THE VOICES IN MY HEAD

This morning at 5.20 am it was me and the pavement for stage 2 of my return to running plan. This is a bit of a side goal to weight training 3 times / week. I guess you could call it goal 2a or maybe it should just be goal number 4. Whatever. I’m aiming to run again but limit my times to 30 or 40 minutes max.  I know my body just can cope with the long runs anymore despite them being my favourites.

I headed out and it was a typically cold morning. In stage 2 my plan is to walk 1 song, then jog 2. The last couple of weeks it was 1 song of each. Luckily my first song was a long one at over 5 minutes so I got a nice warm up walk. At the risk of sounding like a whinger, my hips have been aching badly lately, the pain has returned to my ITBs and needless to say my lower back is always tight, adding to the soreness. Then to add icing to the cake, I had leg DOMS as well.

The voice in my head was shouting at me “Don’t run today. You’re so sore. You won’t be able to do it anyway. Just walk. It’s safer and easier.” And a part of me REALLY wanted to say “Ok, you’re right. A walk will do.” But deep down I knew a walk WOULDN’T do. If I conceded defeat I would have another day of getting up early and wasting the time with ineffective training. Like Peter said to me a couple of weekends ago “What’s the point of getting up so early if you don’t make your training count.”

 And I thought back to a passage I read yesterday from Craig Harper’s Fattitude: “Sometimes we don’t really want to make an effort; we just want to look like we are making an effort. It’s a good way to get people off our back.” Errrr …. guilty. So I sucked it up and I jogged my 2 songs then took a walk recovery for 1 song and repeated the cycle 4 times. I also stayed the whole 40 minutes. No short cuts.

At the end of it I was pooped but I felt great and more importantly I felt great about not skimping on the quality of my workout. Have you been guilty of skimping on your effort but hiding it behind a façade of “yeah I’m putting in the effort”? It can be with either exercise or diet.

Cheers all

M

MAY'S ACHIEVEMENT

At the completion of my accounting exam on 30 April I set myself the rather significant goal of having a binge free May. I have set this goal many times and have rarely achieved it – often just giving in to the feelings of stress, pressure and a desire for instant 5 minute feel good feelings. Often that act of giving in results in a ‘one bite is too many and a thousand are not enough**’ episode and the vicious cycle continues as I fall into an apathy based on ‘what’s the point, I never get anywhere anyway.’

On Thursday I achieved a binge free May. It was a tough month as you’ll remember I had the worst 2 days of my work life in there and I admit there were times when I ate more for lunch than I should have but when I finished my (big) lunch I stopped eating as opposed to just looking for more and more food. I also didn’t over stress about what I ate. Sometimes it was healthy. Sometimes it wasn’t. Weight wise there was no real change over the month but I didn’t expect there to be either.

In the scheme of things I’m counting May as a big success but looking forward there is room for improvement and that’s where I want to go in June. Mind you I’ve had a big struggle with motivation both for training and eating well.  With no specific fitness goal or event on the horizon, getting up to exercise at 5am is a bloody struggle. Same with the eating which flips from pretty good to ‘oops, overdone it again’. To complete the package, the headspace that goes with these is just as defeatist and counter-productive. Hello rut, I’m baaaaack.

But on Friday night I picked up my old copy of Fattitude by Craig Harper and started to casually read it again. I tell you, it should be my bible for life. Craig hits the nail on the head over and over and its like he’s speaking directly to me when delivering his tell-it-like-it-is messages. Only a few chapters in and there have been so many aha moments – timely reminders of why we fail, how we can succeed and what our attitude or thinking has to do with it all. I love that the book is not about the food you eat, or what training you do, its message is: right attitude + consistent actions = results. Simple really.

So I embark on June with a plan for small positive changes strung together on this journey of improvement. Number one goal is portion control – feeding the physical not the emotional hunger. Number two goal is to weight train consistently three times / week. Number three goal is to read a little of Fattitude every day. It helps to keep me focussed as I re-establish healthy habits. I’m honestly not fussed about dropping kilos as quickly as possible in time for my holiday or my birthday. Laying a strong foundation for the future is far more important.  And at the end of the day when I can honestly say I did my best eating and training wise, I feel pretty good within myself irrespective of the extra kilos – which can be (temporarily) taken care of by some Spanx.

Thanks for listening to me as I try to work through what works for me.

M

** I borrow this statement from my friend and previous trainer Liz.

MUM'S BIRTHDAY

It was my mum's birthday on Thursday and one of the things I like to do at this time of year is take her to lunch and a movie. So today we took ourselves off to see 'What to Expect When You're Expecting'. The movie was great. I laughed. I cried tears of joy. I cried tears of emotion - the adoption scene was VERY close to home and whenever I reflect back to my own experience, I cant hold back the tears and emotion. Tears for my happiness but tears  of sadness for the foster mother who hands over the baby that she has cared for for the last 5 or so months.

But I digress. We had a nice lunch out although my food wasnt the best - chicken risotto with the tiniest amount of chicken in it and a bit too moist (wet) for my liking. The wine was good :-) It was a nice outing and mum has said that as long as she has her health, she'd like to do this every year. I couldnt agree more. I have one friend who lost her mum  some years ago and their family has never been the same. Others dont get on with their mums so a day like today would be torture for them. I'm so lucky that mum and I are really good friends. Incidentally the pic above was from some years ago. The toddler is now 10 years old LOL.

Today was also a nice change from this last week which can only be summed up as mehh. On Wednesday I tackled a job application for a position quite different to what I do now. I really struggled with it, wrote it as best I could only to have Peter critique it as "hmm sorry dear but I think you've missed the mark." I tried rewriting it but couldnt get past my original headset. At one stage I conceded defeat. But because I'm a bit of a never-give-up girl, I rallied myself to give it another go and pulled it together at the 11th hour. There's nothing like a bit of 'I'm hopeless, I just cant get this' feeling to drag you down and fuel all those feelings of failure and inadequacy, making for a shitty few days.

But thats past and next week will be awesome because I decree it so :-)

Cheers all

M

CHECK UP PART ONE

BP: 104/65 - excellent result. Peter says I dont have enough stress in my life LOL.

BMI: 24.?? - Dr Mark says to keep this under 25 (at which point I officially become 'overweight'). I confess that I'm a few kilos heavier than I'd like to be. He reassures me I'm lighter than on another occassion (he doesnt say when). We agree it comes on too easily and is hard to get off.

Fasting bloods will be done tomorrow morning then back for results a few days later. Problems at the 'other end' are not considered a problem (no risk of over servicing here) and I'll qualify for the government's free faecal screening (eeeeuw!!!) in a year and a bit anyway. Mark that down as a milestone to look forward to LOL.

Dr Mark agreed that mum being type 2 diabetic was a small warning to me but regular check ups would highlight any potential problems. I'm ok with that.

So tomorrow is a no breakfast day so I can front up for the "lets dig the needle in and pray we find a vein" torture session so some sadist can collect vials of my blood for one big science experiment. Looking forward to getting all the numbers back :-)

Good night all

M

CHECK-UP TIME

Wow, another busy weekend has bitten the dust. My boy had his final skating lesson until after our holiday so I get a few weeks leave from sitting in the ice box on Saturday mornings. On Saturday evening we went briefly to a school function for year 4 parents but sadly those parents that we know better werent there so we kept it short and sweet. We were home and tucked into bed just after 10pm LOL.

My mum's birthday is coming up soon and I cooked dinner for our family as an early celebration on Sunday evening. I bought some pork fillets and cut a long slit in each one and stuffed them with a mix of sauteed onion and mushrooms mixed with home made breadcrumbs and an egg. Then I wrapped each fillet in very thinly sliced prosciutto, lightly pan fried them and then baked them in the oven. I did a potato bake along a similar theme with thinly sliced potatoes, a little olive oil and lightly sauteed slices of peperoni all mixed together and oven baked til soft and crispy. Dessert was a Greek style semolina cake with a lemon syrup. It was delicious and my work colleagues enjoyed the left-over cake so Peter and I wouldnt have to eat it all.

Tomorrow I see my GP for my annual check up. I dont think I've seen him since Feb last year when I had my last check up, me being so damned healthy and all LOL. But now that mum is type 2 diabetic and I have a few extra kilos on me, I cant afford to stick my head in the sand and pretend that it couldnt hapen to me. So I'll be getting bloods done along with the routine checks and following up another private matter that could be problematic. My motto: 'Tis better to know and do something about it than to kid yourself thinking ignorance is bliss'.

Cheers all

M

MEETING SANDRA

Every now and then somebody comes into your life and you just click.

I dont have lots of friends and I'm ok with that as I'm not the type of person who seeks constant company and socialisation. The few good friends that I have, have been in my life for a LONG time. One since I was 14 and she was 16, another from 15 and 16 respectively and the third from 1989. Pretty good track records, hey.

Funnily, it was through blogging that I met Sandra and we just clicked. Today we met for real as evidenced in the photo above. There was no doubt we'd click again.

I was waiting for her in the foyer of her hotel. She came out of the lift and for a moment I wasnt sure it was her as she had darker hair than in her photo in my blog followers. I think she recognised me though but was surprised at my height. At meeting, it was a case of "Sandra? You have dark hair" and "Magda? you're so tall." I'm not really, I just had high heeled boots on.

We wandered around the corner from her hotel and had a 2 hour lunch in a nice restaurant and we talked and talked and talked some more. During our conversation we found out we had both done something identical recently that neither of us had blogged about and we just cracked up. When it came to paying the bill we reached into our purses at the same time and pulled out the exact same notes, laughing again.

It was a wonderful time and she was as lovely as I imagined her to be. And for somebody who kept telling me she wasnt at her best, her warm and genuine personality just shone and I'd never have known that deep inside she didnt feel great.

Although we live in different states, I know we'll keep in touch and meet up again at some stage. Life is too short to let distance keep friends apart.

:-) M

CHALLENGED BY THE COLD AND WET WEATHER

Tell me I'm not alone in my 'challenge' of staying motivated to eat well as the weekend draws closer. Or maybe its the bitterly cold and wet weather we had today, but the tin of salmon that was going to be accompanied by a shop bought salad (a place near work does fresh organic salads) just had Z.E.R.O. appeal for lunch. I had nothing packed due to there being slim pickings at home to prepare and we all finished dinner later than usual due to an impromptu request for pancakes for dessert. So today ended up being a bit of a 'buy lunch and try not to do TOO much damage' day. Oh that and 'yes I want a feta and spinach scone for morning tea but I dont NEED one so I'll settle for a skim cappuccino only' day.

I now have DOMS in my chest, glutes and adductors so a nice spread of the love/pain hapening there. I dont mind the constant reminder that I worked hard(ish) and my muscles are feeling it. Tomorrow I'll round off my weight training with shoulders, bis and tris and that'll be full body done over the course of the week :-) VERY happy with that.

But there is one thing that I'll be even happier about tomorrow. My blogging buddy Sandra is attending a conference here in Adelaide and tomorrow we meet face to face for the first time and have lunch together. I have my camera packed in my bag and am REALLY looking forward to it. We talked on the phone last night and she has a lovely, well spoken voice. I dont have to say 'I know we'll hit it off' because we already have through our blogs and comments to each other. Stay tuned for the pics.

Anyway its time to get ready for an early bed so that I'm up and at it at 5 again. That too is a challenge on these cold, wet mornings but I've managed to suck it up and just get on with it so far.

Good night all.

:-) M