Football Fans In Training (FFIT) is a new nationwide health project where supporters can sign up to take part in sessions aimed at increasing physical activity, improving diet and promoting a healthy lifestyle.

FFIT is open to 35-65 year old overweight males and is being provided by St Mirren Football Club as a FREE service to our supporters!

St Mirren in the Community's latest course - which runs for 12 weeks - is being attended by John Gibb who has agreed to do a diary of his experiences on the course.

Week 3

With week 1 and 2 safely under our belts we ventured forth into the third week.

Week 3 was a little bit different from advertised as we had a guest speaker in the form of Craig McGinley, the Club's Sports Scientist.

Craig came along to tell us about his dealings with the first team squad and how he works with the squad to balance their diet, using food plans covering eating and drinking, and monitors their performance. Not only did he tell us about the good work he is doing at St Mirren, but also some of the other work he has done around the country.

It was a very interesting talk and, although still in the first quarter of our FFIT course, we could see the link between what Craig is not only preaching but practising too. The key is not a diet, not a fitness course at the gym, but a healthy mix and proper portion controls, as well as a steady increase in exercise. This is the main message that comes over nice and clear.

I was left wondering if Craig's family had shares in a water company as he really emphasised the importance and benefits of drinking lots of water!!

Week 4

Week 4 and this week had us looking much closer at what we eat and how it is used up in the body.

Using the information provided we then proceeded to calculate our individual Base Metabolic Rate (BMR) - this is the amount of Kcal our body will burn when we are doing nothing. And then we took our Personal Activity Level (PAL) - this is based on how active we are and is higher the more active you are. These two figures are them multiplied together to give us an individually calculated energy requirements in Kcal's.

In order to lose weight we should aim to take in 600Kcal less than this figure so 600 was deducted from the total to give us the basics for our food plan. Sounds complicated but it was quite straight forward, even Brian managed to work it out!!

Counting calories is a bit of a pain, and to be honest, we are not looking at an exact science, so sample menus were selected for the calculated Kcal's and these samples were broken up into the number of portions that make up the Kcal's. These were then broken up into the different food types, bases on the Eatwell Plate and we now have the guidance for our food plans for the future.

The group was then split up into teams of 4 or 5 in order that we can help support each other and come up with ways to increase our activity level and manage our food intake.

This change will be a hard part to get started, but with a better understanding on the effects of over eating and eating the wrong things, it gives us an incentive to make the changes, so watch this space!!

The changes are now starting to come in and I will give you some sample results at the end of week 6 and again at the end of week 12.

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