Back from Hols and Into the Swing of It!

• Well - I'm back from two glorious weeks at the beach - feeling tanned, relaxed and energetic. Thought I'd better post something or you might think now I've reached goal I've disappeared off the face of the earth - not so - in fact I haven't weighed myself in a couple of weeks - so might not even be at goal anymore - but I don't really care. I've had a very active holiday - my clothes all still fit and I'm happy with my weight/size so it doesn't really matter.
  
  Some updates:
• I relaxed my eating whilst on holidays - I decided that life would be a bit sad if I could never eat take away and other treats again - and that as I only have 4 weeks a year of hols - to let myself off on those times would be ok. So I ate what ever I wanted (within reason) with the understanding that I would return to my clean, high protein, low fat, low cal diet when I returned home - as this is part of who I am now - a lifestyle diet forever.

• I've done lots of exercise! Last week I covered approx 83 kms! I loved being able to run by the beach, so most days I alternated between walking or running to Glenelg and back (7 kms) and as the weeks progressed I kept running - and the last few times ran 10 kms (West Beach - Glenelg, then back again, then 1/2 way to Henley Beach and back) and then after that when I returned the family would decide to walk to Glenelg for breakfast - so I'd do it all over again. One day we followed this up with an 18 km bike ride, and then I did my weights session (Yep - that was about 5 hours of exercise that day)
  
  
  
• I've kept up my more intensive weight training (body sculpting) even whilst living in a caravan for two weeks. Took dumbells, medicine ball, exertube, and trained alternate days in the annexe! My favorite exercises at the moment are wide leg squats with 20 kg weights, and a dumbell incline extension for the back (done on a lazy boy - had to be very creative whilst away!). I'm really happy with how this is going and have included some photo's of my muscle development - yep muscles - I'm just proud to have some!

• The running is going well - I've found that when I concentrate on going slow - I'm now running at my "fast" pace (ie I've improved) and I love my new Garmin Forerunner 305 which I got for Christmas. It tells me how fast I'm running, how far I've gone, my heart rate etc, and then I just plug it into the computer when I get home and it downloads all the details, along with producing a satellite picture of my run. I ran a few times on the beach and it actuallys shows my path on white sand!

• I haven't actually missed the gym! When they were closed so much over Christmas, I set up my home gym better, now have a secondhand combo gym - you know the ones with leg extensions, pec flye, lat pull downs and high and low cables, plus bought a 20 kg dumbell set. Along with the treadmill for days I can't get out I'm pretty well set. Combining this with running, walking and some DVD's - I've managed to cover all bases. I will still go back though as I love the classes for variety.

• I've re-discovered walking! Yes, I'd given this the big flick as I couldn't get my heart rate up. But I seemed to have forgotten that it still burns calories - in fact covering a certain number of KM's burns the same amount of calories whether you walk or run - its just that running is faster and has fitness benefits. So on the days when I don't run (to prevent injury) I just fast walk it instead. And somehow I can now walk at 7 kms an hour - I remember the days when I first started out and thought 6 kms/hour was the ultimate goal that I would never achieve. Not bad for a shorty!

• I know that my body can cope with lots of kms if I don't run them all. Powerwalking also builds muscle, and I think that supplementing my running with lots of extra kms walked will help with my running endurance in the long run (excuse the pun), without increasing my risk of injury. As I said earlier - I covered about 83 kms last week - half run, half walked - but I think they all count.

• I can see myself improving just by doing more for longer! The 10 kms runs at the beach had no adverse affects stiffness wise, and today I set out to walk 8 - 10 kms, but ended up covering 12kms of big hills (really big - one hill is 4 kms long) - half walked half ran - and it took me 1.5 hours. Not bad consider I ran 12kms in the City to Bay and it took me 83 mins -no hills. And no significant after effects - yeah!

• I have finally ceased my online subscription to Weight Watchers. I think I will still be able to participate in the forums, but its a part of letting go on the weight loss issues, and focussing on being fit and healthy. I no longer count points, but am tracking my calories through Calorie King - which I am really enjoying. Whilst I don't think one system is any better than the other, I just feel that calorie counting is more in line with an athletes behaviour, and "points" ties me to weight loss behaviour. I think I've just outgrown it and need to move on.

Ok - I think this is a long enough post. BTW, my daughter is going in a Deb Ball in April and I have been looking on Ebay at evening gowns (for me that is) There are soooo many cheap, gorgeous dresses around (like $20) for small sizes. Its unbelievable - I may buy several just for the hell of it. So if you haven't reached your goal weight yet - can I encourage you to keep going - the shopping is sooo worth it!