Hi there,
So firstly, my apologies to anyone reading this for not posting for over a month now. Things have been REALLY busy and to cut a long story short, I simply haven't had the time to write.
In the last month I have managed to maintain my weight and not gain any that I'd lost, but circumstances have meant that I've barely had the time to exercise. This has been really frustrating.
This weekend we finally caught a break and our breath and today it felt really good to get back to exercising. My husband and I went for a walk along the river making the most of the improved weather. A good 90 minutes of walking and talking made such a difference, physically and emotionally.
I also got time this weekend to cook from scratch again making healthy meals not just for this weekend but also for later in the week, when if recent events are anything to go by we'll be really busy again!
So that's it for now, I know this is only a short post, but I promise I will write again in the week.
Take care
E
Sunday, 20 February 2011
Sunday, 9 January 2011
Week 2 - Contracts, cake and control
So here I am at the end of 'Week 2', husband in the shower, lying on the bed with a cup of tea and some good music feeling very relaxed and happy. But not all of this week felt like this.
After all the alcohol and travel of New Years I wanted a quiet start to the week, but that's just not how life works now is it? Our return to work was greeted with chaos, to cut a lot of things short January is the second busiest month of our school year, just behind February. Immediately I was confronted with a sheer wall of things to be done and all the relaxed atmosphere of the Christmas break vanished off into the realm of memory. This stress was compounded on Tuesday with some contract negotiations regarding our leaving date from Korea which was not helpful in any way. Now for me, and I guess for many, stress is a big trigger for eating too much, not exercising and generally running myself into the ground. A couple of years ago, or even a few months ago being totally honest, this amount of work to do would have sent me into a spin, but recently I've been learning how to manage this better. So whilst for Monday (and then again on Tuesday) I needed to get my head down and work through all the challenges being thrown my way, I silently vowed to myself to make some time for myself later.
This is a really tough thing to do, when confronted with people asking ever increasing things from me I normally drop my own needs to finish everything I'm asked to. I inherit this from my Mum, an amazing, strong woman who would literally walk through fire for others and then go and do their shopping too, and at times its a great trait for both of us enabling us to cope with a lot and keep going. But sometimes it causes both of us to neglect ourselves, believing that our need to relax isn't as important as helping someone else. Sometimes this might be true, but often I admit it's not. I very much doubt that the world around us would collapse if we once said 'No. You go and do it, I need a break'. However, I recently learned some meditation techniques through an exploration of Buddhism and tried them a few times when I was feeling good, and felt even better. Then on that busy Monday suddenly my brain woke up and thought 'Hey, if they worked when we didn't feel stressed, maybe ... bear with me here, but maybe, just maybe, they'll work when we are stressed.' The rest of me agreed this was a worthwhile idea, so that night I tried it out, and, much to my surprise, it worked. I felt better.
After that the week presented some other challenges which were difficult, but with the new realisation that taking out 10 minutes for myself I could feel a lot better I handled it pretty well.
Then came Friday. Friday was my 23rd birthday. And I had a great day, my husband spoiled my rotten, my friends took me out for the night - it was great. But cake dammit. My colleagues at school bought me a cake, one of the parents of a student bought 8 handmade fairy cakes, icing and all. I don't know about your resolve, but its hard not to eat cake on your birthday. I'd exercised 4 days in the week, I'd cooked fresh, healthy meals every night. So I decided that sod it, it's my birthday I'm having some cake.
The control, in case you'd paid attention to the title of this entry, was that I had one piece of the cake. And I exercised and cooked again the next night. Also, I lost 1.5lbs this week - not bad, not bad at all.
After all the alcohol and travel of New Years I wanted a quiet start to the week, but that's just not how life works now is it? Our return to work was greeted with chaos, to cut a lot of things short January is the second busiest month of our school year, just behind February. Immediately I was confronted with a sheer wall of things to be done and all the relaxed atmosphere of the Christmas break vanished off into the realm of memory. This stress was compounded on Tuesday with some contract negotiations regarding our leaving date from Korea which was not helpful in any way. Now for me, and I guess for many, stress is a big trigger for eating too much, not exercising and generally running myself into the ground. A couple of years ago, or even a few months ago being totally honest, this amount of work to do would have sent me into a spin, but recently I've been learning how to manage this better. So whilst for Monday (and then again on Tuesday) I needed to get my head down and work through all the challenges being thrown my way, I silently vowed to myself to make some time for myself later.
This is a really tough thing to do, when confronted with people asking ever increasing things from me I normally drop my own needs to finish everything I'm asked to. I inherit this from my Mum, an amazing, strong woman who would literally walk through fire for others and then go and do their shopping too, and at times its a great trait for both of us enabling us to cope with a lot and keep going. But sometimes it causes both of us to neglect ourselves, believing that our need to relax isn't as important as helping someone else. Sometimes this might be true, but often I admit it's not. I very much doubt that the world around us would collapse if we once said 'No. You go and do it, I need a break'. However, I recently learned some meditation techniques through an exploration of Buddhism and tried them a few times when I was feeling good, and felt even better. Then on that busy Monday suddenly my brain woke up and thought 'Hey, if they worked when we didn't feel stressed, maybe ... bear with me here, but maybe, just maybe, they'll work when we are stressed.' The rest of me agreed this was a worthwhile idea, so that night I tried it out, and, much to my surprise, it worked. I felt better.
After that the week presented some other challenges which were difficult, but with the new realisation that taking out 10 minutes for myself I could feel a lot better I handled it pretty well.
Then came Friday. Friday was my 23rd birthday. And I had a great day, my husband spoiled my rotten, my friends took me out for the night - it was great. But cake dammit. My colleagues at school bought me a cake, one of the parents of a student bought 8 handmade fairy cakes, icing and all. I don't know about your resolve, but its hard not to eat cake on your birthday. I'd exercised 4 days in the week, I'd cooked fresh, healthy meals every night. So I decided that sod it, it's my birthday I'm having some cake.
The control, in case you'd paid attention to the title of this entry, was that I had one piece of the cake. And I exercised and cooked again the next night. Also, I lost 1.5lbs this week - not bad, not bad at all.
Saturday, 1 January 2011
Week 1 - New routines, and breaking them
Well, almost a week has passed since I resolved with myself to change my lifestyle habits and make myself fitter, in preparation for a lot of traveling.
This week, let's call it 'Week 1' (not imaginative I know, but easy to follow), got off to a good start. I exercised everyday, more than I had planned, and was cooking healthy meals at home. I know that the exercise thing is the biggest change for me, and for reasons unrelated to losing weight the most difficult to maintain, so I started out gently enough doing 30 minutes at a time. Enough to burn a few calories and get my heart-rate up but not so much that I'd wake up the next day with more aches than fingers to count them on. I was really surprised how much this made me feel better about myself. In just those first 3 days I was feeling more awake, more energetic, and, importantly, more positive about myself. It was fantastic. I loved this feeling and wanted it to continue, the routine I'd set myself was working brilliantly.
Then some bright spark, a friend of mine, suggested that we go away to the southern city of Busan for New Years. I love travelling, I love Busan, I love celebrating with my friends. So off we went. Now here you might be already guessing that everything went back to square one. Take away food, too much alcohol, and no exercise. But that's not totally true.
Yes, we had some junk food (a burger while waiting for the train) and yes, I did have a few drinks on the 31st December, but overall I think I did pretty well. We ate out, and I chose good foods to eat with lots of vegetables and fresh, lean, meat, sticking rather well to the diet side under the circumstances. As for exercise we walked all over the place. To the beach, along the beach, to the restaurant, back to the beach, along the beach, to the market, back to the beach, along the beach, to the hostel etc, etc. What's more, our hostel was 4 floors up, with no lift, so I got an extra little bit of cardio going up and down the stairs, which was even more fun at night since there was a distinct lack of lighting. So okay, I ate some junk food, and yes I drank on New Years Eve, but I did exercise, and for the most part I ate well and most importantly it was worth it. We had a great time, made some new friends and really enjoyed ourselves.
So now I'm back home in Seoul and this morning I got straight back to my routine, exercising for 30 minutes and having a healthy breakfast. Tomorrow I'm back at work, which although tiring, gives me routine which I'm hoping I can use to keep me going. Let's hope that 'Week 2' works out even better.
This week, let's call it 'Week 1' (not imaginative I know, but easy to follow), got off to a good start. I exercised everyday, more than I had planned, and was cooking healthy meals at home. I know that the exercise thing is the biggest change for me, and for reasons unrelated to losing weight the most difficult to maintain, so I started out gently enough doing 30 minutes at a time. Enough to burn a few calories and get my heart-rate up but not so much that I'd wake up the next day with more aches than fingers to count them on. I was really surprised how much this made me feel better about myself. In just those first 3 days I was feeling more awake, more energetic, and, importantly, more positive about myself. It was fantastic. I loved this feeling and wanted it to continue, the routine I'd set myself was working brilliantly.
Then some bright spark, a friend of mine, suggested that we go away to the southern city of Busan for New Years. I love travelling, I love Busan, I love celebrating with my friends. So off we went. Now here you might be already guessing that everything went back to square one. Take away food, too much alcohol, and no exercise. But that's not totally true.
Yes, we had some junk food (a burger while waiting for the train) and yes, I did have a few drinks on the 31st December, but overall I think I did pretty well. We ate out, and I chose good foods to eat with lots of vegetables and fresh, lean, meat, sticking rather well to the diet side under the circumstances. As for exercise we walked all over the place. To the beach, along the beach, to the restaurant, back to the beach, along the beach, to the market, back to the beach, along the beach, to the hostel etc, etc. What's more, our hostel was 4 floors up, with no lift, so I got an extra little bit of cardio going up and down the stairs, which was even more fun at night since there was a distinct lack of lighting. So okay, I ate some junk food, and yes I drank on New Years Eve, but I did exercise, and for the most part I ate well and most importantly it was worth it. We had a great time, made some new friends and really enjoyed ourselves.
So now I'm back home in Seoul and this morning I got straight back to my routine, exercising for 30 minutes and having a healthy breakfast. Tomorrow I'm back at work, which although tiring, gives me routine which I'm hoping I can use to keep me going. Let's hope that 'Week 2' works out even better.
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