Run Fat Fighter! Run! V.3

Posted September 12, 2019

Filed under Fitness

I’ve never been a lover of exercise. I spent most of my senior school PE lessons side-lined with an ingrown toenail with notes to excuse me written regularly by my mum*.

(*There’s a reason why our signatures are so alike. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions about what that reason is…)

But I do appreciate that exercise is a vital part of maintaining a healthy body and mind. With this in mind, I have, with varying levels of commitment and longevity, tried a reasonable range of activities to try and get into the exercise habit over the years.

One of the things I’ve tried is the Couch 2 5K Program (C25K). This is a free program developed by the NHS which promises to take you from sitting on the couch to running 5km in 9 weeks.

I’ve tried it a few times over the last few years. It’s always started well but I’d previously never gotten past about week 4 or 5.

This new year, rather than making ‘resolutions’ which are easy to break and then forget about, I decided to set myself some goals which you can keep working towards even if you have a bit of a set back. One of my goals was to finally complete the C25K program.

I downloaded the latest version of the app and actually went for my first run on Christmas Day last year. “Christmas?” I hear you ask, “I thought this was a ‘new year’ goal?” Well yes, but I’m a planner and I’d decided on Christmas Eve that this was going to be one of them so I thought I might as well strike while the iron was hot and try to balance some of the Christmas calories that I was about to consume.

The first week has you running for 60 seconds at a time with 90 seconds of running in between for a total of 20 minutes. Mr FFF came with me and encouraged me every step of the way. Despite the fact that it was only 60 seconds of running at a time, that only just felt manageable. It felt like I’d never get to a point where I’d be able to run for 30 minutes without stopping, but I knew that I could get to at least Week 4 (the running periods increase gradually each week) so I persevered and made it to Week 5.

Now, in Weeks 1-4, each of the 3 weekly runs is the same, ie in Week 1, you run for 60 seconds and walk for 90 seconds for a total of 20 mins and you do this 3 times in the week. But in Week 5, this pattern changes. I did not know this.

So the first run in Week 5 went: 5 minutes running, 3 minutes walking, 5 minutes running, 3 minutes walking, 5 minutes running. I coped well with this and was feeling pretty good. On my second run, I was feeling a but tired as I’d had a late night the night before and then a particularly busy day at work. But I tied my laces and headed out anyway, not really paying attention to the introduction that my chosen coach (you can choose from the NHS’s own coach or a couple of celebs. I chose Sarah Millican) was giving on how the run would be structured as I chatted to Mr FFF whilst completing our 5 minute warm-up walk. Sarah told me it was time to start running and I picked up the pace expecting to run for 5 minutes. As I was running and waiting for Sarah to tell me that it was time to walk, I was finding the going surprisingly hard. My legs felt heavy and it felt like much more of a struggle than run number 1 of the week had felt. When she finally told me to stop running, she congratulated me for managing to run for 8 whole minutes! No wonder it felt harder.

This was the hardest week as run 3 (which I looked at the schedule for after getting home from run 2!) increased again to running for 20 whole minutes!!! I suddenly remembered why I’d never made it past this point on my previous attempts.

At first I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to do it but I reasoned that the plan had been devised by people who know what they’re talking about. I also knew that I could always repeat this week or the previous week if I found it too hard.

But guess what? I did it! I managed to complete Week 5! Having passed the point at which I’d previously quit really spurred me on to complete the program and I carried on. Even when Mr FFF couldn’t come with me to cheer me on and provide that accountability that I need as an Obliger. Even when the weather turned really wintry and it was snowing. I kept on doing it and I COMPLETED THE PROGRAM!!!

I was so proud of myself for sticking with it and achieving my goal. Even thinking about it now, months later, I still feel really proud.

So, if you’re looking for a way to get moving more**, I’d highly recommend the C25K program. The app is great. It’s free,you can listen to your own music and your coach will tell you when to run, when to walk and will give you words of encouragement throughout each run. You also get a gold tick in the app for each run you complete and a virtual trophy at the end. The program builds up the running time gradually and each week feels like just the right level of challenge.

I’m still fighting the battle with getting into a regular exercise habit, but completing the C25K program has definitely helped me to alter my mindset and believe in my physical abilities.

What are your top tips for getting into an exercise routine? Let me know in the comments section.

Thanks for reading,

FFF

**I am not a doctor. Please check with a doctor or other suitably qualified healthcare professional before beginning any exercise program.

Week in Review – Week 4

Posted January 30, 2017

Filed under My Progress

I can’t believe that tonight was my last weigh-in for January!

Despite not having the best week tracking-wise and having two social events, I’ve lost 0.5 lb and I’m happy with that all things considered. I’ve now got 1.5lb to go to reach my first mini-goal of 7lb. pakorn

The Good

I’ve had two social events this week. The first was a curry for my dad’s birthday on Thursday night. I didn’t feel like having a ‘healthier’ option dish so instead I had curry and split a portion of rice and a naan bread with Mr FFF. But I pointed (sort of – more about that later) what I had and didn’t finish it all. The result was that I went home feeling satisfied but not feeling as though I was about to burst. I also chose to drive rather than have a couple of drinks as I thought that this would be a good way of balancing out the food choices a little bit.

On Saturday, Mr FFF and I were at a property investment seminar all day. It was one of a series we have been going to and I know from previous experience that it is wall-to-wall buffet food. I prepared myself for this mentally in advance and told myself that I wasn’t going to deny myself all the good stuff but that I also didn’t want to come away feeling bloated and like I’d blown my chances at losing weight for the week. As a result, I did have a little of everything but just chose larger portions of the healthier salads and fruits and smaller portions of the less-healthy cakes and biscuits than I’d normally have.

Having had such a good time at Zumba last Sunday, and knowing that I’d got two social events coming up, I decided to go to another Zumba class on Friday night. I took my kit to work with me so I could go straight from there (note to self, don’t leave gym kit in boot during sub-zero temperatures). As the clock ticked towards 5pm, I didn’t feel much like going but I knew that once I got there and got started it wouldn’t be that bad. As it turned out, I enjoyed it even more than I had done on the Sunday and I’m planning on going again this week.

The Bad What I’ve learned

I’ve been continuing to work on developing my mindset this week and one of the ways I’ve done this is to listen to another podcast. This time the topic was about how focusing on the things we do do wrong or the ways in which we fail leaves us stuck in the rut we are trying to get out of rather than helping us to find a solution to our problems. You can listen to it here if you’re interested.

This really resonated with me. Often, in the past, I’ve become really hung up on all the things I’ve ‘failed at’ in regards to my weight loss: not tracking accurately; having a binge; not going to the gym etcetera, etcetera ad infinitum. The result is that I feel bad about myself, berate myself for my failings, feel even worse about myself and then decide that the only thing that can comfort me is diving mouth first at a large bar of chocolate.

But listening to this podcast, I realised that I’ve probably been going about this all wrong. So I’m trying to accept the blips in my weight loss journey in a non-judgemental way (hence the renaming of this section of the post).

Last week I said I was going to aim to track all week again. This went out of the window somewhere during mid-morning of day 1!! As I’ve said before, I’m currently finding staying on track to be a mental challenge. I think this week my mind was thinking, “I’ve got 2 social events coming up this week with loads of food involved so I can use them as my excuse not to track.” It was also my mind being a self-saboteur and doing it’s habitual ‘I can’t stay on track for more than a week at a time’ routine.

Previously I might have viewed this as a failure and given myself a hard time about this leading to a negative, self-sabotaging cycle (see above). But instead, I thought back to the message in this podcast, acknowledged that this was simply a habitual way of thinking and decided that I would still try to track the next time I put something in my mouth.

The result was that I physically tracked some things this week and I mentally tracked most things. It has also helped me learn that not tracking for one meal does not mean I have to throw in the towel completely for the week. It has also highlighted the fact that when I physically track rather than just tracking in my head, I have more chance of losing more weight. I’m going to try to remind myself of this as I go through this week.

Thanks for reading,

FFF

What ‘failures’ do you dwell on and how can you try to turn these into positives to learn from?

Week in Review – Week 3

Posted January 23, 2017

Filed under My Progress

Weigh-in number 3 tonight and after last week’s little blip, I’m pleased to report that I lost 2lb – thereby proving my theory that when you stick to the plan and track, it works.

That brings my total loss to 5lb now and leaves me only 2lb from achieving my mini-goal of losing 7lb. My aim is to reach that goal in the next two weeks. For this week, I’m just going to try sticking to the plan for another week to make it two weeks in a row.

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The Good

Last week I set myself the goal of tracking everything for 4 days. I’m pleased to be able to say that I did in fact track everything for the whole week! I feel really pleased with myself for that.

I went to my yoga class on Wednesday and found that it had been cancelled. I was really disappointed but rather than going home and flaking out on the sofa, I went home and put on an old Davina workout dvd and did 30 mins of pilates instead. It wasn’t as good as an hour of yoga but at least it was something.

After last weekend’s disrupted exercise plans, I decided to take charge of things again. I invited my sister to come and do some kind of exercise on Sunday as I haven’t seen her in a couple of weeks. I suggested Zumba or swimming but she wasn’t up for either of these options and suggested a walk instead. I checked the weather and it was forecast to be dry so we agreed to go nice and early. However, my sister unfortunately had a slight personal emergency (nothing serious and everything is fine now) so messaged me to say that she wouldn’t be able to go after all and suggested that I go to Zumba instead. So I did. It was hard, sweaty and I looked something like a baby giraffe throwing my somewhat gangly self around the exercise studio, but it was great fun and I plan on going back again next week.

Mr FFF took me to the cinema on Saturday night to see Split which was a great, if disturbing, film with a fantastic performance by James McAvoy. He decided to eat at the cinema but I’m not keen on their offerings in terms of the low ratio of food satisfaction and quality to Smart Points and nutritional values. So I ate at home before we went – tuna sandwich with red onions and peppers served with homemade potato wedges. We also decided to take our own popcorn with us as we always find the stuff on sale at the cinema tastes stale. This helped me to control my portion size as the bag we got was smaller than the box I would’ve had otherwise. And it was tastier. We also got some sweets (Mr FFF was a bad influence, although it didn’t take ~~much~~ any persuasion to lead me astray) but I let Mr FFF eat most of them and I pointed what I had.

The Bad

I feel bad about not having done any yoga this week – maybe I’ll look at some routines on youtube or something so that should my class be cancelled again in the future, I’ll be able to keep up my practise.

I didn’t get/make chance to plan my meals this week before going shopping. I decided I had 3 options:

Just get stuff for that day and the following day then go shopping a couple of other times in the week. I thought I probably wouldn’t have time to plan meals and go shopping during the week and that this option would lead to a reliance on takeaways.
Just get a load of ready meals. This would have been fine in terms of allowing a certain number of points per meal but I still want to steer clear of as much processed food as possible and I know that ready meals don’t really fill me up very much.
Plan in my head as I went round the supermarket. This was the option I went for. It was a little bit disorganised but I was able to use my knowledge of which foods to go for and which to avoid to help me plan simple meals that will see me through the week.

Although I wouldn’t want to shop this way every week, this showed me that it is possible to stay on plan even if I haven’t been able to plan ahead as I would like to.

I haven’t dedicated as much time to working on my mindset as I wanted to this week although I have done a little bit.

I’m going to keep the same targets for this coming week, but I’m going to up the tracking goal to tracking for the whole week.

Thanks for reading,

FFF

What do you do to help develop a positive mindset to making healthier choices when it comes to food?

Week in Review – Week 2

Posted January 16, 2017

Filed under My Progress

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at freedigitalphoto.net

Weigh-in number 2 tonight. I wasn’t expecting good things this week as, although I’d planned my meals carefully and followed my plan, I didn’t track snacks or extras so I have no idea whether I stayed in my overall budget or not. The result is, I’ve put on half a pound. It’s not the worst thing in the world, although I am pretty peeved with myself about it. But, I’m drawing a line under it and moving on.

The Good

I went to my yoga class again this week. I’d also arranged to play badminton on Sunday instead of going swimming. This wasn’t my idea but I enjoy badminton and thought it would be fun. I was astounded to find that I was extremely annoyed when the person whose idea it was cancelled it on Sunday morning. By that point it was too late for me to go swimming and I was annoyed that someone else had been able to ruin my exercise plans. Mr FFF suggested that we could do some circuits in the garden but a) it was persisting down with rain and b) I don’t enjoy circuits at the best of times. I must admit to feeling sorry for myself for about five minutes before deciding to go for a walk and to do some yoga at home. This turned out well in the end as I was able to listen to a motivational podcast whilst on my walk.

I’ve been eating plenty of freshly cooked foods with a good amount of fruits and vegetables and very limited amounts of processed foods.

I had a takeaway on Friday night that was unplanned but I convinced Mr FFF that we didn’t need to order enough for 4 people (as we usually do) and pointed what I had.

I replaced ~~some~~ one chocolate-based after-work snack with fruit. Ok it was only once, but that’s a small step towards developing a healthier lifestyle right there. Admittedly, a very small step, but still.

The Bad

As I mentioned earlier – I didn’t track my snacks and treats this week and I still had quite a bit of chocolate. Why did I do this? The simple answer is, I don’t know. I really do want to eat more healthily and lose weight. What went wrong?

As I sat down to write this post, I initially gave myself quite a hard time about this. I berated myself for the fact that I’m only on the second week of my renewed efforts to lose weight and yet I’ve already veered off track.

It was at this point that I got the phone call to say that my badminton session had been cancelled. So, I decided to take a break and go for that walk. The podcast I was listening to was titled Your Eating Habits: What They Are, How You Get Them, and How to Change Them and I thought I might be able to get something useful out of it.

Previously, I’ve always thought of habits to be based around actions (having a biscuit with a cup of tea; always putting grated cheese on pasta dishes etc) and I’ve done quite a bit to change several habits over the course of my weight loss journey so far. Interestingly, this podcast also talked about habitual thought patterns and I realised that this is exactly what applies to me in terms of my mindset to staying on track – it’s become a habit for me to think that I can’t keep up my motivation beyond the first week of an attempt to live more healthily.

This reflection made me realise that I have neglected my mindset development over the past couple of weeks so I’m resolving to make that a big focus this week.

The Plan for Next Week

I’m going to begin work on breaking my habit of thinking I can’t maintain the motivation needed to develop a more healthy lifestyle. I’ve set myself 2 small goals in relation to this:

to track EVERYTHING I eat for 4 days
to read something or listen to a podcast to develop a motivational mindset every day for 4 days

I’m still working on replacing some chocolate-based snacks and treats as well. As the idea of replacing chocolate with fruit last week wasn’t really doing it for me – there’s no comparison really is there! – I’m taking a different tack this week. My trigger times for chocolate, biscuits and other sweet treats are when I get in from work and in the evening after dinner.

When I get in from work, I’m going to try a totally different routine. I’ve examined this habit (as suggested in the podcast I mentioned earlier) and determined that the reason I eat chocolate then is to relax after a busy day. So, what I’m going to do instead is have a cup of fruit tea (I got some delicious ones for Christmas and they spoil the taste of chocolate and biscuits) and read for 20 minutes before I get on with making the dinner and other household chores.

With my evening trigger, I’m going to replace the chocolate and biscuits with yogurt, honey, granola and seeds. This is something I wouldn’t normally choose because of its high points value (no low fat yogurt for me!) but because of this it still seems like an indulgence but at least has a slightly higher nutritional value than chocolate.

Thanks for reading.

FFF

How have you successfully ditched bad habits and created new ones? – all advice gratefully received.

Week in Review – Week 1

Posted January 9, 2017

Filed under My Progress

Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So, tonight I had my first weigh-in since getting back on track and I was delighted to find that I’ve shed 3.5lbs!

I’m really pleased as I’ve put a lot of effort into making healthier choices with food and exercise this week. I think the real test will be this week though. In recent months, whenever I’ve had a ‘getting back on track’ phase, I’ve struggled to last much past the first week.

However, I’m still feeling different and more committed to making changes this time around. I’m also taking inspiration from one of my fellow Weight Watchers this week. She has lost 83lb in 9 months and said in our meeting tonight that once she got started on her journey, it got easier and easier as she was seeing results and her momentum picked up like a snowball rolling down a hill. That made me remember feeling a similar way during my first round of weight loss with Weight Watchers. I really want to feel like that again so thanks to that member for reminding me of it.

So, what has worked and what could have been better this week?

The Good

Planning out my meals and shopping in advance has helped me to stay on track with my meals this week and I’ve repeated this for next week.

I went to both my yoga class and swimming this week. I was pleased to see that I’ve somehow mainted a good level of flexibility in the yoga class.

I have eaten quite a bit of chocolate this week, but I’ve pointed it all.

The Bad

Although I’ve pointed all of the chocolate I’ve eaten, I have eaten quite a bit of it and I know that this is not the healthiest choice I can make. With this in mind, I’m going to conciously try to make better choices when it comes to snacks.

The Plan for Next Week

My small weekly goal is to get rid of some more weight again. I’m not setting a figure on how much – given my recent track record, I’m happy with every ounce I shift!

The slightly bigger goal I’m aiming for is to get rid of 7lb in total to earn a Silver 7 sticker – I haven’t seen one of those bad boys for a while . When I achieve this, I’m going to treat myself to some new earrings that I’ve seen.

To help me achieve these goals, this week I have again planned all of my meals, shopped for the necessary ingredients and I’ve prepared my lunches to take to work for the week in advance. I’ve also booked in time to go to my yoga class and to go swimming again.

I’ve got no real social engagements planned for this week so staying on track should hopefully be relatively easy.

I’ll let you know how I get on.

FFF

How did your weight loss journey progress this week?

My New Year’s Promise

Posted January 10, 2016

Filed under All Things Weight Loss, My Progress

Happy New Year!

Image courtesy of Heavypong at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I’ve been away from blogging for quite a while now but it’s already starting to feel as though I’ve never been away.

As we are already half way through the second week in January, it feels a little bit weird to be saying ‘Happy New Year’ still but I think I’ll keep things a bit traditional for my first post of 2016.

The reason for the delay is that I’ve been given a LOT of thought about the theme of my first post. Last year, I spoke about not wanting to make resolutions because they’ve previously left me feeling like a failure. But clearly that didn’t have the intended effect and I sit here around the same weight as I was last year, if not a few ponds heavier, and I’m still unhappy with my body and fitness levels.

So what went wrong and what am I going to do differently?

Firstly, I let too many things get in the way of me achieving my goals last year. Some of these things I had control over and some I didn’t. To cut a long story short, last year was Hectic (and yes, that IS Hectic with a capital H) and looking after myself pushed off my priorities list.

So this year I’m making myself a couple of ‘promises’ as I think this sounds a little bit more positive than making some resolutions:

I promise to be kinder to myself
I promise to prioritise the things I actually want to spend time on rather than the things I think I should be spending time on

That’s it. Short and sweet.

This week, I was back to work after a two week break for Christmas. In order to keep my promises to myself, I made sure that I left work at a reasonable time each night. My plan was that I would go for a walk in the evenings to make sure that I clocked up 10,000 steps each day. I did this on every day except for Saturday (when I forgot due to it not being a work day and by the time I remembered, it was raining so heavily that I think I would have drowned if I’d gone out in it – note to self, check weather forecast in advance in future!) and I even found myself agreeing to restart the Couch to 5K training plan which I did on Thursday & this morning. I must admit I was a little bit nervous at first as I can’t remember the last time I ran, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought and I felt really good after doing it.

Although I was back to Weight Watchers for my first weigh in of the new year last Monday, I haven’t been very focused on my food this week. However, I have made up 6 batches of different soups to take to work for my lunch each day and my goal for this week is to be more focused on my food choices. I’m not going to promise myself that I’m going to stay on track 100% for the entire week but I’m going to aim for that. If I can track for 5 out of the 7 days I’ll be happy with that.

I’m looking forward to getting to grips with the new Smart Points plan too. I’m motivated by the way it seems tailored to encourage healthier food choices. To help me, I’m stealing an affirmation that I’ve just seen on an episode of Fat: The Fight of My Life (I find these programs massively inspirational):

“The purpose of food is to nourish my body and mind. I will not find comfort in food.”

I also aim to get my blogging mojo back this year. I really enjoy it and I find it really motivating – I just need to make sure I prioritise it.

Now, in the interests of being kinder to myself, I’m off to enjoy a lovely, relaxing bath.

Thanks for reading,

FFF

P.S. Have you made any ‘promises’ to yourself this year? I’d love to hear how you’re getting on with them so far.

On Your Marks, Get Set…

Posted February 12, 2014

Filed under All Things Weight Loss

Well, I’ve taken the plunge. In an effort to bank a few more activity points prior to going out with my work mates on Saturday night, I’ve registered for parkrun and plan to take part in my first one this Saturday morning!

Image courtesy of stockimages / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

If you’ve never heard of it before, parkrun is an organisation that arranges free, 5km runs across the country (and indeed the world!) every week. Your time is recorded and logged online so that you can track how you’re improving.

I must say, I’m a little apprehensive: I’ve never been a massive fan of running and I haven’t run at all since September. And even then I was only doing 1 mile daily. However, I’m reasonably fit and I hope that being in competition with myself will help to spur me on to make this a weekly occurrence and so give my exercise and weight loss a boost.

Here’s hoping!

PS – If you’re interested in taking part in a parkrun event, take a look at their website http://www.parkrun.org.uk/