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November 07 Hummoust Be Enough, Already.So, I'm way sick of hummous.
I've spent the last couple days rolling my eyes in Eat, M&S, or Sainsbury's on my lunch break, gazing at the incredibly varied vegan selections of hummous wrap, or...hummous sandwich. While generally enjoy a falafel here or there, after eating hummous pretty solidly for a couple weeks now, I'm well up for something not made of pureed chick peas.
You would think food-savvy companies like M&S would cater more willingly to their vegan customers, especially considering I've met two more fellow non-meat-product-eaters in the past week. I mean, can you imagine one of their sexy food commercials featuring a sultry-looking hummous wrap? Me neither.
I was thankful to stumble upon a Roasted Butternut Squash & Orzo Pasta salad this afternoon, however. It did not have hummous.
I am also thankful for my annual Thanksgiving meal, which we had early this year due to a house-move later this month. We piled 21 people into our little flat, borrowed chairs and cutlery and tables from pretty much everyone we knew, and covered the place in Thanksgiving deliciousness. I did end up making a 5.5kg turkey, which I bought fresh from a dude at Borough Market, and then came home & had to prepare. I thought it only fitting that my meatlicious hubby take part in the turkey preparations, which includedd plucking some of the big bird's quills that were left in. For anyone who hasn't had the experience of plucking a fowl of some kind, I can tell you it's an absolutely shiver-inducing experience, like attempting to get a splinter out of some old dead person. Not that I've done that before. But you get what I mean. Anyway, I was hoping the experience would give Jon some memorable idea of where his meat comes from, but I think it was more an unpleasant necessity. Much like cutting his toenails, although I have a feeling he might enjoy that.
We had a few vegan dishes for Thanksgiving, including a Root Veg gratin, a nut roast, various salads and cranberry sauce - but I must admit I did taste my turkey - more for it's honour than for anything else. Kind of like pouring some out for my homies. Except with eating. And turkey. And no homies. There were plenty of imbibes wandering around - and we managed to drink through about 12 bottles of red wine that have been lazing around our wine rack for years.
Overall, I'm feeling really, really good. I don't feel like I'm dieting or keeping myself from anything. If I want choc, I have dark; if I want a coffee, I have it with soy milk. My energy levels are high, my mood is good, and I guess I couldn't ask for more. Except for legs like Charlize Therone. I'll have those, please.
October 26 Newer Year, Newer ChallengeRight. It's been awhile.
For those of you who have read my trials and tribulations at the mercy of my personal trainer, Gavin, a year ago, you'll be happy to know two things:
1. I ran and completed the London Marathon in April, despite ungodly temperatures and a terrible puking spree.
2. The quest for health is NOT over.
After Gavin's incredible help, I transitioned easily into piling on the mileage for my marathon. I would whip eight miles around the city after work, and then come home and make dinner. On weekends I rose early in drizzle and courted the shores of a lake for 17 miles. There is a strange fifth dimension which is called 'Marathon Training', whereby people constantly calculate distances, have an intimate relationship with talcum powder, and shed tears when they run off-pace or miss a run. My fifth dimension was a treasured place for me, and I left it altogether too soon. I finished my marathon, laid on the beach in the Dominican Republic for a week drinking cocktails, and then came home and promptly got a hip injury.
While I should be thankful I ran the marathon wholly injury-free (save for all that puking), it was quite a morale killer to be limping around London and coralled into a curtained room with a physiotherapist. Yes, I ran the marathon, and now I can barely walk to the door.
ANYWAYS, the hip is slowly on the mend, I'm on my bike and in the gym, and in between I discovered the wonder of a little book called Skinny Bitch.
I recently reviewed the book for the MSN Health Channel, and in the spirit of this blog, I've agreed to put the principles in practice for one month, or as long as I deem necessary. I'll excerpt some of my review:
So you see, this isn't really a normal 'diet' from a boorish old diet book. I'm not sipping cabbage or whipping out my calculator (thank GOD). I'm trying, in the next month, to discover and explore the sixth dimension. This one's called "Veganism", and I used to think it involved kaftan wearing hippies who threw paint at farmers. While my perception has swayed after Posh Spice was seen posing with the book in an LA bookstore, I'd like to think the truth behind it is a bit less trendy.
Thought I've already had experience with the vegetarian diet - that is, if you count six months during my first year of University where I ate nothing but grilled cheese sandwiches and chips, and gained 20 pounds - I'm hoping this will pan out a bit differently. I'm familiar with the whole 'meat is mean' side of things, but I was most surprised to learn from the book just how much the meat/dairy industry effects the environment, and our health.
My brother was a vegan at sixteen and almost got expelled from high school for letting all the science class mice run free. Since then, he's moderated his diet into enjoying mostly locally-produced, seasonal veg & meats, and getting Harry Potter tattoos, but I was surprised to hear him giggle at my challenge. "You're going to get fat, " he said. What? He said, most of the vegans he knew were fat, because they were always eating. They never felt full, he said, because they never had that bit of heavy protein from meat.
I find this information dubious - unless they're on my Freshman Year Diet Plan (also known as: "Everything That's Fried!") - but it will be interesting to see how the lifestyle stands up. It's not really about the weight, anyway. It's about feeling good. And in the week or so that I've been slowly weaning meat & dairy out of my diet, I have felt good. Some observations:
1. Dairy was less difficult to take out of my diet than I thought. I figured I'd really miss it, but I've been taking my coffee black and using a soya-sour cream (from Holland & Barratt) for my requisite enchiladas, and soya milk for any other things. Hmm.
2. I live with the most fervent carnivore, ever. When I was having some 'scrambled' tofu earlier this week, he was having this Meatastic Pizza, which had like seven different kinds of meat and no veg. He puts up with my meat-free pasta dishes, and last night I made some soup and felt guilted into adding chicken chunks to his. I have a feeling this is going to be quite the challenge.
3. I'm hosting an early Thanksgiving dinner next Saturday, where I've promised to cooke a turkey for 20 people. Huh.
Anyway. Wish me luck! Leave any tips you have - especially if they involve recipes! I'll include the one I made last night because it was SERIOUSLY delicious and if you make it you'll think it is like eating a spicy version of heaven. I tweaked it from a great recipe I have for Caldo De Pollo, but as we're sans pollo ('cept for the hubby, 'course), it is:
Caldo De, uh, Veg?
(vegan)
2 tbsp rapeseed oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 cup (or so) butternut squash, cubed
1 carrot, julienned
1 small courgette, cut into stubby strips
1-2 tbsp chilli powder (to taste)
1 tsp gr cumin
2 garlic cloves, minced
3-4 cups veggie broth (make sure to check yours doesn't have added lactose!)
1/4 c canned green chiles
1 sm tin corn (no sugar added)
4 canned whole peeled tomatoes
1 tsp dried oregano
1/4 c chopped fresh coriander
Juice 1 lime
tortillas/tortilla chips
mexi rice
Alpro soya cream
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion + garlic + chili powder + cumin, cook for two minutes, and then add carrots and squash. Cook for 5 minutes until onion is softened.
Add broth, bring to a boil, then reduce heat & simmer uncovered for 10 minutes. Make sure to taste-check the broth at this point, to see if it's too spicy, not spicy enough. Add more broth if too spicy, and more chili if you need a kick!
Then add green chiles, tomatoes, corn and oregano, and cook for 5-10 more minutes, or until the squash is lovely and soft.
Remove saucepan from heat and chuck in the fresh coriander and lime juice, leaving the wedge of lime in the soup. Serve with warmed tortillas, tortilla chips and rice. I mix my rice with a bit of soya cream so it helps to sooth the hotness of the soup. Perfect for a drizzly, cold autumn afternoon!
December 01 Passing Up the PlateauWhat it is, Gavin said the other week, is that I'm 'unconsciously' consuming too many calories, because my body's metabolism has gone all ADHD and thinks I need more food than I actually do.
What did he suggest? Whipping out the calculator, friends, and punching in every morsel. We gathered I need about 1700 calories to sustain my weight (hello, desk job), and less 20% to actually lose weight (1360), which meant I needed to keep close track of everything I put in my mouth.
Now, I'm not good at maths to begin with, but combine math with hunger, and oh my god MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL BREAKDOWN.
After Jon politely refused to be in the same room as me during dinner, I decided it might be better to calculate my calories earlier in the day, and plan dinner according to how much I consumed previously. I did not consider the implications of Burrito Thursday or champagne & chocolate girls day, which meant that some evenings I was like, "Yum! A nice glass of water!"
Still, I'm slowly falling into a pattern of knowing how it feels to consume 1360 calories a day, and how many calories things contain (skim milk, 1/2 cup, 45, etc). If I pace things right, I don't feel deprived or bored - and it has somehow spurred my body past the plateau where I had been steadily lurking. I've lost a full kilo, a half inch from the dumps in my truck, and my body fat percentage is at 19.4%.
This, considering the massive-attack amount of butter and double cream in my Thanksgiving dinner, and that I took nearly a week off of working out because I couldn't breathe out of my nose. Or breathe at all, really, without hacking germs on the nearest entity. Who was usually Jon.
Anyway, it's empowering to see the self-awareness amount to something. Or at least NOT amounting on my ghetto booty.
The clincher is that Ross, MSN's trusty health editor, and I have a semi-ongoing race to be the first to successfully complete one-arm pushups. Considering Ross keeps throwing up at all of his workouts (due to his very delicate nature), I think we can safely assume I've got the lead.
Yes, he might've run the London marathon twice already, but have you seen my biceps, lately? They're huge.
Haven't heard back from the London Marathon, yet, but at this point, if I don't get in, I'm considering it strongly fated.
November 15 Feet that Jingle Jangle JingleI didn't write last week for two reasons: 1) I became extremely busy at work, and 2) I was probably still catching my breath from the sprints Gavin made me run earlier that week.
Yes, you heard me correctly. Sprints. As in, High School Gym Wearing Knee Socks With Braces sprints. As in, "To the wall & back, six times."
It was quite funny, actually, the first time, because we were running at the back of the gym, next to a set of boxing bags. Some guy was doing an impressive turning-kick-thingy into the bag, but as I started the Phoebe-flail around him, he immediately moved to the bags that were away from the girl who has motor coordination difficulties.
So, ha ha ha Gavin, those sprints were real funny, I said in an email. So funny, he thought, that he demanded another round at this week's session, probably so his friends could come in and video it for YouTube. It would be entitled Girl Who Runs Wierd, an honest viral sensation, and the clincher moment would be when I finished and hugged a punching bag to steady myself - wait, title change: Girl Who Runs Wierd And Likes to Gently Hold Punching Bags. Tah-dah.
I did close to five thousand sprints along the back wall, and by the time I was finished, I had cleared out most of the area, including the skip-rope dude and the people boxing in the actual ring. While it might've been my heavy breathing or stench of day-old Thai food exuding from my pores, I'm pretty sure it was the actual, physical pain my running step causes onlookers.
It has been said that I run like a fat girl.
Jon videoed it once, and while I don't have delusions of being obese (I could stand to lose a few, sure, but I'm not fat), I wholeheartedly agree. As my work colleagues discussed yesterday, the fat person's run has something to do with kicking out one's legs awkwardly behind the body, as if to say, "These two things do not go together." And me, with my royally terrible ankles and ghetto booty (all kind gifts of a gymnast youth), somehow fits the bill. The difference? I like running. I can run.
That said, this fat-girl runner has just applied - EEK! - for the London Marathon. On behalf of fat-girl runners everywhere.
October 31 Weight Machine: 2, Thigh Muscle: 0I had a great couple workouts at the end of last week, where I began noticing the definitely-there line between my biceps and triceps, and when I added two minutes to my interval training without throwing up.
Even my food log, with much thanks to Pregnant But Eating Sensible Packets of Raisinets Instead of 2 Liter Cartons of Rocky Road like the Rest of Us Natalie, has gotten much cleaner.*
*This excludes Saturday and Sunday, where "Gallons" fills the column entitled "Alcohol Units." I have a good reason, however, which goes something like, "Um, it was Halloween, and I was dressed like June Carter Cash, and there were people there who brought white wine." I'm sticking to this.
My body, however: not so much.
I got to the gym on Monday morning, fully over my Sunday hangover, had a nice wee warmup, bent sternly into my first lunge, and felt the salt water taffee-pulling tinge of my thigh muscle. I pulled it. The same one. Again.
But before I go into another lengthy diatribe about how my thigh muscle is almost like my personal willpower, stretching and falling underneath the strain of goals and impending Christmas puddings, I will fast forward to my workout today:
Picture me, deadlifting a 20kg bar.
Okay. Now this time, stop laughing, and really picture it.
At one point, Runs Twenty Miles an Hour Gavin, my trainer, shrugged and said, "Feeling strong today?" This equates, in American cheerleading terms, to a scorpion-triple-twist-down, a-w-e-s-o-m-e.
We did some other strangely tough exercises, like ball crunches where I pulled weights, and tricep dips on the assisted pull-up machine, and at the end - as in any good workout - I fell down and my abdominal muscles applied for conscientious objector status.
I'm down to 18.6% body fat, lost 0.5 kg, with all other measurements pretty much the same. Gavin seems to think my body will catch up with me, and if it doesn't, he'll probably punish it by crunching weights on that ball. I guess that's okay. Seeing as I'm becoming one solid muscle.
So the moral of the story, dear readers, is that you can bring my left thigh into the gym, but you can't make my left thigh function enough to exercise properly, and therefore I will soon have an upper body not dissimilar to these people, with my lower body refusing to change its functional pear shape.
Better than nothing?
October 25 MomentumAfter my third workout with Gavin, I'm picking up momentum.
Tuesday was a brilliant session, most of which revolved around various heavy bars in the weightroom. It's funny: while I've always felt giggling at the women on the cross-trainers is the most appropriate response, I've also shirked the sweaty, grunting dungeon that is most gyms' weight room. Safe territory, for me, felt somewhere in between, like the treadmills, the rowing machine or lat pulldowns. Gavin, however, seems to be quite keen on having me perform the most testosterone-associated exercises possible, and somehow - somehow, I've grown to enjoy them.
Perhaps it's that I know how to use most of the machinery properly. Or that I'm no longer afraid I'll get sat-on or harrassed while suffering under the strain of 6kg free weights. Either way, I feel like my muscles are singing. Sore, but singing.
And yet.
According to my stats, I'm gaining weight:
Weight: 60.5kg (+0.5)
Body Fat: 19.6% (down from 22%!)
Waist: 28in (-0.5in)
Hips: 39.5 (no change)
My god. Although the machine-thingy said my body fat has dropped about 3%, Gavin said it could be questionable, as people don't usually lose fat that fast. The machine is supposedly consistent with itself, however, and I'm holding on to that fact with my clenched white fists.
How can I, having worked out 5 days per week for the last 3 weeks, not have lost any weight? What is my body doing?
The truth? The curse of the afternoon meltdown.
I've been keeping a rough food diary, some written down and some (like anything chocolate and full-fat) casually 'forgotten', and I thought I was doing alright. I eat fat-free yoghurt for breakfast, usually a banana & apple sometime in the day, and I always stick to small portions of whole-wheat. Those things make up for my wee indiscretions, right? RIGHT? Then, this week, just before Ross had his ass royally kicked by his trainer, he handed me an extremely organised-looking sheet broken up into meals and snacks, alchohol units and days. So I've been writing down food and units and lots of small frowning faces to accompany things like "3 bourbon cremes, 40g kettle chips, 1c cocoa pops + 1/2c semi-skimmed milk, 1bag M&Ms."
It seems, after lunch has settled, my willpower curls up and has a nice nap and I suddenly migrate towards the warm glow of the vending machine. Somehow, I rationalise that the small portions mean I can expend calories on a Kit-Kat or an after-dinner ice cream. Plus, living with Jon The Hot-Meal Loving Carnivore means we're enjoying nice, meaty meals, and while I try to control the portions, my after-work-just-commuted-with-five-thousand-people's-smelly-armpits-on-the-tube body is screaming for something substantial. I remind myself that my breakfast was healthy, and I'm training pretty hard, and why shouldn't I sit down to a good meal with my husband, anyway?!?
Clearly, my inner-monologue is deluded.
I'm not sure what to do.
I can see where I need to make changes, but honestly, "celery sticks" are not a good substitute for "cocoa pops". Duh. Should I just cut down even more on my breakfasts because I know I'll crave food later on in the day? Or do I just need need to step in the face of these temptations and twist my mouth closed with plyers?
"I don't need you, oh single green crunchy-chocolate-coated M! I prefer a healthy subsitute, like an almond or a seedless grape!"
Um.....help? October 19 Weight Machine: 1; Thigh Muscle: 0 I awoke last Friday, one full day after my first workout with Gavin, in the body of a seventy-year-old arthritic woman.
Jon was readying himself for work, and leaned over to kiss me goodbye. While I would normally have met that sort of affection with some sort of response - even if it was covering my head with my pillow and going back to sleep - my muscles were ignoring my various pleas of "work" and "move", so I just laid there, drooling.
I have never been so sore in all of my life.
I ached in strange places, in foreign muscles that I didn't know could be exercised - in under-rib-cage, behind-elbow, hip-socket sort of places. Places, which before this training, I might've suggested have never been worked for a very good reason. It seems my muscles have a very small tolerance, and don't respond kindly to prodding. Kind of like the rest of me.
Anyway, I slowly worked through the ache this weekend, going out for a nice interval training and lunges on a lovely Sunday afternoon. Except it wasn't nice. Because as soon as I started lunging, my left thigh started on fire and I couldn't continue.
I pulled my thigh muscle which, let's be honest, is rather pathetic, considering it was my first week of training.
Gavin's response was understanding: No, he didn't want me to replace my leg with a prosthetic; no, I didn't need to bow like that and cry, and could I please stand up because people are starting to look. I should simply give it a good rest and meanwhile work the rest of my body - including my right leg.
So on our training on Tuesday, we soldiered through shoulders, chest, biceps, triceps, and my obviously favoured right leg. I've since been minimally sore and even elbowed out a few of the men in the weight room this morning, showing off my mad chest-press and back-muscle-working-bar-thingie skills. Snap.
My left thigh is still sore, which I think is partially because now my right thigh is getting all the attention. Silly jealous muscle groups. October 12 Totally Lunged.So. I began my workouts this morning with Gavin, which means I fell out of bed at 5:45am and met the strange breed of early AM people on the Central Line. It smelled like Number 2 pencils. Anyway. I was nervous thinking about it last night, afraid that Gavin's style of training would include small barks and a popping forehead vein. Or worse, that my Powers of Persuasion (also known as my Out of Shapedness) would make him feel sorry for me and consult his fellow trainers for advice on my poor, flabby body (which would by then be laying prostrate on the floor). "She's really out of it," Gavin would say. "Yeah," the burly boxing dude would pipe in, "Have you tried just maybe moving her legs for her?" Then the lanky marathon trainer would skip over across a line of moving treadmills (much like OK Go), "What about Madonna's strange stretching contraption? Maybe we could string her up on that?" "I dunno," Gavin would shrug, "She's only done five minutes of interval training, and she's clearly atrophied." At this point, the aerobics instructor, wearing a high-cut leotard and a Jane Fonda headband, would sashé down from her previous class, staring at my large lump of skin, "Uh, what's that?" Gavin would then explain how I came to him in desperate need of fat loss, muscle toning, and reducing the dumps in my truck, but he's only just begun my training, and he's not sure if he can continue with me in this state. Leotarded aerobics instructor is chewing gum, and is miraculously able both to teach aerobics classes and talk while it is in her mouth, "Uh, yeah. I think maybe she's had all she can take. Just lift her up and bring her to the door," She points her pink acrylic nails at me, "Trust me. She'll be better off this way." Thankfully, however, the gym is not the set of a bad musical, and I made it through my first workout with Gavin still alive and moving. Well, sort of. We spent most of the time doing fairly manly, weight-related exercises. I know there is a more professional sounding term for this, but I wouldn't know what it is. See, girls tend to peddle around and flap their hands at machines, while men cordon themselves off in high-metal areas and grunt repeatedly. Today, I did a bit of both, as Gavin showed me how to do squats and press ups and pull ups and dead-hanging things that have real names which I don't remember. And My God, the Lunges. It was all going well until I started lunging. After three reps of lunging past some guy whose hip-kicks to the punching bag could've dented my face, Gavin saw me wobble up and asked if I had "jelly legs". And I did not even ask him if he was ready for this jelly. So, then we hearkened back to Old Russia doing a kettle-bell type thing which Gavin learned at a 'convention' (can you imagine?), followed by Russia's Salute to the Abdominals, which involves leaning slightly above "crunch" position and swinging your arms from side to side.
Finally, I dragged my sorry, shaking frame to the treadmill, where Gavin showed his infinite kindness by making me go only 10 minutes, at reasonable interval speeds. Of course, this is the first workout, and I'm clearly out of shape. He's blatantly being kind so I'll return. Then he'll probably punish me with other Russian torture methods involving flames and large bags of sand. So. Week One: done. I'm terribly sore and have a difficult time lifting my arms to brush the hair away from my face, but I'm hopeful. The momentum is really starting to kick off. I can feel it. Oh my god, and can I. Right around the general 'lunge' area. October 11 As Per Yesterday... The NYT just published an article on how close, healthy emotional relationships increase healing capacity...
This is particularly timely, as last night Jon, Dom + I got in a discussion over spaghetti, about the Law of Attraction. Jon and Dom, of course, said it was absolute pants, while I contested there was some blatant truth to it. Dom played everything down to chemical reactions, and Jon admitted that some people perpetuate a sense of victimhood by continuing to call themselves a victim. We moved on to society, to the American brand of evangelical Christianity, and to the creepy investment bankers Dom sees in Canary Wharf who are far too perky to be truthful with themselves. We left the subject eventually - while on Dom's relationship quabbles - but I thought it interesting that scientiest have found a way to quantify this type of emotional health. In other words: boo-yah. Quantifying my physical health, I went to the gym this morning based on a general sketch of Gavin's workout plans. He's coupling up interval training with weight training, and I thought I'd try his interval plan before he drags me through the mud tomorrow. 5 mins warm up He suggests: "For interval training you won’t need to run any longer than 30 mins (max), no more than 30! Got it?! Again the key to interval training is intensity; the harder you work the higher your metabolism will stay after your workout and therefore the more calories you are able to burn. Unlike long continuous cardio, interval training won’t compromise muscle mass and will burn lots of calories after the workout has finished...If you get to the end of workout and think you could do more than you haven’t gone fast enough on the intervals!" Um, yeah. I made it through fifteen minutes this morning before hunching over the treadmill in a standstill. I guess that means I was working hard. It also means my endurance sucks. The worst part, more than kicking up to mach speed for the 1 minute, is taking it back down to my normal pace for two minutes. It was difficult to catch my breath and get back to a comfortable pace. Fortunately, they had Britney on full stereo. Ross, our Health Editor, aka "Marathon Man", tells me that interval training is "proper fitness", and that while he could clearly run for hours and hours and hours (as he has), he doubts he could do interval training. This makes me feel much better. October 10 Inside the "Secret"I stayed late a work last night to watch a video called "The Secret", which Gavin asked me to watch. While I, as a rule, generally try to avoid things leaning towards propaganda, I must admit I was rather hooked. The film was based around the "Law of Attraction", which basically states that our thoughts are a form of energy, and they have the power to create. So, if you're thinking all the time about rocky road ice cream, eventually the universe will put things into place to allow you rocky road ice cream. On the other hand, if you're thinking all the time about how you hate rocky road ice cream, the universe will conspire to bring it across your path anyway, because you were sending out rocky-road-ice-cream-related energy. I, however, cannot have rocky road ice cream and should, according to the good people helpfully explaining the Law of Attraction, be thinking about rocky road ice cream alternatives. Such as a nice carrot stick. Mmmm. The point is, as I understand it, that I should be thinking positively and fill my head with thoughts of love and gratefulness and success - which actually makes a whole lot of common sense, when you think about it. I don't remember who said "Whether you think you can or can't, you're right", but it seems quite true. Especially when it comes to me doing any sort of mathematical equation. Still. Last year, after finding a tumour, my 57-year-old mother had her spleen & 5% of her pancreas removed. It was an awful, terrible and incredibly painful surgery, but with the good news that the tumour was benign, my mother began asking her nurses for glasses of red wine & hot fudge sundaes. She wanted to watch funny movies, to paint her toenails and giggle with me in her hospital bed. She even used an afternoon walk around the ward as a chance to parade her bare, white bottom out of her hospital gown. "You never know if I'll get another chance to," she replied, when the nurses asked her if she felt any sort of cold draft. Despite her questionable behaviour, or rather because of it, my mother has recovered to a better state than before the surgery. She is in better mental, emotional and physical shape, which I simply attribute to her mental capacity to fight and overcome. Instead of her bottom, now she flashes her scar to unwitting passersby, while sunbathing in a little bikini. So, I guess that's where I base my inspiration. If my own mum can bounce back to a life of great joy, after losing a spleen and spending months working just to be able to push a vacuum or carry groceries, then it seems silly that I am not using my body to it's greatest potential. Not for perfection, but for really truly living. So. That said, here are the stats: Food: Last night (09/10/06) Today I've been spacing out my meals today, as directed, and I must say I haven't been hungry. I ate at about 9:30, then 11:30, then 1:30, then had the 1/2 sandwich at 4:30. I'll probably finish that on the journey home, and have some kind of salad or something for dinner. Although Jon will be hungry, so he might tempt me into something else... Gavin sent me my workout plans, which I'll post more about tomorrow...
October 09 The Stats..."She’s soft and she’s fat and she’s wearing my clothes and she’s getting too old and she was born on my birthday and I’m afraid if I stop running, she’ll catch up with me" - Nike
To be honest, I've been dreading this.
I feel a bit like a less-interesting version of Bridget Jones - replacing the cigarettes & vodka with lat pulldown reps (0) and number of peanut M&Ms consumed (14), but as a plus, I guess that means I won't have to run through the snowy streets in my pants.
Yesterday I completed the Nike Run London 10k with Jon, where my slow jog turned into a grueling limp, my innards molded together into one large ache, and I passed the finish line honking out breaths like an asthmatic goose. Still: I finished. Jon, on the other hand, has ran twice since completing the London Triathlon in August, and trotted comfortably while barking awfully encouraging things when I wanted to bend down and crawl into the bushes. It's not fair; I just wonder if perhaps some people take physical exertion much better than others. Either that, or I have an unusually low tolerance for moving my muscles.
Somehow, I take hope in the fact that I used to be able to do eight backhandsprings in a row ("I did have muscles! I swear!").
Now, to the stats:
Weight – 9 ½ stone (61kg) Food: Can you believe the hip measurement? This means you could wrap a preschooler comfortably around body. Like a belt. And considering my waist is 12 inches smaller than my hips, it's even more embarrassing. I'm now regretting those M&Ms. As for the rest, I was pleasantly surprised at the body fat percentage (I'm towards the 'leaner' side of 'acceptable'), and not surprised by my weight. In American terms, by the way, 9.5 stone = about 141 pounds. Now, the goals, translated into positive "affirmations" by Gavin, my trainer. While it does somewhat hearken back to motivation seminars in school, I'm told it takes some getting used to, and soon I'll be reeling these off with the utmost in confidence. Hurrah. Ultimate Goal: I am 8 ½ stone and in the best shape of my life! My hips, legs and abs look great. I am full of confidence energy. My body fat is a lean 17% and I love getting up in the morning to workout. I also get “looks” and complements where ever I go. The following Goals are based on working out 4-5 a week and watching portion sizes. 8 Week Goal: I am 18% body fat and have lost between 4-8 kg. My clothes are loser so I need to go shopping and buy more! 4 Week Goal: The changes are taking place, I love training and seeing the difference it makes. Since starting I have lost 2-4 kg and my body fat has dropped 2%. Weekly Goals: Every week I drop 1-2 kg and reduce my body fat by 0.5%. Daily Goals: I read my goals/affirmations daily. Ok. So, there you have it. I've got eight weeks of arse-kicking ahead of me, and while I know it will pain me to an entirely new level, I'm very much looking forward to it.... Let the muscles begin. |
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