It’s been another great week for my health and fitness goals.  The weight side of the equation is going well.  Another all green week with  1.28 kg (2.8 pounds) lost off my trend line.

For those who don’t know, I record my weight at PhysicsDiet.com every morning and it computes a trend line which smooths out the daily fluctuations.  If my actual weight is lower than the trend my graph stays green.  If it goes higher the graph switches to red.  I use my trend line weight as my actual weight as that is what I’m maintaining even though my scale weight is about a kg (2 pounds) lighter.  Once I move closer to my goal the line between trend and actual should merge.

And so far it has been an all green year!

If you look at the chart for the year I think it is reasonably easy to see where the weekends where I overindulged are!  This last weekend’s eating was reasonably good overall although I did have some cake at a friends birthday party and the sugar did make me long for junkfood in the evening.  However I resisted and so had a reasonably good weigh-in this morning.

In other news I did the end of week 04 push-up test yesterday morning and did a whopping 75 push-ups in a row!  That is a new personal best for me.  The hundred push-up challenge rocks!

It’s been a wonderful Saturday here in sunny New Zealand. 

My wife and I started the day right by going out for a run together.  She’s ramping up her long runs again and I was having a cutback week so we did 13 km.  A long run for her and a nice easy run for me.  It was really nice running with her and the conditions were just perfect.

We got home, showered and then went to the Parnell markets and did a bit of shopping.  At the first market we bought some lemon kurd and at the second one, some feta cheese and some stuffed peppers.  Unfortunately we forgot to take them out of the car and we had to throw the cheese out later in the day but such is life sometimes.

We then went and picked up my wife’s cousin and his wife and went down to Okahu Bay where there was a big Waitangi Day festival on.  Waitangi day celebrates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi which is sort of New Zealand’s founding document.  So we have a public holiday on a Saturday.  :p

My monkey and I went on the spinning tea cups and had great fun:

Afterwards we went to a cafe for Ice Coffees and cake.  I did say I eat healthy Monday to Friday in my last post!

I’ve been planning a vegetable garden so afterwards we went out to Bunnings (a large hardware/building/garden supplies store) where I bought all the supplies to make a small raised vege garden.  I built the box.  It’s about 4ft by 4ft.  I filled it with a mixture of organic compost, pumice stone, peatmoss and organic fertilisers and then planted some vegetables I’d bought.  I also sowed a few seeds.

It came out pretty good if I say so myself:

As I said, it’s been a great Saturday.

I was asked by a few people to do another “what do you eat” post so I thought I would do a short photo essay of my daily food.

This is what I normally eat Monday to Friday and weekends I reserve for a bit of variety.  Some might find it a bit boring but it works for me as I enjoy every single meal.  Lots of photos so I’ve put them beyond the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been really enjoying my early morning runs.

This week I’ve upped them slightly and have done 13 km on Monday (very wet!), 12.5 km on Tuesday and 12 km today.

It was rather windy this morning but still very enjoyable. I’ve just been finding running so enjoyable lately. It’s hard to not go for a run on my rest days but I must!

I did my normal route down to Tamaki Drive and then ran to Bastion Point and back.  At one point I had to pass over the railway tracks and thought I would snap a quick photo.

It’s a bit different from my normal photos but I enjoyed it.

Overall I’ve run an average of just over an hour a day for 2010 so far.  If I can keep this up I’ll have a huge base!

I’ve been sorely tempted to upgrade my half marathon in June to the full marathon.  Must resist but I’m very tempted.

I managed to stay in the green this week although that wedding came close to putting me in the red as you can see by the little uptick at the end. However, it did not so overall another successful week:

This is the chart for the year so far:

I attribute my success this month to eating clean most of the time and to doing lots of running. I also have tried to build in the occasional treat as man cannot should not live on only healthy food at all times.  I’m down to 102 pounds (46.25 kg) lost now which is a relatively large amount of weight.

I’m feeling pretty good about my progress and I feel I’m in a pretty sustainable place right now.  The only niggle I have is that I hurt my knee doing the 200 squats challenge and it’s a bit stiff so I’m going to take my running even easier than normal for a bit.  I’m up into week 4 of the 100 pushups challenge and it’s getting tough but I’m sticking with it. 

My long run yesterday morning was most enjoyable.  I got up at 5am as I suspected it would get rather hot rather quickly as that has been the pattern the last few days.  It turns out that was a good move!

I headed out towards Cornwall Park.  The picture to the left is from the path that runs alongside the road through the park.  It’s a beautiful area to run through and was suprisingly quiet.  I guess they don’t unlock the gates for cars till 7 but I thought there would be more runners and walkers about.

I then headed down to the coast via Newmarket and Parnell and did my normal run along Tamaki Drive.

I finished off in the Orakei Basin which is a couple of hundred meters away from my home:

Overall just over 20km. A most enjoyable loop.

I went to a wedding later in the day and this was most enjoyable:

A hazelnut and bitter chocolate torte with truffle.  Rather nice!

In other news I was recently contacted by an organisation working along side the running music producer AudioFuel and the Virgin London Marathon. They are looking for people to vote for their favourite running tracks. These votes will help build this years soundtrack for the London Marathon which will later be available on iTunes. If you are interested in helping Music and Motivation create this soundtrack you can stop by and vote. If you are interested in what this soundtrack is like you can listen to a free fuel sampler which can be downloaded here.

I’ve had 3 days of running before work in a row this week.  Monday I did 11 km, Tuesday 11.5 and Wednesday 12 km.  Every day this week the forecast has been for rain but as you can see from the photo below the “rainy conditions” have been pretty fantastic.  I’m looking out my window now at 6:30 AM and the rain for today is looking like another day of glorious sunshine.

Yesterday I ran through our local Viaduct Harbour and it was quite nice seeing all the yachts.  I was looking enviously at some folks having a big fry up of a breakfast in one of the many cafes in the area.

Here’s my routemap:

On Saturday afternoon I had a blogger meetup with Kepa, Mary and Mandy.  It was quite nice meeting folks from the blogging world.  My little monkey did not want to be in the photo but the price of using me as a chair is that you have to go where I go.

I’m still going strong which is great. 1.31 kg (2.9 pounds) down this week which is quite nice if I say so myself.  I like a chart with a lot of green in it:

This is the chart for the year so far:

Trending downwards quite nicely.

My eating has been pretty good and disciplined.  I’ve even managed the weekends quite well lately.  If I have an event or two coming up then I compensate by eating slightly smaller portions etc. at my other meals so that I can still indulge somewhat but not overdo it overall.  That approach definitely seems to be paying dividends.  I still credit most of my losses to my running as I’m eating very well overall.

Speaking of which, I ran into work this morning and it was one of those perfect still mornings with clear blue skies.  Very nice.  Unfortunately I forgot my camera at home so you’ll have to take my word for it.

As I mentioned last week I’ve shifted my long run to Saturday so Sally (my wife) can do her long run on Sunday morning.  That way we always have someone available to look after Emma (our monkey).

Well, my long run was wet and windy and just great.  I’ve been really enjoying my running lately.  I’m not too sure why but I’m going to just enjoy it while it lasts.  Hopefully it lasts a long time!

There were a few periods where the rain died down for a bit.  So I got in a few pictures.  I always wrap up my ipod and camera in gladwrap before heading out on a wet day.  There’s the city in the background:

It was a bit more sheltered by the marina:

Overall a great 20.6km run around Auckland City.

That brings my total mileage this week to 65.6 km (40.7 miles) which I’ll happily take.  If I can get another few months of these easy running weeks in I’m going to have a great aerobic base for my half marathons and marathon this year.

I’ve got a blogger meet up this afternoon. More about that tomorrow!

My fitness routine is going well.

I restarted the hundred push-ups challenge for the 7th time after I got derailed again in December by going on holiday and getting lazy.  I’ve completed week 02.  At the end of each two weeks you have to do a test to see which level you start in for week 03.  I needed to get more than 25 and easily got out 40.  I probably could have gone past 50 (my previous record) if I had done them in the evening as I can always do more push-ups in the evening for some reason.

I’ve also started the two hundred squats challenge (for the 1st time!).  On my initial test I could do 25 squats before thinking that’s enough for now.  I’ve just completed week 02 of that as well and to get in to the highest level for week 03 I needed to get above 40.  I did 50 with relative ease and probably could have done a lot more.  I’m a lot more confident of getting to 200 squats as compared to 100 push-ups!  I think the running helps with the leg strength.

My low heart rate training has been going well.  I’ve bumped my runs up by 1km so I’m doing 11km every morning before work now instead of 10.  The runs are so slow (6:30 min/km pace+) that my legs don’t feel tired.  I’m getting in a really good aerobic base I think.  I can tell it’s working as my resting heart rate (taken in the evenings while reading my book) has dropped from mid 50s to mid 40s.

My run this morning was great.  It was a bit windier than it has been which was a blessing as it has been starting to get quite hot.  I ran from the city out to the end of the Jetty below:

For a total of 11.5 happy km.