My start to Jogging/Running - Week 1

Welcome to 5.14 fitness, 

As you can see from my last post, I had decided to go running four times a week whilst I am on my six week holiday. The reason for this was to have an exercise which I could maintain and fit into my schedule as it gets jumbled around and becomes hectic due to the holiday. I wanted to do something that makes you feel good and helps as I will be eating more and being active less. Running was what I decided on doing, and I have done exactly that.

My first run, about three weeks ago, gave me a  good start to running. I ran 3.4 miles ( a little over 5k ) and did it on a route which I made on Strava . This allowed me to not worry about the route I was taking and just focus on the running. I ran a lot faster than I thought I would, which is probably thanks to Insanity. I went uphill quite a bit which I admit was a bit of a mistake, but overall I did quite well. 

The benefits I felt on this first run were pretty good. First of all, when I got back I felt very happy and good , due to how hard I had worked an what I had done. It made me feel more confident about myself and , most of all, allowed me to enjoy my day more. I also managed to see more of where I live. There are places which I ran through that I had never been before, and it was cool to discover these new areas. It was also good to post my results on Strava, so that others can see it. It was good to compare my results to other people and more notably, my pro cousin. 

The time for my first run was not brilliant, and the worst of all my runs by a long shot. This was probably because I took at easy, as on your first run you should not push yourself to hard. It is important to ease yourself into these things sometimes. I didn't experience any injuries and although it wasn't enjoyable, the run was definitely beneficial.
Over the course of the next week, I ran 4 more times and Improved greatly each time. This was because I pushed myself more and paced myself better. I took slightly different routes every time to make the run more interesting. 

My last run that week was a 5k run, and I performed very well in it. I completed 5k in 21 minutes, which gave me an average pace of 7:08 minutes a mile. For a beginner, I found this was very good and gave me a boost in confidence for more upcoming runs. I also had a 200ft elevation gain, which made things a lot harder of course. 

Add me on Strava - Will Henry Roberts

Next post I will talk about my second and third weeks and more about results etc..
Sorry about lack of posts, it has been poor I admit but I will try to post regularly on a Friday or Saturday now.

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Cardio - What To Do? Part 1

Welcome to 5.14 fitness, 


Today I will be posting about Cardio and the different ways in which you could do it.

Almost every sport has cardio implemented, whether it is running in football or swimming in water polo. This cardio is key in order to become a healthier, fitter and thinner person. It is important that Cardio is done ,as without it, a good measure of health can not be achieved. Sport is the perfect way to do Cardio, but there is other ways that can sometimes be more effective ( Jogging for example). The important rule here is: Cardio is key. Aerobically exercising : Getting your heart rate up, sweating and breathing like hell is important for us! 

The NHS states that a 19-64 year old adult should do at least 150 minutes ( 2 hours 30 minutes ) of moderate-intensity aerobic activity such as cycling or fast walking every week, or, 75 minutes (1 hour and 15 minutes) of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity such as running or a game of singles tennis every week. You should really aim for this to be deemed healthy and fit. However, I understand it can be difficult. 

All of us live different lives, and therefore we only have space or time for certain things. Because of this, it can be hard to find what exercise we are able to do or what interests us. It can be hard sometimes to find the right sport that keeps us motivated and eager. Whether it is badminton to hockey, there is a sport out there for all of us: you just have to find it. 

Unfortunately, even if we find the right exercise we may still not be able to do it; work or other past times might restrict us from getting to places or doing the things we want to do. I myself would love to do some kind of karate or martial arts, however I do not have the time, the money or the means of transport to get to somewhere which offers that. 

So, compromises have to be made and we have to find some sort of Cardio that we have time to do regularly, have the money to afford, the space to do it, and the motivation to carry on going. Finding this can be hard, and so the main options have to be clear and helpful.  To help myself and also you, I will be researching different sports and cardio methods and posting about them regularly- In order for us to have to have a wider knowledge of exercise and what the most effective methods are. 

In part 2, I will be going over the three most well known forms of exercising, Walking, Running and Cycling, and also talking about some well-known sports. 

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Insanity Restart- My Goals

Welcome to 5.14 fitness,

Today I will be posting about my goals for this month and what I am going to do in order to achieve them.

I have been mainly doing a lot of weight-training mixed with cardio and abdominal workouts lately. Although I am fairly sure that my abs have become more developed, I feel that they are not showing as much as they could do because of my body-fat percentage. I don't know what percentage I am at, but I am pretty sure that If I lessen it my body will become more shaped and my abs will start to show. 

In order to do this, I needed to include more cardio in my workout schedule. I do a stationary bike workout 3 times a week but that is pretty much it. I play football regularly and other sport but I do not get too much of a workout doing them ( they don't involve a lot of running and cardio). Because of all this, I feel like I need to be doing longer cardio that is more beneficial and will make me lose fat. This also has to comply with my free time and the space I have available. Therefore, I have decided that I will go for something I know is effective and will make me sweat! This is Insanity.

I have talked about Insanity a lot in previous posts- all of which have been about my weight loss transformation. Insanity was a key reason why I lost all my weight, as it is a high intensity workout that pushes you to your limits- resulting in high success. Having done it before, I know that it will be a successful method in shredding fat off my body. To learn more about it, please check out my weight loss journey posts. 

Introducing Insanity into my workout schedule means that I will have to make some sacrifices. I am going to try to do Insanity 3 times a week, followed by 20 minutes of weight training. On the other 3 days, I will perform an abdominal workout and either weight-lifting or cycling. I will try to do Insanity on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Hopefully, it will provide results and make me feel better also.

So, my goals for this month are as follows:

• Start Insanity again and keep at it for 3 days a week.
• Burn off fat to lower my body-fat percentage , in order for visibility in the abdominals region
• Eat less junk food and refrain from eating too much
• Strengthen my triceps and biceps

So, there are my goals for this month. I will keep updating on how Insanity is going. 

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WEIGHT LOSS JOURNEY: INSANITY ROUND 1

Welcome to 5.14 fitness,

This post is the fourth in which I talk about my journey from being very fat , to just the right weight. I went from a BMI of 27 to 19.8 in two years, and so have gone from very overweight to below normal weight. I can not really determine an exact time when I lost it all, but will tell you everything I did.

If you haven't read my introduction to this, then please do so- as it might really help you.
So, you have heard up to until I had just started Insanity. For those who can't remember ( or who just don't know ) , Insanity is a two month workout DVD that makes you burn a hell of a lot of calories, as well as build muscle. It uses high-interval training in order to make you work the most sweat- and it is extremely effective. You hardly get any rests, which increases the workload and thus means results occur quicker. It is one of the most effective and popular workout plans on the market.

I was quite fat and overweight when I started Insanity. I did it without really knowing what to expect, and I was spurred on to do it by watching an advert on TV. I recommend watching this advert, as it gives a lot of motivation to get up and exercise.
Anyway, I started Insanity and found the first day extremely hard. It made me sweat and breath so hard that I was in tears, rolling around the floor. Despite the fatigue, I felt so good at the end of it, and I felt ready to carry on going.

However, the tiredness started to kick in the following morning, and my legs hurt so much during the early stages of the day, The fatigue I felt in my body ( especially legs) was off the charts, but when I went to do the second day of Insanity, the fatigue quickly went away when I started working- so don't be worried that you will not be able to carry on after your first day!
After I had finished the second day, I experienced a massive headache- that hurt so much I needed to take pain killers for a whole night. This happened on the third day as well, and on the fourth also. But on the fourth they started to hurt less, and by the end of the week they were gone.

Along with the headaches, the fatigue in my legs also surpassed during the week. I didn't feel a thing from then on, which really signified the progress I had made in such a short time. Another sign of progress was the warm ups.
At the beginning of Insanity, I found the warm-ups very difficult, and had to rest after two of the three sets. During the week, I got better at the warm-ups- and by the end of the two months I could it with ease.

Over the next three weeks, I did Insanity every day apart form Sunday ( which was the rest day ) and I was feeling really good about myself. I was working so hard, and could see that I had slimmed down a bit, and I could perform sport like football easier and my stamina had increased. The workouts were still making me sweat buckets, but I could last for longer without having to rest or collapse to the floor in a mess.
I found it hard at time to have grip on the floor, as I was doing the workouts in bar foot on carpet. It would have been more effective wearing trainers- so I recommend doing that If possible.

Next post- Insanity month 2 and results.

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My weight loss journey- Insanity workout guide

Welcome to 5.14 fitness,

This post is the second in which I talk about my journey from being very fat , to just the right weight. I went from a BMI of 27 to 19.8 in two years, and so have gone from very overweight to below normal weight. I can not really determine an exact time when I lost it all, but will tell you everything I did.

If you haven't read my introduction to this, then please do so- as it might really help you.
Today post is all about the Insanity workout and what happens in it. I will also talk about how it was like for me at the beginning.
To recap, the Insanity workout is a series of DVD'S that put you through incredibly hard and physically tough workouts that aim to make you lose weight and build muscle as well. It lasts two months, but of course you can extend it to longer. The first month consists of 45 minute workouts everyday, and they are workouts that are not for the faint hearted. They make you sweat buckets, and you are exhausted beyond repair at the end.

It is high-interval training- this means you get really short breaks , and long, intense exercises in-between. This is proven to be the most effective way to lose weight and build muscle, however it is very hard. You have to have a lot of motivation to do this- and I found myself considering giving up after I found it so hard to begin with. But after a while, I started to find it easier, and I could keep up with the professional athletes sometimes.
Throughout every Insanity workout, you are instructed by Shaun.T, who is a professional in workouts, and gives you motivation throughout each workout. He is surrounded by athletes, all doing the workout alongside you. This is quite good as you can compare how you are doing to them, and also it can be comforting to see the professionals struggle to do some of the workout ( Yes that is how hard it is!) I thought Shaun T was a really good instructor, and always gave me great motivation and I liked him a lot. He got me through quite a few exercises I couldn't do,

You can download the full calender online, but here it is-

Don't be confused by the confusing names- all the workouts are quite similar. Some go purely for cardio, others work on strength more.

I will now explain what each workout is like:

You start of the workout with a warm-up. This is quite misleading, as the warm-up is very long and makes you sweat a lot- especially at the beginning of your month. It lasts almost 10 minutes, and consists of three sets of a circuit. This circuit always contains almost the same things: jogging, side steps, knee raises, 1 2 3 s etc...
The warm-up really gets your heart working, and it is quite good to recognise results with, I could clearly see that I was finding the warm-up easier with each day- which was great for motivation. Once again, you have little rest periods, just enough time to drink bit of water before exercising again.

After the warm-up, the stretches begin. Once again, this is very misleading. The stretches are incredibly hard, and they really hurt. Nearly all of them are like resistance training exercises, as they use your muscles . Just like a plank, the stretches requite you to pause in a stretch and hold it, causing your muscles to go into overload. This part was probably the hardest part of the workout on most days, which comes as a surprise as it is the stretch part!

After this, you spend the rest of the workout performing high-interval training. This means you are doing exercise after exercise with virtually no breaks. Of course, this leads to floods of sweat, and it pushes you to your limits, For about half an hour, you are working,working and working. Nothing but sweat and heavy breathing as you try to regain your breath. It is pure cardio and muscle work.

You have a cool down for about 3 minutes at the end, just to make sure you do not pick up injuries. This is very similar to the stretches- but not as hard.

Next post- first month of Insanity

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My weight loss journey - Insanity begginning

Welcome to 5.14 fitness,

This post is the second in which I talk about my journey from being very fat , to just the right weight. I went from a BMI of 27 to 19.8 in two years, and so have gone from very overweight to below normal weight. I can not really determine an exact time when I lost it all, but will tell you everything I did.

If you haven't read my introduction to this, then please do so- as it might really help you.
Carrying on from my last post, I was at the beginning of my journey, and I had just discovered about Insanity: the workout DVD that really packed a punch. I was ready to go, start this exercise daily, and get fit,however; I had to cross a bridge that was difficult to get across. I had already managed to overcome the laziness and disbelief, and decided to do the workout. Now I had to tell everyone else I was doing it...

This may not be the same for you, but I live in a family where I feel embarrassed quite easily. I have two sisters who will tease me, and a dad who will tease the most. Despite the fact it was my family, I did not know how to tell them I wanted to do Insanity. I felt to embarrassed to say so, and really didn't know the reaction that will happen. For me, it took a lot of guts to go and tell them.
So this is how I did it: my sisters were doing some dance video in the lounge, it was some sort of fitness DVD for dancers.  I was lucky, because this meant someone else was doing what I wanted to do- so I wasn't alone.
Just to add, I was going to do Insanity in my living room, as that is the only space big enough in my house to do it.
Anyway, I suggested I wanted to do Insanity, and went and did the first episode ( the test ) with my sister. Surprisingly, I started doing Insanity without anyone really asking me why or teasing me about it. This was really good as it made me relaxed when doing it, and now I had started, I couldn't bail out.

So Inanity is about £100 and you get about 10 DVDS in the pack, as well as free gifts and bonus videos. Despite this, I decided not to pay £100 , and streamed the videos on my laptop, which I then plugged into the TV. This meant I got it for free, and all I did was type which Insanity video I wanted into Google.
Here what the creator of Insanity, Shaun T, says about it:

When I created the INSANITY workout, I knew it would produce insane results in 60 days, but I wasn't sure if anyone 
was brave enough to try it. Turns out...there are a lot of crazy people out there. Crazy enough to actually enjoy doing 
the world's most insanely tough workout. To like the feeling of being drenched in sweat...of going balls-to-the-wall for 
a full 45 minutes of muscle-searing exercise. Is INSANITY hard? Oh, yeah. It really IS the hardest workout ever put on DVD. It's totally crazy...but it's going to get you crazy-good results.

I started Insanity with a fit test, where you jot down various result to see what kind of fitness level you are at. Things like push ups and so on. I performed these quite badly the fist time, but I may have done better, as I had no other results to compare mine with. 
After the fit test, I had the first day of high- interval training to complete. It was going to be tough, and it was going to hurt. But I was going to do it...

Next post - my first week at Insanity

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My weight loss journey - introduction and beginning

Welcome to 5.14 fitness,

Today's post is the start of a few that chronicle how I lost  a lot of weight over the past couple of years. I thought that writing this down would give those who want to lose weight a look at what really happens to an everyday guy - not some body-builder who 'claims'  he lost 10 kg in 1 month, This is really for anybody who wants to see a genuine weight loss journey, what I did, and how I did it.  This is real, and is not fake. Just to add, I did not go on a diet at all through this process.

To begin with, I will give a low down on what happened. About two years ago, I was very overweight, and did not look good at all. I was definitely 'fat', and I had a very big belly that you could see in whatever I was wearing. I would say my BMI was around 27, which is quite deeply in the overweight category , and 3 away from obese.
Over the next two years, I did more exercise, eat more healthily , and now I am a lot different.

To start with it, I am now at a normal weight, and I have a flat belly, as opposed to the big belly I had before. I now have a BMI of 19.8, which is a vast improvement from 27 or so. I now need to put on more weight to become healthier, and my BMI is in the low end of normal weight, which is very good.
I am now bombarded with people telling me how thin I have become, and demanding I tell them how I became "so thin" . Personally, I feel they over- exaggerate a bit, but I am very self concious so I Ill never really know.  There are still some people out there who call me fat, but all of them are people who knew me back then. Maybe they are still trying to use the leverage they used to have over me, or maybe they are just trying to make me feel like I have made no progress.
Nevertheless, I know, and I am constantly told, that I have lost a lot of weight, and the facts back up the point that I am now at a very healthy weight.

So, there was a bit of information about how I was then, and how I am now. The change was quite big, and , to be honest , there was not a certain thing that I did that was the reason I lost the weight. In other words, I cant find out what really made me lose weight, but I will tell you everything that I did. There was also never a time that I realised I was not fat any more- it was a very gradual process.

The first thing I did was gather hope. I had been on diets before, and they had never worked. I had cut off from chocolate for 4 months ( God knows how I did it ), and that did not work. So I knew I had to do more than just eat better- I needed to go be active. I needed to get up and do some exercise- whether it was strenuous or not. I needed to eat healthier food, not eat less.
So hope was key in spurring me to do these things. I need determination, something that would let me believe that I could do it - I could lose weight. This epiphany came to me whilst I was watching TV, and I saw some Teleshopping. A workout DVD was being advertised, and it persuaded me easily to go and start it. It gave me promises, that I would lose weight by the end of it. It gave me a clear view of what I would be doing. It also could be done in my house, which was the only place in which I had room to do exercise. Outside, the world was there and people I knew- so I didn't want to start jogging or cycling.. The workout DVD offered everything I wanted- results, weight loss , and the feel good factor.

This workout DVD was about to change my life, and cause me to start losing weight and becoming healthy. It would take up an hour of my day, everyday. This workout DVD was "Insanity".
Insanity is the name of the DVD, and it involved two months of incredibly high intensity exercise- hence the name.

In the next post, I will carry on my journey, and tell you all about insanity and what happened whilst I was doing it.

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