Month: April 2016

3, lost count & zilch.

~ lorz83 ~ Leave a comment

I can’t believe how quickly last week flew! Seven days pasted in a flash. So what did last week see me getting up to? Well standard Monday – Starts with me as always being all Boomtown Rats asking the question “Tell me why I don’t like Mondays?” Once I’ve got halfway through the day my mardiness is at a high but stable level and I then have to try and psych myself up for PT. So I must admit I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Phil as I thought I would get told off for not going to the gym and for not doing that leg paralysing workout sheet he gave me the week before. To be honest I don’t think he was impressed with my lack of gym visits however I couldn’t walk; a simple visit to the toilet felt like it took about hour round trip, so there wasn’t much I could do really. Monday he went easy on me, thank god. But I’ve been told I need to bring my A Game this week – Eugh! This week Phil has told me we’ll be doing a HIIT session, now I’ve told him its more likely to be a LIIT or MIIT – I’ll fill you in next week (if I survive).

Tuesday evening I met up with my new gym buddy and fellow HWP member and we did our own little circuit sesh. We established that we are both moany bitches in our PT sessions, but apparently this isn’t reserved solely for our trainers, as we also bitched and moaned to ourselves doing the exercises we’d chosen and set up – Go figure. Wednesday as you know is my evening away from the gym. Thursday was the second HWP. Only half the group could attend this week, but we’re off to a promising start with a total of 11kg lost between the 5 of us there for weigh in. The food class covered portion control and the gym class this week worked on our core muscles. After the 30 minute gym class Helen was taking a Spin class and somehow managed to persuade 3 of us to join her. Well that may well be my first and last Spin class! It’s hard work and I was a sweaty mess at the end of the 45 minutes. I am however amazed that my legs did not ache at all post workout. I was convinced that I’d need a scooter to get around Friday/Saturday, but no, my legs completely surprised me and caused me no issues what so ever. Amazing! So perhaps I need to give Spin a second chance.

There was no gym Friday night (sorry Phil) because I had a dinner date with one of my besties for a very long overdue catch up and gossip. Now I had intended to be good and sensible and not actually drink lots (I’ll admit now that I also had a cheeky Pinot a lunch) but some evenings don’t go to plan and a number of cocktails were consumed – Oops! How do you go from classy civilised Cosmopolitans and Espresso Martini’s to copious messy cheap Hubba Bubba cocktails?? The evening goes from Sex and the City to Towie in a clink of a plastic glass. Oh dear. This being said I did as always have a fabulous evening – Thanks Chick – Mwah x

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Thankfully I had foreseen that Friday night could get a little messy and I’d pre-empted a Saturday morning hangover and so took some Ibuprofen at the start of the evening. I got to my sisters (my night out crash pad) around 3am was asleep by around 3:30am and alive and kicking at 8:30am Saturday morning. Impressive given the nasty cocktails we’d been drinking. Now although I was feeling fine, I still opted to have a lazy Saturday spending half the day with my sister before heading home. Sometimes a chilled out weekend is required (I am getting old after all).

Yesterday I had a lush day with my sister and mum and we went for a walk / hill climb at Beacon Hill. This place has been on our doorstep all these years, but it was actually the first time we’ve ever been there. Gorgeous views of the Berkshire and Hampshire countryside and Highclere Castle aka Downton Abbey. After our trek we headed back to my sisters for a scrummy roast dinner. Yummy. After dinner I headed home to watch the MotoGP race which saw my Yamaha boys clinching the first and second step of the podium – Yay. So the weekend concluded on a high just as it had started on Friday evening.

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Sadly there have been no dates this week and subsequently no board games played. A potential date with the cute Italian may be on the cards for Sunday, but nothing is set in stone just yet. I will of course keep you posted.

Hope you all have a fantabulous week.

L x

 

 

Dates, diets & dumbbells

~ lorz83 ~ 2 Comments

Perhaps you thought Phil had killed me off on the 1st of April given I’ve not written a post since the end of March – Well he hasn’t and I am very much here, alive and shuffling.

So what have I been up to in the 2 weeks since I wrote my last post. As you may remember a month or so ago I told you that I’d been asked to write some posts starting in April, the first of which you may have read yesterday. For the next 11 weeks I along with 9 others will be attending Newbury Nuffields Summer Healthy Weight Programme and I will be blogging about it so people can follow my progress and get some insight into what the course is all about. Unlike Weight Watchers where you count points or Slimming World where you have different coloured days and syns the HWP looks more at eating clean (makes me think of The Body Coach Joe Wicks and him saying “Midget Trees”) and making the right choices for each individual. We’re all different, we all break food down in different ways, this may be due to conditions or illnesses, lifestyle, age, intolerances any number of factors and so this course will educate us and help us find what works for us (and what doesn’t) and make the right choices. So Kim the Kiwi (I think I may start calling her Kimwi – What do you think Kim?) is going to help us with the foodie side of things. We all have to complete a food diary, whereby honesty is the best policy, which Kim will look at and advise if she believes changes can be made. She will also be providing us with recipes, she made some delicious protein bars for Thursdays introduction session (she was coming across a little like a feeder though so we may need watch out for that). Then there’s Helen who looks after the fitness side of the programme, so while Kim looks at what we put in our bodies, Helen looks at the output we can achieve from the food we’ve eaten to fuel our bodies and puts us through our paces to burn as much energy as possible. And she certainly had me burnt out Thursday evening – I was knackered! I believe there are still spaces on this current course if any of you are interested or perhaps after you’ve read my weekly posts you’d like to join the next round; contact Nuffield on 01635 899255 for more info.

My dates with Gym have been a little lacking lately, but the visits I have made I’ve tried to really work my Kim K off. In my last post I said how I was having my PT session on the Friday due to the Easter break, well I did go to the gym and I did see Phil however neither of us were really in the ‘zone’ so I spent the hour on the exercise bike and Phil sat with me and we just had a good old gossip – The perfect work out for me. Monday it was back to normal and PT straight after work. After Fridays skive, Phil had told me I needed to bring my ‘A Game’ to the gym for PT, well I think I went to the session at more of a B, possibly a B+ Game; Phil wasn’t standing for this and pushed me hard on the Wattbike and by the end of the workout I was at an A-, perhaps an A and he was relatively pleased with my efforts. On the Friday as part of the HWP I had a session with Steve (yes, I’m becoming a bit of a Personal Trainer hussy it would seem) who again put me through my paces on the Wattbike and then the Lateral Trainer. Its good to mix things up a little and work with other people as we all do things our own way. Phil did keep a beady eye on me whilst I was working out with Steve; this went against me on Monday when he really cranked my programme up a gear as apparently he’d seen how hard I was working for Steve so thought he could push me harder. Ouch! That’s all I can say. My legs have never felt so heavy and stiff in all my life, walking was the hardest task EVER! They still felt like lead Thursday evening when Helen had us doing circuits!

I told you last time that I’d been ‘playing’ Tinder and you may also recall that I went on a date at the end of February and I hadn’t ruled out seeing him again. Well I have seen him again, I saw him Wednesday before last and again yesterday evening. I’m not 100% certain there’s a spark there but we do get on well so who knows where it will go. I also went on a date last Sunday evening with a cute Italian (gorgeous accent and a designer wardrobe to make any girl jealous) and had a really nice time, so hopefully I’ll be seeing him again soon; watch this space.

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Well that should have you all caught up with what’s going on in the world of Me. PT tomorrow and week 2 of HWP on Thursday, with a gym and sister visit in between and perhaps a date who knows. Oh and its now only 9 weeks until I’ll be saying Ciao Firenze – So excited!

L x

HWP – Week 1

~ lorz83 ~ Leave a comment

Welcome to my first HWP post!

For those of you who are new to reading my blog – Welcome! At the end of last year I decided that 2016 is going to be the year I learn to love myself ‘Mission Love Me’ and to aid with said mission I have upped my dates with gym and suffer weekly torture (he assures me it will get easier) PT sessions with Phil.

So ‘Mission Love Me’ I guess has a few levels to it, however my starting point is to lose weight and tone up my jiggly belly, thighs and bingo wings in the hope that I’ll actually be able to look in the mirror and love the reflection I see and in turn love me.

About a month ago now whilst at Nuffield Newbury, I was approached by Helen and asked if I would like to take part in the Summer Healthy Weight Programme. A 12 week journey to a fitter healthier me – 12 weeks closer to perhaps completing my own mission, and so HWP has commenced.

The course officially started Thursday evening, however prior to this I had a meeting and consultation with Kim (the lovely also a little barmy Kiwi) nutritionist to discuss my goals and also my current eating habits. Part of the HWP is to work out what does and what doesn’t work for each individual. For me I know that one of my big downfalls is not having time for breakfast in the morning (make-up, hair straightening and outfit co-ordination takes up all my time) so Kim has suggested smoothies could be the answer for me (welcome Nutribullet stage right – my new best friend). We will also be working on balancing my blood sugar levels along with hormone balance.

As part of the programme we have a meeting with one of the Personal Trainers at the gym who again ask what our goals are and they devise a work out plan for us to follow with the aim of helping us achieve said goals. My session was with Steve. Now as I already have weekly PT sessions with Phil, Steve decided to put me through my paces with a cardio workout which consisted of a work out on a Wattbike and Lateral Trainer – Both pieces of equipment that I’ve used only a few times as quite frankly they look a little scary! This was ideal for me as when I visit the gym on my own I don’t tend to use the free weights or machines, I tend to stick with the exercise bikes or cross trainers. It can often be a little daunting going into the gym and using new equipment so these sessions with the PTs are really helpful and beneficial.

So Thursday evening, myself and 7 others attended the first of 12 ‘classes’. This was more of an introduction to the programme and a chance for us all to meet each other and share our goals and reasons for attending. It would seem that following on from our individual meetings with Kim that we all thought we ate relatively healthily, but according to Kim not as well as we all thought! Oops! Given that the programme is called “Healthy Weight Programme” it does somewhat go with out saying that we all want to shed a few pounds and become healthier, but like me I think many of the others are looking for a little more and they want to feel better about themselves overall, the whole package.

If you think about it food and what we eat (and drink) makes us what we are. What we put in comes out and in many different forms. We need food to fuel us, to give us both mental and physical energy. It also affects how we look, in both our cosmetic appearance and our physique. And at the end of the day its our life line. Eat well and we’ll live well, eat badly and that life line shortens.

Over the course of 12 weeks Kim will be covering topics such as portion control, emotional eating and exploring weight loss myths. Helen (she may look innocent and sweet, but don’t be fooled) will be putting us through our paces with 30 minute workout gym classes – These started Thursday evening – Ouch!

Warm-up consisted of 3 of us on the rowers and the others on the bikes for 5 minutes. This was then followed by a circuit of 7 exercises including Kettlebell Russian Twists, Medicine Ball Slams and Sit Jump Squats! First round we did 30 secs before moving onto the next exercise, this was followed by a short break (which I extended slightly as all the jumping around left me needing a wee); Second round was for 45 seconds with another minute or so break before finally round three we had to do each task for a whole minute! Now when you say a minute or even 30 seconds it seems like no time at all, but I’m telling you in the gym these short measures of time seem to last a life time. By the end of it I was very red faced and a bit of a sweaty betty, but I was feeling good (if not a little dead).

My experience so far has been great, Helen and Kim are fab, very relaxed with the aim of helping us all achieve our goals (they have 100% success rate so far – No pressure) and I’ve made a new friend who like me doesn’t really like using the weights on her own so we plan to workout together every now and then, after all Team Work = Dream Work.

Week 1 – Complete!

Please follow my progression over the next 11 weeks and if you’re interested in taking part in the next programme get in touch with the either Helen (helen.moisley@nuffieldhealth.com) or Kim (kim.chandler@nuffieldhealth.com) who will be happy to speak with you.

L x