Woohooooooo!

Hmmmm ... spot that I maybe a little excitable this post!  Unfortunately, and just to burst you bubble straight away, neither of my exciting things has anything to do with eating well or lower numbers at the scales. 

So, sorry and all that.

Two good things today though!

Firstly, and the lesser of the two ... possibly ... is that I finally learned mastered how to do proper poached eggs in boiling water this evening.  Now this is something, that as a relatively keen but amateur cook, I have intermittently tried to master, but inevitably ended up with an eggy, watery mess in the pan.  However, tonight's planned dinner was poached eggs on toast with mushrooms (which can I just say is one of my favourite simple but tasty and filling meals), and there I was in my kitchen faced with the conundrum of one of my silicone poaching cups being missing. I have a pair of them, and they're excellent as they turn out perfect poached eggs, time after time.  Well, I did have a pair of them ... now I appear to have only one!  I looked everywhere.  I had a single poached egg last week, so I know I had it then, but it is nowhere to be found in the kitchen now.  I even turned the rubbish bag out on the kitchen floor as I suspect I've accidentally thrown it away during last Friday's mammoth clean up.  Nothing.

I finally thought "where's the harm in trying just one more time" but decided to follow the instructions from Gizzi's Kitchen Magic this time ..... et voila, via the magic of her instructions, 2 perfectly done poached eggs.  YES!!!!!

So that was one cool thing, as I love mastering new techniques.  Especially when it's been something that's been eluding me for a while.

The second great thing today, was I went for a solo long run straight from my office today.  The plan was just to take it easy and run for an hour.  With the 10k and duathlon coming up in May and June, I want to be prepared.  I already know I can run 10k at my current level of fitness, but I've up (or downed?) my time goals from the last official run at Ashton Court in October.  So I want to get some more long runs in and know I'm going to enjoy it on the day.  I know my 5km time is slowly easing down in the direction of that magical 30 mins barrier, but I don't do enough longer runs to know how my endurance is panning out.

I left for my run straight from office today - just me and my iPod and my work pass, so I could pick up my kit and handbag on the way home.  My plan was just to run around the harbour and then out under the Clifton Suspension Bridge on the trail by the river.  Run til 30 mins on my watch, then turn round and head back round the other side of the harbour.  Mostly, I felt ok today - sometimes I'd hit my stride, sometimes I felt a little sluggish, once I just had the beginnings of a stitch, and a few times I wished I had some water, or had eaten something to boost my energy before leaving.  At least this time, I remembered to keep an eye on landmarks so I could map my run afterwards.  I had 1hr 5mins on the clock when I got back, and GMAP Pedometer shows it was 9.67km - which would put me at 1hr 7mins for the full 10km. 

And here's why I'm pleased - that first 10km at Ashton Court, I was aiming to finish under 1hr 20 tops, and preferably under 1hr 15.  We made it back (knackered) at 1hr 12.  For the Run Bristol in May, I'm aiming for 1hr 10 tops, and preferable under 1hr 5.  My last long (and admittedly very relaxed and chatty Sunday afternoon) run with Hannah was 1hr 20.  So 1hr 7 today?  Already right in the zone I want on the day, with 6 weeks of running time still to go!  And totally my fastest run to date.  By a good 5 mins.  I have absolutely no doubt that I would have continued at the same rate for that last piddly 400m had I needed to.

I didn't feel particularly pushed today - I tried to stay at a comfortable, easy pace for me and just enjoy it without thinking too much about time / distance until right at the end.  Sweet.

On the eating end of things - yesterday was great, until we went to the cinema in the evening.  I deliberately didn't go out for dinner with my friends before hand, and met them ready for the film, except we ended up going to see a later film (oh my God - True Grit everyone - brilliant!), and the suggestion to get dessert came up.  And not just any dessert, but The Lot.  Which is literally a speciality of the bar / restaurant at the cinema (we have fancy cinemas in Bristol).  It's to share between 2 people (and being there was 4 of us you can see how I got suckered into this), and it's basically 6 scoops of Ben and Jerry's icecream (pick your flavours, people!) and two platters on the side - one chocolate with chocolate fudge cake (big slice of), chocolate flakes, chocolate sauce and lots of chocolate type bits to scatter on your ice cream, and one the old-fashioned sweet shop with cheesecake (big slice of), raspberry sauce, dolly mixtures, and lots of different jelly sweets.  Ridiculously good, but also a ridiculous amount of food for 2 people.  If you ask me, one between 4 of us would have been fine!  So yeah, that kind of tripped me up.

Today we've had lunch out with work (a chicken wrap and a small portion of skinny fries), and then my boss bought me latte and brownie at our afternoon planning meeting, hence the eggs on toast for tea.  Good job I ran for an hour then!

Normality resumes tomorrow.  Oh and Fitball class at lunchtime, which has been known to fell far fitter people than me!

Snotty McSnotterson Checking In

Bleugh - I've got a cold, and I totally hate.  Mind you - what it's really drawn my attention to is that fact that I must not have had a cold / been ill for ages, as I'd completely forgotten how much they suck!

Sneeze, sneeze, sniff, blow, sniff, sniff, sneeze. 

I don't have time to be ill, people! I have things to do!

That said, I didn't feel much like working out today - funny how the inability to breath properly affects your motivation!  But I was feeling pretty stiff after the walk on Saturday (seriously??  Why so stiff after a flipping walk??) as my calves and glutes were pretty tight, so thought a lunchtime Body Balance class would be better than sitting in the office feeling miserable.  And I was so right.

In fact - I magically stopped sniffing for the duration of the class.  How does that happen??  It was a great class - the lady taking it was awesome and I felt much better for it afterwards.

Eating's not been terrible, and not been fantastic either, today.  I can't taste that much, but I'm also feeling sorry for myself, so a Frency Fancy and some malt loaf snuck into my mouth.  Lots of fresh veggies for dinner with pasta to make up for it though.

On the practical side of things, I've managed to sort my new car finances out today, and after a sweaty palms moment, passed the credit checks, so I shall hopefully be picking up my new car and getting rid of the unrealiable Corsa this week ... woooohooooo!  I'm downgrading from my 1.7l Corsa SXI to a little 1l Citroen C1 citycar, which I'll be leasing for the next 2 years.  Multiple plus points in this arrangement for me as I can plough the equity from my current car into my debts (every little bit helps, huh?) and in return I gain a new, (hopefully) reliable, warranty covered, super economical car to run.  So I get money for my debts, and the car costs me less to run - pretty much a win-win situation!!  Especially given that I was just given the bad (but not at all unexpected) news today that I won't get a payrise for 2011 since I only joined the company in October. Slightly disappointing, but never mind.  Just got to keep ploughing on with what we've got to hand.

Debt and weight loss - like peas in a pod.  A long, slow process, where the best you can do is chip away, try not to think about how far you still have left to go, and accept that life will make things difficult and occasionally set you back!

Onwards!

Tasteless

Well, my lovelies, that's it!!!

My sense of taste has officially deserted me and all food now tastes of ... nothing whatsoever.

Stupid cold.

Oh well - I guess if I can't taste anything there's no point in eating very much!

Right?

Walking, curries and cars

I'm having such a nice weekend! We had a gorgeous walk from Malvern to Ledbury yesterday, even if the cloud did decide not to clear from the top of the hills for ages, but it was so nice to be out and doing stuff with friends anyway!

Friday night I went for drinks with friends, which nicely rounded off my spur-of-the-moment day off of relaxation. And then last night we had dinner at a lovely local Indian restaurant and then went to see a local band play. And of course the best thing about having done 10 mile walks earlier in the day is you can put the food-guilt on one side at dinner time.

In fact - I'm having a pretty good weekend for eating. The not drinking thing totally helps as I'm not wasting calories (and my precious pennies!) on alcohol - I might end up sticking with this for a bit longer after Lent is done and see if it will help me finish getting this last ~10lbs shifted to get me to goal!

And I made good choices with my picnic yesterday, checked my available points before I went out for dinner last night so I could make an educated choice and have tracked everything as I've gone. I'm almost in danger of having a great food weekend!

I've also been very proud of myself on my positive thinking - I've been making a very conscious effort to not be negative about things - to be positive about myself and my current situation, but also to keep unhelpful negative opinions to myself when talking about other people. I don't like how I either turn other people's good fortune to a whine about my bad fortune, or am just pointlessly bitchy sometimes - it feels much nicer to only come out with the positive / constructive stuff.

Other than that, I've been doing a bit of haggling with the garage and think I've sorted out a new car for myself that sees me (hopefully) getting rid of my horribly unreliable and expensive Corsa in favour of something much more economical and even frees me up some money to pay towards the ever-hovering debts. Fingers crossed it all goes through ok!!

Hope you've all had good weekends - I'm going to go back to lounging on my bed reading in the sun from the window and intermittently emitting snotty sounds - stupid colds!!!


- Posted from my iPhone

Skin Of My Teeth

Happy Friday boys and girls!!!

I don't know how, but after a weekend of particularly heinous cake-fuelled eating and a subsequent week of not overly inspired getting-back-to-itness, I've somehow arrived back at my lowest weight to date of 12st 2.8lbs.  Unless you count my second standing on the scales when I got up properly after my lie-in in which case I'm at a new low ... but I don't, so we shall ignore that.

I think it is fair to say that I have exercised my Jammy Bugger card this week and got away with it by the skin of my teeth.

However I got here - fate, the Gods, downright flukiness - it now comes down to me to put in a bit of effort to keep going.

I've had a lovely impromptu day off work today - basically the equivalent of the US' mental health day - a last minute decision yesterday that I didn't want to go to work today and just wanted a completely unplanned day to relax and unwind.  And that's exactly what I've had, except it's actually turned out oddly productive.  I've woken up naturally without an alarm, wandered into town in the sun to collect my contact lenses and then stopped at Starbucks on the way back to sit for a quiet hour with a muffin (skinny of course) and just peacefully devour a magazine from cover to cover. 

I've also tidied the flat, done several loads of washing, cancelled some direct debits, chased some money owed to me and made some enquiries about a new car ... productive or what!  And in between times had extra tasty lunch and read some of my book.

Eats have not been at all bad today so that's pleasing.  The plan for this weekend runs something along the lines of driving back to Malvern tonight to stay with my Dad, and then meeting up with friends tomorrow for a nice walk somewhere and possibly dinner and watching the England v Wales football, or something along that line anyway.  I'm still not drinking due to my giving the old alco-frol for Lent, so that makes things a little easier - here's hoping (and aiming) for a fairly restrained but fun weekend.

Enjoy the sunshine, lovelies!

Today I like: (aside from the sun and free time obviously) the way I have natural colour along my cheekbones which accentuates them ... and hell, that I have cheekbones at all these days :o)

A Little Bit Easier

Hey boys and girls,

How's it going?  Aren't you just loving this amazing Spring weather?  Two days of walking to work with no coat, and I'm in a skirt and bare legs today, and it's totally perked my mood up!

My eating's still not perfect, but it's certainly more conscious than it was - case in point - I wanted something sweet to take to Hannah's last night to watch a film, but didn't want to go for chocolate so got one of those sherbert dip things instead as it was smaller.  And today, I know I've got left over lasagne for dinner, so I'm being careful with my daytime points.

I've been out for a run in the glorious sunshine this lunchtime with Liz, who I work with.  It turned into a bit more of a jog / amble as she was getting terrible stitch, but just getting out and getting sunshine, fresh air and movement was great.  I alos got an extra hour's walking in the sunshine yesterday lunchtime, so at least I'm doing something.

I'm taking tomorrow off as a me-day - just a day to chill, catch up on sleep, get a few chores out the way and relax before the weekend - no special plans, just the luxury of some spare time - and I'm so excited!!

Phew!

Well, after this morning's shower-time revelation as to my recent comfort eating, I've made it through the day in tact.

Spin class at lunch time (although with very tired legs) and have even managed to squeeze in dinner out and a small pack of Maltesers at the cinema this evening without deviating from plan. Better.

- Posted from my iPhone