Eat clean/paleo and lifting heavy things works!

So the massive plateau (read eating tons of crap and multiple takeaways in a week) is finally over.

I mentioned the 10 day challenge the other day that Jason set me. Eat clean/paleo for 10 whole days not slipping up, on day 11 I can have a treat. I feel so much more positive and focussed.

Well I've got up this morning, so after 3 full days, and the weight is dropping off again.

On Thursday 28th November I was 12st 5. I stayed like that most of the week I think, possibly even higher, although I didn't step on the scales, as I knew it would be a disaster (#denial). But this morning I have stepped on and I am 11st 12. This is the lowest I have been on this journey.

Now I am trying (very hard) not to get too obsessed with the numbers on the scales BUT this has made me do a little dance this morning.

My focus now is improve my overall fitness and get a flat, toned stomach. I am not entirely sure the last one is even possible, I've NEVER had a flat, toned stomach, even when I was younger but I'm going to give it a good go. I'm on my way with it. If I tense my stomach muscles, my stomach is already getting quite firm. Just need to lose the excess flab and post-pregnacy(How am I still working on my post pregnancy tummy when Imogen is 3&1/2 years!?) overhang, which is already a billion times better than it was!

excuse the post-workout cod eye!

So it turns out the right food, combined with lifting heavy things in the gym really works. Do one without the other and it is never going to work.

H x

Music is muchos important when I'm working out...

Music plays a significant part of my life, it always has done. I love a lot of different genres of music, I sing in my car (loudly!), I love going to gigs and I met my husband when we played in the same brass band (LOL).

But I never thought music would be important to me in the gym.

Now I am an indie girl through and through. My musical tastes are firmly rooted with Stone Roses, Shed 7, Oasis, Suede, Blur, Elastica, Kasabian, Arctic Monkeys etc

But since I have been going to the gym my tastes have started to shift. I now profess to enjoy dance, trance, drum 'n' bass and dubstep (this last one earns me lots of kudos with the pupils I teach).

Now when I first started at the gym I wasn't taking much notice of the music but I have noticed certain tracks help  my motivation and effort more that others. The only indie track that has motivated me is "Bet that you look good on the dance floor" - arctic monkeys. But everything else that I normally listen to makes me feel sluggish and sleepy.

But "Silhouettes" - Avicii is one of my faves for a bit of motivation. Beat is important and a strong bass line seems to help.

So I have been trying to figure out why music makes such a difference to my work out. The only conclusion I can draw is that when I am in the gym I need to focus. If there was no music, I would be thinking about work and stressing about how many pupils are not meeting their benchmark etc. I find it incredibly hard to switch off. The other thing is it stops me thinking about how heavy the kettlebells are or how many more burpees I need to do or the fact my thighs feel like they are about to bust. Music gives my brain something else to think about, it is a distraction but without distracting me from my circuit.

One thing I have learnt is I can't wear headphones and exercise. It makes me feel super dizzy. So I do have to listen to what is on in the gym at the time. Fortunately I usually like what is on, except when they play One Direction, then not so much.

So here is my top 5 gym favourites at the moment, none of them are overly recent but they are the ones that are motivating me atm. (NB the Indie girl inside me cringes at this list btw!) :

• "Bassline" - Reverend and the Makers
  
• "Icon - Benga"
  
• "#thatPower" - Will.I.Am feat Justin Beiber
  
• "Thinking about you "- Calvin Harris
  
• "Magnetic Eyes" - Matrix & Futurebound

Oh and FWIW, "I think we're alone now" by Tiffany off of the 80s is not a good gym tune, fortunately it didn't come on till I was leaving today LOL

H x

10 day challenge

So after a bit of a stall (read MASSIVE blip!) with the old nutrition, Jason has set me a challenge.

Eat clean/paleo for 10 whole days.

No cheating. No slipping. If I do go off course, I have to text him. I'm not sure why, I suspect some kind of I'm a celebrity style punishment haha So I am not intending to slip up!

10 days feels achievable.

2 days down, 8 to go. No problems. (Although my friend Hannah's leaving do next Friday may cause me issues.)

I actually love cooking stuff from scratch. With the exception of greek yoghurt and fresh raw tomatoes I have enjoyed the whole eat clean/paleo malarky. The issue is not what I am eating, it is more time. Time to prep, cook and eat on top of trying to get a cheeky 3 & 1/2 year old to bed and then marking and planning.

Just-eat.co.uk is a dangerous website, too easy to order something then crack on with marking and planning while I wait for it to turn up.

I need to work smarter with my food, work out ways to keep eating clean/paleo but without taking up so much time because that is when I slip up. But I am so snowed under with work I can't even find the time to sit down and work out what I need to do. So for now I need to just keep focussed and keep doing what I need to, to stay on track. Maybe over the Christmas hols I can work out how to keep eating clean/paleo but without taking ages each evening. Maybe I need to cook things on a Sunday for the week?

H x

I needed a positive PT session...

Thank the Lord!!! After a rubbish few days I have finally had a positive training session.

Not going to lie, I've felt very low these past few days and the thought of doing a session with Jason tonight made me feel very uneasy. Not uneasy because of working with him, uneasy because I wasn't sure mentally I would be up to it and how I might react to a bit of pain and hard work.

Fortunately, it went well, I think. Did some weights in the big scary weights section with the hairy men. Worked on my deadlift with the barbell which is slowly but surely improving. My goblet squats felt good tonight. Did some tricep dips tonight too, not done any of those for ages! They burned, BUT I'd forgotten how when I first started all this I could only manage about 5, now I can pull out 15/20 without too much thought.  Then we did some kettlebell deadlifts, burpees (found these a killer today), kettlebell swing and finally some back rows on the TRX.

Jason is trying to convince me to take the back rows a bit lower. The "advantage" (if you can call it that) is, it makes it harder, so you have to work harder to pull yourself up. The disadvantage is I have a constant fear that I will lose grip and fall on my arse. Jason promised to catch me, hmmmmmmmm all 12st 3 of me? haha So I gave it a go, not convinced my trainers grip the carpet right though, constantly felt like I was slipping, oh that and the fact it's really hard hefting my carcass up LOL.

After the session we had a good discussion about food. I confessed to a few massive blips, no point in pretending. Jason has managed to make me think about how I tend to focus on the negatives, not just with what I do in the gym and food, but also in everything else I am doing. Certainly these past few days have been really tough and I think I've been so focussed on how crap I feel about everything I couldn't see the wood for the trees.

I've come out feeling a lot more positive about the gym, nutrition and even how I'm going to cope with the stress of work etc Amazing how just a little bit of positivity and focus can make you feel a billion times better.

Personal trainer = worth every single penny.

H x

There’s so much more room for happiness?

I still find it amazing how much my mood and mental state affects how my exercise and nutrition go.

I've made no secret of the fact that mentally I am struggling with life at the moment, for a whole heap of reasons. I also suspect there is a direct correlation with the fact I am struggling with my circuits and the nutrition.

It is daft really because more than anything, when I am low is probably the time I need to eat better and use exercise to get that endorphin rush. Yet something seems impossibly hard at the moment. A self perpetuating cycle of getting down, eating crap, feeling down for eating crap, putting in a poor performance at the gym, getting down because of that and so on and so on. I feel like I am spiralling out of control. But the problem is the more I think about it, the worse it becomes as I sink lower and lower.

It needs to stop. I need to snap that cycle of being down and focus again on the positives and pushing forwards with my health. I can't go back.

The lyrics of the above song are hitting a chord with me at the moment:

"Don’t be fooled by your emptiness, there’s so much more room for happiness".

I think I am being fooled at the moment.

H x

Food triggers

I've spent a long time thinking about why I have a tendency to over eat crap food.

And I've come to the conclusion there are 4 reasons.

1) I'm hungry, this is easy to fix. If I am hungry I just need to eat healthy, nutritious  snacks. Fruit, nuts, seeds, berries etc.

2) Boredom. I can fix this by doing other things, going to the gym instead for example.

3) I just like food. This is relatively straightforward. I just need to make sure I find recipes that are healthy, nutritious and taste delicious. To be fair pretty much most things I have been eating for 8 months have been pretty good.

Then we come to the 4th reason. The one I am struggling with at the moment and the one that probably upsets me most.

4) Stress. There is no doubt about it, when I am stressed and sad  I eat and I eat rubbish. I try so hard to stick to healthy nutritious food but something happens. I don't know maybe it is some instant kick I get from processed sugar and fats? I make myself so mad though. I know, I know what is right and what is wrong but when I am feeling low, and I mean really low like I am now something just happens, I binge and I binge on crap. This makes me feel even worse. I am struggling big style at the moment with a whole heap of things and I can feel bad habits slipping back in. :( I am supposed to be filling in a food diary for Jason, and I've now got to that awkward point where I am going to have to fess up to him what I've been eating. No point in lying, otherwise I'm just cheating myself and wasting the money I am paying him. But I feel so ashamed of myself and what I've eaten in the last 24 hours :( The only thing I am clinging to is it isn't as total disaster as breakfast and lunch were fine today! Its like something snaps.

So, so down :(

H x                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Things that have surprised me in the last 8 months...

Lots of things have surprised me in the last 8 months or so. I thought I'd share my top 10 surprises with you:

1) How my fitness has an impact on lots of every day things. Tonight we got our Christmas decs out of the roof. Carrying them down the stairs was a doddle this year. Moving Imogen's massive wooden toy box (full of toys) to make way for the tree was also not a problem.

2) I now run up the stairs at home without thinking about it.

3) I walk to the corner shop without thinking about it.

4) I am quite stubborn and have more resolve than I ever thought. The fact I can get through hard intensive workouts (for me!) and I don't quit, I don't cheat and I want to improve all the time is something I never thought possible 12 months ago.

5) I am quite vain! I have realised how much value I actually hold in how I look. My legs and arms look better, my stomach is way better, although still not as I want. I seem to check my progress quite a lot.

6) I am quite obsessive about things. I never thought I'd obsess about fitness and nutrition, but I have turned in to a bit of a bore.

7) I am really hard on myself. If things don't go as well as I hope, I really mentally punish myself. I repeatedly mentally beat myself up, I go over what went wrong, why, what should I do differently etc etc.

8) I can make time if I want to. Last year I'd have said I didn't have time to exercise, then it turned in to, I can only do it twice a week. Now it is 4/5 times a week depending on workload. Amazing how you can make time.

9) I can be really judgemental! If I see kids at school eating junk, it really irks me. I want to sit them down and tell them, no, just no! I have become quite pious about it all.

10) I will try new things. Food, I've tried all sorts of things I'd always said I didn't like (fish, strawberries etc) Gym I've tried a heap of things I've never done before, I have a whole new vocabulary: dumbbells, barbells, squats, burpees, TRX, Kettlebells etc I'd never even heard of half of what I do now. I've even tried running for goodness sake. New experiences are challenging but fun.

H x