C25K - Week 1, Day 2

Went out this morning in the cold (had to wear my gloves and about 4 layers of clothes!) and did my second session - and I must say it was easier than last week!  I found that I wasn't as tired and my breathing was better :o)  As long as it keeps going this way I will be a happy bunny - looking forward to the mornings/evenings getting lighter so I can do the three sessions a week that the plan suggests, just not comfortable running in the dark with my headphones in...

On track for today, just had my weetabix and currently munching my way through some clementines before we head off for the weekly food shop.  Planning to make a chili for tonight's dinner and will pick something up for lunch (not too sure what to have though, will find inspiration in Aldi's hopefully!).

Week so far...

... has gone well (I think!) - I'm still tracking everything that passes my lips and I went to my Zumba class this morning so earned 5 activity points.  Menus for Friday and today are as follows:

Friday:

Breakfast:

• 2 weetabix - 3pp
• 1/4 pint ss milk - 2pp

Lunch:

• Jacket potato with tuna, sweetcorn and mayo - 14pp

Dinner:

• Haddock fillet - 4pp
• 1/2 packet of couscous - 5pp
• Butternut squash - 0pp
• Broccoli - 0pp

Snacks:

• 2 bananas - 0pp
• 3 clementines - 0pp
• 1 digestive biscuit - 2pp
• 1 onion ring - 1pp
• Homemade chocolate and banana bread pudding - 5pp

TOTAL - 36pp out of 29pp -  7 weekly points used

Saturday:

Breakfast:

• 3 clementines - 0pp
• 2 toast and marmalade - 6pp

Lunch:

• Chicken shish - 10pp

Dinner:

• 225g chicken breast - 6pp
• Homemade sauce with onion, garlic, mushroom and 150mls reduced fat creme fraiche - 7pp
• 70g (dried weight) pasta - 7pp

TOTAL - 36pp out of 29pp -  5 activity points and 2 weekly points used

Planning to do W1D2 of the C25K programme tomorrow morning (as long as its not raining).  With 21 of my weekly points remaining I should stay on track until WI on Wednesday evening :o)

WI - Wednesday 26th January 2011

Well I was slightly surprised with a very small gain this week - put on half a pound which puts my current weight at 12st 1lb.  I'm not too sure why, I'm pretty sure I was within my points for the week but I had been having sandwiches for my lunches and bread does have a tendency to bloat me a bit.  Needless to say I was pretty down when I left my meeting last night and proceeded to get chicken satay and egg fried rice for my dinner along with a milkshake and some chocolate - comfort eating at its best!  

Anyway, I have drawn a line and am focused on doing well this week (easy to do as my points restart on a Thursday).  The only thing which I thought could jeopardise my week was a client lunch today (at Zizzi's) but that wasn't as bad as I thought - menu today was as follows:

Breakfast:

• Toast with jam - 7pp
• 1 banana - 0pp

Lunch:

• Bread board (I had a couple of piece of olive bread) - 6pp
• Strozzapreti Pesto Rosso (Pasta, spicy chicken with spring onions, crème fraîche and red pesto) - 17pp
• 2 vodka and diet cokes - 4pp

Dinner:

• 2 egg omelette with onion, mushroom and small amount of chorizo - 5pp

Snacks:

• 1 M&S white chocolate cookie (from a box selection) - 3pp
• 2 5ths of a 100g bar of Milky Bar - 6pp

TOTAL - 48pp out of 29pp -  19 weekly points used

I really thought lunch today would have been worse than it was, helped that no wine was ordered and no time for dessert :o)  19 points over is not bad in my opinion!

Anyway, I'm focused and ready to take on the week - hope your all good and ready for the week ahead

I did it!! W1D1 of C25K - Woop!

I actually did it! I managed W1D1 of the C25K programme! This is a big achievement for me for 2 reasons

1. I'm not a runner, never have been and always assumed I never would be; and
2. I didn't give up after my first attempt! I went back out there and pushed myself!

When I finished the last of the jogging segments I had the biggest smile on my face – anyone who saw me probably thought I was a bit crazy but I really don't care!

While I was walking home from the park this morning I was thinking about why I have started to push myself more – to be honest I'm really not too sure what it is. I think it could be a combination of the following things:

• Age – now I know I'm not old, 27 is a good age and I still feel like I did when I was 20. But a lot of people I know have been settling down and having kids and since my best friend had her little girl (18 months ago) I feel like I'm getting to that point where I would like to have kids soon. Due to this I guess I want to make sure my body is ready and it is widely known that if you are an overweight woman it can potentially cause issues if you become pregnant (I think at my current weight I would be ok but I wouldn't really want to wait and see – I should point out that I can be slightly neurotic and once an idea is in my head it is very difficult to shift it!)
  
  

• 

  L-R - Me, Kelly and Claire at Kelly's Wedding  (Nov. 2010)

  Image – this probably happens to most women but the image of myself I see in the mirror always seems different in photos. When I get ready for a night out I usually think I look good (unless I'm having a 'fat' day in which case it doesn't matter what I wear I just won't be happy with it!) - but once the evening is done and I'm home and look at photo's that have been taken (the joy of camera phones and facebook!) I always think 'oh my god, what the hell happened!'. The main issue is being the 'bigger' friend in the group which I go out with most often – I always seem to look huge in comparison, probably because they are both in the 9 stone bracket and I'm around the 12 stone mark. 
   
• Health and fitness – my fitness levels are not great, and this was proven to me towards the end of last year when the lift at work was broken for over a week, having to walk up to the 6^th floor really got my heart rate up and made me out of breath, not good at all! 
   
• Goal – over the years I have done numerous diets and eating plans but I have never gotten to a goal weight (for one reason or another I have abandoned which ever plan I have been on and never got back into it). This really bugs me and I want to prove to myself that I can actually get to within my healthy weight range and stay there.

There probably are other reasons which I didn't have chance to think about on the 10 minute walk home but these are the main ones for now. So I have decided this year I will get to goal and I will increase my fitness levels so I am at a reasonable level for my age.

I think I'm doing quite well so far for 2011 (I know we are not even at the end of January yet!) - in addition to my triumph this morning I also did my Zumba class yesterday morning. I currently have 18 of my weekly points left (Stew and I went to Wagamama's on Friday, chicken katsu curry and duck gyoza are my downfall! Plus the Mojito I had added 6 extra points to my meal – totally worth it) and I have planned most of this weeks dinners so I should only have my 29 daily points until weigh-in on Wednesday evening.

Hope you are all having a good week

WI - Wednesday 19th January 2011

So had WI this evening and managed to loose 1lb - YAY!  Down to 12st 0.5lbs which is great - especially as I'm pretty sure I went over my weekly allowance last Thursday night and it was my TOTM last week (on the old plan I either gained or STS around my TOTM).  All in all I'm very pleased with myself :o)  

Hope you all do well this week, I'm off to have a couple of celebratory squares of chocolate :o)

C25K - Week 1, Day 1

 

I actually forced myself to do this today, I got up, got dressed and went to the park.  Stew (bless him) came with me to give me some support which did really help.  

So, managed to do the warm up and 4 of the 6 jogging sequences but then I got a really painful stitch and ended up walking the rest of the session - not exactly a success but not a failure either, I managed a chunk of it, it didn't kill me and it hasn't deterred me either so that's got to be a good thing right?!  I need to work on my breathing I think, I seem to start breathing really fast when I jog and feel like I'm not getting enough air which in turn can panic me so next time I'm going to really try deeper, longer breaths and see how that helps.

If anyone can point me in the direction of some running tip type sites it would be very much appreciated!  Thanks

Zumba, week 2!

Had my second Zumba class this morning and it was more intensive than last week!  I was drenched in sweat by the end and really felt the benefits of the cool down stretches after - thats got to be good right?!  Erned 5 activity points which should help counteract Thursday night, so its all good :o)

Still planning to start the first session of C25K tomorrow morning - Stew is being an angel and making me a podcast for it (the ones you can get for free online are good but my own playlist will deffo help).  I figure if I head out once I'm up and then have breakfast once I'm home I'll cope ok!

WI - Wednesday 12th January 2011

To be honest I wasn't expecting much from this WI as I didn't feel like I had lost anything but I must say I was very pleasantly surprised!  Got on the scales and my current weight came up as 12st 1.5lbs - a whopping 4.5lbs lost!!  Woop woop!!  

Me and my 'Girls' on our night out - I'm in the middle

So after a great week I had a night out with the girls last night - it was so good that all tracking went out of the window, loads of cocktails and a few shots combined with a platter of food.  On the plus side there was a fair amount of dancing so that's good from an exercise point of view!  I have decided that the best way to proceed is assume all of my weekly points have been used and just stick to my daily points for the rest of the week, hopefully that should counteract the damage caused!  At least it happened on the first day of my tracking week, much better than closer to WI :o)

Got my Zumba class tomorrow morning, really looking forward to it.  I have also been looking into other exercise plans and have come across the 'C25K' jogging plan - as anyone who knows me can confirm I'm not a runner and I don't seem to be built for running to be perfectly frank.  But this plan has peaked my interest and from reading about other people's success with it I feel I should be able to cope with it (although I'm not too sure about being able to do the 3 runs a week as its still really dark - so I may just start off with 1 or 2 a week until it gets lighter in the evenings).  I'm thinking of trying out the first session on Sunday morning, figure if I go out as soon as I'm up and about I should avoid too many people in the park. 

Zumba!

I attended my first Zumba class yesterday morning and must say I had so much fun I didn't even feel like I was working out!  It is going to take me a few weeks to get my coordination into gear with the steps (I'm the typical '2 left feet' type of person) but the instructor makes everyone feel at ease right at the beginning of the class by saying 'there is no right way or wrong way for your body to move, just have fun!'  And when I got home I worked out that I had gained 5 activity points for the hours class, bonus! 

Menu for yesterday was as follows:

Breakfast:

• 2 weetabix - 3pp
• 1/4 pint ss milk - 2pp
• 2 slices of toast with marmalade - 5pp (had after Zumba)

Lunch:

• KFC Chicken drumstick - 4pp
• medium fries - 7pp

Dinner:

• Homemade chilli - 6pp
• 80g (dried) rice - 8pp

Snacks:

• 1/2 chocolate tart (at Ikea) - 6pp
• 5 mini daim bars - 5pp (guessing 1pp each)

TOTAL - 46pp out of 29pp - I was 17 points over, using my 5 activity points means I used 12 of my weekly points today

After Zumba I had an impromptu trip to Ikea with Mum and Laura (my sister) hence the chocolate tart shared with Laura from the cafe when we had a drink break, it was unexpected and if I had gone to the counter I wouldn't have got it but it was very yummy :o) 

So far so good...

Two fulls days back on track and its going really well, I think the WI on Wednesday put me in the right frame of mind!  Menu's for Thursday and Friday were as follows:

Thursday 6th January:

Breakfast:

• 2 weetabix - 3pp
• 1/4 pint SS milk - 2

Lunch:

• Jacket potato with tuna and sweetcorn - 14pp

Dinner:

• Homemade bolognaise - 6pp
• 100g (dried) pasta - 10pp

Snacks:

• 4 clementines - 0pp
• 1 M&S chocolate teacake - 2pp

TOTAL - 37pp out of 29pp - 8 weekly points used

Friday 7th January:

Breakfast:

• 2 weetabix - 3pp
• 1/4 pint SS milk - 2

Lunch:

• New York plain bagel - 6pp
• 3 slices pastrami (Co-Op) - 1pp
• 50g Dairylea light - 2pp
• Multi pack bag of Wotsits - 3pp

Dinner:

• Lamb steak - 8pp
• 50g (dried) couscous - 5pp
• Veg - 0pp

Snacks:

• 3 clementines - 0pp
• 2 bananas - 0pp

TOTAL - 30pp out of 29pp - 1 weekly points used

I feel I must point out that I made an error when cooking my pasta on Thursday as assumed 100g was 5pp rather than 10pp, lesson learnt to always check points values before eating!  Having said that no harm has been done due to the useful weekly allowance (love it!).

First WI of 2011

So first WI of 2011 took place this evening and I was surprised that I had only put on 3 and a half pounds, I was seriously expecting more!  This brings me back up to 12st 6lbs and means I can now focus on getting back on track.

Tomorrow is the first full day back on ProPoints, I already have a bag of clementines on my desk ready for snacking :o)  

2011 is here, time to get down to business

So Christmas and New Year have been and gone, I had a great time, spent time with my family and close friends and have had loads to eat and drink.  I have even sampled one of my Christmas pressies which was an ice cream maker by making a full fat custard based black cherry ice cream which was lush!  

However for the last couple of days I have had a stomach bug and over Saturday and Sunday I ate the grand total of 2/3 of a slice of bread with marmite, a tiny ham sandwich and 3 fingers of a kitkat Sunday evening.  Feeling much better today although still not got my full appetite back (which is probably a blessing!) so I guess it is a good time to start back on the ProPoints.  Going to ease myself back in by sticking (or trying to) to 29 points per day until after WI on Wednesday when I'll give myself the extra 49 weekly points again to use if needed - although to be honest not much happens in January so shouldn't be having any big nights out!

And as I'm not too good with New Years resolutions I'll make one I really think I can keep - from now on my ice cream maker will be making frozen yogurt for me to consume and not full fat creamy based frozen delights :o)

Roll on Wednesday so I can see what the damage is and wipe the slate fully clean!