Movin’ in March – Done and Dusted.

Well, I have managed to finish Movin’ in March. It is the most consistently I have ever exercised. I have made an exercise goal, and reached it. In this, I have done a few things:

• got a personal trainer who is awesome and will get me on my way to my “Everest” of a 60 minute 10km.
• Learned to deal with fatigue
• Learned to love my bike and have adventures. Plus I have learned to use the gears to get up hills, and become less afraid of going down hills.
• And food wise, learned to eat for nutrition.

It helps me to make shorter term, achievable goals.

I will try and set some each month.

My goals for April (Achieve in April) are:

• Record my food intake every day: My weight is well and truly at a plateau, though I have muscled up impressively. I probably eat a bit too much in the evening, I think – I need to be more mindful of what I eat. Not that it is all crap, but I do not get calorie deficits.
• Shift 1kg.
• Write my case report and review.
• Exercise at least 5 days per week: Pilates, 2 PT sessions, PT Homework x2, +/-Yoga/swimming/bike.
• I will update this weekly. The weight and writing I will update at the end of the month.

In other news, I have gone all Commando (ie the trainer) on my mum. She continues to stubbornly smoke and her breathing is deteriorating. I have gave her a thumb-lashing on facebook, telling her to quit the excuses and give it a decent shot. I have told her that if she falters, she must get right back on the horse until every craving is gone, however long that may take.

I don’t usually go berserk like that, so I think I have shocked her into action. I cannot imagine how hard it will be, but, as I told her, most of the people I see who quit smoking have done it in the setting of a heart attack or a severe pneumonia. She needs to stop taking her precious health for granted.

Not Friday, Tuesday.

I keep thinking it is Friday.

A PT session this morning. Just a low impact one as my ankle was a bit sore and stiff. Lots of arm and core stuff. My arms will be very strong! I have got to say, the Californian is the best PT I have ever had; have had some dodgy ones. This one brings out the best in me. Hubby and I went out to brekky after – I drove to a cafe. I clipped a fence post and a few gutters and swore lots – evidence that I should not drive without breakfast or caffeine in my system.

Work this morning – a few complaints have been flying around, fortunately not about me, but complaining families strike fear into my heart. Then to the repat. Did not get much writing done, but have sorted myself out a case report to write up. So results without a lot of work. Bonus.

A research assistant at work brought her new baby into work today. She already has children in their teens. I said the bubba was a “nice surprise”. She said no, she planned it; her kids were in their teens and she “got bored”. She told her husband she wanted to either had a baby or go travelling. Her hubby said “I’m not gunna travel”.

Well, I never.

I clucked over the baby, putting it over my shoulder and patting her back. This is an excellent manouevre to get babies burping or vomiting; I had no sooner thought of this than got a warm sensation down my arm.

Funnily, the baby vomit did not worry me at all.

Cluck cluck cluck – next year, I think.

I am hatching plans for an overseas conference. It will be a month after hubby’s family reunion in the USA, which I am going to.

I will give further deets when I have them!

 

Miles of smiles.

Greetings from my shiny new MacBookPro! I bought it yesterday in a flurry of spending. It is a 15-inch beauty, and it was on sale, as it was the last of the previous line. It is awesome, very easy to use. I also spent some money on clothing. Sort of an early present to myself for completing Movin’ in March so consistently. Among other pretties, I bought myself a leather jacket. I hung my eye over it, lovingly, looked at the price tag, then put it back. I tried it on – it fit perfectly. I looked for other leather jackets a bit cheaper but they were a bit ugly. So I bought myself the jacket. I had said to myself earlier in the year that if I found a leather jacket I liked, I would buy it.

Last night, out for dinner with hubby and our friend Yana. A great night was had.

This morning, I went out for a run. I saw a few people that I knew running around the oval. Doing repeated laps, I saw the same people a few times. One girl saw me a few times, and on the last time, she gave me a big smile and hi-five. I smiled at many people and got a few back. A good way to distract myself.

All in all, about 10.5km done today, which is about 3 and a bit laps of prinny. Most of the kilometres were around the 7 minute mark, which I was happy with.

A short post today, as I am now feeling a bit crook, like I am coming down with something.

Thankyou…

to the commenters on my last blog, especially Andrew and Philippa. It is so simple, I had just forgotten it: eat clean foods when hungry. Don’t worry about carb/fat/protein ratios; as long is the food is clean and the diet is balanced, this will take care of itself.

Right. Got it. Can move on now.

A RIPPER PT session this morning – I had to beat my 20:03 3km from Tuesday. I went out hardish, first lap was 6:22. I went hard for the final 2 km, was thinking that my time would be around 19 minutes if I kept it up.

I actually did the 3km in 18:35 – that is an 88 second improvement over 3km. That is nearly goal pace – this is only my fourth session. I can do this.

I am very proud of myself 😀

After, I did some circuits involving shuffling side to side, step ups, medicine ball slams and boxing (ultra-therapeutic) and some star-jumpering. Then a cool down run – that was much slower.

A very irritating morning at work, then back home, as have to go to headshrinker – I will tell him about my  PB.

Neurotic food related rant #254

I have been HUNGRY the last few days.

I am writing my thing about wholegrains, reading Good Calories Bad Calories, about all the evils of high carb diets. Pledging not to eat any of them. Many of them. Too many of them. Wha?

Is all this study making me a little obsessed? Maybe.

My hold on food-related sanity is a bit more tenuous than I thought. I am not putting back on the weight, but not really losing much either.

What do I do?

 

Doing a lot of things….

but none of them are really work.

I am working on my ahem tirade against grains, have an outline up for that. I find that my motivation for writing (apart from on this blog, where I spout plenty of drivel) can ebb and flow a bit. I have gotten my hands on a copy of Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes – my boss is lending his to me, he got it sent to him. This will help me.

I have done my exercise for the day with the PT who opened me up a big can of whup-ass. We did 3 laps of Gilpin park, or 3k. I did them in 20:03, which is good for me, esp at 0600. My first kilometre, which was meant to be a warm up, was 7:25, so that is about 6:18 per kilometre for the last 2. On Friday, I have to see if I can better that.

I went to real work this morning, to earn some $, then detoured via Northland. I tried on some suits, but the 12 was still a bit tight.

I am trying to eat very consciously after the feeding frenzy this past weekend. Though, come to think of it, this feeding frenzy was similar to the status quo previously, so I have gotten better, at least in attitude. I was craving sweet stuff after an early lunch today (had brekky early after PT), so I had a small choccy rather than a big hot cross bun or big choccy. I am monitoring these things. I will need to stop using the TOM excuse (well, until next month).

Tonight is a ‘puter free night with hubby – we may play a game of old-skool (as opposed to iPhone) scrabble.

Speaking of ‘puters, I need a new laptop. I get a continuing education allowance, so I can buy one. I am going to get a Mac. Any suggestions from the Mac-o-philes out there?

 

Run, run like the wind.

Yesterday, I went for a ride with my hubby to Collingwood Childrens Farm, this is about 7.5km from home but feels longer because it has lots of hills. This was with the PT in my legs from the day before, so I have pulled up quite sore. I was able to ride up some hills that I had to get off the bike and walk up last time, so this was good. My quads are getting stronger.

Last night, a very lazy evening, we went to Nichols restaurant and Wine bar on Nicholson St in North Carlton, got great reviews on Urbanspoon but the food was very ‘meh’.

This morning, me and my mate Sare went for a run/frolic in Princes park. I think I have mentioned Sare before, she has battled with severe depression. She has extremely low self-esteem.

Sare was a champion runner in early high school – she ran 100m in 13 something seconds and set a record.

We did some intervals together – Sare kicked my arse, even though she had not been running recently. Her running is like poetry in motion, a thoroughbred to my clompy Shetland pony. I learned a lot about sprinting just by chasing her. It is about driving forward from the hips and turning the legs over quickly, not about taking giant leaps.

She just kept putting herself down, and making excuses for why she could not run regularly – this reminded me of some of the excuses I have made, the “all or nothing” thinking. The hardest thing is just to get up and out the door. I say to myself a lot of the time that I am allowed to walk if I need to, and more often than not, I don’t need to.

I hope she picks the running back up. She has a body like a great distance runner (Emma Snowsill or similar) and if she trained even a little, she would be brilliant, she clearly has lots of natural ability.  I told her I would enter her in the Run Melb 10km for her birthday, that way she’d have to do some training runs.

The sprinting has actually loosened up my legs a bit, my quads aren’t quite as sore as they were.

I am a bit tired though, I need a disco nap.

With the homework my PT has set, my exercise week should look something like this:

Monday: Pilates class

Tuesday: PT session

Wednesday: Home workout 1 (involves cardio) or walk

Thursday: Home workout 1 or walk ( depends what I have done the day before)

Friday: PT session

Saturday: Home workout 2- more strength stuff. (or rest/walk)

Sunday: Long run.

This should get me finishing Movin’ in March in style.

Spare time….

I got my ethics submission in on Wednesday. This was after many last minute changes, scrambling about for signatures, making 27 copies of multi-page documents (3 reams of paper, and I did double sided copying). There was lots of bitching, moaning and cussing (mine), along the lines of “this photocopying is bullshit, waste of my time, I am not a fecking secretary, waste of paper, why can’t they do this electronically” etc etc etc. But it’s done.

Grant, check, ethics, check – I cannot do any more until I get the ethics back, probably with loads of corrections. Now I have spare time. I have been given a review to write for a journal – Prof. gets invited to write review articles, and he handed one along to me. I get to be first author. A good feather in my cap.

The article is meant to be something to do with “wholegrains, legumes and health”. My plan is to challenge the theory that wholegrains are essential or particularly healthy – I am finding the whole “paleo diet” thing is coming into prominence in the medical literature, with some very respected researchers leading the way. One of the authors of these articles was a fellow from Sweden, who has co-authored over 700 peer reviewed medical papers, and has come to give a lecture to us.

I shall let you know how this goes.

On a different topic, my Movin’ in March efforts have been successful – there are times when I would have liked to pike out, but did a short walk with my hubby/dog anyway. It is about consistency, not necessarily smashing it out all the time. If I can pull the month off, it will be the most consistent I have ever been. Already it is 18 days with exercising every day, and I am not finding it too onerous.

Speaking of smashing it out, I have been doing the PT thing this week. He is good. He is Californian, is improbably enthusiastic in the early mornings, talks quite a lot, often about the same thing over and over, but he is worth the money. He has given me “homework”, with cardio/body weight efforts. I will write them up on the site. I did them today – I found where my weak spots were (hip flexors??). I also ran at “his” pace  – his pace is my sprint pace. I nearly spewed. Luckily I hadn’t eaten anything, just had staminade.

I have not been weighing myself, but I had a good look in the mirror with my workout gear on – I am seeing my “thin” self coming through – I am definitely looking more streamlined. I am feeling good.

This weekend – bike and picnic with hubby on Sat, Long run on sunday. I am looking forward to it.

Have a good weekend, friends 🙂

Manic Tuesday.

Up at 0540 to start PT session at 6am. It was pitch black at Gilpin Park and I was scared the PT was not going to show up, leaving me alone…

He rocked up just in time. We went around Gilpin park, a 1km track, for a warmup. Then I had to go myself for a time trial. I actually ran quite fast because I was quite scared, being alone in the dark, with only the sound of my breathing to spook me. I did the 1km in 6:10, which is quite good. I actually could have gone faster! Gotta leave something for the next time trial.

Then we did some efforts including kettlebell squats, presses, standing rows and skipping. Skipping is hard, and really gets your heart rate up. I remember loving the skipping rope at school – social status in Grade 2 was linked to prowess at skippy. We need more skipping ropes and less playstations, that’ll help with the childhood obesity epidemic.

Went to bed for another hour after that, then went to work, blah.

Then off to the Repat to do ethics proposal stuff. Ran about like a headless chook getting signatures. Used literally reams of paper, have to do 27 copies of documents, some of them are up to 30 pages long! A disgrace, in the age of electronica.

Prof offered me a job in his obesity clinic, something that I would love to do, and very few doctors (let alone geriatricians) have the opportunity to do that. Problem is, it clashes with my nursing home commitment. He graciously offered me another slot, which I am free, though I thought I could see the “why would you want to work in a nursing when you can come and work for my clinic” look in his eyes. Or perhaps it is my paranoia. Geriatricians have a chip on their shoulders.

Then I had a thought – my job at the nursing home is important, and the people that I look after have nobody to bat for them. They need a skilled person who cares. They need somebody who will listen to what they say, will attend to their pressure ulcers, nutrition and continence. These are not sexy or cutting edge medical issues but they are related to a person’s dignity, and we would all want this protected if we could not ourselves.

Anyway, enough soapboxing, NCIS is on.

On second thought…

I am all for empathy with patients and everything, but I do not think I will try the Optifast.

I would not try chemo just to get a feel for the side effects, nor have abdominal surgery. I am not obese, so I do not need the Optifast.

Why?

I am scared it will bugger up the hunger centre in my hypothalamus and put my hunger hormones (leptin, ghrelin, adiponectin – look on Wikipedia, I will test you on this) into a state where I am forevermore hungry and not fidgety.

More simply, I have been working hard on mindful eating and regular exercise for enjoyment, not punishment. I am happier and thinner as a result. I have been in a peaceful, neither on diet or off diet place.

It has occurred to me that I CAN get to my goal weight, myself, without the need to take Optifast. It will just take longer. I have plateaued a bit, but I can tighten up my eating, cut back the grog (it hurts my stomach lining) and will be cranking up the exercise with the PT.

I went to the MIL’s this weekend, usually this is an orgy of food and grog with consequent guilt, but I was very calm and did not overstuff myself at all. I mindfully partook of pavlova, and took the smallest slice without getting all anxious. I even did a little ommm, nom, nom, nom action. Very yogic.

My MIL struggles with her weight. She is always in the diet/broken diet mindset, has been since 1985. I told her that if she did not want to eat the choc chip biscuits she bought, she might consider throwing them out. She got quite rattled by that. It is a mind game.

So no optifast. I have races to train for, I cannot do that while ketotic. That’s it.