Tag Archives: Gym

What an Odd Week

Posted on by Renée
5

This week was so strange. Good and bad it was just really all over the place. Most of the stress and “bad” came from work – I can’t say too much about it but I’ve gone through probably the hardest thing I’ve had to go through so far in my career, besides when I was made redundant and sent home only to not find work for 6 months. I have been a people manager for a little over 3 years and I’ve definitely learned a lot from the experience, so I guess what happened this week was just another thing to tick off my list.

Since I started off the month with goals, the bad was compensated with good – on Monday I went to the gym (this wasn’t even the most stressful day) and it helped me tremendously to have a release – the pain in my neck and shoulders from the tension was beyond anything I’d felt before and for a short period, it was gone.

Tuesday was the “worst” day. I was all over the place mentally. I just didn’t focus well at all (and I found out later that this had a big effect on my work) because I knew I had to handle something major. By the time I got home, luckily the hubs had made dinner and I was able to put together my Wednesday blog post (see? I’m trying!).

Wednesday was aftermath day at work. It felt so slow and I was quite discombobulated again. I was tired and stressed and knew I had to just make it through the day. Once it was over with I left the office with my gym bag again, this time with my running gear inside. I changed at the station and hopped on a train home. Hubs sent me a message “I don’t think you’ll want to run, it’s raining.” I sent one back “please bring me my pink Nike jacket and my black cap, rain won’t hurt me.” And so he did. When I arrived it was in fact raining but I really needed that run. I ran more than I’d planned (5K), 7.5KM in total and the rain felt so invigorating! Call me crazy but rain running is just so refreshing and as long as there is no lightening and I’m properly dressed then bring on the precipitation!

On Thursday I worked from home. I needed to do complete my team’s performance evals and with everything going on in the office I had to have some time on my own to do this. First thing I found out in the morning was that something I *didn’t* complete on Tuesday morning caused a HUGE problem and delay with our financial year-end close. I know it’s ok to make mistakes, but I remember bursting into tears thinking “How could I be so stupid!???” I am glad that 1) my boss wasn’t cross with me for it and 2) it was solvable and didn’t have an impact on the actual close itself. But still. I hate that I let stress get the better of me and that it caused a huge issue. I worked quite hard on the reviews, but didn’t eat properly and then ended up eating stuff I wouldn’t normally have and consuming way too many non value added calories.

Friday was another day of fun. All those reviews I wrote? Now it was time to deliver. I admit that this is not my favourite part of the job, although some go very well and it’s good to have a dialogue, the ones that don’t go well are too close to confrontation and defensiveness. The thing is, I know it helps me grow, each time I get through it, it’s just, well, hard. I had my gym bag and I went again to the gym after work. It felt very good once again to get rid of some stress.

On Saturday I finally got some seriously needed sleep and eventually I went into town, alone, to attempt to go shopping. One thing I really would like is to stop looking like such a raggamuffin all the time. I just don’t like shopping, I do it terribly alone and I end up being really frustrated about the whole thing. I don’t understand sizing or styles at all. I don’t think that we as curvy girls should be stuck with the trends of the non-curvy girls. I ranted a bit about it:

I felt a bit better when the responses came in, especially that others know how this feels and that it has an emotional impact. I did end up with a few things and I may give it another shot next weekend. We’ll see. I want to say though, I don’t normally have a lot of hate for my body anymore, I HAVE come a long way from that, but seriously, I wish I could just have a better experience and I don’t think that any store out there will be catering to my body type, at least not a shop I can afford (and, I am sorry, but I don’t want to shop at the Fat City type shops. I spent years and years in those clothes and I feel like I deserve to have more choice right now – for those of you in North America, you have so much more choice; we have like 3 shops and that’s it!)

Today again I was able to sleep in, yay! I love it when I get to sleep on the weekends, it really makes up for the 6 hours per night I get during the week! I decided at 12 I was going for a run, and in true “It’s Me vs. Me” fashion it took me forever to finally get everything together to go and do it (2 hours):

Because we all know that a 30 minute run actually takes about 3 hours once you talk yourself into, change, check twitter, retalk yourself into it, strap on your electronics, check twitter, fill your water bottle, warmup, run, cooldown, check twitter, pass out, stretch, check twitter, shower and change.

(go see Thea if you haven’t yet, she is über-cool)

At 2pm I left with about 10KM in mind. It was a glorious day with the exception of two girls in a bus at the bus stop staring at me while I was getting sattelite on my Garmin and then basically sticking their tongue out at me when the bus finally departed, I felt good. (But really, WTAF was their problem??? No idea!) I wanted to run along the dyke and the farmland near my apartment and then go up to Velp (a couple KM away) near my old gym, then loop back around to my house (which is about 3.5KM from the gym). Somehow or another I took the wrong bike path which didn’t lead me to Velp at all… and I noticed I was already almost at 7KM so it was going to be at least 14KM total at that point (since, well, I’d have to turn around and go back). But the sun was shining and my legs felt great and breathing was good. The views were spectacular and I couldn’t help but just smile. I walked 1 kilometer at 7KM to take a few pics and drink some of my Fitmixer (which is amazing stuff you guys, and let me tell you I’m not getting anything for saying that and once mine is finished, it’s finished… I only have the sample given to me at Fitbloggin and I won’t be able to get any more here as they don’t ship internationally) before I headed back again. So basically my run was this:

1 KM walking / warm-up
6 KM running
1 KM walking
6 KM running
1 KM walking / cool down


I could have gone on with my energy level the way it was but my feet were actually starting to hurt (I think I need different socks) so it was good that I arrived home when I did.

It was my turn to cook dinner, so while I was doing that I did three lunches up in the oven (post on Weds) and started making the enchiladas I promised the hubs. Somewhere around 45 minutes into cooking, my stomach really started bothering me. I posted on twitter and was reminded about chocolate milk. Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of milk products ever in the house, but I did have Turkish Yoghurt so decided to try that. It did help a wee bit and then with dinner it eventually calmed down.

At the risk of making this post even longer, I’ll just say that food was all over the place this week. I’m not sure why it seems harder to keep it under control compared to a couple months ago, but I just need to keep working at it. It is my goal to log every day and close out my food journal daily at MFP, even if I’m over in numbers, just to that I’m accountable and I did accomplish that this week but look at this:

Mind you the 1st is wrong, I’ve no idea why that happened -

Monday was total 1573 with 364 cals burned from exercise

Basically my goal for each day should be 1440 calories. This can go up if I work out so, fair enough, some days are higher. But some days are just really high, regardless. I want to fix that. I eat when I’m hungry so I tend to eat exercise cals (at least some) but this week has just been, well, a bit outrageous. Time to fix that.

So yeah, stress, food, exercise, a lot happened but a lot still needs to be done. Let’s see what the new week brings!

How was your week? Do you like to run in the rain? Do you eat your exercise calories or activity points?

Phew! I made it!

Posted on by Renée
4

It was a ROUGH week, at least from a work perspective.

It’s busy, people are still on vacation, it’s end of the month, it’s almost end of the year… there’s just a LOT going on.

I wanted more than anything to run twice and go to the gym once this week and I DID IT. So happy about this. I could tell you that it wasn’t exactly how I would have wanted or expected it to be, but actually I’m even starting to “not care” if it’s brilliant run or not, you know what I mean? It’s more like, “Did you plan it?” Yes. “Did you do it?” Yes. Good, that’s what matters.

So Tuesday as you know we ran in Sonsbeek Park. My new thing is to warm up with stairs:
steile tuin

This area of the park is called Steile Tuin which literally means “Steep Garden”. We did not run up all of these stairs, just counted up to twenty and then back down again, over and over until 10 minutes had passed.

The few times we have been at Sonsbeek we just do a walking warm up which unfortunately lands us on an uphill climb once the 5ish minutes have passed that we determined for the warm up. I don’t know about you, but I find directly running uphill to start kind of hard…

Hubs had a pain in his leg (he struggles a lot with pain various parts of his body and this weekend we got him new shoes so we are hoping that may at least make his problems less) and it was just too much after 3KM. So he stopped and I went an additional 3KM.

On Wednesday I went to the gym! YES, I WENT TO THE GYM! I haven’t been since the end of June. Seriously. I skipped July of course because I was away, but wow has it been challenging to get there in August! First I was sick and then I was just exhausted and busy at work and my head wasn’t in the right place. But I went and it felt good! Of course I am still feeling my legs and butt from those squats I did… I guess that means that it’s working right?

I also did planks (2 to be exact) at the gym – I remember my trainer “cheering” me on, that I could make 45 seconds, one minute, etc. I felt like I couldn’t but I did. So now I did them just with his voice in my head and it worked. I know these are really good for your core so I want to do them daily. Well, at least one.

On Thursday I planned with a colleague to go for a run after work. So that’s the thing – make an appointment with someone, you are not likely to cancel (making an appointment with yourself is much easier to cancel, though I don’t see why it should be!). So, 16:15 rolled around, we got changed and headed out.

This wasn’t the greatest run of my life but it didn’t matter- I’d had a REALLY stressful day and just going outside really, really helped. The temperature was PERFECT, we were in the woods, we got a little lost – hahaha! – but I had a bit of a cramp in my side (not a stitch, no idea what it was) so I had to keep stopping to just walk for a bit. We are going to run next week together too. I don’t have a lot of running partners, and I don’t mind so much to run alone, but it’s nice to have this with someone who understands mentally the need to get out and let go.

Highlight of the Week:

NOT paleo, mind you…

Hahaha! I can’t tell you how much I needed that after the week I had! We had a couple of beers at our favourite Greek restaurant and for the first time in my life took some of my dinner home because I just couldn’t finish and I didn’t want to explode by eating it all. It’s kind of tough to find places in NL that will give you a doggy bag, but Rhodos does so guess what I had for breakfast Saturday morning? Yeah, Paleo-style baby!!

Yesterday we also did some health and fitness shopping; Hubs got a new pair of running shoes (asics – after analysis and trying several different pairs), I bought a new/better pair of bike shorts (a sort of two in one so I don’t look so much like a twat – yes I said that!), some biking gloves (lost the other pair) and now I’m pretty much ready to go to Cornwall for the Cycletta Event at the Festival of Sport. I also bought some ingredients to make my own Larabars; if I’m lucky/make the time I should still be able to do that today and let you guys know how it goes.

Oh and rest assured, I finally got a new running sports bra. No more twin floppies and old lady boobs photos shall be taken of me until the NEXT time I need a new sports bra!

How was your week? Were you able to do the things you planned for yourself? Did you learn anything about yourself?

Gym Woes

Posted on by Renée
8

Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of great news to report since my last post.

In fact there’s kind of some bad news. My gym, my NEW gym, at least the branch in Arnhem, where I live, has been taken over by another company. That means I can no longer go there. This also means that I am not seeing the personal trainer anymore, nor have I actually been to the gym for a couple of weeks.

Funnily enough, remember back when I went to the gym with a friend of mine, in another town (I thought I’d mentioned it anyway but I can’t find the post)? Well we both belonged to HealthCity and then her branch was bought out by Basic-Fit. They took away a lot of the classes, no more trainers and you had to pay extra for things like showers and lockers. At HealthCity they also had things like free beverages (non-alcoholic) and child care services (not that I needed it, but still), but that’s all been dropped as well.

What pissed me off the most is that they just assumed I would switch over to the new membership and they deducted the money from my account, whilst my company also deducted the membership fees from my salary. I got the money back, thankfully.

But now what? I can go in Amsterdam, but that means being home pretty late, so I’d need to really re-think my food schedule (not only eating something before gym, but AFTER the gym, since it’s 2 hours to get home, but ALSO that food is already prepped for the next day, since I won’t have time the rest of the evening to prepare). I could go in Nijmegen (a city close to me) but I can’t take public transport at all. I’d have to go home first, eat, get the car, drive a half an hour…. You get the picture. Again, I’d have to re-do my food schedule as well. I could go in Utrecht, which is halfway between work and home, but again I have the same challenge really.

This is quite annoying.

I quit my other gym to go to HealthCity and now I really don’t think this is going to work out. I signed up for a year! I feel like I’ve been tricked! Surely they knew they were going to sell. You don’t just make this decision from one day to the next. I started in Feb, they officially changed 1st of May.

My biggest fear is that my company also are not going to get me out of this contract and I will be paying eventually for two memberships, since I really do NEED to go to a gym to work out. I want to do strength training and I don’t have the space or the equipment at home.

In the meantime this means that any and all weight loss is stalled yet again because basically I’m only doing the bare minimum.

I realize this really is a luxury problem, but it still could end up costing me quite a bit if I end up not going to any HealthCity. No one likes to just piss money away, whether it’s a luxury or not!

What am I going to do…?

It’s true, it’s a story

Posted on by Renée
6

So, Hey, how are you?

Sorry I haven’t really updated lately. Even the 11×11 post was not meant to be published yet. Bloody hell I am not so great with this stuff am I?

So a little update on the last couple of weeks:

Gym: I’m going to the gym! I realize now I may not have gone to my previous gym as much for more reasons than just the hours. Of course, that was my story – they had crap hours so I didn’t manage to go. Funnily enough though, I’m going to the new gym in the evenings, at 7:30 or 8:00 and even just doing a 45-60min workout and then going home. I think *maybe* I didn’t actually like my old gym very much. Maybe it wasn’t only the hours. Since joining my new gym, and even with the couple of hiccups the first few appointments I had, I’ve been going at least a couple of times a week.

Last week I went on Monday, then I went on Wednesday with my friend (which I will tell you about later) and then I went on Friday and met with a personal trainer.

This week I went on Monday, I went last night and I’m going to meet the personal trainer again tonight.

So that means, pretty much, I’ve decided to go for personal training.

Honestly, I know what to expect in a way. I know I will be pushed and challenged and I know it will cost me an incredible amount of money which I have but I don’t have if you know what I mean? I went to the “proefles” knowing full well that he was probably going to ask me to sign up with him – even at EUR 200 less a month than the original quote it’s still expensive. So I suppose I will definitely not putz around with the training and the food advice he’s going to be providing me. At the same time I’m feeling a little apprehensive about it, mostly the food stuff, because I made it clear I do not want to focus on weight loss, as strange as that may seem; frankly it depresses me and I know myself well enough that I can be quite obsessive about it, which, when loss doesn’t happen it then spins into the depression – frustration cycle. He mentioned that I will have to track my food (no biggie, I do that about 85% of the time anyway, including weighing and measuring and logging in on MFP) and he mentioned a “way of eating” that I am pretty sure is paleo. In general this is also fairly ok, but to be honest I don’t understand cutting out “good” grains and I appreciate them when I’m bulking up my salads for my lunch (for example). I don’t eat a lot of bread as it is and I focus a lot on getting more protein than carbs (though I do love my oatmeal breakfasts when I have them). Anyway, I feel this is going to be quite challenging to make these changes if I can have NO grains whatsoever; my husband cooks most of the time and already alters recipes to bulk up with vegetables, uses less oil, less meat than a recipe calls for and that sort of thing. I know part of my problem is eating too much for dinner, that’s a fact and I have slowly been making changes to the amount I consume (in rice or pasta for example), but now to ask him to change AGAIN or try to cook for us based on what I need, well, I’m not sure how that will work. 1) I don’t know think it’s fair to him – this is MY problem, not his and 2) If I have to cook in the evening there will not be gym time plain and simple. I don’t even get home most nights until 7pm and this is the very reason he does groceries and cooks!

I’m kind of judging all of this and jumping to conclusions before I even try it – I know. And I am reminded (by my own head) that “If you always do, what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got”.

So I see him again tonight and I’m supposed to see him after that twice a week. I also believe I will understand the food stuff more tonight and get some sort of intake booklet because he wants to see what I eat. Updates surely to follow.

So, what else?

Food: I looked into the paleo thing a bit this week and as I mentioned I think I already eat pretty natural and caveman like :) I love my veggies and protein, I eat nuts regularly, peanut butter, and I like meat so that’s not an issue. What I’ve read is somewhat confusing though – some plans say no caffeine (uh, this is going to really be hard – I WORK AT A COFFEE COMPANY!!!), some say paleo people are pro-caffiene. And no pulses? Really? I think beans, chickpeas, lentils, etc are all a great source of protein! Oh and seems like no quark either – I’ve been eating quark rather than yoghurt because it has more protein… no beer (!!!!!!) but wine is fine according to the trainer (???). So, yeah, but better to know what he wants me to do first rather than judge, right? So this week I actually ate no carbs (well, besides in veg and fruit) until dinner up to Thursday. And, to be honest, today I just lost it. I cut out my coffee when I arrive at the office (apparently it spikes cortisol production) and, well I really missed it. NOT physically. Mentally. I also had leftovers for lunch which were carbs (whole wheat pasta) and then it was all over, there was some stress and I ended up shoving some ridiculous piece of sugar bomb into my face. *sigh*

Sometimes I really think I’m a hopeless case!!

Social: Nothing social this week. Too tired. We’ve also had ridiculous disruptions with the trains because of the weather and it’s taken ages to get to and from work. This weekend I also have nothing planned and I haven’t made a new date to do the Sh’bam class with my friend again (I promise you will get the story on that). Last week was busy, then Saturday I was up early to go to the hairdresser, then we had a housewarming / birthday party to go to. This weekend is my stepdaughters birthday party, so up early tomorrow to get a couple of pressies for her and then I might just get to go on a date with my husband!!! We’ve had so little time together, just the two of us, so I’m really looking forward to that.

Running: Nothing happening there either.  On Sunday it will be two full weeks so actually my plan is to do just that. I have been riding my bike to the gym, even though we’ve had snow and ice and extremely cold temps (well, I’m sure it’s all relative). Last Sunday I walked a 5K round and took photos, mostly on the dyke where I run often. It was sunny and snowy and beautiful so I had to at least get out and walk, you know?

Work: crazy as usual. Stress stuff and nice stuff together. At least they balance each other. I have a couple of (fun) things to put together for the next two weeks and then the last week of Feb I’m going to be involved in an absolutely huge event, which I also have to prepare for on the “real job” front. Not that my “real job” isn’t fun, but, well, come on, fun is always better than the practicalities of work!!

That’s it. Did you make it this far? How was your week(s)? Have you been running? What are you eating these days? Have you ever been to a personal trainer?

Fatter and Fitter

Posted on by Renée
1

Can you believe it? It’s possible to gain weight and fat percentage, over the holidays, but become FITTER???

Yesterday I had my Fitness Test at my “new” gym – HealthCity.

HealthCity is all over the country and I have a membership that allows me to go anywhere I like – my company is paying for the majority of this membership, I pay around €20 a month, unlimited, anywhere I want to go. Not shabby at all; my gym I just quit cost me €34 for only 1 time per week.

I have been a member of HealthCity before, back in the day where I was clearly not able to balance work and life (and commute) so I paid a lot of money for nothing. Since I’ve been more reguilarly going to the gym and running over the last two years, I have no doubt that I will actually take advantage of the membership this time around. I know I’ve had periods where I didn’t go to my old gym; the hours weren’t the greatest and in the summer particularly the hours were absolute crap and didn’t work with my schedule. Back in September I tried to quit but they talked me into trying it one more time and offered a Fitness Test and a new program to support me where I really needed it. I did have that fitness test and I did get a new program, but I didn’t really feel like they were that interested in me. In fact one of the appointments I had with Nico was moved to another trainer who was late/made me wait and I was pretty pissed about it since I consider my time very precious and didn’t feel like that was respected. You may remember my fitness test from this post.

So that’s the background. I did the test back in October – my blood pressure was normal, my BMI too high, my fat percentage too high but my fitness level was outstanding.

Amazingly enough with my Fitness Test yesterday – everything had gone up. And I mean everything. My blood pressure was up – I was a little upset that somehow my appointment was nowhere to be found in the schedule – once again with these bloody appointments! I was ready to just go and work out and forget about the whole damn thing, but the manager said she would just simultaneously work with me and her other appointment. In October, my BP was 83/124. Last night 93/139. She asked me if I was stressed out and I said “No, I was just pissed about my appointment!” We ended up laughing it off and she’s going to check it again next week. My BP is only higher when I’m really under pressure at work or angry and then I actually feel it (and I have valerian with me to calm down).

My BMI in October was 30.5. Last night 31.1.

My Body Fat Percentage in October was 36.9%. Last night 37.5%

But here’s the thing – my fitness level went up as well. In October my condition level on the stationary bike test was scored at 43.5. Last night I scored 47.7. These tests were all essentially the same, same Body Composition Analyzer, same fit test on the bike, same blood pressure machine.

So FAT and FIT! Guess I can’t complain too much.

My next appointment is next Monday to determine other levels of fitness. When we talked about goals and what I wanted to achieve I basically just said I want to keep moving and become stronger. Of course I want to lose weight, but as we all know I can’t focus on that because it’s not something that is happening right now.

I do want to step up more and at least try to reduce my body fat percentage a wee bit. I could also try a bit harder with food as what I’m doing now just basically maintains me where I am at the moment. I know for sure the extra weight and fat is from the holidays – that’s over now and what I really want to focus on is being as fit as possible for Milan! If I’m still overweight, that’s fine, I just want to be sure my condition is good and I’m eating as healthy as possible!

In March I’ll re-test. Since I’m going to be working on the food thing, maybe we’ll see a few changes.

Crazy Week

Posted on by Renée
6

It was a crazy, crazy week last week.

Basically, on Monday morning, my husband was in a car accident. He’s fine. The other person is fine, but the car is just trashed. In fact that car no longer belongs to us.



Any accident is bound to ruin someone’s day/week/month/year/life, right? No one wants to be in one and no one wants that call… the one where they say “there’s been an accident” because you generally don’t hear the “but I’m fine” which is said afterwards, if you are lucky.

So we started the week with that stress. I went home immediately to be home when he arrived home. We went to the doctor and he was really, truly fine. We got up even earlier than normal on Tuesday and Wednesday because we had no car with which to commute. We got the call Wednesday that we would get “nothing” for the car; it was “his” fault because he hit the other lady from behind – even though she admitted she slammed on her brakes. To the insurance, it was his fault.

Poor fella’s birthday was on Thursday and he was not feeling much like celebrating. Luckily he was open to having a birthday present and a chocolate muffin from work ;) It was only Friday when we were feeling a bit more optimistic – and we went to celebrate with M in town, so there was wine, good food and laughs.

Saturday morning and no rest for the weary. Up and out the door to look at a “new” car about an hour’s drive away – it was basically the same car, newer and a wee bit of an update (a Peugeot 207 instead of a 206 and only 3 years old).

We had a really lovely day out, bought the car, had a lovely late lunch and headed back home eventually, in separate cars – I had a loan car from the Garage and he had the loan car from the insurance that had to be turned in on Monday. Then we got ready and drove again 120 KM to Haarlem where we celebrated our friends’ marriage that happened in December (my Running Hero and his partner). It was a late, late night, we were absolutely exhausted when we finally arrived home at 2:30am…

Sunday my main requirement was to sleep in – and that I did. 12 Noon and I finally woke up… no alarms, no cats, no light streaming in the bedroom window. Pure, unadulterated sleep.

I did not have a lot of exercise last week, though I did go to my new gym on Wednesday – and tonight I have my Fit Test! I’m planning on running this week – had no chance last week and on Sunday when I wanted to run I realised all my clothes were in the wash! So I went for a 16KM bike ride instead. Just needed the fresh air and it was so beautiful outside I couldn’t resist!

Operation “Get Enough Sleep” wasn’t a full success yet so I’ll be continuing with this experiment. This week I’ve also pledged to myself to lay off the candy jar once and for all. It’s enough. I’m feeling the holiday and after-holiday pudge now. Time to get back in the groove for real!

Week In Review:: 13 Nov – 20 Nov

Posted on by Renée
8

Reflections this week

Right. Let’s just get it out there. I have an important announcement to make.

I am no longer on a mission to lose weight.

Nope. I’m fine the way I am.

I’m not going to write about how much I gained or lost or maintained yet again because let’s face it, it makes me totally unhappy and what is the point of doing something continually when it just makes you mental and totally unhappy?

So, I’m done.

What does that mean, exactly, you are asking yourself? She is QUITTING?

No. There is nothing to quit. I just am no longer focusing on the scale numbers. I’m going to continue what I’m doing now because it works as far as 1) not eating too many calories goes and 2) what and when I’m eating is keeping me from being ravenous. From now on I’m all about healthy food, living life and staying fit. I’m also going to continue running and working out at the gym. I’m going to stay active. So you see? I’m not quitting anything. Weight loss simply is not the goal anymore.

I’ve had several comments that I’ve taken to heart in the past week and my husband has also mentioned several times that it’s time to start living and I am fully on board now. You all are right. It’s time to let go.

So that’s out of the way. Moving right along…

This week was good, bad and then good again. I planned, I cooked, I prepared, but I had a few off days where I felt like complete crap. As I mentioned here I basically took a quick downward spiral and felt myself saying SCREW THIS yet again because of the damn number on the scale. After a couple of days, I picked myself up again and I’ve ended on a high note with a brilliant run today.

As far as fitness goes:

Thursday I ran – 6.35 KM / 10 min walking then 10 min running + 2 walking x 3
Saturday to the gym, first biking, then gym, then a long loop back for a total of almost 12KM
Today an awesome run of 8KM/ 1KM walking, 6.5KM running, 500m walking (then unofficially walking a bit more home)

The run today in particular gave me such an amazing feeling! Running pain free is SO AMAZING!! And for some reason I feel like I’m running differently now. It’s hard to explain but I’m more upright, more confident, more fluid, if that makes any sense? It feels more natural for some reason. Maybe simply because I have been struggling for so long WITH PAIN that I was too rigid in how I was holding myself. I don’t know … whatever it is, I feel great and I’m really looking forward to Egmond aan Zee Quarter Marathon on 8 January!!

I want to sign up to do about a million races at this point, but I know I need to not get ahead of myself. I just know now more than ever, I’m a runner, this is what I do and THIS is what makes me happy!

Week In Review:: 30 Oct – 6 Nov

Posted on by Renée
5

Sometimes I say I can’t even remember what I did yesterday, so I thought I would try to recap my weeks on Sundays, to celebrate the good stuff and perhaps learn a thing or two from the not-so-good stuff.

Last week Sunday I didn’t do much. We had the kids last weekend and pretty much did a whole lot of stuff on Saturday (including me going to the gym AND buying a new couch). I have this little ritual lately (since last spring) where I sit down and take the time out to do my nails and just have a little me-only time. Kids were busy with homework, nails (the girl does her’s too) and lego and the Hubs was busy with his computer-creative stuff. Sundays are our Pasta days – Hubs makes his own sauce and basically we always know we’re in for a delicious treat for dinner on Sunday evenings! Before bed, I did a bit of prep for meals coming up for the week.

On Monday, I was all ready for a good week food-wise but mentally not totally ready for the stress of the week. A colleague made me blueberry muffins for helping her out with something – literally gave me a plate of 12 muffins!! This is something I struggle with – when people give food gifts how to say no? I mean she went out of her way because I helped her when no one else was able to and she was thanking me; isn’t it rude to refuse? I gave all of them away but two, and promptly ate those. I left work early, because I knew the next day would be the long day, got home and had leftovers for dinner – lasagne and chile con carne. I did not log those two items at My Fitness Pal. It wasn’t much, we just split what was left (it could have been one person has the chile, one the lasagne, but we both wanted to share). Here’s a lesson: figure out how to count these types of dinners, i.e., get the recipes in MFP! Once we were all digested, we went out “running” – half walking, half jogging:

All in all I may have come close to breaking even for the day, but I don’t really know, because I didn’t calculate calories for dinner.

Tuesday I planned my food and logged it, but it looked too much like I was going to be over for the day if I didn’t come up with a solution for dinner quickly – I offered to make fish, rice and veggies instead of hubs cooking and if I hadn’t gone to the candy jar again I’d have been under my calorie goal, but as it was I was *only* 86 over for the day (thanks to very careful weighing and measuring out dinner!).

On Wednesday, again planned the day for food and watched my intake but I had an appointment in town with some friends and I knew I was going to eat dinner out. I counted 700 calories for my dinner, though I just really don’t know (We had greek). Instead of having only wine (I don’t usually drink during the week, but on this occasion I did), I opted for two waters with lemon and then two wines in total. According to MFP I was over 287 calories (this is why I do not lose weight!!).

On Thursday the plan was to go to the gym, so I packed my bag the night before and got up early as usual to get my food ready. I was planning on buying a salad at the supermarket to eat in the train on the way home, but they didn’t have what I wanted. I ended up with a pasta salad that was only 500 calories and actually quite delicious! This, plus my yoghurt and fruit was enough for dinner. I got home, got my stuff and cycled to the gym. I worked out for about an hour, came home, did burpees and passed out in bed.

Friday went a little bit wrong. I prepped my food for breakfast and snacks and planned on something “light” at work. I thought what I chose would be fine, would be reasonable, but it wasn’t. This is why I don’t eat a lot of bread – I had two pistolets, 1 tomato, 65g of egg salad and 65g of sellery salad. This cost me over 600 calories! Usually my lunch is around 400. I had a salad with me as well, that I ate as a snack but by the time dinner rolled around I had only 200 calories left. I had plans to go out for drinks and dinner with a friend and my husband and we had Tapas and Wine… we we all know where that put me at the end of the day… Lesson learned: prep every day and don’t just assume two little sandwiches are going to be a light meal!!

Saturday I was a little bit hung over. Well at least I felt tired, and was craving savoury food and normally I don’t have real cravings for anything. I had a hearty breakfast and cycled to town to do some necessary shopping and to get my hair done. Ended up having quite a savoury lunch as well. Hubs made a curry for dinner (but a very low-fat, healthy curry) and we had a few glasses of wine (I swear, I’m not an alcoholic). We did do our grocery shopping together and I made sure to get plenty of things needed for lunches and snacks the upcoming week.

Today I’ve done a bit of hanging around, catching up on the web, cleaning, folding… the normal Sunday stuff I guess! I did go out for a “run”

Hubs has made our pasta for tonight which was delicious… I love pasta after running! Now to calculate my calories on MFP…

I’ve prepped quite a lot for next week, planning most days up until dinner. I’m out with a friend of a friend on Wednesday (a girl who is a friend of a guy I went to High School with is in Amsterdam), but I can control that situation well because we’ll only be together until about 8pm (I can eat the pasta I had in the week from the Supermarket). On Thursday I go back to the physio, so I’m working from home that day and will go to the gym after my appointment. One other day this week I’d like to try to go for a “run” again – probably Tuesday, and I want to cycle at least once if it’s not raining. Staying active and staying in control really helps my mind-set; even if the scale doesn’t move, I can do what it takes to make me feel good, right?

How was your week? Did you learn anything from it, even a small lesson?

Another attempt at Attitude Adjustment

Posted on by Renée
5

I think this one will stick.

It’s been another rough week emotionally. I don’t want to behave the way I have been. I’m frustrated and angry that my doctor, for one, can speak to me the way she does, so patronizing and basically saying “there’s nothing wrong with you so there’s nothing I can do for you”. I find this odd. Remember when we used to go to the doctor and they really wanted to help you?

Perhaps there are more tests that can be done. Or… perhaps, yes, as I have suggested myself AND as others have suggested, just stop worrying about weight loss. I can do other things. I am very healthy. I know I eat right.

Sure it’s not fair that I “think” I make more of an effort than others do who lose weight consistently, but this way of thinking, combined with comparing myself to others is going to be the death of me.

At the end of the day, it’s about what I’m doing to maintain the kind of life that I actually like living. I find it incredibly difficult to find a balance. This week however my boss said that I had to work one day from home per week and that he wanted me to leave 45 min early two days a week, because it was easy for me to make up the time the day I’m working from home. He’s concerned. So the way I’ve been behaving and feeling really shows up on my face. He can SEE that clearly I’m not well (mentally, emotionally) and he doesn’t want me to have a break down or in fact look for another job and leave the company (which would be ultimate solution, to work where I live).

I need a plan and I need to stick to the schedule. Running, for example, didn’t happen this week. So I may as well start my Half-Marathon training over again. I did however go to the gym – Monday, Thursday and today. I did ask about personal training and one of the PT’ers sat with me to help figure out what I needed from my training and how I could achieve my goals (of strength, not weight loss). Today I went to set up a new program. I really would like to do my running AND gym in the same week, but I need to figure out timing, working from home days and food. Yes, food. Because if I go to the gym right after work, I’ll need to eat in the train and go immediately from my home train station otherwise I run out of time. This adds more time to prepping in the evening and/or morning, so I need to consider prepping most food on Sundays. If it seems complicated, it feels it too.

This week at a very, very down and emotional moment I had a few people unfollow me on Twitter. I know the virtual world is different than the “real” world and normally it doesn’t bother me that much, but this week it did. I felt like I was being kicked while already down. I’m a grown woman and I know better than to take it personally, but I’m also human. Some people I feel more a connection than not. I feel like in real life I could be friends with those people. I think this is because I have met so many people in person through different media, that I assume we are really friends and I personally wouldn’t do that to someone who was feeling bad. This is a character flaw of mine. I shouldn’t assume these things. After all, when we assume… well you know ass / u / me right? I’m still annoyed but I’ll get over it and have already learned from it.

I am going running tomorrow and I am looking forward to it!!

How do you get yourself out of a bad attitude? What do you to do really adjust and move on?

And, we’re Back

Posted on by Renée
15

After nearly one year of being on ProPoints (well, let’s face it I took a break for a few months because it was doing my head in), I can’t help but have mixed feelings now that the US/ North America will be using the program soon (and the UK already started apparently).
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Why mixed feelings? Well, it’s just funny that I have been talking about ProPoints, bitching about ProPoints, moaning about ProPoints but my cries have gone to a limited audience. In some ways it feels good because finally we are all on the same plan – and it’s never been like that since I started in 1999 – I won’t be talking mumbo jumbo or vice versa, I may even be able to exchange recipes, ideas, plans with others. It feels less good when I think about how much I have struggled with it, the fact that I still don’t know how “they” come up with my daily / weekly points, the fact that I can never seem to just hit my daily and not dip into my weekly free points every day. I struggled for months and months with hunger (and now that I’m running less I am in fact less hungry) and no one could really explain anything to me. It was sending a really negative message to my brain – going over points = eating too much, trying to eat less+ hunger = total frustration. And as you all know I have NOT really lost weight on the ProPoints plan. I have no idea if it’s me or the plan, so let’s say it’s me until I can scientifically prove otherwise.
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One of the things I wanted to do this month was decide yay or nay if I was going to continue with Weight Watchers or not, since my credit card was about to expire and I normally follow online rather than go to the meetings (I would love to go to the meetings, but it’s highly unlikely to get to a meeting if I want to run, go to the gym, be social, hey, maybe even get some sleep every once in a while) and I have decided in fact to start over again. I’m not really sure why, except that I really hate to give up on anything and I don’t feel like I really gave it 100% the last six months. It’s time to do it without any excuses, without letting the numbers get to me, and WITH a full commitment. So there you go. New credit card, extension made on my program.
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Admittedly I was already slightly irritated last night when I noticed my totals of the day were way over my 29 points, and even though I earned activity points from running, watching my weekly free points go down by 12 was really disheartening. I thought about what I ate, how I prepared my foods, how I weighed and measured everything out. I wanted very much to eat another enchilada after running and decided against it but then I felt angry as I stared at the number 41 looking back at me from the screen. If I just keep going, I can get over this number thing I seem to enjoy arguing with internally. So, I’m keeping going.
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Day two on ProPoints has been much better, hit my daily of 29, though am admittedly hungry – I think this may have something to do with the fact that we had dinner fairly early and that I went to the gym. I just want to be sure to have enough activity points from this week to not have a deficit in the weekend when I want to have a couple of glasses of wine or a homemade thai curry. Enjoying my life is still important to me and I’m not going to apologise for having food and drink fall into my enjoyment category. Now I just have to be a bit strategic about it.
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So, here’s the deal – I see a lot of traffic coming in from searches for ProPoints like:
Can I carry over my points?
How many points for walking?
How are daily ProPoints calculated?
How many ProPoints in pizza/ almonds / basmati rice/ add your favourite food here?
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Well you get the gist, right? The thing is, I know some answers, and some I don’t. And our food is different here than in North America. And our exercise might even be calculated differently. I’m happy to help in any way. To answer any question anyone asks me directly. So just ask. I have learned some tricks and certainly some tips and I would love to help. But honestly, I think if you follow Weight Watchers, just read your materials and be patient and do whatever you need to do to make it work for you.
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We all have ways to improve our health. Some people count calories, some people follow Weight Watchers, Atkins, Slimming World, Body for Life, etc. I choose Weight Watchers because in the past it has really helped me learn about a healthy balance. I’ve learned about nutrition, portion control, and have actually figured out that I LIKE eating healthy and trying new new things. I definitely need structure and I am committed to making this work regardless of how long it takes.
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Are you following Weight Watchers? What do you think of the new program? Are you nervous? Excited? Scared? What questions do you have about the program?
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