I WAS WRONG

Oh I was SO wrong. Everything from the waist down and chest up is in agony. It just took a little longer to come on in full force. Suffer baby, suffer!!

We had a fairly mild morning today despite the forecast being for a cool change and showers. So I took the opportunity to get out for a walk just around my local streets even if I had to do repeat laps of just a few streets from home. It was nice to be out in the fresh air and moving vs being stuck on a bike or rower. Today I clocked up 45 minutes taking my weekly total to 85 minutes. If I get in an hour on Sunday, that leaves 55 for tomorrow and/or Saturday which is a big ask so I can see Sunday's session being a biggie. It'll have to be a combo of walking, biking and rowing which will help make the time go faster. 

On another note we are roughly 3 months away from our OS holiday. Continued slow and steady losses on the Metal Monster will see me in a very happy place by the time that rolls around. Already I'm back wearing some clothes that had been pushed to the back of my wardrobe while I was heavier. Love it when the choice for work clothes increases without spending money on new stuff. I don't know how many times I went to complain about having nothing to wear when in fact I have tons of gorgeous stuff - it just doesn't fit me when I'm fat because I hate shopping then.

OK back to work now. Cheers folks.

M

THE MAGIC PILL

So today my legs are sore but not as bad as I expected. Looking back they were far worse after the squat / DB presses that I incorporated into my 'upper body cardio' sesh  a couple of weeks ago. Life is full of surprises.

Today's workout was mixed cardio using both the rower and spin bike. Unable to face 40 straight minutes on the rower or bike, no matter how much I vary the programs or levels (intensity), I opted to alternate between the two and thankfully the time went much faster and I still managed a good workout. I've set myself a little mini challenge and that is doing 200 minutes of cardio each week. I'm not planning on dropping my weight training so I'll see how I manage this on the time that I have. 

I know a lot of people say that heavy weight training is more effective for weight loss but unless your diet is totally geared to support it (and mine isn't and I'm not prepared to make the required sacrifices) then for me cardio is a must. I've had some of my best drops in weight when I was running 3 - 4 x / week and weight training 3 x / week. Couple that with less carbs during the day, increased good fats and lots of salad / veg and the Metal Monster was coming to the party nicely each week :-) Shame my system didn't appreciate that lifestyle but I'm well on track for finding a happy middle ground, I think. Anyways, I'm a firm believer that we are all individuals and finding the right fit is an individual thing and not something you can copy from somebody else. Don't even get me started on all the different 'diets' or 'lifestyles' that are being touted on social media these days. (That's a whole other blog post).

Today I'll leave you with a quote that absolutely nails it on so many fronts:

The magic pill is .... YOU.

Thanks Mr Harper. Yet again, you are absolutely right.

Cheers all

M      

OH THE PAIN ....

..... I'll feel after this morning's workout. 

Today was leg day. A statement that brought fear into my heart and a sense of dread as I headed out to my studio at 5.15am. Whatever I did today was going to hurt big time tomorrow. There was no escaping it. My last leg workout was on Feb 12 the day before my foot surgery.

Being the big sook that I am, I dropped my weights back by 5kgs on my squats and stiff legged deadlifts. They were still really hard and heavy, just reaffirming that I am a big weakling. I kept my weights low on my static lunges and plie squats as I plan to build them up over time. To rev things up a bit, I supersetted all my leg work with triceps work (gotta keep the arms firm and toned!).

Well I survived it and now I'm bracing myself for tomorrow's DOMS. I guess I'll just have to harden up and ride it out. The trick is to now keep training legs regularly so this doesn't happen again, or only happens on a lesser scale. I won't be able to use the old 'my legs are tired' excuse as I'm not running and lets be honest, walking doesn't exactly tire you out unless you're covering mega distance.

On other fronts, my vego diet is going well although preparing separate meals for everybody in my family is starting to wear thin. I've gotten by with lots of pre-packaged meals for myself but in hindsight they're probably not the best long term alternative. I will re-assess at the end of the month. As far as overall regularity goes, there has been improvement so it would be with some trepidation that I'd go back to meat based meals and getting the balance right will, no doubt, be tricky. 

Anyways that's enough of my boring life for now. Hope you're all having a great day. Talk tomorrow.

M

  

ON A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT NOTE

On Saturday I had lunch with a dear friend as a belated birthday get-together. Coming up to the date, I remembered back to this time last year. I was studying a double load as I finished off the Professional Management Program which required a work based project and a presentation to wrap it up. My Director was at the presentation. At the same time, I had started my accounting subject as part of my Grad Cert and there was a ridiculous amount of reading and home work questions to get through. I would study late at night, eat crap, do no exercise  and I just ran myself into the ground. I put on weight and felt awful on every level. The D word had set in and my lunch catch up for my friend's birthday then was a miserable time.

But not this year. I'm slimmer, happier, healthier, less stressed and feeling quite good - and all this DESPITE my ankle operation and the problems I've been having with the R word LOL. So on Saturday I put on my figure hugging white dress with a flowey coverall as it was a bit cool. Then I got out a pair of heels (not too high to start with) and had the inaugural heel wearing ceremony. Oooh I felt soooo good. Miss R and I did the day justice starting lunch just before 1pm and her husband dropped me off home at 6.30pm. Seeing as we shared a dessert around 5.30, I didn't need any dinner and I was very happy after the 2 bottles of champagne that we enjoyed.

Today I've broken out the heels for work and all is good. In fact I'm wearing the shoes that  broke me back in September when I finally declared that the pain in my foot was unbearable and I gave in and bought flats to wear for the rest of the day. What a journey its been since then. Oh the wardrobe choices I have once again and no wincing and grimacing as I hobbled about.

So there you have it ... a very happy post for today even though I'm dead tired and suffering a bad case of Mondayitis. When all is said and done, life is good :-)

xx m   

 

HUMAN EXPERIMENT UPDATE

Wow, so many tips and suggestions that I'm grateful for. Thanks guys!!

I may just have found my solution in a combination of things that has brought some success. 

I have been eating mainly vego since the start of the month and I must admit, I like it. Admittedly I'm having packaged vege / chick pea / lentil burgers mainly through laziness and not wanting to spend lots of time in the kitchen when its been so hot. I've also given packaged felafels a go and they were particularly good as my homemade ones were always a disaster. Throw in some lentil salads and plenty of veg with my meals (which is pretty normal for me) and I'm feeling like I might grow my leg and armpit hair, join a commune and sing koombaya as I worship the earth LOL.

But on a serious note, my system seems to like this way of eating :-) Then mum and dad were horrified to hear of my predicament and immediately jumped in with the 'prunes soaked overnight, eat them, drink the liquid first thing in the morning'. I wasn't overly keen to start the day with a big sugary hit but upon checking my packet of prunes I saw they had no added sugar so it was just the natural sweetness you get in dried fruit. I soaked them and ate them the next morning and downed the big glass of the water they had been in. After my training I mixed up a protein shake with a good tablespoon of psyllium husks and lo and behold, later that day ... SUCCESS!!!

So now my mission is to see what this does over a few weeks of making this a daily or every second day ritual. On a positive note, I haven't touched my fibre supp for about a week and that in itself is progress.

On the training front I'm suffering badly from some killer leg DOMS. I have obviously avoided all lower body work since the middle of February but on Sunday I jazzed up my 'upper body cardio' with a light dumbbell that I used to squat, touchdown to the floor and then lift up and overhead repeated several times over 10 minutes (including many reps of just arm moves). I didn't feel it at the time but a day later the DOMS set in and then 2 days later it JUST ABOUT KILLED ME. I'm still suffering badly and dreading going to the toilet LOL.

Finally I had my 2nd physio visit yesterday morning and progress is going really well. My ankle flexibility has improved 100%. My ankle strength is good. The physio said that the swelling I still have is quite normal and to not be alarmed that it could take a long while to go. Same with having numbness around the wound site. He did recommend quite strongly that I not rush back into running, suggesting that a period of 3 months post op would be ideal for a thorough recovery. Any sooner back into the high impact stuff and I'd be at risk of aggravating the ankle and setting myself back. So I've hung up my running shoes for now and will be rowing and riding my spin bike instead. And I'm totally ok with that :-)

So there you have it, a big update but I'm happy that things are looking up on many fronts. 

Cheers all

M  

 

ANOTHER HUMAN EXPERIMENT

Some of you may remember my Fibrober Challenge from October last year. I sorta gave it a good go but at the end of the day I don't remember getting an outstanding result from my efforts. Well circumstances have forced me to revisit this issue.

There is no doubt that a combination of reduced activity, eating less and having mainly meat and salad/veg meals as a means of keeping my weight steady was going to be a recipe for regularity disaster and when I use the word 'disaster' I'm not over exagerating things (enough said). So a week ago I made a decision to revisit Fibrober but take it up a notch as some serious intervention was in order.

I have decided to go (mainly) meat free, replacing with legumes and higher fibre carbs such as brown rice, getting back into Burgen rye bread for breakfast and of course keeping up my already healthy intake of veges. I'm not eating much fruit at the moment but I know that pears are really good for fibre and I plan to get back into them soon. Peter just thought I was on 'another weird arse weight loss diet' (his words LOL) so I had to explain that if weight loss my main goal then keeping meat in my diet was key. Eating this way actually makes it harder to lose weight but the meat + salad/veg combo just doesn't work for me. After giving him a detailed account of my problem he conceded 'whatever it takes, I couldn't imagine living like that.'  

Well its been an interesting week of mainly vegetarian eating. Eating out on Friday wasn't a problem as we all chose what we wanted and I had a roasted veg and haloumi stack. On Saturday my SIL made a risotto with chicken in it (no probs - lots of rice, little chicken), we had  everyone over for a BBQ on Sunday and I sneaked a lentil burger onto the hot plate and then straight onto my plate and did the same on Monday when my FIL shouted BBQed chicken and chips for dinner. The rest of the week has been pretty much the same and there has been improvement on the regularity front just not so with my weight which has gone up a little. But its early days and I shall not be deterred by a small change in the wrong direction.

My plan is to maintain this for the month of March and see what overall effect it has. When I look at what's available to me right now, tackling diet first is my only option and I know that a little change here or there aint gonna cut it. Plus after looking at all the stuff on the internet you make a decision about what you're prepared to do and where you draw the line and decide 'no way'.

So on that note I shall sign off and soldier on in my effort to turn around my ridiculously slow system into something that even remotely resembles normal. Wish me luck folks.

:-) M

  

 

THREE WEEKS POST OP

Today marks 3 weeks since I had my ankle operation and things are pretty good despite the persistent swelling and a bit of numbness around the scars. I'm now able to be on my feet for extended periods and be pain free. My walking pace is also picking up. I have a bit of discomfort that is from the skin being pulled tight due to the swelling but its manageable. 

To be absolutely safe about my recovery I have avoided any lower body work, even just doing weighted squats and deadlifts and especially static lunges. I figure that I have all the time in the world once I get a clearance from the physio or surgeon so there is no rush to push myself now. Its not like I have an event with a deadline to train for :-)

I went to to bed early last night (not like that's anything different for me) to try and ditch a sore throat and headache that had decided to take up residence in my body yesterday. They haven't taken hold because I'm back at work today but I'm ever so mindful that a potential cold, or worse is lurking right before a long weekend. Now THAT would really piss me off so I'm trying to be super healthy with my eating and activity to keep any lurgies at bay.

And on that note, being at work means its time to get back to it. Cheers all

M