Why Can't You Train?!

No one seems to have the time to train. 

"I just can't see myself fitting in a session this week, Freddie", they'll tell me, like they're some sort of new age, middle-class martyr. 

"Oh, God. I completely understand. Absolutely no problem at all. Maybe see you next week?" I reply, in my most assuasive of tones .

"Sure thing. I just need to check my diary and shuffle a few things around. Never stops, eh?" She or he then laughs. It's always followed by a self-affirming chuckle. 

It might seem like I'm being cast away, denied the second date. 'No, I'll call you'. Unfortunately not and now I have to deal with someone who has convinced themselves that they're as busy as the leader of the free world. 

"Are you really, really telling me you don't have one hour in your whole week in which you could exercise? Please. Just set aside your growing concerns about Russia and stop trying to work out where the actual fuck The Isle of Man is and walk, run, jump, lift...even do some Zumba. Actually, don't do Zumba. Don't ever do Zumba. We all have an obligation to move, not even your Twitter account should get in the way of that." They nod merrily like one of those dogs from Churchill insurance. They've stopped listening.

I hate returning to myself. I guess it's the 'go-to' for the emotionally stunted, unable to empathise convincingly. 

"Gosh, that's awful! And so young! I don't know what to say... ." 

"That's very sweet of you Fre... ."

"...except that when I lost Chanel, as in Coco, my goldfish, it took hours to get over her. Grief is unquantifiable like that." I wisely reel off. They didn't really know what they wanted to say anyway.  

So, I'm still running one hundred kilometres and as you can imagine, it requires plenty of what we (soon to be 'we') ultra-marathon runners call 'time on foot' or 'time on feet', which one escapes me. Regardless, if you're running for twelve hours, you need to get use to being on your feet. The training is not about distance covered or speed raced.

Now, let's not get bogged down in the minutiae of training techniques because all I'm really trying to drill home is that, whether you split your training up into digestible chunks or close your eyes and swallow it whole, like a good boy should, I don't really care. I'm not your fucking mother and shouldn't have to sit you down and micromanage your calendar.

I will finish with this though: if Tony Blair could take time out from bombing countries with weapons of mass seduction, to have a jog around Chequers while Cherie tied squirrels up by their ankles just because she "didn't trust the unpredictable movement of their tails", so can you.

Train. Find the time... .

'The Messiah Complex'

 
    Albert Einstein said that "you can't blame gravity for falling in love". You can, however, blame it for running badly. Let me expand on this: running is essentially just controlled falling. The sole reason for not crashing magnificently into the dirt is the jumping action you perform that propels you upwards and onwards. Now, if you weigh more than you should, the jumping bit gets harder, if you weigh less, it gets easier and if you weigh too little (relatively), it also becomes more difficult.

 With these thoughts rattling around in my head, it's conspicuously apparent I'm carrying 'a little post holiday, holiday weight'. In the months of January and February I have been nothing if not Bacchanal but not in the good, glitter-ending-up-in-every-orifice-kind-of-way. I'm carrying 'a little post holiday, holiday weight'. So, taking on board this obvious cosmic message, I'm shifting the weight. Here's how...

'The Tale of the Cuban Peasant'

On the whole, I eat meat as frequently as if I were a Cuban. The average working salary, daily, is $30. The cost beef/lb is around $3. That's 10% of my daily income. If you had to spend 10% of your daily income, how often would you buy beef? Not very often. So, I tend to live off vegetables, eggs, pulses and rice and bean combos so that I nail all the right amino acids. They're also light in the stomach, easily digested and taste like Fidel Castro...in a nice way.

An example:

Mix kidney beans, wholegrain rice, coriander (or basil or parsley), halved baby tomatoes, broccoli (I microwave it), cubed beetroot (you can buy it already cooked), olive oil and a shit load of lemon juice (I avoid onions for obvious social reasons). To jazz the dish up, add toasted pine nuts, some feta cheese and maybe some toasted cumin seeds. Pomegranate seeds are always a good shout as well but you do run the risk of communicating only in vowel sounds and using words like 'yummy'. Having said that, as Deliciously Ella once wrote, "Be a pineapple: stand tall, wear a crown and be sweet inside."  But, as I say, "Be an electric toothbrush in a Catholic girls school".

I should add, briefly, that eating meat on a daily basis is as good for our planet as driving around in tank that's only fuel is baby orangutans and rhino horn.

2. 'The Messiah Complex'

In an increasingly secular world, we naturally look for a higher being and purpose. The idea that we might be left to our own devices is too much, hence bootcamp was created, and strip clubs. Anyway, brushing that aside reluctantly, I'm using fasting to help speed up weight loss. Fasting works for some but not for others, requires a degree of will power and is not the right or wrong way by any means.

I wrote a blog post explaining about fasting but to summarise: I don't eat for 16-17 hours (from 8pm to 12 to 1pm, this drops my insulin levels and by the morning I'm in a zone called 'ketosis' that signifies I'm now burning fat as my main fuel source. I only drink water and have one cup of coffee with a tablespoon of MCT oil (pure coconut oil - 100% saturated fat), I also take my omega 3 tablets with my coffee as research suggest this not only boosts the metabolism but also helps ward off Alzheimer's as the combination of MCT's (medium-chain triglycerides) and omegas is rocket fuel for your brain.

*NB I will be soon trialling a powder called 'Keto OS' that one takes with water and that places your body into an instant state of ketosis WITHOUT HAVING TO FAST OVERNIGHT, so can be taken at any time of the day. Apparently it's not unlike the film 'Limitless'. The powers that be tell me, "Ketosis grants a world where 'slumps' don't exist, you just freebase along a perfect river, without the turbulence energy spikes create." We shall see... .


I'm afraid time allows only two points to be shared. More will follow. Besides, there is plenty to get stuck into.

Winter Lessons

I would be a liar if I said that 'I'm always learning', I'm really not, but this winter has thrown up a few morsels, they are as follows:

Not all pretentious ingredients are pretentious

I found out that my beloved CHIA seed was deeply treasured by the Mayans - which means they've been common Mexican knowledge for a good 2,200 years. The word 'Chia' means 'strength' (not small car) and the Mayans believed that just one spoonful would keep a 'Mayanian'(?) going for up to 24hrs...doing whatever it is Mayans did, which I assume is run around naked chasing bears and leaving hieroglyphics for Mel Gibson. Anyway, Chia seeds are brimming with omegas, zinc and a little calcium, so get stuck in.

Shoulder stability

Rather than retracting your shoulder blades when lifting something off the ground, a good cue to enhance your lift is to "put your shoulder blades in your back pockets". Ah...salmon skin roll.

Vitamin D is the shit 

I started taking it during the winter as we generally can't get enough. I take it in spray form in the belief it does this:

1. Aids calcium absorption (healthy bones).
2. Some report a possible connection between Vitamin D levels and the mood-enhancing neurotransmitter serotonin but studies are a tad inconclusive.
3. Boosts your immunity, especially against colds and flu (yes, even the man flu) as the immune system uses Vitamin D to make antimicrobial weapons that puncture holes in bacteria and viruses, which sounds very chique.

Empathy, 'the action of understanding'

My mother told me recently, whilst emerging from a cloud of flour and caster sugar, that "you mustn't try and rationalise, reason or explain somebody's pain; people only want their pain to be acknowledged". Mothers are wise like that...but also wildly inconsistent because she followed with, "but did you also know moles are haemophiliacs?". I did.

I'm Running 100k

It's been around two and a half years since I last wrote anything other than a drunken thank-you letter in which I told my best friend's parents that they were inextricably linked with me, like Bonnie and Clyde. It didn't make much sense. I regret it quite a bit. Anyway, I'm going to run 100k at the end of May - I thought the next few months might be of interest to some of you floating out there in the ether, crushing up morphine and talking to Christian Slater. 

Why?

"Why are you running 100k?!", people ask immediately. I always feel a bit like a fitness Bob Geldof at this point: "Why do anything, man? I just want to encourage the children of Africa to get outside and run more." In reality, I want to travel beyond (no, I'm not talking about the M1 and 'The North'), to see what lies past the point where my legs physically cannot continue, where my synapses are flickering like white noise on a wood panelled TV...in a motel...off a dusty track....near an old cotton plantation. If that thing is a liminal space with Mathew McConaughey holding Winona Ryder's son in it, great. Though, hopefully not.

The Plan:

Lose Weight - for every extra kilo you carry, a fairy dies somewhere...and you also shave around 2 minutes off your marathon time (assuming you weigh 83kg, like me). Do the "math".

Keep Lifting - preventing against injuries and maximising efficiency of movement is absolutely integral to running the best race possible. Strength and conditioning work predominantly geared towards my posterior chain and core will play the main role in this. Wow, that was a serious bullet point. Boobies.

Diet - (this actually doesn't overlap with the first point) eating is going to be all about performance, so expect boring paragraphs about complex carbohydrates. 

Time - is a flat circle. Balancing a work, life and mild-to-downright debaucherous lifestyle is tricky, especially with a full-time job. Yes, personal training is AN ACTUAL JOB.

Mental - sieving through the maelstrom, sorting out the shit in your noggin and arriving at a better understanding of yourself is something we should all do, not just people with halitosis and incense. 

Anyway, I'm rusty and bound to start fucking up my 'i before c's except after d's'. The next post will follow shortly and will be much more useful than this self-indulged nonsense.

How to Deal With Man Flu

I stared death in the face as I began to slide off this mortal coil. I saw a light, Jesus was waiting at the end. He was black, with a nose piercing. He bore an uncanny resemblance to Lenny Kravatz. In and out of consciousness I slipped. The Night Nurse had taken hold. She was a cruel mistress. I saw shapes in the darkness. Shapes that metaphorthasised into the illustrations of my subconscious. Unicorns without horns. Probably just horses. Dragons without wings. Probably just fat lizards. Men with the eyes of children but the tears of a generation, pillaging villages made of marshmallows. But here I sit, well 'n' rosy, tapping away at my typewriter, a survivor of...MAN FLU.

What is Man Flu?

According to Google: noun

informalhumorous

1. a cold or similar minor ailment as experienced by a man who is regarded as exaggerating the severity of the symptoms.
2. 
   
3. "Greg was off sick with man flu, according to his wife"
4. 
   
5. 
   

   Well, Google, you can take your deluded idea of self-importance and blow it into a Google sized handkerchief*, because the influenza virus is in fact SCIENTIFICALLY proven, by real life scientists (not the shady authority that is Greg's wife) to hit men harder than their ethereal female counterparts. This is due, predominantly, to the higher levels of testosterone present in males, which can weaken their immune responses.                                                                                                                                                                                              What to Do When You Have Man Flu (and begin to unconsciously rhyme):

   
   

   1. Echinacea and Vitamin C - only effective when taken before even the first symptoms rear their ugly heads. There is little point in taking the above once Man Flu has taken grip(e). So, in short, you have to be fucking psychic to make this one work. 

   
   

   2. Pills and Syrups - paracetamol, gauifenesin, phenylephrine hydrochloride, pholcodeine, codeine...you name it, take it. Take the lot. Now, be warned, there will be instructions on the boxes of these beautiful beasts saying that you should take a "measured amount". Well, that is the establishment once again dictating your life. You are a testosterone filled (which partly got you into this sticky mess in the first place) individual. You can think, dream, laugh, empathise, cry and experience the richness of life without being told to mind the gap between the train and the platform. So, from experience, it's best to double the dosage of whatever they say. Quite frankly, if a 13 year old child is being told to take the same amount as you, then something is deeply wrong with the system. Also, mix your medicines. Do not stick to one bottle, pill, lozenge. Variety is the spice of life.
   

   
   

   3. Hot Toddy - whisky, lemon and honey (manuka, preferably). To be taken at ANY time in the day. Do not restrict to just the evening - "before you go to bed".

   
   

   4. Water - it'll taste like utter shit, but drink it anyway. Your body consists of 99.9% water...or something like that.

   
   

   5. Menthols - if you must smoke, smoke menthols. Now you know what it's like to be a 16 year old girl again.

   
   

   So, there we go, avoid young children, airplanes, trains - anything with 'public' before it. If you have to work with children, don't touch them. If you must take public transport, be as Asians be and mask-the-fuck-up. Now, go forth and enjoy your Christmas holidays free of sickness. 
6. 
   
7. 
   

*'Handkerchief' is a ridiculous word to spell. If you don't feel silly whilst trying to write it (no one can spell it right first time, obviously) you are dead inside and have bigger, more existential, problems than bad grammar or man flu symptoms.

I Do Two Things, Daily

I do two things, everyday, without fail. They have become ritualised, ingrained 
like concentric layers into my own tapestry. They are things that you may choose to do; you may not. Either way, they are:

1. Run & Walk - we are humans (after all). We are designed to move. Run or walk, 
or do both BUT please move, daily. Walking helps drain your lymphatic system - 
moving lymph through the body, clearing out your body's sewer network; walking 
will strengthen your heart, improve your balance and coordination, strengthen 
bones, increase vitamin D (if done outside - who the fuck walks on a treadmill - 
a preserve of the Bourgeoisie), manage blood pressure and type 2 diabetes. Oh, 
and helps prevent against VARICOSE VEINS. Want to look like a London Tube map? 
Exactly.

Some of you will be reading this from the cosy confines of your local gym, where 
you are placed ceremoniously on a vibrating plate, praying to God that if you 
stay put for long enough, whilst flicking your shaky digits through Zoe Sugg's 
latest work, your body will enter metamorphosis. Not only do you have 
splendiferously awful taste in literature, you are wrong. If you want to lose 
weight, you must move. That is a fact. 

2. Coffee & MCT oil - I wake up, I feed my puppy/small pony (Wilbur), he then 
runs around manically like he's been on crystal meth all night and I turn on the 
Nespresso machine. I put two tablespoons of MCT oil in the bottom of the cup and 
add a double espresso. The following ten minutes are passed in silent, catholic 
ecstasy. Why do I do this, asides for the pure, unadulterated joy? MCT oil is 
comprised of medium-chain triglycerides. They improve cognitive function (help 
prevent Alzheimer's), hormone balance, metabolism, blood sugar and appetite 
regulation. Combine this with coffee and you might feel like you could run for 
President. I will leave it there, do your own research. Do not embrace 
dogmatism. I am not the fold, neither the preacher. My word is certainly not 
gospel.

Keep Calm and Avoid Rehashed Motivational Posters

I stand on the precipice. I don't feel any different but I know I'm there. It's just one reformed thought, a recycled dream, a distorted, Munch flashback. What am I talking about? Stress, man: doing too much; pushing through a continuum and breaking out the other side like a new born foal, weak and reliant. With a few exceptions, stress fucks up progress, be it weight loss, muscle gain, pseudo corporate aspirations or other-worldly enlightenment, stress will bring it all down with a crude, corrosive grace and before you know it, you'll be lying face down in a pool of your own vomit, a halo of Glen's vodka bottles around your head and diazepam packets strewn laissez-faire across the sodden,Travel Inn carpet you now call home. 

Things that happen when one is stressed:

• Chemicals get released (Cortisol)
• Heart rate goes up
• Blood vessels dilate
• Breathing increases
• Sweat production increases
• Metabolism slows down
• Muscles become tense
• Pupils enlarge
• Sex hormone production goes down
• You end up looking like the love child of Margret Thatcher and a bit of bark

This is bad because:

No one wants to come across as a sweaty, sexless, hyperventilating, skinny mess, with eyes like a 90s raver and look that says, "I'm being haunted by roads not taken and/or there is a purple dragon chasing me." But also, it makes it VERY DIFFICULT TO LOSE BODY FAT IF YOU ARE STRESSED. Why? 

CORTISOL

Cortisol is released in the adrenal glands and controls glucose metabolism, inflammatory response, immune function, blood pressure, to name just a few. Cortisol levels are highest in the mornings (hence why 16 hour fasting/skipping breakfast can work for weightloss, as you're not consuming calories when your cortisol levels are highest and, therefore, are most likely to store it as fat).

What positives are there, if any?

Cortisol can give you a quick burst of energy - good when being chased by an actual dragon, blue or otherwise.

Heightened memory functions - good for boardroom presentations or meeting deadlines or...*he pauses, acutely aware that this is as far as his office based empathy travels*

Lower sensitivity to pain - good for sport, and S&M.

What negatives are there? (NB. Some of the following are only brought about after prolonged cortisol release)

Muscle breakdown and fat storing (for the fight or flight burst of energy)

Suppressed thyroid function

Increased abdominal fat 

Lowered immunity

Impaired cognitive function

Decreased bone density

Now, all this sounds rather apocalyptic. It is. Stop stressing so much. 

How?

Insulin spike - take on some fruit and your insulin levels will spike. Insulin negates cortisol. 

Walk - clean up that lymphatic system, get the blood moving and release some endorphins.

Meditation - don some hemp, get the Jo Malone candles out (incense is for the working class), put on the kind of music you'd imagine giving birth to, cross your legs and envelope your senses with existentialism. Or buy a guided meditation from iTunes.

Nihilism - come to the obvious realisation that everything is nothing; that there is a calming absence of truth and reason. But, as Iggy Pop once said, "Nihilsm is best done by professionals". So, make of it what you will...hopefully not that much.