Work work work

Oh man, what a day it was yesterday. I got a deadline from the bank and the lawyers late on Tuesday afternoon (which the boss stupidly said we could do, and then promptly buggered off to Darwin, grr). I got to work at 7am and got stuck in - it was a massive project. I took about 15 minutes for lunch, but otherwise pretty much worked solidly until 6pm. I got changed and went to my outdoor fitness session, and then returned to the office. I made a quick omelette for dinner, and got back into the work. I eventually called it a night, or more specifically a morning, at 1am. I slept in a bit this morning and got to work at 8.45. I worked solidly til I finished, getting the reports out about 3pm - 3 hours after deadline, but pretty good under the circumstances I think. Here's hoping for a more peaceful day tomorrow. The boss is flying back from Darwin, so if I can avoid his calls in the morning, I'm home free until next week :)

So onto better topics, the group fitness classes - I really like them! I had sessions last night and tonight, and they're each completely different, other than the warm up jog and stretches. On Wednesday we did some relay runs with 4 people on each team. The losing team had to do a penalty, like 2o push ups or sit ups. Trainer Chris split us into teams, but probably didn't choose that well, he put the 3 fastest (me, the guy of the group and another chick) in one team, with one really slow girl. We blitzed the other team, so he started introducing a handicap, making our runs longer until the other team had enough of an advantage to win. It was good fun actually. The second part of the session sucked - ab work. I hate ab work. I know it's good for me, but I seriously hate it. Hovers and side hovers and leg raises. Blegh. Stage 3 was good though - run up and down two small flights of stairs, do 20 boxing cross jabs to Chris at the end, then run a circle around and back to the start. This was HARD, but really really good.

Tonight's session was a bit easier, but still fun. We started with relays again, but running up the stairs to the top of the grandstand and back instead of across the oval. Our team was way too strong again, but by the time Chris changed the rules and had 2 of our team doing an extra lap, it got pretty close and competitive (but we just won :0) Next up was the card game from hell - Chris had a page of exercises (like push ups, sit ups, leg raises, shuttle runs, burpies), with one exercise corresponding to each card. One person had to choose a card at random, and this dictated what exercise we would do. The next person had to choose 3 cards, and added together, this gave us the number of repetitions. Everyone seemed to pull out ten cards and aces (which are worth 11 apparently), so there were lots and lots of reps. We got push ups, walking lunges, then two lots of leg raises in a row, so my abs are really really feeling it now. The last game for tonight was rock paper scissors - loser has to run to the cone and back. A bit of a laugh, but the time passes so quickly, it's great. Trainer Chris is the first person I've ever met in fitness that has made me remotely tempted to have some personal training sessions. The way he sets stuff up and the exercises he gets us doing are innovative, and get my heart rate up really high, which I generally struggle to do (I maxed out at 181 yesterday, 176 today. I normally don't get above 170). My only complaint about the sessions at the moment is that there's too much recovery time, I'd like to push it a bit harder. Of course in a PT session we'd be able to do that, because he wouldn't have to cater for other people's fitness levels. I'm still not sure I can justify the cost though.

Foodwise, I've been pretty good the last couple of days. I ended up slightly over my calories yesterday, but given I was awake for 20 freaking hours, it wasn't too bad. Today I'm well under, and I don't have anything worth eating in the house! I wish I could bottle this kind of motivation for food and exercise, it comes in such short waves.

Gardening Day 2

One more post to completely bore you with my gardening pursuits, then I'll get back to normal programming.

The irrigation system went in yesterday. I am so freaking excited I can't begin to tell you. I quite like gardening, pottering around, doing the weeding, planting stuff, trimming stuff. But I hate watering, with a passion. Nothing bores me more than standing still with a stupid hose. Those days are now gone, the whole garden can now be watered by setting the sprinklers. Rock on. I will have to setup one final area of irrigation system once I get the last garden bed up and running, but the rest of it is all done. I got so excited that I even went and bought some Alyssum at Bunnings right before they closed last night, and planted it this morning before work. Granted, I need a life (and granted, I should have been going for a run rather than planting seedlings), but it's made my day.

Back to work today (well, actually I was here 3 days last week too, but it feels more like work now because a few more staff members have also returned. We're still just under half staffed though, nice and quiet). I've brought lots of nice healthy food, and I'm planning on going for a run from work tonight, seeing as I didn't go this morning. Tomorrow I'm planning on riding. I know if I can just get my groove back, I can get my exercise, diet and weight loss plans well underway.

On the diet and new year resolution front - I had planned to just give up chocolate this year, but I think that ban is going to need to be widened. Anything remotely chocolate/cocoa flavoured seems to set me off on a binge, so I think it all needs to go. I made brownie slice late yesterday at mums (because my food processor isn't good enough to do it). It's a "healthy version" brownie slice, made only of dates, macadamia nuts and cocoa. It tastes awesome, and comes in at 130 calories a piece, which is pretty good if you can actually eat only one slice. Let me just say that I will not be making it again in a hurry, because I am very very full of brownie slice right now...

Pre holiday update

That's right ladies and gents, it's 2 days before I am flying away into the sunrise for 10 days in Bali. I don't actually know how good the holiday will be (my dad is a bit of a handful these days and it will probably make for some trying times), but I couldn't care less at this point. As long as I'm not in this office and not in my daily routine, I'm happy. When I think about it, it's been about 6 months since I had a day off work, so no wonder I'm over it. I really need to schedule in a couple of R&R/mental health days in from time to time, to stop me getting to this CBF stage.

Anyways, I'm not sure there's really a lot to report sadly. Official times are still not up from the Glenelg Classic which is giving me the irrits. I think it's because they buggered up the course (even worse than I first knew), and so people have run different distances, which makes sorting out the placings a bit hard. Apparently some of the frontrunners ended up doing like 13km or something, because some marshalls didn't turn up and the lead cyclist went the wrong way. Awesome planning guys.

I pulled up slightly sore in the legs after Sunday, but nothing too excrutiating. I had boot camp on Monday, which was a pretty good session - lots of circuit work and introducing power bands and kettle bells, made things a little more interesting. I piked on my boxing class on Monday night though. In all truth I really could have gone, I wasn't that sore. I just didn't want to. I needed some down time, so I spent the night downloading music and fiddling with the play lists on my ipod for the holiday. Very therapeutic.

Tuesday I did the cycle-commute, just the standard 15km each way with no add ons this week. I felt a bit fatigued, particularly on the way home, but the calorie count was actually pretty low. I think I'm just fatigued in general so everything is a bit of a struggle.

This morning was my last boot camp session. Can anyone say running? The lead instructor started off by saying it would be an easier session today, but perhaps he should have said that to the new recruits instructor. My HRM showed 700 calories for the session (including the jog to and from, but still) - this is the biggest session I had all camp. Running/stop for squats or pushups or whatever/running. More running. More shuttle runs. More running. Lucky all the girly girls who cried over being told to run have already quit, there would have been hyperventilation everywhere.

So bootcamp is done and dusted. An interesting experiment and I did enjoy having the structure of it in my workout routine. Chances of me getting up at 5am to do my own exercise... pretty low. But I had very little trouble doing it for a planned session. I've also taken away some technique tips on running, which I'm trying to incorporate gradually into my running style. Having said that, I can't see myself doing another camp - it's just too expensive for me. I'll have to figure out a new routine for myself after holidays. Of course, if I decide to go ahead with training for a HM in May, it will just be a lot of running and 2 cross training sessions a week. Still not sure if I've got the balls to go for that yet though lol.

The agenda for today is to try and actually pump out some work, but I don't like my chances much. I'm just over it, over it, over it. Having a boss who is never in the office and is completely unaware of what I do with my day has its costs and benefits at times - when I'm remotely motivated, it's awesome not to have someone breathing down your neck and making revolting demands. But when I'm at the seriously CBF stage, there's nothing to push me along in the right direction. Sigh, some people are never happy.

Something I haven't posted about much recently is eating/diet. I've been a bit hit and miss with it. Sometimes really really good, but I've had a couple of bad sessions in there too. I'm really a bit lost with figuring out how much to eat at the moment. With the current exercise schedule I'm feeling too tired and braindead on 1500 calories, but I'm not really a believer in "eating back" exercise calories. It doesn't help that my head is broken. Years of yo-yo dieting and calorie obsession have left me somewhat scarred, and the thought of regularly eating at 1800 kinda freaks me out. Maybe I'll try for 1650 for a while (after holidays, when I won't be counting because it's impossible to figure out what they put in food when you're eating "out" every day, just gonna be as sensible as possible), maybe boost up to 1700 or 1750 when I'm a bit more settled with that. FFS, weight control is so much more about the mind than it is about hunger.

OK, I'm signing off. Chances are I won't update again until after the holiday, so have a lovely couple of weeks everyone :)

Bit slack on the updates

Okey dokey, I've been a bit slack on the updates for a few days. I'll cram it all into the one blog - life hasn't been so exciting that it can't be summarised in a few decent paragraphs methinks.

So where were we up to last blog? Friday somewhere I assume. I didn't run on Friday morning, but I did do a 5.75km circuit from the office on Friday night, even though I really really didn't feel like it. It's the same route as I used a couple of weeks ago, and I knocked 90 seconds off the time, so that was a good sign. I struggled pretty much the whole run though, my heart rate was high, my shins hurt, and I just wanted to finish it. I think I burnt 620 odd calories in under 40 minutes, so the body was definitely protesting on some level.

After the Friday run, I came back to work and finished off some stuff that had been bugging me, and ended up getting home about 9.30. There were some bananas left over in the fruit box at work last week, so I took them home and baked with them. 3 dozen banana biscuits and a loaf of banana bread was baked on Friday night. I love baking with bananas - I hate them, so I'm never tempted to eat the goodies lol.

Saturday morning was an early start for "carpark caper", a gardening type expo thing at the ABC building. Seriously, could my life get any sadder, getting up at 7 on a Saturday to wander around plant stalls. It was good though. I didn't buy anything, but I did aide and abet my mother in choosing several plants and other accessories. It was damn heavy to carry it all back to the car mind you.

The plan after carpark capers was for mum to head for home, and me to head for the gym. I just wasn't in the mood, so I followed her straight back to her place. I had a cooking lesson from mum on how to make bread pudding, an old family recipe made by the women on my mum's side. Mum is the last remaining person who can make it properly, so I very considerately told her recently that I had to learn to make it before she died. She took this in good humour (bless her) and gave me a good lesson. It's a bit tricky because there isn't a recipe as such - it always uses roughly the same ingredients, but the quantities vary, and you just have to go by look and feel. I think I've got it though. The finished product was unfortunately too good, I couldn't stop eating it. More on this later.

After the cooking adventure, I took Dad out shopping. We looked at some paving places for some ideas for my backyard (far out they're expensive), then went to the shopping centre. Lunch, grocery shopping, a couple of other odds and ends, then home. Dad was exhausted, he's not looking that well at the moment.

I took the puppies for a nice walk, then got back to mum's and cooked dinner. I tried out the fake-KFC chicken recipe someone posted on CK last week, but using chicken breast rather than drumsticks. It was a resounding success, all 3 of us enjoyed it. We watched some of the Commonwealth Games, and I eventually called it a night. Sometimes I think I should still live in that house, I spend enough hours there.

Sunday morning - another early one, down to the markets at 6.15 for lovely fresh fruit and veg, and a leisurely wander of trash and treasure. I was lacking any real motivation to do anything after the markets, so I spent an hour or two lazing about, and eventually got moving. Lots of house cleaning, little bit of weeding and gardening, little bit of cooking - all the usual Sunday stuff.

Late in the afternoon the bloke who is going to build my verandah came around to go through all the finer details, so that he can draw up the sales contract. He's coming back on Wednesday evening for me to sign off and get it underway, which is very exciting in an I'm-spending-$9,000 kind of way.

I was really tired last night after a few late nights and early mornings, so I made sure I headed to bed nice and early. I read for a bit too long, but still managed a reasonable amount of sleep thankfully. Slightly off topic, but I'm reading Eat, Pray, Love - the movie has just come out. Well, it's boring. I'm giving it one more night's reading time to prove that something is actually going to happen, then I'm sacking it.

This morning I tried everything to talk myself out of going for a run (it's windy, I'm tired, my knee hurts, my ankle hurts, my shins might hurt), but eventually sucked it up and went out. I ran 5.5km, which again was not comfortable. Interestingly enough, I didn't feel like I had a rhythm until about 4km in when I was coming back up a hill. Not sure what's going on there, but anyway I'm definitely glad I didn't manage to talk myself out of going altogether.

We're just about up to date. Something I alluded to above, talking about the bread pudding, was eating a lot (too much). Saturday was not good, I ate way too much. It could have been worse, but still not good. I still have that mentality of "I've already blown it today, may as well keep on eating". This makes no freaking sense whatsoever, and I would think I was a nut case if I didn't see so many other people on weight loss and binge eating blogs dealing with the same thing. It looks like this will be a struggle for a time to come.

Another discovery with my eating on the weekend, is just how bad I get when I'm at mum's place. The cupboard is always full of tasty evils, and the minute I'm in the door I'm thinking about food. Something in my mind connects that house to eating with reckless abandon. I grew up in that house and truth be known I ate with reckless abandon through much of my youth and early adulthood, so on some levels it makes sense. The thing that doesn't make sense is that I also managed to lose 35kg and get fit and healthy in that house only a few years ago. Why did I have willpower then but not now? Is it just the effect of having none of that crap around me at my house, and then it's like a buffet going to mum's place? I'm sure other places I go have the same level of unhealthy temptations, the difference being I suppose that I can't go to the cupboard and help myself anywhere other than home. I think those cupboards need a padlock to protect me from myself.

Hmm, I shouldn't have blogged about food after lunch, I'm hungry again already!

Musings of a maniac

I've just got thoughts buzzing around in my head randomly at the moment, so I thought I'd spit them all out here. Probably not logically or with any consistent flow, but blogs are like that sometimes.

Firstly, I'm an idiot. A down right fool. If I was on CK and saw someone complaining that they're not using their calories, or wondering if it was OK to not eat their calorie limit, I'd grumble to myself about how annoying it is. Yet here I am doing exactly the same thing. It's times like this that make me realise just how much of a head game weight loss is.

So I sit at my desk half the day thinking I'd like something extra to eat, but then convincing myself that I don't need it. Great for the concentration while working on some pretty complex accounts, I might add. I'm just terrified of eating too much earlier in the day and running out of calories at night. But then I want to get out of the habit of eating after dinner. Can't have it both ways, dumbo. Seriously, this is not brain surgery, the logical person in me can see the answers right in front of my face. But can I take my own advice? Not often. I seriously need to work on this.

Now, about the aftermath of my 10k on Monday. I'm thinking I probably shouldn't have done so much so soon, but it's done now, and it does make me want to do more - running is like that. I hate taking off for a run, and I don't much like it while I'm doing it most of the time, but I LOVE the feeling afterwards. It's such an achievement. But should a 25kg overweight person who is 3 weeks back into a fitness regime be going out running 10k on the pavement? Well my knees, ankles, hips and lower back are suggesting perhaps not.

I was reading something the other day (I can't remember where off hand...) about the power of muscle memory, and how people returning to exercise can have much more rapid results than those doing it the first time. The article was talking more about weight bearing exercise and body building, but I think this must apply to running, and probably other cardio based exercise, as well. I doubt whether many people at my current weight and in my current level of conditioning (i.e. very poor) could have pushed on for a 10k run, particularly in the hilly sections. I'm certain I didn't do so much so soon when I was first getting fit a few years ago. It's not because I'm so tough now, or so immune to pain - I'm a pansy really (I stood up in the middle of bottom half squats last night in Pump, it hurt *cry baby*). So the only answer that really makes sense is muscle memory - my body knows it's done this before, and it knows it can do it again.

Along a similar line of thought - my body seems to adapt to certain exercise really fast, which is kind of annoying. I've got my HRM back out of the cupboard, and in part I can see why I stopped using it to start with. The stupid thing flashes a heart rate of 00 at random intervals, which is particularly annoying and stops me focussing on what I'm supposed to be doing. It might be time for a new one. Do I go Polar again, or do I go Garmin? Advice gratefully accepted! Anyway, it seemed to be working fine in Pump last night, I didn't see any 00 readings. But I burnt about 220 stupid calories in 55 minutes. My heart rate is low, particularly if I'm laying down. So laying down with the chest and tricep tracks, despite lifting weights and feeling the burn, my heart rate was about 60. My max heart rate for the session was 130, even with squats etc. Now the realist in me knows that I don't do pump for the calorie burn, I do it for strength and muscle conditioning. But I find it damn annoying seeing that little calorie number at the end of a tough workout. Hmph.

Just quickly before I sign off and find somewhere else to waste my time - weights for pump last night: 10lb warmup, lunges and shoulders; 15lb chest, bicep, tricep; 20lb squats and back. An increase for a few tracks.

Things I have learnt today

1. Never bring home a barbecued chicken when you're famished. It smells and tastes way too good.
2. A step class from 2 days ago can have a real lasting impact on your calf muscles.
3. Deep heat is a friend to my calf muscles.
4. Shoes with heels are not a friend to my calf muscles.
5. The calf muscles ease up when they get warm, or when your attention is distracted by other pain. You know, like when you can't breathe running up a hill. Suck it up and work through it.

As you may have gathered, I've eaten too much tonight. However, I went for a run this morning (and increased the pace and distance - 4.5km at an average 9.2km/h, so that was great. I also went to a cardio box class tonight. It was the first time it was offered on the program, so there was a lot of technique and introductory stuff, but it was still a big workout. I wouldn't say that I loved it, the instructor is a bit of a bitch, but I'll give it another go before I write it off.

I had a really crap day at work, not that anything went wrong, just that I didn't really do anything. I have seriously got to find my work mojo, stuff is piling up around my ears. Here's to getting in to that damn big project tomorrow.

Another weekend gone

How do these weekends keep slipping by so fast? I'm sorry this one is gone, but there are two things keeping me chipper this Sunday evening.

One, the boss is away this week, and will not be ringing - he's doing an 800km bike ride from Adelaide to Geelong. I wish him well for the big ride (especially as it is for a charitable cause, in memory of a friend who passed away from leukaemia a week or so ago), but I'm also REALLY happy he won't be on the phone this week. We get on well, but I'm ready for a week's trial separation. He can be quite demanding, and having some time to get stuck into a big project without side projects from him is something I am very much looking forward to.

Two, next weekend is a long weekend, the first one since June and I am hanging out for it. I am 150% sure that I'm not working this long weekend, not even a little log in from home for a couple of hours like I usually do. I need the break, and damn it I'm taking it.

So, anyway, I'm in quite high spirits this evening. The weekend has been a good one all round really. On Friday night I went for a run from the office (seeing as I failed to drag my butt out of bed in the morning). It was an awesome run - I had forgotten how rewarding it is to run on relatively flat terrain, compared to the killer hills around my house. I covered 5.75km or thereabouts, and didn't need to stop to walk at all. It wasn't a very fast pace, about 8.6km/h, but I felt great that I could cover that distance, so the speed will return in time.

After the run and a bit of recovery, I headed for home, had something quick for dinner (I think it was a vegemite sandwich of all things... perhaps I need to revisit "balanced diet 101" and "refueling the body with protein". But I was hungry and it was quick. Meh.) I then got stuck into my baking. I love to bake, and I haven't done any for a month or more, so I've missed it. It was a bit of a test for me, because I usually spend as much time eating the ingredients and various batters as I do cooking. I won't say that I didn't eat any of the raw materials, I probably downed 500 calories odd, but I certainly didn't binge out, and I didn't eat any of the final products. I'm proud as can be - something has finally snapped into place in my stupid head, and I'm over the binging. Weird (but awesome).

On Saturday I got up a little later than planned, but made it to the gym for the step class. I love step, I'm not massively coordinated (but not completely unco either), so I have to concentrate to follow and remember the moves. This is great for me, because then I focus on something other than the pain in my legs or how much I'm struggling to breathe. It was a good class, and I hope I can fit it in semi regularly. I didn't stay for body bar, because I was buggered, and I didn't want my legs to pull up so sore that it put me off schedule for the week ahead. Small steps.

After a quick call into the supermarket, I returned home and continued the baking feast while watching the drawn grand final. Very little taste testing today too (except for a damn cheesecake I made, it was devine. I had 3 spoonsful and then gave myself a stern talking to, put it in the fridge and didn't touch it again). All up, I made a dozen melting moments, 2 dozen triple chocolate cookies, 2 dozen neiman marcus cookies, 15 cinnamon and sultana muffins, and 14 miniature cheesecakes. I knew it had been too long since I baked, I wanted to make everything! The good news is the whole lot has now been delivered to willing recipients - a lot of it to mum and dad's, and the rest to my friend Lou and her family.

On Saturday night I went out to dinner and watched a movie with my best mate Lou. She's been really sick for several months with glandular fever and other nasty viral things, but she appears to be coming through the worst of it now. I haven't seen much of her while she's been sick as her main pastime has been sleeping, and she hasn't been up to visitors. It was brilliant to see her again, and I realised how much I've missed her. I like to be a hermit at times, but it's great to have friends who know you inside out too. We met at school when we were 9 years old, went right through high school together, then went to uni together too. I half lived at her place in uni holidays, we were pretty much inseparable. So yeah, good times. I had lasagne at the cafe where we had dinner - possibly not the best choice, but not a tragedy. I had the calories saved, so all is well.

Sunday saw me up bright and sparky at 6am, ready for mum to pick me up at 6.15 and head to the markets. I was pretty bleary eyed after getting home after midnight, but it's a good way to start the day nonetheless. We were there for ages today, lots of trash and treasure stalls to look through, and we got some cute stuff for my niece Lara. We got our lovely fresh vegetables, then retired to my place for coffee and scrambled eggs. Mum left about 10.30, and I got on with some chores around the house, made my lunches for the week, made a stir fry for a couple of dinners (which came in at a beatifully low calorie count I might add), and stewed some apples for a sweet treat or two.

Late in the arvo I went round to mum's place, and took those stinky dogs for a bath, it was finally warm enough to wash them. Kali was very badly behaved and barked at other dogs, and also scared the crap out of someone when she lunged wildly at them walking past with their staffy. Kali is a massive black German Shepherd, so she looks pretty scary. She actually wants to lick the dogs she's barking at, but from the dog owner's view I'm sure it looks like she wants to eat them. Very embarrassing, I think we'll need to get Bark Busters back for a refresher course. Bazil the Pug was not at all amused by the bath, but there's only so much fuss a dog that size can kick up (thankfully). They smell much much better now, but the hair they are dropping everywhere is insane. Glad it's not in my house! I stayed on for dinner at mum's (roast pork, delicious), then made my way home.

So here we go with the goals for the week ahead:

1. Make some major progress on my big work project
2. Eat at 1500 calories, give or take
3. Stick to the exercise plan - 3 runs, 1 circuit, 1 boxing class, 1 body bar class, and anything that else that fits in with the weekly regime
4. Do a small housework job every night after work/gym so I don't have to waste the long weekend cleaning the house
5. 7 hours sleep a night

Quickie

I didn't get to do my blog update last night, and it will have to be a quick one this morning, because I have a crap load of work to get through today.

I went to mum's place for dinner last night, but it was a bit drama filled. My aunty was there, and told us the sad news that my cousin was in hospital suffering a suspected miscarriage. We waited for ages for any news, and eventually got something that falls into neither the good news nor bad news category I guess - she did indeed have a miscarriage, but she was carrying twins. One twin has survived and looks healthy and normal. The doctors even told her that she can go on her planned trip to Melbourne tomorrow for the grand final. It's hard to know how to feel about it - it's sad that one of the babies died, but it's wonderful that there is still a baby to come (and they didn't know it was twins anyway).

On my own personal front, I didn't make it to the gym this morning, my legs and butt are not up to it yet. I got up early and did some stretching to hopefully ease it off a little, and with any luck I'll be able to sneak out for a walk at lunch time and loosen things up a bit. I've been thinking about whether I'll do some exercise tonight to make up for this morning, but on the whole I think not. If I tighten up the legs again, it will just stop me going for a run tomorrow morning. And anyway, I've got some other stuff to do tonight at home, given the weekend is starting to fill up again already.

The food front is still going strong. I felt like I ate a lot last night, but I still came in at 1500 calories for the day amazingly. Eliminating the chocolate from my diet has made it so much easier to control the calorie intake, it's amazing (OK well maybe it's not amazing to sane people, but it's been a revelation for me).

I am putting myself through endurance testing at the moment though - I collected various baking goods from mum's place last night. I buy up my chocolate chips and cooking chocolate etc, then I take it to mum's for safe keeping, so I can't eat it! I'm visiting a friend who has been quite unwell on Saturday night, and I've promised to take some baked goodies with me. And my dad has put in a request for cookies and cake. All the ingredients were on the bench in my house last night, and I wasn't remotely tempted to touch them (although I did get home pretty late, but still...) Tonight will be a new test, because I'll be home for longer before I go to bed. The massive test will be on Friday night or Saturday afternoon when I get baking. I LOVE to bake, but I also love to stick my fingers in what I'm baking. I need some strategies to minimise the damage - suggestions anyone??

Right-o, time to get into it.

Not much happening

Sometimes I think my life must look like groundhog day to the general observer. Today would have appeared to be such a duplicate of the day before that it would be indistinguishable from an outside perspective.

Up early, get in some exercise, go to work for 10 or 11 hours, head to the gym, go home and reheat some food - exact same meal as the previous evening. Then get on the internet, watch TV and eat food all at the same time (I have issues with not being uber-entertained). When you put it like that, it even sounds repetitive to me.

But I like to focus on the small differences. For example, my exercise was different - a run and an orbit class on Monday, a circuit class and a pump class on Tuesday. While I sit at the same desk in my same old office every day, the stuff I do each day is very rarely the same. Yes, it is predominantly accountant-geek work, but it differs a lot in the detail. There are days when I hate my job because of its competing priorities and the need to keep 10 balls in the air at once (while answering 50 questions for staff who could probably figure it out for themselves), but these are also the very reasons that I mostly love my job.

I probably haven't spoken much about my job on here yet. About 70% of my time is dedicated to a financial controller position for a group of hotels in Darwin. Heaps of variety comes through this channel alone - the hotels in the group include some bars, a nightclub and a motel, so they all have their own idiosyncracies and special requirements. Dealing with folk from Darwin has also been a big learning curve, business is just done differently above the Tropic of Capricorn, and we have to learn to accept it. Nothing gets done with much urgency, and all important decisions are made over a beer in the bar. The other 30% of my work is in tax and business services for a small business and individual client base. This was what I used to do full time, and I was completely over it, but I now really enjoy having a small amount of this type of work still in my life.

Hmm, I've been a bit grumpy with my work life lately, but writing it out like that makes me realise that I do still love it. Time to stop getting bogged down in the detail and look at the bigger picture I think.

Right, time to finish off with a goal review for the week to date:

• Exercise - on schedule, got my circuit and pump classes in this morning and this evening respectively. I took it fairly easy on the weights in pump, while I figure out where my strength and endurance is currently at. As a result, the bicep, tricep and squat tracks were easier than they should have been, and I know I'll need to increase next time. The shoulders and chest tracks hurt (a lot), and my legs were already sore from previous sessions, so I think I'm going to be mildly crippled tomorrow. I'm looking forward to that rest day.
• Diet - exactly the same as yesterday (well, I did have a different flavoured yoghurt lol). I'm eating at mum's tomorrow, so the calories will be higher for dinner, I think she's doing turkey casserole.
• Focus at work - much better today, and actually got a few things finished.
• Sleep - 7 hours again last night
• Internet usage - still disturbingly high. I don't think blogging is helping with that lol.

Until tomorrow...

Goal check

Well here I am, reporting on progress to date on the weekly plan.

Exercise - success. I went for a run this morning, despite spending a good 10 minutes trying to talk myself out of it. I took a 4km route I've done a couple of times in recent weeks, and I can really see the improvements I've made already, which is very encouraging. I'm running at almost 9km/hour (including some quite unfriendly hills), and managed to run the whole way without dying. Tonight I went to the gym and sat on a bike for 15 minutes, then joined the ''orbit'' class. This is a swiss ball based toning class, which I thought would be pretty easy. Um, no. I suspect the rest of my weekly exercise plans will be in danger come tomorrow morning when I'm unable to walk. Lots of squats and lunges (which incidentally is exactly why I have to do classes and not freestyle it myself either at the gym or at home. I'll use a leg press machine and whatever, but I will NEVER do squats and lunges unless I'm forced to do them in a class. And I know they're good for me... but they hurt!!)

Food intake - not terrible, but could be better. I can't believe I'm berating myself for under-eating, this is an all time first for me. I've eaten all really good, nutritious food, but only 1,300 calories, which is really a bit light on with 1 1/2 hours of exercise. As I've said before, my head is broken when it comes to food, and being a recovering binge-eater makes me hesitant to push more food in when I'm not really hungry. I could certainly eat more, I don't doubt that, but I don't feel that I need it especially. I am theorising that my appetite will really pick up once I'm doing a lot more regular exercise, so I think I'll roll with it for now, and make a conscious effort to increase the intake if I'm struggling for energy later in the week.

When I come to think about it, I guess my intake is low mainly because I'm not factoring in "treats" much these days, so perhaps it's not so bad after all - that crap doesn't fuel the body anyway. There are duel reasons for the lack of treats in my diet at this stage. #1, I've developed an allergy to chocolate. Sob. It gives me a gross rash all over my body. #2, it's the treat foods that have been mostly responsible for binge eating behaviour in recent times (you know the drill, bake a batch of muffins then eat them all...) At the moment I'm coping quite well without the treats in my daily intake - if I don't start on the rubbish, I can't get stuck in a binge-spiral. I'm not naïve enough to think this is sustainable for all eternity, and if I'm out with people or I particularly want something, I'll have it. But for now, I'll have to make sure that's in public, so I can't eat a whole cake instead of just a slice, or whatever it may be.

Focus at work - ahem. Next topic.

Sleep - I got a good 7 hours in last night, but if I don't stop blogging, tonight's not going to be so good. Goodnight all!

The weekend roundup

It's been another busy weekend, and I don't think I've achieved half the things I wanted to. Having said that, I have long ago accepted that things come up, things take longer than expected, and sometimes I just need to take some down time and not be productive at all.

So... the house hasn't been cleaned, the pantry hasn't been sorted, I didn't touch the work I brought home to do, and I didn't get to the gym. However, I did achieve the following:

• got a great day's shopping in with mum on Saturday
• I found the perfect little corner stand for my iPod docking station in the dining room (and have constructed it)
• I cooked an absolutely delicious spinach, mushroom and chicken frittata, with 2 serves left for evening meals this week
• I bought 8 new plants and have put them in the front garden
• I did all my weeding and fertilising in the front and back garden, and the front is starting to look really nice, I'm proud of it - for someone with no gardening expertise whatsoever
• I ate well all weekend, not going over calories at all, and did stay pretty active despite not doing any dedicated "exercise" as such

I had planned to colour my hair tonight, but I'm pretty comfy on the couch in front of X Factor and Junior Masterchef right now, so it looks like that's going to be put off for another day. I think it's time to go a bit lighter with the hair, now that the warmer weather is just around the corner.

Now for some week-ahead planning. It's time to try out the new gym and get into a couple of classes. Here's the exercise plan for the week ahead:

• Monday - run in the morning, freestyle gym in the evening
• Tuesday - circuit class in the morning, body bar in the evening
• Wednesday - day off (going out to dinner with family)
• Thursday - circuit class in the morning, might take the evening off? We'll see
• Friday - run in the morning, out with friends for the evening

I won't try and forecast the weekend at this stage, it tends to be pretty unpredictable these days. If I can drag my butt out of bed 4 days this week, I'll be a happy camper. I have signed up for boot-ee camp starting 25th October, so I need to be prepared for some early starts by the time that comes around (and I need to be a whole lot fitter and stronger too, so they don't kill me on the track!)

I'm going to sign off with some weekly goals, an idea I am unabashedly stealing from some other friendly bloggers :o)

1. Eat well - eat at a good calorie level, not too high, but not too low either. I've been undereating a bit recently.
2. Stick to my exercise plan
3. Be focussed and productive at work, stop wasting time and just get it done
4. Get at least 7 hours sleep every night
5. Spend less time on the internet, more time on other forms of entertainment. I need to read again, something other than facebook and forums.

Blogging at work again

This week at work has been a stinker. Everything going wrong and nothing going right. Sigh. This job has weeks like that, and we just look forward to better times next week. That being said, if I don't get organised and get the crappy stuff finished and off my desk today, I'll still be facing it next week, and that's not tempting. Better keep the blog short today then!

While I'm on to negativity... guess how much exercise I've done this week? None. Nada. Zero. The call of the warm comfy bed has alas been too great every morning this week. BUT! I bit the bullet and rejoined a gym last night, so all this is about to change. It's a much less fancy gym than my last one, but then it's not full of posers and beautiful people either, and it's also less than half the price. I have paid $375 upfront for my 12 month membership, so it's time to get some good use out of it.

The thing I like about this gym is that it has some later group fitness classes, which I will be able to get to, even with my stupidly long working hours. There are classes at 7.10pm 3 days a week, and one at 7.30pm on Thursdays. They also have "Xpress" classes (30 minute circuit classes, a bit like Curves and Contours I gather) at 6.15am 2 days a week. I think I'd like to try that, and couple it with 20 minutes or so of my own cardio. There are separate cardio and pin loaded weights areas where you can do your own thing as well - I plan to use these in conjunction with the classes, but at the moment I think I need the motivation of a class to get me back into the swing of things.

I'd really like to get back into running and cycling properly as well. I have done a few runs in the last couple of weeks, and my shins are complaining a bit (I have had stress fractures from shin splints in the my very distant gymnastics past, so I know not to push through that too much). My theory is that if I combine some running with some other gym work, my fitness and muscle tone will build up again, and my weight will drop, and this will make things much easier on my shins anyway. I can then increase the running side of things at a point down the track.

My plans are all pretty flimsy at the moment, but I'm tossing around some running goals in my head - maybe a 10km fun run in December, but not so sure about that one. I'd like to do the 12km city to bay again in September 2011, and somewhere down the track I'd like to be in a position to do a half marathon. All pie in the sky with my current physical conditioning, but you have to have dreams right? I am also giving some thought to preparing a more general "101 in 1001" list (101 goals to complete in 1001 days), as I have seen on Kylie's and some other blogs this year. My running and fitness goals could form part of that.

On a final note - dietary. Yay for me! I've been awesome with my eating this week, including a dinner out at a buffet (always a troublesome thing for me, given portion control and binge eating are my main vices in life). I possibly ate too much volume at the buffet, but made all fantastic choices - loads of steamed and stir fried vegetables, plus some roast meat and vegetables, and the smallest of small (like a tablespoonful!) of noodles. No sweets!

I am approaching the eating side of things so differently this time around, and I'm sure I'm much healthier for it. The last couple of days I've barely made it to 1200 calories, and not because of a conscious effort to stay under that limit, I actually think it's too low. I just haven't been hungry for more, which is something I could NEVER have said last time I was "on the wagon" - I was entirely fixated on food every hour I was awake in those days.

I honestly think the biggest difference has been giving up artificial sweeteners and processed crap "diet food". Don't get me wrong, I still use light options of some things (low fat milk and yoghurt etc), but for the most part, I'm using unprocessed, fresh food in appropriate portion sizes. I don't own a microwave, so the temptation for pre prepared, processed-to-within-an-inch-of-their-life weight watchers/lean cuisine type meals is gone. All that Diet Coke in all it's chemical laden glory is gone. A much healthier way of life.

I still think that to some degree, I will suffer from disordered eating for the rest of my life. I'm too much of an "all in or all out" person to ever think I'm going to be any different. But I am actively working on strategies to manage it better, and who knows, maybe some day I'll be cured :o)

OK, time for some work... boo!

Weekend update

Well it's been a few days, but I'm still here and still mostly behaving myself. Perhaps the middle of the morning at work is not the IDEAL time to be updating my blog, but something I'm working on has just really irritated me, and I'm not focussed anyway. Might as well use the time semi-productively.

What to update, what to update... well I was quite slack with the exercise as last week progressed. I ran on Monday and Tuesday, but didn't seem capable (or willing) of dragging the butt out of bed on the subsequent 3 days. I did go for a longer run on Saturday afternoon though. I covered 5.75km, of which about 900m would have been walking. I walked up the big hill at the start (because if I ran up there, I would have been completely buggered before I even began). I then ran/jogged up the less steep section of the hill, and continued the circuit I had mapped out around the neighbourhood. I had to walk for about 150m up a steepish section towards the end, because both my lungs and legs were giving out. I managed to do the last hill on the return to my house though, which was really hard and I was happy I managed to push myself through it.

Running is a bit different now I'm living alone and dog-free. When I was taking the German Shepherd running with me we used to investigate all sorts of back streets, but I tend to stick to the main roads these days, it makes me feel safer when I'm alone. It probably means I'm inhaling all manner of toxic CO2 fumes from all the traffic, but I'm making the best of what I've got.

I had plans to go for another run on Sunday, but it didn't quite pan out. I spent a couple of hours out in the garden, fixing up my pebble path, and I later took mum's dogs for a 5.5km walk, so there was plenty of activity, just not high intensity. The dog walk was harder than it sounds too, because Bazil the Pug is completely incapable of walking 5.5km. This means I have to take the dog pram, and lift him in and out of it for walk sections and rest periods. Walking up some of those hills is a lot more challenging with a German Shepherd pulling one arm and a 15kg pug in the pram you're pushing, let me tell you. It was a beautiful day though, and nice to get out in the fresh air.

As for the rest of the weekend, well Friday night was rather slothful, although I did squeeze in an hour or so of work, and I also called into the supermarket, so a couple of small things done. Saturday morning I did some cleaning and had some tradies around for quotes on roller shutters and a verandah for the house. I haven't heard the damage from the verandah guy yet, but the roller shutters are going to be about $4,500. A bit more than I had anticipated, but living in a 2 storey place means scaffolding for anything upstairs. Such is life.

On Saturday afternoon I went for my run, puddled about at home, then headed for mum and dad's place. I took them out to dinner at Assaggio as a week-late father's day gift for dad. I had been there once before, and mum and dad were both suitably impressed. I had the penne madonna, which is a chicken pasta in rose sauce. Perhaps not the best calorie wise, but I did limit it to an entree serve (which was plenty, but if I'd had the main I'm sure I would have eaten it all anyway). Mum had a tropicale pizza which she very much enjoyed, and dad had a prawn risotto, also judged as very good. Mum and dad also shared a garlic and herb pizza for entree, which I did not partake in, go me! We had skim cappuccino's for dessert, a much better option that the yummy looking alternatives in the sweets fridge.

Sunday morning saw me at the markets at 6.30am. A bit fresh, but it's getting lighter and warmer. There was lots in the trash and treasure section this week which was nice for a browse. I bought a really cute musical Eeyore for either Graeme or Alan's new baby, some vitamins, some toys for Bazil, and a spade for my place (so I can return mum's to her). We didn't get back to my place until after 9, by the time we'd wandered the general stuff and then bought all our fruit and veg. We had just finished our scrambled eggs when Graeme and Lara arrived for a visit. It was nearly 11 before everyone had gone, so my planned daily run got squashed out. I made a couple of batches of food for the week ahead (Quorn mince pasta sauce, and a soy sauce marinated beef with lemon juice stir fry), and then spent some time in the garden, before heading off to mum's for the late afternoon. Long dog walk followed by tasty roast pork for dinner. I couldn't help myself with the bread pudding and had some - it's a childhood favourite, and it only put me about 50 over in my calories for the day, so I'm happy with that. I was pretty active anyway, so there should be no damage done.

Well this is what happens when I don't blog regularly, I go on and on too much. I could go on more, but not today!

I ate mud cake :(

There's lots going on in my head today, but I'll try to keep it simple. I need to make sure I've still got something to say when my life is going along in a very boring fashion, as it has a happen to do a lot of the time.

I ate a piece of cake at work today. I was initially wracked with the guilts (which is interesting, given 2 or 3 weeks ago I was eating everything in sight and not really too worried about it). It's amazing what a difference a little bit of motivation makes. Anyway, I ate it. About 300 calories worth I think. In reflecting on it, I have both positive and negative reactions to it. On the positive - I ate the cake, then I threw the box with all the little bits and crumbs in the bin, so I couldn't go back for it. I also didn't go off on a crazy binge and eat all the lollies and chocolates which are annoyingly kept in our offices at work. Not so long ago, I would have been 1,000 calories down without stopping for breath. And probably calling at the supermarket for more crap on the way home. On the negative side - I still ate the cake in secret. I waited until everyone at work was well away from the kitchen, and then shovelled it in. I need to get away from that secret food mentality - if I'm prepared to eat it, I should be prepared to eat it in front of others and not be ashamed.

In other news, I went for my second run in two days this morning. It was freezing outside at 5.55am when I set off (well not quite freezing, but only 3 or 4 degrees) - but I still got out there and did it. My distances and pace are both pretty woeful at this stage, but I'm confident I'll be able to build it up again. I just wish there was one direction I could take from my house which didn't result in nasty hills. I ran up Briens Road and actually made it to the top of the biggest hill, which I was really happy with. At that point my lungs nearly exploded and I had to walk for a couple of hundred metres, but an achievement nonetheless. I also had to walk a bit on the return journey, coming up over the large rise at the end. I think I would have run about 3.5km out of the 4km circuit, so it's a start and something to build on.

I think the weather is turning ugly again in the next couple of days, but with any luck I'll manage another run or two this week. I do feel like I have more energy already, so it's definitely a worthwhile pursuit (and will make losing this weight a whole lot faster and easier no doubt).

There's lots of changes going on at work at the moment, and I've got a meeting with the boss tomorrow to catch up on the last couple of weeks of happenings. I usually chase him for meetings to keep us both up to date with everything, but I've been letting it slide recently. He's giving me the irrits (for no particular reason really - he has a lot of annoying aspects to his personality, but that hasn't changed in recent times, but it's suddenly driving me crazy). I can be pretty well assured that he's not going to change, and I went into this job knowing full well what he is like, so I need to find a way to suck it up and get on with it.

It's an interesting thing that I'm suddenly feeling disengaged from my work. This happened the last time I got really dedicated to exercise and weight loss, and ultimately resulted in me changing jobs. I wonder why I can be satisfied with both areas of my life at the same time? This is a rhetorical question for now, but it is something I need to ponder and reconcile for myself.

I'm in the mood to snack, so I'm going to have an early night and get away from temptation!