A day in the life of a 12WBTer

5.30am: weigh in day so I was out of bed and getting on the scales before having my regulation black coffee to kick start my day. Woo hoo! Lost 500g. That makes a total of 2kg lost since I started the program. Performed a little happy dance

6am-7am: workout time! This morning I had a cardio session and I was going to introduce some running. Omg this was going to be a big thing for me after 5 weeks of no running. Deep breaths!

I began with a 5min warm up walk on the treadmill before moving to the xtrainer for 10mins. On to the bike now for 10mins and then…this was it…10mins on the treadmill. Now I had to start trying some run intervals. On the treadmill screen I had the running track graphic and so I decided to alternate between 100m walks and 100m slow jogs. I had been instructed to run at the same pace as my brisk walking pace ie 6.5kph, so I certainly wasn’t setting a blistering pace! There were no problems with the running. Then it was on to my final 10mins on the xtrainer before finishing with 50 push-ups and 4 x 60sec planks.

And that was all I had time for before hitting the showers before the inevitable change room rush and scrum.

7.30am: finally…breakfast! Today I had oven roasted tomatoes on ricotta topped toast. It was also meant to have basil on it as well but my basil has withered and died in this cold weather and I only had coriander in the fridge. Oh well, it tasted fine anyway.

8.30am: work.

10.30am: tummy grumbles were telling me that it must be morning tea time. Ignored the half empty packet of Tim Tams on the table in the middle of our bay, and instead had corn thins topped with extra light cream cheese, chopped almonds and honey. Water! I must remember to drink more water. In this weather it’s so easy to forget even though I do have a bright blue water jug on my desk. I can hardly miss it!

12.30pm: meeting Mr B for lunch at Gus’s. Only problem is that I hadn’t anticipated it being so busy. The only tables available were outside and the heating wasn’t great. But I had no choice. I was hoping that the pumpkin soup I ordered would warm me up, along with long black. The soup might’ve done the trick if it had been a lot warmer than what it was – it was a bit of a disappointment. Thank goodness for good company!

4.30pm: feeling a bit peckish so I had an apple. This would keep me going until dinner…hopefully.

5.30pm: a brisk 10min walk to the car. It’s so cold even though I’ve got on a warm coat, scarf and gloves, as well as tights and boots.

6.15pm: start cooking dinner. Tonight we have Chicken Tikka curry with cauliflower mash. The chicken thighs had been marinating in a mixture of tikka curry paste and natural yoghurt since last night so it was just a matter of browning these in the frypan before adding chicken stock and coconut cream. I had doubled the recipe but now I realise I needn’t have doubled the stock and cream – too much liquid. Oh well, I’ll know for next time! There was enough left over for lunch tomorrow so that’s lunch sorted.

7pm: finally sit down to dinner. The curry was very mild but tasty nonetheless. And I’m not sure whether Mr CJ actually noticed that the mash was cauliflower and not potato. He didn’t comment anyway, and ate the lot!

7.30pm: pack the gym bag for tomorrow morning’s weight session. Put on a load of washing.

Now: doing my blog entry. Then I’ll have my nightly treat – a Jarrah hot chocolate. Maybe some knitting. Then off to bed.

A+ report card

This afternoon I had my physio appointment.

Had there been any improvement?

More importantly, would I be allowed to run?

What would my report card say?

Flashback to 5 weeks ago: doing 100m intervals. On the last one for the night I overdid it and felt that telltale crunch or pop, followed by an immediate stop mid-pace. Diagnosis: torn hamstring up at the attachment. How bad we didn’t know, without an MRI. The decision was made to treat it conservatively and see how it goes. The first week it was so sore – couldn’t walk far, couldn’t stand for long, even sitting was painful, given where the tear was.

I have been a model student, doing my prescribed exercises. And slowly, ever so slowly, I could do more. Now? Now I can do weighted lunges, squats, and hamstring curls. I can walk briskly (a surprise to many, including me!), use a recumbent bike and cross trainer. I’ve also followed my 12WBT program, working around the exercises I could do and substituting for those I couldn’t. No excuses.

And now? Now I can introduce short intervals of running during my walks, whether on the treadmill or outside. Woo hoo! Progress! I’m to use discomfort as a guide as to whether to continue, slow down or stop. Common sense really. I can also get on a conventional bike. And incorporate step ups in my program.

I also have some neural stretches to do to prevent scarring around the sciatic nerve, as the hammie heals.

I have a glowing report card – I’m an A+ student who applies herself diligently.

So, tomorrow it’s my cardio day. I’m off to the gym in the morning for a combination of the bike, cross trainer and treadmill and now I can include some…running! Glory be! Hallelujah! Woo hoo! And one helluva happy dance!

Halfway there

Week 6 – we’re halfway through the 12 WBT program. It’s going so quickly.

This week was off to a flying start with a brisk 5km walk at 5.30 this morning. The reason for the early start was that I was meeting friends for breakfast in town at 7.30am.

So it was on with the many layers to keep warm and then out the door – with my polar HRM on to record calories burnt and heart rate, the Garmin GPS in my pocket to record the number of kilometres covered, my phone in the other pocket because that counts steps, and my ipod shuffle for music! Nothing like technology to record all sorts of details! Love my gadgets.

After my walk I still had 50 push ups and 4 mins worth of planking to do (this week’s challenge involves doing 40mins worth of the plank over the week) before I could have a shower and get ready for work.

Breakfast was great. I love catching up with friends Ruth and Liz, and this morning we met for breakfast at 2Before10 café. I had poached eggs on gluten free toast with pickled cherry tomatoes, rocket and pesto and it was delicious. Several cups of coffee later, and having caught up with all the news, it was off to work. The lifts have been playing up (there is only 2 in our building) so it meant I had to use the stairs – no excuses. Since my hamstring injury I have been avoiding the stairs but I think now it’s time to return to using them again. It doesn’t seem to bother the hammie and it beats having to wait for what seems forever for the single lift to show up.

Last week’s challenge involved getting to be early every night. How did I find it? I actually felt so much better for getting to bed early during the week so I am trying to continue with that. On weekends I tend to stay up later but that’s because I get to sleep in on Sundays. Anyway I’ll see how I go.

Super Saturday

It’s been a super Saturday in more ways than one today. Yes, the SSS happened this morning, with more intensity than usual because I was having my good friend Ruth around for lunch and I needed to burn a few more calories than normal. Mind you, there was also a lot of running around cleaning, dusting etc once I got home from the gym to make the place more presentable!

Now don’t be alarmed! I haven’t fallen off the wagon. No siree, lucky Ruth was being treated to a 12WBT-themed lunch to prove that you can entertain while on the program.

The menu:
Entree: Salmon and grilled vegetable terrine with ricotta

Main: minestrone with lentils & zucchini with toasted seeded wholegrain roll

Dessert: mini chocolate fudge cakes with icecream

To drink: water flavoured with lemon juice and at the end of the meal, a cappuccino (courtesy of my Nespresso machine)

It was a lovely afternoon

And a quick shout out for this morning’s breakfast, French toast with banana, berries & maple syrup. It was soooo good and especially appreciated after my SSS this morning.

Finally, there was a stunning sky this evening.

Truly a super Saturday

Muscles!

I know this might sound obvious but I have muscles! Now this is not a recent revelation – I do know that the human body is comprised of approximately 650 or more muscles (depending what source you reference!) that do all manner of things to enable us to function. However, the reason I know I have muscles is that they are sore! Yes, I have delayed onset muscle soreness. Finally! As of this week I have been able to incorporate leg exercises into my weights regime, and even though I am using itty bitty weights, my muscles are feeling the effects. And I have also increased the weight for my upper body exercises.

Today it’s been an interesting exercise getting up and down from a seated position!

However, DOMS did not stop me from going for my early morning 6km walk today. And having gone to bed early last night (lights out at 10pm), I was…almost…bright as a button this morning at 5.30am! Amazing what 7 hours of sleep can do. This morning it wasn’t as cold as it has been on previous mornings, though I was still dressed for sub zero temperatures. The entire walk was done under the cover of darkness, I walk under the street lights so I can see where I’m going and I’m less likely to fall down a pot hole. There was not another soul out walking this morning. Then once I was home I did a mini circuit of squats, lunges, one-leg bridges, 2-leg bridges on a chair, and push ups, which was interesting given my DOMS.

And how could I forget – today is weigh in day. My loss this week was a grand total of…wait for it…drum roll…ahem…100g! Well at least its 100g in the right direction…down!

Enjoyed a coffee at lunchtime with Mr B. Well I had the coffee, he had a GF chocolate cookie which looked really delicious and oh so tempting. I was debating whether just to have a teensy piece but then I thought if I gave in this time it will make it easier to give in again…and again…and again. So no chocolate cookie for me.

Dinner tonight was meant to be Asian Chicken Patties with Warm Noodle Salad but it morphed into Asian chicken stirfry! I buy chicken breasts and mince them myself rather than buy chicken mince which can be quite fatty. Tonight, though, I really couldn’t be bothered mincing the breast and making patties. So instead I used diced chicken breast and all other ingredients in the recipe for the stirfry. Pretty simple but delicious.

Anyway I must take these sore muscles off to bed. Hopefully they will feel better tomorrow because, guess what?! I return to the gym to do it all again!

And your time starts now…

Wow, this week’s challenge is proving to be very challenging.
300 push-ups in a week?
No worries.
Try a different food or recipe?
Easy.
Aim to get to bed by 9.30pm?…omg this is really testing me!

Tonight I get home from work. And, as they say in Masterchef world, “your time starts now”…cook dinner – Cajun pork with coleslaw & sweet corn.
Get my gear ready for tomorrow morning.
Was going to go swimming but then changed my mind and instead I will do a 6km walk before work. Throw on a load of washing – that’s the downside of exercising every day, lots of washing.
Eat dinner.
Prepare tomorrow’s lunch – roasted beetroot & zucchini salad with goats cheese & walnuts.
Clean up after cooking – the kitchen looks like a bomb’s gone off.
Stack dishwasher. Wash those pots/pans that can’t go in dishwasher.
All the time trying to watch Masterchef!

And so it goes. The time is ticking away. Tick, tick, tick….will I make it?! I have to admit, it is making me very time efficient. No faffing around tonight!

And to other things: this morning it was legs & chest day at the gym. And the really exciting thing was that I could use the xtrainer (for 5min), and do squats, lunges and leg extensions! It may seem strange to be so excited by this but given that for the past 4 weeks these have been on the banned list, so to speak, this is progress.

Scrumdiddlyumptious

What a miserable start to Monday! It was cold, grey, foggy and just plain miserable this morning. And it extended into the afternoon. I knew I had to walk today but I just kept putting it off, putting it off, until I couldn’t put it off any longer. And lo and behold, I walked outside into sunshine and blue skies later this afternoon. See, sometimes good things do come to those who wait. It wasn’t warm but hey, I can’t have everything!

I ended up walking 6km in 55.15min. Once home I did 20 x squats and lunges with a 5kg medicine ball. Followed by 4 x 15 reps of push ups. And to finish off, 4 different ab exercises: 2 sets of 12 reps.

Dinner tonight we had an amazing, awesome, scrumdiddlyumptious beef, pumpkin and prune tagine. Really, it was that great! If this is dieting, I am all for it. This meal was so, so delicious and perfect for this cold weather. It came with a small serve of rice. Yummo!

And something that would normally be scrumdiddlyumptious would be rocky road chocolate that Mr CJ is about to tuck into. He has advised that I look the other way so as not to be tempted. Generous soul that he is Instead I will savour my hot chocolate. I know, it’s not quite the same thing….

Beef, pumpkin & prune tagine (this photo doesn’t do it justice)

What a jerk!

Dinner tonight: Jerk fish. Verdict: delicious.

According to Wikipedia (what else!) Jerk is a style of cooking native to Jamaica in which meat is dry-rubbed or wet marinated with a very hot spice mixture called Jamaican jerk spice. Jerk seasoning principally relies upon two items: allspice (called “pimento” in Jamaica) and Scotch bonnet peppers (similar in heat to the habanero pepper).

The 12WBT recipe has dried thyme, allspice, brown sugar, soy sauce, ginger, chilli, oil & onion in the marinade. Once marinaded, the fish was char grilled and was served with steamed chat potatoes and a green salad. It was a really tasty meal.

Now for the week in review. This is a milestone week so there was fitness test to do as well.

Monday – I braved the early morning for another walk but with so many layers on I probably looked like the Michelin Man. Be prepared was today’s motto as I prepped Mondays meals as well as Tuesdays as I was going to the movies after work.

Tuesday – from jelly arms at the gym to getting good/not so good news from the physio to seeing The Great Gatsby, today had it all. No popcorn, pop tops or wine at the movies. Diet Coke and yoghurt & berries I had prepared the day before kept me going.

Wednesday – a 900g loss! A very filling egg white omelette for lunch at a Canberra institution: Gus’s to celebrate (belatedly) Ruth’s birthday.

Thursday – another meal out. This time breakfast with work colleagues at a nearby cafe. Another omelette. No grumbling gremlins today! The highlight? Getting next weeks menu plan in my inbox. Love it!

Friday – challenging my core and my balance on a Swiss ball. These things are best done in the privacy of my own home.

Saturday – another awesome SSS including a 1km swim. Also repeated the pushups and plank tests that I last did 4 weeks ago. Have improved immensely In push ups department! Finally faced my fear: Brussels sprouts. Traumatised as a child but decided to give them a chance. Discovered that oven roasted Brussels sprouts are delicious. Who would’ve thought!

Sunday – sleep in yay! And because I enjoyed the Brussels sprouts I had yesterday, decided to have them again today. This time I char grilled them. Yummo! Definitely worth a second chance if the last time you had them was as a child. I also re-did my measurements today and have lost a total of 3.2cm, mainly legs and hips. Biceps are increasing

Tonight’s meal: Jerk Fish

Upsy Daisy Day

Did you know that it is National Upsy Daisy Day today? No? I thought as much.

This day is a day set aside to encourage you to face the day positively, and to get up ‘gloriously, gratefully and gleefully’ each morning.

National Upsy Daisy Day, an “unofficial” National holiday (US) was created by Stephanie West Allen is 2003. Her desire in creating National Upsy Daisy Day was to make humor, laughter and a positive attitude part of the Upsy Daisy Day way.

To be honest, I can’t say that I got out of bed gloriously, gratefully and gleefully this morning. No sireee. Mr CJ was working this morning so got up at his usual time and brought me a coffee before leaving, at 5.20am. However, I didn’t have to get up for another hour as the pool/gym doesn’t open until 7am on weekends. This gave me an hour when evil CJ tried to convince me that I didn’t need to swim today.

That just a gym workout would be enough…

In fact, maybe a walk later in the day might be enough…

Despite the fact that today is my SSS.

Truly, I’m better off waking up just before the gym opens, have my coffee, get ready and go. No time for thinking. No time for evil CJ to think up lots of reasons why I don’t need to go.

So I used the 10 minute tactic this morning: show up, do 10 mins and if I’ve had enough, call it a day. It was really the swimming that I was resisting. I was okay with doing the gym workout. But true to form, once I got in the pool I forgot about the 10 min rule and completed my swim session: 1km.

This was followed by 6 x 25m of pool walking in the shallow pool.

Up in the gym I alternated between bike and treadmill: a total of 20min on the bike & 25 min on the treadmill. In between there were lunges, squats, push ups, bridges, SSS twisting crunches and planks. Total time in the gym: 1hr 04.55min.

Continuing with the new food/recipe challenge, I made kale chips this afternoon which were delicious. And tonight for dinner, with the lemon & chilli marinated pork and roast pumpkin, I am having roasted Brussels sprouts with toasted almonds.

So all in all, I think I had an upsy daisy day!

“Everyday is a gift and if we remember that as we rise each morning, it will help us carry a good attitude throughout the day, whatever the day may bring us. Life is full of challenges and bumps in the road, it is our attitude that helps us over the bumps and through the challenges to move onward with a smile.” – Upsy Daisy Day, National Day Calendar

Lift. Sweat. Repeat

It’s Thursday. That means its weights day. Some days operate like clockwork. And some days its a bit more random!

Ever have one of those days when you always seem to be chasing your tail? When you’re always about 10 steps behind? Yep, today was one of those days!

However I had a great weights session this morning. I was on a tight time schedule because I had an 8am breakfast date – with work colleagues at Sugacube cafe. So I was focus personified at the gym this morning. I included lunges today, as well as bridges with my feet on a bench. There were more push ups, lateral raises, assisted chin ups, chest press, biceps curls, dips as well as abs. I increased my weights so it was a hard but challenging workout. Definitely lots of sweat involved!

Despite my best intentions to get to breakfast on time I ended up being 20 mins late. Not that it mattered. Service was really slow and no-one had ordered yet. Because the cafe didn’t have gluten free bread I opted for a mushroom, tomato and shallot omelette which was delicious and very, very filling. In fact, I didn’t need anything further to eat until lunchtime, and even then I only had a small snack.

Next weeks meal plan popped up in my inbox this morning. Highlights include French toast with banana, berries & maple syrup for breakfast (can’t wait to try this), roasted beetroot and zucchini salad with goats cheese for lunch, and beef, pumpkin and prune tagine for tea (even Mr CJ will approve of this.

And next week’s challenge will be a huge challenge for me: to get to bed early. In bed by 9.30pm and lights out by 10pm. This will be interesting but I’m up for the challenge!