I'm still under the influence of the cold that will not quit but it's finally reached the point where the symptoms are more aggrevating than debilitating.
Thoroughly fed up with my enforced break I decided the time had come to get on with reintroducing exercise. To that end, this morning I went out and did C25K week 1 day 1. Even though I took it slowly my impaired breathing made the effort exhausting. But I got through it. As I finished the last of the running intervals I realised that though hard the workout wasn't impossible.
I'm back, baby. Yeah!
I'm also back on solid food. Although I'm limited to soft solids I'm really appreciating texture again. The positive side of a raw sore throat is increased water consumption and a default detox. Now to go forward from here without falling back into old habits.
Showing posts with label new start. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new start. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
Back on track
It will come as no surprise that instead of losing the planned 2kg over the holiday break, I in fact, gained 2kg. Laying about on a beach in Fiji drinking cocktails will do that. But next week school is back and routine returns. It is time to get back on track and in an effort to do just that I have decided to so something this year that I never have before: I'm going to dedicate the entire nine weeks of first term to concentrating on my health and fitness.
In the past I have been foolish enough to think that after an extended break I can simply pick up my exercise routine from where I left off. This inevitably results in injury that puts me back even further than I was but I won't be making that mistake this time. I am devoting the first three weeks of my term indulgence to recovering my fitness levels.
To that end I am going to start the C25K from the beginning, aiming to complete the program in three weeks rather than nine, working on the assumption that I haven't totally lost all condition. On alternate days I will make use of my stationary cycle. This should have the dual benefit of increasing both my leg strength and cardio condition.
On the dietary front I am going to repeat week 1 of the 28 day kick start plan as a kind of detox-something I need after lapsing into my old sugar/processed food eating habits during the holiday break.
This weekend is to be devoted to clearing out the cupboards, making soup and loading up the mp3 player with C25K podcasts.
It all kicks off Monday!
In the past I have been foolish enough to think that after an extended break I can simply pick up my exercise routine from where I left off. This inevitably results in injury that puts me back even further than I was but I won't be making that mistake this time. I am devoting the first three weeks of my term indulgence to recovering my fitness levels.
To that end I am going to start the C25K from the beginning, aiming to complete the program in three weeks rather than nine, working on the assumption that I haven't totally lost all condition. On alternate days I will make use of my stationary cycle. This should have the dual benefit of increasing both my leg strength and cardio condition.
On the dietary front I am going to repeat week 1 of the 28 day kick start plan as a kind of detox-something I need after lapsing into my old sugar/processed food eating habits during the holiday break.
This weekend is to be devoted to clearing out the cupboards, making soup and loading up the mp3 player with C25K podcasts.
It all kicks off Monday!
Sunday, January 1, 2012
New year, new start
Forgive me, blogosphere, it's been two months since last my post.
I've been more squashed by the pneumonia than I predicted, and was a little preoccupied by a couple of things in real life - one of those has lead to me reducing my hours at work and taking a leave of absence from post-graduate study in order to concentrate on the future of my profession, but these changes will also give me more room to focus on lifestyle change (as well as almost halving my income, so there'll be considerably less income available for high-calorie treats).
The other things is that, thanks to a couple of confrontations in close succession, I have a degree of space and perspective about my family that I've never had before. I've tried a number of diet, exercise and weightloss programs in the past and despite my conscious commitment, something within me has always balked when I dipped below 100k. And, even though I was aware of what I was doing, when I had a falling out with my family, especially my mother, I'd head straight to the Food of Evil.
I don't really know why, but it's different now. I'd been planning on seeing a therapist this year, to work through these issues, but - at least for the time being - I feel a degree of distance and disconnection from family drama that makes than unnecessary.
It's not all good - my exercise tolerance is considerably diminished, and I've lost a lot of ground. It's also shaping up to be an exceptionally hot summer in Melbourne, which is not my favourite thing. But diet is more than 50% of weightloss, and I can make up fitness ground.
I have a few New Year's resolutions:
1. a blog entry (here, on our Bookish blog, or my separate blog) every day
2. a monthly assessment of fitness, weight and dimensions
3. a minimum of 15k weightloss by midyear (I really want more than20k but one can always exceed ones' aim)
4. a month of the Vegan Challenge
And a small list of non-bloggish resolutions about organisation, procrastination, time management, new skills and life enlargement.
Tomorrow's entry will be the first of my monthly assessments, whcih means I have to head off to bed - Happy New Year! - Alex
I've been more squashed by the pneumonia than I predicted, and was a little preoccupied by a couple of things in real life - one of those has lead to me reducing my hours at work and taking a leave of absence from post-graduate study in order to concentrate on the future of my profession, but these changes will also give me more room to focus on lifestyle change (as well as almost halving my income, so there'll be considerably less income available for high-calorie treats).
The other things is that, thanks to a couple of confrontations in close succession, I have a degree of space and perspective about my family that I've never had before. I've tried a number of diet, exercise and weightloss programs in the past and despite my conscious commitment, something within me has always balked when I dipped below 100k. And, even though I was aware of what I was doing, when I had a falling out with my family, especially my mother, I'd head straight to the Food of Evil.
I don't really know why, but it's different now. I'd been planning on seeing a therapist this year, to work through these issues, but - at least for the time being - I feel a degree of distance and disconnection from family drama that makes than unnecessary.
It's not all good - my exercise tolerance is considerably diminished, and I've lost a lot of ground. It's also shaping up to be an exceptionally hot summer in Melbourne, which is not my favourite thing. But diet is more than 50% of weightloss, and I can make up fitness ground.
I have a few New Year's resolutions:
1. a blog entry (here, on our Bookish blog, or my separate blog) every day
2. a monthly assessment of fitness, weight and dimensions
3. a minimum of 15k weightloss by midyear (I really want more than20k but one can always exceed ones' aim)
4. a month of the Vegan Challenge
And a small list of non-bloggish resolutions about organisation, procrastination, time management, new skills and life enlargement.
Tomorrow's entry will be the first of my monthly assessments, whcih means I have to head off to bed - Happy New Year! - Alex
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Day 365...
Tomorrow will be twelve months since I first started Lite'n'Easy and embarked anew on changing my lifestyle to the healthier. I've lost 14k so far, which isn't a bad thing but I've definitely lost ground from an initially strong start, and had several falls from grace with corresponding restarts. I lost ten kilos in the first four months, and by mid-April got under 100k for the first time in over a decade. Unfortunately this seems to have been a strong emotional trigger, because I rapidly returned to the safety of triple figures, virtually stopped blogging, abandoned CalorieKing and, three months later, even stopped my monthly measurements.
I haven't been sleeping enough, I've had enormous difficulty getting in enough water (and though I know eight glasses a day is a myth, when I don't drink enough, especially if I haven't slept, my feet swell), I've done no real exercise in entirely too long (the odd walk here and there may be good but it's hardly aerobic), and my diet's veered way off track.
On less-relevant but allied topics, I'm well behind on the thesis front (not entirely my fault but that makes it no less problematic), I've got three years worth of tax returns to finalise and submit, the financial records I've maintained for the past four years have been neglected for months, and my house deposit has been badly eroded.
I've just returned to Melbourne after three weeks in Europe, and I'm ready to get my life back on track on the multiple fronts of academic, financial and lifestyle.
I bought a new diet book a couple of months ago, The 17 Day Diet by Dr Mike Moreno, and am thinking I might give it a go, though I haven't finished (or even done much more than start) it. From what I've gleaned so far, it's composed of four sections - the first three are 17 days each, followed by a maintenance phase. Why 17 days? I have no idea - thus far there's been no indication why two and a half weeks is magically better than two or three, but the first three phases take fifty one days, and that brings us almost to summer.
I'm going to start, though, with a kick start. The Kick Start soup diet, to be precise. Yes, in the long-term this is ridiculous, and come December I'll be switching to a diet high in complex carbs, minimal animal protein, and lots of fruit and vegies. But a week of high-fibre, ultra-low carb, low fat eating won't hurt me, a concept I'm much more comfortable with after reading this article - I'm not 450 pounds, but I also have no intention of fasting for over a year!
So my plan is to start the Kick Start program tomorrow (October 1st, my dieting anniversary), stage 1 of the Moreno program the following week (October 8), stage 2 a magical 17 days later (October 25), stage 3 17 days after that (November 11), and look at the maintenance program 17 days after that, which brings us to the beginning of December.
There is a titchy hiccup to be negotiated - day 1 of stage 3 is also day 1 of a three-weeks-and-change trip back to the UK. However, though this may put a little crimp in the exercise component, I can pick diet-appropriate meals (I'll be flying business with an option to upgrade, and thus many menu options) for the meals en route, and just need to apply a bit more discipline than usual, and can weigh in on December 1st at my sister's - though not first thing in the morning and naked it'll still give me an idea of how I'm going.
It's not been all sedentary since I last wrote - in June I hiked in Olympic National Park, Washington with my US-based sister and brother-in-law, managing to scale a 5,000 foot mountain without expiring, and actual enjoyed both the exertion and the view, as well as the three other hikes over the short time I was there. In fact, I plan to join her in Colorado next year for a few hikes at altitude, God help me!
And my recent trip included a couple of exertional activities - on the day arrived my other sister, brother-in-law and 'niblings' took me for an hour on a paddle boat, and I managed to paddle for most of the time; much to my surprise I was able to walk afterward, and would have enjoyed it even more if I'd had a shower first! On my last day in London, four days ago, my sister and I hired Boris's Bikes for an hour or so and rode through Hyde Park - I was quite apprehensive, as I haven't been on a bike that actually moves (as opposed to the odd short spin on an exercise bike) in easily twenty-five years, but the adage is true and, with the exception of the occasional wobble, I was fine, albeit a little puffed. So perhaps, despite the sedentary nature of my past few months, I may not have lost all my fitness achievements.
I know that my backsliding went hand in hand with my abandonment of blogging, so I'm also going to post something every day, even if all I'm documenting is that I'm maintaining my momentum. - Alex
I haven't been sleeping enough, I've had enormous difficulty getting in enough water (and though I know eight glasses a day is a myth, when I don't drink enough, especially if I haven't slept, my feet swell), I've done no real exercise in entirely too long (the odd walk here and there may be good but it's hardly aerobic), and my diet's veered way off track.
On less-relevant but allied topics, I'm well behind on the thesis front (not entirely my fault but that makes it no less problematic), I've got three years worth of tax returns to finalise and submit, the financial records I've maintained for the past four years have been neglected for months, and my house deposit has been badly eroded.
I've just returned to Melbourne after three weeks in Europe, and I'm ready to get my life back on track on the multiple fronts of academic, financial and lifestyle.
I bought a new diet book a couple of months ago, The 17 Day Diet by Dr Mike Moreno, and am thinking I might give it a go, though I haven't finished (or even done much more than start) it. From what I've gleaned so far, it's composed of four sections - the first three are 17 days each, followed by a maintenance phase. Why 17 days? I have no idea - thus far there's been no indication why two and a half weeks is magically better than two or three, but the first three phases take fifty one days, and that brings us almost to summer.
I'm going to start, though, with a kick start. The Kick Start soup diet, to be precise. Yes, in the long-term this is ridiculous, and come December I'll be switching to a diet high in complex carbs, minimal animal protein, and lots of fruit and vegies. But a week of high-fibre, ultra-low carb, low fat eating won't hurt me, a concept I'm much more comfortable with after reading this article - I'm not 450 pounds, but I also have no intention of fasting for over a year!
So my plan is to start the Kick Start program tomorrow (October 1st, my dieting anniversary), stage 1 of the Moreno program the following week (October 8), stage 2 a magical 17 days later (October 25), stage 3 17 days after that (November 11), and look at the maintenance program 17 days after that, which brings us to the beginning of December.
There is a titchy hiccup to be negotiated - day 1 of stage 3 is also day 1 of a three-weeks-and-change trip back to the UK. However, though this may put a little crimp in the exercise component, I can pick diet-appropriate meals (I'll be flying business with an option to upgrade, and thus many menu options) for the meals en route, and just need to apply a bit more discipline than usual, and can weigh in on December 1st at my sister's - though not first thing in the morning and naked it'll still give me an idea of how I'm going.
It's not been all sedentary since I last wrote - in June I hiked in Olympic National Park, Washington with my US-based sister and brother-in-law, managing to scale a 5,000 foot mountain without expiring, and actual enjoyed both the exertion and the view, as well as the three other hikes over the short time I was there. In fact, I plan to join her in Colorado next year for a few hikes at altitude, God help me!
And my recent trip included a couple of exertional activities - on the day arrived my other sister, brother-in-law and 'niblings' took me for an hour on a paddle boat, and I managed to paddle for most of the time; much to my surprise I was able to walk afterward, and would have enjoyed it even more if I'd had a shower first! On my last day in London, four days ago, my sister and I hired Boris's Bikes for an hour or so and rode through Hyde Park - I was quite apprehensive, as I haven't been on a bike that actually moves (as opposed to the odd short spin on an exercise bike) in easily twenty-five years, but the adage is true and, with the exception of the occasional wobble, I was fine, albeit a little puffed. So perhaps, despite the sedentary nature of my past few months, I may not have lost all my fitness achievements.
I know that my backsliding went hand in hand with my abandonment of blogging, so I'm also going to post something every day, even if all I'm documenting is that I'm maintaining my momentum. - Alex
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Getting back on the horse
For the past five months my motivation has been at an all time low. I've had zero enthusiasm for healthy eating and exercise. In fact, I've had little interest in anything this last while. Things I'd usually enjoy have become a chore and chores seem simply overwhelming. Not surprising then that I've let things slide. I can't remember the last time I exercised, even incidentally. And my diet, while not completely gone to the dogs, has been far from ideal.
I knew I was regaining weight (my clothes were feeling tighter) but I just couldn't bring myself to care. When I finally worked up the courage to step on the scales and assess the damage I discovered I'd put on just under ten kilos. Ten hard lost kilos. But even this didn't give me the impetus to change. I'm still unmotivated and the very idea of exercise is exhausting.
I can remember a time when it wasn't like this. When I maintained healthy habits without much thought. Motivation never entered the equation. In the words of the the Nike advertising campaign I just did it.
And that's what I've got to do again. I've got to re-establish a healthy routine in lieu of motivation that just isn't there.
To that end I've decided to redo C25K starting this Monday. In an heroic effort to help me out of my funk Alex has decided to go above and beyond the call of friendship and give it a go as well.
I know I can do this. I've done it before.
Forget motivation, I'm opting for routine. - Lynn
I knew I was regaining weight (my clothes were feeling tighter) but I just couldn't bring myself to care. When I finally worked up the courage to step on the scales and assess the damage I discovered I'd put on just under ten kilos. Ten hard lost kilos. But even this didn't give me the impetus to change. I'm still unmotivated and the very idea of exercise is exhausting.
I can remember a time when it wasn't like this. When I maintained healthy habits without much thought. Motivation never entered the equation. In the words of the the Nike advertising campaign I just did it.
And that's what I've got to do again. I've got to re-establish a healthy routine in lieu of motivation that just isn't there.
To that end I've decided to redo C25K starting this Monday. In an heroic effort to help me out of my funk Alex has decided to go above and beyond the call of friendship and give it a go as well.
I know I can do this. I've done it before.
Forget motivation, I'm opting for routine. - Lynn
Thursday, September 30, 2010
13 weeks til years' end
Okay, so it's been a really long time since my last post, and in that time I've basically fallen into a lifestyle heap - I've virtually stopped exercising, and have done a whole heap of non-reflective, mindless eating. The result is that I'm currently the heaviest I have ever been, 1K more than my previous high eight years ago. I'm also so deconditioned (and possibly anemic) that I'm getting breathless with quite minimal exertion.
For a little while I thought about following the program at RealAge; I still think that's a good idea, but I think I need to take a break from thinking about food, and from being tempted by treats and 'sometimes' foods (that have become everyday foods lately).
With three months to go until a new year, which I intend to spend following the RealAge life making over plan - diet, exercise, supplements, healthy habits and all, I feel like I need a preliminary kick start. And after much thought I've decided to go with Lite'n'Easy, an Australian company that provides prepacked meals in any combination of breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's not cheap - $158 for the 1800 calorie program - but it means I can just eat what's provided and not worry about anything else.
I received my first delivery today. I've started with just lunch and dinner for the first week, partly because I want to trial it and partly because breakfast isn't a problem for me - I usually have one of three things, and they're all high in fibre, low in fat and keep me going for the day. However, looking at the menu planner that arrived this afternoon I may reconsider.
I'm kicking the program off tomorrow, the 1st - and as I'm currently working nights, that means I'll be eating my first Lite'n'Easy meal around 2AM. I'm thinking that I'll follow my usual routine, of having breakfast in the evening, when I wake up, then a meal at work and another when I get home, before bed.
There certainly seems to be a lot of food - although I have to admit I've never seen my weekly intake arrayed in one place (which, now I think of it, might be a little too "You Are What You Eat" for me), I suspect I'll not go hungry. My freezer, which wasn't completely cleared out before, is bursting, and the first shelf of my fridge is full of little bags.
Which brings me to my first concern about Lite'n'Easy - there's a lot of plastic, from the meals and little packets to the bags they come in: each day has a little day for the fridge foods (helpfully printed with the relevant days), and then each section (fridge, lunch - freezer, dinner - freezer etc) had a shopping-sized bag.
I'm also second concerned about the massive increase in my global footprint - I generate very little waste currently, but although the meal bags are evidently degradable and most of the pots etc look recyclable, all that plastic has to be created in the first place. And there's a lot more meat than I'm used to eating, and there's a lot more travel involved hauling it to the packaging and manufacturing centres then out to me.
Finally, although the dinners can be heated in a conventional oven, the lunches and some 'snacks' (they're fairly substantial and look more like meals in themselves) are only microwavable. And I never got around to replacing my microwave when it died, about six years ago.
My Lite'n'East experience started fairly smoothly - the website's easy to use, logical and informative. There's a section that allows you to put in information (height/weight/age/activity level) to calculate the right plan: 1,200 or 1,500 or 1,800 calories per day - I've started on the 1,800 calorie version but will recalculate monthly and hopefully drop down to 1,500 once I shrink a bit.
The menu changes seasonally and rotates through a four week cycle, with the option of having the popular choice for lunch/snack or an optional version. The same alternatives are available for breakfast, which I haven't ordered to start with as I'm happy with my current options and go out for breakfast after work on occasion.
Sample breakfasts include fruit & bran cereal with skim milk, cheese & tomato on multigrain, and an apple for tea; or fruit muesli with skim milk, soy & linseed toast with Vegemite, Greek style passionfruit yoghurt, and a fruit salad cup for tea. So a fairly substantial beginning to the day.
I'd really like to have been able to give my credit card details online and avoided talking to an operator, particularly as the helpline took forever and seemed massively disorganised - I received an email with both an address ID number and a personal ID number, so the simple process of relaying my CC info should have been fairly straightforward. However, she wasn't interested in either of those, wanting instead to know what time I placed the order. Not realising that would be important, and ringing the following day, I had no idea.
I'd already registered online, but she also wanted to know my mobile and work numbers, which I declined to provide, and my date of birth for some reason. That was followed by questions about my height and weight, and exercise routine, so it was probably part of the check to make sure I had subscribed to the right calorie program. I had, however, already done that online, and really wasn't interested in giving out that information to a random stranger. If I wanted a personalised, 'face time' program I'd have gone with Jenny Craig - all I want is the meals, thank you. She then told me that they couldn't guarantee weight loss if they only provided two meals per day; I'm a little stubborn, and that really made me want to say that I wasn't interested in weight loss, just convenience, given that Lite'n'Easy promote their service for that as well.
However, that irritation has somewhat subsided and I'm quite looking forward to my first experience of Lite'n'Easy. - Alex
For a little while I thought about following the program at RealAge; I still think that's a good idea, but I think I need to take a break from thinking about food, and from being tempted by treats and 'sometimes' foods (that have become everyday foods lately).
With three months to go until a new year, which I intend to spend following the RealAge life making over plan - diet, exercise, supplements, healthy habits and all, I feel like I need a preliminary kick start. And after much thought I've decided to go with Lite'n'Easy, an Australian company that provides prepacked meals in any combination of breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's not cheap - $158 for the 1800 calorie program - but it means I can just eat what's provided and not worry about anything else.
I received my first delivery today. I've started with just lunch and dinner for the first week, partly because I want to trial it and partly because breakfast isn't a problem for me - I usually have one of three things, and they're all high in fibre, low in fat and keep me going for the day. However, looking at the menu planner that arrived this afternoon I may reconsider.
I'm kicking the program off tomorrow, the 1st - and as I'm currently working nights, that means I'll be eating my first Lite'n'Easy meal around 2AM. I'm thinking that I'll follow my usual routine, of having breakfast in the evening, when I wake up, then a meal at work and another when I get home, before bed.
There certainly seems to be a lot of food - although I have to admit I've never seen my weekly intake arrayed in one place (which, now I think of it, might be a little too "You Are What You Eat" for me), I suspect I'll not go hungry. My freezer, which wasn't completely cleared out before, is bursting, and the first shelf of my fridge is full of little bags.
Which brings me to my first concern about Lite'n'Easy - there's a lot of plastic, from the meals and little packets to the bags they come in: each day has a little day for the fridge foods (helpfully printed with the relevant days), and then each section (fridge, lunch - freezer, dinner - freezer etc) had a shopping-sized bag.
I'm also second concerned about the massive increase in my global footprint - I generate very little waste currently, but although the meal bags are evidently degradable and most of the pots etc look recyclable, all that plastic has to be created in the first place. And there's a lot more meat than I'm used to eating, and there's a lot more travel involved hauling it to the packaging and manufacturing centres then out to me.
Finally, although the dinners can be heated in a conventional oven, the lunches and some 'snacks' (they're fairly substantial and look more like meals in themselves) are only microwavable. And I never got around to replacing my microwave when it died, about six years ago.
My Lite'n'East experience started fairly smoothly - the website's easy to use, logical and informative. There's a section that allows you to put in information (height/weight/age/activity level) to calculate the right plan: 1,200 or 1,500 or 1,800 calories per day - I've started on the 1,800 calorie version but will recalculate monthly and hopefully drop down to 1,500 once I shrink a bit.
The menu changes seasonally and rotates through a four week cycle, with the option of having the popular choice for lunch/snack or an optional version. The same alternatives are available for breakfast, which I haven't ordered to start with as I'm happy with my current options and go out for breakfast after work on occasion.
Sample breakfasts include fruit & bran cereal with skim milk, cheese & tomato on multigrain, and an apple for tea; or fruit muesli with skim milk, soy & linseed toast with Vegemite, Greek style passionfruit yoghurt, and a fruit salad cup for tea. So a fairly substantial beginning to the day.
I'd really like to have been able to give my credit card details online and avoided talking to an operator, particularly as the helpline took forever and seemed massively disorganised - I received an email with both an address ID number and a personal ID number, so the simple process of relaying my CC info should have been fairly straightforward. However, she wasn't interested in either of those, wanting instead to know what time I placed the order. Not realising that would be important, and ringing the following day, I had no idea.
I'd already registered online, but she also wanted to know my mobile and work numbers, which I declined to provide, and my date of birth for some reason. That was followed by questions about my height and weight, and exercise routine, so it was probably part of the check to make sure I had subscribed to the right calorie program. I had, however, already done that online, and really wasn't interested in giving out that information to a random stranger. If I wanted a personalised, 'face time' program I'd have gone with Jenny Craig - all I want is the meals, thank you. She then told me that they couldn't guarantee weight loss if they only provided two meals per day; I'm a little stubborn, and that really made me want to say that I wasn't interested in weight loss, just convenience, given that Lite'n'Easy promote their service for that as well.
However, that irritation has somewhat subsided and I'm quite looking forward to my first experience of Lite'n'Easy. - Alex
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