Back on the treadmill

Thursday:

I went to the gym on Monday and walked very slowly on the treadmill for half an hour. By the end I was sweaty and tired, and I had a bit of an illness relapse that afternoon. So I didn't exercise Tues or Wed -- yesterday was the first day I was feeling myself again. I went to the gym this morning and walked for an hour at a medium pace on the treadmill and it was fine so I think I am back to normal. Yay!

It is the first day of December, the first day of summer here, just over three weeks until Christmas. My weight has been stable for the past three months, which is very frustrating. I hope to lose at least one kilogram by Christmas. No, not hope. Plan. It is a tricky time of year, of course, but I can indulge a bit at parties without binging all month.

I will exercise five days a week again. I can't help having been sick for past couple of weeks, but it is time to get back on track. I will do classes at the gym and work on getting my lap of the lake down to 45 mins. I don't have a goal date for this achievement, I think it might take me a while. I might set a date after doing a few more trials.

I will also diet five days a week. I will track my food every day, and stay under my calorie limit (1340 plus extra for exercise) five days a week. It is the perfect time of year for eating lots of healthy fruit; at this moment in the fruitbowl I have nectarines, apricots, plums and grapes as well as the more mundane bananas and apples. This plan allows me to go over a bit on the evening we have D&D and on one day of the weekend. Like my exercise target, this will get me a bracelet charm after a month. I think this will help me to not give up if I have a bad day -- I still have wriggle room to get back on track.

I don't know why I thought I could trust myself with chips in the house, I bought some yesterday for D&D tonight. Then after my husband called to say he would be home very late from work (he ended up getting home just before midnight, poor darling) I sat in front of the TV and ate half the packet. I suppose I can count it a small victory that I only ate half! A couple of times recently I have kept eating until the packet was empty even though I felt quite sick.

I try not to sink into the mire of hating my body, a part of my self, but it is hard not to. I am very unhappy with how I look. My bulging stomach, in particular, is hard to disguise with clothes and it is what I see first when I look down or in the mirror. The top bulge, just under my breasts, is particularly unsightly; and actually makes it difficult to fit into many clothes that would otherwise be my size. Apparently I am the wrong shape, even for a fat girl. Depressing.

Well and so, it is never too late to do something about it! So I am doing something.

photo by Maxey

Sunday weigh-in: 79.3 kg

Sunday:

I felt a bit better on Friday but worse again on Saturday. Recovering today. I'm not sure what is wrong with me; I have -- at different times -- had bad headache, sore throat, backache, and nausea; but my main symptoms have been extreme fatigue and muscle soreness. Flu I guess, although I haven't had a runny nose. I went for a 20 min walk this afternoon and found it very tiring, I'll see how I am tomorrow. My sore shoulder has been troubling me at night too, it is always worse when I am sick.

It is troubling to have this many days off exercise (especially without my appetite being much affected!) but life goes on.

I saw the latest Twilight movie last night -- Breaking Dawn pt I. I guess I can no longer complain about my childbirthing experiences!

A bit sick again

Thursday:

Unfortunately I started feeling sick on Tuesday night and have been lounging around feeling wretched since then. I don't expect to go to the gym tomorrow either, although I am much better this evening and should be able to get some work done tomorrow. Oh well, life has its ups and downs. I had a nap yesterday and then still slept for ten hours last night, which was lovely in a way. Uncomfortable dreams, though, the past two nights while I wasn't well.

Once, not so long ago, having three days off exercise would have been a major derailment of my fitness regime. I am confident now, though, that I will get right back into it as soon as I am well enough. I expect to start on Saturday with a long but gentle walk on the treadmill while the kids have their swimming lesson, then I'll go from there.

A blogger I follow has just had skin-reduction surgery, which is gross but fascinating. I don't expect to need it as I only have a total of 25 kg (50 pounds or so) to lose, but people who have had huge weight loss sometimes end up with a lot of loose skin, especially if they are older when they lose the weight. I'm glad I won't have to go through that.

Stupid bastard of a heart rate monitor

Tuesday:

We were away all weekend again so no exercise then, but I have calculated that I can still earn my November exercise charm if I exercise 9 days out of the final 10 (including yesterday and today, which I have). I'll just take Sunday off and exercise every other day. The weekend away was filled with party food and junk while travelling but my weight remains stable, 79.0 kg on Saturday and 79.2 kg on Monday -- no official Sunday weigh-in again. It is the last weekend away until Christmas, but we still have various parties coming up in Canberra so more food challanges there.

Yesterday I did BodyPump with my heavier weights and it went well. Today I took on the lake again. We'd had a heat wave at the end of last week but today it is cool and cloudy again despite being only a week until summer; it wasn't actually raining so great weather for a jog. My two goals were to beat last week's PB of 56 minutes and to run/jog 10 times, longer each time than last week. Previously each jog had been about 50 paces long or less -- I call a pace a step on each foot and guesstimate it to be about a metre but I would love to get an accurate measurement of this -- today I went for 70 paces each time. I found this really pushed me and I walked more slowly than I liked in between while I recovered. By number seven -- up the slope of the second bridge, with my shins starting to hurt (they weren't as bad as last Thursday) -- I seriously considered giving up at 50 paces but no! I kept going to 70.

I did my 10, then realised it was going to be a close thing as to whether I made it under 56 mins and beat my previous time. Up until that point I had been fairly sure I wasn't going to make it; but I had about 4 mins left and not far to go. My heart rate was still up but I pushed into a jog again. My body reacted much more than any previous jog; I could feel my face going red and hot, and my heart rate leaped up over 160. I made 70 paces and slowed again. Walked as fast as I could. With about 30 seconds to go I threw myself forward again. 40 paces and I was at the finish line. I stopped the timer in an unseeing haze of fatigue and the display immediately went back to time and date. Had I been just over or just under 56 minutes? I staggered up to the car and got out my notebook to write down my stats, before I had even had a drink.

And pressed the wrong button. It started timing me again. Muttering "no, no!" in horror, I stopped the timer. But too late. The monitor only shows you the last exercise session, which was now about 3 seconds of me standing there panicking.

I don't know my time. Or how many calories I burned. Or what percentage I spent in the cardio zone. Or anything. I wanted to cry.

I know it's silly, but it felt as though that hour of exercise, all that effort, had been wiped away with the loss of the stats. As though it was all wasted. Of course it wasn't. My body still got the exercise.

Whether I was just over or just under 56 mins, I presumably beat my previous PB by half a minute or so -- I didn't write down my exact time down to the second last time but it must have been over 56 mins. So a good effort. Especially since there was some work being done on the path and I had to go round and went the wrong way and had to double back. Another minute or so right there.

Stupid bastard heart rate monitor.

Personal Best

Thursday:

I decided to go for my 1 hour lap of the lake attempt today. I got there quite late after taking my husband to a doctor's appointment (more on that later) but it was a cool and cloudy morning so good conditions for a walk/jog. Do people even talk about jogging anymore? Or is it all running? What I do could possibly be called running, some of the time. Or lurching, when I get really tired. But I think jogging describes it best.

I parked at the library, started my HR monitor, and set off. From the first jog my shins hurt. They had hurt a bit on Tuesday, but much worse today. So as much as possible I jogged on the grass beside the path, which was better (although it did mean getting attacked by one duck daddy protecting his family). Going over the bridges was good too, I like running on the gentle upslope. By about halfway round my time was really good and I had done 10 jogs; all probably less than 50 metres. From there on, though, I started to slow down. I kept lurching into a jog regularly and ended up with 23 jogging "sprints" (or possibly more, I lost track a couple of times and was conservative with my calculations) but in between my walking pace was much slower than in the first half. The clouds cleared and it became quite hot, and I was getting very tired.

Crossing Commonwealth bridge, near the end, I saw lots of police standing along the roadside and realised that half of the road (the half I wanted to drive on to get home) was empty of cars. Obviously it had been cleared for American president Obama -- visiting Australia for a couple of days -- to drive on. Do they do this in America, everywhere he goes? That must get inconvenient. We don't do anything like that for our Prime Minister, but then probably not many people want to kill her. There were helicopters overhead too, and a few people were loitering to watch him drive past but it didn't happen while I was beside the road. I resolved to take another way home.

Nearing my starting/finishing point, I realised that I was getting close to the end of the hour. I jogged a bit more but right at the end I walked. I wanted to run that last bit but my body just wouldn't comply. I made it back and stopped the clock -- 56 mins! Yay! 7 mins less than Tuesday. Quick drink and then headed home, only to get caught in a traffic jam on a different road, we all sat still for about 20 mins while (I assume) Obama was driven through an abandoned city centre. I just read the book I had with me until we could go again. I was pretty hungry though. When I got home I loaded up with rice and tea with lots of sugar.

For comparison:

Tuesday Thursday

63 mins .................... 56 mins

zone 0: 73% ............. zone 0: 36%

zone 1: 21% ............. zone 1: 36%

zone 2: 5% ............... zone 2: 22%

zone 3: 1% ............... zone 3: 4%

zone 4: 0% .............. zone 4: 2%

160 cal ..................... 181 cal

average HR 104 ..... average HR 114

peak HR 172 ........... peak HR 176

I was really sore all afternoon on Tuesday so I am expecting that again today.

Tim's doctor's appointment was about his blood pressure, and he has finally been put on medication for it. Scary that his blood pressure is that bad, but good that he is doing something to address it. It seems to be from work stress, so I am hoping that will be reduced in the new year.

photo by The Happy Rower

Jogging

Tuesday:

I tried to get up early to work today but my 5 year old (I can't believe he's 5!) was already up and he insisted on chatting to me, so we went back to bed for a cuddle instead.

I hadn't been back for a walk around Lake Burley Griffin for a while but I've wanted to, and today it worked out that I could give my husband a lift to work near there so it was a good day for it. I wore my expensive joggers and my expensive moisture-wicking socks (for the first time on a long outdoor walk) and my gym pants with the pocket for my keys and sunglasses and sunscreen and was ready to go.

The other three or four times I'd done the walk had all taken around 1 hour 15 mins. It is approximately 5 km (I think, I plotted the walk on a mapmywalk thing), so I was only walking an average of 4 kmph. Not very fast. Um, I have short legs? My goal (for a Pandora charm) is to get that down to 1 hr. My goal for today was to jog 10 times during the walk; around 50 metres each time. I know that isn't far, but it's what I can do right now. I had never done that much jogging -- I think 2 times or possibly 3 in one session was my record. So 10 was a lot. But I did it! By about 2/3 of the way round, after 7 jogs, I was pretty tired; but I kept going. I noticed I was slumping forward and slowing down and staring at the ground; so I made myself straighten up and walk faster. And I got back to the car after 1 hour 3 mins! Excellent time! After I nail this one, I am going to try for 45 mins.

I guess, after all, I must be quite a bit fitter than last time I did that walk a couple of months ago. It is happening so slowly I often feel like all this exercise isn't achieving much -- but it is. I wasn't sure if I could jog that much, but I could. I managed to jog around half a kilometre in total. Amazing.

After my walk, I got my bag out of the car and sat in the shade to eat my fruit salad. By the time I drove home and got out of the car my legs had stiffened up and now I can hardly walk! Ouch. But at least my feet didn't do that thing where they swell up and get really painful, so maybe the moisture-wicking socks really worked.

... I was feeling quite proud of myself until I just went back over this and looked up distances and worked out how slowly I was going before. My 5kmph average today doesn't seem that great. But it is great, a great improvement. It is an achievment for me, and that is what matters. So what if a couple of skinny women passed me with their prams, stopped in the shade to feed their babies, and then managed to pass me again (at a walk!) about a kilometre later. So what if their walk is a lot faster than my walk plus jog? I can't compare myself to them -- only to the earlier version of me.

Now stop procrastinating and get back to work.

photo by spelio

Cake and yoghurt

Monday:

Ok, maybe my cake-making skills aren't quite up to the one pictured, but I made a chocolate stegosaurus and a vanilla apatasauras and they weren't too shabby at all. Somehow I forgot to take any photos of the cakes or the party -- a bit annoyed about that -- I will have to rely on my brother-in-law who took photos all day.

I felt sick all Saturday but was ok by evening and fine on Sunday. My baby celebrated his 5th birthday with nine little friends plus his sister. Apart from some organised games, the boys ran around screaming in a mob and the girls sat in Jasmine's room (with the door closed) playing with a iPad. Lots of parents stayed and chatted.

What with one thing and another I had three days in a row without exercise (unless you count hours of house cleaning) so it is going to be hard to catch up to earn my November charm. I went to BodyPump this morning and reduced a couple of weights due to last week's scare but it was fine.

Tim called at around 8.30 tonight, just after I had got the kids to bed, to say he wouldn't be home any time soon, and I immediately turned to the Toblerone. I definitely eat my emotions. Nom nom nom. I'm not mad at him, I know he's not out partying, but I get lonely. Chocolate is my friend. I was careful to get rid of all the leftovers after the party -- sending them home with family or tossing them out -- but I did have some extra Toblerone that I had bought to make the spines for the stegasaurus cake.

Someone or other said "If hunger isn't the problem, food isn't the solution." Very wise. Very deep. And, in the extremely short term, wrong. For that brief moment in time, food is comforting and loving and makes me feel good. Someone else said "You love twisties, but twisties don't love you back." Ah, but they fake it very well.

I forgot to weigh myself Sunday, with all the party preparation and people sleeping on my loungeroom floor and all; Saturday I was 79.7 kg, today I was 79.1 kg. Take your pick.

I started a new editing project today and got up at 6.30 am even though I am not yet at the frantic end of the work timeline. I was awake, as usual, so I thought I might as well get a head start on it. I am still tired in the afternoons but I am not feeling quite as exhausted as I have been, which is great.

My husband eats yoghurt nearly every day. I don't like it much but eat it sometimes because I imagine it is healthy. I find it very sweet though (we have fruit-flavoured ones) -- the ones with artificial sweetner are even worse. So today I tried some natural yoghurt (Jalna greek style). A bit tangy and nasty. I added some raspberries. Better. Not something I would eat for pleasure, but edible. I had some and felt all virtuous. Then plugged it in to my calorie counter and found that it had MORE calories that the stuff with sugar! About 125 calories for half a little tub -- not even counting the raspberries! I could have enjoyed a big chunk of cheese for that cost and still got my dairy. Gipped.

Every Monday I start using the calorie counter again. But when I crash and burn, that afternoon or in a day or so, I give up until the following week. Nothing special about Mondays. I will start again tomorrow.

photo by Jamie Anderson

Queasy

Saturday:

I was flat-out finishing a project yesterday and didn't get to the gym -- but I did get the month-long project finished in time which was great. I walked to pick up the kids and had hoped to get out for a dusk walk but my husband didn't get home from work until nearly 10 pm so that didn't happen. I can't wait for him to finish doing this job in a couple of months -- he works such long stressful hours and his blood pressure is so high he will probably need to go on medication for it. Its been tough for the whole family -- the kids barely see him.

I ate poorly too; I had been shopping for party food for the weekend and ate some. And got bored and lonely in the evening after I put the kids to bed and ate more. My body was aching a bit, but I attributed it to being hunched over the computer all day with no exercise.

At 2.30 am I woke feeling horribly nauseous. Not just a bit queasy, but "about to throw up" nauseous. The ensuite toilet is next to my side of the bed so I wouldn't have far to go but I didn't end up vomiting, I lay and felt wretched for about an hour then went back to sleep and totally forgot the incident when I woke up feeling normal in the morning.

Then after breakfast today, while trying to clean the house in preparation for the party, the nausea came back and I was hunched over the toilet dry retching. I feel weak and queasy now. And have four houseguests coming in a couple of hours and then 12 little kids (and their parents) coming for a party tomorrow morning. The house is a shambles. Tim is running around trying to get everything done while I slowly do tasks I feel up to -- like washing up, where I don't have to move or bend much. We've been so busy lately that I can't really say this is the worst time to get sick, any time would be inconvenient. And I'm not incapacitated, if I stay feeling like this I can cope. But still.

photo by textlad

Drama

Thursday:

On Monday I increased some of my weights at BodyPump (I had already increased for other tracks over the past few weeks) and rated how I felt during each track -- all either hard or f*ing hard. But manageable. So that was good.

Tuesday I didn't have the car so couldn't go to Zumba but I had to walk the kids to and from school and childcare which totaled an hour. I was way more exhausted than I should have been from two half-hour walks (half of each at child-speed!), but it was extremely humid. I hate humidity. It isn't usually too bad here in Canberra -- inland and up a (little) mountain -- but we have had both hot weather and storms which is a humid combination. It just seems to sap all my strength.

Wednesday was BodyPump again, I was really struggling. Despite air conditioning, it was hot and humid in the gym. The instructor's microphone wasn't working so she had to shout and it was hard to hear what move was coming up. I did the first couple of tracks at my new weight then dropped back to the old weights. I was even toying with the idea of leaving early even though Pump is my favourite, but pushed on. The tricep track was extra-difficult because I was lying down and couldn't see the instructor. I would be straining to hear, doing the moves and suddenly realize we were supposed to be doing something else so I'd quickly change -- although I didn't feel any pain then I may have jerked my shoulder with a sudden switch.

Anyway, next was biceps. I picked up my very light weight and lifted -- ow. Tried again, carefully -- ow. Not my left shoulder, with the healing rotator cuff tear, but my right. I have ten years of history with my right shoulder, but not this sharp pain. I did about four lifts, then stopped. No way I was going to risk tearing this one -- or making it worse if I already had.

I put away my stuff and had a shower. I was still getting sharp (mild) pain when I moved my arm. I went to reception and asked to report an injury. They seemed a bit surprised and I have no idea if anyone else has ever reported an injury in a gym, but they filled out a form for me and gave me an ice pack. They were very nice about it, and rang down to the creche to say I would be a little late picking up Aiden. I had no intention of sueing the gym, but after having lots of time off work with RSI years ago, and years of hassles with lawyers and Comcare, I just wanted a paper trail if I needed it.

It seems fine now, thank Gods. I think it was a false alarm. But I am not ashamed of being concerned.

Thursday, today, was my baby's 5th birthday. He had presents this morning and french toast with raspberries for breakfast, then went to preschool -- I made a triple batch of cupcakes yesterday for him to take and share. I worked all day (no gym today after yesterday's scare and also project due tomorrow) then walked to pick the kids up, yummy afternoon tea and special dinner of his choice (lasagne). He is having a party on Sunday.

I am about to go for a short walk now, with the kid pick-up that will add up to a decent amount of body movement. I will probably need to get a bit more work done tonight. No time to edit this, so I hope there are no typos.

Weekend away

Sunday:

I was away all weekend so didn't weigh myself today, but yesterday I was 79.2 kg -- up 0.3 kg. Same old same old.

You may remember a few weeks ago my jeans split and I accidentally bought new ones a size too small. Looking back through old blogs, I found that I bought my last pair of jeans almost exactly a year before they split. So I had been wearing the larger size for a whole year but had blanked out that fact. The new jeans are in the drawer, still with tags on, waiting for me to loose weight -- I amateurishly sewed up the split in the old ones and I am still wearing them.

Yesterday I was wearing my black jeans, also in the larger size, and they split. Same place they always do -- the seam that gets eroded by my thighs rubbing together. While I will also try to sew up these ones so they last a little longer; I now have no decent jeans. And I wear jeans nearly every day. I don't wear dresses (except for very formal occasions) as my thighs rub together causing a very painful heat rash; I now have one pair of shorts (long enough to cover the knee fat) and one pair of grey trousers that I wear when meeting clients. That's it. Apart from gym shorts and a couple of formal dresses, that is my entire bottom-half wardrobe.

Now the conundrum is: do I go and buy some new stuff in this unhappy size, or do I keep hoping for some weight-loss soon? At least it is finally warm enough to wear the shorts. I have quite a few clothes that would fit me if I drop a size. I am very resistant to accepting that I will continue being this size for long enough to need new clothes, even though I have been this size for a year. And haven't lost weight in four months of exercise. But adding more clothes for the current body shape would feel like giving in.

We drove to Sydney for the weekend and left the kids with my mum while Tim and I went to his cousin's 30th party. It was a geek party which was fun, Tim & I didn't have to look far to find suitable clothes! He wore his Goodies T-shirt and mine read "I appreciate the Muppets on a much deeper level than you". That part of the weekend was good, but we drove for hours each day and ate a lot. Chinese restaurant Saturday lunch, steak restaurant dinner, party, cafe bacon & eggs Sunday morning, McDonald's lunch on the drive back. I ate almost nothing at the party, but had 2 alcholic drinks which have plenty of calories, and no snacks apart from 3 strawberries and a mango all weekend. I wonder what I will weigh tomorrow.

No exercise yesterday but went for a walk after we got home this afternoon. Or preevning, as Sheldon would call it (pre-evening: after afternoon but before evening).

I spent much of my walk thinking about diet plans. Ok, first a disclaimer: I don't watch much daytime TV, but as I work from home I do have the TV on while I have lunch or a cup of tea. So I see bits of Oprah, The Doctors, Ellen Degeneres etc. But I don't sit around in my PJs watching TV all day. So that out of the way; I saw on Dr Phil that he has been pushing something called the 17 day diet. I don't know all the details, but the idea is that you change the rules of the diet every 17 days so that you don't get bored with it. As I get bored with a diet after about 1 day, I was toying with doing my version of a 1 day (or 3 day) diet. So I would change from low-carb to low-calorie to CSIRO etc. Always, of course, aiming to consume less calories than I expended. But the idea seemed kind of silly when I actually tried to plan it out. I am just searching for some way to help me to stick to a healthy eating plan.

I was chatting to a friend about dieting and all that, and she commented that I seem to be an "all or nothing" kind of person, and that maybe I should try little steps as being more sustainable. Yes, yes, but I want to be thin now! Yesterday! Tiny changes with tiny results don't seem motivational. But ... I have changed from cordial to water with a slice of lemon without any problems. A little change, but healthy and easy. No noticable results, of course. But maybe I can keep adding other little things like that instead of going all-out for a couple of days then lapsing.

I am going to focus on two things; drinking enough water, and eating my fruit and vegetables. These are both things I need to work on, they are positive goals (things to do, not things not to do), measurable, achievable. And filling myself with things my body actually needs might just help me stay away from the other stuff.

On the exercise front, I need to up the intensity a bit. I am increasing weights for BodyPump this week, but I am still not getting much intense cardio -- mainly walking and a bit of Zumba. I've been too busy on the weekends to get to my Step classes, and that is going to continue for a while, so I need to find some other way.

I just had a look at my gym timetable and saw that there is an RPM (spin) class on Thursday morning, when I currently don't have a class. Oooo. I shrink away from spin. Leaning forward on the handlebars puts too much weight on my shoulder (the instructor last time said that this is preventable if I just activate my core ie my non-existant abs) and it is ... just ... well ... hard work. Spin is hard.

Ok. This week, I go to spin. Urgle.

photo by pillowhead designs

"Perfect"

Wednesday:

I went to BodyPump on Monday morning as usual. It was Hallowe'en but we don't really celebrate it in Australia despite mounting pressure from the shops with all their spooky decorations. I happened to be shopping with the kids after school and it was a dieter's nightmare with lollies and chips and chocolates all extra cheap. I bought a little more than I strictly needed for upcoming events. And one bag of wrapped sweets just in case anyone came by trick or treating but of course no one did.

Tuesday was supposed to be Zumba but I was just too tired so decided on a walk instead. It was a beautiful morning and I would have walked outside but wasn't equiped for it (no sunscreen, wrong shoes, no pocket in gym pants for keys) so walked on the treadmill at the gym. At least I had my headphones with me for once so was able to plug into the TV. I walked briskly on an incline and did feel like I got my quota of exercise in. I went home and tried to work, but ended up napping on the lounge for part of the afternoon. I am getting a bit stressed about how much work I have still to do before Christmas.

This morning was BodyPump again. While definitely not easy, the weight I have been lifting has become very managable, so time to move up a bit. I will increase warm-up weight from light to medium and back-track weight from medium to heavy (for me) next week; but for today I added light weights to the bar for the chest track where I previously had a naked bar. I had two short rests but it went ok and didn't hurt my shoulder -- I could feel the strain a bit but it was ok. Then on the shoulder track -- where I had already been using the bar with light weights and doing wall push-ups -- I added my own very light hand weights from home to those sections where we use hand weights and I previously lifted empty hands. Shoulder is coping well with the increase.

The lunge track is near the end of the routine, and it was more than half way through the track, so I was getting fatigued. I was doing well though. The instructor helped the form of the new person next to me then looked at me and said "perfect". After a moment tears welled up and I spent the rest of the track feeling very emotional and trying not to cry. I am feeling a bit teary now. It was just so weird and awesome to get that praise, particularly in lunging which I have only been able to do all the way through for about a week now. I was overwhelmed. I don't know whether the instructor had noticed my previous struggles and improvement, or was just commenting on my general form; but I was doing it right. Go me.