MY HAPPY PLACE

Just as I thought, time for blogging has been scarce lately. Work has been really busy and with school holidays thrown into the mix my hours have been all over the place. I am very pleased to say though, that I have just enjoyed a wonderful 4 day weekend with ANZAC Day and the following Friday off. 

After a week of being quite vigilant with my diet and not going crazy with Mitchell's birthday celebrations, the Metal Monster rewarded me with a dip into the mid 65s on ANZAC Day. I started my long weekend feeling quite invincible :-) We attended our first ever dawn service which I found to be quite moving. Its something I plan to keep doing over the coming years. Later that day I went for my first walk/jog since my foot op in mid Feb. It went ok and I did keep it to just 3 x 5 minute jogs although I knew I could easily have done more. Better to be safe and restrained than sorry. Ironically I passed my surgeon on one of my jog intervals LOL. The rest of the day was pretty lazy which was fantastic as it was quite cool and therefore stay inside and not do much weather.

On Friday I did an upper body weights session with a very sore neck. Luckily it was only half an hour but I didn't like the crunching I was hearing as I pressed a bar overhead. We then went out for a game of mini golf followed by a wonderful lunch out. I had more than my fair share of good fats THAT day (think Atlantic salmon and accompaniments served in more olive oil) but whereas previously that would have had me cringing at the oil, now I embrace it knowing how good it is for my skin and system overall. Plus I don't eat like that every day and its still WAY better than indulging in a deep fried takeaway or something. Salmon rules (in my book).

With my sore neck continuing into Saturday I did a tentative walk/jog but found my sneakers are too worn out and I was getting some lower leg pain. I kept it to 15 minutes again as that was manageable within an overall workout of about 45-50 minutes. The rest of the day was busy, busy with the usual chores and maybe some exciting things on the horizon, maybe not.

Sunday turned on another glorious weather day here and although I was going to train legs a day early, I just couldn't bring myself to hole myself up in my studio so I headed out for a 'short walk' which turned into 45 minutes of walking and jogging with the jogging increased to 20 minutes. I just felt too good to waste my time on a walk and my sneakers managed to do their job for one more day. It was a good day overall and legs got done this morning as per my usual routine.

I have SO many friends who hate exercise and never do any. They will just honestly admit that they have no interest, no desire to do any - its not even about excuses to blow it off. I just don't get it. Being inactive does not make me feel good. Moving out in the fresh air whether it be walking or jogging feels fantastic and I feel great when I finish it knowing I've done something positive for myself. I'm really happy that its now as much a part of my life as is brushing my teeth. Sure I have rest days and the occasional day where I don't exercise but ny norm is 'move at least 30 minutes / day on 6 days / week' and that folks, is my HAPPY PLACE.

M

 

 

THE GLASS HALF FULL

What a shocker of a week. My working-from-home day on Wednesday turned into a go-into-the- office-and-deal-with-an-urgent-problem day. I had Mitchell with me and sitting in my office for 3 hours while I worked (admittedly playing on his DS) just about drove him crazy after which he just about drove me crazy. AAAAAAARGH!!

Anyways I was back at work on Thursday and the problem re-presented itself in a different light so there was yet another stressful day of trying to achieve the impossible in 5 minutes. I had several instances of closing my eyes, breathing deeply to calm my mind and then getting on with the actions around sorting out the problem. I paid extra attention to being nice to people and getting involved in pleasant conversations whenever I could just to balance out my inner turmoil.

Days like those have, in the past, guaranteed that I would resort to comforting myself with as much junk food as I could physically manage to get in. You know the old theory "5 minutes of it tasting good is 5 minutes of my pain being eased so I'll take it." Stupid logic, I know but hey, it was my coping mechanism. Well I'm so pleased to say that despite everything, I never resorted to those old actions and in fact I wasn't even tempted to. WOOHOO!!!

My trusty Metal Monster may not be heading downwards as I so hoped he would but hey, at least I'm mastering the art of maintenance and that, my friends, is definitely a glass half full job.

:-) M

THE FIBRE SAGA CONTINUES

Interesting observations since I changed my diet by increasing fibre to improve regularity.

1. A serve of prunes on rising followed by a tablespoon of psyllium in my post workout shake = inability to eat much else for breakfast. Eggs made me feel sick so they were off the menu. I managed a slice of Burgen rye toast with natural peanut butter and with a coffee on the way to work, this combination kept me going until lunch time. No gnawing 10am hunger whatsoever.

 

2. I've started taking a probiotic and can honestly say, I feel no different. 

 

3. Pears = kings of high fibre fruit and including 1 in my daily diet easily gets my fibre intake around or over 30g.

 

BUT

 

with all this fibre going in, my gut is churning and sore and bloated - I could pull off the '6 months pregnant look' no worries - AND I'm no more regular than I was pre-op. SIGH.

 

Next experiment: slippery elm (apparently its like 'nature's broom'.)

 

Oh BTW I've had to ditch some of the above as life was just getting too uncomfortable.

 

M  

YESTERDAY - TODAY

Yesterday had the potential to be one of those days where I end up eating my body weight in cake.

Today I'm pleased to say "I am cake-free."

Breathe, be calm for the storm will pass and there is sunshine around the corner.

Today is a better day.

:-) M 

THE ROUND UP, THE CATCH UP AND LOOKING FORWARD

Today will be an exercise in speed posting as my time available for personal luxuries during the day has severely diminished. We are 1 staff member down for  3 months and there is some big, gutsy stuff that I'm working on and my busyness rating has gone through the roof. So here goes.

THE ROUND UP

March saw me go mostly vego in order to improve my regularity after a very dismal end to February in that regard. By blogging about it, I got LOTS of helpful hints and comments, some of which I adopted and some of which past experience has shown to have no benefit for me. I'm happy to say that I finished the month far better than I started and the things that helped were:

1. Starting the days with soaked prunes and downing the soaking liquid as well.

2. After training I'd add a tablespoon of psyllium husks to my protein shake.

3. My lunches were mainly veges, brown rice and a serve of legumes to boost my fibre intake.

4. I went back to eating pears (the king of high fibre fruits) and drinking my water consistently

5. I increased my activity from virtually sedentary to active on most days. I'm still noticing that a lack of running doesnt help with my cause though.

Whilst there was a good improvement, I must say that I've learnt what is maybe the real cause of my regularity problems. Ironically its IRREGULARITY. Irregularity in my overall meals and water intake. Whilst I eat fairly regularly during the week, come the weekend and skipped meals become the norm. Not for any other reason than my schedule is totally different, totally busy and meals get pushed out to all different times (sometimes dropping right off my schedule). At the same time, my water intake will suffer so I've got these 2 major factors working against me.

I'm no longer eating vego apart from some meals here and there and I'll monitor how I go with this in-between approach. It was an interesting experiment though.

THE CATCH UP

Wow things have been busy at work but Easter was amazing. I got back into walking including taking Mitchell on shorter walks with me so that his fitness improves in time for our OS holiday. He is such an inactive kid. He hates sport, whinges about walking anywhere and has no interest in being active. However he's been warned that lots of walking will be required on holidays so we are out 'training'. I laughed when he asked me if we were doing it (the walking) to burn fat. LOL there aint much fat to burn on his string bean body.

Eating got a little too relaxed before Easter due to farewell morning teas, hot cross buns put on by our social club and lunches out but overall I've coped really well and the change on the MM has been minor :-) The biggest and best change has been in my attitude / headset around the times that I really indulged. I can honestly say that I'm now at a point where I just go with the flow, accept that I made the decision to eat whatever it was, remind myself how much I enjoyed it and not go into a big emotional meltdown over it. There's no 'getting over it' or 'picking myself up and moving on' because as far as I'm concerned I never fell down or fell over or failed or ....insert whatever negative action you want. Life sure is better when you look at things this way and it removes the agony that goes with the redemption act.

LOOKING FORWARD

We have 12 weeks til our holiday and undoubtedly its going to be a stupidly busy lead up to it. There may not be much blogging or reading of others blogs or FBing in that time. My main focus will be to keep eating well, keep training, keep myself and my family healthy both physically and emotionally (not let the stress break me down) and slide up to our holiday looking and feeling amazingly awesome.

Wish me luck and please check back in if I manage to get here for an update.

xx m