Well, I’ve decided on a plan of action for the next eight weeks. I’m going to start the new year off by returning to New Rules of Lifting for Women. Since I only managed a few weeks of the workouts last time, and that was in September, I am going to go back to the beginning and start Stage 1 again. There are eight each of two workouts in this stage and I’m going to ease myself in gently by doing just two weights workouts a week for the first four weeks before upping that to three a week. So I should finish stage 1 in seven weeks, then have a week off lifting before moving to Stage 2. I’ve drawn up a schedule for the next eight weeks, with something everyday, including at least one and sometimes two weekly HIIT sessions, badminton once a week, pilates or yoga, and at least one other cardio session, either a dance workout or kickboxing. But as I’ve said to my new motivation buddy for 2010, (Hi Val, if you’re reading), my minimum is 2 weights, 1 interval session, and 60 mins of other cardio each week. The other stuff is bonus and to strive for in an ideal world. This week’s schedule looks like this:

Sunday	NROL4W Stage 1 w/o A1, walk
Monday	Badminton
Tuesday	Intervals
Wednesday	NROL4W w/o B1
Thursday	Bike
Friday	Pilates
Saturday	Dance w/o

I’ll write more about individual goals for each workout type as and when.

Eats will be in line with the recommendations in NROL4W: 40-30-30 and maintenance calories to begin, so around 1860 on non-lifting days and 2170 on lifting days.

My plan was due to start today and I got off to a good start by falling behind from the get go. It is now midnight. I have spent much of the day in bed and have not done my scheduled A1 weights workout. Will do Tuesday’s intervals now before hitting the sack and shuffle around a bit for the rest of the week. I’ll also take starting measurements tomorrow.

It seems to be a bit of a recurring theme with me of late, but last week didn’t go quite to plan. I didn’t check into my blog and had completely forgotten what my goals were, but if I had deliberately set out to flout them, I doubt I could have done a better job. Gorging on chocolates and other rubbish, and no exercise until the weekend, when I managed to get in an hour’s walking in total. This morning I weighed in, unsurprisingly, at 14 stone exactly. Time to take my blubbery self in hand. Again.

Today was supposed to be ‘fish and chip day’ at work. It had been scheduled in the diary for over a month. But after realising I was back at 14 stone, I suddenly didn’t feel much like fish and chips anymore. I took a prawn and mango salad in, but in honour of fish and chip day, I used half a diced avocado instead of a quarter. Plus the usual salad greens, some walnuts, peppadews and sweet pickled beetroot. It was absolutely delicious. I definitely made the right choice there.

Also, tomorrow is the last day for the Christmas markets in Manchester town centre. Hubby and I go every year, but don’t usually buy anything. We just fill up on ‘pig sandwich’, german sausage, deep fried potatoes with bacon and cheese, waffles with cream and hot chocolate with baileys in. Actually, that sounds pretty damn good. But I made the executive decision for us both – it’s Christmas day in a few days; maybe if we’d gone to the market earlier, but neither of us need two pig outs like that in one week.

Plus, I’ve already done 34 minutes of exercise this week, and it’s only Monday! Also, I need a 3-day food diary for an assignment, so I am using FitDay again. Came in at just over 1900 calories today: 49% carbs, 23% protein, 28% fat. But the details are more telling. Over 45g fibre, 114g protein, and the fat breakdown was 6% saturated, 7% polyunsaturated and 10% monounsaturated (not all items have fat composition data), so I was pretty pleased with that. OK, goals for this week:

• Nutrition: Maintain a deficit overall for the week (it’s Christmas, remember!)
• Exercise: Do some every day. Try and hit 20 km total on the treadmill.
• Lifestyle: Finish tidying my office so that I can actually work in it.

I’m having a bit of a tough time at work at the moment. Last week my boss upset me so much that I had my first cigarette in over 10 years. Half a cigarette actually, bummed off a GP (family physician)! I’m sorry to say it did actually help a bit, right up until the point that I felt violently sick. I know it’s stupid, and I won’t do it again. But it’s amazing that even after all this time, when the s**t hits the fan, the craving comes back. To be honest, I was actually pleasantly surprised that my craving was for a smoke rather than for 5 pints of haagen dasz or a family size bar of galaxy – my usual poisons.

We had another ‘thing’ yesterday, and again, my first instinct was not to turn to food. I suppose this is a good thing. I resisted the urge to bum another cigarette, waited till I got home, and poured myself a large glass of my favourite wine. Even as I was doing it I knew I should channel my anger and frustration out into exercise and it would probably help, but by that time I’d drunk half the wine and there was no going back (or getting on the treadmill, for that matter – best stick to exercising whilst sober). Another glass of wine later and the takeaway menus had come out. I ordered the most ridiculous amount of Chinese food – enough for three people, and polished off the majority of it. And another glass of wine. Hah, take that boss lady – that’ll learn ya.

Despite knowing how self destructive and pointless it is to deal with my emotions like this, and how much more effective something like running or boxing would be, in the crunch situation, I still revert back to these bad habits. I had an awful night. Lay awake for ages, still upset, despite all that food, and then woke up every half hour or so with a raging thirst and drank litres and litres of water. Woke up this about 4 with a severe asthma attack, and still having trouble breathing at 7. Called in sick. Way to act like a grown up. Slept till the phone woke me up at 3.30. Yes, in the afternoon. And an hour later, am only just starting to feel human again. I’m disappointed with myself for reverting to old habits when I know better and have come this far. I’d welcome any suggestions on how to implement new, better behaviours in tough situations. Not what to do – I know that – but HOW to do it.

Your chastened, BBG.

Oh dear, this week hasn’t gone quite to plan. I got as far as not going to bed when I came home, but as for hitting the sack at a reasonable hour… The only day I managed it was on between Friday and Saturday when I slept for 22 hours after pulling an all-nighter. The previous three days I’d accrued a total of maybe 10 hours sleep, making this possibly my worst sleep week in several years. Needless to say no exercise. Food grabbed as and when. Have been eating a lot of cereal at odd hours. I think this coming week will call be a ‘do-over’. Goals as below.

Well, I did reasonably well with my goals last week. I did 2 hrs 55 mins exercise, just 5 minutes short of my 3 hour goal. Did two resistance sessions, 2 short interval sessions, and ate healthy meals, but a few less-healthy snacks (although I ate a lot less less-healthy snacks than the week before!). It’s been reflected with a nice one pound drop in weight, but more importantly, I feel better about myself when I am moving and when I am in control.

Goals for this week:

• Exercise: I want to up my CV fitness so I’m going to set myself a distance goal for this week. I want to do 10km on the treadmill. At least two sessions must be intervals but the rest can be brisk walking. And again, a minimum of two resistance sessions.
• Nutrition: I will eat no chocolate at all this week with the exception of my daily 2 pieces of dark chocolate (it’s medicinal).
• Lifestyle: I will not go to bed when I get home from work but will do things that need doing, like study, cleaning and exercise (not necessarily in that order). Then I will try to go to bed at a sensible hour, i.e. before midnight, and ideally before 11.

Yesterday, while waiting for a session to start at work I decided to get a mini workout in. I asked my colleague to hold the boxercise pads for me and put me through my paces. Five minutes. That’s all it took to nearly kill me. I was exhausted, and breathing so hard that it triggered an asthma attack. It occurred to me that I’ve done one hardcore cardio workout since coming back from New York. That’s one workout in three months. I can’t get over how quickly my cardiovascular fitness has declined. Got to step it up. I don’t want to go back to where I was.

Well, I don’t really have much to report but feel a bit guilty about how rarely I’ve been updating my blog. Seems I made my latest resolution to get my act together not a moment too soon. The next morning I weighed in at 14 stone exactly. I’m back down in the 13s now: 13 stone 12.6 this morning. The pattern seems to be: lose a stone relatively quickly then stabilise and hold steady for a couple of months before embarking on the next leg of my blubbergone journey. I can live with that. Just another twelve and a half pounds to go on this leg then. Surprisingly, I’ve been finding it quite easy on the food front. Loads of chocolate and other junk around the office at the moment, but I’ve had no trouble just ignoring it. Last week I barely came up for breath in between drawer and cupboard raiding trips. On track with my exercise goals for the week too, although I still have a way to go – another hour and forty minutes minimum with at least one more resistance workout and an interval workout included. I wish I had something more interesting to write, but you lot will be the first to know if anything of note happens.

I’ve been really slack of late. I’m playing around with my diet – a little good stuff, a little junk, and ordering in far too often when there is food already in the house and no excuse at all. I did manage to do a little exercise last week, but had that two and a half hours by Thursday, and despite being home early on Friday and all day Saturday and Sunday, didn’t do a lick more. It really isn’t good enough. My weight is holding steady but I am fed up of this and want to make some more progress. New goal for the week. Eat clean for the rest of the week. Do at least two resistance sessions, at least one interval session, and at least three hours in total exercise. No more excuses.

It’s been a while since I posted. The week after poor Elwood went to little hammy heaven, Spike took a turn for the worse and joined him. I hope they’re both having fun up there, scampering around from cloud to cloud, eating sunflower seeds to their hearts’ content.

As for me, things overall have been going well. I’m still not doing much in the way of exercise, and certainly not lifting, but my eating is under control. I’m keeping a written food diary based on portions of food groups, rather than calories, so no counting, which is nice. I’ve also been reading a book called “Eating Less: Say goodbye to overeating” by Gillian Riley. She is apparently a counsellor and has also written books about stopping smoking. Her premise is that overweight is caused by an addiction to overeating, and overeating can and should be treated in the same way as other addictions. The book makes an enormous amount of sense (except where she goes outside her remit and tries to explain science, which she clearly has no understanding of), but the behaviour change stuff is excellent and I am finding it very helpful. This morning I weighed in at 13 stone 11.8 (193.8 lbs/88.1kg), probably around a 10-year low!

This week I am attending the second module of my MSc in Weight Management and we have been looking at different methods of assessing obesity levels. We got to try out lots of techniques, from circumferences, to skinfolds, to bioelectrical impedance, to a BodPod and underwater weighing. They have all come between 0–2% of what my home Tanitas tell me in the morning, and in the case of the BodPod, that’s an £18,000 piece of equipment (around US$30,000!). Unfortunately, I didn’t get a reading from the underwater weighing – I was just too buoyant. They couldn’t get me under the water! It’s been quite fun, and I am inspired to re-start my exercise efforts. Maybe. Soon. One of the most striking things about it all though was that I was quite happy to get down to my swimsuit in front of a group of people I didn’t know and have them poke, prod and measure me. Two years ago I would rather have had my fingernails pulled out with pliers. I have come a long way in body acceptance terms – firstly because I am proud of my body and what I have achieved, even though I have a long way to go and still don’t look the way I would like, and secondly because I truly no longer identify my self worth by how I look. I am not my fat. It was really quite liberating.

I don’t usually write about my personal life, except as it pertains to health and fitness, but I will make a special exception today. Nearly two years ago, hubby and I bought ourselves three small Russian dwarf hamsters, and called them Jake, Elwood and Spike. The hamsters were a kind of compromise pet – we were limited because of a) my allergies and b) the no pets rule where we live. But after a chance meeting in a pet shop (where we would often go just to dream and play with other people’s pets), we became the proud owners of our three little hamlets. They would have been about a month old when they came to live with us and were so tiny you could barely feel the weight of them on your palm.

Since then, despite me developing an unfortunate hamster allergy (particulary when it came to cleaning their cages!), they have provided us with hours and hours of priceless entertainment. One of my favourites was Elwood, standing up on his hind legs, holding a chip (french fry) as big as he was between his little fluffy paws, and nibbling away at it with gusto. Before anyone gets on their high horse, the chip incident was a one off. Usually treats comprised seeds, nuts, or a bit of grape or broccoli.

It was always quite amazing such small animals could have such large and distinctive personalities. Jake, although a bit of a bully when he was with the other two (we had to separate them), was the only one who would sit still and let you pet him. In the early days, he was also the one who left little unwanted presents when you picked him up – the highlight being the day he weed on my rather posh mother. He loved running on his wheel – although not so much nowadays, he is getting on a bit – but never strayed far from home. Spike was like spiderman – he would hang upside down off his fruit stick to make sure that he got every last morsel. But Elwood reminded me the most of myself, and probably because of this he has always been my favourite. He was greedy, lazy, and loved to explore. We would let him loose on the carpet and he would hoover up any crumbs that we might have missed. He’d eat anything and everything and hated his wheel. But he never missed a chance to escape and would roam all over the house in his little yellow ball. When he was young, he’d sit up on his back legs and look like a little grey fluffy tennis ball he was so chubby, but as he grew into adulthood he became the slimmest of the three.

Russian dwarfs don’t live all that long – between one and two years generally, 18 months on average. Ours must be around 21 months old now. Spike has a couple of tumours on his rear legs but otherwise seems absolutely fine and is still going strong. He is likely to die of old age before the cancer makes him ill. Jake is a little chubbier, and runs a little less than he used to, but is otherwise in good health. But Elwood developed what looked like a cold last Thursday and died suddenly on Friday night. He was buried yesterday in my mother’s garden, in a small box with some fluffy bedding and his cuddly broccoli, and in the spring we will plant some sunflowers to mark the spot – his favourite seed, and apparently the national flower of Russia. Hubby and I cried like babies, and I am tearing up as I write this. To my little explorer, R.I.P.