Progress – Fitness and other Shenanigans

Where has the mojo gone?

Man, I have really let this blog slide again… And with it, unfortunately a bit of my journey to fitness as well. I don’t even have an excuse (well, at least not a valid one) .

I stopped doing the BBG, then started again with Week 1 Legs with high hopes of continuing, because I really do have fun doing it, but it all went downhill again. In a different life, where excuses were still valid, I would be spending the next two paragraphs explaining how I’m now back to work after maternity leave and about to get busier than ever before, but deep down I know, that there are people out there who are much busier than me, who make the time to exercise and eat right.

Today I am feeling especially *bleh*. We are staying in a hotel outside Dublin, because my oldest is having a treatment in a hospital tomorrow and it’s too far a drive early in the morning. I had chosen this hotel especially because of the two in almost the same location at the same price, this one offered a gym.

In the car, only 20 minutes into our journey here, I realized that among other things, I had left my running shoes at home. Luckily we were planning on a quick stop in the city centre anyway, so I picked up a cheap pair, thinking that there was no way one run in them would turn out catastrophic.

Getting back to the hotel, I inquired at reception about the gym, only to be told that it is closed at the moment due to refurbishments in the whole hotel. With not enough space in the hotel room to swing a cat, and the hotel being located in a completely unknown area with very heavy traffic, that meant the end to my lofty ideas of working out today ( did you notice the excuses creeping in in that last paragraph??).

However, I should not pretend that it is all doom and gloom. I am still running at least once a week, and I even have 2 races re-caps that I still owe you all, which I will post over the next few days. Additionally (and that really is a big one with how my healthy eating has slipped), I have not put on any weight, and am holding at my 3,8kg loss since I started on January 25th.

I have realized, I need this blog to stay on track, and therefore I promise to make the time to update and to get back on track, after all, now that I am officially 29, the big 3-0 is only getting closer and closer and I don’t have anymore time to lose.

It’s been a DWD kind of day

What does DWD stand for? It’s “Diet? What Diet?”

Today in Ireland we are celebrating Pancake Tuesday, which is the last day before on Ash Wednesday the 40 days of Lent start. I had originally planned to make healthy pancakes for myself with Yoghurt and Apply Sauce, but when I started baking for the rest of the family, my resistance crumbled almost immediately.

NutellaPancakes — That I almost what my pancakes looked like, who can resist this?

At least, after I finished my stack of pancakes with Nutella (yum) I haven’t eaten anything else for the rest of the day, apart from a bowl of plan yoghurt and a green apple, because I have not felt hungry.

The one thing that I know is important now is that this is only a day and not a relapse into my old eating habits.

I had been doing pretty well the last two weeks, getting my BBG workouts in (still doing half the set and wouldn’t be able to do more right now) and eating well. The weight is starting to come down as well, so I am hoping that today will not set me back too much.

The weather has been shocking here, a storm called Imogen has flown over the west of Ireland and brought a lot of wind and rain and random hail showers. Unfortunately that gave me plenty of excuses not to go for runs, and I have been pretty bad.

Last week over all, I walked just short of 22 km and my weight went down another 1kg, so total weight loss so far is 1.8kg, way above my target, so I am very happy with that. I just really have to get out and run more (only managed 3.5 km), especially because I have my 10 Mile race coming up in the not too distant future.

Did anybody else over indulge today?

Start with Believe

That’s the slogan on a new workout T-Shirt that I bought this week, and the more I think of it, the better I like it.

So, I am now officially 10 days into my journey to a new self. For this, I have cut out all unhealthy snacks, because I know that that is where my biggest weakness lies. This time around, I am not making dramatic changes to my diet all at once, because I am not looking for short term weight loss, but for sustainable health. When I feel like eating some cheese, I will still eat cheese and I am far from counting calories. I am listening to my body and when my body tells me it needs food, I go for healthy options. Once I have a bit more experience in terms of what snacks are my favorites, I will put together a little meal plan and post it here.

Over the last week (Monday to Sunday), I walked 8 times, with a total of 16.67km done, in 4h10. I know this is quite a slow pace, and the reason it that this is when I walk with my daughter to her pre-school. So on the way there, we walk together at her pace, and then I walk home at my own and bring our two dogs out. Of course I am also pushing a buggy at the same time, which gives me a bit more resistance.

In addition to that, I also went for 3 runs, including my 5k race day that I posted about. In total I ran 9.33km, and spent 1h13 doing it. Considering that the week before I had to cut my fast run short and was afraid I had injured my left calf, I think that was still pretty good progress. This week I will have to be out there for a good bit longer, because I have a long run coming up on Sunday in preparation for my 10 Mile in April.

Finally, and I think this is what is going to make the biggest difference going forward, I have started doing the BBG workouts, or at least so I thought. When reading through the guide, I missed the fact, that I was meant to do 2 repeats of each set, so I have basically been doing half of the required workout. The worst part about this is, even though it was only half, my muscles were still killing me for days (!) afterwards. This makes me really dread what it’s going to be like when I actually do the whole thing.

Now to the reward for all the work that I have been doing. From last Monday, to this Monday, my weight went down by 0.8kg, which is even over my target of 0.5kg per week. I am using an app called Happy Scale to track my weight, to remove the natural fluctuations and get a real trend picture. So from now on, every time I talk about my weight, this will be the 10-day average.

All in all, I’m very happy with how this whole thing started. Anybody out there also on the journey to losing weight? How are you getting on?