G Day is here!!!!!!

Finally - I've done it - weight this morning - 57.8 !!!! whoooo hoooo - I have to admit - in my wildest dreams I never really thought I would see the day!
Its a very surreal feeling - the weight has come off so slowly that in many ways I haven't really noticed the changes - and now that I've "arrived" it kinda feels like "what now". Dont get me wrong I have plenty of plans to continue on with my journey to health and fitness, but even last night I was reading about some of the weight loss challenges coming up - including one you can register and pay for - with a financial incentive - and realised that I can't really join in on them any more. Yes I may still want to lose up to another 5 kgs, but its really not enought to make these sort of challenges worthwhile - and there is a sense of loss here - how totally weird is that - and on second thoughts - how incredibly stupid!
I HAVE REACHED GOAL! I HAVE REACHED GOAL!

I have been tempted to post a few times since my November 18 cut off post - but I resisted but have saved up the stories to fill you in. After posting on the 18th, I was 600gms from goal. The very next morning I weighed in at 58.0gms - just 100 gms off of my target. Wow - I thought - I wont be keeping anyone is suspense for long - I'll probably have to post again tomorrow thatI 've reached goal. Must have jinxed it right there and then. The next day my weight inexplicably went up by a whole kg! Aggh - I was devasted - but then remembered that this is how it goes, don't get discouraged - it had dropped down before quite quickly- my weight will stabilise and then drop again.
However Friday morning I had an early phone call to say that my mum had been admitted to hospital and was having surgery in the afternoon. It was minor surgery - but my mum has MS and is physically totally dependent on other people. She also has a fear of hospitals - so I rushed down to Adelaide to sit with her. Whilst the surgery went well - they told her that she would need to remain in hospital for some time - so I took a week off work to stay with her. (She needs someone there as she doesn't even have enough control to push the button for the nurse if she needs something.) what this meant though was that I spent a week without access to normal food or home cooking - and also relaxed my eating (had a couple of pieces of cheesecake - ate out quite a bit). I did keep up my exercise visiting a gym and running, but this was really all. On my return home - my weight was up another kg - to 60kgs. Aggh - now I was further away than ever from my goal. I wanted to post and let you know - "stop checking - I'm going in the wrong direction" but I held off thinking that this might just be a temporary glitch, and thankfully it was. My theory is that when you eat more than usual, your body may temporarily hold on to the extra calories as fat, but if you return to normal healthy eating fairly quickly (back to the consistent nutritionally sound intake) it will drop back down - in an effort to maintain status quo. And it did happen - on my return I had a few Christmas parties - still stayed fairly relaxed - but in between ate very well, and when I stepped on the scales a week ago - I was back down to 58.7. So for the last week I worked very hard on the perfect diet/exercise schedule and I made it!

So what is the perfect diet you ask?
I know we all have a lot of ideas about this - mainly influenced by Weight Watchers, but as you know I have become very focussed on fitness over the last 6 months or so - and I read all the fitness mags - Oxygen, Women's Health and Fitness, Fit Australia - you name it, I read it. I think I've said before that I prefer these magazines to slimming ones because the people in them are fit and healthy with well toned, well defined muscles/body shape, rather than just being thin. But in reading all of these, a couple of things have become really clear:

1. Fitness models consistently say that achieving their look comes 80% from diet, 20% from exercise
2. A "Clean Diet" is the way to eat properly to fuel your body, cut fat and increase muscle.

I have been fascinated by their diets (and exercise routines) and recently bought Tosca Reno's The Butt Book, and (can't remember the author) Sculpting Her Body Perfect.
Tosca Reno is a 46 yo fitness competitor who used to be overweight and has a body to die for. In her book - she gives a one week sample of a 'clean diet". Essentially this entails 6 small meals a day (you must eat every 2 - 3 hours) - and each meal consists of a palm size serve of protein (eg chicken, fish, eggwhites) and some complex carbohydrates (usually salad vegetables). I've had a good look at it and think it is sound nutritionally - except for two things - there isn't enough dairy - so I 've replaced one aspect of one meal with dairy, and it is high in protein (about 100 - 130 gms protein/day). I don't actually have a problem with this though. It is above the Australian guidelines, but it is consistent with the CSIRO diet - so not so bad. It is also specifically designed to build muscle. To build muscle you need to consume 1 1/2 - 2 times your body weight in grams of protein - which means I need about 100gms/day, and this is a much healthier way than relying on protein supplements. So I've been following this for the last two weeks and it has worked really well. I've also still tracked my eating with points and kept within my allowance - it certainly means eating a lot - and eating a chicken salad at 10.30 in the morning takes some getting used to - but I'm sure this is the healthiest I have ever eaten. I have NEVER eaten so many vegetables in all my life - and the protein does of course keep you full.
So this year I plan to focus on sculpting MY body perfect and dropping my body fat down to 22% (its currently at a whopping 32%). So my goals won't relate to weight, but I estimate that I will probably have to drop another 5 kgs or so to get there.

Being Christmas - I don't have a lot of time to for complicated posts - but next time I will post final pictures and stats from this phase of my journey - as well as my goals for the coming year.

Have a great Christmas everyone - I've already received the best Christmas present ever!
G DAY!

Lisa

The Countdown Is On

Well - as of this morning I have only 600gms to get to goal! Yep - its finally getting close.
I should explain that when I set my goal weight, my aim was to to be within a healthy weight range. For my height this is between 46 and 58 kgs, so I set my goal weight to be 57 kgs. But I meant 57 point ANYTHING, anything that was below 58 kgs and would give me a healthy BMI. I've since learnt that according to Weight Watchers, 57 means 57 point zero. I've ummed and ahhed over this for the last 12 months, but have decided that I'm doing this for me, not for WW, and I should stick to my understanding of my goal. So weighing in at 58.5 this am puts me very close!
For those who read my last post - yes I was around this weight a few weeks ago, but I knew that my low weight then was a result of gastro the day before and that it would go right up again the next day, and it did.
What is interesting is that since then, I haven't weighed myself, and have relaxed my eating a bit. Still staying very healthy, but have allowed extra snacks (nuts, dried fruit etc), and just focussed on exercise. I was really worried about stepping on the scales again, felt that maybe I'd let myself go and I'd be back up in the 60's again. But surprise, surprise - I was at 59.1 - practically my lowest weight ever! Just goes to show that if you eat healthily and exercise well the weight can look after itself.
So I'm feeling VERY, VERY motivated now that I'm soooo close and have seen movement on the scales. Lets face it, if I'm really good - I could knock off 600gms in a few days - so I'm going to try and bust a gut exercise wise and be very careful with my eating.....

My next post wont be until D Day, or should I say G(oal) Day - so check back soon!

One year ago today!

Today is my one year anniversary of my weight loss journey. Yes, November 1st, 2005 I decided that I was going to change my life and lose all my extra weight. Which I have decided many times, but this time I've actually done it.
So I thought I should mark the occasion with anniversary comparison photos. Of course since I was quite camera shy before, I couldn't find any photos of me Nov 1 last year, but I had just come back from a 2 month trip overseas - so I knew I would find some from late October. So here is the progress one year on:





My daughter took the top photos, and she insisted on "posing" me, hence the middle shot with my face side on - but I included here because it shows that I do indeed have a jaw line again, instead of a double chin - and this is a big achievement! (Click on the photos to enlarge). My youngest daughter looked at the photos tonight and said - gee mum, I don't remember you looking that big, but if that's how you looked in the photo then, imagine how you must look now! Yes, I was puzzled by that for a moment too, but I think what she meant was that the photo made me look bigger than I really was, and hence i must actually look a bit thinner that the "after" photo now. (clear as mud hey!)

Anyway - the scales this morning said 58.4 - 1 kg from goal, and 30 kgs lighter than 1 year ago (and 40 kgs lighter than my heaviest). Of course this weight is a temporary one I suspect as I suffered from a bout of gastro yesterday -so tomorrow it will probably be up again. But nevertheless, for whatever reason that was the reading 12 months on from starting and I've got to be happy with that. Now if I can just keep control of my eating - maybe I can hang on to some of that temporary loss and shift my plateau...... Gotta get something out of gastro!

Well, finally received my photo of crossing the finish line - so I have digiscrapped it and here it is for you to see. Its not a very glamorous or flattering photo, but I like it for a couple of reasons. If you can enlarge it you will see that I have muscle definition in not only my arms, but also my legs, and I'm very proud of that. Didn't know I had so much "boob movement", and the ear growths are attractive (headphones) but ahh well - who cares, at least it shows me being athletic and achieving - and I'm happy with that! I will have to post a photo soon showing a much more glamorous side of my new bod - to balance this one out! BTW I bought a slinky red evening dress the other day - I have absolutely nowhere to wear it - but it was size 10, fitted beautifully and only $35! To me it was symbolic of what I have achieved, so I bought it. It will be there ready for any occasion that might arise, rather than panicking when being invited out somewhere formal that I have nothing to wear! I also thought I might surprise my husband with it. Perhaps when I reach goal we can go out for a romantic evening for two, and I can don the dress then.

Speaking of weight - yes I am still losing but very slowly. About 300gms a week now. There are a few reasons for this. Firstly - despite teh fact that I exercise for 1 - 2 hrs/day, my lower weight and increased fitness mean that I burn much fewer calories - about 300/hr instead of 500 -600. Plus I have applied my low heart rate training to all areas of exercise, which has meant giving up higher level cardio (combat, step etc) and have replaced them with more Body Balance/yoga/pump (plus lower level cardio on the bike/rower). I am also really starting to focus on building muscle. I am obsessed with all the fitness mags, and am working towards a clean diet with heaps of protein, and am now taking protein supplements. The more I build muscle of course, the slower the weight loss.
I'm actually a bit perplexed by my current body fat status - getting different messages. My scales tell me I am still at 39% body fat - which puts me in the obese category! GRRHHH. I have cheap skin calipers at home - and they suggest body fat is around 30% - one of the gym instructors said he would guess at about 30% - but what I really need to do is go in and get it tested for real. Otherwise its really hard to see what improvement I am making.

Either way I definitely need to strip more fat - particularly around the tummy - cause guess what I can under the last layer of fat......the makings of a six pack! Yep - you heard it - a six pack. I have been doing abs exercises almost daily now for almost a year - so something should be happening there! I have been able to see the vertical definition of the rectus abdominus muscles for some time, but yesterday I proudly showed off to hubby that if I tense my abdominals - you can see two pairs of curved horizontal lines at the top of my abs! Of course you can't see them normally cause there's too much fat - but they are defintely there! I read that you need to get your body fat down to about 20% to be able to see them - so I am aiming for that.

Running is still happening and going ok - will fill you in more about that next time.

Cheers

Thin vs Fit

Well, I'm officially a Fifties girl now. I saw weights in the fifties all week, and on my official weigh in day I registered 59.7, not bad after a day off yesterday and eating Barnacle Bill's and cheescake for lunch for my Dad's birthday! It was a somewhat surprising 1.5 kg loss for the week. Last week's weigh in saw me at 61.2 and I thought I was lucky it wasn't more as I didn't eat particulary well in my week of holidays after the big race. But I had been hovering around this weight for a few weeks before this and eating well, and it just reinforced for me that consistency of diet wins at the end of the day. I've also decided that my job is very good for weight loss - I have no time to eat!!! NO temptations to snack on undesirable foods - I am way too busy and tied down in meetings so it just can't happen.

Thin vs fit - I've had some new insights regarding this. At a family dinner on Sunday night I found out that my sister-in-law and I weigh exactly the same - 59 kilos. But she is a bit taller than me (not hard!) I reckon about 8 - 10 cms. So in my head I was processing this and thought - well this means she must be thinner than me. But I looked at her, and then reviewed the picture of me I had in my head and thought - I could have sworn I looked thinner than her - but obviously I must be wrong. It is really hard to be objective about the way you look - so I asked my husband the same question on the way home. And guess what - he thought I looked slimmer too. But how can this be you ask? As I did myself? The only explanation I can come up with is "muscle". I have spent the last 10 months exercising intensely and have definitely built muscle: I can see it in the mirror, in the photos from the City/Bay - even the kids have commented on it, and we all know muscle weighs more than fat. So whilst we weigh the same, I think my body must be more compact from the muscle and showing a slimmer shape. How cool is that! But there was more that occured to me about this. I spent quite a while reading "Oxygen" (fitness mag for women), and what I realised was that I prefer these mags to slimming ones, because they show a fitter healthier looking body shape - one'es with rounded shaped shoulders and athletic looking thighs - and I love this look. I've always hated my saddle bag thighs and yearned for those sleek stick thin ones - at least I thought i did. But now I realsie I'd much prefer to have athletic looking solid thighs - and thats definitely achievable. I think I may just learn to love my thighs afterall! It just reiterated to me that I am no longer looking for slimmer and slimmer versions of myself - I want to look fit and athletic, toned and not fat - all quite different from skinny! I think the female stars of the world have got it all wrong. Instead of starving themselves to be thinner and look more glamorous in their evening gowns, they should be exercising more to accentuate a curvy toned body - now that would look fab - and what guy doesn't love curves!

Well its only 4 weeks now until the anniversary of my weight loss journey, and I am determined to reach goal by then, so my posts will probably focus more on weight than fitness over the next few weeks, then it will be full on fat loss (changing my body composition/building muscle).
BTW - I ran 8 kms this am, then turned around and ran back down the street to buy a morning drink (just because I can!). And then, as it was such a beautiful day and I wanted to head out again, I went off to the gym and rowed 1km, cycled 5 kms and did my weights - just because I can!!! What a beautiful life!

Sharing My Story

About a month ago I was asked by some staff at work if I would provide a brief presentation at our divisional planning day about my "inspirational "weight loss achievements. I work in a leadership position in a health service, and my weight loss has been fairly high profile given my position. Our planning day had a "healthy lifestyles" theme, so although I already had to present on more serious stuff earlier in the day, I agreed to "go public" and in 5 minutes share my story. As I prepared the presentation I became somewhat nervous. I knew that people really wanted to see before/after photos, but to be honest, knowing I was going to put up all my "fat" photos for 130 staff to see, many of whom had never seen me at my heaviest, was not an easy thing to do. However I remembered how inspirational I had found so many other peoples stories/blogs and thought, well even if it just inspired one person to lose weight, it would be worth it. So I did. Since then the rest of the organisation (we are only 1 division of 4) have also wanted to see it, so it is now hosted on our network for all staff to view at their leisure (eekk - more really bad nerves - be brave Lisa) The response has been phenomenal though. I won't go into all the responses I have had, but I have even had staff members ring me whom I barely know to congratulate me, and tell me how motivating they have found it.
So I thought that since its already done I might as well share it with you guys too. It is a large file so it will take a while to download - and you will need to have powerpoint to view it.
http://d.turboupload.com/d/1022837/Transformations.ppt.html

Also - I have uploade the Hadd document that I mentioned in an earlier post about low HR training
http://www.sendmefile.com/00467813

Ciao

Need I say more???

59.9!!!!!!

The New Training Schedule

I have made a discovery… I am very unfit aerobically. What you say – how can that be with all the exercise you do? But its true. Read on to be enlightened…

Now when I look at all the exercise I have done over the last 8 months since I joined the gym and ditched walking, I have NEVER exercised within my aerobic capacity – I have always pushed myself so hard that I am exercising at about the 90% level. But at the end of the fitness challenge that I was involved in (end of August), I was very disappointed to find that my fitness had only improved minimally. A friend who was on the winning team suggested that I really should have been on their team so that I could have been a part of the winning prize – assuming that I must have improved significantly, and was shocked when I told her my results “But you do so much more than the rest of us – that can’t be possible” At the time I thought that it might have been related to the fitness test being done on a bike, because I don’t do any bike riding. But looking back – the test that was done required me to keep my heart rate at a low level whilst the resistance to the bike increased, and I had trouble with this.

From some of the runners’ forums I have listened to people discuss the Hadd approach to low heart rate training – which involves running below your maximum aerobic threshold (usually talked about as 85% of max hr) to train yourself to run aerobically and utilizing body fat as the primary source of fuel, instead of glycogen. Apparently when you run anaerobically (over 85%) you use glycogen (the sugar/energy you currently have in your system) but once you have depleted this, runners hit “a wall” when their bodies try to switch to burning body fat, and they aren’t used to it/very good at it.

But it also talks about how if you always run anaerobically – you will build fast twitch fibres in the leg muscles, but these are no good for endurance runs – you need to build slow twitch fibres, and this ONLY occurs when you run aerobically.

So how much training have I done within my aerobic capacity? NONE
I have always pushed myself hard in an effort to be super fit – and I know it has made a difference (eg I now have a low resting HR level, I can achieve much higher levels of activity in classes, I can run and at a reasonable level etc) but I think I’ve really developed those fast twitch fibres, giving me lots of spring and “go gettum”, but I haven’t been improving my base aerobic fitness. I think I have pushed myself too hard too fast to meet my City/Bay running goals, and missed a few important steps along the way.

The Hadd method requires regular long runs, whilst keeping my heart rate below 138 bpm at all times. Eeek – 138 bpm – I didn’t think that was possible! And I was right. When I first headed out to try this, within 10 metres my HR was up to 155 and I had to stop and walk to get it to return to a lower level. And I continued to have to walk/run every 10 metres or so. Apparently, when you have good aerobic fitness – you can run at a reasonable pace at this level. REALLY? I have to say if that’s possible, then I’m all for it. Because when I stopped to walk there was no need to catch my breath and the run really required no effort. At that level of effort I could run for hours…..Did I say hours? Is this how the distance runners do it?
Because all of my running up until now has been very hard work (hence the high HR!), I often don’t look forward too it because its so much effort! If I can follow this technique (and the plan is that if you keep yourself within this HR threshold, after a minimum of 6 weeks the mitochondria and slow twitch muscles will begin to grow) and continually increase my pace without increasing my HR – this would be fantastic! I might actually enjoy running!

I think my difficulty running within an aerobic capacity shows how much I need to learn to do this! Out of interest, the first day I trialed it – I had to walk as much as I ran (very frustrating), but with practice I have changed my running technique to require far less thigh movement and far more calf/ankle movement which is more efficient and allows me to run more without my HR going up . I trialed this on the treadmill on Thursday – and basically I’ve had to drop my speed to about 7.5km/hr (from 10!). (and if you can call it speed because it doesn’t really feel like running – more like a shuffle). But on Saturday when I ran 6 kms – I ran most of the time, and averaged over 8kms/hr. Now I don’t think that’s from building the right muscle fibers (too soon) but I think I’ve learnt to be far more efficient – and that’s a good thing in itself. Its very frustrating (and embarrassing – running so slowly on the open road!) but ultimately, if it will provide me with some real gains, I think it will be worth it. I will keep you up to date with my progress, am entering every thing into the “cool runners running log”, and it keeps track of every little detail.

I haven’t done justice to Hadd’s methods – have left heaps out, and the article is well worth a read, particularly for those aspiring runners who read my blog (eg Trisca, Jessie, Girl Running) so I will try and attach it.

Here’s to all the slow twitch muscle fibres I’m going to develop over the next few months….WOOHOO!

I Did It!!!!!!

Yes, I did it - I ran the City Bay Fun Run and survived! It was a fantastic day, and I have to say I am so proud of myself. My time was 83 mins, but that's really secondary to everything else. The photo is of me after the race in the hotel room, with a view of the city.

Here's my race run down:
( I wasn't going to do one, but I figure I might appreciate the details later on, so skip it if the length is overwhelming!)
Prep - I had to deal with a lot of pre-race anxiety - but mainly in the days leading up to Sunday. I calmed myself with the knowledge that I knew I could make the distance (had run it 4 times in training) and lowered my time targets, focussing on completing the race as the main achievement. I also made sure I was very prepared, right down to packing a separate bag for all my running gear so that I could easily double check that I had everything and would be able to find it easily (we had to travel to Adelaide the day before as we live in the country).

On the day- got me and everyone else up early (5.30 am - my family loved me for that!) so that we could leave at 6.30am without feeling rushed. Arrived at the race at 7.30 - perfect timing for the 8.00 am race. Had about a 10 minute walk to the start line, so used this as my warmup.
Positioned myself at the 75 min mark - Andrew chose the 60 min one and the kids stood at 70 mins (did I mention that all 5 of us were running it? Of course I was the only one who had done any training - lol)

Had to wait a while for the race to start but it was a beautiful day (29 degrees), and I put my music on, and just kicked back and enjoyed the ambience - just focussed on knowing that I had done everything I possibly could, and I should now just enjoy the experience. And I did.

When we eventually took off, I didn't even notice running up hill for the first 100 metres, which a few months back had worried me. I quickly fell into a comfortable pace although I had lots of technical hitches! My heart rate monitor didn't start when I crossed the start line, and it took me about a minute I think to notice this. Bugger - never mind - I ignored this. Then my MP3 player bounced aound too much in my waist belt and kept changing stations so I couldn't hear anything (I had set it to radio because I decided I would enjoy hearing race updates as I went along). So I tried to fix this whilst running (difficult) and eventually achieved this, only for it to stop working completely 1 km later. Seemed to have turned itself off - so turned it back on, ok for a while - and then off again. It seemed to suggest it was on low battery- but I had put a new one in that morning - grrh. Around the 5 km mark I gave up on it completely.

Back to the 1 km mark - with the delayed start on my HR monitor I hit the 1 km mark still running - my game plan has always been to run for 5 mins/walk for 2 mins - which usually means I'm walking at teh first km and ready to start running again, but not having an accurate start time meant that I must have run for 6 mins (my running pace is about 10km/hr= 6 min km's). Still not to worry I felt reasonably good - I always find the first 1 - 2 kms hard until my legs really warm up . Stuck to my game plan from then on - and it seemed to work fairly well. My heart rate sat somewhere in teh 160's - 170's - but this is very normaly - and I concentrated on trying to get it back into training zone (ie under 155) during my walk breaks.

I was very grateful for having trained with a waist belt and carried a bottle of iced water, as it was very hot - much warmer than I had ever run in before, and I was glad to be able to take a drink whenever I wanted. -Poured it over my head a few times too!
Running along - it was hard though, and I did ask myself a few times - why was I doing this? I had been rading Hal Higdon's Marathon Running book the day before as I have been considering what my next goals might be, and came to the conclusion that I really don't want to push myself that hard - I really don't enjoy running that much! At the 5 kms mark thinking I still had 7 to go was scary enough - without thinking that I had 37 to go for the marathon!

At the 6 km mark - my 16 y.o. daughter ran up to me and tapped me on the shoulder. It was nice to see her - asked how she was going. She said she was doing terribly, but I have to admit I didn't believe her - after all, she was at the same place/time as me - so she was doing ok. I was walking at this stage, but soon after she arrived my two minutes were up, so I started running again. I fully expected her to run with me, and I had mixed feelings about this. My competitive nature wanted me to pull ahead and run faster, in the back of my mind I wanted to prove that I am fitter than my kids, but I also knew that this was silly, and I shouldn't try and take anything away from her. No, I needed to run my own race, as planned, and if she beat me - good for her. But to my surprise she didn't start running - and I didn't see her again for a couple of kms.

After the 6 km mark I knew it was count down time, and whilst feeling reasonable ok, let myself run a few extra minutes every now and then . Eg I would be running my 5 minutes, looking forward to walking again, but when teh 5 minute mark came around, would convince myself that I could run one more minute - I was coping ok wasn't I? Ran a 6 minute block and a 7 minute block this way - and then let myself walk for 3 minutes instead of 3. Say Kaelia again around the 8 km mark - but not close enough to talk. She was on my left, and I watched her run around the same speed as me (maybe a littel faster), but with far more leg lift, and then stop and walk after about 30 secs. She told me afterwards that this was how she tends to run, can't work out how to run slower, and then gets puffed out and has to stop/start all the time. I felt that in comparison my pace was slow, steady and sustainable.
Around the 9km I was feeling tired, and my game plan started to become a litttle unsteady. In retrospect this may have been as a result of me adding a few extra minutes of running - I'm not sure. But I started to plan for my run down Jetty Rd to the finish line, and I wanted to make sure that I finished strongly. So I gave myself an extra break - thinking I would then run the last 1.5 kms without stopping. But in trying to do this, it was too much and at the 11km mark I had to stop again, mainly to make sure that I would be ready for the last leg through the crowd. This did work though. I had picked up the pace with 2 kms to go, and once I turned down Jetty Rd I picked it up again, and thoroughly enjoyed a strong pace, passing many other runners. About 200 meters from the end, I heard a voice cheer me on, and I turned to see my husband on the sidelines, saying "keep going, you've done a great time". That was fantastic to hear, and I was so proud to show him what I had now achieved. One last corner turn, and about 100m to the finish line, I did what I had dreamt of, and sprinted to the finish line. To my delight the race announcer picked up on it, and called out "there you go ladies, how about a sprint to the finish line!" It was a fantastic feeling as I picked up the speed and passed so many - I don't think I even knew I could run that fast! I DID IT.

Post race, my HR was back to normal within a few minutes, I was elated and feeling fine. Kaelia came in about 3 minutes after me, and Tara (19) who had offered to run with my youngest, Tess, (10) came in at about another 20 mins later. Andrew had completed the race in about 66 mins despite no training (he's so naturally athletic). But the true test of my fitness was yet to come. Post race, all the family wanted to do was sit down - so they headed back to the hotel and crashed. Me, I just wanted to soak up the day -so I wandered about the festivities for a while, and then went shopping, walking up and down Jetty Rd for a few hours!

PS - the 48 hours that followed, I suffered from mild stiffness - no more that after any other workout - wasked 6 kms the next morningto stretch my legs, and back to running today - the rest of the family are still having difficulties walking!

Things I have learnt:/observations/achievements:

• Never in a million years would I have thought this possible. Three years ago I contemplated walking the race, and that it would take me 3 hours. I trained for many months, and walked it in 2:20. I couldn't walk for days afterwards. 2 years ago, I dropped 10 kgs and trained for 6 months and walked it in 1:57. I walked at 100% max HR for the full two hours. It took over an hour afterwards for my heart rate to return to normal (and I was lying down to recover). I had blisters and was reasonably sore for a few days. This year, another 30 kgs lighter, I ran it, trimmed another 35 mins off my time, stayed well under max HR and recovered almost instantly, with no blisters, no chaffing, no real stiffness. An absolute miracle.

• I am very proud of the fact that my whole family ran the race, that this is a good health focus for us all, and great to achieve together. The kids have always been active, but now I'm a part of it, and I hope they will pass on the same enthusiasm to their children.

• I had no idea that the majority of "runners" did not plan to run the entire race. I positioned myself to the side, as I didnt want to inconvenience everyone when I stopped every 5 mins to walk, however people were walking within the first 200m, and it seemed that I ran more than most, and faster than most when I was running. I overtook many runners, weaving in and out of the crowds, and continued to do so right to the end. There I was previously thinking how incredibly fit all these people were to be able to run it, but they weren't that fit after all! It was like thinking that I wasn't fit enought to go the gym!
• Training and pacing make a huge difference. Having trained so well, I didn't suffer from a slower second half of the race, like so many people. In the second half so many runners were walking, or running very slowly, but I was able to run a good steady pace right to the end.

• Researching running tips/training programmes also really helps. My husband runs purely on instinct and base fitness (remember he didn't do any running before the race, but plays sport regularly). His game plan was to go out as hard as he could, set the standard for himself, and then push himself to maintain it to the end. He ran the first 5 kms quite well, then had to walk for a while, then ran 2kms, then walked, then run /walk to the end. Yes he was faster than me (he's also a fair bit taller), but was disapppointed with a 66 min result. And to a certain degree I think he should be. Because I think he is quite capable of a sub 60 mins - if he had paced himself at the beginning - I think he could have run the whole thing and done it quicker.

• I think I could have run it faster. Yes it was hot, and that probably affected my time, and I had an injury two weeks prior, and that could have affected it. And my husband felt that if you have enough in you to sprint to the end, then you probably could have pushed yourself harder in the race. All true, but I guess the final time wasn't teh only important thing to me. Being my first real race, finishing was foremost in my mind, and finishing comfortably was also important. The joy of sprinting to the finish line, have done something I never thought I could do, was more important to me, than hobbling to the end with a time recorded a few minutes faster. Next year it may be different - we'll see.

• Despite my thinking about running whilst the race was on, I am still thinking of a marathon ,but I just want to learn to really enjoy running first. I've pushed myself really hard to get here, and I would benefit from taking a step back and building up my mileage without pressure.

• There were other achievements on the day. I loved the fact that I could wear real running gear with out embarassment. I wore real runners shorts (you know baggy with the undies sewn in), and a skimpy top to keep me cool. If had been heavier, I would have had to wear long pants to hide my legs/prevent chaffing, and a tshirt with sleeves to hide the rest of me. The result would have been much hotter than my counterparts, just adding to the weight disadvantage I already had. I loved the fact that I felt like a I looked athletic, "fit the part", so to speak, and was then comfortable wandering through the crowd afterwards, and shopping, still in my running gear. That would have NEVER happened a year ago. It doesn't matter that I am still "chunky", I don't think I look overweight, I fit into size 10 clothing and feel very "normal".

Well that's it from me. A long post I know, but I think I will appreciate having it all recorded when I look back on it. I started low HR running training this morning - but I think I 'll save that for another post!

Massive calorie burn on 10 km walk....

NOT!
Here's one of the down sides of being fitter.....
Walked 10 kms of hills with the family on sunday over approximately 2 hours, and the heart rate monitor told me I had burned guess how many calories....800 you think, 600 maybe, at least 400 surely- NOPE - a grand total of 175!
Why you ask - because my heart rate never nudged over 110 bpm, and most of the time was under 100. To help you make some sense of these figures if you are not used to HR measurements, my training zone for fitness needs to be between 116- 155, (its never at the lower end in classes) and when I run, it sits at between 160 - 170. So 100 bpm is doing absolutelyNOTHING for me.
But it did achieve something - because my legs were a little stiff that afternoon, so this hills challenged the let muscles, but not my heart.
Oh how life has changed!

Not much hope

I don't think there's much hope of me posting a weigh in on Monday in the fifties. I haven't seen last Mondays' weight (60.3) since then, it must have been a particularly "light" day. I'm still at 60 point something, but the 50's might have to be another week away. But I would REALLY like to be in teh 50's for the big race NEXT WEEKEND.

OMG- its next week!!!! and I'm already starting to feel edgy and nervous. I've been training for this event for the last 8 monnths and now its finally here - what if my hamstring isn't healed in time, what if I have one of those "bad" running days? What if my family all beat me? (They are all entering as runners, even my 10 year old, and none have done any training, how much of a goose will I feel?) So many nerves - I'm not sure how I'll get through the week.

I'm starting to have a sense of how athletes feel before a big event. I have been reading a blog written by someone who trained for a triatholon, then a1/2 ironman, andthen a full ironman. Reading her throughs (he he, I must have ESP), I can see the same mental anguish, fear, anticiptation and pain, just on a much smaller scale! Its started me thinking about what my goals should be after this.. The gym are going to hold a triatholon in the future - you can do the whole thing individually, or in a team and do one leg each. I was thinking of a team, and I'd take the running leg - but maybe after the race I should take up cycling and swimming - to add variety to my exercise. Can't do either of them for shit - but then I couldn't run either 8 months ago - now I reckon I could keep training for a 1/2 marathon - so...... WE'll see. At the moment the only definite goal I have is to be able to do all of the ridiculous bicep/tricep pushup combos in the new release of Combat on my toes, before the next release is out (about three months) Has anyone else tried these - they are hard work! And 1 handed pushups!

Injury update - I have spent the last week xtraining most days to try and keep my fitness up. Have warmed up on the treadmill, tried a slow run, stopped after 1 min feeling the hammy, then done combat, plus either the bike or the elliptical. I must have looked a sight doing combat earlier in teh week as I couldn't do any right sided kicks and knee lifts - but did them with great gusto on the left! By the way I also noticed one day with my HR monitor on when warming up walking 6kms/hr - which used to be my ultimate goal speed for walking - that I couldn't even get my HR near training zone - it sat at about 109 - ie walking does nothing for me anymore! I think thats good! Any way - felt fit and strong on Friday - fully functioning in combat - so went for a slow, short road run this morning to test the hammy. I could feel it straight away lower down, but not in the area I had injured - and it was definitely better part way through the run when it was warmer. But as soon as I finished I felt a twinge in the butt (the injured area) but nothign more. So I guess its healing, and I should stick with xtraining this week again - may be have a last run on Wed/thursday. My fitness felt really good though - so that was encouraging. Hopefully this will be enough to see me through to Sunday.
If you've made it this far, hopefully this means I haven't bored you to tears with this long post.
Cheers
Lisa

Fifties Here I Come!

Weigh In this morning - 60.3 - loss of 0.8 for the week - Yahhooo!!!!
Now if I play my cards right (well, eat well, exercise well) I should definitely make the 50's this week. Then I am soooo close to goal.

On the exercise front however, I have hit a snag. I have an injury - have pulled my right hamstring. It hurt after my 12km run last Monday, so I took a day off. It hurt again on my 5km run on Wednesday - so I took 3 days off! By Fri/Sat it felt fine, so I did 12kms again on Sunday - and it hurt the minute I started running! And it got worse as i went. In the end I had to skip some of the walking as teh muscle cramped up to much when I stopped running and I was hobbling - barely able to walk. And in the aftermath of the run, my hip flexor is the sorest - because when I couldn't push myself forwards with my "hammy" i had to pull my hip forwards with the flexors - which weren't used to it and are now stiff. This is bad news because its only two weeks till the race, and I've been so careful/fearful of an injury. The good news is I've done some reading, and the cause is often attributed to running downhill, particularly at speeds you're not used to (guilty - there are hills in my run, and I've loved soaring downhill) or running on banked surfaces (eg roadside) (guilty, and I'm not used to it - no roadsides on a treadmill), and that you can continue to run with the injury - just fix the causes. So no more road running for me until the race - I will just try and maintain my fitness with cross training and some runs on the treadmill. Oh and did I mention that I trimmed by time by 3 minutes to 73 mins? Even in pain! I know now that i can do this race!

"the latest pics"

The first photo is me being silly doing a plank (one of the exercises you often have to do in a gym class) and showing that I can do it one handed and wave at the same time.
Next is a typical photo of me in my gym gear, you could catch me in that 6 days a week! and when I'm not wearing that, I'm wearing casual sports gear as in the next photo . Lastly, a photo of my $10 3/4 length jeans from Temt, and my $10 bargain top from Jay Jays. You can't quite see but the top is a sheer fabric in that popular bodice style with pintucks. I could never have worn this 12 months ago, I would have looked very pregnant even if I could have found one that big! And the jeans are hipsters with a big belt buckle that looks good when its showing.

Update from yesterday's post - ran the 5 kms in 31mins - Woohoooo - very happy with that, especially when you consider that I run/walk intervals of 5 mins/2 mins
And a sneaky peak on the scales this morning - 60.9 - will I see the 50's this week????

Running and weight loss update

I think I always post about the same things - pretty boring hey! But I'm so focussed on my goal of running the City/Bay, and achieving goal weight by mid September, there's not much else to talk about! After that, I will have to set some new goals which might add variety...

I've struggled to lose weight the last couple of weeks, or should I say, I've struggled to remain disciplined. Not that I ever binge on anything too unhealthy, but there has been a lot of food lying around the place lately, tempting me to have tastes of it. This is my worst habit. If I don't see it, I don't think of it, and I don't eat it. And when I'm studying (which is boring and I'm easily distracted, AND I've been doing a lot of it lately) I'm hunting for something thinking I'm hungry. So I think for the first time on my journey, I have been going over my points a little each day, and this has scared me. I'm not at goal, and I don't want any slips now that cheat me of that victory. So I have pulled my head in, and am trying very hard, and somehow managed to score a small loss this week, bringing me to my LWE (lowest weight ever) of 61.1. I even saw 61.0 on the scales this morning, and fingers crossed I'm hoping to see 60 point something in the next couple of days. Wouldn't that be great! (then very close to being a 50's girl!) Hopefully this will help with motivation

And on the same day that the scales dropped to 61.1, I very nervously headed out for my first 12km road run, aaaannnnndddd - I blitzed it - 76 mins - my best ever time. Running on the road just seemed easier that the treadmill, and far more interesting. I was a little suspicious of my great times - so I hopped in the car afterwards and remeasured it - I don't think it actually is 12 kms (hard to tell as some areas are off road), but its more that 11kms -(shrug) I'm still really happy with that I'm aiming for 84 mins for the City Bay, and this now seems achievable.
This was really encouraging as I was starting to get quite depressed with the running and wondering why I had set this ridiculous goal. I have had a bad week with running - it had been just plain hard work. I did a combat class last Friday, and realised how much I had missed these classes, and how much more I enjoyed them than running.
But Mondays big run was a great success, and for the first time ever, I actually enjoyed the experience. So maybe I will persevere with it for a bit longer!
By the way, I did the run in the morning, and then rationalised that there was no reason why I couldn't do an hour of Combat in the afternoon too... so I did! Am I mad or not?????? (If nothing else I'm a little sore)
Ah well, inspired by Mondays run, I'm going to do a 5 km run tomorrow morning - and see how close I can get to the 30 min mark!

I'm gonna luv summer!

I'm gonna love summer - being able to wear cool dresses like this! In the past I could never have worn this - I would have looked sooo pregnant - but now its just slimming, cool and comfortable for me alllll summer!
I have had so much fun trying on all the new seasons stuff - have bought shorts and a denim skirt and some of those lovely peasant style blouses that are out and two of the beautiful dresses that are out (plus the one in the photo - its just a cheapy from Kmart). I haven't worn dresses in about 20 years, and I'm still not sure where I'm going to wear them - I guess I'll just have to be the best dressed shopper at the supermarket!

Bring on summer - I want to wear my stuff!

Running log

http://www.sendmefile.com/00456519

Fallen off the planet

No, I haven't fallen off the planet for those of you who are used to be posting quite regularly - have just been very busy training for the City/Bay (4 weeks to go) and madly writing assignments at night (as if full time work isn't enough!).
Weight wise, nothing much is happening, I seem to be rather stagnant which is very frustrating when I'm so close now. What is happening though is that I'm getting quite upset by people telling me that I need to stop losing weight - that being in a Healthy BMI isn't for everyone, that for my age (42!) it isn't realistic, that you I don't want to become anorexic (for petes sake!) etc etc. I'm really sick of it, and finding it quite distressing having to justify my goals all the time. Hubby suggested I just tell people that I'm aiming to maintain now, but why should I have to lie!
My WHOLE focus of this journey has to become fit and healthy - which to me means a BMI in a healthy range, a waist measurement below 80 cm (achieved) and numerous other fitness goals you hear me rant and rave about often enough. The "goal" weight that I've set isn't even at the bottom of the BMI range, its one kilo below the top, and 3 kgs heavier than I was when I got married - and I wasn't "thin" then.
Agh well - feels good to get the emotions out - if you can't tell, its really p**ssing me off at the moment.
Weigh in tomorrow, and I will try and update my running log soon - right now I'm very tired and have a headache - not sure if its from my 12 km run this morning -or the boring study this afternoon.
Have a great week.

August Running Update

well things have been going better on this front
A HUGE motivation has been reading Galloway's Book on Running. Galloway is an Olympic Marathon runner, who turned his love of running into a career through developing running camps, sports shoe stores, writing books, personal training, and also features quite heavily in the Cool Running web site.
His methods for training are a bit different to the training schedule I have been following, so I have decided to modify it. One of the things he really focusses on in the book, is the importance of regular walk breaks, early and often, both in training and in races. He believes that marathon runners can actually improve their times using this, as if you walk for 1-2 minutes, ever 3- 9 minutes, the body recovers, and can continue on at the same pace almost indefinitely, whereas those who run continuously tend to slow down in the last legs of the race. So my interval training is a good thing!
What happened on Sunday is, that he suggests one endurance/distance run a week, adn this should be done by dropping your race speed by approx 1km/hr, and gradually building up the kms until you can run approx 20% more than the race length. So I did this and ran......
wait for it.......
I ran 10 kms - and only stopped there because the gym was closing! (It took about 75 mins) I was sure I could've run at least 12!
It was exhilarating! By running slower, I kept my heart rate at a comfortable level, and during the walk breaks my hr dropped to the bottom of the training zone, legs recovered, and I was ready to go again. Yeah!
He has also convinced me that I need to drop any cross training in between my running days that is pounding, or overly stressful. So reluctantly I need to drop Combat for the next 6 weeks until the race. The reason for this is that when you stress the muscles through endurance or speed, the muscle fibres break down, (that bruised swollen feeling) and then rebuild in a stronger format - but only if you give them rest! Light cardio is ok - helps the circulation and rebuilding - but no running or other similar stressful activity. His theory is akin to "less is more"
So I will try this out, as well as a speedwork routine on Fridays - will focus on short intervals of 11kms/hr - OUCH - don't know how I wil find running this fast.

Any way - its all very exciting, and only 5.5 weeks to the big race! Will be trying to run 12 kms this weekend - will let you know how it goes
Here's the weekly update of my running log:
http://www.sendmefile.com/00452591

My Monday Post

Well – are you all wondering how my week has gone on No Count?
Has it made a difference to my weight loss?
Have I felt better, been less hungry, had more energy????

Well – yes and no on all counts for the following reasons…
I hate to say it as there are so many fans of No Count – but I didn’t really like it.  I found the rules too restrictive rather than freeing (I can only have a low fat yoghurt as a free food if I eat it at a meal time, otherwise need to count it), and my personal difficulties with using bonus or allocated points.  I know I had 21 points to use, but I didn’t like to!  And even then, as I tracked my exercise as well, my points never went down as it kept adding in my exercise points, which I never used to count!
It made meals really difficult, especially as things such as Weight Watchers meals aren’t permissible (with out counting the full 5.5 points for example), and I often use these as a back up when the rest of the family are having take away.  Coming home from the gym/late night shopping at 8pm faced with cooking tea for one, was not good – really needed to just heat up a frozen meal which is healthy, portion controlled and ready in 6 minutes!!!!

However, there have been some good aspects.  I learnt to eat a good breakfast.  In the past , I have spread my “breakfast” over the morning to save on points –ie it has been a series of snacks.  However I have spent a week eating No Count oats – adding cinnamon, Equal, and a banana every day, and this has been quite delicious, and very filling. I haven’t wanted to snack after this, so the impact on points hasn’t been an issue.  It has also increased the fibre and fruit in my diet, and reduced my intake of processed bars (eg muesli bars, etc)  So this has been quite positive.
I have also relaxed my portion control of meat – which I think is a positive thing, as I need to get more protein.
Lastly, I have decided to drink one 600ml bottle of Powerade each day to increase my hydration.  I made an agreement with myself that I would take this out of my exercise points, as I earn so many of them (about 5 – 6/day) and this is the reason why I need to drink more!  As a result of this -  I have found that I have also drunk more water, as after the powerade is finished, I feel thirstier, and don’t look for the (caffeine free) diet coke.  So this has been good all round.

The outcomes
Don’t know if its just been the great weather we’ve had here last week, or the changes made – but I have felt great – and been full of energy.  Had a fantastic run on Sunday (ran 10 kms) – but this is possibly due to new info I’ve looked at re running – more about that later.
I do feel that dehydration was an issue, and that this is much better, and the powerade hasn’t affected my weight, because this morning I recorded a   (drum roll)

1.4 kg loss!!!!

Yep, you read it right, I now weigh 61.6kgs –only 4.6 kgs to go.

I have decided to go back to the Points Plan as I feel it gives me more freedom, but I’m going to take with me these dietary changes.  I think they will still all fit, its just been a really good learning experience.
So onward and downward for me!

For two days I ate and ate...

....and lost weight!

Thats right - I gave myself a break over the weekend in the change over time from points to No Count, and basically ate whatever I wanted. Chose no count meals as practice, but snacked on what I wished - which ended up including a packet of smarties (raffle win from my children's pretend shop!), a lolly snake, and some popcorn, along with the better stuff like lo fat yoghurt, fruit, and a few nuts. I also drank about 2 litres of powerade -which under the points system is about 8 points - but I am determined to have some intensive hydration this week - regardless of the calorie cost.

So it was with trepidation that I stepped on the scales this morning - to be greeted with 62.7kgs (which would be a 1.1kg loss for the week). That's the lowest weight I've seen yet, and too low I reckon. So I stepped on again - and weighed at 63.0kgs - which is what I've recorded for this week. The 62.7 might have been a "flukey" weigh in, and I think it will make it too hard next week as I try and judge the impact of NoCount.

So this amounts to a loss of 0.8kgs which I am VERY happy about.

Updates

My weekly update for my running schedule is attached
http://www.sendmefile.com/00444522
Run was much better today - hopefully responding to increased intake yesterday, and concerted efforts on improving my hydration

BTW - the scales are no longer "fickle" they give me the same weight no matter how I stand on them now - whats with that? I'm confused but it seems my scales no longer are!

I tried on shorts today - and they looked good! Weeelll - its not like my legs looked thin, but they looked toned and shapely and I'm very happy with that. Will have to buy some sometime....

Officially start No Count tomorrow.....

Desperate for energy

Well, exercise wise, the weeks been tough. I've felt so low in energy that running has been a real struggle. Wednesday night I gave up after about 5 mins, and put it down to not sleeping well, and then Friday (I did do two hours of light cardio and balance on Thursday) I really had to push myself to even go to the gym. I ran, but every interval I wanted to stop as my legs didn't seem to have it in them.

I was thinking that maybe setting the goal of the City Bay was a bad thing, because its creating too much pressure on me/stopping me from just enjoying my exercise, but then I had a big review of my current weight loss/eating status, and I think I've had an epiphany!

Here's how Ive been feeling/whats been happening:

• No energy - finding it hard to get out of bed in the mornings, no energy during the day, no energy for heavy exercise, tired the minute I get home and wanting to go to bed!
• Dry lips, dry eyes
• Cold, oh so very, very cold, all the time
• A little nauseous
• Hunger pains
• Weight not shifting. If you've read my post below, my weight promptly shifted right back up to 64 kgs and looks like staying there. I think I'm heading for essentially the same weight three weeks in a row - with no real reason for it

A friend has suggested a few times that I might be anaemic. This got me thinking.... I realised that I don't eat ANY red meat. None at all. And not because I've decided not to, I just never choose it - I always eat chicken, fish or vegetarian. So then I decided to use an internet resource and get a dietary analysis of a typical day. And guess what? Not only am I not getting enough iron and folate, I didn't meet the dietary requirements for any food group or any nutritional element. NONE. And the energy component said I was only eating 35% of my minimum energy requirements! I reviewed what I had entered and found I had underestimated some things, and when I altered these, I still only ended up meeting 65% of my required intake. And I've been eating like this for 9 months!

So now I'm worried that not only may I be anaemic, but I may be malnuourished in a few areas! And I think the dry lips/dry eyes are a sign of dehydration. (i know I don't drink enough water). So my body may well be shutting down my metabolism, making me tired and cold, and refusing to let my weight shift.

So..... I will go to the GP and my levels checked, but I have decided to switch from POINTS to NO COUNT. The reason for this is that I don't always make the healthiest choices on the points programme, and refuse to allow myself to go over the daily points. I have been on 18 points for 6 months, and it is very hard to fit in all the nutritional requirements, it doesn't leave much room to move and have occasional treats. I am frequently hungry, but refuse to let myself eat as i need to save my points for the next meal/ or to make sure I have enough left for the day. By switching to NO COUNT I am hoping it will force me to eat healthier foods, encourage me to eat more meat (I always keep my portions small as meat has too many points), and allow me to snack on healthy foods to my hearts (and stomach's) content so that I no longer need to be hungry. That way if I want to snack on fruit before or after the gym for that carbohydrate hit which is recommended, I can. (Struggled with this before as it costs me too many points)

However I am scared about this change. I've always said that this plan is not for me, as there are not enough controls, and I will overeat. I am terrified that I will put on weight with the programme. But I realised something else during the week. I was talking to a fellow weight watcher and talking about snacking. I was agreeing wtih her how I can't snack - when I realised this has changed. I do snack quite successfully now! I can have two pieces of chocolate at night and quite happily stop at that, or small quantities of many other treats. I also only ever look for small portions - so maybe I will mange on NO COUNT after all!

I will officially start on Monday and monitor my wieght from there. If it goes up - I will switch back. But I will also repeat the dietary analysis each week to see if my intake improves. And I'm doing a bit of a combo this weekend, to see if I can raise my energy levels.

Will see how it all goes. Hopefully the change will spur me on to lose the last 6 kilos, help me with my energy levels, and set me up for a healthy long term diet on maintenance

The Problem with Weekly Weigh Ins..

I won't bore you with all the details about why I am a daily weigher - I've posted often enough about this , but here's an example of the issues of relying on weekly weigh ins.

As per my previous post, Tues, Wed, Thurs last week saw me sitting on 63.4 kgs (I thought a good early loss for the week). Then inexplicably, on Friday my weight went up to 64.0 and stayed there for Saturday and Sunday. Finally, Monday (official weekly weigh in day) the scales showed 63.8 kgs - a whole 100gm loss for the week. Now if I only weighed in weekly, I'd be pretty upset, because I know I've eaten within my points, and exercised heaps - not much to show for a weeks efforts. But I also know better - that weekly weigh ins are just a snap shot, and not always a good indicator of whats going on. Because today when I stepped on the scales - guess what - I'm back to 63.4! If only my weigh in day had been Tuesday!

Nah it doesn't really matter - its what happens to your weight over time that counts. I actually record my LWE (lowest weight ever) on a chart on the wall at home, and every time I see a new low weight - I mark it off. Doesn't matter if my weight fluctuates up again, I just know that I've achieved a new all time low.

More running success

Aren't our bodies amazing things?

You give 'em a good flogging and they just keep getting better.

You may remember my dismay at trying to run at 10kms/hour 1 1/2 weeks ago when I tried to run it at intervals of 4 mins (run) and 2 mins (walk) and it killed me...Well since then I've run at intervals of 3:2 which has been much more manageable but this weekend has been quite interesting.

Was sick Wed/Thurs - so no exercise. Still felt yuck on Friday but went to work, and then thought - "I'll just do a light work out at the gym" (she says sneakily to herself).
Then "I'll just try a little bit of running - after all I can stop any time" So I did a couple of intervals of 3:2, and then thought "Well if I increase my recovery time to account for my sick body - I could run for longer - right?" So I did. I ran 3:3 for 5 kms! (Not quite light me thinks). On my last set my HB arrived to pick me up. But he had errands to run and couldn't wait for me to finish - said he 'd come back. OK. So I finished my running, cooled down with some walking, and walking, and walking. At the 6.6 kms mark I thought, "Heck if he turns up now I'll be too close to 7kms to stop - I'd better run to get there quicker. So I did. And then it happened again at the 7.6km mark, and again at the 8.6km mark. By then I was so sure that he was going to walk in at any minute that I decided to just keep running until I couldn't run any more. And he turned up at the 9.5km mark and I had to cool down again. Holy heck - I did nearly 10kms without meaning too - and this was meant to be light! Anyway - felt good afterwards, and haven't had any more cold symptoms - Yeah for exercise.

So having had two unexpected days off during the week, I gave up my Saturday rest day, joined the WW exercise challenge and headed off to the gym again in the morning. Now keeping in mind that Sunday is my big run day, I needed to make sure I didn't run, so I did 60mins walking speed/incline intervals on the treadmill, covering another 5.5 kms. - Plus some other light stuff for the exercise challenge, but having to be careful not to overdo it before the Sunday City/Bay training.

So Sunday....my big success.
Having already covered at least 15kms in the last two days, and not sleeping well Saturday night, I was skeptical about my 4 km race pace run. I have already revised by race pace to a minimum of 5:1 @10kms/hour, in case I can't run the whole 12 ks, but I knew I wasn't up to this even for the 4 K run. So my plan was to try the 4:2 intervals that I couldn't manage comfortably a week or so ago. but guess what? After the 4 mins I still felt good so I did 5! and did the whole 4 kms at 5:2 intervals! And in my last set I ran 6 mins to complete the 4 kms.!! Much better than I could have hoped for and not far off of my 5:1 plan.!!!

Now I know this is only over 4 K's and not the whole 12, but according to the training schedule I'm doing, I only need to be able to run 4 k's at this stage. And I know I can run at least 5 k's continuously at a lower speed, I just need to pull up my speed at the moment, whilst my endurance is within the required range for the training schedule.

Clear as mud?
Sick of my training rambles?
Sorry, but this blog is mainly for me, I need to have records of my journey to reflect back on, and if you happen to gain something from it as well - what a bonus!

Any way - weigh in tomorrow and I'm not looking forward to it. Although I have been very good all week, the scales were sitting on 63.4 early in the week, and then Friday morning jumped up to 64 and have sat there ever since - so I fear there will be no loss to record this week, which is making my goal weight date more and more difficult to achieve. Ohh well - we'll see. As Doris Day sang Que Sera Sera (What ever will be, will be)

For my updated Beginner Runners Training schedule - try this link:
http://www.sendmefile.com/00438956
Hope it works!

My Goal Figure

This is Penny Mackinnon - body blitz winner from last year, and she has provided me with a "goal figure" since the beginning of my journey. I have spent a lot of time looking at photos of people at goal weights and calculating their BMI - so that I can tell what BMI I need to achieve to get a similar look. You see one of my frustrations is that as a newbie to weight loss, you look at the weight loss success stories in Weight Watchers/Slimming magazines, and think - if I get into my healthy weight range - I'll look like that. But you know what - for the most part we wont. Because many people set their goal weight just inside the upper limit of healthy weight - a BMI of around 24, but most of these successful slimmers in the magazines have BMI's around 20 - at the bottom of the healthy weight ranges. Frustrating hey - imagine getting to your goal weight and then still feeling "fat" compared to others! So I've been watching this very carefully - measuring the BMI's up to "the look" that I want to achieve.

So my WW goal weight is set around the absolute minimum that I feel I must achieve - a healthy BMI of 24 - which equates to 57kgs for me. But to achieve the look that Penny Mackinnon has, I need to have a BMI around 21 and weigh between 50 - 52 kgs. Once I have achieved a healthy BMI - to be honest I don't really care what my final weight ends up being, as long as I have developed this "lean" look. I wouldn't mind having slightly more muscle than Penny, and if this weighs more - so be it. But I will be aiming for 20% body fat, rather than a specific weight.

I plan to reach goal in September, but be at this leaner weight by Christmas. So keep this in mind with regards to my Summer Essentials Wardrobe - I plan to have a lean, mean figure that's worth showing off!

The Ultimate Summer Wardrobe!

• 
  You know how magazines always have photo spreads on "summer must haves" "autumn essentials" etc and you often look at them and go "yeah, that would be great, if only I was starting from scratch!" Well, this summer I WILL be at goal weight, and I will be starting my wardrobe from scratch - so I thought I would start planning it now, and plan it well so that I focus my spending on the key items I really want rather than being opportunistic with bargains and ending up with a whole heap of things that don't all go together...Do you know what I mean. You know - you keep buying fab tops, only to realise you don't really have the right jeans to wear with them, or have great trousers, but really need a plain white shirt to go with them, or never have any dressy clothes, or never have any casual clothes etc.
  I thought that if I start scouring the magazines I could work out what basics I need/have to have (as in want to have) and then build from there. I have started scanning the photos into my computer and hope to set up some sort of link to my planned summer wardrobe soon. But I also thought it would be great if you have any ideas as to what are "must haves"
  
  Here's the start of my list:
  Denim shorts
  Nicely fitting all purpose white TShirt
  Skinny jeans
  Bootleg jeans
  Trendy summer dress (maybe spotty given the trend this season)
  Beach type dress (NB have never been able to wear dresses B4 - hence are a must have)
  ????
  
  What else do you suggest?
  

Ain't It Grand!

Here 'tis - the new couch has finally arrived - and ain't it grand! I have been home sick today so have been curled up on it all day long reading a book. Mmmm and being leather, it smells good too!

PS - have managed to get the link to my weight loss graph working now.

Fickle Scales

Well I did it! Recorded a weight of 63.9 this morning which gives me a 1.0 weight loss for the week..... Well sort of. I've discovered a problem. I have good quality digital scales (at least I thought I did) and they measure body fat percentage as well, but I've discovered that if I lean to the left, I can get a lower reading???? I thought that maybe this was related to the floor in the bathroom - I examined it careful and it does seem to slope to the left slightly. So I tried the scales in a different spot - and got a different weight....and another spot and another weight....
So I now I'm not really sure what my weight is. I guess I should continue to weigh myself in the spot that I always have, but it makes it difficult as my body now has a mind of its own and leans to the left for a better response! Mmm can't change scales at this point either as they all provide different weights. I guess the actual weight though isn't as important as seeing the change - so consistency of approach rules! I will continue as is, and have to be strict as to how I stand - but how was I standing when I weighed this morning? I have no idea, I weighed myself so many times I lost track. Still, I did see 63.9 on two of them, have seen this reading during the week, and was very good on the weekend; did double the exercise (walked for and extra 4 kms) and came in for the day at 16 points - I deserved a good weigh in! Still if I've recorded myself too low, I guess the weight loss next week will just look less. Eventually can't cheat myself!

Changed my ticker this morning - figured if I changed it each week you would know its been updated. I just loved the new cheesecake one - cheesecake is my favourite food and I really haven't eaten it in 8 months. Had a few mouthfuls of a piece the other day that a friend brought to my house - but it was coffee flavoured - and in my books that's not really cheesecake!
There were also some lovely bright tickers around, but I'm not choosing one of them until the weather improves and warrants it!

A Different Before Picture...

This is a before picture of where the Chesterfield is going tomorrow

Here’s a bit of an overview of what the room looks like. There is one red feature wall, then the remaining ones are in yellow. I’ve restored the fireplace, and in the photo at the bottom, you can see one of my leadlight windows. (You'll probably have to click on the photo to get it large enough to see. It’s the gold couch on the right (bottom photo again) which we are replacing with the Chesterfield. This old couch that you can see was a $100 garage sale bargain as an interim measure until I could afford what I wanted. Well tomorrow I get it!

Also - I haven't been keeping my exercise plan up to date, as I've been focussing on the Beginner Runner's Training Schedule for the City/Bay (usually done in addition to my normal classes - but not always - depends on what I can fit it).

Any way - here is a link to my training schedule. Can't really find a good way to provide this for you, hopefully the link isn't too cumbersome. I'm just going to have to update teh link every time I update the schedule.

http://www.sendmefile.com/00432081

I HATE WINTER!!!!!!

I HATE WINTER!  Have I yelled it loudly enough yet!  I’m so sick and tired of being cold. I’m miserable, the day is dreary,  its too cold to do the things I love on the weekend like leadlighting cause its TOO DAMN COLD – even with 4 layers of clothing (I can barely still move) and the heater on in the shed!
Its also depressing…. Bring on summer, I just can’t wait.

Its not like me to be depressed.  I’m the sort of person who jumps out of bed at 6.00 am on a weekend cause there are so many wonderful things that I want to fit into my day – at the moment I’m bored all day long in front of the computer and heater.  I read a whole book this weekend – this may sound great, but to me it signifies lots of wasted time that I could have been spending on other things. There’s plenty of time to read at night, I like to use my days a bit more productively.  Plus I’ve got no where comfy and warm to curl up and read….until tomorrow that is.  A couple of weeks ago I ordered a chesterfield sofa and it comes TOMORROW – yeeeaaaah.  I have a leather lounge suite in the lounge, but hubby is always in there watching TV, which I’m not really in to, so at night I like to read (or watch the occasional different TV programme) in our formal sitting room.  But the seats in there are old and uncomfortable  - but not for long hey! Will try and post some piccy’s when it arrives.

I guess I shouldn’t be so miserable, cause I also bought a new treadmill yesterday on ebay.  I have sold my old one to someone at work, because it doesn’t go fast enough for my running, and have bought a You Beaut one.  It goes up to 18 km/hr, has 24 programmes including speed intervals and incline intervals, individual programme settings, automatic incline and all the normal readings.  Plus a 50 cm wide belt which is wider than most, and more comfortable to run on I think.  Can’t pay for it until Thursday when I get paid, and then on Friday I will get $500 back from the person who has bought mine.  I hope its as good as it sounds, cause they are so much cheaper on Ebay.  Any of the ones I’ve looked at in stores are over $2,000  (and this one is supposed to retail for $2,500) and I bought it for $860. Quite the bargain hey – well as long as its as good as its meant to be…. The proof will be in the pudding as they say – will let you know how the “feast” progresses when it arrives.

I don’t know why I’m so depressed then, life is really pretty good, I should be exceptionally  excited with all my new purchases.  But then again, its winter AND dreary AND raining, and this is what this weather does to you, it just depresses me!!!!

Weigh in tomorrow, and I’m hoping to be under 64 kgs this time –although that would mean a 1kg loss for the week, so I guess I’m setting my expectations a bit high.  Maybe I’ll go for a bit of a walk on my old treadmill while I still can, in the hope of tipping the scales in my favour tomorrow. Might quell my hunger.

See ya

Wow Killed myself at the gym tonight!

Wow – Killed myself at the gym tonight.  In an effort to get my speed up for the City Bay I (foolishly) told myself that if I could run intervals of 3 mins/2 mins @10k/hr on Sunday, surely I could run intervals of 4 mins/2 mins.  After all – what’s in a minute!  A HELL OF A LOT OF PAIN, HARDWORk, PANTING, SWEAT, HOT…….It was really hard, the first two minutes of each interval was ok, the 3rd, really pushing it and the 4th – bordering on death by treadmill!  I had to lengthen a couple of my intervals just to be able to catch my breath.  But being the annoyingly stubborn person that I am – I finished it to the end, including running @ 12k/hr for the last 30 secs.  Covered 5 km in all, and came off the treadmill looking like a red lobster – I was so puffed!

On a good note – I had my second fitness test as I’m now 6 weeks into the fitness challenge.  My fitness had improved but according to their scales, I’ve lost 5 kgs in 6 wks – WOOHOO.  This is about7% of my bodyweight, and just about more than any of the weightloss teams have lost over the same period!  Go team Lisa!

I also had a health check at work today – and my blood pressure was 102/65 which is nice and low and healthy – YES!

So not bad overall I’d say for one day – and yes, if you haven’t picked it up from my posts yet, I am obsessed with fitness!

Piccy update

Here I am off for my run yesterday - having difficulty uploading the photos yesterday, but it worked ok today - so here it is. You can't see the muscle definition in this photo, but I think you can see the narrowing waist! (And the fact that I'm not a very good photographer using the self timer button - lost my head!)

FInally, a 64

It may be only by a smidgen, but finally I registered a 64.9 for the official weekly weigh in this morning. Yeah! Threw in an extra run last night just to be sure (ran another 4kms, walked 1km)
Am going to throw in some extra treadmill walking/running in front of the TV this week just to reinvigorate my weight loss this week as its been like pushing a rock up hill the last few weeks.

The 80/20 Rule

Well there are lots of 80/20 rules out there, but this is just one I made up!

My personal belief is that effective weight loss is 80% diet, and 20% exercise. I know heaps of people who go to teh gym with me, who say they don't lose any weight, but they have lost cms (and they don't diet), as well as plenty of people who've lost heaps of weight without exercise - but the question is - do they have good shape, or just look thin?

I made a decision at the beginning of my journey that I didn't just want to be thin, I wanted a scultped toned body with good curves. After all, there are plenty of thin people who don't have great figures. And I think exercise is really helping with this. I"ve lost 36 cms around my waist, and only 28 cms from my bust - so I think down with the theories that say you lose weight evenly and can't spot reduce - I can only put down the growing difference in bust/waist ratio to exercise. Without the exercise I might weight the same (or even less if I take into account muscle gain), but I doubt I would have the same shape. I have line definition around my biceps and triceps, the beginnings of a 6 pack around my abs (very beginnings!), deltoid definition, firm thighs and calves, and a narrowing waist - none of which I think would have occured without exercise, but I don't think I would have lost weight without the diet aspect.

One of my key theories has been that I needed the diet to lose weight but the exercise to keep it off. And this was confirmed yesterday with a Weight Watchers article in the science section that said that there were links between maintaining long term weight loss and exercise. I also then read an interesting article that said that the recommended 30 mins exercise /day is great for improving your health, but to improve fitness or prevent re-gain of weight, you needed to exercise for 45 - 60 mins daily at a moderate intensity, or shorter if at a higher intensity. So to all those who give me a hard time for being gym obsessed - I think I am just setting myself up for healthy weight for life!

PS - for my run today I ran intervals of 10 kms/hour with walking (3 mins/2mins ), and this was very encouraging. After a while I got used to the 10 km speed and it didn't feel so fast - I'm thinking now that even if I don't get fit enough to run the whole 12 kms at this speed, I'm very confident that with another 10 weeks of running under my belt, I could run 5 min/1 min run walk intervals for the full 12 kms with no great difficulty. This would take me 78 mins instead of my goal of 72 mins - but hey - thats pretty good for someone who couldn't run for more than 2 mins @ 7.0kms hour in Feb!
PPS -I also ran the last min @ 12km/hr - a new speed record for me (i"m actually surprised I didn't fall off the treadmill!)
PPPS - I'm now going to have to sell my home treadmill and upgrade it - it only goes up to 10 km/hr (in fact I can only get it up to 9.6). I never envisaged when I bought it that I would need it to go any higher than 6 -7 km/hour for walking! Cool huh

Mid Week Update

Well, I haven't had much of a chance to update lately, have been very busy and away again for work. Managed to survive for two days away without the scales this time, and keep up with my running programme, and did one class at a nearby gym. The combat class was quite encouraging, as apart from the muscle bound body builder on my left, and the could be state footballer on my right - I reckon I was about the fittest there! I was doing all the high impact stuff whilst everyone else took the low impact road! Yeh me!
Scales this morning did show me at 64.8 - just under my weeks goal of 65, but the weekend is always more challenging - particularly as I'm having a dinner party tonight! But as the hostess with the mostess - I'll be serving the least - the least calories and fat that is. Have cooked the Chicken and Spinach Lasagne from Symply Too Good to Be True (4.5 points/serve). Braised Lamb with Lentils (Continental recipe - calculated at 5.5 points/serve) Sweet and Sour Pork Stir fry (no idea really, but its just meat vegies, hokkein noodles, and a little sauce - my guess about 6 points). So if I have a third of a serve of each - I should only be eating about 5 - 6 points. Although, and a friend is bringing one of my favorite deserts i think - may have to indulge in this - have been keeping the points low all day.

Running wise - I've finished week 2 of the Beginners training guide for the City Bay. - All went ok , but I see that in two weeks time I have to be able to run 4 kms at race pace (which I've set at 10kms/hour, so that I can run the 12 kms in 72 mins). This seems a bit of a stretch as I can only run at this pace for about 3 mins at the moment!. I can run the 4 kms ok, but but I am just slow - currently running at about 8.5 kms/hr. Well, will try and run at 9.0kms/hr this week, I may have to adjust my race pace yet - will wait and see.

Having another fitness test next week, my team is halfway through the fitness challenge. Very interested to see if there is a noticeable improvement. Its done on a bike though, and I hate bikes, so I never feel very fit on it at all! Hopefully it will make no difference.

Well thats it for now, two more days to weigh in - lets see if I can crack the 65 kg barrier....

Weigh In for Monday 26th

Well - did I meet my goal of 64 point something......Drumroll.......nah
Missed by a little - 65.2 kgs Monday morning - but that's ok - its still a 700gm loss which is nothing to be sneezed at. So next week - I'm aiming for a minimum of 64.5. Will she make it.....!!!!!
Had to have a bit of an "eating" day on Monday. Sometimes, about once every couple of months, I feel extremely lethargic/tired/hungry - kind of a worn out feeling. It feels like my body is tired from all the hammering I give it with restricted eating and significant levels of exercise, and it just needs a day off! On these days I decide to listen to my body and relax my eating for the day. So I went and had a delicious penne carbonara for lunch (very filling, very cheesy, very yum!) which used to be my favourite meal and I haven't had in 8 months, had a slice of pizza for tea before my weight watchers meal, and had a couple of M&M cookies after tea. My weight hadn't changed the next morning - but I felt so much better. The abdominal cramps had gone (does anyone else get these - sort of like hunger pains (maybe they are!)), and I had energy again, and was happy to resume my normal eating habits. (Keep in mind this was also the day after my 4 km run)
So I'm happy with where I'm at, and still aiming to reach goal in September, before the City Bay at the latest. Had a great Pump session tonight- upped all my weights ( had the highest weights in the class) , and felt quite energised afterwards.
Am really looking forward to Step tomorrow night.... Did I tell you they had 11 people last week while I was in Brisbane? There I am, turning up every week to find its cancelled cause I'm the only one, and teh week I go away they have a full class! At least they tried to ring me and let me know they had enough people - they even put out a step for me in case I ran in at the last minute! Ahh - the joys of being a regular in a small gym. So tomorrow - watch out cause here I come!

I Did It

Here I am, off to my first Fun Run, and .... I did it!
Unfortunately it was hard, very hard but I did the 4 kms in 25:50 - with no stops. This equates to 9 point something kms/hr, so overall I am very happy. My goal was just to run the entire distance, no matter how slowly which I achieved, but the speed is a bit of a bonus as I normally run at 8.5 kms/hr.

Treadmill to Road Run?
Having only run on the treadmill before, this was my biggest concern. So was it worse/harder??? Actually surprisingly I didn't think it was any harder, as long as I kept concentrating on slowing down. In fact in someways it was easier. The running outside was more distracting (a good thing, I need to be distracted from the pain of the effort!) because there was constantly a change in scenary, and I had to watch my footing as I ran down a walking trail that was a winding dirt track with a few dips and rises. This was good because it helped to stretch the legs and reduce the monotony. I also wore a headband because I was worried about the sweat running into my eyes as it does in the gym. But of course I have a towel handy there.... It was no problem at all. Either the sweat band did the job, or actually moving rather than being stationary on a treadmill created some air flow.

The Mental Race
I decided after this that running really does require mental fitness and strength. I spent most of the time fighting with myself, particularly the last km, refusing to let myself stop and walk. Kept saying things like "just one foot in front of the other" "don't you dare give in" "picture your goals - what you'll look like when you are thin, how good you'll feel when you run the last leg of the City-Bay", and I really think that if I wasn't such a fiercely stubborn, and doggedly determined person, I would never have run the whole race. Mmmm perhaps my vices have some usefulness after all!

My Picture
I have to say that I don't think my photos do justice to my new leaner body. I asked my hubby re this, as I tend to see a thinner person than what appears in the piccy's. He gave it some thought, looked at my image in the mirror, (that I see), looked at the photos, and agreed. He seems to think that the whole 2D image doesn't present a true picture. Do other's find that? (or maybe he's just being nice!)

Weigh In Tomorrow
Well I would like to hit 64.9 tomorrow, but I think the chances are slim as it would require a full 1.0kg loss for the week, and I have had fairly good losses the last few weeks, and at this stage of my journey, I really can no longer expect 1kg losses. However Saturdays weight was 65.0 and Sunday 65.3, so you never know - the weigh in could be good on Monday. Time will tell, and then I will let you know!

Cheers for now

Mondays Weigh In Sees Another Good Loss

Well - the official weigh in this morning was 65.9 - I was a little disappointed as I'd seen 65.6 a few times next week - but still - it is a 0.9kg loss which is very big for me. And it should make this weeks challenge a little easier - as I want to get under 65 kgs - which requires a 1kg loss - quite a challenge for me these days. We'll see
Anyway - its official now - only 8 kgs to go (well 8.9, but who counts the decimal points!)
I'm off to Brisbane today - if the hotel has good internet access - I'll post from there, otherwise - see you Thursday.

"80% of women think life would dramatically improve if they had a beautiful body...."

This is a quote from the July Edition of New Woman's magazine. Apparently they did a reader survey with "shocking" results.. they weren't that much of a surprise to me "the survey shous women are generally unhappy with, and want to change their bodies." What was interesting was that the average weight is 70 kgs (suprisingly low I thought), average height - 169 kilos, but goal weight is 55kgs! According to my calculations, this would mean that everyone is aspiring to a slightly underweight figure of a BMI of 19.
And does a better body make you happier? apparently 80% of us think so. Thinking it through for myself, I wonder if I subconsciously thought this myself. One of the things I have been dealing with is the negative feelings that come with weight loss - yes I think there are some negatives - and partly I think this relates to feeling like life should be perfect now that I don't have signficant weight issues. Admittedly, many things are now wonderful, I love wearing fashionable clothes, I love my new found energy and fitness, but you know what? I still get frustrated when shopping cause sometimes there are no 10's on the racks, just bigger sizes (can you believe that!) I still feel self conscious about how I look at times etc etc. And this may sound silly - but it can be depressing to think - why aren't I feeling happier, I should be on top of the world - but I 'm not. Perhaps this is fuelled by the perception that a beautiful body makes for a beautiful life??? Mmm - what do you think - I've created a poll on the left to see how others feel about it - so vote with your mouse and lets find out!

By the way - did my 4 km run at the gym today - 27 mins running at 8.5kms/hour. At times it felt a little tough - I think my heart rate was fine (forgot my monitor), but I did have to push myself. Kept trying to imagine running on the road and how different it might be - I guess I'll no for sure after next Sunday's Fun Run. Anyway - although it was a little hard at times, 5 minutes later I was fully recovered, and feeling like I'd only been through a light cardio session - so I guess I am totally up for it! Only way to beat those fears is face them head on - So bring on next Sunday!

PS - still no luck posting photos - very frustrating

A Sneak Preview

Interesting to see that my weight the last few days has been in the "65's" - 65.6 this am in fact! - Think I might make my weekly goal! Its also interesting to see that even though I've been having frequent (low point) snacks - my weight is actually dropping faster than normal - there's food for thought - I'm sure I've probably been over points a few days - but then I don't account for bonus points for exercise - maybe I've been eating too little previously? its such a complicated balancing act!
I got an email the other day about a 4 km fun run next weekend. And I've decided that it would be good for me to do it in preparation for the City Bay. Its only 4 kms and the City Bay's 12, but even so I'm scared to death! In my head I know I should be able to do it, but I've been concentrating my running efforts on interval training (you know, run for 10 mins, walk for 5 type of thing over 60 - 90 minutes) to build endurance, and I've only ever run 1 km on the road, and it was hard! (i'm a treadmill runner)
Silly I know - I'm going to have to make the transition some time if I'm serious about my City Bay goal - so it will be very good for me. Thought I would do a straight 4km run on the treadmill this Sunday instead of the normal endurance run - just to proved to myself that I can do it. Should only take half an hour...
I think one of the things about it that has worried me is that I watched my youngest daughter in a cross country race yesterday. She did a fantastic job - 2km in 10 mins (much faster than me), but the run looked ooohhh soooo faaaarrrrr! I guess when you run on a treadmill you're not aware of travelling any distance. But I loved watching the running techniques of the leading older runners - looking to see which was more efficicient/smooth/how much bounce/stride length etc, and picking up tips for my technique, and my quads were actually firing in anticipation of "that running feeling" - don't think I've ever felt that before - now I'm itching to run again on Sunday.
I'm off to Brisbane on Monday for work, and my boss asked me what I'll do about exercise whilst I'm away. A work friend butted in and said - "dont you worry - she'll have already checked out all the gym facilities at the hotel!" and its oh so true. (I've said I won't stay anywhere now without a decent gym). But my bosses pensive response (and he's been watching my weightloss journey with great interest) was - "what happened, what was the trigger that changed your from the old Lisa, to the new (health and fitness obsessed) one?" And to be honest, I couldn't answer him. I can think of lots of different triggers - but what has made it different this time? How have I become such a fitness fanatic - I really don't know at this point in time - I will need to give it more thought. But it was really nice that others are recognising me as a different person now.....