Staying afloat

Hi guys,

Man, I am totally struggling to find time to get on here and write at the moment.  Even this one is going to be a fly-by posting, before I dash off to fall into bed!

The good news though, is that my inability to find time to blog, isn’t translating into an inability to look after myself at the moment.  Despite my hectic schedules, my eating remains pretty much on plan – I’m even in positive points this week for a change!  Mostly, I’m falling into a pattern of having a little splurge at the weekend, and then on week-days, my eating is coming in below my daily points and with a few activity points to bank, without too much effort. 

I’ve developed an eating routine which is suiting me for the moment; cereal for breakfast, fruit mid-morning with the occasional biscuit or office cake thrown in for variety (although cake-wise I stick to mini-rolls or cookies, where I know where I am points-wise), a packed lunch bought from home, and a snack or two in the afternoon if I get hungry.  Generally, I’m feeling pretty hungry in the car on the way home, but often by the time I get home, I’m over the worst of it.  If I’m still starving when I do get back, I’m learning that often a smaller tea than I think I need satisfies me, as long as I eat slowly and consciously.  Fast food is my friend at the moment – by which I mean anything quick to cook, not greasy junk.  Some pasta, soups, half a thin-crust pizza.  Not quite as wholesome as I’m used to, but I eat healthy portion sizes, and decent quality with identifiable ingredients (not some chemically shitty substitute) and I top up with lots of fresh veggies on the side.  If I do have a take-away for some reason, chicken, prawn and vegetable dishes are my friends.  So yeah, I had prawn chow mein on Friday night, and Domino’s pizza last night (fyi – the Vegetarian Supreme, which I would previously have considered a poor second choice, turns out to be delish, and surprisingly friendly at just 3 points a medium slice), but everything is tracked and pointed.

Exercise is starting to make a reappearance too.  I felt so sluggish after the first week, when I just did 1 run, and last week was only 1 spin class so that wasn’t much better.  But this week I’ve already done spin on Monday and a gym workout last night (pre-pizza).  I would have been spinning again tonight, but I was foxed by the bus taking an hour to turn up this evening!!  Boooooo!  I’m also still walking the 20 mins each way from the bus to the office, so that adds a little extra too.

Saturday last weekend, was another tick on the list of things I’d never tried before, as I let myself be dragged off (not exactly kicking and screaming I might add) orienteering on the Malvern hills.  It turned out to be ace fun, especially as my friend Kath, whose been doing it since she was a kid, decided that “sore ankles” were a great excuse for her to jack in the tough blue route and come and teach me how to navigate on the novice orange route instead!!  Being fitter is such a revelation sometimes, when I don’t think anything of attempting to run round on the hills following a map, trying to find little orange control points along the course.  And run I did too.  Over the top of the hills, and down the sides.  We went off-path a bit too, so I was hop, skipping and a-jumping as fast I could through the undergrowth at times.  A year ago?  I’d not even have attempted that.  It was a only a short course, 2.7km on the official course distance (the absolute straight line distance control point to control point, start to finish), but I reckon with a short detour due to my map-reading and the usual zig-zagging it was closer to 3.5km to 4km.  We took 47 mins to complete it, as Kath let me do the map-reading and just gave me pointers on how to do it right, and acted as a sounding board for my route choices, but we came a very creditable joint 5th out of the 20 participants in our class.  I don’t care that some of them walked, some were kids / teenagers, and others were probably retired – the point is I felt fit enough to run it, and we came back in a time I was proud of.  And there was a bacon roll and a home-made rock cake devoured afterwards while we waited for Rob to make his way home from the blue trail.  I felt very smiley for most of Saturday.

In fact, my gloomy misery from Thursday pretty much lasted til Saturday and I think it was the mini-adventure that finally started to lift it.  From a place where I kept talking myself down (mentally at least), I started to snap out of it, and after one last wallow shopping in town on Sunday with Bec, I finally broke free and (mentally again) gave myself a good talking to about how pathetic I was being.  Muchos grazias for the all the nice comments by the way.  The thing is, I wondered whether to put that post up, even as I wrote it.  I wasn’t particularly looking for compliments and hand-holding – it was more that I thought “I bet other people feel like this too sometimes”, so whilst I could have hidden it from you and glowered in privacy, I thought I’d put it out there, so that anyone else feeling that way knows they’re not the only with negative thoughts occasionally.  And that is doesn’t last forever.

And finally:

On a completely different note – my life makeover is almost complete – I offered on a flat to rent today and got accepted!!!  I saw it online yesterday, in a building I already really liked, and booked to view today.  I’d pretty much fallen in love with it already just from the ad, but counselled myself that it probably wouldn’t be as perfect in reality.  I can tell you though, that I walked in and fell more head-over-heels with it than ever.  It’s a perfect central location in Bristol, in an old converted warehouse, so it’s got features like exposed brickwork, deep, deep windowsills, wooden beams and an amazing cast iron pillar in the living room.  It’s got parking, which is a miracle, and whilst it’s not huge, it’s so cute and cozy and comfortable, that I’m in love.  Even better, I’ll be able to walk to work once I move in (to my new swankier offices that we’re moving too at the end of next month), and there’s a gym right next to work (which I’m waiting to hear if we get corporate membership on).  Even if we don’t, I’m going to join, as I was looking at the class timetable and it’s perfect – tons of spinning, circuits, yoga, pilates, combat and kick-boxing, with classes before and after work and during the lunch break.  Amazing!  I’m so excited about how convenient that should be – imagine – it won’t matter if I’m doing something on an evening, because I can plan to work out in the morning or lunchtime instead!  Hell, I can even choose to run to / from work for a workout, looping round the harbour-side for a decent workout! 

For once, I feel like one area of life is falling into place.  Money’s going to be a worry until the end of the year I think, but I reckon I’ll make it.

Back soon for more tales from the scale (Friday).  We’ll see – I’ll take what I can get.

Mwah – patient readers o’mine.