NHS 12 Week Review

I am a little behind with reviewing this… I am almost at the end of the C25K which I started after I finished the 12 weeks of the NHS weight loss programme

I don’t really have a lot to say about it. It’s basic premise is move more and eat a healthy diet with lots of vegetables, some fruit and not too much saturated fat or over processed carbs.

It, like a lot of such programmes, majors on a healthy way of life rather than a fixed “diet”. Change the way you live for weight loss and keeping the weight off… with 30 minutes of exercise at least 5 times a week.

It didn’t work for me because on the food side of things I was mostly there already. There were no quick wins for me such as cutting out junk food or fizzy drinks.

It wasn’t until after I finished the 12 weeks and moved on to something else which placed more emphasis on the exercise and made me focus on counting calories and portion control that my size started to reduce.

I’m not saying this is a bad programme. The advice, same as the advice in the Diet Doctors (which I tried the year before), is sensible and will in most people lead to weight loss and fitness. It’s just that those of us who are already following this advice won’t see any quick results and at the start of a programme you need some sort of reduction to keep the momentum going.

Yes. Diets don’t work, the only way you keep weight off for good is a regime such as this… but you need a kick start to make you feel that it is actually worth adopting a healthy life style.

The C25K leaves me aching and in mild pain most days… but I can see results and therefore I keep going with it!  This didn’t and to be honest all I felt was deprived of some of the things that make the winter bearable such as carbohydrates especially cheese, mashed potato and pasta…

Hitting the wall/Why rest days are important

They say that exercise is good for reducing stress. There are some people who when they have a stressful day run their stress away or get on a bike and remove the cares off their shoulders just by pedalling away in the countryside.

I don’t think I’m that sort of person…I mean I knew I was in the wrong job when I found myself drafting a witness statement in my head when swimming lengths of the local pool.

I am therefore fortunate that stressful days are few and far between.

Today was a busy day at work. I had to issue proceedings to remove unwanted travellers from work property. I spent all day on the paperwork, almost forgot to eat lunch and hardly had anything to drink… plus I was enduring the monthly joy of being a girl…

Tuesdays are Spin nights…

I knew almost as soon as I got on the bike that something was wrong. It felt as if someone had removed all my batteries… there was just no fuel in the tank. A sensible person would stop here but I pressed on wondering if I had set the bike up properly.

Tonight’s session was called “Back to the Future”. The idea was you did half the class checked the readings for average speed, distance etc and then reset the computer and in the second half try and beat the readings for the first half… so in effect do the same 20 minutes again

Well I walked out just after the half way stage. I  just upped and left, headed home and collapsed on the sofa. Kate  the instructor was nice to call the next day to check I was ok which I was and as I explained I just had nothing left to give as I’d used it all stressing out over getting the paperwork right.

London, trains and sustainable urban drainage

I love my job. It’s different and varied and infinitely interesting no day is the same.

Often I draft legal agreements for projects we carry out in partnership with other organisations…sometimes the project manager remembers I helped and invites me to come and see what was created.

Today was one of those days

I don’t have photos of the drainage system built by London Underground as I wasn’t sure if I could take photos whilst on their property but I was able to take photos of my walk to work down Whitehall…

Monty was my breakfast table… take away Eggs Benedict. It was a good day and I felt glad to be alive

 

What was not quite so good was the photo I was sent the next day of the project team and me looking like a squat dumpy equilateral triangle next to the 6^th foot 10 Iso triangle of my instructing officer.

Note to self… don’t stand next to tall skinny people if you are likely to have your photo taken…it’s not good for your self esteem!

Also, I may have caught a cold on the underground…

Leon of London

Leon of London

It’s Friday, the day after Barre Fit and I ache but I’m happy. What I’m not happy about is that I have a meeting in London and after a day in London I am usually ill… I think it’s being on the tube that does it, the sudden close proximity of 100’s and 100’s of different germs.

My friend Mrs LeRu doesn’t do the tube anymore. She decided on starting a new job in London that she would use the opportunity to keep fit and has started using the Boris Bikes instead of the tube to go from Paddington to Westminster.

It’s feasible. There is a stand of bikes, in fact 2 stands of bikes near Marylebone and another just round the corner from the office. Oddly it is not fear of the traffic that holds me back (despite once acting for a man on 3 separate personal injury claims relating to being knocked off his bike in London) but fear of getting lost in the traffic… but then I guess that’s what sat nav is for… however my phone doesn’t do that sort of thing.

Instead I get my exercise from walking. If I have time I get off the tube at Charing Cross and walk up Whitehall to Westminster.

Sometimes I treat myself to a breakfast of porridge at Leon. Although in the months since I last did this I began to wonder whether actually Pret did better porridge…I put it down to the fact that they included holes in their porridge pot lids which let the steam out…

So I was pleased to  discover that Leon were also now using the holes…the porridge was better but sorry guys still not as good as Pret… I feel like a traitor…because I love Leon…

This morning I was pleased to find an Itzu opened just by Charing Cross but they don’t do anything I want for breakfast…there was however an Itzu round the corner from the office and they did do something I wanted for lunch…

I am also happy that walking to station at Leamington and then and down Whitehall from Charing Cross gave me my 10000 steps without trying  🙂