I’m back and so is the weight

I’m back again, it has been almost 9 months since my last blog entry and since then I have managed to put all my weight back on again. Two weeks ago, I was back at 100kg. It took a long while to put the weight back on, I managed to keep it off right up until Christmas and then it was a downward spiral from there. One excuse from another. I’m not totally sure why, apart from the eating and not going to the gym enough, I don’t really understand why I let myself get back to my old weight?

Here are some of the reasons:

- Lack of motivation due to long work hours: I now have to go to the gym three times a week before work, so that means early mornings and getting ready quickly in the morning to get to work on time. I could go after work, but I just wouldn’t have the energy.

- Cold weather: throughout the winter months, having to wake up early while it was still dark was a big struggle. I also go to bed quite late, so sleeping is important to me.

- Losing sight of my main aim: I let others things get to me, I started to get back into old habits and eating comfort foods to supposedly ‘help’ me after a hard day’s work. I also didn’t set myself an actual weight loss target, I think that was also a problem.

- Getting too many weight loss compliments from everyone: My boyfriends parents, my family and friends were all noticing my weight loss. Losing 10kg did make a significant difference to the way I looked, but it also gave me more confidence, so I started wearing jeans again and buying more fitted clothes. But deep down, I knew it wasn’t enough and I couldn’t see the person I wanted to be yet in the mirror. I should have just been happy with what I had managed to do already and how far I had come along, but I started to get down about it and gradually lost interest and lost the will to succeed…what was the point?

There were other reasons, which I will touch on when in my future entries, but there were also lots of positives that came with the weight loss.

I started back on my fitness and weight loss regime two weeks ago, Mon 7 April. I will now start planning my comeback and will document all.

Wish me luck!

FFF

New job, new gym and new fitness programme.

Yes…finally, I have managed to start losing weight again. It has been a good few weeks now that my weight has stayed the same and I had been sporadically going to the gym. I had a really busy week last week and only managed to get to the gym twice. I am on track to go three times this week but we’ll see what happens I suppose.

I had a great workout at the gym today. My day started well with me getting lots of chores out of the way and event though I set off late, I decided to walk to the gym. It is a good 30 minutes walk but as the London weather is so lovely today and I wasn’t in a mad rush, I though I might as well enjoy the walk and it always doubles up as a warm up. I was like the cartoon character ‘Road Runner’ and was speeding my way towards the gym listening to some amazing music (The Cure, The Raconteurs, LCD Soundsystem and many others). I was weaving my way round slow moving people and over taking like a power walking champion! I had worked up quite a good sweat by the time I arrived at the gym.

It was quite busy today with the same guys that usually hang around there during the day. They love watching themselves in the mirror and watching all the girls. It’s quite funny when I catch them looking at me or other girls while we are on various weight machines, they can’t resist!

I did 10 mins on the bike, 5 minutes (really fast) on the rowing machine then went over to the weight machines where I did more or less 3 rounds of 20-30 reps on most machines. I then finished the session with a 15 minutes on the treadmill, 10 minutes of that I was running. I felt really pleased with myself and am looking forward to the rest of the week’s workouts….in my NEW gym!

Yes! I joined my new gym today as well, it is just down the road so it’s better for me to go to the gym before/after work. I went in and sorted out all the payments and had my picture taken for my card and booked in for my induction, which is on Wednesday. After that, I can then meet my personal trainer for my 6 week workout plan. It’s all very exciting, I can’t wait to have a plan to work to and hopefully see better results. I will let you all know how it goes.

I also bought my first pair of jeans in 5 years! Yes, I feel absolutely amazing these days and my confidence has increased and my body has started to change with he weight I have started to lose. As a result, I thought I’d try a pair on today and I loved them. So I am going to see what my boyfriend thinks and if he gives them the thumbs up too I’ll keep them.

I also forgot to mention, I got a new job! I underwent a whole series of interviews and tests last week and I got the call saying they want me for the job. I start in two weeks, hence why I decided to swap gyms. I am going to have to start buying some new clothes for my new job – I need to look the part I am also aiming to lose more weight before I start, just to give me that little bit more confidence for my first day, wish me luck!

I have been gyming it…I promise!

I know, I know, I have been awful lately in updating my blog. I must admit though, some of that has got to do with the fact that I have been really busy and haven’t made it to the gym as often as I usually do. So you could say I’ve been slightly ashamed and also not so motivated to write because of it. I have also stayed the same weight over the last 3 weeks, which isn’t brilliant as I was hoping to keep losing weight but at least I didn’t put any on.

It was back to normal last week though, I managed to get to the gym 3 times and as I hadn’t been going too regularly for two weeks before that, I decided to take it easy and did a full hour but reduced the weights slightly and the reps.

I did however have a great session at the gym today, I walked there, which took 30 mins fast walking, and then I did a full hours workout with a mixture of cardio and weight training. It felt great and was really motivated on the treadmill too and managed 15 mins fast running. So I am very pleased with myself for that.

Watching the London Marathon on Sunday made me think about whether I could possibly start training and actually run a marathon…I’m not sure if I want to though, it does look really hard! I do know that when I really want to do something, I always do it…so I need to think this one over first! I know two people that have run the marathon before and I know my dad was going to do it a good few years ago but we moved to Iran so he missed the chance. It would be fun and I would really feel like I would be achieving something. I’ll keep mulling this one over I think before I make any commitments, I still need to get a lot fitter first, maybe that should be my initial goal.

I want to start swimming toom I used to love swimming all the time and I am really good at it. There are just three issues I have with swimming: 1) the water, it is always filthy with thing floating about in it 2) i don’t like wearing a swimming costume in front of other people. I mean, we don’t normally dress down to a thin slither of a cloth on an everyday basis in front of other people and so I find it hard to do that when at a swimming pool too. 3) waxing! I would have to have my legs waxed all the time! Now, all those girls out there that have Mediterranean skin and are blessed with lovely dark leg hairs!!! Yes, you know exactly what I’m saying!

Hayfever, salads and personal trainers

Since moving house and getting over my cold, I haven’t been too brilliant at keeping up with my fitness regime over the last few weeks. I weighed myself this morning and I am the same as last week – which is good considering I only went to the gym once last week and we had a friend round so I drank more alcohol than I usually do and a few meals out.

I went to the gym this morning after a morning of feeling very itchy – my nose just wouldn’t stop itching and the skin on my hands, neck and face has come up in an itchy rash. I get this every summer, as soon as the sun comes out and I start taking antihistamines. So I think it has started now!

I had a great workout which lasted about 1 hour and 15 mins and I then had a lovely walk round town and did some food shopping for the week. I also checked out the gym near my new flat and found out it costs £35/month! That is £5 more than my current gym but I think I will save not having to use the bus there and back 3 times a week. One good thing about the new gym is that a personal trainer is included in the package – I get to have 1 hour with them every month and they set me a training programme – now that sounds great! I have wanted some proper instruction now for quite a while as I feel I might need to work other parts of my body.

Lunch was lovely today, I had one of my gorgeous salads with chicken, giant olives and crackers (see picture below):

I was so full and I am still now, so I will probably be able to hold out until my boyfriend gets home and we can eat dinner together – we have the choice of stir-fry salmon or soup…mmmmm….we’ll see what one he goes for!?

I am hoping to get to the gym 3 times this week, I really need to get back into my routine and lose some more weight in the next weigh-in, so fingers crossed!

It’s still all on track!

I am back online! Yes, the broadband has been connected and I am back on my laptop on the couch writing this! It’s bliss.

I couldn’t weigh myself this Monday, I was staying at my parents’ house and would you believe it…they don’t own a working weighing machine! I also forgot to weight myself on Tuesday morning before I went to work, so a few days late, the results are in, I have lost about 1lbs/0.5kg which I am ecstatic about! I really thought with all my eating halva, biscuits, icecream and drinking beer last week I would have put weight on, but luckily I managed to keep moving and behaving myself with food portions. I also only went to the gym once as I was extremely busy, so it is a relief to know that I can still lose weight even if I’m not on top form.

Managed to get to the gym this morning, I had an excellent workout. I started on the bike and did 10 minutes warm up on the aerobics trainer workout and then did 5 minutes of fast rowing on the machine. Moved over to the weights section and worked my way through all the muscle groups doing reps of 20-30 x 3. It was excellent because I was really working my muscles throughout the weight training section and I had worked up quite a sweat throughout. I then moved over to the step machine and trained on the ‘fat burn’ workout for 15 minutes whilst watching a Poker tournament on tv and listening to some brilliant music on my ipod. The time just flew by as I was totally engrossed in the poker tournament because my brothers taught me how to play over the weekend. I love it!

The weekend went well…I went to a Tapas bar with my family and we ate loads of gorgeous spanish food and I had a scrumptious desert which I shared with my brothers and my parents. This is new for me as desert was only ever mine! I can’t believe I did it really but the thought process in my head was that I was still a bit peckish after the tapas and one of the chocolate and fudge ice cream deserts was screaming out at me so I ordered it and then I asked for extra spoons for everyone! Not bad aye!?

I am hoping to get to the gym on friday although my boyfriend has the day off and one of our friends is down from Norwich so I may be distracted.

I am going to cook a gorgeous roast chicken tonight with oven roasted carrots and  potatoes.

New Flat – New Fitness Regime!

Catch-up from last week and weekend:

Well, since I blogged last week, we managed to successfully move house (not without the help of our two families consisting of two big/strong brothers, two mums and a very organised dad/driver). I didn’t manage to go the gym all last week as I had a terrible cold and had difficulty just breathing on a day to day basis let alone whilst running on the treadmill. I did however manage to make up for all that with all the packing, cleaning and lifting for the move and on the day, I really worked up a sweat running up and down 3 flights of stairs with heavy boxes and bags.

We are now very settled in the new flat and enjoying the cosiness of it. Although, I must say, when we went back to the old flat to give the keys back I realised how lucky we really were to have a flat so big! Anyways, this way we can hopefully save money on heating bills as the old flat had terrible insulation problems. There is a gym just a few minutes walk away from our new flat that I am thinking about joining. The old gym is just too far away to walk there and back and I would be spending time and money getting there and back every week. I think I’ll pop in tomorrow and see what the new gym has to offer and how much it costs. One advantage of swapping gyms is that I can hopefully get away from a few men at my current gym that seem to have taken a shine to me, P in particular, who even asked me to go Salsa dancing with him!

As you can see in my weekly stats section, I lost another kilo last week! I am over the moon! I have finally moved into the 14 Stone category now and will enjoy working off more lbs to the next stone! I was quite surprised actually because I hadn’t been to the gym at all last week and I also had a few days of bad eating surrounding the move and the few days off we had whilst unpacking. We had an indian takeaway one night and I had about 4 small bottles of larger throughout the weekend to celebrate the successful move. Oh and a glass of bubbly! I also gave into temptation twice this week as it was Iranian New Year (Aide Norouz) and I had our parents round for a meal and we had lots of cutely decorated eggs and some gorgeous Iranian sweeties and some mini easter chocolate eggs and I just couldn’t resist. We did do alot of Iranian dancing though and we worked up quite a sweat. I also had a few truffle seashells last night (mmm…yummy) as I was feeling particularly peckish and fancied something sweet with my cuppa. So I am fully focused again now…I promise!

Here is a picture of our ‘Haft Sin’ table for Iranian New Year (Aide Norouz). Haft = seven and Sin = the letter ‘S’, we always have dress the table with at least 7 ‘S’ objects for good luck in the new year. Can you guess what things on the table begin with the Iranian ‘S’?

See Wikipedia for more information on Iranian New Year: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_new_year

In terms of weight loss and exercise, let’s see how this week goes!? I went to the gym this morning and did about an hours work out and then went to Sainsburys and did a bit of food shopping. Stocked up on lots of olives and lettuce for my lunchtime salads. My broadband still hasn’t been installed so I am on dial-up this week. We really missed having the internet over the weekend, it felt so strange not being able to just check things out when we needed to and I also really missed blogging and reading everyone elses blogs.

I have started to get a great response from readers on my blog and I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has contacted me. I am so glad that I am motivating people to exercise and live healthily. I really appreciate all comments and encouragement. I even got my first blog review this week! http://www.blogcatalog.com/blogs/fit-firm-and-fly.html

The Countdown is Over – It’s the Moving Weekend!

I have been so busy this week that I haven’t had time to write my blog. Regular readers will know that I am moving this weekend! Yes, the weekend when gales and even snow is forecast for London! Can you believe our luck!? The weather has been so amazing over the last week and I have been so busy packing and blowing my nose (yes, I have another cold!) that I haven’t been out enjoying the glorious sunshine as much as I would have liked.

I have been totally unproductive in terms of fitness this week. I haven’t been to the gym at all! Now that is a first for me in a long time! I have had this awful cold for a week now and my throat has been killing me. I only have to walk to the local shops as back and I am out of breath. My chest felt very wheezy and tight. So I thought it was best to not gym it this week. I have however been packing, sorting and cleaning furiously, so hopefully that might make up some of my fitness regime this week. Lifting all those heavy boxes and walking clothes, books and CDs to the charity shop must be doing wonders for my biceps!

As a consequence of our moving house, we are going to be without broadband for at least a week and most likely 10 days. 10 days without the internet! I don’t know what I am going to do!? I’m really not looking forward to it. I can’t believe with today’s technology it takes so long to re-direct broadband!?!?!?!

So I hope you all stay fit and eat well and I will hopefully be back before too long, unless the gales blow me away to a beach somewhere in the sun where I will be sipping cocktails and will have my laptop connected to wifi…Wow, that would be a miracle!

She bangs, she bangs…

I feel so great today, I have had a great start to the day. What better way than to start it by dancing to Ricky Martin!?! After a dodgy night last night of feeling a little ill, I thought I wouldn’t be fit enough to go to the gym today but I noticed that they had a ’salsaerobics’ class on so I had to go.

It was great. We started warming up and then we got into a full salsaerobics dance routine with the ‘cha cha cha’ and ‘cuban breaks’. The instructor made some good choices in the music, I really started jumping when Ricky Martin’s ‘She Bangs’ came on…it was brilliant and so fun! It felt like I was dancing rather than working out. I love dancing and almost everyday have a little dance at home to my favourite songs. Was a great change to me usual gym workout and I worked up quite a good sweat. The class lasted an hour and we went through several different dance routines whilst incorporating squats and jumps and using our arms throughout. Some of the moves were a bit confusing but I think I’ll get the hang of it after a couple of weeks.

Ricky Martin – She Bangs

When I got home, I got a phone call from the Barbican saying that I had won £200 worth of Virgin vouchers in a competition I entered a couple of weeks ago! I was so surprised! I have a big smile on my face this morning and keep singing ‘She Bangs’! I have my boyfriends parents round for dinner tonight so I have to give the house a quick clean and get cooking…I think I will be singing my way through the day! And its lovely weather in London today. Hope you are all having a good week! Keep dancing!

Like a Rolling Stone

I have just got back from the gym after a great workout. My weigh-in wasn’t that brilliant today, I lost 0.5kg/1lbs which is better than nothing but at least I am now on the 15 Stone mark! After weighing myself this morning, I felt a bit down, after my success the last few weeks and having gone to the gym 3 times last week, I expected a better result. I know that I still need to cut down my portions at dinner time, I am usually so hungry by the time we eat dinner, I eat too much. So I still need to work on my portion sizes and I also need to find some healthy meals to cook throughout the week to keep the weight loss working.

I have also been thinking that as I usually do a mixture of cardio and weight training in the gym, I may be building muscle which is heavier than fat. So if this is the case, in time, I should gain from having more muscle as it increases my metabolic rate and I will need more energy to to everyday things and in turn lose more weight! So, I can definitely feel my thigh muscles getting more defined and my calves. After the weigh-in this morning, I checked several websites to see what it says about gaining muscle and weight loss and they confirmed what I was thinking. Now I just need to work on different muscles in my body and make sure I use them all otherwise I could injure myself. I think I need to buy a book or find a website with information on the right way to weight train. Any ideas anyone?

I cam across this website this morning whilst looking at weight training and understanding how muscles work. I found this ‘Muscle Game’ quite fun: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/body/index_interactivebody.shtml

I am finding it quite hard to be happy today as I really did expect a larger weight loss – but I keep thinking about how well I’ve done and how proud I am going to be once I’ve reached my target weight (which I haven’t set yet). I was listening to Bob Dylan on the way back from the gym and the lyrics to his song ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ made me think, in particular the section below:

“When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You’re invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?”

And that is how I feel, I have got nothing to lose by carrying on this healthy lifestyle and I have started to share my thoughts and feelings online here with you all and I would have so much to lose if I gave up and went back to how I was 5 weeks ago…so I will keep going and will do my best to make sure I lose a bit more weight next week!

Bob Dylan – Like a Rolling Stone

__________

20 minutes fast walk to the gym

10 minutes on bike

40 minutes weight training

15 minutes cross trainer

5 minutes stretching

10 minutes walk with heavy shopping home

Total: 1hr 40mins

Pump up the jam

Well, as you can see from my stats, I lost another kilo last week (2.2lbs). I am thrilled that I am still losing weight and not having to starve myself silly or make any drastic changes to my life. Once I have lost a substantial amount of weigh I’ll try to explain more about my philosophy to food.

I only went to the gym twice last week and the second time was useless. So this week, now that I am feeling better, I have been working out harder in the gym. Monday was great, I really went for it and spent quality time on all of the machines. I ran on the treadmill for 20 minutes and I even enjoyed it. Since my weight has been decreasing my confidence has been increasing and I think the guys in the gym are starting to notice.

I had one guy keep watching me throughout my workout, he kept looking at me and trying to get my attention. But when I am in the gym, I am very moody and try to keep quite focused, so I wasn’t paying him any attention. At the end of my workout, he came over to the water fountain where I was filling up my bottle and he started chatting me up along the lines of…”I don’t like other people’s mouths on that thing bu I’d like it if you lips were on that water fountain…kissy kissy”!?!?! I hate it. I have always had attention at that gym but I just don’t like making friends as they seem to interfere with my workout and start trying to teach me things etc. I wouldn’t mind if it was just about fitness but some guys are only talking to you to try to chat you up and that’s not what I go to the gym for.

Today’s workout was great and again I really enjoyed it. It seems the weeks where I have lost weight, I seem to be more motivated in the gym and also in deciding what to eat for lunch and dinner. I did have a piece of cake and one of my work colleagues leaving party yesterday but I was truly wanted it and it was a real treat. I have therefore worked out harder today in the gym than usual and am feeling very pleased with myself.

The real difference I see in my eating habits these days are that I just eat what I want and whenever I want but only when I am hungry and I also try to make better decisions about what to eat. Since my talk with my boyfriend, I have realised that I just don’t want sugary, fatty foods as they make me unhappy. Now that doesn’t mean I don’t get tempted as I do, last night I was desperate for something sugary/chocolatey as I was feeling a bit down (money problems) and I just wanted to sit down and mindlessly stuff my face with chocolate. But I didn’t and the feeling soon passed.

I didn’t see the same annoying guy in the gym today…luckily and I also haven’t seen my french friend P for while either. Now I’ll leave the story about P for another time but it started with him giving me un-asked-for advice on how to use one of the weight machines and ended with him sitting on my legs!!! Yes, I even had to change my gym times because of P.

This song is great to work out to…running man all the way!
Technotronic – Pump up the Jam