I haven't really done any "honest" blogging this year so far. The first two weeks of the year were pretty average, I was struggling to get back into the swing of things and I was feeling a little bummed about my birthday. Fortunately the little party I was planning was fabulous anyway, and showed me what quality friends I have, rather than quantity.
My health is steadily improving and I'm finding that I feel pretty much ok. I can now train 3 times a week without feeling wiped out, so this week I am re-entering the gym. I have had to sacrifice (ooh that's a little harsh!) my private lesson because we are going to a behind the scenes tour at the Science Museum tonight and in my quest for balanced living, I figured I could go to a museum instead of work on my 2nd Dan training, just for once.
My 2nd Dan training is coming along quite nicely - we've been practising full-contact front kicks since before Christmas and I am training in my head for them (does that sound wierd?). Basically because I can't get to the dojo tonight, I think about doing front kicks. I visualise myself performing them with speed and power and knocking Lee over when I kick the pad. I have read that OAPs who visualised themselves doing bench presses actually increased the size of their arm and chest muscles without physically doing any lifting. In another study I read, 3 groups of basketball players were subjected to practice, NLP (neuro-linguistic-programming) and practice and just NLP. The people who solely used NLP improved their shots the most. So it's not just hooey!
Like everyone else, I am working hard to get the Christmas pounds off, although mine aren't just Christmas pounds, but house pounds too (I'm never moving house again!). I'm aiming to lose about 20lbs before July. I have a boarding-school reunion coming up in July and I was a fat geek then - I want to wow, and mainly I want to feel comfortable with myself, rather than reverting to my geeky 17 year old self. I'm really looking forward to seeing my house mistress again, she is fabulous and bohemian and arty and just plain mad! We already write to each other, but her humour comes across more in person.
I am attacking the 20lbs in various ways - mainly calorie counting: I have started a food journal, which my very soul despises, but I realise that I have to keep track of what I eat. I'm aiming to stay under 2000 calories a day, which is very broad and not particularly restrictive. I am averse to "dieting". I spent too long analysing fitday for protein:carb:fat ratios, and zig-zagging calorie days and sweating in the gym for hours to go back to being obsessed with protein (as my husband put it). I'm looking for balance but also for weight loss, so I figure a little food journal is the least I can do. I've found myself pretty much binging on the weekends - a habit from my teenage years. I've thought about it a little bit this morning, and I will delve deeper into my psyche about why I see weekends as free and easy! This weekend we were invited out twice, which was lovely - once to our next door neighbour's and once to our friend's place in Tufnell Park. We were well fed by Sunday evening!
I've read about Eat Stop Eat - on various blogs and on Brad's blog itself, I've tried fasting once a week before Christmas but it was around the time that I was getting really ill so I stopped it because hypoglycemia and chronic fatigue did not go well together! I fasted yesterday and I fared pretty well, it must've been all that food I ate at the weekend - if it counteracts some of the binge then it's fine by me. I weighed myself in the gym on Monday and I appear to have lost weight, however I can't tell exactly how much because my first weigh-in was without trainers, and my second weigh-in was with trainers, but after a fast so the results will be increadibly kooky if I try to calculate anything at all from that, but the scales were registering 2.5kg less than the previous week, which I take heart in because I think a fast could account for 2ish kgs so net loss 0.5kgs but then, how much do my trainers weigh? Another 0.5kgs? Or more? Told you it would do my head in! But anyway, I know the scale weight is going down (not
that important) and also my jeans are not so tight that I feel sick. All in all a pretty decent week.
Do I have any other news? Er. Well I bought and put together some Ikea furniture over the weekend - THAT was exciting! The rest of life is plodding on gently - no major crafting to report, no major sporting achievements to report, no huge house news, no baking done, it's all lovely and gentle and plodding. Just the way I like it at the moment - with Sundays the laziest days.
I leave you with this lovely, clever doggie who can sniff out cancer cells.
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