Tuesday 27 December 2011

A Post-Christmas Confession

Hi, my name is Sue, and I can't actually remember when I last tracked my food properly.

Yep - I'm a Weightwatchers member who doesn't seem to be following the rules right now.  Which is probably why my weight wandered back up to 13st recently. 

Last week's loss of appetite did then cause it to drop back down by a few lbs, which was rather nice, but having made it up to and through Christmas Day with no obvious damage, I do seem to have been paying rather too much attention to the chocolate the last couple of days.  And one senses, that without a tracker to keep me honest, that could be a little damaging if left unchecked.

I've rather fallen into a pattern since last week, of only having one big meal a day.  If I eat a proper lunch, I just have a bowl of soup for tea, and not accompanied by my usual couple of slices of toast.  And other days, I just don't bother eating very much until tea-time and then have a proper meal.  This is all very good behaviour.  The overwhelming (and growing) allure of the Naughty Cupboard (full of all the sweets and goodies) is not. 

So, if I can't step away from the sweeties over the next couple of days, I'm going to have to go back to tracking properly, and to be quite honest, I've rather enjoyed not having to track and just adjusting my eating naturally to suit.  For now, I've simply removed myself up to my bedroom (at my Dad's house) and away from the siren call of the kitchen.

Since I've been home, I've managed to complete the first two training runs for my half-marathon - a 30 and a 40 min easy run, respectively.  I find it odd just running for a set time and not worrying about distance or pace, and have been working in a cool down walk at the end of my runs by running out a few mins further than I need to, so I can cool down on the way back to the car.  It's been lovely running back on the Malvern hills again, although I was somewhat irritated to realise that I've forgotten to bring my iPod Shuffle home with me, so they've musically unaccompanied runs so far.  One thing I will need to do, and soon once I'm back in Bristol, is go to the running shop and get some new shoes.  My poor trainers have literally got a hole in the side, which is a sure sign of how many miles they've got in them now - I've had them for a good couple of years and have probably done all my running in them since I started in 2009, including the training for 2 10ks and a duathlon.  I'm not sure they've got a HM in them too.  I did get to test out my lovely new Icebreaker base-layer on my runs though - I swear it's even lovelier for being a half-price bargain!

I'm hoping that I'll be able to get back into my running fairly quickly and that I'll see my fitness start to improve quite soon.  The first 4 weeks of the plan don't look too terrible, as this week is a 35 and another 40 min run, and the long runs over the next two weeks are 45 and 55 mins.  That doesn't sound too terrible, but after that it starts to look a bit scary.  I'm supposed to be doing short interval runs both last week and this one too, but I have a feeling they'll both get skipped - I know they're supposed to be good for you, but I loathe them with a passion and I am just not ever going to be a fast runner.  I think the compromise will be this:  skip the first two, then the 4 or so weeks are 3 steady runs a week with no intervals, and then the intervals come back - hopefully by then I'll be feeling fitter and will be able to face them a bit better.  We'll see.

Anyhoo - I'll be keeping an honest eye on both my eating and running and see what happens.  If I have to be stricter with myself, I will be, but I'd like to prove to myself that I can just bimble along in a more relaxed fashion and still make slow progress in the right direction.

Other than that, my sale shopping is all done - I raided Fat Face yesterday and left with a full bag - new coat, new cords, a jumper-dress and a cute knitted headband.  That officially is my whole sale shopping budget done.  Other than that, I'm still trying to find a surf board for myself, which is proving annoyingly more difficult than I anticipated - at least if I'm going to be good and stick to my budget.

I've got a fairly quiet week this week, seeing a few friends but generally chilling and still catching up on all that lovely missed sleep from the last couple of months.  Towards the end of the week, I'll head down to London for a relaxed New Year with friends, then New Years Day, Chris is back from snowboarding (lucky sod) and I'm heading down to see him for my last few hours of freedom before it's back to work (and oh boy, is it going to be chaos) on the 3rd.

I'll let you know how the eating and running goes!  And honestly! :o)

Hope everyone's enjoying the post-Christmas food coma!

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