Today, my body is just a wreck, and I may have been overly hopeful in thinking it’d only be a two days before I could be back into it. It looks like it might be closer to a week, at this point.

My ankle is still swollen and painful to move, my shoulder (which was bothering me before) is tense and sore whenever I lift it. And now it seems my knee has also taken a pounding, because while I have trouble holding my ankle to be straight, I can’t bend my knee without it hurting. And that’s just my left side.

My right knee is red and healing over, though I might get Mum to cover it with something, and I’m a little worried about the cuts in my hand.

Ah well, I’ll just need to take it slower for a while.

Posted at 11:55 pm | No Comments »

Not the best start to the New Year. Went to bed last night at 4-ish, though it was just a quiet one with my family. We went outside and watched the moon for a while — it was gorgeous.

Then this morning I got up, downloaded the Skinny Train challenge and decided to go for a run. iPod on, in the mood. Ready for the New Year Push! I’m running along, on my second or third lap of running, when I check my iPod and then wham! I’m on the ground. I groan and look around me. There was a pothole in the middle of the track. I check my left ankle. Can’t stand on it yet, but it’s not that bad. I’ve grazed my hand and my right knee. I sigh, sit there for another minute or so, then get up and start to walk home.

As I walk, the ache starts to dissipate. I walk faster. If I’m going to only do half a workout, I might as well make it count. Another few minutes of walking and I think it’s almost perfect. I make the mistake of trying to run. Immediately pain shoots up the back of my ankle. Possibly not the best idea. With a sigh, I walk off home, a little forlorn that this wasn’t the start I expected. And then my resolve kicks in. So what? I think. So you take a couple days without running. Such is life. This year is designed for your determination, not to give up on the first day. So I limp home, feeling hopeful, knowing I’m not going to give up just because I had a setback.

Posted at 3:34 am | No Comments »

So today, for the first time in a long time, I went running.

It. Was. Amazing. It was hard, and bad, and disappointing how unfit I’ve gotten…but it was also amazing. I’d forgotten how much I love that feeling of just running, of feeling the ground move underneath your feet, of hitting your stride and knowing you can do it, of feeling like you could almost do this forever…

Don’t get me wrong. I was awful. I’ve made an executive decision to go back to Day 1, Week 1 of C25K. I think starting from the beginning is the best decision I could have made. Because it’s hard. It’s not the same difficulty as when I first started at the end of 2008. I can run for a minute without wanting to die. But I didn’t complete the course stitch-free, which means my lungs need to be stretched back into shape.

So it’s back to the beginning for me, although I’ll hopefully go through the program faster this time. And I know it’s going to be hard, and there’ll be days where I just can’t get into it, it won’t work, and I’ll whinge about it….but when it is working, I just love it.

Posted at 3:13 am | No Comments »

Posted at 2:35 am | No Comments »

So, I’m winding down until after Christmas. I know, I know, Christmas is just one day etc. but at the moment I feel like I’m just waiting for it to be over before I get back into the weight-loss business. It does not mean that I’ll be waiting until January or even February to start. I’ve always held the belief that you should start the way you intend to finish. Which means that I will be exercising right up to, and including, the beginning of January.

Until then, I’m just going to get excited about Christmas. It really is one of my favourite parts of the year, I love organising like this, getting stuff together, focusing on what makes other people happy…it’s great, truly wonderful. I’m sure I’ll post about the day after, too.

Hope you’ve all had a great year, and you have a wonderful Christmas. I’ll see you on Boxing Day!

Posted at 12:46 am | No Comments »

I just want to be healthy. I want to feel ridiculously good about myself, and strong, and can’t-stop-looking-at-myself-in-the-mirror happy with my body. A few months ago, I was in that place. I can’t wait to feel that way again.

Posted at 10:48 am | No Comments »

Of reality. Nothing drastic or trauma inducing, just a little reaffirmation that I do need to get chugging along again. It’s amazing what a difference 3 odd kilos can make — to your mind, your body, your motivation….your entire make-up can be changed by 3 little kilos.

I found a picture of me in June, just before my birthday. I would have been about 83.8 kg, and I felt great. Also, I looked it. Now, I’m 86.4, and I feel less great. Almost like I’m just not quite myself. It’s that old ‘not in the right skin’ feeling, and it’s because of, what, 2.6kg?

This is actually a really good thing. I can’t feel the difference on the way down, can’t really tell what’s changed. But I can feel the difference on the way up. If something changes this much on the way up — conversely, it much change this much on the way down. I need to keep that in mind: little things make big impacts.

Posted at 8:10 am | No Comments »

You know, they say variety is the spice of life. And for me it’s definitely one of the things I have to keep working at in order to stay interested in weight loss. It’s the one thing that doesn’t change. Variety is constant for me.

You can see this in the phases I go through. When I started at WW, I used eTools to track. Then I moved to paper, on those weekly little booklets we had. Then I bought a WW book specifically for the purpose, though I wasn’t great at keeping on track with it. Then I tried Twitter (which method went bust because Twitter no longer allows ‘repeat posts’ … how do I make ‘Weetbix and Milk, 2.5 pts’ more interesting?), and then finally I bought a little black book for the purpose. None of them worked forever. I just get bored. Now, I’m swapping over into a custom-built worksheet. It’s going to take a while to get everything set up, but it should work. I’m really excited about it at the moment, I can picture success – which is the first step to actually succeeding, right? If I record it like this, I can see each week in a glance, work out where I went wrong (the icecream I didn’t like and didn’t need), or right (the omelette instead of pizza).

It’s the same with exercise. Originally I hated it. I began to make myself go the gym and I would refuse to go to classes. Then I would refuse to go the treadmills and would only do the classes. Then I began to teach myself how to run, and it was back to the treadmills for me. Then I gave up running – back to classes. And now? Not doing exercise at this moment in time. But once I get the rest of my life under control (and find my running shoes), I’m going to go back to square one. I’m going to start the C25K again from scratch. I’m more advanced than those days when I started the first time. I can run 30 seconds without wanting to die. But I need to go back and find out where I’m starting to challenge myself again, rather than feeling like my task is insurmountable.

So…what does this teach me? Regardless of whether or not I get bored and need to move onto something else, regardless of whether or not my exercise regime changes or I get frustrated, each change is a step in the right direction – each change is a step forward, closer to my goal…regardless of whether or not I feel like it at the time.

Posted at 7:49 am | No Comments »

So the plan for this week is literally to just hang on until next week. I’m planning each day, but not tracking, since I don’t have any choice in the matter and I can’t handle tracking and studying for 3 exams at the same time. But I’m doing the moderation thing. I had a biig breakfast, so then I had fruit for lunch. Then I had a diet coke and a tim-tam for a snack (but just 1 timtam!). Tonight will be roast ham or something for dinner. I know that I’m reasonable in moderation, and I’m trying to focus on drinking my water and eating well, and hopefully that’ll be enough.

Posted at 5:14 am | No Comments »

What has been the biggest hurdle to overcome in your weight loss journey?

MYSELF. I don’t know what it is or why but I am constantly battling myself to lose weight. I have to fight with myself to do exercise, to eat right, to skip the sugar drinks — but I also have to fight with myself to NOT feel smug, to NOT get comfortable, because then I’ll just give in. I have to fight with myself to accept the losses — my most used thought for losses tends to be “Oh, it’s just because of x” — usually the smaller meal the night before.

Frankly, I’m tired of f*** of it. I’m sick of listening to my head. I’m tired of my head giving me excuses. So I’m going to study today until about 4pm, and then I’m going to the gym. No excuses, no backing out. STOP THINKING!

I can make a decision here: either I can eat all the crap I want…or I can be skinny. There is no having both here. And frankly, I’ll eat all the lettuce in the world to be a healthy weight. To not look at photos and cringe.

Decision made.

Posted at 11:26 pm | No Comments »