It’s now been just over a month since I started preparing for entry into the Abu Dhabi Triathlon this coming March. Here’s what I’ve learned.

My body isn’t as broken as I thought…

I worried when I started exercising again that old injuries would derail my efforts.  My left knee has been especially troublesome for me over the years.  An unusual injury to my left patella  means that  I am particularly prone to sprains and inflammation in the joint.  I’ve also had back and elbow injuries over the years as well that can be traced back to work on construction sites that I did in my twenties.  With these injuries in mind I decided to keep things simple.  No weights and for now very little running.  So far it’s been good.  I use the elliptical trainer four times a week and keep the pace and resistance high.   No sprains or major problems so far.  My plan is to do this for another month while I start to add some swimming and a little running and  biking to my routine.

I’m still a fat bastard but…

I’m losing weight the right way.  Nothing extreme but I am down from where I was when I came to Qatar in August by about 2.5 kilograms.  It’s interesting to see it over time.  Fluctuations are to be expected but over time it’s trending downward.  I’m weighing daily as it’s one of the recommendations in Joe Friel’s book.  I have to say that it does make me more mindful of exactly what I am eating on a day-to-day basis.

That said, diet is one of the hardest habits to reform and I do have quite the sweet tooth.  In fact I have a mouth full of silver and gold that are testaments to poor dietary and dental habits. However I have had only one chocolate bar this  past month and have eaten about six french fries.  I still eat some sweets here and there but these days my intake has been dramatically reduced.  And I intend to reduce further, though if I’m being honest I have to admit that today I had a piece of carrot cake and am polishing off an iced mocha as I type today’s blog.  Rome wasn’t built in a day which leads to the next point.

What exactly Am I eating?!

Some people record everything they eat and their calorie intake and for them it works but to me that feels like the tail is wagging the dog.  In terms of my own diet here are the rules I abide:

1. Stay away from the deep fryer.  Simple enough – if it is deep-fried then don’t eat it. Sorry KFC, Tim Horton’s and Krispy Kreme and others…
2. Stay away from the sweets.  I noticed a couple of years ago when I visited K in Canada that chocolate bars were getting bigger.  So were Canadians.  When I worked at my old college in Doha I hated the cafeteria (apple-cinnamon chicken anyone?) so lunch became a snickers bar or two most days.  Nowadays for me chocolate bars are out, as is ice cream and regular pop drinks.  I still drink coke zero but that is about it nowadays.
3. Stay away from Pizza and cheesy foods.  Another bit of common sense.  I had pizza twice last month and only because friends wanted it.  When eating this and other things it brings me to the last rule.
4.  Don’t over-eat.  I used to eat seconds, thirds, fourths… One of my friends from Canada was with me once at a buffet restaurant when after five plates of chinese and six bowls of ice-cream and however many fountain cokes the waitress ran over while I went to the bathroom for a bladder break to take my plates and give me the bill to get rid of me.  Those days are over.  I manage my portions and nowadays I eat smaller meals.  The nice thing here is I noticed I no longer eat as much before starting to feel full.  In fact I am mindful not to eat to the point of feeling full because that is actually overeating.

Beyond these rules for eating I have also noticed that I eat out way too much.  It would seem that I don’t really know how to shop for myself when it comes to groceries and this is because it’s hard to shop when you have no idea what you’re going to cook.  So last week I started researching meal-planning.  So last Saturday I planned out my meals for the week.  I used this to figure out what groceries I’d need.  Wouldn’t you know it there’s actually an app, actually many apps for that!  I settled on meal board, added my recipes and it generated a grocery list that I used to do my shopping.  It was pretty easy with the app. And that is not the only way technology has helped me change my lifestyle.

Fitbit is Awesome…

When I started the daily weighing I noticed that Apple provides a health app so that is where I started storing my weight.  I have been using MapMyFitness to keep track of the workouts however I noticed that the health app had a lot more to it beyond just entering your weight.  This was a bit of an Aha! moment for me so I started looking closer at the Apple watch.  In the end I decided that I didn’t want to spend nearly a $1000 Canadian on one so I started checking out other fitness trackers which lead me to the Fitbit Surge.  It was by far cheaper and did more than the Apple Watch for the kind of fitness tracking I am interested in these days.  Here’s my last three weeks in terms of heart rate courtesy of my fitbit page:

So far it’s a start to things that I am quite pleased with.  The bars with the red tips are obviously my workout days.  I have managed to make a quick trip to the gym a part of my routine.  My Surge also has GPS built into it as well so I when I run or bike I can use it to map my routes.  Overall the Surge has been a handy little tool to add structure to my day and provide me with goals for steps, walking up the stairs, drinking water, and physical activity in general.  Two changes I can directly attribute to it are that I am drinking more water and I am more conscious of just how little sleep I get over here.  In the last month I slept eight hours just one time.  Usually I’ve been sleeping between four and six hours.  Consequently one of my new goals for the coming month is to get more rest.  I’m also looking into doing a short triathlon, aka sprint triathlon, before 2016 to get some practice as the literature recommends building up to the full iron-man before attempting it.  One month in now and things are progressing nicely.