Wednesday, September 25, 2013

[12wbt] Time to Pull Up Your Socks

Thursdays are the days that 12wbt-ers get the meal and exercise plans for the following week. It usually also comes with an eDM with some sort of message. Today's message from Michelle: "Time to Pull Up Your Socks!" - and indeed it is. 

I'm not one of those people who have had magical makeovers on the 12wbt. Unfortunately, I can blame no one but myself as I'm notoriously bad at keeping to the meal plan. Usually it's because I'm too picky or too lazy to prepare certain dishes. But I'm usually ok at substituting meals which still fit the calorie limits. 

Of the three rounds I've done so far, my first round was probably the most successful. My second round was less to do with weight loss and more to do with becoming a runner, which as I type this, I guess I kinda have. Who would have thought that I would be able to run 10kms without stopping? Definitely not me. 

When I signed up for my third 12wbt round, I had taken 12 weeks off and was trying to get back into the running so I decided to do the 10km running program once again. I planned (note: planned) to be more consistent with following the meal and exercise plan. I wanted to be a runner and I wanted to lose weight dammit! Unfortunately, my plan didn't go to, well, plan. 

Week 1: Skipped because I had done C2S the day before week 1 started and I had the flu so I thought I'd rest up. 

Week 2: Back on board with the program and went pretty well. Ran 7kms for my long run in prep for the Sydney Running Festival Bridge Run. 

Week 3: Still ok, flew to Melbourne for my sister's wedding. Did 8kms around the Tan, nearly died going up Anderson Street the second time, but success! Ate waaaaaay too much food over the weekend. 

Week 4: Tired but pushed through Monday's and Tuesday's workouts. Tuesday out for a work lunch and again, consumed too much food. Was very sick the next few days (not from the food fortunately!), diagnosed with a chest infection. Halt all exercise, definitely did not stick to the meal plan!

Week 5: Was still weak for pretty much all of week 5 and decided not to workout. Tried to follow the meal plan with some success. 

Week 6: The Sydney Running Festival was on the Sunday of this week so I didn't want to exercise and exert myself too much as I had longer than usual work days, most spent standing, as I was at a conference for the better part of the 
week. 

So looks like the first half of the 12wbt was pretty much in shambles for me. I skipped Week 7's Monday workout to recover from the 9km bridge run and was back on on Tuesday. Two days in and I'm struggling a little. I keep feeling hungry despite me thinking I've actually consumed enough food, which is frustrating. But as Michelle says, it's Time to Pull Up Your Socks! I guess a lost few weeks here and there is better than giving up now and losing the next few weeks. Plus, as one of the memes I've posted to my Pinterest wall says "If you're tired of starting over, stop giving up". 

So this is me - Pulling Up My Socks. Let's see what we can do in the next 5 weeks. 

[me]

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Sydney Bridge Run

It appears that I am slowly sliding off the wagon with my blog posts! Unfortunately, work has been flat out, but fun, the last week. 

It kicked off last Sunday with a four day conference at the Menzies Sydney. It was an international academic conference which we had been working on for the better part of the year. While the turnout was not large, the delegates who did attend the conference, was great! Delegates were from all over the globe - China, Japan, Norway, Finland, USA. 

Conference days were long and recovering from the chest infection, my daily exercise was a short 30 min walk to the conference. Originally, I also planned to walk home but spending close to all day on my feet, it was the train for me. I also knew that we had the 9k Sydney Bridge Run and didn't want to train during the week because while I had finished my dose of antibiotics and pretty much recovered from the chest infection, I felt like my body still needed the rest as I was still walking up tired after 8 hours sleeps. 

Today, the weather was fabulous for the Sydney Bridge Run - 23 degrees and sunny. I wasn't able to run the whole distance - there was a lot of run/walking - but was happy with my overall time. Time to plan the next fun run!






Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Swapping running for yoga

The chest infection is slowly being pushed out of me with the aid of the antibiotics that the doctor prescribed, but I've had to give up running and really, all forms of cardio. Being sick just prior to the City2Surf and now this, I'm keen to see it go for good! I haven't quite made it to the gym to do weights, but I've swapped my morning runs / running drills for morning yoga. And boy am I enjoying that swap. 

I've always loved yoga, but I've always prioritized running or weights over it. I've always wanted to be a runner (though I'm not quite there yet!) and I love the feeling of finishing up an intense weights session. I usually try to get in a yoga session once a week (if I'm lucky) but that's about it. I try not to over train and tend to use yoga as a means of stretching. 

In trying to recover as well as I can, I've swapped my morning runs for morning yoga. I haven't go straight into strong challenging vinyasa classes yet as I'm still wary of raising the heart rate too much and needing to breathe too heavily to avoid putting any strain on my lungs. My mornings now start with a 45min morning vinyasa or hatha class, depending on how I feel, on yogaglo.com. I absolutely love yogaglo, which was recommended to me by my best friend, who recently became a yoga instructor herself. Fave yogis at the moment are Jason Crandell and Tiffany Cruickshank - both with strong vinyasa classes with good lengths of meditation at the end. 

It has been such a joy to find yoga again that I'm going to have to figure out some way to squeeze a couple more classes into the week when I'm back running. If you haven't already discovered yogaglo, I highly recommend it! 

xoxo me

Thursday, September 5, 2013

I've finally had a shower

No, not because I enjoy avoiding having clean hair and skin,but because it's been a couple of days since I've had the energy to do so. Unfortunately, with my plan of it being a new week for new wins has already fallen flat on its face, but not of any fault of mine. 

Well actually, Tuesday was a bit of a failure as I enjoyed a fabulous 4 hour work lunch to celebrate by 30th, a colleague's babe and yet another colleague's wedding. My plan to to only have a main, which turned into an entree, main, dessert plus wine. It was so so wrong, yet absolutely delicious! 

This is definitely not directly related, but I'm sure this is me paying for it in some sort of "karma-tic" way. By the time we got back to the office late Tuesday afternoon, I started feeling decidedly average. When we got home, I skipped dinner and turned in early at about 9pm. The next morning, I woke up with a high grade fever and called in sick. Despite taking panadol, the fever wouldn't budge. Eventually, my husband came home early and took be to see the doctor who confirmed it as a chest infection. Chest infection?? CHEST INFECTION!?!? Where in the blazes did that come from? The doctor threw some antibiotics at me and I was back home in bed. 

I'm trying to google to workout when I can start exercising again but I'm getting answers all over the place. I might have to ask my doctor again. It is a little frustrating as hubby and I have signed up for the 9km bridge run. While I really want to run it, I will walk it if I have to or pass on it completely to avoid developing some sort of long term damage. 

So there might not be too much 12wbt related things on the blog in the next week (or weeks) to come, but I'll try to post on some other interesting things that come up in my life!

Sunday, September 1, 2013

[12wbt] Travelling on the 12wbt

My sister got married on the weekend on a gloriously sunny and warm Saturday afternoon. My family and family friends were flying in for the wedding and we also have friends in Melbourne who we hardly get to see. It was going to be a massive weekend. So, before heading off, I had a plan of attacked all worked out:

> Friday: We were flying to Melbourne over dinner. Lucky for me, it was a Jetstar flight, meaning no plane food provided! The goal was to have a snack in the arvo, get something healthy at the airport before getting on the plane, land in Melbourne and meet a friend at Max Brenner's for a drink, but only order tea. 

> Saturday: SSS in the morning, get some fruit/yoghurt to have as breakkie while getting my hair done. Ceremony at 11, canapes at 12. Avoid canapes. They were going to have a choice menu so I thought I could skip the entree, order the best sounding main, skip or only have a nibble of dessert. Go out and meet more friends for dinner. 

> Sunday: Post-wedding breakfast at a place unknown to me. Order a sensible breakfast. Buy something sensible for lunch to eat on the flight home. Have some sort of soup and bread for dinner. 

So things didn't go 100% to plan I have to say. But it didn't go terribly. Here's how it all went down...
> Friday: Bought sushi - three pieces salmon, three pieces prawns and two mini (cooked) tuna slices. Gave in to temptation and also bought a mini tin of Pringles, which I halved with hubby. Also had two oreo cookies which I discovered stashed in my bag. Met my mate at Max Brenner, ordered green tea and one chocolate. 

> Saturday: 8km run around the Tan. Punnet of strawberries and tub of Vaalia yoghurt for breakkie. Had three canapes, ordered a salad as entree, fish with a bean puree for main and then went halvesies on dessert with hubby (we split 1 lamington, 1 mini cupcake, 1 mini lemon meringue tart,  2 macaroons). Ordered a bento-style box dinner at a Taiwanese cafe where the main contents were crispy honey beef and steamed white rice. Discovered family friends were not going to post-wedding breakfast, met at San Churro and had, Churros. 

> Sunday: Breakfast was a buffet at the hotel the bride and groom stayed at. I should have just gone with a small serve of muesli and yoghurt but ended up with hot food. I don't think I went overboard and we walked 30 mins back into the city when we were done so I didn't feel too horrible. I then had a mini cupcake and bought some takeaway lunch before heading to the airport. Lunch was consumed late on the plane and it was rice with some Indonesian dishes from one of my fave takeaway joints. Upon arrive home, it was straight to the shop. Let's say dinner was not nutritious at all and consisted of a packet of vege chips (but there's veges in it!) and about 6 bits of a malaysian peanut/sugar snack that probably comes in at about 100 calories each.

I'm not sure if I feel terrible, or if I actually feel ok about the weekend. Despite what I ate on Friday, which exceeded Michelle Bridge's recommended 1200 calories, it was still under my BMR and I had done some extra walking that day. Plus, I was proud to have ordered only tea and one bit of chocolate while at Max Brenner. Saturday started off strong but again, rather than getting a hot chocolate as well as churros, I stuck with tea. I probably did crack the overall daily caloric intake quite well, but it was a good day. Sunday, I'm not quote as proud of. The only win being actually admitting to myself at night that I was no longer hungry for dinner because I had so much snacks, and didn't have dinner just for the sake of having dinner. Can't say it felt like the healthiest thing to do, but I guess it comes down to the why eat when you aren't hungry?

So I've decided, win or lose over the weekend, it's now a new week, week four to be exact, and it's a new week for new wins. 

xoxo me