Tag Archive for 'race for life'

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.

“Good Luck Darling!” – Upon My Running

Published
by
thetoad
on 19 March 2008
in Excercise
. 0 Comments

I am just not long in from my run. I can’t say that I was totally in the mood to go this morning, I haven’t been out since Sunday. I know that’s only two days off pounding the coastal path, but I am only in my third week of training and at this tentative stage, mornings spent watching television in my pyjamas and reading library books and magazines are not a so distant memory. This morning the temptation was there to do just that; but after a bit of persuading from The Toad undergoing Training (fiancé TuT) via msn messenger, I was out the door.

I only intended to do 4km. I am training for the 5km Race For Life. My race takes place on 20th July, so at this stage I still have a good couple of months to train, the main thing at this point is that I am running four times a week, no matter what the distance or time. I am lucky that last year TuT treated me to a Garmin GPS training watch, so I know exactly how many kilometres I have run. Today when I hit 2km, the point where I was going to turn around and come back, I thought I’d carry on for the other 0.5km, that on completion of the run would mean I’d done 5km instead of 4km. I did 5km on Sunday and I was feeling ok at 2km, so I carried on to 2.5km and then turned around and ran back.

There I was approaching the 5km mark, Kasabian’s ‘Club Foot’ was beating through my veins via my ipod – “…you’re messin’ with the enemy” I sneered along as I summoned my body to a sprint finish. At which point a crazy red coated old lady with matching pillar box red lip stick moved out of my way, but as I ran past she touched my arm in the way that only the older generation ladies can and said:

“Good luck darling!”

I’d hit my 5km, but after the words of encouragement and kindness I felt I owed it to her to keep going. So I ran the last bit to the road crossing and then stopped my watch having done a little over the 5km I intended to.

I felt brilliant walking back home and wasn’t even disappointed when I plugged the Garmin training watch into the computer to see that I was slightly slower on average than my run on Sunday and didn’t hit my top speed. I was just glad I’d got back in the saddle after yesterday and was back on track with my running training.

I am quite proud of how quickly my running fitness is improving. I started out in February just running a mile – 1.6km, which I was able to jog all of, but I didn’t enjoy it and it was hard to keep a jogging pace up for the duration. Then a little over two weeks ago, just into March, I picked up a health and fitness magazine that came with a free water bottle (in pink as well!) and featured a beginners running programme. This programme means you run further in the beginning stages than just a mile, but you have walk breaks. This seems to be improving my running as it gives me the confidence to run further as you have the security of having walk breaks.

After a week and a half of following the run/walk programme I decided to tackle the distance of 5km to see how I managed it and I did it in just over 40minutes. I didn’t die of exhaustion and was pleased. Until the next day when I got out of bed and was stiff as a board! Walking hurt!

By the following Friday I tackled the 5km distance again, improved on my time and better than that, on the Saturday I didn’t suffer any stiffness in my legs, so on the Sunday, taking Saturday as a rest day, I went out and did 5km again.

So as the lady in red said – “Good Luck Darling!” – I just need to keep my training up and enjoy seeing myself improve.

Watch this space…..