Monthly Archives: October 2011

I can’t wait

Posted on by Renée
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I have to have a breakthrough.

I need my therapy back.

I haven’t seen my physio since beginning of September. I made an appointment today for next week.

I can’t wait for him to say I can run again.

I just have to do it. I have to run again.

I know what to do, I know I have to be careful, I know I have to warm up longer than the average bear.

But I have to do it now.

So I signed up for Egmond aan Zee again. Quarter Marathon (10.5K) on 8 January. I don’t care if I have to crawl across that finish line, I’m doing it.

Last Year’s Egmond Post

Never Mind, Moving Along

Posted on by Renée
7

So once again the best laid plans and all that… no chance to get the rest of the posts up that I wanted to accomplish. Never fear, a post about October is here.

Once again, busy busy. However, a couple of things:
I was going to quit my gym. My company has now a sponsored membership at another national gym that I could join for less than what I’m paying now at my gym in Velp. I was annoyed this summer – every time I would finally make it to the gym, they would be closed for “summer hours”. OK I know they are a small gym, and definitely not a chain, but this is just not convenient for me. I want to go when I can go, not have to go during limited hours, you know? So, my annoyance was already built up some, when they phoned my husband (cue more annoyance; he doesn’t even WANT to go) to find out what they could do to help him be motivated to work out at least once a week and that was enough for me. Why didn’t they call me? I’m the one who wanted to be there! I wrote a letter immediately stating that I wanted to end my contract and I sent it along with my membership card a few days later. I was done.

A few days later I get a call and they ask me if I’m really sure I want to quit. I explain I could have a cheaper membership somewhere else where the hours are better for my schedule. We talked quite a bit about my annoyance regarding their summer hours (well, I had them on the phone, so…) and that on the weekends it’s really hard for me to get there before 1pm (when they close) because I’m not only tired, but the weekends are in general the only real time I have to take care of stuff that I can’t get to during the week because of work and commuting! The woman then asked me to just reconsider, to change my membership to just one time a week and then work with one of the personal trainers to help me keep my weekly appointment with myself and work on a program that fit my schedule. I caved and said “ok”.

That means, since October 1st, I have been consistently to the gym every week! I went on the 1st to meet up with my trainer Nico and we did an analysis and fitness test and these were the results:
Bodyfat Percentage: 36.9% – too high
Body Moisture Content: 45.23 – optimal
Blood pressure: 83/124 normal
Static Hand Grip Strength Test: 47 low
Technogym Bike Race Fitness Test: 43.5 outstanding

So what does it all mean? Pretty much that I’m very fit, but I could work on getting my body fat percentage down and that I could benefit from building up strength in my arms/upper body. To be honest I was extremely happy with these results, especially the “outstanding” result in the overall fitness test. Some days I find myself very frustrated and angry with how this whole “journey” has gone the last two years – now I just need to remember my weight, the number on the scale, is not the be all and end all. I’m 43 years old and very fit for my age! It could be worse! I could have never started at all! I could have given up completely! But I didn’t, I’m still trying, I’m still focusing on it every single day even when it may seem I’m not!

Anyway, plan is to continue for now at one time a week at the gym, though I don’t honestly know that I will really stay, it just depends. The other membership would mean I could go anywhere in the Netherlands where that gym is located, this could potentially be handy to go straight after work for example or later on a Saturday or Sunday.

I have also been tracking more consistently on My Fitness Pal but I could definitely improve on this. One thing I find quite challenging still is calculating food that we’ve made at home and determining the portion size. I’ve started to “trick” myself a bit with some types of meals (the curries my husband makes are divine and I tend to overeat with them) by using a small bowl instead of a “normal” bowl and then splitting out one portion into two to make me feel like I’ve been able to go for seconds.

Another thing that I’ve found to work better for my hunger levels is to eat breakfast later. I am usually up at 5am, so breakfast at 6 was normal. Now I’m focusing on bulky breakfasts, with a lot of protein (so let’s say scrambled eggs with steamed broccoli and mushrooms) and I’m taking that with me to eat in the train at 7am. For lunch again bulky with lots of veg, protein and a good fat and then a snack of fruit and yoghurt or cottage cheese, tomatoes and Wasa crackers. I’m still hungry-ish but it’s a lot less. It’s not perfect and I can tell you I definitely can’t sleep past 5 if I’m going to take a cooked breakfast with me, but it’s helping.

One other thing for October: I recently joined a challenge to do burpees every day for 30 days with no excuses. Though I didn’t make every day because I was well and truly sick last week (I missed 3 days), I resumed and have added 1 burpee each day. This challenge came from Scott over at Your Inner Skinny

Don’t know what a burpee is? Click on the link to see a video from beginner to mega-advanced to just downright insane! I started off as beginner at 5 and as of today I’ll be doing 15 adding one each day. I thought to myself, how hard could it be??? Well, let me tell you, I can seriously feel it in my CORE. This is a great exercise that anyone can do at any fitness level using just your own body weight and strength. I’m so annoyed with the fact that I can “only” do the beginner ones, that I’m going to keep doing these things until I can do the advanced ones!!

So that’s kind of this month in a nutshell. I hope I still have one or two readers left (but if not, that’s ok too :) ) – I’m planning more posts for November, ferreals!!!!

That Little Berlin Trip

Posted on by Renée
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I mentioned that I was nominated to go to Berlin for a special event that was taking place there for our German Retail Market. The reason that I and a few others from my office had been selected was because the CEO of the company was unfortunately not going to be stopping off in Amsterdam on his “European Tour”. My Finance VP actually suggested to my bosses that I go as one of the four to represent our regional support center based on our passion and enthusiasm for the company. Of course I was totally honored and humbled to have been chosen! But I may have also mentioned that it was the busiest time of year for us?

The normal work challenges were enough during this period, but somehow I had to find a way to make it work. On the 20th I left the office and went directly from Amsterdam to Düsseldorf, where I would stay the night and in the morning very early take a flight from there to Berlin. I was completely stressed from work load, tired from working overtime and on top of everything run down and feeling like crap because I had been (stress) eating like crap. The hotel I was staying at was amazing, but kind of out in the middle of nowhere. I had very little cash (bad arrangements on my part and the taxi costing more than I’d planned) and very little food and the reception closed literally 15 minutes after I arrived so I couldn’t even inquire about a place to eat and was too tired to even bother anyway. Unfortunately I didn’t get a brilliant night’s sleep regardless of how comfy the bed and pillows were. I was up and out by 6am and on my way to the airport. Thankfully I was greeted by smiles and friendliness at Starbucks and had a delicious breakfast and eventually I was on my way to Berlin (oh yeah and sidenote: I was also visited by Aunt Flo in her Big Red Hat… had “supplies” with me but no pain tablets, which really, really sucked the full day I was in Germany).

The flight was uneventful (except for the fact that it was during Oktoberfest, so on the flight they gave us yummy fresh warm pretzels…) and once I arrived I met up with two of my colleagues who’d just flown in from Amsterdam. We thought it’d be pretty easy to get to the hotel where the event was happening, but as it was the Pope was also in town, AND staying at the same hotel so we had to take all kinds of detours through the city.

The event itself was really nice. In the beginning we just mingled, had coffee and sandwiches and I was so lucky to meet a load of people I’ve only had email correspondence with over the last 5 years. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits despite some news that had been delivered a few weeks before (the office is relocating quite far from where it is now) and soon it was time for us to go in for the Open Forum.

We watched inspirational videos made by partners in the Market themselves (and of course it was all in German so I had to crank up my language skills pretty hard to get most of it – the gist anyway) and then videos that had been shown to partners all over the world. Then the CEO spoke to us and shared a few of his stories as well and opened up the forum for questions. To generalize (which I hate doing but I don’t mean it negatively) the Germans are not as vocal or daring with their questions in these situations, at least not like the Dutch or the French who will just come out and say whatever it is on their minds. A few of my German colleagues asked a couple of questions, my American colleague (who works in Amsterdam) asked a question and then I asked a question last. I was kind of scared to ask what I wanted to know from him, but at the same time I’m familiar enough with how he is to know it would be ok. And… he said it was a very good and very brave question and he answered it honestly.

After the forum we chatted a bit with several people and then took a stroll through the Brandenburg Gate up and over to Potsdammer Platz where we finally decided to get some lunch. We ended up at an amazing restaurant with gorgeous food and sat and chatted for two hours before we headed back out to the airport. At this point I was in massive amounts of pain thanks to Auntie Flo, but I still have to say I had a brilliant day. At the airport I found the nearest pharmacy and the woman there was so incredibly helpful and even offered me water for the tablets I bought to ease the pain (that has never happened to me, regardless of country I’m in).

I arrived back at Düsseldorf and my lovely husband was there to pick me up (he rocks!!!). On the way home we stopped in a German town about 45 minutes from us for dinner. It’s always the little places in the middle of nowhere that have the best food and service and this place was no exception! The day was great but there was still stress involved in getting there – the dinner with my husband was exactly what I needed to feel more relaxed. A perfect end to the day!

Next up – Work Event and Social Event

Here I am

Posted on by Renée
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I have four posts in my drafts for my blog, so at least there’s been an attempt to write. It’s been particularly mental the past month – September always is anyway at work (I work in finance, it’s year-end), and socially it was busy as well.

My birthday weekend was spent with my family – normally we end up not having the kids on my birthday so Hubs and I usually just spend it together, but somehow our schedule ended up that we were the four of us together! The kids are older now, but they always have been pretty easy going (I’m a very lucky stepmom if you ask me; the “normal” horror stories don’t apply to me or my kids, the ex, Hubs, etc.) and it’s quite pleasant going out with them. The Girl and I even did our nails the same and got glammed up and we all went out for Japanese! Yum!

The next weekend Hubs and I were off to Belfast. Every year we go away as my “gift” – remember last year we went to Rome? Neither one of us had ever been to Belfast and hubs had never even been to Ireland –it was a great deal for flight and hotel so we decided to go for it! Our friend M (you’ve seen/heard about her before) joined us as well which is always loads of fun. We did a lot of touristy stuff, hit quite a few pubs, had some good food and walked a LOT. The highlight was probably the Giant’s Causeway – in a word: Incredible!

After I returned, it was back to work and back to Hell Month. I found out that I’d been nominated to go to Berlin for a special event that was happening for my company the next week! I was over the moon! Not only is Berlin one of my favourite cities ever, it was a chance to be in an open forum and actually ask questions and even meet our CEO! But did I mention it was Hell Month? Yeah, the timing was awful, but HELL YEAH I was going!

Prior to that though… I had the Leontien Ladies Ride – 70KM for Stichting Pink Ribbon. I have to say I was not looking forward to it anymore. I was exhausted from work and didn’t feel like I’d really taken all of my opportunities to ride my bike and be fully prepared. Plus it was turning out that my family wasn’t going to be able to come with me – we’d originally thought we’d all go down the Saturday before, spend the day and stay over in a hotel, but it was just too expensive, plus we also thought, yeah, all day Saturday, then they’d have to hang out all day Sunday as well…I was going to have to get up pretty early on Sunday and get my bike on the train to Den Bosch on my own. I don’t mind doing stuff alone, but at this point I just wasn’t feeling it. Even that morning Hubs thought I may not make it – I was rushing, left late, then had to call him while I was on my way to the station because I couldn’t even remember if I locked our storage area or not (I was struggling getting everything in my bike bags, late, stressed). But I made it and after a rocky start (like, literally finding the start), I began my 70KM ride with thousands of other ladies. Admittedly, it was tough for me to be “stuck” behind so many people on the bike paths – I like to go at my own pace, but obviously, in this case I was only as fast as the slowest group in front of me! Eventually I made it to the lunch break stop (at Land van Ooit) to pick up my lunch packet and have a little bio-break. At this point we were at around 28KM. I probably was off my bike maybe 15 minutes when it looked like it was going to rain in the distance, so I layered up on clothes and decided to head off. This time I was wonderfully pretty much on my own! The day started off as a beautiful, kind of chilly late summer day but about halfway the heavens just opened up and dumped a mass amount of rain and hail the size of ping pong balls on us! I stopped before the hail to put my rain gear on, but after three minutes I had to just pull over and wait under a shop awning, it was too much.

Then it just stopped.

And the sun came out again!

So I took off my rain gear, re-packed it in the bike bag and headed off again. For about 20KM I was blissfully alone, cycling through such a gorgeous area of Brabant, up until the point where the “short-route” ladies met up with our route, then I had to slow down again. My family was following me on my GPS, but unfortunately it wasn’t correct so when I crossed over the finish they thought I still had 7KM to go. No one was there to meet me :( I felt bad that they made the trip down on their own to see me and then ended up not anywhere near the finish when I came over.

Sidenote – I bought cycling shoes. I have to say I was not convinced (but spend the cash anyway) but actually found they made a huge difference on the bike! Usually I just wear my mary janes but they do slip on the pedals and I didn’t even think about whether my feet were sturdy or not. Cycling shoes really keep your feet stable and don’t slip for the most part, so I’m really glad I invested in them! (Side to the sidenote: I most certainly wasn’t the only one in a skirt, but I did wear bike shorts and tights underneath – for this distance I do find bike shorts a complete necessity)

Anyway. All in all it was nice. The family and I had something to eat and drink and then Hubs took the kids back to their mum’s…. it was time for me to get back to Arnhem with my bike on the train. I did a total of about 80KM with the round trip cycling to and from the train stations – the most KM I”ve done in one day to date! I would definitely like to up this mileage, I just don’t know when – I may need to get some better biking clothes.

Next Posts Berlin, Work Event, Social Weekend, Arnhem Food Fair and then I might even talk about what’s going on in the weight and exercise areas…