Tag Archive for 'exercise'

Needing to Move More!

Published
by
thetoad
on 14 April 2008
in Dieting, Excercise and Losing Weight
. 0 Comments

I haven’t been posting for the last couple of days. The weekend days are always tough for me to sit and write, but last week I was feeling really down and despondent about life. My motivation to do things and fill my day productively just went out of the window.

I haven’t got a proper routine established at the moment, so I have been doing very little exercise. Earlier posts will reveal that I was actively training for the 5km Race for Life that I have entered. This has fizzled out and I haven’t been out for a run in nearly two weeks. The time when my 5km training began to dwindle was finding out about the effects of the Depo Provera injection on my weight. I was running most days, believing that I would firm up and get skinny and light. After six weeks or so, giving it a proper chance to start showing some positive effects on the scales, I actually ended up slightly heavier, although my fitness had improved. There’s no way I was running enough to build up any sort of muscle weight in that time and the whole experience of consistently running and not getting any results has really put me off.

I am not a natural runner, I never have been. But when I am lighter and fitter, going for a run is enjoyable and brilliant way to keep the pounds off and get some fresh air and exercise.

I now know that my lack of results on the scales despite my running is due to the injection playing havoc with my weight. TuT and I have basically worked out that it fools the body into thinking it is pregnant and hence predisposed to put the weight on. There’s people out there that say it just increases your appetite and that’s why you put on weight, well, that may be true for some people, but not for me. Through tracking my weight watchers points, I am probably eating more now, than I was previously. That’s how little I was eating – that Weight Watchers points allowance of food is more food than I am used to eating. So the increase in appetite theory of the weight gain is not something I agree with in my case.

The injection would have been due this Wednesday 16th April, you can have the injection a week either side of it, so as of a week on Wednesday I am into the detox zone I feel. I am not going to change what I am doing now with regards to the eating plan I am following I am just going to keep going as I am – I am within my points allowance easily most days and eating pretty healthily (hence the recipes for the soups I made last week). I just hope that once the effects start to wear off and my body adjusts and detoxes off the injection that the pounds will disappear at a better and more consistent speed.

In the meantime, I do realise that I need to move my butt more than what I have been doing in the last couple of weeks. I got an email from a friend I haven’t heard from in a while and she said

“are you still doing loads of exercise….I bet you’re really fit now”

This made me remember that when I first moved to the coast I was doing a lot of exercise, and on the whole enjoying it, and just because it didn’t show on the scales doesn’t mean that it won’t show on my body.

I have been reading sara’s blog www.sanafit.blogspot.com and she has just completed a 12 week training programme and lost 3lbs. You may think, as I was, that 3lbs is not much, but the “before and after” pictures speak for themselves and the 3lbs difference is really noticeable on her body and she looks very good – I would love to have the fit, toned and slim body that she is modelling on her blog pages today.

So this week I plan to get myself booked into some classes at the gym; I bought a new swimming costume on Saturday so I have no excuse not to get some lengths done in the pool, and I am just going to focus on the inch loss and toning my body up whilst getting super fit, as opposed to what the scales say.

Nothing Tastes As Good As Being Slim Feels

Published
by
thetoad
on 18 March 2008
in Dieting
. 2 Comments

Welcome to the first proper entry on this new and exciting blog.

Last night I was full of happiness and optimism. My fiancé – TuT (Toad undergoing Training) had spent so long setting the website up, making sure my email was working and helping me load up my first entry, everything was good.

I watched my Delia which I really enjoyed and spent the rest of the evening reading and watching television – a pretty typical Monday night. I didn’t have any wineage and going to bed with a low calorie hot chocolate I felt healthy and virtuous, having been swimming and for a brisk 3km walk during the day and cooking a healthy stir fry for tea.

Then I wake up this morning, expecting to feel lighter and happier. I have spent the last hour and a half in floods of tears and have made TuT late for work. He hasn’t even had any breakfast and I feel like living shit about it. I just hate my weight, my appearance, and the fact that the majority of my clothes don’t fit.

When TuT and I moved in together I was a size 10/12 and sometimes if a particular shop was generously sized, an 8. I enjoyed shopping for clothes and the weekend was always a chance to get a little more dressed up than during the week and I was happy with how I looked and felt about myself.

The dark side of being that size for my 5 foot 10 inches frame was that I was achieving the size through strict avoidance of carbohydrates, a sort of Atkins diet that I had fashioned. However, after years of watching fat grams and counting Weight Watchers points, I wasn’t embracing the Atkins philosophy completely by eating mounds of cheese and cooked breakfasts, I was still avoiding the high fat foods as well as the carbohydrates. I just wasn’t eating very much at all.

I wasn’t taking any medication at this time for my mental health problems and the weight was just dropping off me.

“Nothing tastes as good as being slim feels”

Despite the ill health I experienced whilst following such a restricted diet and the fact that in its latter stages I was borderline anorexic, I loved being slim and wearing my size 10 jeans.

Now 18 months down the line I eat a much more varied diet, whilst still trying to be healthy, but including carbohydrates and pretty much all food groups. But I have gained four stone in the last year. I know I am healthier because I don’t permanently have some sort of cold or flu but I feel so bloody FAT. I am a size 14, pushing 16 now and I absolutely HATE IT.

One of the main differences is that I am now on medication to help manage my mental health problems. I take an antipsychotic called Amisulpride and an antidepressant called Trazodone. The weight has pretty much started creeping on slowly since I went on to these two medications. However, my web research this morning has said while it is possible to gain weight on these medications, although it is a rarer side effect than other antidepressants and antipsychotics, it is possible to LOSE WEIGHT whilst taking them.

So I need some sort of diet to follow and need to do a good amount of exercise. I have no idea where to start as TuT and I reckon we are pretty healthy at the moment and there isn’t much I can cut out of my diet. Following my hours of tears this morning I have rung the doctors and I am going to see the lovely Triage nurse, Jane. I saw her a few weeks ago and she was so lovely, so I am hoping she can make me feel better and offer some advice on how to get to a healthier weight and size.

Watch this space…