Getting Active

Yesterday was an active day. Yay! I took my dog on a walk - and gave myself a blister in the process... not so yay - and...

I got out into the garden and did about 1.5 hours of gardening, which mainly consisted of pulling up and hacking off (trees) my nemsis: ivy. The day before I did a little 'taster session' where I cut a box bush into a ball... but the ivy really started to annoy me, so that was somewhat motivating to continue yesterday. Apparently this strenuous activity burnt between 400-500-ish calories. I'll take that! Anyway, there is plenty more ivy where that came from, but unfortunately, the weather has taken a turn for the worse and is TIPPING it down...

Boohoo!

The challenge for me this week = to log Monday to Friday. I have a 'housewarming' lunch to attend on Saturday and Sunday is Father's Day, which means homemade treats. I am under no illusions over the futility of trying to log those days; it's bad enough trying to log 'normal' days. Anyway, I have made a good start.

Relationship With Food - Feeling The Best I Have In Ages!

The decision to give up on this hyper-focus has probably been one of my better decisions of late. I am in the best place I have been regarding food for an extremely long time.

1. I am enjoying food
2. I am eating what I feel I want
3. I am not feeling bogged down by restrictions 
4. I am not going crazy & eating with abandon

Today I actually logged because I wanted to and I was hovering around the 1,600 mark. My BMR (how many calories I would burn if I just lay in bed all day not moving) is around 1,515-1,555 depending on which calculator is used, so seeing as I am actually moving around, I think this is okay. My maintenance is probably around 1,700-1,800. If I up the exercise, I can get away with more calories for maintenance (and weight loss too) so would probably be maintaining around the 1,900 to 2,100 mark.

Talking about exercise, this is going to be my focus for a bit. I think I shall keep an eye on my calories and try to aim for around 1,600 on my higher days, but I am not going to sweat it and get all tangled up in labels and numbers. I really want to concentrate more of my efforts on getting this body moving. I remember earlier in the year I was really enjoying doing yoga and some TurboJam and ballet workouts and fun stuff like that. I lost my way a bit due to not feeling well and also concentrating so hard on the food aspect of this journey. I really need to figure out more of a balance if I can. So focusing on the exercise part is a good start. I did a walk yesterday with the dog. I did keep my walks up as much as possible, which wasn't all that much at times due to the weather, but I do feel I made an effort, which is more than I can say for other things.

My exercise plan is to get kick-started with something different. I don't fancy doing TurboJam for some reason (mainly all the jumping around) so I think it's time to dig out Leslie Sansone and start Walk Away The Pounds again. Most of Leslie's workouts that I have looked at are PERFECT for people who have joint and muscle problems or who are very overweight/unfit/deconditioned as they are not focused on leaping around so much. They usually have good modifications. In terms of movement they are more of a power-walk than a run. Yet, in the past I have found them incredibly useful for burning calories and increasing my stamina. I do have one that is a bit more intense because it is intervals of strength training mixed with cardio, but the rest seem okay. So I shall start with the 3 mile one and see how I get on.

Feeling Better

Diet-wise I find myself feeling better. I have just completed day 5 of consecutive logging. I feel back in control and on track. It's amazing what a difference it makes to my mental state to feel as if I am at least doing everything I can food-wise to help me get slimmer and healthier.

I am still struggling exercise-wise. I was doing so well, but lately I have felt rough and not up to it. I was hoping that today I would go for a walk, but things got in the way so I couldn't go earlier in the day and by the time I could go, I had lost the energy and impetus.

Seeing as I am now doing better with my calorie counting and logging, I am going to concentrate on motivating myself to exercise.

OMG

Okay so I thought I would be doing TurboSculpt tomorrow, but we'll see as I have spent literally like 6 hours on my feet without a break. I was cooking and doing chores to help my mum. I did manage to squeeze in a 30 minute dog walk (with 5 minutes of that standing talking to a group of 10 children while they stroked my dog haha... nice rest time).

I realised that I need to start spring cleaning, so the next few weeks will be full of that. If I am doing that and walking the dog, it may have to sub for my exercise. I also realised today that I have not made any progress with doing any art or researching making hats, so I need to get onto that as it's March's challenge!

Settling Into A New Routine

Mid-week and I find myself settling into a new routine regarding exercise. I have managed 2 days now of longer dog walks. Tomorrow and Friday I will try and fit in shorter ones as I will be out of the house for a while and won't have so much spare time. I am enjoying the change from the workouts. I might alternate - 1 week workouts, 1 week walking. On the weeks I workout, I do try to squeeze in a couple of walks... for my dog's sanity!

Update - Exercise

Last night I barely slept a wink because I was feeling anxous and my leg muscles were so painful that I could not get comfortable in any position. Normally I would not have exercised because of this, but today I thought I would push myself and I literally forced myself to do TurboSculpt.

It's a strength training workout - 39 minutes long - and you have the option of using whatever weights you want or none at all. I did a little bit of it last week without weights, and figured that this week I would try doing the whole workout. Oh my gosh... talk about challenging! I picked 1 kg (2.2 lbs) weights to do it with and managed to do about 1/2 the workout with them. Then I switched to 0.5kg (1.1 lbs) weights because I was nearly about to die and have a heart attack. By the end of it I had resorted to using no weights. The result: I had serious jelly legs and my right calf muscle was doing a twitchy dance of its own LOL.

The upshot of this is that I feel I am learning to listen to my body a little more and to recognise when I need to either put the weights down or switch to lighter ones. I realised while I was doing the workout that, if switching weights or not using any meant I could complete the workout, then it would be better to do that than to just completely give up.

I have a Yoga for Beginners DVD that I have not tried out. I am hoping to try that on Saturday if I can muster up the enthusiasm.

Blurgh...

Today I am not feeling good... not feeling good at all. *sigh* I think I have some form of stomach bug or virus or something. Yesterday I kept getting a headache that would come and go above my eyes and it's back today - accompanied by feeling sick/nauseous and a dodgy tummy.

Anyway, before this sickness realisation dawned on me, I did actually manage to get in a TurboJam workout. I did the 20 minute one. It seems to go quite quickly (bizarrely). At the moment I am only doing 'Burn' (which is the first workout and 15 minutes long) or the 20 minute workout (which is the second one). There are another 3 (I think) workouts on the DVD and they are longer and harder. I am trying to build up my stamina and strength by going slowly, as I once had a really bad reaction to this type of aerobic workout and I don't intend revisiting that moment! So this week I am aiming to do TJ twice and then supplement it with weights and either ballet workout or yoga workout. We'll see how I go.