Today I did my fitness testing.  I probably should have done this on day 0, however it’s quite hard to find time to fit things in sometimes.

The fitness testing is as many push ups in one minute, as many pull ups in one minute, max deadlift, and your time for a 1km run.   I have also added in a strict press (AKA a military press) as I want to increase my shoulder strength.  One of my goals for the 8 weeks is to press my body weight.  As it turns out my strict press 1RM is only 47.5BW, so I need to add another 20KG to that for BW.  It will be quite an achievement to hit this goal!

My 1km run I did at Holme Pierrepont – where there’s a nice open straight 2km stretch.  This turned out to be quite a mistake!  Firstly it was freezing, so I ran in a hoodie and trousers, which most likely slowed me down.  Also I ran into a headwind, causing me to feel quite out of breath.  I think I might have a cold, which whilst not taking full grip of me lowered my breathing ability.  My heart rate didn’t go much about 180BPM simply because I couldn’t get enough air to push myself to my max.  I’ll have to redo this test.

My results so far:

• 1RM Strict press: 47.5KG
• 1RM deadlift: 135KG (exactly 2 x BW – but with some horrific form!)
• 32 Push ups
• 14 pull ups

Breakfast

Greek yogurt, half a mango and flax seed

Snack #1 was missed today – naughty me!  I was busy shopping, and lack of preparation hit me.

Lunch

Home made bolognese, a courgette and some feta cheese.

Snack #2

A home made juice thing!  I got a new blender today (I should post a review, it’s really cool!) which means I can join the juice craze.  I don’t like to juice if I can avoid it, as I’d rather eat food ‘properly’ – however I’m hoping this might save time.

Ingredients

• Handful of spinach (hence it being green!)
• Linseed (Aldi seem to do this fairly cheep)
• A banana
• 200ml of Almond milk
• 75ml of coconut milk

Dinner

Time for a cheat meal.  I was told I needed to have one (usually I wouldn’t!) so I had a bread roll.

1 x homemade burger
sweet potato fries
halloumi
side salad

Snack #3

Very similar to the dinner, but no cheating on this one and less carbs.  Lack of a bread roll meant using a cos lettuce leaf as a container!

I’ll put a post up about my burger recipe, it’s real simple but doesn’t involve an egg or any binding agent – and as you see from the pictures they don’t fall to bits when cooking.