Reasons to be Cheerful: Bargains, Weight Loss, Fell Running and Castle Building #R2BC

Thanks to the lovely Michelle for hosting again this week. I am feeling pretty chipper at the moment so I have chosen just a few key reasons to be cheerful:
1) Charity Bargain
Whilst dropping off some books at a local charity shop I spotted this lovely long wool skirt for only £2.50. Its been super for work and I love wearing it:

I had also picked up a brand new Ikea throw in another charity shop for a 1/3 of its normal price. With mismatched furniture throws are essential!

2) Detox

I have been doing a detox for just over a week to kick start my healthy eating for the year. One of my new discoveries is overnight oats which turned out to be scrummy:

In the first week I lost 4 lb which is a good step on the way to a healthier me!

3) Fell Running

#FitnessFriday Running Further

It has been a good week all round and it has culminated in a 2 and half pound weight loss this week! So I must have done a lot of things right:

1) Diet

I have eaten some healthier things this week and reduced the rubbish to an extent. This week this has included a chicken and avocado salad with damson ketchup for a dressing:

2) Fitness

I am sticking to the quality not quantity of runs to help my body to recover! First up was parkrun on Saturday which was just sub 33:

On Monday I had a chance to have a go at the 5k route to the north of town again whilst my son was at athletics. I was really pleased with being nearly a minute faster and again at around 33 minutes:

#FitnessFriday a day late!

I am running a day late thanks to Torchlight! Which is a shame as its been a good week and I am feeling good:

I am feeling fitter and stronger and I have managed to lose another pound which is a great bonus! So how have I managed it?

1) Diet

Well we ate and drank far too much whilst celebrating my parents' golden wedding anniversary! There must have been something healthier the rest of the week to make up for it...

2) Exercise 

I have managed a variety of runs this week to get myself to only 82 km behind the target which another 9 km improvement. My biggest achievements were my longest run this year of 7 miles and my fastest 10 km since October 2015. 

Today I did my 3rd fastest parkrun of the year without feeling like I was dying so I must have more in the tank if I really tried!

3) September Challenge

I have been managing to keep up with the 30 day abs challenge and I have to say planking for over a minute is ever so hard... However I can see that it is working and my son reckons my boobs are now out further than my tummy! Note to self take photo wearing same bottom half so the waistline stays the same...

#FitnessFriday Abs and Back to Routine

How does Friday come around so quickly? It doesn't help that we are back to school and things get a lot busier. However it does mean that, for the moment, I have more me time as I haven't had any supply work yet! This was my parkrun update photograph this Saturday when I was pleased with a sub 34 time without busting a gut:

I thought I had tried pretty hard this week to it is quite frustrating to have lost less than a pound in weight! So what did I do right or wrong this week?

1) Diet

I had some really good moments like this vegtastic meal thanks to produce from my aunt's garden:

Obviously not done brilliantly with such a small loss but it was an improvement.

2) Exercise

This is one area I am pleased with the results of! I have run every day this week except Thursday (combination of a late night with my son at casualty and a hair cut!). I have mixed up my distances and elevations, also the weather! There have been trail runs and road runs. As you can tell by these photos some runs were better than others:

#FitnessFriday on a Friday for a change!

Well after not running for a couple of weeks I am getting back into it! I also managed to get my first Lycra shot for ages to show what losing 16lb looks like:

As you can see it was very wet at Fell Foot on Saturday and I was lucky to come in under 35 minutes in horrible conditions but it felt great to be back:

I decided as it was stunningly sunny on Sunday to go out on my long country run and found it almost too hot even though it was beautiful:

#FitBitchesMOVEment #SlimmingSunday Catching up!

Oh dear I haven't done a fitness blog post since the 20th of February! Time for a quick catchup then an update.... I was in Northumberland for half term and I managed 2 runs whilst away. The first with my 10 year old during Storm Doris! You can see how wild it was by the state of us after only 2km:

We did plenty of walking on the nicer days as the beaches were beautiful. Whilst out we spotted markers for a 10k to Ultra event that took place the day we left, its on my bucket list! Instead I managed to get out for a 5k run which included a return leg along the beach:

#FitnessFriday on a Monday! #FitBitchesMOVEment

Friday was a bit of a mad night as I was so late home from school thanks to the Lindal road works. It meant that I didn't have time to publish my fitness post and I have only just got around to it today. This makes for a double dose of me in my parkrun apricot! This was the one from a week ago Saturday when I had lost another 1.5 pounds and really starting to look slimmer:

Even more than being slimmer I shaved another 10 second off my parkrun time with an average pace of under 7 minutes/km:

I then went into town to Pete Bland's sports shop and bought some much needed new road shoes:

On Sunday I went out and tested them by trying out a new route up Hospital Hill and then back through Natland:

#FitnessFriday Season's Best

I am really starting to get folks comment on the changes in my body shape with 11 1/2 pounds off:

It will be harder to keep it up now I've done the easy bit. Keeping up the running - now at 108 km - will help but I will need to be more careful about what I eat. I have been careful about wine now that it is back on the allowed list but will need to be organised about my diet. However the running is going from strength to strength.

On Saturday we were on the alternate hillier, loopy Fell Foot parkrun course. I lined up at the new approximate time sign I thought I would achieve:

My official finish time was just under 35 minutes although Strava was later as I forgot to stop it!

#FitnessFriday Keeping it up

The reality of juggling being a busy teacher and a mum whilst trying to get fit and be healthy hit home on this third week. We all needed a lie on Saturday so I missed parkrun and had to have my comparison photo taken indoors. A total of around 6 lbs gone is already making a big difference:

As I had missed my 5 k run I decided to multi task and run into town as the bank was closing in half an hour's time. Its useful to be fit enough to get there more quickly:

I really didn't feel like I'd done enough towards my necessary mileage so headed out again and managed a 5 km route too with my fastest time since November :

On Sunday we went for a 4 mile hike and after I'd dried off and warmed up I went back out and did my first non stop 5 k for a long while:

#FitnessFriday Starting off in 2017

I knew that over the second half of 2016 my eating went to pot, my running was almost non existent and I was drinking a little bit too much wine. My parkrun times were all over the place and by New Year's Eve I was in really bad shape (PS my sports bra had come undone at 2k in so I look even worse!!):

Standing on the scales on New Year's Day showed that I had gained a stone in a year and was the heaviest I had been for a very, very long time... So what am I going to do about it?

1) Run more

When I was running regularly I was more toned and my weight went down not up - not exactly rocket science! So I signed myself up for a 1000 km challenge for which I will get a medal if I can complete it... A tough ask when you need to go 20 km a week but I am willing to give it a go. To encourage me I am putting in money into a tin:

• £1 for a minimum of a mile
• £2 for over 5k-9k
• £3 for over 10k-14k etc...

I am mixing up:

• runs around the block for which I have found a 2 km route
• park runs at 5 km - I am 16 away from my 50 so need to go more often
• longer runs such as one along the river Kent
• occasional club runs when I can escape!

By Wednesday I had clocked up 20 km in 4 days! Follow me on Strava.

2) Eat better

With a busy life and fussy children I have been eating junk on the run since September... I am planning on more home cooked food especially with a lot more vegetables! The wine is off the menu until February when I will let myself have the odd glass.

I am going to be joining back with my old diet & fitness instructor next week to get more help with both the diet and a different form of exercise! She is offering the incentive of the biggest loser each month getting a cash prize... 

So watch this space and hopefully there will be a lot less of me as the year progresses!

Muffin Top Magic Week 7

Just as well Kate changed the name of this linky as I am posting on a Tuesday not a Monday! Its been one of those weeks that if I had been on a traditional diet I might have had a hissy fit as the scales once again weren't showing the results I want. So back to the trusty photos:

Great to see that since last week's photo (on right) things have once again tightened up. My top is reaching lower down my body. It's even more obvious on comparing the side view from 2 weeks ago:

The running is really paying off on sorting out my core! I just need to keep it up and keep listening to the Slimpod, Chillpod and Fitpod..

Muffin Top Monday: Week 5

How these weeks are flying by! Not every day of them is a good one but I think I am doing pretty well. Still temporarily sober (90 days of sober) and mostly eating healthily. This week has been a bit manic so the running has taken more of a back seat than I would like. I only clocked up 17 km over three runs:

My speed is increasing with my 2nd and 3rd fastest 5km times ever! I have invested a whole 69p in a running for weight loss app to try and mix up my runs. It is a combo of jog, sprint and walk which should improve my fitness too.

Muffin Top Monday: Week 4

Well this week was proof that scales are not a good way to measure getting slimmer! For whatever reason I gained a whole 0.4 pounds.. Oh my what a disaster - well it would have been at one of the Weight Watchers meetings I used to go to. Instead I am relying on the more obvious Lycra photo test:

So apart from my face and neck looking thinner I can see a reduced muffin top and a much looser running top. I am still getting comments from people I haven't seen for a whilst about how good I am looking too.

This week wasn't my best food wise with it being the school holidays and I was home around temptations all week. However I kept myself active either doing house sorting or running and ate a lot less than I would normally do when at home all day. The 90 Days of Sober even coped with a night out when I tried alcohol free wheat beer!

With a busy half term ahead and lots of pressure lets hope I can keep this up...

Muffin Top Monday: End of Week 1

I am joining with Kate on Thin Ice for Muffin Top Monday this week. For most of January I have been trying to lose weight but only moving very slowly with about 0.5 pound a week. Not very impressive after giving up booze for the month in aid of charity. So last week I started listening to a Thinking Slimmer slimpod again. As the programme is all about your body shape and not your weight I bravely took a photo of myself which I posted earlier this week.

After a week of listening to the slimpods and noticing that:

a) I was making healthier eating choices
b) feeling more energised
c) my clothes felt looser

I stood on the scales and found out I had lost 3lbs! At last a proper weight loss after all the efforts. To show how it looks on me I created a side by side montage. The photo on the left was this week:

The muffin top is noticeably slimmer! I have also run a fair distance this week with all that extra energy. I have been chipping away at my personal bests of various sections and notched up a few:

So onwards and slimmer wards I hope!

Workout Wednesday: Week 1 in 2014 plus Competition with Thinking Slimmer

It's been a while since I did a Workout post as Christmas plays havoc with everything as there are extra activities and then 2 weeks of no school... So here I am in 2014 with my goal of finishing off the job of getting myself fit and healthy. With a wedding to attend at the end of May I've set myself a goal of dropping another dress size by the big day.

By the time the fireworks had gone up on New Year's Eve my belt had got too tight (I blame a Chinese takeaway). So I started 2014 as I mean to go on by going out for a run (in the rain and sleet!). It may not have been the fastest run in the world but I at least tried...

Once I got back home I realised I had been failing to listen to my slimpods for a few weeks so I started listening to them again every night. I also drank the last glass of wine in the house on the 1st January and ditched the booze again for a month. So after a few days my belt once again does up on that last hole even by the end of the day!

One of the things on the slimpods is that you are encouraged to not distract yourself whilst eating i.e. be on laptop or watching TV. So as part of my house sorting I have reclaimed the kitchen table as an eating area and not as a craft, homework or everything else area it became in the run up to Christmas! We had slipped back into bad habits of eating our evening meals in front of the TV which is not good for any of us...

Another thing is to increase our quantity of vegetables and fruit that we consume. This is toughest when you have a small boy who only eats limited varieties but we will get there in the end. My daughter created a 5 a day chart and we aren't allowed a naughty treat unless we have had a minimum of 3. My children are hyper-competitive so hopefully this will spur them and me on for a while until it becomes a habit. It's led to finding creative ways to get veggies into our meals such as my daughter suggesting putting peppers and peas into couscous:

Couldn't get my son to eat it with the veggies in but at least he ate the plain version (minor victory).

I went out yesterday for a much better run but I still have to regain some of the fitness I've lost in 2 weeks. Just hope that doesn't take too long! With a few events signed up to in the spring and summer I need to get my legs going...

The slimpods have been such a help last year that I have signed up as an affiliate. This means that I can offer readers a 15% discount:

* Train your brain to lose weight without dieting

* Feel full quicker, eat less and choose healthier

* NHS consultant’s verdict: ‘It’s life-changing’

* Works on its own or as a diet plan booster

* Comes with 100% money-back guarantee (T&Cs apply*)

* Take the pain out of weight loss - no more diets

(*T&Cs apply. There's no tricks or catches to their T&Cs as you can see if you click here to read them >>).

Here is a wonderful success story:

I've also been given a chance to give away not 1 but 2 of their slimpods to help you lose weight. There are pods for women and men so its good for everyone that feels they need to get slimmer in 2014. So please use the Rafflecopter widget to enter (you have 2 weeks to enter:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Weigh in Wednesday Week 11

 

After a gap due to missing my aerobics last week it's back to me in Lycra! This time it's a post workout selfie as my kids on strike again:

 

 

It's not been a brilliant week exercise wise as due to lack of time and an injury the only real workout I did was the Race for Life. Luckily all the picnics and refreshing glasses of cider must have been balanced out as I lost 1/2 pound over the fortnight. Not a huge amount but not bad considering!

So now I enter the danger zone - 6 weeks off work at home with the children. I nearly always gain weight over the break so its a good test of the thinking slimmer pods. Will I manage to eat sensibly and not pig out whilst enjoying time as a family...

There is going to be a bit of a pause in weigh posts as I'm shutting off the laptop and iPad for the first couple of weeks of the holidays! So you'll have to wait a while to see how I do...

 

Weigh in Wednesday Week 5

I didn't want to go to my weigh in tonight! I was feeling fat and I knew that I had indulged in a few too many ciders over the weekend. Not had a chance to run this week with children at home which is the way I normally undo the bad work! I was persuaded by a friend and my daughter to run to class and then run home afterwards... So here I am in my running kit just before I left my parents' house:

I have to say that my running trousers are a size smaller than the workout trousers I normally have on! As you can see the abs need plenty of work still whilst the rest is slimming down nicely.

After a good attempt at the just over 3 km trip to the venue I arrived all hot and sweaty and I was very pleasantly surprised to discover my weight had stayed the same. Therefore I must have been much better with my food choices than I thought to compensate for overindugling in bank holiday booze! The slimpods are supposed to help us realise when we are full and unconsciously make better decisions. 

Holidays are always a harder time to eat sensibly as there are plenty of temptations and things are more relaxed. We even indulged in an Indian takeaway as a pay day treat but I didn't over order and left much of the sauce of my biryani in the dish. Let's hope I can keep it up!

Despite not having formal exercise we have been out and about a lot walking or scooting around. Guess that it just helps to keep on moving!

Get Fit Feel Epic week 5 #GFFE

Well it's the time of the week when I get to find out how my plan to Get Fit and Feel Epic is going...

I have to admit its not been the best week for me on the plan. It started off pretty well as I completed the 3rd week on the couch to 5k programme. This had me running up to 3 minute segments. I have to admit that I struggled with this last session and it felt hard going even though the previous ones felt ok! My diet was also a bit to pot and I struggled to stay below 1700 calories on most days.

My daughter did rustle me up this healthy breakfast:

 

Then I was struck down by the tummy bug and took to my bed all day Sunday.. So it took me until last night that I felt well enough to run. This time I was onto week 4 of the programme and nervous about how far I'd have to run. Bit of a shock to have a double helping of 3 minute run 90 second recovery followed by a 5 minute run! I amazed myself by managing it even though the last 5 minute run was very tough...

So with not a fabulous diet and not that much exercise I was a bit worried stepping up to the scales tonight. It was a relief to be told I had lost a pound! Just wonder what I could lose if I got my diet right... A week without weigh in as I'm away next Wednesday so here's hoping for a good result in a fortnight..

 

Get Fit Feel Epic Week 4 #GFFE

Well after the continued success in week 3 was I going to be able to stick with the plan and keep up the good work after losing 1/2 stone so far this month? I wasn't feeling particularly slimline when I approached the scales tonight at class so it was a mix of relief and annoyance that I had stayed the same weight.

I have been doing really well on the exercise front. In the last week I've managed to get to one aerobics and one salsa class plus I've managed 3 runs with my NHS Couch to 5 k podcast getting me up to 3 minute running intervals. Not having a car for parts of 2 days forced me into walking a lot more and at quite a brisk pace. So this has been a good part of the plan that I have stuck to! 

So if the weight hasn't shifted it must be due to consuming more calories than I was planning. I started off well this last week and then the weekend came along... It was a bit of a graze fest with sledging working up an appetite! The rest of the week has been a bit hit and miss too. The down side of the lack of car has been that I've had some very rushed days grabbing food where I can. Of course this has meant that its not all been very healthy - for instance on the way to class the only food in the car was crisps and having not eaten since 11:45 I needed something! 

Therefore I need to get myself more organised for the upcoming week. In my car I need to remove any naughty snacks and replace them with fruit or something else that won't do any damage. I know as well that I didn't track all my calories on MyFitnessPal so I need to do better. With my alcohol free January coming to an end this is even more important so I've downloaded the new Change4Life drinks tracker app to make sure I keep within sensible limits. 

Let's hope I can get back with the plan and lose more weight next week! I do have a fitness assessment at the gym tomorrow (postponed from December) to see how my gym programme has changed my weight and fitness. It will be interesting to see what that throws up too..

Flab Fighters Week 1

As so many of us are flab fighting at the minute I thought I would create a linky for us all to help encourage each other!

So each week on a Wednesday join in and get support and encouragement. Just let us know:

• What you aiming to achieve (general weight loss, drop a dress size)
• What you doing to get there (diet, fitness etc.)
• What you did right this week
• What you did wrong this week
• How its going so far

I'll be putting a badge in that you can use on your posts and putting the linky on each week. Let's fight that flab and get nice and slim!

To kick it off this is my entry:

My aims

I would like to lose another 2.5 stone and drop about 1.5 dress sizes whilst getting my BMI to a healthy level.

How I am doing it

I am going to a Rosemary Conley Diet and Fitness class each week. We do a great workout and get a pep talk and encouraged to stick to the diet which is low calorie, low GI and low fat. To help stick to the diet I am tracking my intake on MyFitnessPal which helps me know what I am consuming.

I signed up for 6 weeks at a local gym and making the most of it by going 3 times a week and following a programme created for me. I am also working out on the Wii Fit and trying to do yoga regularly.

What I did right this week

On most days I stuck to the calorie allowance and kept my fat intake down. Plenty of vegetables in my diet and watching the portions. I made my 3 trips to the gym (even if one was only for 30 minutes!). Every day I did some form of exercise whether yoga or dancing with the kids using the Wii.

What I did wrong

When I gave in to temptation and had a coffee cooler I forgot to ask for skinny which loads up the calories. I also fell back into bad habits and when tired and stressed tucked into rather too many naughty things...

How it went

I was so pleased to have lost 3.5 pounds this week which puts me back on track and heading in the right direction!


get the InLinkz code

  Grab my button and join in:
  <a href="http://beckywilloughby.blogspot.co.uk/p/flab-fighters.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1149.photobucket.com/albums/o585/LakesMum/flablogo.jpg" border="0" alt="FlabFighters" /></a>