Just checking in

Hi all!
Just a quick post to point out that I'm still here and I haven't fallen off the wagon yet.  Nor am I clinging on for dear life.  I'm actually sitting quite comfortably in the driver's seat

How's that for analogy?!  Ooh yeah!  =D

I did say that I would have some sporadic posting until the end of January, it's probably going to extend a little longer, at least though February and possibly March... Urgh  :(  But, it can't be helped.

So, update:

• I'm still logging my food every day that I can access MFP
• I'm also doing some exercise each week where I can - just small stuff, like walking 3km or thereabouts (just <2mi)
• I'm concentrating on eating good food - like having salads on my sandwich, or steamed vege as a side to dinner
• I'm doing my best to prepare and cook actual food - and not just microwave and eat an entire box of frozen chicken nuggets (this is in no way an admission that I may have ACTUALLY have done this...)
• I mentioned that I'm upping my vege intake?  Okay... good
• Pre-logging my foods the day before if I can, so I am able to keep in mind my calorie limit.
• Oh yeah! going to bed earlier so I can get enough sleep and not get the "I'm-tired-hungries"

There's probably more, but I'll stop there and make a better post later (mayb not til nxt wk?).
Oh, and update monthly challenge and weigh-in results pages.  Eventually, but soonish.

Seeyas!

Incidental Exercise

Friday

In my effort to increase my fitness, I’ve been walking.  So far, I’ve been aiming for 30 minutes of walking everyday.  Well, that is, on the days that aren’t hot, humid, rainy, or I’m stuck at mum’s!  I missed all walks since Sunday actually, for all of those reasons.  The heat broke on Monday and we had the most terrific storm.  It rained pretty solidly for a few hours, but it wasn’t a heavy downpour – you know, torrential – it was just rain.  The best part was all the lightning and electrical activity.  That lasted well into the evening, so, I missed my opportunity on Monday.  Tue – Thurs saw me stuck at mum’s.  She’s broken her arm and I have to do a lot of things for her, which is a whole big list of chores and tasks.

So… that left today (Friday)!  And, to make up for it, I walked twice.  Isn’t that great?!  Okay, I’m cheating.  I technically did walk twice, but my total distance is equivalent to one walk. J  I needed to go to the supermarket because my fridge was empty.  Very empty.  So off I set with my backpack and reusable green bags.  Turns out my local suburban shopping centre – one which has an Aldi’s, Coles (another supermarket), a couple of ‘Bargain Bin’ shops, a homewares shop, some banks, a medical centre, chemist, newsagents, jewellers, etc – is only 1.7km (1 mi) from my house.  Took me around 18 min to walk one way at 11’05 min/km (I have NO idea how to convert that into some sort of imperial equivalent, sorry!).  I thought that was pretty good to be honest.  Then of course, I walked back.  Same distance, but with 3 bags of shopping.  Thank goodness I brought my backpack! I still ended up with two bags I carried, but they were things like bread or a pack of clothes pegs.  I weighed it when I got home:  on the return journey, I was carrying an extra 16.3kg of weight (36 lb)!!  Whoa!  That brought my total weight to around the 121kg mark (267.6lb). 

It was a bit slower going – 11’40 min/km – but not impossible.  It was uncomfortable to realise that if I wasn’t careful, I could be carrying that extra weight on my body everyday, but I would just learn to accept it and function with it.  So I cheered myself up by thinking that at some point in the future, this extra weight I’m carrying will be the weight I’ve lost. 

I also decided to lift the bags in my hands as I was walking – kind of pseudo dumbbells.  I would have said the bags were around 1.5-2kg (3.3-4.4lb).  Because of their awkward shape and dangly factor I couldn’t do proper curls, but I did sort of dumbbell rows? with them.  Google tells me they're called 'Upright Dummbell Row'.  Or actually, I think I was doing something that was in between a dummbell row and an upright curl.  I was pulling my arms back like so... 

http://fitjunky.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/woman_dumbbell_XSmall.jpg

But not by leaning forward.  Just standing upright.  

So, I don’t know if I actually was doing anything effective enough to exercise my arms, but I felt the muscles of my arms working together as I moved.  I dunno, I’m liking thinking it was doing something! :D

So, it looks like I have a way of getting in some ‘incidental exercise’ into my day/week.  If I ever have to do a big shop then I’ll take the car, but if I only need to pick up a few things for the next few days’ worth of cooking, then I’m going to work on it being on foot!  Might stop me from over spending too, if there’s a limit to how much I can carry back.

Oh!  But if I ever do get carried away, or get too lazy to walk on the way back, I can always catch a bus to my house, there are tonnes of busses that pass along the road to my stop. : D

6. Jan. 14

So far I’ve been sticking reasonably well to the list I set myself last week.  Sticking to the water drinking has been really easy because it’s been so hot!  Have been getting through the water and unsweetened ice-tea like crazy.  And grapes.  Anything to keep me hydrated.

I’ve also stuck to the 1/2hr walks pretty well.  I skipped Saturday because it was far too hot!!  No way was I going outside in the heat!  Besides which, we went out that night for a friend’s 30^th birthday party and danced until 4.30 in the morning.  I think 7 hours of dancing more than makes up for not going for a walk, right? : D

Even yesterday wasn’t the best weather.  It was hot all day, thankfully not as bad as Saturday, but so much more humid :-X  Give me dry heat any day!  Then at about midday, smokehaze from a bushfire that’s been burning across the bay for a week now, drifted over Brisbane.  Pretty much city-wide.  Gave a beautiful red colour to the sunset.  I tried to take a picture but I couldn’t quite get the right angle.  This was uploaded to a facebook page I’m on. 

https://www.facebook.com/SevereWeatherAustralia

Despite the smoke haze however, I still went out for a walk.  A much slower pace than I usually go at, because I was still a little tired from Sat night!  But I’m glad I went out.  It was around 5 o’clock this afternoon and I was feeling drowsy.  So it was either doze off on my balcony or go for a walk.  So I went for the latter! :)  I took my camera with me to try and capture the smokehaze.  I’m not sure how well you can see the smoke in the distance, but it’s there!   

I’m not asthmatic, so I wasn’t worried about that as I walked.  The route I took is the one I was doing back in October when I first started my “I surely must have time to walk for 20 minutes in my day” thing.  2.2 km (1.3mi).  Not a huge distance, but keeping up into the habit is a start, right?  And better to walk any distance than doze on the balcony, no?

OvercastDuckling

First Post of the New Year

Welcome to 2014!

I got sick of my home computer being a pain and snuck into work to get my laptop from there to use.  It was just too frustrating not being able to calorie count or upload and track my walks.  So, I took my work laptop home.  And I’m so glad I have.  My posting will still be sporadic, however, my ability to calorie count is greatly enhanced.

Well, it’s a hot day today and around the state.  Currently, it’s 33*C (91*F) where I am.  I’m managing to avoid it by sitting on my balcony where there’s a lovely breeze happening, so it feels a lot cooler.  Lucky me!  Everyone else in Queensland: not so lucky.  But boy am I glad I’m not in my old town though.  Their temperatures are hovering near 46^oC (117^oF) today.  OUCH!  Remember of course this is in the shade too.  I imagine that in the sun it would be closer to 60^oC (140^oF).  I remember one very hot day heading into the sun with the thermometer just for shits and giggles and it was saying 55*C (130*F).  Farming town too, so there’d be lots of people who are working outside in that heat.  O_O

This hot weather also means that everyone’s flocking to the council pool, so swimming is still out of the question.  When the office at work opens up again next week, I’m going to ask if I can go in and use the pool at work while we’re still on official holidays (we start up again Monday 20^th Jan).  For starters it’s free for me to use and secondly, won’t be busy and clogged with swimmers.

It also makes going for a walk a little bit more uncomfortable.  It’s very hot during the day (obviously) but even in the evening 6-7pm, it’s still very hot.  But I’ve been managing.  I’ve gone for a walk everyday since (and including) Tuesday.  It doesn’t seem like much yet, I get it, but for now, it’s a start right?  Averaging 30 minutes and 2.8km (1.75mi).

I even managed to go for a walk last night after dinner.  I just piss-farted around all day yesterday that by the time I remembered I should go for a walk it was already 7pm – sunset.  So I took the opportunity to make dinner and then wait until after dinner to go for a walk.  Because we got a spat of rain I ended up having to wait until 11pm to go.  I have the benefit of living on a main road (4 lane main road) so it is very well lit up on both sides of the road.  I set the Nike+ Fitness app on my Nano for 20 minutes, but it turned out the distance I wanted to walk ends up being 25 minutes, so I’m happy with that.  Gives me another option of a 20 minute walk for when I have “no time”.  I also chose to walk the direction which took me UP a huge hill.  Urgh! Lol, I could have walked up the other side of the road which is shallower and then walked down the steep hill on my way back, but I was worried with the wet pavement it would be too slippery and hazardous to go downwards. 

So, that’s me and what I’m up to.  Don’t know when I’ll get the opportunity to post again, but hopefully soon.

Best of luck for 2014 – my year to get my dream!

Hot-to-very-hot-mostly-sunny-isolated-shower-and-thunderstorms-later-this-afternoon-and eveningDuckling