Not There Yet

One of these days I am going to run a sub 40 minute 5k.  One day.  I do realise that I can pretty much walk faster than I can run.  Sad but true.  Sad but increasingly less true and that’s what I have to hold on to.

Today was hot and I was tired.  And so a minute slower than my last 5k.  Pollyanna that I try to be I am telling myself that I my muscles were tired from other exercise so the next 5k will definitely be faster.

 

Distance: 5.04 km

Time: 41:23

Avg Pace: 8:13 min/km

 

Total Number of Streets: 639

Streets Completed: 19

Streets Left: 620

80%

Perhaps the eighty percent rule does work.  It claims that if you eat healthy food 80% of the time then you can have what you like the rest of the time.  I haven’t been tracking very well or indeed eating very well this week as my mum is visiting and I like to treat her to nice things.  That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

But I have been trying quite hard to only indulge when we are somewhere nice.  So perhaps we may have had a bun while we were in town and maybe a glass or two of wine when we went out for our dinner but the other, hanging round the house meals, have been fairly reasonable.  My tactic has been to make soup for lunch and to make sure that whatever is served for dinner comes with a huge stack of vegetables.  Also, meals have to be planned, I’ve found, otherwise they magically turn into takeaway curry.

And it seems to have worked.  I didn’t get weighed last week so I was very nervous this week.  But, phew, 4.5 pounds down.  I am very happy with that.  Though I think I will try to be a bit more rigorous with the tracking anyway.  Already today I have had the remains of a packet of lucozade jelly beans (left over from the days when I could run for more than 5 kilometers) and a Nakd Choc and Orange bar (delicious!).

Bitten Off More Than I Can Chew

Which makes a pleasant change.  I normally do a lot of chewing.  Way too much chewing according to my ever tightening waistband.

But this time I could have, metaphorically, bitten off more than I can chew.  I have signed up for Juneathon.  Oh yes, apparently I’m going to change from exercising four times a week to seven times a week.  I don’t think it would be wise to start running seven days a week so I’m planning on running four or five times and follow the Gorilla exercise app on the other days.

 

 

What could possibly go wrong?

Arggggh, I don’t know what’s happening.

Gah, we had visitors at the weekend, my mum is here for a week, I’ve been running in and out of town to do chores and I haven’t been tracking or weighing myself.  I have no clue what is happening to my diet and I am feeling a bit twitchy about it. 

So, I’m having Bottom of the Fridge soup (today it is leeks, celery, leftover potatoes, lentils and a couple of tablespoons of leftover curry sauce) for lunch and spaghetti quornaise with lots of green salad for dinner.   Tomorrows is Weight Watchers weigh in day when all will become clear.  Fingers crossed that too many treats in Costa will have been offset by my one run.  Doesn’t seem awfully likely.

Get Running – Week One – Third Run

In an attempt to run faster I am trying to do one of those C25k programs replacing the walking with jogging and the running with, well, running.

Today went well. I’m glad I got up early and ran before breakfast as it’s already getting hot outside.

Ran for 1 min, jogged for 1.5 minutes repeated 8 times.

This is the first time I have managed to keep jogging in the breaks. Last time I had to walk for the last couple of intervals. So improvement there.

In an attempt to encourage me to get out the door I am trying to run down every street we have. I found a list of streets on the internet, though I have already found a few streets that aren’t on it, and have put them into a spreadsheet because that’s just the kind of obsessive project I like.

Total Number of Streets: 639
Number of Streets Run: 17
Streets Left: 622

Link

Supersizing

Good grief, I knew the portion sizes in restaurants had grown but this is amazing.  How could anyone drink that much fizzy pop and and not pop.

Strawberry and Blueberry Salad

Strawberry and Blueberry Salad made with just a teaspoon of very dark sugar. Let it sit for an hour and it tastes of toffee.

A Little Plateau

Hmmm, look at that.  It is as if, after a couple of weeks of being very thorough, I am beginning to slacken off.  What a surprise?  No?  No, of course you are right.  This is no surprise at all.

My Weight Watchers meeting was meant to be on Wednesday but a friend I don’t often get to sit and chat with invited me out for lunch and so I went with her and skipped the meeting.  Oh, yes, replacing the weigh in with eating my own body weight in hollandaise was such a good idea.

But you know I think it was a good idea.  I can count the number of times I’ve gone out with a friend for lunch this year on the fingers of one hand.  Hell, I can count the number of times I’ve gone out for lunch with a friend this year on one finger.  It was good to catch up and I came out of it a happier person.  So there!

Could I have gone for something more slimming for lunch?  Almost certainly.  But I decided not to.  I’m hoping that that is an important detail.  I didn’t just wildly pick something indulgent just for the sake of it.  I looked at the menu, narrowed down the options and then picked the one that looked the healthiest.  And was there dessert?  There was not.

None the less I can see from the graph on Beeminder that my weight loss has ground to a halt.  Time to track before eating and to stop munching all the digestive biscuits!

Three Hour Dinners

I don’t know.  I think I’m tracking things fairly accurately and yet I seem to be eating all the time.  Hopefully this is just because I am eating more fruit and veg.  Still, I worry.

Also, the evening disintegrates into an extended feast.  I’ve been trying to eat with the children if I’m hungry instead of trying to wait until Mr. Less comes back from work but I find myself snacking after bedtime until his dinner.  I feel like I’m eating from five o’clock to eight o’clock.  Perhaps it won’t matter if I’ve spent the hour snacking on cucumber sticks and asparagus?  Time will tell.  Perhaps in the past I still ate for three hours but in those days it was left overs from the children’s dinner and cheese.  There was certainly wine.

It still seems wrong.  Not grown up.  Like something you would do the first week you move away from home.  Perhaps I should try to have all the snacky bits with dinner and get it over with.  Be too full to move.

Tomorrow is weigh in day.  I’ll know then if I’m on the right track or not.

 

Sunny Day, Chasing the Clouds Away

Oh my god, the sun is here!  Rowntree’s Fruit Pastille Ice Lollies are today’s favourite food.  Delicious.  And low in Weight Watcher points as well.

Hurrah for summer (even if it doesn’t last) and for being able to dry the laundry out on the line.