Week 1 Day 1 the retake

Today is weigh in day for the NHS programme. I clock in at 12 stone which is not good as it puts me back at the start of my Thin Club declaration from 3 weeks ago.  However I do get to claim a 31.5 inch waist… maybe the exercise and dieting is having some effect and the weight gain is muscle… however it scores a 44 inch below the belly button across my fat belt.

Measuring the fat belt is not easy with a tape measure… normally I just stand in the bath room, grab the flab between my two hands and exclaim “where the hell did that come from…”

I decide to start  Week 1 again as I didn’t really pay much attention to the 5 a day and failed miserably on the resistance exercises… to start me off  I deliberately forget my lunch

Forgetting my lunch is a planned weight loss technique… stick with me on this…

I think my failure to lose weight last week despite the cycling was because I have stopped parking my car a mile away from work (It’s been raining… I’m a wimp!).  I had been clocking up almost 10,000 steps simply walking between work and car together with a walk at lunchtime.

So lunch had to be foraged for. It wasn’t cheap but it started me off on the right footing… a Prêt super bowl salad and a portion of mango which not only ticked the fibre fruit and veg boxes but gave me 2,500 steps… sadly that will be the total for the day as rain means I am in the car park again with only a 30 second walk between car and desk

However with the Man back I have someone to “babysit” (the Boy is 10 and cannot be left alone in the house for another 4 years yet… and to be honest I am not sure I would trust the Boy in any event, he is bright but lacks awareness of “risk”)

The ride this evening felt good and left my glowing with self righteous thoughts… when I stopped lying on the floor and moaning that is. If you are not here for the cycling then you may want to skip ahead to Wednesday when there is a review. This week unfortunately will be quite heavy on the bike stuff as I am trying to fit four short rides in before the end of the week.

I don’t know about you but it is rare that I come back from holiday lighter than when I left… I am a bit worried about the forthcoming holiday that all the good I have done so far will be undone.

Saturday…wine and a duck

I probably should explain what I am doing here…

At the start of the week I decided to commit myself to the NHS 12 week plan which is based on a combination of diet (calories reduction by about 600 calories a day) and exercise of 150 minutes per week.

My problem isn’t really the food side. The food side I can do easily. The exercise though causes me difficulties. I need something that forces me to get out there. I need a set of instructions

Previously I’ve followed the the Matt Roberts Fat Loss programme. It works for me. It got me down to 11 stone from I think 13 stone. I am not quite sure what my starting weight was as I used a weighing machine at Marylebone Station and I can’t guarantee that the Boy wasn’t teasing me at the time by standing on the scales behind me.

This is what 11 stone looks like. Still big. But happy and active and most of all not wobbling when I dance… except where you’d expect it !

My Mum calls the Matt Roberts programme the Boot Camp. It isn’t. It is still down to your choice to do it or not but it is an organised structure of exercise. The problem with the Matt Roberts programme for me is Week 2 Day 1… which involves running… I can’t run… I would like to fix that… but I am not ready yet.

The NHS programme is a warm up… its slightly structured… it requires cardio exercise 5 times a week and 2 of “resistance…  Admittedly I’ve not managed that at all this week and I’ve only so far fitted in 60 minutes exercise.

Also I’m going to get a bad mark on the chart for the calories today as I’m having dinner with my parents…again… there will be wine… but better there is roast duck 🙂

Week 1 – Day 1 Monday

I am a big girl. I have always been a big girl. I probably always will be a big girl.  I have not,  however,  always been a fat girl and certainly not always an unfit girl… these things took time… but not much talent.

As a kid I had what I would describe as an unconscious baseline of fitness. I don’t ever recall consciously exercising outside of PE lessons… I was just… active, but unconsciously so because the activity was just part of daily life.

Our school was 2 miles away from home. Back then it was standard for kids to walk to school, unaccompanied… and at the end of the day you went back, on foot. No-one waited at the school gates for you, no collection by car.

On the occasions you didn’t walk you cycled… because that’s just what kids did. It’s not that the roads were safer then it’s just that we kids were fearless and thought we would live for ever… Our parents probably did not recognise the risks;  car ownership in the UK didn’t take off until after they had grown up.

I also did a paper round 7 days a week…being the UK this was often in the dark of an early morning. Cycling in the dark. On my own. At age 14… It’s probably illegal these days…

On Saturdays I went swimming. Competing against my brother to see who could do the most lengths in an hour (over 100 in case you were wondering) or if we were feeling lazy we would race to the  first to 20 lengths and then practice swimming underwater in as few strokes as possible… the pool, naturally, was 2 miles away from home and we would cycle there and back…sometimes it felt as if everything was 2 miles away from home

But none of this was exercise. It was just life.

So how did this happen? How did I become this living sofa loving slug of a girl?

Strike 1:  I am a big girl. All that cycling creates muscles. Not every girl had thighs like mine. So I got teased. I stopped doing cross country running. I became reluctant to be seen in a PE kit or a swim suit. I tried not to leave the house. I hid with my books and my music.

Strike 2: I grew up; went to university. Then I got a job in front of a computer, and a commute…by car. I discovered wine and parties… I lived life to the full. I became less active because time was short.

Strike 3:  my body decided it wanted a baby. Post pregnancy was fine. Babies keep you active, all that walking with push chairs and the lifting up and putting down. Post pregnancy it is constant activity… but then babies become toddlers and want their independence “I do it” is their constant refrain and all Mum can do is walk slowly behind to make sure they don’t fall over… and then, and then its being a full time worker who is also a Mum whose days are filled with the admin of making sure the child gets to school on time…before heading off for a full days work… in my case 67 miles away…and spends their days just so so tired just from the effort of living

And then when you turn 40 you start fighting a losing battle against your hormones which are insisting that a belt of fat around your belly would be a must have accessory

So here I am… a slug

But a slug who can now do something towards not being such a fat, inactive slug.