Afternoon all. Firstly, Happy Independence Day just in case this finds its way to America (I've no idea how but it has before). We will forever remember this historic day as the day when Will Smith saved the world from an alien invasion.
Moving on.
Within the last 3 weeks alone I have managed to shift 7lbs (half a stone). This has been due to attending Slimming World classes again, and sticking rigidly to a somewhat demanding fitness routine. "I'm chuffed" doesn't quite cut it right now.
I go on holiday to Costa Brava in Spain on Sunday with my friend Erin so I'm hoping to maintain my weight through making good food choices and I'd imagine we'll do quite a bit of walking - I'm not expecting to lose any more weight that week because I'm expecting to spend half the holiday drinking. Standard.
This half stone though is a good boost in the right direction. I set myself a target 3 weeks ago to lose a stone before I go to Magaluf in August, and I'm pleased that I'm half way there already. I know my little break next week will set me back a bit but it's still very achievable if I keep doing what I've been doing.
What I'd like to share with you on this occasion is the fitness regime I've been doing my best to stick to. Eating healthily is only half of the battle. Yes, you can still lose weight just by doing that, but an exercise routine will really affect your progress, in a positive way, if you're doing it properly.
So on a typical week, this is what I aim to do, exercise-wise:
MONDAY : 1hr kettlecise class.
TUESDAY: 1hr swim (64 lengths = 1 mile)
WEDNESDAY: 1hr bums&tums class, 1hr boxercise class, 45min aqua zumba class, 30min swim.
THURSDAY: 30min spin class, 1hr kettlecise class, 1hr zumba class, 45min swim.
FRIDAY: 30min spin class.
SATURDAY AND/OR SUNDAY: 1hr30min gym session, 45 min swim.
And I try to fit in the odd swim or gym session in between if I feel I'm up to it and have the time.
I know what you're thinking... some of those nights look brutal. This is only what I aim for. Today, for example, I can barely walk from Monday and Tuesday nights' sessions. Because of that, I'm only going to the aqua zumba and swim afterwards. I don't want to do myself any damage but at the same time I'm not going to do nothing. This ties in with one of my previous posts - don't expect to get anywhere until you can get past your own excuses. If I don't feel up to a class that I know is going to be too much for me that night (kettlecise and bums&tums are pretty brutal) I'll go a swim instead, or try to hit the gym in the afternoon. At the very least, I make sure that I am doing AT LEAST 30-45mins of exercise every day. That, combined with my healthy eating plan, has been the reason for my success thus far.
I am currently at the lightest I have been in a year. I can't quite see it yet, but the scales don't lie, and I'm hoping that it will start to reflect in my clothing pretty damn soon.
If, like me, you're ridiculously unfit and/ or you find it hard to feel motivated to exercise, your options depend on how much money you are willing to spend. Your obvious cheaper option is to find a friend who you know can motivate you and do things with them. Go swimming, running, walking, do a fitness dvd together. Having someone there to motivate you can make the world of difference.
The next step up is the path I've chosen - classes at the local gym. Attending a class run by a gym instructor means that for that hour or half-hour you are exercising safely, at a good pace and for a continuous amount of time. It is easy to spend an hour in the gym and only work out at 50% for 20 minutes of that. Attending a class means that you have a model to follow and pressure to keep going. Try to find a gym that offers something along the lines of a class pass, where you can attend as many as you like, otherwise this option can be pricey.
Another option, if you feel it's worth the money and can afford it, are personal trainers. They can provide dramatic results by using individual plans best suited to your fitness level and needs and providing motivation to work harder than you would by yourself.
Ultimately the decision should be based on what you feel you can do and what you are aiming to achieve. Not being able to afford the gym is no excuse. If you're still using excuses like that then you are not truly dedicated to the idea of losing weight, and if you're not dedicated to the idea then you will not be successful regardless of whether or not you have a gym membership. Let's be serious, how many of us have joined the gym as a new years resolution, gone twice and then the card is forgotten about? I rest my case.
Try a powerwalk with a friend a few nights a week, a few classes or a trial gym membership and see what works for you. I've met some lovely ladies in the last 6 weeks by attending classes and would never have thought that I'd look forward to my evenings in a sweaty dance studio, but I do. I can swim further and faster than I've ever been able to, I can survive a spin class (unless it's Andy's class, brutal!!) and I can do sit-ups with a 4kg weight when I couldn't do one on its own before.
And if I can do it, anyone can do it.
x
Wednesday 4 July 2012
Friday 22 June 2012
Jennifer MacDonald BEd (Hons) ;)
So, I graduated this week. It was a fab day and I only looked big in half of the photos. Trust me, this is a huge achievement!
The week before I had my graduation ball, which I was also worried about. Thankfully, a lovely personal shopper named Rachel was on hand to find me the perfect dress and stop me having a stroke in the process.
For anyone reading who doesn't know me personally, that's me in the middle. :)
Essentially, food is not my issue at the moment. For that last two three months I've been watching what I've been eating slimming-world style. As far as possible. My downfall has been the booze. Since I became single I've had the urge to be out all the time. I don't know why, all I know is it has been really good for me. But not good for my plans to lose weight.
Gradually though, I've worked out ways to make my alcohol intake not count for so much on the scales. Switching wine by the bottle for vodka with diet mixers was the first step. Nights where I would usually go out for a drink which turned into a bottle of wine on a weeknight with no plan to do much afterwards have stopped - I've realised I get just as much satisfaction going out and just sticking to diet coke, because ultimately it was the company that mattered.
Working this stuff out has helped me hugely on my struggle to losing weight. Without exaggeration, I would say I'm out of the house around 6 days a week. If I was constantly fretting over counting calories, would that be happening? In all honesty, probably not.
We all have so many excuses. "I'll start on Monday", that's my favourite. If you're not willing to start that day, then you'll never be willing to give it your all. "I've got too much of a social life", there's nothing wrong with enjoying a weekend, or the occasional weeknight. If you stop yourself from enjoying yourself you'll never stick it out in the long run. It shouldn't feel like a chore. "I'm never home to eat/ I don't have time to cook", bollocks. I spend a couple of hours a week cooking and packing up into tubs, where they go swiftly into the freezer. That way on the nights where I'm running around needing just to grab something (which happens to be nearly every night...) it's a matter of picking something and sticking it into that wonderful contraption called the microwave. Hey presto, fine dining and good food choices in a single portion tub.
My point is that the longer you make excuses, the longer you're kidding yourself. The social life was my excuse, and now I'm working round it. I even went out one Friday night to a local nightclub, sober, and it was the best night I'd had in a while. This week alone I've had a dvd night with a friend which included an alcoholic beverage or two and a share of a munchie box (luckily it was not appetising so it was easy to turn down more than a piece of pakora and a few chips!), a graduation 'meal' (2 glasses of champers and a bacon buttie, cheers mum) which finished in the bowling with, yup you guessed it, another bottle of champagne, and an evening out at the pub and a nightclub last night. Tonight I'm looking forward to a night out with my soon-to-be teacher colleagues and most likely more than a few drinks on Saturday night. I've accepted that I have a busy social life and I enjoy eating out and having a drink (or ten) - it's how you work around that that counts. The good food choices every other meal, not drinking when I don't need to and attending classes at the gym whenever I can fit them in.
Now that I've got past my excuses, I'm well on the road to doing this properly. I'm finally below the 12stone mark for the first time in over a year, and I intend to keep going the way I've started.
Back at Slimming World properly, attending classes on a Monday night, and I'm hoping this will simply speed up the process. I've been managing on my own fairly well but there's nothing like a good kick up the backside to spur you on a bit.
Ciao x
The week before I had my graduation ball, which I was also worried about. Thankfully, a lovely personal shopper named Rachel was on hand to find me the perfect dress and stop me having a stroke in the process.
For anyone reading who doesn't know me personally, that's me in the middle. :)
Essentially, food is not my issue at the moment. For that last two three months I've been watching what I've been eating slimming-world style. As far as possible. My downfall has been the booze. Since I became single I've had the urge to be out all the time. I don't know why, all I know is it has been really good for me. But not good for my plans to lose weight.
Gradually though, I've worked out ways to make my alcohol intake not count for so much on the scales. Switching wine by the bottle for vodka with diet mixers was the first step. Nights where I would usually go out for a drink which turned into a bottle of wine on a weeknight with no plan to do much afterwards have stopped - I've realised I get just as much satisfaction going out and just sticking to diet coke, because ultimately it was the company that mattered.
Working this stuff out has helped me hugely on my struggle to losing weight. Without exaggeration, I would say I'm out of the house around 6 days a week. If I was constantly fretting over counting calories, would that be happening? In all honesty, probably not.
We all have so many excuses. "I'll start on Monday", that's my favourite. If you're not willing to start that day, then you'll never be willing to give it your all. "I've got too much of a social life", there's nothing wrong with enjoying a weekend, or the occasional weeknight. If you stop yourself from enjoying yourself you'll never stick it out in the long run. It shouldn't feel like a chore. "I'm never home to eat/ I don't have time to cook", bollocks. I spend a couple of hours a week cooking and packing up into tubs, where they go swiftly into the freezer. That way on the nights where I'm running around needing just to grab something (which happens to be nearly every night...) it's a matter of picking something and sticking it into that wonderful contraption called the microwave. Hey presto, fine dining and good food choices in a single portion tub.
My point is that the longer you make excuses, the longer you're kidding yourself. The social life was my excuse, and now I'm working round it. I even went out one Friday night to a local nightclub, sober, and it was the best night I'd had in a while. This week alone I've had a dvd night with a friend which included an alcoholic beverage or two and a share of a munchie box (luckily it was not appetising so it was easy to turn down more than a piece of pakora and a few chips!), a graduation 'meal' (2 glasses of champers and a bacon buttie, cheers mum) which finished in the bowling with, yup you guessed it, another bottle of champagne, and an evening out at the pub and a nightclub last night. Tonight I'm looking forward to a night out with my soon-to-be teacher colleagues and most likely more than a few drinks on Saturday night. I've accepted that I have a busy social life and I enjoy eating out and having a drink (or ten) - it's how you work around that that counts. The good food choices every other meal, not drinking when I don't need to and attending classes at the gym whenever I can fit them in.
Now that I've got past my excuses, I'm well on the road to doing this properly. I'm finally below the 12stone mark for the first time in over a year, and I intend to keep going the way I've started.
Back at Slimming World properly, attending classes on a Monday night, and I'm hoping this will simply speed up the process. I've been managing on my own fairly well but there's nothing like a good kick up the backside to spur you on a bit.
Ciao x
Friday 27 April 2012
Back to Business.
Hola.
So it's been a few months since I posted. I haven't really been trying very hard to lose weight - I've had a lot of things going on. Essentially, this isn't a valid excuse, but it's the one I'm going to use anyway.
4th year has been horrifically tough. I've had some fecking awful assignments to do, a dissertation and a very challenging 6-week placement. The dissertation really did take control of my life for 4 months or so... it turned me into a person I never thought I could be. I was grumpy, tired, stressed out and not appreciative enough to the people that were around me at the time. And when you feel like that, the last thing you want to worry about is your weight. I stopped doing all the good exercising I had been doing in the months leading up to Christmas, and I started sitting in all day every day in front of the laptop. Convenience food started to become a habit as well because, in all honesty, I just couldn't be bothered cooking or looking after myself. When you're doing something like a dissertation the last thing you want is a good healthy meal - you crave all sorts of junk ten times worse than you normally do. That probably didn't help my mood any more either come to think of it.
Just as I thought it was all coming to an end, the teaching placement started. I'm talking half 6 rises, in school for 8 and there until 6 at night. It's really hard going. So of course, when I come home with yet more things to do (piles of marking, evaluations, general folder work, no fun) the last thing on my mind was standing in the kitchen cooking a diet-friendly meal. No. I practically had the local indian takeaway's number off by heart.
Top that off with my relationship of nearly 2 years ending and it has been a really, really tough 8 months. With it being so out of the blue I just had no idea what to do with myself. I'd go through complete mood swings where one minute I was fine and think of the freedom I was going to have, I'm going to do all these classes and projects that I would have otherwise said no to, I'm going to lose weight and look great and never look back; the next I'd be sitting staring into space for days on end not wanting to move from bed and just wanting to gorge on anything with a calorie count in the thousands.
A healthy mindset is half the battle when trying for a healthy body. It's taken time but I'm ready to go again. My head is down and I'm focused. So I'm starting this up again. I'll need to look back at the recipes that I posted previously, but I'll have plenty more coming your way. Including diet coke chicken, which a lot of people ask me about. I haven't done myself too much damage, but I haven't exactly kept up the good work I had done previously.
When I started at Slimming World back in September 2011, I was 12st 7.5lbs. I then got down to 12st 1lb. Now, I'm sitting at roughly 12st 4lbs. I have graduation in 7 weeks and a holiday in 14 weeks. And I'll be damned if I'm looking like this for either.
Check back soon!
Jen x
So it's been a few months since I posted. I haven't really been trying very hard to lose weight - I've had a lot of things going on. Essentially, this isn't a valid excuse, but it's the one I'm going to use anyway.
4th year has been horrifically tough. I've had some fecking awful assignments to do, a dissertation and a very challenging 6-week placement. The dissertation really did take control of my life for 4 months or so... it turned me into a person I never thought I could be. I was grumpy, tired, stressed out and not appreciative enough to the people that were around me at the time. And when you feel like that, the last thing you want to worry about is your weight. I stopped doing all the good exercising I had been doing in the months leading up to Christmas, and I started sitting in all day every day in front of the laptop. Convenience food started to become a habit as well because, in all honesty, I just couldn't be bothered cooking or looking after myself. When you're doing something like a dissertation the last thing you want is a good healthy meal - you crave all sorts of junk ten times worse than you normally do. That probably didn't help my mood any more either come to think of it.
Just as I thought it was all coming to an end, the teaching placement started. I'm talking half 6 rises, in school for 8 and there until 6 at night. It's really hard going. So of course, when I come home with yet more things to do (piles of marking, evaluations, general folder work, no fun) the last thing on my mind was standing in the kitchen cooking a diet-friendly meal. No. I practically had the local indian takeaway's number off by heart.
Top that off with my relationship of nearly 2 years ending and it has been a really, really tough 8 months. With it being so out of the blue I just had no idea what to do with myself. I'd go through complete mood swings where one minute I was fine and think of the freedom I was going to have, I'm going to do all these classes and projects that I would have otherwise said no to, I'm going to lose weight and look great and never look back; the next I'd be sitting staring into space for days on end not wanting to move from bed and just wanting to gorge on anything with a calorie count in the thousands.
A healthy mindset is half the battle when trying for a healthy body. It's taken time but I'm ready to go again. My head is down and I'm focused. So I'm starting this up again. I'll need to look back at the recipes that I posted previously, but I'll have plenty more coming your way. Including diet coke chicken, which a lot of people ask me about. I haven't done myself too much damage, but I haven't exactly kept up the good work I had done previously.
When I started at Slimming World back in September 2011, I was 12st 7.5lbs. I then got down to 12st 1lb. Now, I'm sitting at roughly 12st 4lbs. I have graduation in 7 weeks and a holiday in 14 weeks. And I'll be damned if I'm looking like this for either.
Check back soon!
Jen x
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