Day One of 30 minute run-walk plan

So today I went out at about 5pm to attempt my first run-walk on the plan I am using.

You are meant to do a 5 minute warm up, then run 1 minute, walk one minute for the next 10 minutes, then a 5 minute cool down walk. If I was to follow this exactly, my running would start on a big fat hill. So I am going to do 10 minute warm up instead! Going by the guidelines, the first 2 days are only 20 minutes in total, but the course I am doing this walk on from my house took me 37min 50 seconds, so will work on that, just means longer warm up and cool down but still the same amount of run-walking as per the programme.

So a good start I think. Hopefully the weight loss increases with making distances shorter but incorporating a little running into it.

So now I'm all inspired to carry on with my weight loss

As much as it was getting me down while training for my walk that I wasn't losing weight, now that I have finished that and am going to start a little bit of running in my walks, I am all excited about the prospect of losing some weight. Provided my shin splints don't come back to haunt me, I usually lose weight quite fast when running.


It is a very scary thought though. all 90.5kg of me running and bouncing and wobbling all over the damn place. But I know I will lose weight much faster for running.


I have been wanting to rejoin my old gym again. They gave me a really good price on a membership, I was all set to go, then I got sick and we got lots of urgent bills, so it is on hold, but the thought of a couple of hours a week "Me Time" is very appealing.


So tonight while hubby plays on his xbox with a very over enthusiastic british kid online, his squeals and chatter coming loud and clear over hubbys' headphones, I have been looking on a site that showed a few fast food items and how much exercise you would have to do to work it off. It's quite depressing really.


Burger King Original Whopper With Cheese (770 calories)
94 minutes of swimming (slow to moderate laps). 


Wendy's Large French Fries (540 calories)
77 minutes of biking (10-11.9 mph).


Pizza Hut Large Cheese Pizza (1 slice; 320 calories) *** ( One piece??? Who the hell are they kidding???)***
39 minutes of swimming (slow to moderate laps).


So it makes you think. Normally I'd have the large fries, a burger and a drink. Not JUST the large fries OR a burger... 


As hubby was sucking on a chupa chup while I was looking at this, he wanted to know how many calories in a chupa chup vs a Big Mac. We have now established that there are approx 50calories in a chupa chup and just over 400 cal EACH for a large Mcdonalds Fries and a Big Mac. So you can eat about 17 chupa chups or one Big Mac and Fries... Personally, I'd still go for the Maccas, my mouth would get sore with all those lollipops! 


Have a good weekend :)
Nikki

I can now proudly say I have completed walking a half marathon!

Well, I did it! I walked my first half marathon!!
On Sunday morning I was up bright and early and set off on my big walk. It was cloudy and foggy but it didn't actually rain until the last 3km and by then it was kind of welcome.

I originally had hoped to complete it in under 3.5 hours, but with everything that happened in the last few weeks I was feeling pretty unprepared so changed this goal to wanting to just finish, but hoping I finished in under 4 hours. Well, I did! I did it in 3 hours 53 minutes. I was one of the last few people through but I WASN"T LAST and I finished and I    am so proud.

So my new goal is running related (and thank you Anna for that link, it will help with this goal), have drawn up a plan for run-walking building up to 30 minutes in 3 weeks, starting with running one minute, walking one minute and so on. Here's hoping it works!! Giving myself a few days off first though so my muscles come right!!

Am waiting for the website to upload all the pictures of the event, I had my photo taken soooo many times! In the mean time here are a couple that hubby took before hand, and ones I took in the car of parts of the course.

It's been awhile..

Well after that last mammoth blog entry it's been quite some time since I have updated on here. Mainly because there hasn't been a whole lot to say regarding my exercise.
Came down with what I thought was my recurring Glandular Fever. Last Sunday night when to bed with an aching arm and a hideously sore throat, woke up with glands up, chest pains, sore neck, back, hips, knee, ankles and wrist as well as the throat and arm and a headache. Oh and had no energy whatsoever. Funny that.
So I took it easy for awhile, when I was 17 I had Glandular Fever and some kind of hepatitis, and 12ish years later it still affects me when I get too run down. Feeling a lot better now though so if it was Glandular Fever, I fought it off.

So today I went for a big walk, 13.5km and I thought that was a pretty good effort seeing how little I did this week.

This time in 3 weeks I will have completed my first (walking) half marathon. After todays walk I am still rather apprehensive about it, but feeling more like I can complete it. And then some time around September or soonish after, we start trying for baby#2. So need to lose more weight! Really had thought that walking the distances I am I would have lost SOME weight, even if it hasn't been as regular as I would have liked.

Oh and the Chocolate - still only messed up once, accidently ate a (stale and very small) chocolate chip cookie at my sons' playgroup. Besides that it's been about 5 weeks now with nothing but the occasional hot chocolate.

Emotional Eating

Since I have had nothing much to post about recently, I haven't been on here a whole lot. Have had a grizzly, teething baby with a cold and now an upset tummy to contend with, along with a cold myself and hideous weather, so not much walking has been done by me lately.
I did manage a 13km walk early in the week so at least that's something!

The weigh ins' were getting me down. I cut out chocolate, I'm walking further than ever, downsized my portion sizes and yet the weight is still either staying the same, or in some cases, going up again. So I decided not to weigh myself for a few weeks. One can get pretty obsessed with      the scales, as I have found in the past

It has been 2 weeks today since I have had any chocolate, which I must say, makes me damn proud of myself. However it does bring me to discuss one thing. Emotional Eating. This is something that I have struggled with ever since I was 11. I remember the exact moment my "eating issues" started. I was at a demonstration for "Clogging" (Mock away, I don't care) and my Nana, who was my teacher, lifted up my skirt in front of everybody, to pull my top down so it was tidy, told me I have gained too much weight and needed to lose it again.

Now this is something that no one wants to hear, but especially not an 11 year old already impressionable girl. And even more so, not from your own Nana!!! It wasn't the first, or last, time she said something to this accord, but it was the time that affected me the most.

From then I was always convinced that I was fat. Even though at a lot of the time when I was younger, I was nothing of the sort. But there you go. So for the following 17 years to now, if I am sad, I eat. If I am angry, I eat. You get the idea. There is the obvious suggestions, don't have the bad food in the house, do something to distract yourself. But I have had days where (pre-baby) I decide I want a burger and chips, and it doesn't matter what anyone says, I will have my burger and chips. I even recall having fights with my hubby, who while would never tell me I need to lose weight or anything, will very nicely tell me that "WE" shouldn't really have takeaways for a 3rd time that week, but it didn't matter, I would have my takeaways, enjoy it for all of 5 minutes then spend the rest of the day feeling like crap and very disappointed in myself.

Having a baby changes a lot of this though. It's not so easy to just drop everything and drive to get some fatty goodness. And I have to say I have found that it hasn't been too hard to just not have naughty food in the house. So now I think the main time I am going to have to watch myself is buying naughty food when I am out, eg at lunchtime while in town. And if I am being totally honest with myself, this is not an "emotional" kind of eating rather than a habit. Something I am going to have to break if I am going to lose weight.

Cutting out chocolate has to be a good start. From here I am going to aim to start cutting down my sugar intake in general, but chocolate was definitely the biggest problem for me at the moment.

So that is enough of my rambling for one day. The sun has just come out and so I might make the most of it and get out for a walk while my baby is still sleeping. Any feedback/pointers regarding emotional eating are most welcome :)

Happy SUNday :)
Nikki

First 5 days with no chocolate down and did my biggest walk yet yesterday!

Well haven't had any chocolate since Sunday night and its now Friday night, go me!
Yesterday I attempted my first big walk in 2 weeks and my first walk of any kind in a week after being sick. I did my biggest walk so far! Managed 11.5 km and felt like I could have carried on but had my baby with me who had been sitting in his pram for 3 hours and was starting to get fairly over it. Who can blame him really? Anyway felt pretty good afterwards, and today felt fine too.

Am planning to get out for a big walk again on Sunday, if the weather gods play nice that is! This time I will go by myself and not have a grizzly, teething baby riding in a pram with flat tyres. Can only be good resistance training though I suppose!

Another challenge to add to the walking...

So as of Monday I am going to attempt to not eat chocolate for 12 weeks.... A HUGE challenge on my part as I really do love chocolate! It was meant to be just until the half marathon in 8 weeks, but what's another month, which will bring me to 12 weeks and the 1st of September. A good date I think.

So I have half a block of Whittakers Bittersweet dark chocolate sitting in the fridge right now and I am tossing up wheather to scoff the lot before Monday, or be strong and put it away somewhere, or just give it to my husband to eat for me. Really I shouldn't eat it at all.

I have had a friend who has decided to join me on this crusade against chocolate. Although she lives no where near me I'm sure we can keep on at each other via Facebook and MSN.

So this time in 8 weeks I will be in Taupo having an early night in preparation for walking my first ever half marathon. I'm pretty nervous about the whole thing now, 8 weeks isn't a very long time when I am feeling more than a little unprepared. But I have seen many a training guide for half marathons that are over an 8 week period, so it is obviously do-able and I am walking half the distance already... Long as there are no more set backs and I get rid of my mini cold (really I'm just tired with a sore throat) then I should be sweet. My dad has offered to go for a walk with me tomorrow to push me on and push the pram for me so I can work on walking minus my child attachment, as I won't be pushing a pram on the day so may as well get used to it.

Thats all for today, I am going to have an early night I think. Have added a couple of photos of my last walk since I just realised I can actually load photos on here!!

Good night all
Nikki