Yup, thankfully my wife is a trained nurse (now a senior midwife) and knew straight away that I wasn’t suffering from some weird liver disease. She calmed me right down (after she stopped laughing)!!

On my quest to eat more healthily, I decided to add in beetroot (along with other things) to my diet…on the packet it say 3 pieces is a serving…who am I to argue with that!! But apparently if you eat too much beetroot, your pee (and poo) all come out pink. Surfing the internet for information about ‘pink pee’ I discovered that it even has a name, “Beeturia”. Yup I now have this completely harmless condition, which clears itself after a day or two. You will be glad to know gentle reader of this blog, that my pee is now back to normal…(unless I have more beetroot).

As well as adding more vegetables to my diet, the detox regime is still going well too. Eddie has told me to start adding honey to my lemon and apple cider vinegar detox drink (twice a day I drink this, an hour before meals). Wow!! What can I say; the honey gives you a sugar rush feeling like no other. You are buzzing on this stuff…I wonder if I could sell it as a wonder drink! It is a natural form of energy booster.

Its 4 weeks since I began the detox and diet change; and I must say it’s making a dramatic difference. As someone once said, ‘It takes 30 days to change a habit’. For breakfast I have porridge made with water (in a pot, not nuked) and load it with a variety of fruits, strawberries, apples or even just a big handful of mixed dried fruit. It’s great. At first Eddie told me I could have eggs afterwards as well but as the exercising has kicked in, I find that the porridge is more than enough.

Now exercising, what has Eddie had me doing? Last week I told you about him getting me up to 120 bench steps. Well pah, that has been surpassed, he has increased that number to 180 and this “fat man slimming” is finding out I can actually do it. Apart from what he has already had me doing, he has me rising off the bench with a 3 Kilo ball and pushing it above my head. Again in the early he had me doing 20…well now that is up to 50. In fact most of the other exercises he has given me the repetitions of each of them have increased well over 100% from what we started at (or realistically what I could achieve in at the start). It’s a real credit to Eddie (and me for doing it of course), that HE has managed to get me to that level of activity.

I have been really pleased with my own personal progress on this journey and what is even better to tell you are that people have been noticing the difference too, particularly those who I haven’t seen in a couple of months.

Even after this short period of time, between the exercising, detox and diet change Eddie has got me doing my body is processing the food in a different way. It’s not trying to burn the carbohydrates off I had loaded into it, but it is burning fat away at an incredible rate, which is exciting. I eat constantly throughout the day as like anyone else I don’t want to be hungry, but I eat only good things now and it’s easy. The good habits are taking over….yup in only 3 weeks. My wife keeps chocy biccies for herself to go with her hot chocolate (she’s a chocoholic), but I really don’t want one, so she doesn’t have to hide them from me.

So at the end of this week (for those of you who want to know), my weight is down to 280lbs (a full stone has been lost). It would be nice to think that it will constantly fall off at the rapid rate it is has been doing. But all research shows it will soon slow down to a more sedate pace and that’s a good thing too. I want these changes to be permanent.

Regards

Gordon Dow

By Eddie Brown

Many of you may be wondering exactly what Gordon is doing as part of his workout routine.

Here it is:

30 - 45 minutes fast walking

walking is a fantastic form of exercise, especially if you are carrying some extra weight! Or if you are just embarking on a new workout routine after some time off. Is is essential that you push yourself for the duration of the walk, faster is not always better. It is just important that you push yourself.

Step ups on a park bench

lead with your left leg for 10 repititions, then lead with your right leg for 10 repititions

REPEAT THIS 3 TIMES (total reps = 60)

Bench squats (50 reps)

Begin by standing with your feet close to the park bench, sit down slowly until you are siiting on the bench, stand up without using your hands (i.e. pushing on your thighs to help you stand up, providing balance and extra leverage)

Shoulder girdle release with 3kg medicine ball (3 x 15 reps)

Squats with 3kg medicine ball (3 x 15 reps)

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By Gordon Dow

You are looking someone who used to watch “You Are What You Eat”, lounging on the couch whilst enjoying a large latte and munching on a chunky KitKat.  So therefore I am a latte and a KitKat.  My bad eating habit were one of reasons that that the weight piled on.

I have just finished my first week with Ed, my personal trainer and thankfully, he has started me off gently. My perception and I suspect the perception of many other who are considering taking on a personal trainer is that, what they will do is take you purely for training and push you pretty much straight into a punishing routine that ‘you should perceive’ will do you some good in the long term.

My first session, was all questions…a whole hour of chatting! A discussion about what I wanted to achieve, my diet, what needed to change, what we would be doing in terms of exercise and what type of results we could expect ….All though I was in no pain at this first session, I was a little shocked!!  Here was something I didn’t expect, which I can only describe it as Eddie’s unique approach to personal training.

Eddie said that he would be working with me to get every aspect of my body moving and working and improving my health, not just getting fit…I began to realise from our discussions, there was going to be more than just getting some exercises done.   He asked me to start detoxing myself for about six weeks.  So no coffee, no alcohol, no wheat, no red meat, no dairy products and surprisingly enough, no microwaving my food.   Losing the coffee would you believe was my biggest fear…I admit it; I am addicted to the stuff.  But I must say, being on the detox alone has improved my skin (did I just say that) and I am sleeping better at night.    I’ll do a whole post later about my new diet.  He also said, the he didn’t even consider weight loss as a focus, saying the focusing getting fit, would bring the results of losing weight itself…

and of today it’s 290lbs…down 4lbs in a week.

Now the exercising has begun.   What sort of things does he have me doing?  Well firstly we start with a walk round Leith Links, (where I live) well hold on, it’s walking at a pace to break a sweat.   So it’s pushing my body.   My legs have never worked so hard, or so I thought.  Next we stop off in the park to work on the upper body.   A variety of exercises which, although easy to do, are hard from the point of view my body hasn’t done anything like this in years.   But I am pleased to report that even after a week of doing them; I have increased the number of each of them…so bring it on!!

Kind regards

by, Gordon Dow

I never thought that one day I would be sitting here telling the world that I now weigh close to 300lbs!!  But there it is; the brutal truth of the situation for all to see.  My actual weight is 294lbs…not a pretty site, I know.

Can this really be me?

Waist 141cm (55.5 inches)

Hips 137 cm (54 inches)

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