2018, Day 1 (74.9kg)

Today was the first day of 2018, which meant it was the first day of my new diet. I don’t like to use the word diet as this is not a diet; this is a way of eating that will better suit my training and fitness goals.

I haven’t weighed myself for months, and I must say I was a little horrified this morning when setting my base line on the scales. Granted this comes after a week on holiday and a month in the presence of sugary food. Whilst I was able to avoid this food during the whole month, I was unsuccessful this past week. I am a Personal Trainer and have simply used exercise as a way of burning more calories on a higher calorie day. Well, not so much when on holiday. I went from exercising every day to sleeping and resting, with little exercise in sight. Being an endomorph, I put weight on very easily. I just need to look at a biscuit and it goes straight to my thighs and backside. Not that I am making excuses, but I know that the first pics of the year and the weight on the scales this morning are not the true me. However, it was still a massive reality check.

So, out came the food scales this morning as I started to weigh my food again. I tried in 2015, unsuccessfully, to follow a bodybuilding lifestyle for 9 months. This was during the recovery period after having both shoulders and both hips operated on. Not being able to do Olympic lifting, powerlifting or strongman training any longer, I needed to find something to allow me to keep training, but with very little impact on my joints. Whilst the bodybuilding training was great, the food wasn’t. I really struggled going from the type of training that required more energy to be consumed, where my size was on my side for my chosen sport, to having to count every single thing that passed my lips. I disliked dieting. I had always had a very delicate relationship with food and my body image. I started to have bulimia in the last 2 years of school and I had bulimia at University. From a young adolescent, I was always conscious of the way that I looked, and it is only in the last couple of years that I have felt truly comfortable with my body and how I feel. I love my curves and I would not want my body shape to change too much.

I am quite competitive with myself and the fact that I failed at the bodybuilding a couple of years ago is what inspired me to make the decision last month to try again. Whilst I was previously trying to do it when I had an office job and very little support around me, I am now lucky enough to be in the fitness industry where I live in the gym, I have the support of everyone around me (I am doing this alongside one of my colleagues) and I have the benefit of being extremely active, moving around the whole time, going from client to client and getting to the end of the day wondering where the day has gone, as opposed to sitting at a desk all day watching the clock and thinking about food out of boredom.

So, this is me now. Whilst I am happy with my overall body size, I would like to shed a little bit of body fat and increase my muscle mass just a little. This is not with a view to competing (anyone who knows me knows that I would most likely fall flat on my face in heels on a stage), but this is just to see if I can do it. I have tremendous amounts of respect for anyone who has the dedication and mental stamina to stick to a bodybuilding diet and lifestyle. This is my attempt to do it for a few months.

Today, day 1, was a little bit of a disaster as I hadn’t planned my meals well enough, so I have got to the end of the day not having eaten enough protein and having had an energy slump mid-afternoon, which brought out the dragon in me. My apologies to my family! So, tomorrow is a new day and I will make sure that I am better prepared.