I love scuba diving. It’s a passion. During the pandemic, I played Abzû, a scuba sci-fi adventure game, and explored the coast of San Andreas in GTA V. Even after I dropped off here, I kept reading about new dive sites and the developments in dive gear. But it’s easy to forget that scuba diving is an extreme sport and that there’s a level of physicality involved in it. So my goal right now is to get back into shape for diving!

Fitness and Diving

Even as accessibility to diving increases, some types of diving place greater demands on your body, or pose greater risks if you aren’t physically fit enough to deal with the risks. For example, I love deep dives, and those place your body under more stress from levels of atmospheric pressure while also increasing your nitrogen saturation. Then there’s the reality of shore dives, just getting all your gear from the parking lot to the entry site. Or lugging it all to the boat. Add in currents, surface swims, and other factors? Fitness becomes a factor really fast under these conditions.

The specific types of fitness that are, in my opinion as a diver and not a fitness expert, important for diving are strength, cardio, and endurance. Strength is strength. It’s carrying weights, lifting gear, and pulling yourself out of the water. Cardio is oxygen delivery to the body, you need good cardio to maintain sustained activity. And then there’s endurance, the culmination of strength and cardio, the ability to be full body physically active for longer periods of time. And these need to be in good balance. Being strong won’t help if I’m gasping after a few minutes of finning. And having amazing cardio won’t matter much if I can’t climb a ladder out of the water in full gear.

My Situation

Turns out riding a desk doing GIS work for almost six years and figuring “I passed my army fitness test, I’m good” wasn’t conductive to being in diving shape. I weigh in at 134.3kg right now, and I need to get down to between 100 and 105 with my age and body type. So that’s 30kg of fat to work off. Now, like anyone in a situation like this, being over 40 and over weight, I’m approaching this with research and medical advice. The doctor agreed that diving right now? Not a great plan. So I made a plan.

The Plan

Right now I need at least 150 minutes of “moderate aerobic activity” or 75 minutes of “vigorous aerobic activity” per week to get the ball rolling. Or a mix thereof. Then on top of that, I need to do strength training at least twice a week. And I need to focus on strength, cardio, and endurance. So, here’s the plan to start:

Monday – 1km Lap Swimming

Tuesday – 2km Walk + 15 minutes of dynamic stretching, Hapkido Class

Wednesday – 1.25km Recovery Walk + 15 minutes of dynamic stretching, Kettlebell Training

Thursday – 2km Walk + 15 minutes of dynamic stretching, Hapkido Class

Friday – 1.25km Recovery Walk + 15 minutes of dynamic stretching, Kettlebell Training

In terms of time and current effort required because of my fitness levels, the Hapkido classes alone crack the 75 minute of vigorous aerobic activity. But constant activity makes for habitual activity, and will get my metabolic rates to a point where I’m using and not just storing calories. Also, walking the morning after Hapkido has proven to make my joints feel better. But this is just phase one. As I improve in physical condition, I plan to increase distances, move to interval running, and of course, get heavier kettlebells.

Some may have noticed that I didn’t mention diet, and that’s because my diet is already pretty good. I’m heavy because I was sedentary, not because I was eating junk food or excessive amounts of carbohydrates. I just ate like I was active, not sitting behind a desk for 7.5 hours and doing minimal activities. So while I do need to increase my protein intake and healthy fats, my diet is pretty solid.

The Reality Check

I already know that I won’t always achieve this every week. Life happens. But I need to try. And that’s a big part of what I’m doing here. I’m creating an environment of accountability. 30kg of weight loss, in a way that’s sustainable, is approximately 30+ weeks of effort with a loss of 0.5 to 1kg per week. But weight isn’t the only factor I’m paying attention to. Historically speaking, when I’ve pursued fitness I’ve dropped waist and shirt sizes but always a lot of weight. So I’m monitoring both my measured weight and my clothing sizes to see how I’m doing. In the lead up to this, I’ve gone from looking at 3XL shirts to being comfortable in 2XL, and my waist is between 42″ and 44″ depending on the manufacturer, down from verging into 46″. So I’m aiming for fitting a 2XLS BARE Wetsuit as the immediate end goal, and eventually an XLS one as a final goal. I want to be in XL t-shirts and L shorts for next summer.

Let’s GO!

So, yeah! There’s the initial plan and the initial goals. I’ll set up a page for tracking progress, and the aim is a successful recreational dive medical to kick off the diving season next year!