October 2016: My first month with Fitbit

I have now had my Fitbit Flex for a month and am going into my 5th week of fitness tracking.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm in a team doing a step challenge at work so this has given me the incentive to move more and try to achieve that elusive 10,000 steps per day.

What I learned from my first 4 weeks is that I only went over 10,000 steps on 7 days out of the past month.  But on those days I've hit 15,000, or 13,000, or 11,000, whilst most other days I'm usually over 8,000 or 9,000 steps.  So there is still some room for improvement during the final week of the step challenge.  Let's not mention Sundays, shall we?  I'm trying to turn Sunday into a proper day of rest, which it never used to be, so walking and exercise isn't really on the agenda and that has been evidenced in my Sunday step totals.

I have embraced the Fitbit trend though and always look forward to finding out my daily step totals. The sleep log has also proved what I've known for a long time - I'm not getting enough sleep, and the quality of it is not good enough.  That is another area of my life which I need to sort out.  

I have also discovered Fitbit fashion....I initially bought a Fitbit with a black wristband as I thought this would match most of my clothes.  But then I discovered that you could buy replacement bands (below) so it means that I could colour co-ordinate which is quite good fun.

I have since discovered there are lots of different patterned replacement bands around, so I'm sure there will be more of them joining my collection :)

But enough about the looks - what about the results?

Since October started, my main focus has been on building up my general fitness and mobility.  Over the summer, I had no energy to walk anywhere and my mobility was shot to pieces.  During October, when I started moving more - with the added incentive of not wanting to let the team down - I now have more energy, and when recently faced with one of those crucial fitness tests, running for a train, I was actually able to do this, and wasn't too out of breath, whereas a couple of months ago I was in a similar situation and could hardly walk, never mind run!

I knew that October would not be a good month to attempt to lose weight.  I had more social events in one month than I've had all year - and although I'm moving away from the disordered eating of the past few months, I haven't really made good choices this month when it comes to healthy eating.

November is 2 days away, and it is mainly a "blank page".  So my goal for the coming month is to build up my fitness, increase my daily steps, and finally restart exercising the way I used to.  Again I will not be weighing myself but will focus on losing inches.

Progress report to follow 4 weeks from today!

It's getting better :)

It's been a little while since I posted on here, so let's recap.

I never lost all the weight I wanted to lose - but I lost 7lbs.
I got an exercise bike and went from crippling pain to power-walking fitness again.
Work's still tough, but it's getting easier.
Weeks of insomnia completely stopped me functioning, but I'm finally sleeping again.
I caught another very nasty cold, but I'm now trying to shake off the leftovers.
I'm still a long way from where I want to be,  but I'm getting there.

Best of all: I'm going on holiday in a few days, and that's the best feeling in the world.  Now I need to get on with the packing and preparation for our first ever trip to Cyprus :)

Of course you can expect all the usual gratuitous food photography and travel tales when I eventually publish those holiday diaries...!

A grumpy old insomniac with an exercise bike

After the physical and mental stresses and strains of recent weeks, I finally decided last weekend that enough was enough.  I bought an exercise bike.

I've only been using it for 6 days but can tell you that it has made such a difference to my physical fitness already, and I'm able to walk again at a speed beyond crawling, after months of inactivity, weight gain and comfort eating saw my legs just virtually give up, in sympathy with the recurring left foot problem.  Although even that is beginning to subside and I'm no longer in constant pain. 

Unfortunately, I'm struggling to pull myself out of a pretty dark place just now.  Insomnia night after night can leave you struggling to function - that's just one of many things getting me down.

God this is getting to be such a depressing blog.  I want happy Laura back!

It's a jungle out there

No really, it is.  As it has pretty much rained constantly for the last 6 weeks, the back garden has forgot what  a lawnmower looks like.  I probably say this every year, but this really is the wettest summer, I mean non-summer, ever.

This evening there has been a slight breakthrough as it managed to remain dry for approximately five hours which was enough for me to go and cut down some hedges.  Or "topiary" as I like to call it :)

I am finally beginning to come out of that dark tunnel of depression and fatigue which started in April and hit a rotten low in June.  After a sickness bug it felt as if I ceased to function.  I lost interest in almost everything, and had no energy for weeks.  It has now been a week and a half, early days I know, but it feels like I'm finally getting the old me back again.

Unfortunately I gained a lot of weight during that time, but I'm working on it and lost 2lbs last week.  Again, early days but the motivation is back.  I'm enjoying getting fit again.

Hoop hoop hooray!

It's January, and it's time to shake off the extra pounds which I've gained not just over recent weeks, but over recent months. So far, so good: I'm back following Weight Watchers Online and have lost 3lbs since the beginning of the year.

Unfortunately the year didn't start too well healthwise: two weeks ago I was floored by a virus infection which started off as a cold and left me feeling extremely fatigued. The very same thing happened to my mum and faithful travelling companion who are both trying to recover from it at the moment.

It's only now that I'm feeling ready to get fit again. Who needs to pay a hefty gym membership fee to join a gym in these times of economic gloom, when you can buy a couple of bits of equipment which you can easily use at home? Over the last couple of years I've particularly found the Reebok Mini Stepper as an effective way to get fit and has also helped to relieve my lower back pain too.



Yesterday I bought a hula hoop. The whole thing started off as a bit of a joke, but then I thought about how this could really help me tone up and get my waist back again :)



I had a hula hoop as a child and loved it, but back then it was possible to achieve more than the 7 or 8 revolutions I struggled to achieve yesterday. It was a good laugh using it though!

(pictures courtesy of www.argos.co.uk)

Boot camp sucks.

That's the verdict after two days. Of the 15 rules of boot camp, the one which completely floored me was the 2 litres of water per day thing, which resulted in a total humdinger of a headache. It's not as if I'm detoxing - I love my strong coffee and diet fizzy drinks too much to give them up, do you want to push me completely over the edge???? - but that headache was a total stinker and ruined my whole day.

However the exercise element is going very well, so it's not all bad.

And anyway tomorrow night is Indian night! Mushroom pakora, chicken tikka masala, rice and nan. Who said anything about boot camp???

The first rule of Boot Camp is...

...let's talk about Boot Camp!

For the next 21 days* I've declared war on the wobbly bits and decided to tone up, get fit, get healthier.

That's the plan anyway.

So day 1 is over, and it's gone well. 20 days to go....

*Needless to say, this plan does not include the fab Indian meal which I'm going to have on Wednesday, or the nice big lunch I'm going to have on Saturday. Well you've got to have something to look forward to, haven't you??!!!

10, 10, 10, 10, 10

So what earth-shattering thing was I doing at the never-to-be repeated time of 10.10 am on 10.10.2010?

Painting radiators in my house actually, which is earth-shattering enough to me I guess.

During my 'month of limited blogging' (which will probably go on for about another 4 weeks) I'm painting my house and doing other little home-improvement things and outstanding jobs which should probably have been done about five years ago or thereabouts. And I'm also trying to get fit again, although these efforts have been hampered by a recurrence of my lower back pain, which reached such a crippling level during the week that at one point I couldn't move at all. Happily, it's getting better and I'm beginning to walk normally again.

The plan to join a Zumba class has been abandoned for the time being - need to concentrate on getting my walking speed up again before I can even think about dancing :)

Also, some good news: lost 1lb this week, which is probably due to increased water intake than anything else. But the most important thing is that it's a start, although the focus in the next few weeks will be on improving fitness rather than losing weight.

The guy who wrote the unfinished symphony

That's who I feel like. In work and at home, I've started so much but not managed to finish anything.

Blog/internet time will be limited this weekend - now there's a major challenge! - in order to finish off some long overdue tasks.

Weight: stayed the same this week, but that's ok as I've made no effort whatsoever to do anything about it.

The opportunity has presented itself for me to go to a Zumba class, which is very tempting however there could be a slight problem here as I have two left feet and no sense of rhythm :)