For a few years now, I have had a tradition of applying for a space in the London Marathon without believing I would get a spot. The reason for that was a joke that if I ever do a marathon, it will be a London Marathon.
On 26.06.2024, I weighed myself and noticed that I hit 125kg again after a few years, and it wasn’t an achievement.
(Picture is from next day)
I was NOT proud of it, and then I got an email that said:
Your 2025 TCS London Marathon Ballot result: YOU’RE IN! Congratulations Dominik! We’re delighted to offer you a place in the 2025 TCS London Marathon, which takes place on Sunday 27 April
Well … o sh*t. What to do now?
I was thinking for a few seconds and realised that I had not achieved my goal of weighing 90kg for a few years now. There are many reasons for that, but they don’t matter.
What matters is that I started with 25kg to lose, and now I have 35kg to lose. It is not exactly a successful weight loss journey.
I decided to use running the London Marathon as an excuse to lose weight and transform my lifestyle to improve my health.
I aim to write a weekly retrospective on how last week went, good or bad, and I will focus on one thing next week with some additional information relevant to this journey.
What’s the starting point?
The bad news.
- I am about to be 42 years of age, 183cm of weight, and weigh 125kg, which puts me in the obesity category.
- I feel the impact of obesity by being tired in the evening, and my productivity is low due to being unfit.
- I feel the increasing speed of ageing and its impact on me.
- The main issue is my moderate passion to beer, never say not to food and struggle to stick to exercise routine due to British weather and tiredness.
- Another problem is I am out of shape, and my lung performance has always been rubbish, and it gets worse.
However, there is some good news.
- I am not completely unfit. I walk an average of 13000 steps per day.
- Last month, I participated in a step competition with my friend and completed 770.000 steps!
- I go to the gym 1-4 times per week for a 30-45 minutes bike ride in heart zone 2 (I don’t do Zone 2 training )
- I am trying to do rucking 1-2 per week
- I do weightlifting for a few minutes 3 times per week.
What’s the plan?
- Phase 0. Research and Planning
- Phase 1. Lose weight and get into the routine. (A step that is most challenging for me in general)
- Phase 2. Sep-Dec focus on prep from 0 to half marathon
- Phase 3. Jan-Apr focus on half marathon to marathon
To be successful, I need to stick to routine and focus on a few aspects :
1. Diet
- I need strict control of my diet, with allowances for cheat days.
- Reduce alcohol intake to twice per month for a few beers only.
- Reduce the amount of food I am eating. Let’s face it: in order to be able to lose weight, I need to accept basic physics principles; I need to burn more energy than I intake in food and drinks.
2. Exercise. In order to have the chance to do a marathon.
- Cycling on the bike in the gym in zone 2 (I use a breathing proxy as explained by Peter Attia as a proxy as I don’t have a device to measure lactose, and to a lesser extent, I use heart rate that usually matches that breathing level) This to improve the cardiovascular system. I want to do once a week 4×4 protocol on the bike to improve my vo2 max.
- Rucking is a fast walking with a weighted backpack. (Mine is an everyday backpack with iron plates that weigh around 30kg.
- Running because it is the fastest way to finish a marathon 42.2km 😀
- Strength training because I need to build muscle around my knees and skeleton to reduce the damage I will cause to them.
3. Sleep
- At least 7 hours to allow my body to recover
4. Supplements
- I had a list of things to take to provide my body with all the things I thought my body needed during that period.
- I need to figure out what to eat during
My main focus for next week is to do some research and planning. I will follow my current routine and create a scoring system to see how I follow.
Thank you for reading. Until next time!
Dominik Symonowicz 