Fran Gets Fit

Fran not getting very fit at all

Not a lot of fitness going on here. Since I injured my back it is hard work to even walk more than a mile. It's a bit of a catch 22 situation; I know that exercise will help my back but my back makes it hard to exercise. Even the exercises recommended by the Doctor proved difficult. One of them looked incredibly easy but to my horror I found I could not even do the arm movements and had to resort to anti-inflammatory pain killers.

I'm building up gradually, walking a mile or two at a time and doing a tour of the machines in the ladies gym but can only manage low weights at the moment. It was too rainy to walk yesterday and I couldn't get to the gym so I did a couple of exercise DVD's with my Daughter. We would have made better progress if we had troubled to move the drum kit and guitar out of the way first but as it was we worked around them. The neighbours were no doubt grateful that we ignored any instructions to jump, not that I could have jumped unless I had rocket boots, and were glad of a rest from the drums and guitar anyway. We did some yoga too, somewhat hampered by the cat marching over us and then the arrival of an audience, imitating our efforts in comic ways whilst dressed in a striped dressing gown and cartoon slippers.

Smoothies at KnitFit

There is a great  entry on smoothies over on Knit Fit. It's been ages since I had a  juice or a smoothie and possibly months since I had a green smoothie. My problem with juicing and blending is the noise of the machines; there seems to always be someone in bed in our house because of shift patterns, so I can't just make a juice when I feel like it. So that I can make juice in advance but keep as much nutrition as possible I've bought some thermos flasks to freeze while empty, fill with juice and then store in the fridge. This works quite well with juice but not so good with smoothies. I need to experiment more, maybe get a wide necked flask for smoothies.

Fit Together

I've been working on a "Fit Together"  Blogroll that will be open for anyone with health, fitness and diet related sites to join.

The link to join is on the right or click the button and click "Join here"

VVV Ladies only gym

Due to family commitments my Daughter and I hadn't been to VVV health club  since before Christmas. We knew that the ladies gym was being moved and last we heard it was moving into the big gym and we weren't too keen on the idea, imagining just a screened off area and having to walk through the big gym to get to it. Finally, we managed to get to the club and we found that the ladies gym has moved to the room that was the toning table room and thus it now has a delightful sea view. Some of the equipment has been removed, my favourite leg extension machine and the seated leg curl machine have gone, to be replaced by the leg press. I suppose I will have to brave the big gym if I want to use them. At first glance it looks as if the new ladies gym does not have air conditioning but I might be wrong. It does sport a TV, something that the old gym lacked, but most of the equipment is arranged to face the TV and not the spectacular view. If you bag the right treadmill or cross trainer you can admire the view but you have to look past other people facing towards you.

There's a new gym opening in town soon, JJB Fitness which will probably do very well, being more central and, as far as I can tell, cheaper but I think they'll find it hard to beat the atmosphere at VVV.

Running, well sort of

My gym companion had to prod me to go the other day. I really didn't feel like it and only gave in when she dangled the carrot that we'd just go for half an hour. Once we were there we found that at one point we had the ladies gym all to ourselves, everyone else was toiling away in the big gym where the TV's are. Whilst there was no one to make her feel self conscious I was encouraging her to try running on the treadmill instead of a fast walk, as she is a lot fitter than me, and by way of demonstration I had to break out into a run myself.  I was absolutely astonished to find that I could do so and it felt great. Admittedly I didn't run for long but I did it three times with a walk in between. In the end we had a good hours work out and a great sense of achievement. So glad she made me go.

The Q

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Jonas has introduced blogs over at We Quit Drinking, affectionately known as The Q. To access a full list of blogs click the number of blogs, towards the top left of the page. It would be better if it was underlined or something, to indicate a link, but I'm sure Jonas will fix it at some point. The forums and diarys are always pretty busy but the blogs are a new addition.

Your Best Year Yet

I have done Your Best Year Yet (YBYY), by Jinny Ditzler a couple of times. The first time I didn't stick with it for much more than a few months as some pretty yucky things happened that year and I didn't have enough experience to turn it around whilst still working on my YBYY goals. The second time I tried it, quite a few years later, I found it very useful but then let it lapse the next year. Recently I came across my records from that year and realised that although I might not have achieved all the goals that year, I have achieved some since and many of the things I learnt along the way are now a part of my life. I decided to work through the book again with a view to either following the Best Year Yet plan that results or just to see what the plan would be and cherry picking a few things to work on.

Taking a break after question eight "what are my goals for each role" and giving myself time to add to the list before thinning it and finalising it I was having a poke about and came across Colleen Wainwright of communicatrix and a very interesting list of self improvement sites to visit.

Jason Vale, Juicemaster

I love Jason Vale.

The trap that leads to larger clothes

I went shopping for new clothes recently and was not too surprised to find that I have actually gone up a size in some brands; which is very galling when I think of all the things I have “given up”, including alcohol, caffeine and most processed foods.

I spent about £200 on clothes and vowed that this will be my "larger size" wardrobe for the summer and I will gradually shrink out of them.

I cannot allow myself to go up another dress size. I used to kid myself that I was fat but fit but now I’m just fat. This morning, while I was making my cup of naturally caffeine free rooibus tea  it hit me that I had also “given up” the very thing that that I need to lose weight – weight training. I haven’t picked up a weight for at least six months and I haven’t trained as seriously as I used to for a number of years. It became blidingly obvious that I have fallen into the trap of reduced physical activity, increased caloric intake of sweet things, and a slowdown in metabolism due to a loss of muscle. Muscle is metabolically active and burns calories just to maintain itself. A pound of muscle requires 5 to 15 calories per day to maintain itself. A loss of 15 pounds of muscle means 75 to 150 fewer calories per day. Over time, this leads to a slowly creeping weight gain. There is quite a bit of controversy over just how many calories muscle burns, ranging from just 2 to 50. I think 5 to 15 sounds reasonable. When I stopped weight training I stopped building muscle and gradually lost what I had built – and gained fat because it’s not as if I systematically slashed my calorie intake to compensate. Oh no indeedy, giving up alcohol gives you a sweet tooth that wasn’t noticable before, because the sugar in the alcohol was satisfying it. It’s very easy to give yourself licence to eat a bag of revels at the time you usually “relaxed” with a drink.

Next question to ask myself is why did I stop weight training? There are so many differing opinions out there as to the best form of exercise, the best way to lose fat, the best way to get fit I think I became paralysed by procrastinating over creating a plan and sticking to it. I know that in the past, four days a week weight training and a bit of cardio and yoga worked for me and I don’t need to carry on this ridiculous search for a magic bullet. I know what the magic bullet is, I just need the motivation to fire it.

30 day sleep trial, the last day

The last day of the 30 day trial to be in bed before midnight. I did not take into account the clocks going forward towards the end. Just before that happened I noticed something very interesting; by around day 21, which is the usual time taken to establish a new habit, I was noting that I was getting to bed after midnight, in theory, a fail. Fortunately I also noted the actual time I settled into bed and it was 12.30. I asked myself, could this be my optimum bedtime? I slept better on the nights that I went to bed at 12.30 so I assumed that to be the case. When the clocks altered I forgot to note the time I was actually settling to sleep but I know it was after 1.00 when I was getting to bed which would be after 12 in pre. British Summertime, more than likely still 12.30, by my body.

I had expected to experience various benefits of going to bed earlier, especially feeling more energetic or at least not tired. I am still tired, still lacking in energy but at least now I can stop blaming lack of sleep and explore other avenues such as exercise to relieve my tiredness . I will continue my new habit of going to bed earlier than I used to. When I first began the trial my goal was to establish a new habit of being in bed by midnight, to over ride my default behaviour of staying up 'til all hours watching TV or reading e-mail. I didn't establish that habit but I did establish a new habit of being in bed around midnight, and learnt that it's probably my habit of watching soaps instead of getting enough exercise that is causing my tiredness, not lack of sleep.