nanako

I wish I could have almond butter in the house, but it's useless. I always end up with a jar that's empty the same day and a huge guilty conscience. Anyway I managed to do my run yesterday but had three slices of bread later. With the run and everything, I managed a good deficit but that's not the paleo way ... anyway not too bad. Learn from mistakes.

Aw, poor thing - running envy .... If only you knew! Work's started again and I cannot drag myself out to do a short slow 2miler even. Must do it tomorrow! The fluctuations been much better since I went low-carb - I ended up weighing myself more than once a day and taking the daily minimum, which worked. If I achieve my goal I will post my very funny weight curve as a cautionary tale for others. Yesterday was ok, I had a piece of 3-Kings-cake (mmmh cake!) and still managed a defict. Today was 'orrible - I'd skipped breakfast and took white fish with veg for lunch - beginner's mistake, WAY too little fat - so by 2pm I had consumed around 400 calories and was starving. What was worse is that I stopped being hungry and was getting more and more tired and depressed. Back at home now stuffing my face with lentils and bacon, whole new lease on life.

Nice book! I added it to my wish list. Good title too. Stephen Fry?

I caved yesterday - it was "cheat day" after all - and had some cheesy toast - yumm! Today, I did my 4 miler - I started off a bit faster than I should have. Pleased that I can now sustain around 9.30 for a longer run. Went up to Ashton Court and came face to face with a very large young deer. I had to slow down and avert my eyes as not to make him nervous, he was looking after his herd and taking his job seriously. EDIT Oh yes I should say that I almost vomited after running up the hill at 12.30 pace. More training needed. Later I completed the fourth week of my 16-week half marathon training plan today - as of now, I've only missed one 2 mile easy run - so I completed 92%.

It's day 8 and time for Week one wrap-up. I just took some measurements and they're really good. Height 1.69 m Weight 75kg -> 73.7kg Waist 72.5cm ->71cm Belly 74.5cm ->74cm Chest 90cm ->88cm Hips 101.5cm -> 99cm Neck 34.5cm ->33.5cm BF 27% -> 26% Really happy, especially with the waist! Little problems aside, I totally rocked this first week and I think I deserve my reward. I think I'll get a new slong sleev in the sale. W00t!

Complete my half training plan and rock the half end of March Sub 2 would be great but it's a big ask, especially for a trail half. So I'll just aim to improve my time A LOT. Sub 55 10K by summer I think I'll sign up for the Towpath series again - it's cheap, flat and I know it. Sub 26 5K some time this year At a park run presumably - the 60% age grading bracket is beckoning!

Good luck with your goals, especially No 1! How annoying, I didn't realize your injury was that bad .. Good to have you back in any case. And I hear you've been promoted to guild leader while you were away too! Will be following you and the gang while I sit alone in my daily battle log space, faffing about and being boring like PhoenixBurning.

Brilliant!

Sweet! Best of luck PB, you know you can do it. By the way you inspired me to re-read my old threads and I realized I come to the same conclusions as you - low carb paleo and strength training works perfectly for my weight loss; anything else just messes things up. So being boring seems like the best idea.

Hah! I second that.

No parkrun this morning - I woke up late and only just remembered my bike has a puncture, so I wouldn't make it in time ... Never mind. Will do 4 miles today or tomorrow, depending on the weather. In other great news, the scale is going down, down, down! It's working, hurray! Down a couple of hundred grams - 73.7 or something, I guess. School and work starts again next week, so it will be more of a challenge to keep up the work - fitting in runs and workouts, eating right ... I've got two easy runs scheduled for Tuesday and Friday - two 2 milers, so I could easily do them in the morning. Thursday is speed work with the club. Food wise I found it's easiest to eat the same meals over again, so I'll stick to one for the week - microwaved beef and veg, not too exciting but who cares. I'll make some soups for the evenings as I just can't stand salads in winter. I'm excited the weight loss thing is actually working. Now it's just consistency - I have been known to slack off after ten days, so I'll just try and focus on this one. I'm reading a lot about reward and motivation for my job at this moment, it's funny how those things work.

If you're plateauing, try to eat low carb paleo - definitely <100 - 80 g carbs per day. <60g might be even better. You can achieve this quite easily by cutting high starch veg, all fruit, and all dairy (yes the yoghurt too!). This should lower your caloric intake by another 400-600 kcals a day. I have found this link helpful - it's Rob wolf on paleo for weight loss ... with practical yes/no charts. If you don't like salads, make some (low-carb) soups and have these instead. Especially chicken soup and beef stew - very comforting and filling. Eating enough protein and fat helps you keep satisfied - although there is, for most of us, another "hunger" that you need to be aware of, like eating when you are bored, sad, tired, thristy, stressed etc. You need to find another way to deal with these things - for now and for later. If you are really struggling with portion sizing, try eating until you are almost full. Leave something on your plate and put it in the fridge, you can always have it later if you're still hungry. Hope this helps a bit!

I think that sounds great and these are two goals that you can easily pursue at the same time. If you need to lose a lot of weight, I'd say put a bit more emphasis on the strength training (and eating right of course) right now, because the weight loss will help you with your running, and with the pull up, immensely. Of course you can also lose weight by doing lots of cardio but it's hard going imho; strength training + paleo is just so much easier, at least from my experience. If you are normal weight or only slightly overweight I'd say do the couch25K, and do strength training on your off days. Once you've run a 5K just use the smartcoach and chose a program to maintain so as not to lose your ability to run 5K. Best of luck with your goals!

Hm, what's the deal with running and bodyweight workouts? I run every other day and do bodyweight workouts (Steves BBWW) on my "off" days, works a treat (plus one full rest day every week). I can definitely recommend strength training for every runner, it develops your stabilizing muscles and improves your speed and whatnot. Only thing, I try not to do a hard squat day before speed training day. As for the running, what works for most people (unless you are very advanced/specific on what you want to train) is one easy run, one long run, one day speedwork every week. Runners world has the Smartcoach where you can enter your pace, distance goal, and how much you want to push yourself. Can I ask, what was your main fitness goal again? Lose weight? Get stronger? Faster? Be a runner?

BBWW with the husband: 20 squats 3 push ups 12 lunges 1 min plank 20 db rows with 10Kg 30 jumping jack all times two might go down to the park later with the kids. Later Weighed myself and am under 74! So it is working after all. Stats look good: for that last week, my goal calories would be 1288/day, and I averaged at 1331. So I'm on track (for a 500cal deficit /day that is) and I'm losing. Hah. Of course this could be optimized ... but what the heck. If I can pull this off for the next 15 weeks, I'll be happy.

Hah! Same problem here with slightly smaller size. I have two pairs of jeans that fit but they are falling apart and lots and lots of pairs of smaller ones that don't fit yet. Best of luck!

Great goals and ambitious too - a 1000cals deficits a day is tough! I adapted your reward system for myself, great idea.

Good morning! Taper week is on - I'm still on leave, until Monday - and I've just finished my 4 miles slow. Hard going! Usually I have trouble keeping the pace slow but today it was different, I only just managed 10.25 "moving pace". That said my Garmin messed up in the Gorge and had me swim through the river and back. So much for accuracy. Weightloss-wise I am bang on plan, day 6 and I've lost a kilo - two pounds and a bit. It doesn't really feel like I've lost it though, as my weight has been fluctuating so much lately. I need to believe in what I'm doing. However, I think I'll only be truly happy when I hit 70kg, that's where I was last summer (for a day) before I stopped eating paleo. Dang. And that's at least 4 weeks away! How can it be so difficult to be patient! It's not even that hard. But I so want my instant reward now ... I guess that's just the way we are wired. Anyway that's why I chose the daily battle log rather than a challenge. Later Argh, I messed up today - I went out for a loooong day outside with the kids and didn't take any protein snacks - so was eating bread soon after leaving the house. Not too bad but have to be stricter with myself! A day or two I do well and then I slip ... I guess it's better than nothing - a 500cal deficit is better than no deficit, right? But I really want a 700-800 deficit. Have to stick to strict paleo to achieve that (or go hungry but that's not happening is it? ) It's strength day tomorrow, park run on Saturday.

Hey fellow Scouts, happy New Year to you all! Just to say have a fantastic challenge - I'm doing something with a slightly different time-frame in the daily battle logs right now, so if you want to pop over and say hi, please do! Will be following you guys here.

PB: You can see it here when you select "Kelly series" and scroll down. http://smashrun.com/jacklyn.giron/badges-to-go But that's not my profile ... The cheat day went well yesterday. I didn't go overboard too much except for drinks late which is ok in my book. I gained 1.5kg since yesterday. which is hope is mainly water! BTW A very happy New Year to you all! I didn't run the Hangover 10K after all - but I'll do the parkrun on the Saturday. I'm having a rest day today - bottom still hurts from yesterday's BBWW and although I want to run I'm prescribing myself a rest day. So the next run is tomorrow - an easy 4 miler. Wrapping up the first half week leading up to NYE it's been going surprisingly well. So what are my resolutions? I love resolutions! Last year my resolution was to up my 5k time to 9min/mile and I almost got there (9:07). This year I want to improve my 5K time by another minute (~8 min/mile - that's the 60% age grading bracket for me)eat <1400kcal for 6 days a week, and nothing after 7pm, for 16 weeksmake better use of half an hour of my time every day like so:play piano for 5 minutes every day draw something for 5 minutes every day use 20 minutes of browsing time for cleaning every night* The last goal involves getting lots of new audio books and listening to them while cleaning. I actually quite enjoy cleaning when I can listen to something interesting. Never was my kitchen cleaner than when I'd gotten "Running with the Kenyans" from the library. I'll go upstairs and fold some washing away now I guess.

Went outside although it looked gruelling - it wasn't even so bad when we were outside though! My son (7y) came with me - he said he wanted to do a race so I took him. We did a slow half mile jog to Tescos and got some blueberry muffins for everybody (except me). So that was my run! Ok I guess since there's a 10K coming up tomorrow and I don't want to tire my legs too much. I got three new badges including the reindeer one. Well chuffed. Did BBWW with husband: 20 rope skipping20 Squats5 push ups10 Lunges1 min plank7(5) stair jumps20 dumbbell rows with 10kg dumbbell Now that I've run 5 days in a row, I'm tempted to run everyday again ... But, I'm afraid ... better build slowly. I can always start running every day in February. No rush.

Hehe, I feel the same about the rangers although it's probably the best guild for me! Assassins are a nice bunch though. And Scouts! Today was ok but I did too little exercise - only a 2-mile run and I didn't get to do the BW workout I had planned - played Settlers of Catan Junior with the kids non-stop. Will do it tomorrow. I used up the rest of the Christmas biscuit dough and the husbands and kids inhaled them in no time - I had only two but that was too much really! Ruined my caloric deficit, that and a small latte I had in the afternoon. Only -484kcal today. 4 days down and tomorrow is my first cheat day - don't really know how I should handle this. Cheat days usually don't work well for me but I've read that they are necessary - maybe I should just do a little bit of cheating, no bingeing? Ah decisions! I've prepared the meal plan for tomorrow anyway.

Good lord, I just googled this! People actually do this? It does look very cathartic. But I guess I'd rather do the ABWW.

Yes it's so funny! And now I've shown it to my daughter and she wants me to have it ... can't let her down! I think I'll stay with the daily log - I need the accountability and it can get a bit quiet in the forums around the 3rd or 4th week of a challenge. Also my timeframe is different ... in my head it is, 90 days - taking a week at a time ... and after that, it's maintenance ... which is even harder ... What about you Phoenix, are you decided yet? Rangers? Scouts? Monks?

My problem One of my major problems is treating myself. I don't. All the treats I get are food - you know how it is as a working mom ? Your life is not your own. No rest, no treat, no privacy. So taking the food away hurts. And every night I succumb to the "Oh I work so hard ... I cannot deprive myself too much..." So I am trying to find new ways to deal with this. I now get a present for every week I rock. I have one obligatory cheat day when I must eat everything I have been craving during the week. And a 700+ kcal deficit a day, no excuses. One other big problem was denial - I plain didn't want to admit I was fat. But I don't want to be 40 and fat, I just don't. I want to be 40 and be slim and I only got four months.