Bodywise pound foolish

Hello it's little ol' me again, my regular (18 monthly) fighting of flab and flouncing about at the gym clarion call. Actually, reading back on old entries, it's strangely reassuring to learn that I was even worse than I am now. The weight had already crept up to 11 stone 2 years ago (I had a memory of being much thinner/lighter for longer and that my girth was a recent phenomenon). My historic self was barely able to commit to the gym or running without making a big kettlebell and zumba about it. Whereas I feel like now my regimen is much more ingrained; a habit has formed. If you will. (And I will if you will.)

So what's been happening? Well still off the fags - it's been nearly 3 years which is a major achievement. Don't miss it but I am at the point where it sneaks into my subconscious and I find myself thinking "What if I had just a teeny little one?"  I am also going to the gym like a good citizen - after Easy, Better am now messianic about Pure Gym and I am an ogress without my lunchtime spin.

Still running  - well entering races and cramming a few riverside trots in the week before.  Did a Greenwich Park 10k 2 weekend's ago and it was about 1hour 09 which was actually an improvement on the one I did the previous November.  However the small turnout (around 280) and my large finishing number (around 260) made me seek solace in 'just being one of the best for your category'  that well known beat-combo Ladyvets50. So I had a look, and the highest finisher of the LVD (Roman Numerals) turned out to be a Pro-Athlete, finishing in 00.50 mins. So now seeing if the LV60's will have me. I hear they're a nice bunch. 

To add to my plethora of spinnings and runnings I had my first yoga class at Triyoga in Kingly Court yesterday. V beginner-y. The worst bit was sitting cross-legged, as always. And resisting the urge to go to Senor Ceviche's afterwards for a bucket of chips.

Foodwise, and after chucking money at Weightwatchers (and at £12.95 pcm it's not cheap) for several years increasingly Watching my Weight not go anywhere, I cancelled, citing financial reasons though really it is the crap search facilities and clunky app that put me off. I kind of liked the blurring of points rather than using calories but I think it didn't like me as I couldn't sustain on 23 points a day without eating my own arm off.  I also never understood properly how the points got transferred from weekly and how fitness points translated into daily.  Moreover judging by the connect pages, it's obviously aimed at obese people, some of whom I would suggest are using pictures of someone else's/their daughter such are the before/after transformations.

I am now back on My Fitness Pal, superior searches and still brilliant and free. I especially like the summary at the end of each day when you complete your food diary - 'if you ate like this every day you would be quite heavy'. Quick, don't eat any more, complete diary, go to bed.

I am aiming for half a kg a week loss so it's pegged me at 1750 calories which should be quite comfortable but I'm still going over due to wine/bars of whole nut and family sized portions (for a family of 4) of mac n cheese. Trying to overcompensate by logging it as exercise every time I walk across the room which gives you extra calories so I think I'm skating on thin ice. I am trying to take it easy on myself though and I know that cutting my calorie limit dramatically just brings out the hangry rebel in me and I will binge. I've also discovered a stockist of frozen edamame and the joy of a toasted seed so trying to live without bread.

Doing other things ie:

• Long walks (10 miles last weekend, 3 of them accidentally due to 'wrong bus at Kidbrooke incident' at the end of our inaugural Capital Ring Walk - Woolwich to Falconwood.) Dinner when I got back was a family sized bar o' Whole Nut, preceded by 2 pints of Guinness. Feet bealing, shoes in ma hand. Also walking to the tube quite a lot (2 miles). Punctuality is a thing of the past.

• Wii - J bought one after Santa Claus brought one for our little niece. Initially scathing, now I love it! And have been known switch off Saturday Kitchen in favour of a bit of virtual tightrope walking, arm flapping or boxing. It doesn't seem to burn many Kcals though but it's a bit of a warm up for an actual run, and time spent off the sofa, not eating crisps. It logs you're progress, BMI, weight loss and balance. Went from a Balance Age of 68 to 43 in a week. Lost 2 lbs, put 1 back on. 2 steps forward, 1 step back. Oops, careful of the cat. Do you feel Nunchuk?

Bodywise I feel reasonably trim but my weight is around 11 st 4. Facewise I'm just avoiding looking in the mirror but photos taken are and I quote myself  'purdy depurssin'  I've been known to blame changes to the earth's gravitational force.  But in truth I reckon my metabolism has really shifted since I got older and I'm a 1800 calories per day kinda gal but stuck in a mindset that still thinks it can eat 2300 and be thin as a rake, so long as I canter the half hour to the tube thrice a week. As long as no-one offers me a seat when I get there. Is it because I'm fat or old though? "No thank you. I'm just au natrel these days and if you look more closely you'll see the badge says Baby I'm Bored..."

I like this bloggin lark. Takes my mind off eating. And Brexit.

right here i go again. since giving up smoking in May 2016 my weight has settled at 11 stone. It's not dropping off like it used to and, not making excuses but smoking really must speed up your metabolism. I started running again with my colleagues and they are very good. I am accutely aware of how slow I am 1:09 something being the worst. Every now and again I get below 1:06 but not often, I did 1:08:26 in greenwich park last week. I did a 7km from here to Greenwich park and back up main  road. It was about 49 mins. But I am still eating and drinking way too much so weight is not shifting. I am going out now to Greenwich for ameal with Di and Graham (and Heidi) and have unfortunately just scoffed a whole pack of bugles beforehand at 575cals. Now absolutely full but will have to eat something, otherwise it will just be weird. I have also just signed up to weightwatchers which helped me lose about 3 pounds last year. It's crap but works by blurring the lines of calories into points. Ok must go now. x

step class on the hottest day on record

Forgot to mention that I did a 40 minute walk to Greenwich and back yesterday so am sure I've burnt off all that watery fosters. My reason for going there was to book a class at the long-lost Arches leisure centre. I haven't been there for ages, though was a frequent gym-user in the past. More recently I have been a member of UCL gym, energybase who's classes are just mental so it was without fear that I found myself at stepclass today. It was tricky, in that there was lots of changes of rhythm and choreography but it was ok. I'd had a bowl of fruit and fibre for brekkie (with banana, instead of sugar) and a choccie brioche. I walked back in the heat (hottest day on record for time o' year) and then read in the garden for a bit. I soon got hungry and polished off the rest of last night's boiled rice with oyster sauce, a few gherkins and an apple. Feeling pretty good - my boss texted to say my contract's just been made permanent, something that I haven't experienced since 1998. No more worry.

fatbusters, fosters and chips

Been getting really back into the fitness regime. Yesterday did Rosemary Conley fat-attack - all 5 sessions in one go so 50 mins. I scoffed at how easy it is - and to think I once found it quite hard. It's aimed at different levels so there are different people to follow and you can do them as 5 short sessions. This has the disadvantage of RC doing a bit of a cool down when you are at the peak cardio bit. I only ate 2 chocolate brioche all day, as well as a skinny cap in Starbucks. Then i met J at the riverside pub for 4 pints of Fosters followed by a chip and curry sauce. I can't imagine fosters is that calorific, it's so watery.

done a run

hot to trot

3.6 miles / 5.7936384 km

Created 09.28.11 by beedorun

Hooray I've done stuff!

Short Run
Run - General
11:10 AM - Sunday, 16 Jan 2011
1.9 miles, 0:23:00


Yes them stats don't lie. I was running for 23 minutes today. I went out to the Maryon Wilson Animal Park in Charlton which is, incidentally under threat of having its funding withdrawn, just a few minutes from my house. It is really hilly and I ran through quite a lot of dung but it was nice seeing the blur of deer, ponies, chickens etc as I trotted past. I practically crawled up some of it, but home was downhill all the way.

The Dawn of Janathon

I've come to the Janathon late, but I haven't been sitting on my arse until today. Oh no. I did start making the effort last year. Firstly I started training in the summer for the Run to the Beat half marathon in Greenwich, which I did in a not-too-disgraceful-considering-I-hadn't-run-consistently-for-about-3-years 2 hours 29. I decided to rest up for a few days after that, the months went past. I moved house. I thought about running, I even entered a few races. I thought more about running. Before I knew it the nights were dark, winter had happened and I still hadn't donned my trainers. Sometime in late November I realised I'd reached the humungous weight of 11stone. I'm tall (5'10) so this total did not make me Rick Waller but it did make me feel depressed at clothes not fitting, having a moonface, double chin and no willpower to cut back on the food side. I needed to take action in the exercise dept.

So I started to take advantage of the University gym where I work. Staff working for the Uni are really lucky in that they get it even cheaper than the students - c. £18 per month including classes and 50 metre swimming pool. (It is this perk, along with the long academic holidays that makes up somewhat for the crap wages.) Anyway, I started trying one or two classes, thinking it might help to have someone standing there shouting at me rather than me doing a bit of solitary toodling on a treadmill or a half-hearted pedal while watching silent old episodes of Friends on the tv monitor (I never remember my headphones). Simultaneously my colleagues in work were also starting to think the same. We started going to an LBT class on a Thursday which was everything I thought I'd hate, pumping music, annoying screaming instructor, no obvious warm up, narry a care for individual ability or what injury you might be nursing but, what a revelation, doing a variety of classes was fun, and you could pretty much ignore the instructor if they were yelling at you to do something impossible. (One particular sadist instructor at the circuits making us do an hour and a half of mostly pressups was one I defnitely put my fingers in my ears and went lalalala for the duration of.) So I lost a half a stone in a few weeks and Babs and I pledged to try all the classes on the timetable -apart from anything else it was a good way of getting me away from my desk for an hour.

Lunch times, evenings, LBT and core, yogalates, cybo ...I haven't done many of them yet but I did keep going up to mid-December then things started to fall off (metaphorically speaking) with the Christmas shutdown. I had been determined that this Xmas would not be the usual gorge and grog-fest, and it wasn't too bad really. All the family and inlaws came over and we had a great Christmas in our new house. Jon did a goose and red cabbage - the theme was German Christmas. It was when the guests had gone and we were left with the 40 pack of chocolate santas, our own bodyweight in cheese and a crate o' Bailey's that I really started to trough it. By the end of the hols I could not wait to get back to resume my old fitness regime -new year's resolutions here come I. (Aside from reinvigorating the fitness thing, I plan to read 50 books this year, drink less and avoid Pret a Manger, mainly coz unless I bring pack lunch 4 days out of 5, I cannot afford to go on holiday or buy clothes).

Week one of work saw me booking 2 classes at the work's gym like the good newly reformed citizen I'd resolved to be. Through no fault of my own, the first class of the year was cancelled, and the second one, on the 6 Jan saw me with a low level hangover (the drinking less hadn't really materialised, we still had too many bottles of wine in the house). Also had an invite to sis-in-law's for her birthday for cava, cake and new gambling triv. So that was a difficult choice. Anyway, I thought, there's always next week. Babs sighed inwardly, despairing of my readiness to cancel the first LBT of the year, at the drop of a hat. but then cancelled herself anyway, as she had to 'help her mum take the christmas tree down'....and I thought I was finding excuses.

Anyway, week 2, which we are now at the end of, we got back in the swing. Wednesday, I did a spin and core which has a relatively soft instructor, ("if you feel tired, take the resistance down a notch") and which the first ten minutes are normally spent getting the bikes out, fiddling about, giving up, finding another bike that works....and then Thursday evening did LBT class with Babs. We were late coming in and wondered if we'd arrived at the previous class over running by mistake but joined in anyway and it was ok. A lot of squats and bum squeezing and sit ups. My "core" was aching (at least I think it was, never quite sure what my core is), and there was a moment of embarassment where we had to get the top half of our body off the floor while lying sideways and a complete stranger held our feet down. I was the worst one there. I normally am at these things. Not sure if it's due to bad back (had chronic sciatica for a year which still troubles) or general weakness, lardiness. Anyway I tried my hardest and I got this nice smug glow that you get when the class is out of the way for the week. I also felt really motivated to do some running again at the weekend.

Then, I stumbled across this Janathon website, in which you pledge to do some exercise, mainly running but at least something, anything, every day for the month of Jan. It seemed the perfect tool for motivating me and some of the other blogs seemed really good, I've always enjoyed record keeping anyway so logging miles etc was a good spur too. I therefore name this day the Dawn of Janathon. Didn't manage to fit a run in on Sat 15th, but did go a walk up to Blackheath and back, a total of 4.something miles. Had a break while husband and I picked out a wardrobe in Lancelot antiques at the top of Blackheath Hill, then again while we bought a yummy bacon roll at the Blackheath Tea Hut, and watched the squirrels from a park bench in Greenwich Park but felt nicely tired by the evening and knee felt slightly like it was coming out of its socket, so it must have had some effect. The pulse raising stuff I'll start tomorrow. Honest.