09.06.08
Posted in General Colin McNulty Stuff at 7:46 pm by Colin McNulty
I’ve spent the last few weeks working on my ESA Astronaut Application offline. Having a month from the time the application process opened, before the submission deadline, has given me time to mull over some of the questions. It’s also given me time to collate all the data too, such as the name, address, manager and salary of every job I’ve ever had, of which there have been many.
The last 2 evenings has seen me putting all the information in, reviewing it, fiddling with bits, correcting and elaborating, until finally I was happy with the application as a whole. Now it’s just a waiting game to see how I fair and whether I will advance to the next stage. I would say wish me luck, but I don’t actually believe in luck. “Luck” is where opportunity and preparation meet. The opportunity has arisen, and now only time will tell whether I was prepared for it or not.
I’ve put a lot of thought into how my life will change if I am selected and it’s a pretty exciting prospect. Certainly the course of the future will change radically, with a permanent move to Germany and the potential for long term stays in Russia and America. Of course that will all pale into insignificance compared to the chance to actually go into space!
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06.06.08
Posted in Friday Fun, General Colin McNulty Stuff at 5:49 am by Colin McNulty
First there was the dancing gorilla:
Then the dancing monkey troop:
And finally, the dancing contortionist:
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05.06.08
Posted in General Colin McNulty Stuff, The Zone Diet Blog at 5:07 am by Colin McNulty
I’ve not done an update on how my diets going for some time. I figured to be honest that with not going down the gym, it would probably all go wrong. I’m pleased to report then, that it hasn’t. I should say however, that I don’t really consider myself “on a diet” but rather when I talk about my diet, I’m talking about the sum total of the food that I normally eat.
In the last 4 months my weight has remained relatively constant at 13 stone (182 pounds / 83kg). Some days a little under, some days a little over. The total fluctuation has been a swing of 7 lbs / 3 kg. Considering I’ve done very little exercise in the last 4 months, this is quite pleasing.
It’s fair to say that my waist has increased marginally, by just 1/2 an inch to 36.5 at the widest point, I’m still just about in my 34″ waist trousers and 36″ trousers drown me now. This gives me a percentage body fat calculation of 18%, which is perfectly acceptable, but still not where I’d like to be.
I achieved the above by cutting back on my daily blocks to 12. My routine looked like this:
- Breakfast - 3 blocks
- Lunch - 3 blocks
- Afternoon snack - 1 block
- Evening meal - 4 blocks
- Last thing snack - 1 block
My target is still to get down to 15% body fat. I also potentially have a weight target too: 77 kg, which is the next weight category down in the British Weight Lifiting Championships that I intend on entering in Feb 2009. Fortunately, these targets all converge nicely at a maximum waist size of 35″. If I weight 170 lbs, I’ll be 12st1 and 72 kg, and with a waist of 35″ I will be exactly 15% body fat. So 1.5″ off my waist from a continued reduction in body fat is my achievable target for 2008. After all, if I went from 30% to 18% in 2007, another 3% shouldn’t be a problem.
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