Hey guys!

I know it's hard to believe, but I am indeed still alive! I thought it's about time I dropped a line since I have been a truly terrible blogger recently.

I've been very busy, though not necissarily with anything "blog worthy". Things are still getting set up in the house, though we're mostly there. I really need to get a few extra picture hooks, but the place is already feeling more like a home than "the new house".

And what home would be complete without a family pet? Ben has pledged that I can finally get my pet Cockatiel ^_^ I'm so happy! I can't wait to bring him/her home and train them and play with them...I may even feature them in my very first Vlog. Perhaps if I'm totally overwhelmed with pet-ernal love for it, I'll vlog it often with all the tricks I'm so obviously going to teach it...

In other news, I started C25K on Wednesday. It was something I was always very cautious about doing as I'm sure any obese wannabe runner would be (both self concious about my appearence and worried about my health), but I started in the gym on the treadmill on Wednesday and today I completed week one in our local park. Sadly I have the flimsiest pair or trainers in the world, bought out of sheer necessity when I was skint and my old pair were bust and they offer no support whatsoever. As a result my ankles are aching and I'm getting worrisome shin pain (not a huge ammount but it's there) at the end of my runs. I'm concerned about progressing whilst I'm still getting this, so for now I'm going to repeat week one, in and out of the gym, and go for week two when I get my running shoes (my birthday present from my lovely mummy).

All that said, I'm not going to be blogging about it here. I've got a lot to say and journal and complain about regarding fitness and diet and what not, so I've started a new blog dedicated to it (finally!) and Adventures can go back to journaling my day to day adventures in life for posterity and family and whoever else may be interested.

Between falling in love with my local park (I'm a huge bird fan and it has lakes full of ducks and geese) preparing for my birthday party and getting excited over my upcoming addition to the family, I have quite a bit to blog about in the next month or so. I can't wait to give my new camera a spin and share all the fun I'm going to be having, so do stick around!

Motivation!

Sometimes, what you really need to find motivation, is girl talk and a few too many glasses of wine.

On Saturday night I swapped my Ben for a Becky. Whilst Ben took some time out with Becky's now fiancee Steve (yay for love!) and the other boys in our life to eat pizza, watch Star Wars, and generally be big manly nerds, Becky and I shared wine, talked weddings (did I mention yay for love?) and, well, you know how it is, discuss the finer, deeper, psychologically deep seated issues in our lives. But mostly wine and weddings.

And football.

And pizza too.

But I digress. Such girl time is often self exploratory and always therapeutic, and of course talking about weddings, the future, love and health and all that, really re focused my mind on what really matters, especially now that we're living in a home which could easily accommodate a mini Myatt...

I've been coasting along, health wise (and by that of course I mean weight loss wise), since Christmas. Granted we weren't expecting to be chucked headfirst into moving house, and I still have to pinch myself to remind myself that yes, we are here and here is indeed ours, not that mouldy little flat we used to call home. Trips to visit my family and the stress of new duties at work...despite my doctors great two pronged plan for me, it's been way too much. Way, way too much.

However, as good excuses as all of these are, Becky and I got to the topic of making choices towards the very end of the night, and I think I realised that actually, excuses or no, I really need to make the choice for myself. Do I make the choice to continue as I am and hope life becomes just "perfect" to start getting healthy and loosing weight again, or do I make the choice to grasp at every tool available to me, and all my past experience, and just go for it in earnest again, however ideal or not the situation may be? I think we all know what the winning choice is most likely to be.

And, as simple and obvious as that may sound, I think coming to such a realisation and deciding to make the choice has added a peppering of another key ingredient that makes weight loss a little big more obtainable. I feel brimming with motivation, and raring to go.

Of course, the proof is usually in the pudding, in our deeds and actions, not just in empty, rambling blog posts like this. So I went ahead and gathered said tools and have, I think, made a good start.

This morning I held my breath and braved the scales, knowing that I have to know how I'm doing in order to push myself. I was't looking forward to it, and I've been avoiding it. Oddly enough, having the scales packed away thanks to the move and enabled my avoidance perfectly, but I got up early for work and unpacked them (yes, I knew exactly where they were).

To my pleasant surprise, I'm not as bad as I thought I was. At my lowest weight since the summer I was 318 pounds...today I'm 327 pounds...I was 346 pounds when I started, in earnest, to try and loose weight. Basically, yes, I've been bad since Christmas...but boy oh boy am I thrilled with the fact that I've gained less than a stone, less than half the weight I lost in the first place...I haven't gone back to square one at all, and I am leaping on that to get me going!

I've also really focused on taking back good habits that helped me last time. I took my lunch in to work with me, a tomato and basil pasta pot, an apple and a banana, I've chewed compulsively on sugar free gum, and I didn't even look at the sweets when I went to get the racing post from the newsagents this morning when I had to open shop (the newsagents we get the post from has a special deal on chocolate bars - three for a pound - and I have no choice but to go in there when I open shop!). I walked just short of a mile after work, and I've logged every morsel of food to pass my lips today. All in all, a lot of little victories, and not only do I feel good in myself for having achieved them and not made excuses to back out of them, but I feel good physically for treating my body so kindly. I knew today would have to be a good one to start this thing off again, and I think I've laid great foundations to begin getting healthy.

The one thing that's missing this time that's different from the last time I was successful in losing weight is having a challenge. I decided not to wait or look for an upcoming blog challenge. This is for me, not anyone or anything else. Taking inspiration from a challenge I saw ages ago on (I think) either the MFP or weight watchers forums, I'm challenging myself to walk a marathon between now and this time next month. It seems fitting; the walk to work is much gentler on me now (no steep hill to claw away at my asthma riddled lungage) and we have a huge park a stones throw away from our house. Because I need to encourage myself back out to the gym (because I will never be comfortable running around in public enough to achieve a comparable level of fitness to that which I know I can achieve in the gym) I'm counting treadmill miles too. I started yesterday, and have walked 1.73 miles so far...which may not sound a lot, but for me that is a big deal, I don't do walking and will get a bus to go just two stops down the road.

But lazy or not...only 24.49 miles to go!

I really think I can do it :)

So glad to feel that my mojo is well and truly back, and here's me lifting a virtual glass of (low calorie) wine to it staying for a goodly time yet...I have my best friends wedding to slim down for, after all!

Progress

I lost again on Tuesday, bringing my weight down to 22st 11 lb, which is 319lb and a total of 18lb lost. By today I'd gone up by a half a pound, which was kind of annoying; I hope I can register a "real" loss on the scale tomorrow, which is my weigh in day, and break the steady flat lining my weight has managed to keep these past couple of weeks.

But even if it doesn't, I've seen progress elsewhere. My belt for one has run out of holes, my ankles are decidedly less puffy, the lovely blue enamelled ring my mum and dad bought me to commemorate my 15th birthday almost fits the finger it was bought to fit on! For the past couple of years, it couldn't even slide past the knuckle...progress indeed!

We had our second session with our lovely gym instructor last night, and she asked us how we'd been doing. She's programmed us both in for intervals on the treadmill, which are frankly brilliant; with her adjustments our average rate of calorie burning has gone up from about 150 cals per session to 420 cals, which considering that we have only increased the time of the cardio workout by 15 minutes is rather impressive, and just goes to show that sometimes there's nothing better than having someone who knows what they're doing in the drivers seat.

She also gave us some resistance training to do, which does count towards our increased calorie burning, but only by a small fraction. For me it's leg abduction and adduction for my thunder thighs, and pulldowns and tricep presses for my bingo wings and back. Ben too has the pulldowns and tricep presses, but he then has some more "manly" weights for his, ahem, moobs. Not that he asked for them in particular, but we both asked for some general all round body toning, and she said, well, men usually don't bother trying to shape up their thighs, aside from those guys who go around posturing and go on every weight machine there is, put it on the highest weight possible, and then use the incorrect technique and end up looking impressive to anyone who doesn't know better but actually may as well be sitting infront of the tv doing nothing.

Indeed a fair few young lads who happened to be stood around as she hammered this home to us looked a little sheepish as they listened in to our session, indeed we even saw one young fellow doing exactly what she told us (or rather, Ben in this case) not to before she showed us how its done. He scarpered away pretty quickly, but to me, aside from a giggle we shared with our instructor, it just made me glad we decided to pay the extra for the personal training and programming we're now receiving.

I asked about something for my stomach; of course I'm eager to get something there to pull in my ample belly as I start to loose the fat there, and apparently the best thing for that is balance ball exercises for your core muscles...however we have to go for another session in two weeks time and she'll show me how it's done then. For now I'm chuffed that in the space of a week my fitness has already improved to a level where 30 minutes was once a struggle but now I'm doing 45 minutes, and I love doing the weights; I love the thought of being nice and toned once I'm smaller, and not soft, pudgy and weak. I also love the thought of not waiting till I've lost the weight to tone up, and getting it out of the way now so that when it comes to weight maintenance I can focus on doing just that; maintaining a fantastic body.

But that is indeed a long way off for now. Until then I'm happy seeing all the little bits of progress that I'm making towards that goal, and feeling myself becoming stronger, healthier, and thinner on the way.
 

Post gym awesomesauce (part two)

We approached the gyms own reception desk apprehensively, having to push our way past a group of skinny young boys barely if at all out of school, not a scrap of stubble to be seen amongst them and none as tall as Ben, who really isn't that tall. They eyed us up and I immediately felt completely self conscious. The guy behind the desk was grabbing his bag as I started to say "we're here for an induction" and cut me off mid flow by simply pointing at something behind me. I turned back to where the boys were huddled around a touch screen monitor on a pedestal as a tiny tanned lady showed them how it was done.

Feeling our eyes on her she beamed up at us with a wide, white, reassuring smile.

"Are you here for the induction? Have you filled out your forms yet?"

She fetched us said forms, the usual array of medical questionnaires.

"I'll be with you now, just fill these in while I finish off this induction. We've been absoloutely inundated this week!"

We sat at a little coffee table carefully filling in our vital statistics and going over the medical questions. Whilst we're not the very picture of robust good health, thankfully the only serious thing either of us has to contend with is my asthma so it was a case of ticking all the boxes, and then we sat back waiting. We joked, somewhat nervously, and kept glancing to and fro. By this point, the gym had emptied quite dramatically and aside from the group of young fellows having their inductions there were only about five other people there, all very much focussed on their own progress, in the zone as it were.

At this point I caught my reflection in one of the large mirrors up along the back of the gym. Usually it's full body mirrors that really cripple my self confidence; that and a camera... I have a severely distorted view, in my mind, of how my body actually looks (that is, in my mind I look much slimmer than what turns up in the mirror or in photos) and whilst that's great when I'm strutting down the street giving it all that, it's terrible whenever I catch that glimpse of myself.

Of course, I had been worried about how I would look in my gym outfit. I'd eventually decided to stick with the vest top I bought for the occassion, but was still not feeling too good about it. But I realised as I looked over into the mirror at myself...actually, for once, the mirror showed a picture that was actually better than what I expected to see. I didn't see "a big butch dyke" (as I'd told Ben I felt like when I first put it on) but an overweight lady who looked no worse than any other overweight lady in a gym kit that I've ever seen. In fact,  my gear seemed to be rather slimming, all things considered.

Of course, that could be my actual weight loss showing through, as I have been registering a slight loss in the tape measure department,.

 So with the gym nearly empty now, the boys thoroughly distracted by the exercise bikes and my realisation that actually I didn't look even half as terrible as I expected to, I began to feel much more at ease. Ben made a quip about how it would be nice to see just one person with a belly like his, and I made a quip back that hey, here I am! He agreed that despite how busy it had been just moments before it really had quietened down and besides, no body else really cared about us two at all.

 Finally the tiny woman with the massive smile came back and went through our forms. She double checked I had my medication with me and she set up our mywellness keys and accounts so we could use the gym equipment and track our progress, explaining that for now we'd have a basic thirty minute cardio programme on there and that we'd come back to see her later to get a personalised programme suited to what we want out of our training.

She showed us the magic touch screen, which turned out to be the log in system, explaining that no log in means no work out; the key is needed to activate the machines, and the log in is needed to activate the key. She gave us our information to access our workout info online, watched us using the machines, showed us how the key works with the weights, and finally arranged an appointment with us to get our personal programmes sorted (this Wednesday!)

And then we were left to it, and we got in a nice easy thirty minutes.

Ben finally "got" what I meant by getting into your zone, and feeling the good exercise endorphins. We left on an absoloute high, and even the ten minute wait in the rain for our taxi home didn't seem at all bad.

Since our initial visit we went again on Saturday morning and left again with the same awesome high. This was especially wonderful since we'd been drinking at a friends birthday do the night before and were feeling a little worse for wear at first.

Well, I was. Ben didn't and he drank more than me. After only two G&T's and a fruity cranberry juice and amaretto cocktail, I'm starting to think I'm becoming a delicate wee flower when it comes to alcohol, but like the sudden realisation that ASDA pizza isn't all that after all, I don't think this is a bad thing...more like my body telling me it likes the new, healthier diet of fresh home cooked food and litres of water or juice.

The only thing now is keeping it up. I've really enjoyed it, and I'll feel even better once I have my programme with weights to do. The real issue is getting the time to go. On evenings when I'm not either at work or ChildLine I can try to schedule a session in with Ben, but I have no guarantee of numbers of evenings off. Ben has already said he will start going when I'm at work on an evening to make sure he gets all his work outs in, and so by rights I need to go during the day when he's at work if I'm at work in the evening...but whilst it's one thing to kick up courage to go with your best beloved, it's another thing to do it on your own.

Still, it will probably not be so bad. After all, people go to work through the day, it may well be quite quiet. I guess I shall find out on Tuesday, if I'm not stuck in waiting for a British Gas engineer to turn up to see to our broken gas meter...but that is an entirely different rant story.

Till then!