nanako

Can anybody recommend a book set in San Francisco (that is not Armistead Maupin) or Northern California ? I kind of fell in love with the area when I visited last year and would love to get it to know better from afar. ;-)

No nightmares I hope ? ;-) Bom dia a voce.

Muahahahar *evil laugh* -- I finally nailed that Goal No3 (spend less time online) ! Since it was obvious that I didn't have the willpower to do it on my own I installed stayFocused and blocked all my time-sucking sites for today. And it feels great ! Spent half the day sanding the garden gate. It's been needing a new layer of paint for ages - years before me moved in here really !- and the "Good Garden Award" on which I am very very keen is coming up. So I made an effort. Will continue tomorrow (there's just a little bit more work to be done) and give it a good new layer of anti-rust paint. Kids were playing outside in those few hours of sunshine that we had, so all in all a lovely afternoon ! Will sign off again now ... I got a few nice books to read. ;-)

Cheers guys ! I did well ! I scraped almost two minutes off my time - 1:06 - but then I think I took a wrong turn at the end of the course ... so my watch tells me I did about 250 meters less ... which explains the good time ! Ahem, ahem, it's not the olympics after all, just a cross country race, right ? I did just about the same pace I did on Sunday - watch says I did 5 seconds more on the mile - but I think that's pushing it in terms of measurement accuracy, right ? Anyway, most important thing for me was: I didn't finish last ! I finished second-to-last ! Better still, the girl who finished last was from my club, so I'm no longer the slowest in my club ! *does a little dance* Very pleased !

Thanks guys !! :-) Today it's a big Yesss ! Finally, 12 days in, the scale is moving ! I'm 71kgs today, that's one lb lost ! Looks like finally, something's happening ... as I said I lost 12cm (5 inches) from my waistline since the beginning of the year, but weight has always fluctuated between 72kgs and 75kgs --- never less than 72kgs. Tonight's my next 10K and I'll have to go against the gale-force winds and horizontal rain that have been hitting us since yesterday ... plus, I will have to shave at least one minute off my Sunday time because last year, the guy who ran 1:09 came in last ... and I really don't want to come last, please ! However I've braced myself. Whatever. My asthma's so much better since I've stopped eating grains, I'm two pounds lighter than I was, so how could it go wrong ? :-) I'll keep you posted.

I hate it when they tell you you can only eat small amounts ! Hope the recovery is doing well.

Ouch ! Hope you enjoyed the run ?

I totally feel for you, I wish I was losing weight faster ... But if I'm honest, I'd rather lose fat than muscle - and this is what's happening for you right now if you're losing inches ! You are so on the right track, just have to get your head around it. Your daughter looks awesome, what a cutie ! :-)

Well done you ! Fitting into skinny pants is awesome ! Good job on the zombie apocalypse; personally I'd be scared out of my wits if somebody actually chased me during a race !

Most of the time, you can eat some of the tings they cooked. Eg, burgers, skip the bun and eat the patty, fix yourself some lettuce & tomatoes to go with it. Same with pasta, ask the cook to keep some of the sauce separate for you, and mix it with zucchini noodles - voila ! I do this a lot because my kids still eat grains and I'm too lazy to cook two meals ;-). Once you get your head around it works quite well. Pizza (or lentil soup) is about the only thing where it doesn't, but then again not too many people make their own pizza (and few like lentil soup), so you can always politely decline.

Quick update from the non-snacking front: This is working out really well ... have managed to stay under 40g carbs for the last two days, skipped the nuts and the calories are lower too. Yesterday at dinner I really ate until I could eat no more (wafer-thin mint), had two glasses of wine and still I hardly scraped 1750 cals. Very pleased. Body is losing centimeters rapidly (another one - I'm at 76 cms now and can actually see my ribs and abs underneath the padding) but seems reluctant to give up a single gram ! Scale is only veeeeeeery slowly creeping towards 71.5kg. But I think I'm on the right track. Kids and husband agree that I have been much nicer over those last ten days ... which is also so much easier now that I don't have those sugar-induced rages. And finally the feedback mechanism I was hoping for has kicked in and the kids are much calmer and easier to handle. :-) Really happy about this.

Lovely picture ! Was watching the petals float through the air all day from my office window. Even wrote a haiku about it for Quentin !

Fortran problem solved, going swimming with my son. Apple blossom day.

Love the challenge-within-the-challenge thing ! I can really recommend the grain-cutting if you want to count calories ... doesn't take too long getting used to and it's so much easier if you can actually stuff your face and still stay under your caloric limits. What's the "squeak" ?

Are there ? Could you name a few ? I am just starting out with weight training ... My triceps are probably the weakest muscles in my body. I can't do dips, I can't do (proper = full) push-ups ... so I figured I'd focus on them on the "off days" when I do my running. I do squats and lunges on the other days, so I wouldn't want to work the legs on these days.

Thanks guys ! Maybe I should be more specific - I do do reps until I can do no more, so I do feel tired at the end of the workout (I usually break down on the floor after that last plank ;-)). What I meant was that I don't notice it so much after the workout ... like, anything from 20 minutes after the workout I will be fine (again). I have made progress, so I have increased my weights a lot over the last few weeks. However, I don't have a long-term plan ... *scratcheshead*

SECONDS not minutes ... thanks for pointing that out ...

As it happens, I have calmed down considerably since yesterday morning ... and yes I have that nice calm feeling back, as if I'd been given a mild sedative. So it's low carb for me over the next few weeks I guess. VERY weird. Never would have guessed. Only problem now is, what's the point of running if you can't have a pint afterwards ? Maybe I should drink enough to get a proper hangover the next day, that would conceal my bad mood ... I'll find out and let you know. :-) Today's bodyweight workout: Squats 20 w 15kg; Lunges 10 w 7.5kg; Rows 20 w 7.5kg; planks 40 minutes (I wish !!!) was seconds rather, 8 (half) pushups. 2 sets of each. I did better last time on everything (except for the planks) but I wasn't feeling up for it. Lay with my face flat on the carpet panting after the planks until my son demanded his breakfast. .3 extra points for getting up early (6.30) to exercise.

Yesss ! Great job ! You totally owned that tree branch ! All the best for tomorrow, hope it all goes well and you're back soon & recovering nicely.

Too right ! I only started a week ago, better than nothing ! Enjoy !

Thanks PB, that sounds really interesting - might be an explanation ? I'll just pull myself together and wait a few days (?) then. No more flex days. Erm. Ah well, it's just another three weeks, right ?

*sniffles* Thanks for the kind words 18ck ! :-) No offense taken at all ! Let's see if I can upload one tonight - I have a big smile on my face there even though it was taken at 8km (that's where my husband and kids were to cheer me on). I'll just bury my head in the sand today and things will look better tomorrow, I know. :-)

No can do 18ck, I'm still in denial about how fat I've become. *facepalm* End of summer maybe ... when I've lost some weight ... after all I've signed up for ALOT of races. Next one is Friday by the way ... Towpath Series 10K - a bunch of nutters from the local clubs trying to beat each other. No doubt I'll finish last and have all the over-60s laughing at me. I feel really bad today, although there's no real reason for it (hormones possibly?). I'm doing well with my goals, Bank Holiday was fab, sunny and lovely with friends and the kids had a great time in the park. Today, I just feel rubbish ... all the other mums at school did better times than me ...one even did 50:12 - the others, 53, 54 ... I know I shouldn't compare myself to them (I WAS ill after all) but still it hurts my very vulnerable ego. I noticed I always do that by the way - set a goal, achieve it, then decide afterwards that it's not good enough after all. Same with the weight - I only feel fat now that I've lost some. Not the cleverest way, is it ? Self-sabotaging ?

Quick diet update I feel I need to pat myself on the back for doing quite well on the diet side. I managed 5/7 days with around 50 carbs and I didn't go over my caloric expenditure for the whole week - yay ! Still I need to improve some things: I really want to lose some weight, not just inches - so I am cutting out nuts from today and will try to go even stricter with my carbs (in that I will not eat more than 50gs, not even 53 or 52gs). That way I should average at 1200-1300cals/day and with a little bit of exercise, I should be able to lose about a pound or two a week like this. Latte is a little bit of my food/drink nemesis right now (I now, it's pathetic ! It's so middle class mum) but I reduced portion size to 200 mils of milk and will not have more than 1 a day. I lost another centimeter from my tummy (I lost 11 cms overall since January !) and can fit into size 28 pair jeans (UKsize10/US size8) again now. Actually this pair is quite loose already. However, with my current weight and BMI, I am still officially "overweight" (by about 600 grams) and I don't feel comfortable on the far end of the "healthy weight spectrum". Race pictures: I look fit (you can even see the muscles on my shoulders ! - but frankly I look like a Valkyrie, not like a gazelle. So, my next goal / slightly modified goal until the end of the challenge is to get under 70kgs (153lbs / 11 stone).

Thanks PB and 18ck !