t visit

P. Body Reform, Cousin Lane, London, EC4R 3TE. 020 7283 3728,
Didn’t visit

Q. Fitness First Plc, 60-63 Bunhill Row, London, EC1Y 8QD, 020 7490 3555
Wouldn’t let me in to see the place as there were “no membership consultants available”.

R. Holmes Place Plc, 33 Bunhill Row, London, EC1Y 8LP, 020 7448 5454
Now Virgin Active. 2 Oly bars with possibly the room to use them, however rather light on available weights to use them. Don’t think there was enough for a decent dead lift for example, not without using every weight in the place!
£83/month for a 12 month contract.
£89/month with no contract, but can use any Virgin Gym (bar a few exceptions).
£40 joining fee

S. LA Fitness. 20 Little Britain, St Pauls, London, EC1A 7DH. 020 7600 0900 http://www.lafitness.co.uk/
Swimming pool, some free weights but all metal plates. 10 rowing machines.Club Peak (12 month) RRP: £46 / month
Web offer: £40 / month (12 month contract)
Pushed a “Quick Start” booklet at £30

T. Virgin Active, 333 Goswell Road, London, EC1V 7DG, 020 7014 9700
Didn’t visit

U. VIRGIN GYMS LTD, 9 CHEAPSIDE, CITY OF LONDON, LONDON EC2V6AT
Didn’t visit

V. 121 GYM 160 CITY ROAD LONDON EC1V2NP, 020 7336 0466
As their name suggests the 121 Gym offers a personal trainer service for its members. Appointments must be booked in advance and each session costs £40. They are located within the Complete Health Care Centre.

You may notice that the first 2 gyms are University gyms. This is a great tip as many people don’t realise that University gyms are typically open to the public too. Not only are they generally cheaper than “normal” gyms, their off-peak times are the wrong way round too. Given that students are typically in the gym during the day, when they should be in lectures(!) and in the bar in the evening, their off peak time is evenings and weekends, which makes them even cheaper. UCL for example is currently £200 for a years off peak membership!

However, on Thursday last week, I found the hidden gem: Bethnal Green Weight Lifting Club, which is less than 2 miles away from Farringdon. Not only do they have 3 pukka weight lifting platforms, 10 Eleiko Oly bars, loads of Eleiko weights, plus they have rowing machines, about 10 power lifting stations, loads of dumbbells. I need to confirm it, but I understand the cost will be £40 for a 13 week term at 1 night per week. That’s a bargain!

But even that’s not the best bit, I went this Tuesday evening and was coached in my lifting by the current British Olympic weightlifting record holder in the Snatch and Clean and Jerk and the 2002 Commonwealth Snatch gold medal winner: Giles Greenwood. His over 105kg weight record is 180kg (396lb) Snatch and 207.5kg (456lb) C&J. Just to put that in perspective, I can’t even lift 180kg off the floor, let alone throw it over my head!

On top of that, I also met Patrick Atteridge, a former British, European and World Masters Weightlifting champion and Masters Olympian. For example, again in 2002 Pat won Gold at the World championsips. Pat was telling me that Bethnal Green Weightlifting club has produced 241 champions in the 80 years it’s been open!

So basically, I’m as happy as Larry. 🙂 I can do all the weightlifting I want, coached by champions, on my doorstep, it’s cheap as chips and I may get to introduce some of them to Crossfit too, you never know. 😉

This has GOT to hurt!

Topical one today:

Best write up ever. This is actually good Journalism, from Jim White at the Daily Telegraph

The 63kg women’s event took place in the gym of the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. An unlikely setting: there was not much aerodynamic about what was going up here.

These were metal bars loaded down with so much gravity-attracting metal that never mind soaring skywards, the sane would employ a JCB to get them off the ground.

Britain’s Michaela Breeze was an early faller. She managed a total of 185kg in two skyward thrusts, roughly the equivalent of some couch potato watching back in her home town of Watford (plus the couch).

If that seemed a superhuman effort, it placed her only 15th. The leader in the preliminaries had been a stern Russian called Svetlana Tsarukaeva, who doesn’t appear to have smiled since 2003. But in the final, she had trouble with her snatch, the discipline which involves hauling the bar in one smooth movement to above the head.

After failing three times, she whelped like a forlorn dog and then compounded her misery by walking into the frame of the stage exit, whacking her head. As with every competitor, she was followed from the stage by a cameraman, the images relayed on a big screen as she staggered back to the dressing room. Thus could the entire crowd watch as she decided to slap her coach. Talk about drama, this was like an episode of EastEnders.

The competition was left to Kazakhstan’s Irina Nekrassova and North Korea’s Pak Hyon Suk. The Kazakh had an elderly coach who carried crutches, perhaps to defend himself should things turn slappy, while Pak had an osteopath, who gave her a vigorous bear hug before every lift in order to snap her back into place, ready to take the strain.

And what a strain it was. There is no equivocation about weightlifting, no close things, no 8.5 from a judge for artistic merit: you either lift or you don’t. This is primal sport, stripped of flim and flam. And the weight these women were lifting is preposterous. In the final round, Nekrassova went first, attempting to hoist what appeared to be the weight of a small bus. She almost got it up, but, as the bar rested temporarily on her throat, her feet would not stay put. She wobbled forward, her massive load heading ominously in the direction of the referees. Unable to recover, she dropped the bar with a thump that rattled the rib-cage. And promptly burst into tears.

So Pak had one lift left to become the first North Korean ever to win Olympic gold. As the crowd stomped, she stood behind the bar, leaned forward and pulled it up to her chest. The collective breath was held as she lifted again and locked her elbows. To a huge roar, she stood for a moment, the winner, holding the bar with an ease that suggested she must start as favourite in the forthcoming annual Pyongyang dissident-tossing championships.

Afterwards, Pak faced the press. She made only one statement, announcing, in a bold attempt to cut through political stereotype, that “I am overjoyed that with this medal I have brought joy to our Dear Leader.”

If only a British medallist could similarly dedicate their success to Gordon Brown, that really would constitute drama.

Fingers crossed I’ll be taking a flat in Farringdon in London on Monday. I’ve been room hunting down there for 2 weeks now and have seen good places in bad locations, bad places in good locations, bad places in shocking locations, but finally I’ve found a great place in a fantastic location. I’ve been looking to lodge in a room in a house or flat share on a Monday to Friday basis. After some searching, these are the best 3 websites I’ve found and would recommend:

www.SpareRoom.co.uk
uk.EasyRoomMate.com
www.MondayToFriday.com

I’ve finally found a woman who owns an apartment a stone’s throw from Farringdon Tube station and so 5 minutes walk to my clients offices, which is a real boon as I won’t have to suffer a tube or bus commute. It also means that I don’t think I’ll need to get a travel card, which will save me about a thousand pounds a year.

The apartment is in a private managed block with porters etc and closely resembles a hotel in appearance and quality. It’s on 2 floors and with open plan kitchen, dinning room, living room, bathroom and 2 double bedrooms (one en-suite), it’s actually bigger than the homes of some people I know! But that’s not the best bit. The owner actually lives in Bedfordshire and this apartment is her weekend London retreat… she’s not there all week and I’ll have the place entirely to myself, which is a right result.

So I’m rolling up on Monday with my bags and a cheque book and letters of reference, so fingers crossed it’ll all go well and I’ll be in Monday night.

Then the next task will be to find a Crossfit friendly gym in the area. I’ve already started the search and I think I may have found the idea place, which will also be an amazing bargain, but that’s another post.

Errr not very Work or Family Safe today folks (swearing)! But funny as hell… if like me you have friends addicted to World of Warcraft:
World of Wifecraft

World of Workcraft – takes 30 seconds to get going

Did you recognise the Counter Strike map? 😉

Hmmm wonder what happened to Fridays video??

I’m still working down in London full time for my new client and will for the foreseeable future, so I’ve been flat / room hunting, which is turning out to be much more of a pain than I’d anticipated. Seen good flats in bad locations, bad flats in great locations, bad flats in bad locations, and a great flat in a good location, but the guy doesn’t know when the room will be free and is going away on holiday for 3 weeks from next week!

I may end up just taking the closest one to work and be done with it. I went to see one yesterday that is 8 mins walk from work but is like going back to university halls of residence, 16 individual rooms across 4 floors each with communal kitchen, showers, toilets, and lounging space. As long as it’s not full of students (which is unlikely considering the exorbitant rent!) as the land lord attests to, it should be ok.

In other news, I tried out British Military Fitness last night. Not quite Crossfit, but I figured as close as I am going to get. The format is pretty basic, about 60 people all in Finsbury Park running around doing circuit training in the great British summer…. that’s right, a thunderstorm parked itself above us for about half an hour and we all got soaked!

The group is split up into bib colours: blue (for beginners), red (for intermediates), green (for advanced). As a first timer I was put in the blue group. I’ll see if I can remember the exercise routine, or some approximation to it:

Run, press ups (push ups for the Americans reading), run, sit ups, run, star jumps, run, burpees, run, touch 2 trees, run, “sawing” whilst holding a partners hands, jumping to change feet position, more sawing, run, partner leg locked sit ups, push up hand shaking with a partner, run, sit up to “high 10” with a partner, run….

That was about the first 20 minutes there was another 30 minutes of the above basically lots of short runs interspersed with more press ups, sit ups, burpees, some tuck jumps, some lunge walks, a tiny bit of sprinting, some plank holds etc etc. There was a 2 minute water break half way through and the instructor asked me if I wanted to upgrade to the red team there and then ? Which was nice, seems Crossfit has equipped me reasonably well, but I figured I’d stick out my first session in the blues, only to get a good comparison between the 2 of course! 😉 I am however promoted to red for next time apparently.

But how did I find it? Well it lacks the intensity of Crossfit. At no point did I feel as tired as I do after any normal day at a Crossfit gym workout. Whilst it had been raining, I didn’t even feel particularly sweaty at the end. Yes I was tired but issues during the hours workout were general muscle strength failure. No matter how I do them, once I get over 50 press ups, they will only subsequently come in 2s and 3s. I reckon it’s not an exaggeration to say I did 100-150 press ups, and yes (karl :p) they were all full depth chest to floor, probably the same with sit ups, running was probably 2-3 miles in total (in lots and lots and lots of short stints).

Interestingly though, I don’t feel sore at all this morning. Typically after Crossfit’s Angie say, I would feel my pecks and abs for days afterwards. What does that say about BMF considering I think I did more press ups and more sit ups than Angie’s 100 of each? I guess it comes back to that intensity thing. Spreading the load over a longer time period means less power output and less of an impact on your body.

I will think about it today, but I suspect I’ll go back, given that I’m down in London and don’t have a Crossfit facility I can go to. I have to say though, gve me Crossfit any day. 😉

All together a perfec