Right - end of May round-up, but very late!

First off, I took the pics, but have decided against putting them up as to be honest, I didn't think there was enough change. It was noticeable, but not what I'd wanted at halfway, so I renege on my promise and will keep my powder dry until judgement day. I wanna win this transformation thang!

So:

Booze - still teetotal. Aiming for six months dry as a target, which means mid-August. In reality, I'll do until the end of the comp at least.

Weight - down to 75kg and regularly dipping into the 74s, which is great. It seems that the weight loss has picked up again and though I know it's not the be-all and end-all, it's an easy set of numbers to check. Also, though there are visual differences between my starting pic and the mid-point pics I've chosen not to show, I think there's plenty to work on still. I said upfront I wanted functional strength and fitness, but I'd be lying if vanity didn't play a part.

Cardio - the good: The biking has been great still. Got a real mix of on and offroad done this month, including a 43 mile mtb enduro, which I sailed through fine due to sensible pacing, good nutrition and my fit mate breaking his gears and enforcing a slow pace! Also managed to average over 30kph on a short (25km) road route that included a decent hill to climb (think 200m heigh-gain).

Cardio - the bad: I wrote about niggles last time. Now I have achilles issues again, plus pain from what I assume to be ankle break related issues. I'm seeing a physio on Thursday, but running is on hiatus. Typical me - too much, too fast, too soon. I love running, so I always do this. I'll learn, but hopefully not before it's too late.

Weights - have not visited the gym. Working from home the last month makes it harder so rather than over-reach timewise, I've just stalled and focussed on home circuits, press-ups, core stuff, plus the installation of a fingerboard (and now associated niggling finger tendon. I know. I was told so...). However, I've upped my RMC press-up and sit-up numbers, which will partly be having to shift less weight, but also just doing it in circuits, so getting better. I have weak tris as wide press-ups are easier, so I've added some dips into my circuit.

Summary - I said I was being hard on myself last month and it showed in the end May result. I've gone more easy on myself this month and despite lots of home and work stress and I've lost weight, made good bike gains and had fun working out, so I'm in a positive frame of mind. Things to work on for the next months are diet, which is slipping back to convenience as work gets tough and weights. After a holiday next week, I have a six week slot before a two week trekking holiday where I can focus on gym work and build the some more core and compound strength that will see me through repeated long days with a bag on my back. Add to this the physio exercises designed to get me back to running and I'll be pretty busy, but it's worth it.

I've also been experimenting with daylight living, so setting an early alarm and waking around five, then going to bed between nine and ten as dusk gathers. When I get a good run at it I feel very relaxed and energised, but interruptions like late nights of too much afternoon caffeine keeping me awake really ruin it.

I hope so. The annoying thing is that the prescription for strengthening last time was running! The achilles rather ruins that. We'll see.

When I bummed around the world a few years back I really got into it. With no electricity in lots of places you just go to sleep when it gets dark and get up when it's light. It's actually really nice and I find it works well, but our modern life doesn't allow it in the winter, so you have to be careful long term to get enough rest otherwise you're basically depriving yourself of sleep in the annual cycle.

Kind of, yeah, only in the summer it's quite early to bed and madly early to rise and in the winter it's as early to bed as you can manage and late to rise. The whole point being you don't have set times every day, you just go to bed when you're tired. It only really works if you sleep with the curtains open of course, but after a while I find I wake up before my alarm and then only really set the alarm as an emergency back-up in case I sleep in.

It provides an interesting set of feedback on your body too. If you start to get ill, over-trained or overworked, your body automatically tries to rest more, which becomes obvious quite quickly as you wake later despite going to bed earlier.

I'm not terribly hippy per say (bearing in mind the closes town is Stroud, which I think will make sense to you at least...). That's to say horoscope toting folk waving a crystal over my aura will get a slap, but I'm a firm believer in listening you your body, using RPE as well as an HRM for cardio and so on.

I don't really do sleep which I know hurts growth but I genuinely feel, its not necessary for me to sleep much.

I go to bed midnight or after and get back up at around 5-5.30am and either go to work or go for a run along the beach. My girlfriend loves my sleeping habits......NOT!

I'm pretty intense at everything I do and because of that I think I don't sleep much since I'm always so alert.

To be honest, I think folk like you, me and some of the people that train hard take a different view on life. Most couch potato guys I know actually sleep quite a lot even if its not as much as their girlfriends.

I realise I should sleep more its just down to the fact it goes against what I'm like. When I was bulking, training very hard and eating lots of food, I tried various sleeping tablets to help me sleep a bit longer and it was a partial success.

The thing that actually worked most for me was finding the right level of intensity and training in the evening. If I train flat out, I can't sleep for several hours afterwards due to exhaustion but if I got it right I slept very well.

Interestingly, a lot of articles and programs on pro athletes talk about how much rest they get. Of course, as a pro, you can schedule naps in the day in the same way as training sessions, whereas for us muggles who want to train a lot but unfortunately don't get paid for it we have to make do.

I do sleep quite a lot - I always try and get seven to eight hours and tend to drop off within ten minutes of getting to bed and wake up fresh. I find if I'm resting right there's no transition time from sleep to wake either, so it's eyes open and fully functioning immediately, not struggling to prise my bones from the bed. It's taken quite some time to transition from the late-night TV watcher or chore doer to actually winding down early, but it is such a nice feeling to destress from the day throughout the evening and get a great night's sleep!

I often sleep 8hrs or more if I am allowed.

My normal sleep patern is 2200hrs to 0700hrs, I like sleep.

If I don't get enough sleep I don't function properly, I become ratty and aggressive. I find if I have missed sleep that I owe myself the hours I've lost, sounds stupid I know but that is how it is wth me.

I also take Zopiclone if I am running fast, this slows me down.

There are a few ways of getting around this:
-stop thinking. (Possible but tough for most people without a lot of practice.)
-count sheep (or in fact focus on any irrelevant subject eg your breathing in and out)
-play gentle, non-stimulating music and actively listen to it until the boredom of it means you fall asleep
-visualise some sort of boring story eg imagine you're on a deserted beach, sunbathing, and visualise everything - the sand, the sound of the water, the feel of the sun on you

I didn't actually enter the 'Transformation' thing.. But;

7 weeks & lost 9kg so far.

Much, much fitter it's unbelievable! First started going, struggled to do a few miles on the bike.. Yesterday I busted out 20 miles cycling and could have kept going, just got abit bored. My target is the London>Brighton next year so need to double what I'm doing so far. Also doing some weights and definitely lifting more etc.