Week 9 - and it's National Braai Day!

Riiiiggghhht, I'm setting here - a perfect day, the first summer's day we've had I think, and the braai fire is going outside, the sliding door is open, the radio's on playing the top 40 hits of the week and life is good.  Ok, admittedly, my mind is all zenned from the yoga class I did earlier... my body, well that's another story.  I feel like I've dislocated both hips, ripped my shoulders out of their sockets, my spine is still in shock at all the work IT had to do and I have persistent muscular aches in places I didn't know I had muscles!  At the end of the class when the boneless rubber lady instructor was leaving with her yoga mat rolled up under her skinny, rubber arm, she asked me if I'm new in her class.  I told her that I was in fact new to yoga and that this was a first for me in my 43 years.  Her eyes proceeded to enlarge quite frightenly and she exclaimed "OOOoooohhhh, well you did rather well with some of those poses".  Well lady I can tell you it will be a number of years before I can perform some of those contortionistic asanas.  Eish man!  


My son apologised profusely too!  He's been nagging me to try yoga, but he's been to a different teacher and a more beginnerish class!  No worries, hopefully I'll be able to remove myself from my bed tomorrow morning without any fatal injuries!  


This was not my only first for this week... when I went to my zumba class on Thursday after work, the instructor didn't pitch up, but the pilates teacher did.  She offered to give us zumbaholics a bit of a workout.  Well, I've always wanted to try pilates. I was quite mesmerized by the way the sweat droplets were flying off me as I jumped up on the step, lifted the dumb bells, and jumped down again.  An hour later, I felt like I'd done a round or two with Mike Tyson!  I went to her after the class and thanked her for giving us a workout and told her I'd always wanted to try pilates.  She was quick to tell me that that was no pilates but more like "pilates on steroids"!!  


On Friday I went for a "fitness test" - you know the one - you do a step test, then you do a flexibility test, push ups and sit ups and of course they measure your body fat with those caliper thingies, take your blood pressure and measure your waist.  I'm quite keen to get the results.  I do however need to redo the step test as the aunty that did the test clicked on the wrong button on the PC and lost it!  So I have to go next week. 


Well, I've read on numerous occasions that when one does exercise, it's better not to do the same thing over and over and over, but to mix it up a bit and keep the muscles guessing.  Well, I can tell you after these 9 weeks, my muscles are just staring blankly with their mouths hanging open as they sure as nuts don't know what's going to hit them next!! 


To end off, let's look at the stats:  after 9 weeks, 3kgs down and 4.6% body fat, many centimeters and one dress size down. Results don't come easy!!!  Happy braaiing everyone!

Week 8 - halfway to week 9 and Braai Day!

I really had to do a quick post this morning.  See I have a confession to make.  I know I was only supposed to get on that machine in a couple of weeks, but yesterday morning, at 05h00 when I walked past it at the gym, it just called my name and it looked so lonely.  Ok, ok, I'll stop talking nonsense!  I just couldn't resist anymore ok!  


So, I hop on the blasted thing without great expectations (although I do feel a little thinner)  and it tells me the following - since I last weighed, I've gained, yes, gained just over a kilogram, but get this... my body fat, over the last 8 weeks, has dropped by 4.6%.  I start smiling and I can't seem to stop!  I mean this is what it's all about - I'm not too phased by the weight measurement and I just know that that kilo I've gained is pure muscle, so I am now even more motivated to keep on doing what I'm doing!


I went on to have a fabulous workout with loads of other nutters who frequent the gym in the middle of the night as my husband puts it!  And believe me, it's really really difficult for me to get out of bed at 04h30 - especially when it's cold, windy and rainy - brush my teeth, tie the hair up, get dressed and get out of the door.  There is an evil voice in my head that runs this non-stop commentary of every excuse why I really don't have to go and that there is a lovely warm bed waiting... but once you've done it, your day is made.  You really can handle anything that comes your way. Wish I'd discovered this 20 years ago, although the young body is so forgiving, I don't suppose I would've been as motivated!


It may not be true for everyone, but for me, I have learned that protein is essential and also my mid morning and mid afternoon snacks.  I've not been too organised on the food front at work this week, and yesterday I did not have anything for an afternoon snack.  As I've been working out quite hard, I get hungry and it's essential to have the healthy stuff at hand.  What happened by the time I got home at six.... I promptly ate two pieces of toast and Marmite!  I don't even eat bread anymore!!!!  Anyway, I just had to remind myself of the 85/15 or the 80/20 rule or whichever one you follow - as long as I eat correctly 85% of the time - my body is not going to freak out and nor will anyone else!!  


On Friday afternoon I'm doing a "fitness test" where they assess your strength, flexibility and cardiovascular ability.  I'm quite excited to see where I fit in on the fitness front!


Get moving today people.... we're down to less than 100 days until the silly season with all its parties and beach time and all the skin exposure!!

Week Seven ... and I should be halfway to my goal... but....

Hullo and goodbye week seven and what a week it's been.  It's been bad on several fronts.  On Monday after work, I missed my power walk - for a very good reason though - I went to visit my Mom!  Nevertheless, I missed my exercise session.  After getting home, we realised our dogs were missing.  We went into panic mode and immediately started a search party.  We drove all over the place and whistled and called and whistled and called some more - but nothing.  I think if I had 2 hours sleep on Monday night it was a lot.  I kept thinking the dogs were come back home during the middle of the night.  I was really afraid that they had been stolen as the one is a pitbull and she is everybody's friend!  She will literally make friends with anyone and go with them.  I had terrible visions of dog fights, etc.  Tuesday mornings I'm usually in the gym at 05h00, but at that time I was far too much in panic mode to go gym.  It probably would've been the best thing to do, but I was in zombie mode.  I called the animal welfare as soon as they opened and lo and behold, some wonderful woman had picked up the dogs at Radloff Park and looked after them overnight! Phew!  WHAT a relief!  


Let's say that on the nutrition front, things went awry as well!!  On Monday we had a birthday at work and I consumed a small piece of cheesecake.  Not too bad.  Then Tuesday arrived and some wonderful person brought another cheesecake as a belated birthday cake for the birthday boy. I yet again consumed  a small piece of cheesecake.  So Wednesday arrived and, yip, you guessed it, a rep brought another cheesecake!! Oh my hat, Nando's for lunch and cheesecake for dessert.  Ok, clearly when I'm placed under severe stress and don't get enough sleep, my strength, motivation and total unwavering commitment to my goal goes out the window!!  Yikes! 


I'd had a horrendous muscle spasm in my shoulder over the weekend, with a niggling pain in my calf muscle and a nerve pinching in my lower back on and off.  By Wednesday I was limping and was not a happy chappy.  I did my power walk after work and really limped around the park quite badly.  I realised I probably should have listened to my body and not pushed it, but with the darn cheesecake sitting on my left thigh and right hip, I had to do something!!  I phoned the chiropractor on Thursday morning and fortunately she could see me within two hours!  She gave me a good talking to, told me NO ZUMBA on Thursday night, but that I could go back to gym on Friday afternoon if I promised to take it easy.  Of course I would!!!  *evil grin*... 


Well, as it turns out I HAD to take it easy on Friday afternoon because my husband decided he wanted to come and check out the facilities at Somerset West VA.  So most of the time was spent walking around talking about the various bits of equipment and not doing much working out!  Maybe a good thing.  


Saturday was of course a big rugby game, so my planned first yoga class just didn't happen as the game was still on!  I did a lot of washing, a lot of cleaning, and then slept.  Yip!  I lay down and slept!  Bliss!  I was woken by my son who had found a young beagle running around the streets in front of cars, looking very confused.  He had taken her to a vet to check if she had a chip - she didn't.  So he brought her home.  It really surprised me, but this little doggie got on with my two like a house on fire.  They played up a storm!  


Sunday morning was spent putting up "found" posters and shopping.  Then it was time to hit the gym!  Oh, how awesome it is to do over an hour of hard cardio.  It kinda shakes off a lot of stress and strain.  I have remained true to my word and stayed away from the machine that weighs, checks body fat and blood pressure.  I think I have another two or three weeks to go before I'm allowed on there again.  Hope I can hold out that long hey!!  


So, although I cannot give you any numbers as far as progress goes, I can report back that I am  still attending gym regularly, I'm being good most of the time on the nutrition front, and I am still loving this fitness lifestyle!  It's a little scary that I should be halfway to my goal and I don't feel that I'm even close, but I'll continue plodding along closer to my goal one step at a time.  


Wellness wishes to you all!  

Hullo? What happened at the end of Week 6?

As far as reporting my results go, I have nothing to report.  Why? Well, the good lady at Virgin Active just about made me sign a sworn affidavit that I would not get on the scale machine thingy every week.  She said it's going to kill me because we have fluctuations in our weight all the time and one must weigh and measure and check once every five weeks. FIVE WEEKS!!!  I really don't know if I can last that long!  I might make it every four weeks - you know to fit in with various cycles and hormonal fluctuations.  


What I can tell you is that the more Zumba I do, the more I love it.  I mean what can be better than laughing and dancing your way through an hour spent at 90% of maximum heart rate?  I'm still doing my power walking twice a week, although I think I may try running a bit instead.  I missed my early morning gym session this week as my dogs had disappeared off our property the afternoon before and we were all rather hysterical.  They were found and taken in by a very kind lady.  


All things considered it's been a helluva week - what with a shoulder muscle in spasm causing a pinched nerve, the stress of thinking you'll never see your beloved doggies again and a night without sleep, short-staffed at work with phones that don't even allow you to dash down the passage to the cat-box - I think I'm doing ok!  My biggest fear at this point is that the chiropractor will tell me I can't limp through my Zumba class tonight!!  

Whoa!! Week 4 has come and gone and Week 5 is at an end!

Wow!  Apologies to my regular readers!  Time just completely got away from me there!  Now let me step back a week to the arrival of the end of week 4.  I took myself off to the gym - this time with little expectations considering that for two weeks in a row I'd shown no progress whatsoever - and dutifully got onto that machine.  Well, surprise surprise... I'd actually managed to gain a few grams.  Oh come on!!  How can someone be so consistently good with nutrition and exercise and show no results!  Fat free milk, fat free yoghurt, no grains, lean protein, etc, etc.  Consistent exercise hopefully balanced between cardio and strength.  I can tell you that I was not impressed and felt completely and totally demotivated. I was in a really foul mood when I got off that blasted machine and I stomped into the changing room, got my MP4 player out, plugged it into my head, put Pitbull on really loudly and found a cycle.  I strapped myself in and got moving.  It's quite amazing what a difference music makes to your workout - it just keep you going in a rhythm.  So by the time I walked back to the changing room, I was feeling rather shaky.  I'd just cycled a quick 7km, climbed 56 floors on the stepper and then rowed about 3km not so gently down the stream!!  All this on an empty stomach.  I got my goodies out of the locker and stopped at the Kauai counter and ordered a skinny capuccino to go.  I added a sugar and I must say that I felt a bit better by the time I got home.  

I am however proud to say that I kept it together and instead of going on a wild bender just yet, I hopped onto the world wide web and started reading everything I could find on fat burning, fitness, building lean muscle, etc.  A rather interesting fact emerged... well, I'm not sure how much of a fact it is, but it pops up all over the place.  They say if you've got excess body fat to burn, do not use fat free dairy products.  Yes, you read it correctly - DO NOT use fat free dairy, but rather opt for the low fat or 2% products.  These allegedly contain a substance called leptin which plays an important role in the torching of body fat.  I figured that it's worth a bit of experimentation.  With all this new knowledge, Sunday evening arrived and I popped a few beautiful lean pork chops on the braai, and we had this with a stunning salad which the kids had made, along with some raw grated beetroot.  Mmmmm, delish!  After this, I was full, but this did not stop me from having a complete loss of mental capacity and I consumed two, yes, TWO rolls with ... no, not Marmite or lettuce or even cheese, but chocolate spread!  Bread and chocolate spread... oh there was no hope for me!!  But it was really goooood!  

During the week leading up to the end of week 5, I consumed too much red wine, an awesome pasta with basil pesto, ice cream on toast and a small piece of carrot cake.  I tried hard to work all these bad calories off with power walking with added weights, zumba, weights training, and hectic cardio on the machines.  I must say that just a half a kilo strapped around each ankle makes all the difference when power walking!  I thought it may get  my heart rate up faster and higher, but it didn't actually.  My legs just felt like I was working on all the leg machines on the circuit.  Those muscles were really working hard.  After I got home, I removed the weights and my knees wanted to bounce up with each step!!  The next morning I could definitely feel that my legs had had a good workout.  

I packed my gym bag early the next morning, because I was going back to a zumba class straight after work. I had done last weeks class and I was back for more.  The Zumba teacher's name on that evening was Adri.  Well, I will be truly impressed when I can shake my booty like this girl!  What an awesome class...and here I was - back for more.  Adri, however, couldn't make it, so Dupie was the okie who took the class for her.  Well, this boy, he can zumba, he can salsa, he can entertain and he worked my body like never before!!  I think we laughed through the whole hour and didn't realise how hard he was working us until later!  Absolutely awesome!!

Well, this morning I popped off to gym nice and early with every intention of doing another zumba class, this time with the legendary Elroy, but I had cut the timing rather fine.  I arrived at about 07h55, but when the guy at reception swiped my card, it said "access denied".  Come on, I'm running late here!  What crap is this???  After about ten minutes he said it looks like they are "waiting for some part of the contract".  Huh?  My card worked perfectly well on Thursday evening!  I told him the only thing that was "outstanding" was a letter from my doctor saying that my 13 year old was in good enough health to join the gym!  He eventually just overrode the PC and let me in.  I raced through to the changing rooms, locked my stuff away, raced out and over to the machine, which one has to use BEFORE exercise and there was an old toppie doing his thing.  Aaargh!!  He was probably even recording actual results!!  Eventually he finished up and I hopped onto that machine, again with a rather nonchalant, no expectation type of attitude.  Lo and behold, finally I'm seeing results - after 5 weeks!!  I've dropped 3.6kg in total and I've incinerated a whole 1.6% body fat.  Ha!!  Elation!  

By this point I was SO late for the zumba class that I gave it a miss.  Call me strange, but I find it extremely bad mannered to pitch up late for a class.  Be on time, or don't go at all.  So I watched the class from the cycle, stepper and the rowing machine.  

I finished up with some good stretching and left the gym with a capuccino in my hand, a bounce in my step and a song in my heart.  Now this is what motivation feels like.  Woohoo, can't wait for my next session!