Right idea, wrong time

As a follow-up to my previous post, I finally made the decision to quit the gym.  As with every decision I make, it involved a lot of soul-searching and list-making...! At the moment, I am nowhere near ready to return, my health is shockingly below par and it's going to take a long time before I'm back in shape, but it's a vicious circle - need to go to the gym to get fit, but not fit enough to go to the gym.  I feel like one of those "Biggest Loser" contestants when they've just entered the ranch and are falling to pieces when they take their first steps on the treadmill.

In  an act of self-compassion, I'm not going to call the great gym experiment a 'failure'; it was just the right idea but the wrong time.  Just another speed bump on the road to fitness.  And boy oh boy, has this summer been the wrong time.  So what comes after the last chance saloon?  Another round, I guess...

Having been here in this situation so many, many times over the last few years, the most important thing is that no matter how overweight or unfit you are, that every day is a new start, a clean sheet and another chance.  I'm not going to say that I'm going to lose (x) amount of pounds or inches in (x) weeks or months; that just puts the pressure on.  Life at the moment is tough enough without all that self-inflicted pressure and unrealistic expectations.

I mentioned self-compassion earlier in this post.  I've been reading a lot about this and feel it's something I need to practice more of, as I often give myself a tough time for stupid things, particularly over the past couple of years.  Last year and this year have been rotten for so many reasons. both personally and on a wider scale, for this country and for the world.  And from the personal to the global, there is no sign of things getting better any time soon.  Compassion, it seems, is in short supply.  We need so much more of it - for ourselves and for others.

So I'm aiming for fitness but at a very slow and manageable pace.  No dieting, no gym, but sensible eating, making good choices, and exercise on my own terms.  I used to call it my "Frank Sinatra Diet". (I did it my way!) So in the words of the great man himself, "start spreading the news" because hopefully "the best is yet to come" ! :)

EDIT 31.07.16: Unfortunately I plummeted again.  Self-sabotage, binge eating, and maybe the realisation that I've been going through a little bit of a depression without really acknowledging this. I want to be well again, but right now I'm not in a good place.

Summer Fitness Plan 2016: Oops.

I haven't been to the gym for 4 weeks.  2 of those weeks were spent recovering from that horrible shoulder/pectoral injury, which only began to ease off during our short break in Wales, and in the remaining weeks I have had the most spectacular fall off the fitness wagon, returning to old binge-eating habits and now feel further away than ever from the healthy living mindset.  

And then there was the massive weight gain in just 4 weeks.  I'm not going to say how much, but even by my gain-weight-quickly standards, it shocked me.  What has also shocked me is how quickly my fitness has deteriorated again.  Last week I was running for a train and literally couldn't go any further.  The pain in my legs has returned and even getting back on the exercise bike at home last night was a trial.  All of these facts are telling me that things have to change.  Now. 

Inevitably I have done much soul-searching over the past week about where it all goes from here.  Do I quit the gym and go back to exercising at home?  Do I stick to my original plan of going to the gym until September and then continue at home?  Am I well enough to even go to the gym? It's been a tough decision to make.  But I wouldn't want to give up so quickly without having had the chance to prove that I can make progress.  I don't want to pay for a membership which I'm not using either.  

The one thing I have decided on is to ditch the weekly weigh-ins.  These have placed unnecessary pressure on me to lose weight every week, and quite frankly life is too short to worry about something so insignificant.  

As for the gym, my first two months have been a stop-start time.  More stop than start.  But every day is a new day and a new start.  In all my years of writing about dieting and fitness on here, I've lost count of the fresh starts and the last chances.  But as long as I live and breathe, there is one more last chance.  I can't be stupid though and rush into something too quickly only to get injured again.  

So I have decided to return to the gym in the next few days and will take things very slowly indeed; I need to try to salvage yet another "big fat summer" before it goes completely out of control.  

Summer Fitness Plan 2016: week 7 recap

This is the week where it all went wrong.

After an extended visit to the gym where I just got a little too enthusiastic with some of the weight machines, I managed to pick up a nasty shoulder/pectoral injury.  For most of the past week I've been in excruciating pain and needless to say the fitness regime is on hold until I'm feeling better.

I didn't weigh-in this week as I've also struggled to eat healthily, for various reasons.

This week has been a shocking and sad week not only for this country and for the world, but also on a personal level.  Dark times.

The summer 2016 fitness regime is on hold for now, so I won't be posting updates on here until it resumes, whenever that will be.

Summer Fitness Plan 2016: week 6 recap

So that's another week over, and more success to report in spite of working not too hard (and having a few treats).

After last week's brilliant weight loss I didn't expect another successful week - so it was a bigger surprise to learn yesterday that I had lost another pound, making it a 5½ lbs weight loss over 2 weeks. Which I'm delighted about, but I still can't really see where it's happening as I don't feel thinner, really.

Where it is having an impact is in my fitness levels.  I'm slowly getting back to pre-2014 levels of fitness, and I can't describe just how important it is to get through every day without constant pain in every step I take.

I returned to the gym this week and my confidence is continuing to grow.  It's fascinating to watch the "fitness junkies" do their thing but I just wonder how they remain motivated if they achieve all their goals?  I guess they just set the bar higher.  My goals are much smaller though, but that will do for me.  I doubt if I'd ever become one of those gym-obsessives, like that woman I see regularly at 7.30 am, hammering the hell out of the treadmill :)

There is a limit to all this, though.  I'm going to cancel my membership at the end of September, by which time I'm hoping to have got back to "the old me" with a sufficient level of fitness to continue my efforts at EuropeCrazy HQ over the winter months and beyond.  That's the plan.

There is less good news to report on the swimming front though: going swimming before work seemed like a good idea, but one of the "oldies" put me in my place yesterday and told me in no uncertain terms that this was the time for the "real swimmers" and I was taking up valuable lane-swimming space by hanging out at the side of the pool doing my aqua-aerobics.  (Bearing in mind that half of the pool is already closed-off for lessons/lane swimming - AT 7.30 AM!) Which is very disappointing, as in last week's post I was very positive about the older people frequenting the pool; unfortunately they turned out to be more exclusive and elitist than I could ever have expected.  I replied by stating that this was the only time I could go to the pool as I-WORK-FOR-A-LIVING-AND-THIS-IS-THE-ONLY-TIME-I-CAN-GO-FOR-A-SWIM-BECAUSE-THE-POOL-IS-OFF-LIMITS-IN-THE-EVENING-FOR-SWIMMING-LESSONS-AND-CLUBS (subtext: you can swim here anytime....) but to be honest, I've had enough of it really.  Apart from the comments of the oldie-swimming-mafia, the practicalities of fitting in swimming before work are, well, not very practical. So if/when I do return to the pool, it will be at the weekend when all I have to worry about are kids splashing around - my pet hate, and the reason I went pre-work swimming in the first place - but hey, that's as good as it gets.  Unless of course someone comes up to me and helpfully advises that I am taking up their splashing-space. Whatever.

So in the meantime I am devoting all my efforts to the gym, where no-one's going to come up to me and helpfully advise that I am in their treadmill-space.

Summer Fitness Plan 2016: week 5 recap

Everything comes to she who waits.

Well, it's only Thursday and I'm a few days early with this one, but...when the news is this good, you just have to share it.

I weighed in today instead of tomorrow, (as I'm off work tomorrow) to discover a very happy shock indeed - I have lost 4½ lbs this week!  No....I didn't believe it either!  I can't ever remember losing this much weight in a week.  We are doing these informal weigh-ins at work until September - and I was advised that I was "slimmer of the week" so far.  All this is completely new to me and you'd have thought I'd won the lottery with my reaction to that news! What an amazing way to start my long weekend :)

So what happened this week?

On Monday and Tuesday my legs gave up, as they struggled to recover from that intensive gym-and-swim workout on Sunday.  Some serious muscular pain going on, which prevented me returning to the gym until yesterday for yet another before-work session.  It's quite surprising just how busy the gym is at 7.30am, and I wasn't too happy to discover that my newly-discovered spinning bikes and rowing machine were being monopolised by other gym-goers!!

But that aside, there were some small victories yesterday.  I managed a little more time on the Arc Trainer, which, to the uninitiated is a more do-able variation on the cross trainer, which remains out of my league.  For now, anyway :)

This morning I tried something new: I decided to try a pre-work swim.  A few weeks ago I bought one of those "swim dresses" but it wasn't very practical in the pool if I'm honest.  So I found something else a couple of weeks ago which proved to be an alternative solution for my self-consciousness about wearing a swimsuit....This is something called a "boyleg swimsuit" which doesn't really sound too appealing - but it absolutely does the job.

I mentioned a "swim" but my new strategy in the pool is actually more improvised aqua-aerobics in order to build up my upper body and leg strength before moving on to, hopefully, bigger and better things.

So 20 minutes in the pool gets me leg and arm stretches, star jumps, bounces, dog-paddles, leg kicks and all kinds of variations on the aqua-aerobic theme.  Between the pool and the gym, what has really surprised me is that my confidence is growing by the week.  That initial "walk of doom" from the changing room to the gym or the pool is now just the most natural thing.  Since I took out my membership, what has particularly fascinated me is the number of older people at the gym and the pool.  I had worried it would be full of the young, fit, "beautiful people" who would leave me feeling more intimidated, inadequate, overweight and well, just plain "old".  But that's not the case.  Instead, I've found myself among a whole new set of role models, possibly 10/15 years older than I am.  I ended up chatting to an older couple this morning in the pool, who would have put much younger swimmers to shame.  They, and many of the other people I have encountered in the past four weeks, inspire me to do so much better.  In a very youth-centric society, they should be an inspiration to us all.

And my worries about doing exercise as a solitary activity when everyone has an exercise-buddy with them, have proved unfounded.  Stick your iPod on, with a playlist of dance bangers, and you quickly forget how self-conscious you feel about being at the gym on your own.

Most importantly: I'm enjoying this new fitness regime, to the point where I'm perfectly happy to change my whole routine, get up early and go to the gym before work, and eagerly planning my next gym/swim session.

My plan in the coming week is to build on what I've achieved so far and try and fit in some extra sessions.  Eventually I am hoping to do some exercise classes, which will be another mountain to climb, battling the fear of going to a group-activity on my own, but I won't go down that road yet until I have reached another level of fitness where I'll be confident enough to participate at a decent level.

In the meantime...onwards to another week of healthy eating and exercise!  Although there will be some interruptions along the way :)

Summer Fitness Plan 2016: week 4 recap

Four weeks in and one thing is very clear: my body is working against me and sabotaging itself.  In the past four weeks there has been one very bad fall and some accident-prone bumps and bruises along the way.  Finally, just a few days ago I accidentally bashed my left knee off my desk drawer pedestal at work, resulting in a lot of pain.

I also had a very busy week at home which meant that I never made it to the gym at all, however increased my walking to a minimum of 2 miles per day.  I also got back on the exercise bike to try and pedal the pain away.

And then there was the dieting.  I had a very good week, eating all the right things and cutting out the junk food. So by the time my Friday weigh-in came, I expected, finally, some good results.

Wrong.

For I had gained 2½ lbs.  In one week.  I don't even gain as much as that on holiday.  In previous weeks, I felt pretty downhearted about gaining, or not losing.  This week I just felt angry and frustrated, and wanting to just ditch it all for good.  My boss suggested that the gain was probably due to building muscle, whilst one of my friends at work helpfully suggested that because I am now three years menopausal (which in itself caused a huge weight gain and a major down-turn in my physical and emotional health) and "of a certain age" that I might want to start feeling happy in my own skin and accept that this is how it's going to be from now on.  I can understand that; people's bodies do change, and having gained a ridiculous amount of weight over a very short period of time, maybe it wasn't all just comfort eating. Maybe middle-age spread is a thing after all.

But I can't even blame genetics - no-one in my family is even remotely overweight, both my mum and gran were very slim at my age.  And then I see people at the gym, who are a lot older than I am, who are in very good shape indeed. So I'm not giving up just yet, although dieting continues to depress me if I'm honest. Especially when it's not bringing results.

So a new week starts here - will this be the week when that turnaround finally happens? Answers in 7 days. In the meantime, in the immortal words of Rihanna it's time to work-work-work-work-work....

Update:  An hour after writing this post, I returned to the gym for a 45 minute workout, followed by some improvised aqua-aerobics and a brief attempt at a swim - I managed a breadth of the pool (don't laugh, that was a major achievement!).  That session this afternoon was very important: I tried out some new equipment including the rowing machine and a spinning bike.  I also realised how much I like being at the gym, and that there is genuine enjoyment there rather than it feeling like a chore. Which is something to build on in the coming weeks.

Summer Fitness Plan 2016: week 3 recap

I didn't do a recap last week as it was a total write-off: I had a bit of a pain-relapse after my fall, so the gym was a non-starter.  And then it was Eurovision week, so everything else had to wait!

I started building up my fitness again at home and the pain eased off enough for my long-awaited return to the gym at the start of this week.  Since I always feel very tired when I come home from work, my bright idea was to go to the gym first thing in the morning, before going to work.  That originally sounded quite ambitious but it worked for me.  Even at 7.30 am, the fitness fanatics are pounding the treadmill, or giving it the full Sir Bradley Wiggins on the exercise bikes, and as for the weight-training area....well the less said the better.  Then this out-of-shape, unfit, middle-aged woman walks into the room, and she just feels like a square peg in a round, super-fitness-shaped hole.  But everyone has to start somewhere.  I quickly turned my fear into this aloof gym persona, where I just walked through the door with my head held high, and my iPod on, with a "gym playlist" packed full of 'dance bangers', ready to tackle my half-hour workout.

I repeated my early morning visit on Thursday morning, and by then my confidence had increased a little, although I still feel uncomfortable entering the weight-training area....anyway that didn't put me off the shoulder press and leg curl machines.  My favourite at the moment is the leg press, because I'm trying to build up strength in my legs and reduce the constant pain which has been a side-effect of that huge weight gain of the past couple of years.

Apart from the gym visits, I was back into dieting-mode this week, so what could go wrong?  Well, I gained weight.  Half a pound to be precise.  Which I'm really not too bothered about, it's only half a pound.  So we'll call it muscle mass :)

Summer Fitness Plan 2016: week 1 recap

Well, a lot has happened in the past 7 days.  The story so far...

I took out a membership at the local sports centre last weekend.  On Monday I had a day off work and thought I'd use it constructively.  First stop, the pool, for an aqua-aerobics class to ease myself in. That really did the trick, although it's tougher than it looks to do all those exercise moves in the water!  I also had a few stretches in the pool to help loosen up some very stiff leg muscles.  A quick trip to the sauna and then home for a while before returning to the sports centre for a pre-arranged gym induction.

I have always found the idea of going to a gym to be very intimidating, so it was an achievement even walking through that door.  However it wasn't long before I was trying out all the various machines.  As I have an exercise bike at home, it was good to try out some variations including a recumbent bike.  The cross-trainer was more difficult than I remember, as my co-ordination is not the best!

Having left the gym feeling a little tired, but also with a feeling of triumph that I'd plucked up the courage to go, I headed home.  However, shortly after returning home I had a nasty fall in the house which resulted in excruciating pain and some horrible bruises all over my legs.  So I could forget a quick return to the gym and the pool will have to wait until those bruises have cleared up.

Happily, the pain didn't last too long (although I'm still badly bruised so can forget the pool for a while) and I was back in the gym on Thursday, trying out some more of the equipment.  My fitness journey has a long, long way to go, but I've made a start.

Since coming back from holiday I've been trying to eat healthily.  It was a very pleasant surprise to discover that I'd lost 1¼ lbs since my last weigh-in before our holiday.

This week: hoping to slot in a couple of trips to the gym in-between what is going to be a very busy week indeed.  Not only is it Eurovision week but there's lots of other stuff going on as well.

Doing the thing I said I'd never do...

Regular readers of this blog over recent years will be well aware of my numerous efforts to lose weight and get fit.  But here we are almost halfway through 2016 already, and I have now reached a point where the most drastic measures are required.  Prior to my holiday in Madrid, I had started dieting again and weighing-in every week.  After just a couple of weeks it had already taken its toll on my emotional wellbeing.  Can dieting make you feel depressed?  In my case it did, and pushed me completely over the edge, turning me into an anxious wreck.  Yes, that's what two weeks of dieting did to me.    

One major fact became clear: just as in 2010/2011 when I had my most successful phase of weight loss, I combined healthy eating with exercise.  But fast-forward a few years and it's all very different. My fitness levels are at rock bottom and my weight is the highest it's ever been.  The past two years have taken a horrible toll on my mental and physical health.  I have reached a stage where I now need help and support to get back to an acceptable level of fitness.

So today, I did the thing which I said I'd never do.  I took out a membership at the local sports centre, which includes the gym, swimming and fitness classes; the plan is to get stuck in over the next 4 calendar months and see where it goes from there.  Hoping that my fitness level is in a better place by the end of August and I can then cancel the membership and go back to doing my own exercising at home.

Today I bought a fab new swimsuit, one of those "swim dress" things which cover a multitude of flabby bits!!  Looking forward to getting back in the shallow end with my hilarious attempts at "swimming" which is more like aqua-aerobics really (!)

In the meantime I'm keeping the healthy eating and weigh-ins going, but I'm not going to get so stressed about it this time as there will be the mood-boost provided by all that exercise, fingers crossed :)

Progress reports on my Summer 2016 Fitness Plan to follow on here every Sunday from now until the end of August.