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!)
  
  

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  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 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.