Progress is progress

Since Thursday we've been dealing with colds at our house.  First Caitlyn I had to keep home from daycare on Thursday and then on the weekend Bianca started getting really unwell and this morning is still home off school.  And now I have a slight cold too.  Sigh!  Come-on spring / summer - time to come now!  So no walking right now! :-(.  Oh well.

On the up side, I have been pretty good at sticking to my better eating.  Even when I had to make cupcakes on Friday for a bake sale I only tasted one small cupcake without any frosting / caramel and it was simply just to make sure it was cooked well enough.

Now during August I lost 1.5kg.  It isn't a whole lot, but considering I haven't been doing too much exercise I think it is pretty good.  And there were 2 weeks where I fell off the wagon.  And to be honest, those diets where you lose loads in a really short period of time - they don't work.  So I'm pretty pleased.

Another thing I have noticed - I used to often have an afternoon nap feeling incredibly tired.  But now, I have not had an afternoon nap for a while.  And I'm thinking it is because I eat less rubbish.  So that is a really positive sign for me.

So all in all I'm making progress, even if it is slow progress, but progress is progress!

Taking the first step

I have taken the first step in getting fitter. 

A friend has been doing the Couch to 5k programme and it seems a good way to get into running (note I didn't say easy, I said good).  It is good because it is a slow and gradual process to go from nothing to being able to manage a 5k run.  And I love that it has podcasts you can download to your ipod so I'll have a little voice guiding me when I should walk and when I should run and so on. 

One of my biggest problems with starting this is my shoes.  I have 2 pairs of running type shoes.  A pair I've had for a while and a newer pair.  Usually I wear the older pair when I go for my walks and they are okay.  I didn't choose the shoes for any particular purpose and gave no real thought to what should go into choosing shoes.  The other day I went for my walk and I wore the newer pair and they are okay for around the house or strolling around the mall, but halfway with my walk (the one where I try and walk a bit faster) my toes became numb.  So not good!  No way that I'm able to even attempt a run with this.

So today (upon a friend's suggestion) I went to a place where they looked at my feet.  They look at your arch, they look at your stride and whether your ankles roll inwards or outwards or are straight.  I never knew choosing shoes were so technical.  But there you go.  They also look at where I put most of my weight when I walk and they use this sensor mat and then they fit you into shoes based on that and make you walk on a treadmill and then they do this video thing that shoes them whether your feet are straight or not and so they keep going until they find a pair of shoes that fit as well as they can. 

I didn't end up buying my shoes from them because the cost was a bit above my price range and since I'm a beginner I can't justify spending the amount they were charging. 

My friend then pointed me to a great site.  She's ordered from them before and they are reliable and they were significantly cheaper than the store. 

So now I've made the first step.  Soon my shoes will be here.  And that means I will be all set.  And to justify the cost, I simply must work hard at my goal. 

All set for tomorrow

Tonight I cooked cottage pie.  I don't cook with oil and it was pretty much just mince with some mixed vegetables added in and then of course potato.  Oh and of course I found a Continental flavour mix that I added just to give it a nicer flavour.  Typically we don't cook with loads of salt, and over time we actually got used to the taste of food containing less salt.  One thing I noticed though is that there was around 125ml of fat that I poured off the mince before I added the vegetables and the flavour mix.

I still have to get into the habit of actually pre-planning meals, but at least I gave some thought to meals tomorrow.  I want and need to get back on track. Now if somebody can help me understand these food labels that would be great - what quantity protein and carb in each meal?  Do I look at the per serving numbers or the per 100g numbers?  It's like a whole foreign world to me.

And of course I definitely need to go walking again tomorrow.  Currently my route is 3.7km and I'm trying to see a different route so that I could work on increasing it to 5km. 

This past weekend a friend was doing a 5km family fun run.  And I thought that maybe I need to look around for another 5km fun run later this year and work towards that.  This way I'll actually work towards something.  And then maybe I'll get Terence to buy me some running shoes for my birthday.  Nothing too fancy, but something that is better than I currently have.

Falling off the wagon...

Urgh, and just as I thought I had a good thing going I fell off the wagon.  Last week on Monday and Tuesday were the days I helped the sheep.  Sadly she couldn't be saved. :-(.  I do feel a bit better when the SPCA inspector (when I went to buy cat food) explained that when sheep go down, in all likelihood they won't be getting back up again).  So I know I did everything I possibly could.  I helped to make her more comfortable and I brought her water.  There wasn't more I could do. 

Wednesday Bianca had her 2 monthly hospital visit and that means travel for an hour to Wellington hospital, doing blood test, having the appointment and driving an hour back again.  And unfortunately this is when the wheels of the wagon started coming off.  I was completely unprepared with my meals. 

And then from Thursday until yesterday I have been working incredibly hard to finish the presents that the group of parents were organising for the netball teacher to say thank you for coaching our kids.  I went through about 600 photos I took during the season, copied all those to disk for the teacher, made a certificate which I put in a frame alongside the team photo and I managed to make a scrapbook with a selection of photos to summarise the netball season.  And because I'm me and I have a tendency to go completely overboard I suddenly had a thought.  I had some extra photos and wouldn't it be cool if I gave each girl a selection of photos showing them in action and what if I actually made extra copies of the team photo and put it in a cardboard folder with the names at the bottom - that would be cool.  And so after many hours, I was finally ready.

But unfortunately it does mean that with everything going on I have not had time to focus on my eating and walking (and it didn't help that last week we had snow and lots of rain and freezing cold temperatures).  I wonder why I didn't wait until the summer to start my new lifestyle plans...

So between today and tomorrow I'll need to sit down again and get my head around a plan.  It is not so easy / simple coming up with the eating plans because some of the things like wholemeal pasta cost quite a bit more than the white flour ones and buying things like protein shakes is going to be out of the question because these things would just throw our budget completely out.  And of course my kids eat fairly well (they even eat broccoli), but there are limits and we are working on that, but they won't be happy to eat very different things all of a sudden.  So I'll need to keep thinking. 

A not so efficient day...

I didn't do any exercise yesterday.  I had Caitlyn with me the whole day and so that makes it hard to actually go walking.  But I was going to haul out the Wii Fit and do some of the things on there.  Unfortunately my day started dealing with an unwell sheep and it ended up taking a large portion of my day.  That and house cleaning.  Yes, the never ending house cleaning.  Sigh!  I did stay on track with eating as well as I could (even though I haven't yet had a chance to sit down and do meal plans).  I went to bed at 10pm after being up and busy the whole day for 15 hours straight with dropping Bianca off at school, cleaning the house, doing some ironing, help with the sheep, looking after Caitlyn and... and... and...  Life sure gets busy sometimes...

This morning my legs are sore.  And it must be from walking to and from the sheep a large portion of yesterday.  And at times carrying around 4L of water.  And trying to roll a sheep onto her tummy.  So I guess if that counts as some exercise then I've done some exercise :-).

What I ate today

So I think today was not too bad eating-wise, but I'm still struggling with the whole eating snacks of both a protein as well as a carb during the day. 

For breakfast I had my usual weet-bix and milk (no sugar).  But what am I supposed to do for a protein?  Hmmm - I'm not really much of a meat eater in the morning (other than perhaps bacon which would totally defeat what I'm trying to achieve).  Maybe I could add a boiled egg?  But can I eat eggs every day?  I'm also not big on protein bars because they are so expensive and that just pushes our budget completely out. 

I had a banana in between. 

For lunch I had a breadroll with greens, spring onion and smoked salmon.

I had another banana later on.

And for supper we had chicken tacos.  I had 2 tortillas (lower fat ones), some chicken breast cut into pieces, some greens, spring onion, half a small avo, 1 tomato and some taco sauce.

And I had more water than yesterday.  And my usual cup of hot chocolate (as described yesterday).

I think I might be slightly better prepared tomorrow. 

What I ate yesterday

I really need to start planning my meals ahead of time.  I think later today I will sit down and attempt to do this for this coming week. 

Yesterday for breakfast I had weet-bix with some milk.  No sugar.  I had a cup of hot chocolate - the kind you make with water and a little bit of milk added and I don't add sugar.  It has less sugar than the typical ones you make with milk. Hmmm, I'll need to find something as a protein I think...


I took Bianca to netball so didn't have any snacks in the morning.

For lunch I had 2 small wholemeal breadrolls and had some greens (a combination of rocket, spinach and some other greens), some smoked salmon, a half a small avocado and spring onion. 

I had a banana later in the afternoon.

For supper we had some pork steak with mixed vegetables, a bit of beetroot and a jacket potato.  I did make a cheese sauce which is a cheese sauce powder mixed with half a cup of water and half a cup of milk and I added a bit of Edam cheese some garlic, peri peri and pepper. 

I had another cup of hot chocolate after supper.

Oh and I had some water during the day, but I don't think it was as much as I really should be having.

So I really need to sit down and think about meals this coming week to make sure I have sufficient protein added for each meal.  I think lunch was okay and supper was okay, but breakfast and snacks not as good as it can be...  So lots and lots to learn.

The Start

There is always a start to a new journey.  And this is the start to my new journey.  I am tired of being fat and unfit and it is time to do something to get myself on the road to a healthier lifestyle. 

I need to lose about 23kg.  And I would love to eventually be able to enter a running race, but that will take time.  For now I will just get back to walking.   I started a route last time I did a bit of walking and it is around 3.7km and right now it takes me about 40 minutes to walk that.  It is a nice route.  A relaxing route past houses and trees and listening to the birds chirping away in the trees.  And on a sunny day you simply can't beat that.  I will also be investigating possibly going swimming again, but I'll need to see what options there are at the local indoor swimming pool.

I'll also have to plan some meals.  We don't do too bad I guess - we don't cook with salt, we rarely use oil and rather use our George Foreman grill to grill meat or we bake things in the oven.  We steam our veggies in the microwave or eat things like carrots raw.  We cut down on drinking diet coke.  We don't drink coffee, but I do have a sweet tooth and that is my downfall unfortunately.  And the kids and I love baking which doesn't help to stop the temptations (sigh!).   And I think we probably don't choose the best carbohydrates all of the time.  So I have a lot to learn about making good eating / meal choices. 

I believe that if I can just keep going I will succeed.  After all if this inspirational lady can do it, then I can too.   So here I go - wish me luck! :-)