Personal Training and Public Speaking

I had my first personal training session in weeks at 6:00 am on a really cold Canberra morning. I was glad I was headed to the gym rather than down by the lake. It was windy too, so I was hoping that Leanne didn't have a run planned for me.

We went through my weights program. Initially Leanne just wanted to see what progress I'd made on a few of the exercises she'd given me, before starting on a new program. After demonstrating some serious improvement with my abs exercises, I told her about my concerns with the knee, and she decided to see the whole program. I don't normally do the abs work first, so it seemed all back to front. It did mean that I was able to do the two sets of triceps pushups on my toes without faltering, which was a bonus.

I was saying the other day that I was a bit concerned about the leg exercises. My knee was really tired after training last Thursday, but it came good quickly. Leanne explained that the exercises were designed to strengthen my knee and so being tired was to be expected. I did them with her, and my form is fine. My left knee did make funny noises when I did the one-legged squats, but I got through them all (two sets of 20) without losing my balance or needing to take a break. The knee has been tired today again, but it doesn't feel injured. I had been going to go for a run, but I decided to rest it instead. I'll run tomorrow instead. At least, that's the plan.

One of the things I love about strength training is that I see measurable progress each time I do my program. It might be small, like understanding the exercise or it might be big, like increasing the weight or getting through both sets of the abs exercises without stopping, but the progress is there to be made. My core strength has improved out of sight with my running, and I love that too.

I wore a close fitting red top over my running pants this morning. Normally I wear something baggy over the top of it, but I'm working on changing the way I cover myself up all the time. I figure if I'm looking at myself in the mirrors in the gym, I'll get used to the way I look. I guess being prepared to wear close fitting clothes with people around is a benefit of wearing proper running gear. It's completely unforgiving. Every lump and bump shows but the technical fabric is so comfortable that I'm prepared to sacrifice vanity for comfort. Also, I've been telling myself if I get out there early enough, the only people who are going to see me are other runners.

Public Speaking

I love to speak in public. It was much more confronting for me to get on my bike to ride to the outdoor fitness challenge sessions than it is for me to get up in front of a crowd and speak. Why am I telling you this? I've been asked to give a motivational speech at the gym. In fact, I'm delivering it on Saturday, which doesn't give me all that much time to write and rehearse it.

Krissi, the Black Team leader and the person who inspired me to do all this outdoor exercise, suggested it to me while we were running up the hill yesterday. She contacted the manager at Fernwood, who phoned me today and asked me if I'd speak on Saturday at the Biggest Loser Challenge lunch. I jumped at the chance, so now I'm busy writing a speech. I'm really looking forward to it. I feel as though I have something to say that's of value to people, and it will be a way to give back to the gym some of the support that they have given me over the past two and a half years. I hope they enjoy listening to me.

Global Challenge Update

Our team has travelled 1000 km. We are in 38th place at the moment, with an average of 14874 steps/day. The leaders have travelled 1659 kms, with an average of 24,686 steps/day.

Response to comments

Thanks for all the encouragement. It's kind of you all to tell I'm not slow. The other girls who are running are faster than me, but that doesn't worry me, apart from not wanting to hold them up. I'm doing this for me, not them.

I'm really happy with the progress I'm making with my running. I like writing the times and distances down so that I can see how far I've come. When I started out, running a kilometre in under 6 mins seemed impossible, so I'm really pleased to have achieved that. I read other people's times and distances and I'm in awe. Still for me, it's not about running faster, even though I am pleased that I can. My current running goals are:

1. Have fun
2. Run without injury
3. Run three times a week, including a long run
4. Run outside at least once a week
5. Run for longer

Fell off the wagon - hard

I was watching a West Wing DVD today, and Leo, explaining why his alcoholism was a daily battle, said, "I don't want one drink. I want ten drinks!" Well, that about sums up my relationship with food this weekend.

The way I was eating over the weekend, you'd never know that I'd managed to lose 43 kg over the last two and half years or that I'd developed healthy eating habits. I was a mess. I wasn't hungry. I wasn't upset. I just wanted to eat.

Lately, when this has happened, I've fallen off the wagon for a few hours, but managed to get straight back on. Not this time. I feel like I've been on the equivalent of a bender. After a disastrous Friday night, followed by an out of control Saturday, I ended up making a conscious decision today that I was going to just go with the juggernaut. I ate so much!

Anyway, now that it's over I've decided that I won't make food diary entries for Saturday or Sunday. I'll use tomorrow, when I'm safely in my work routine, to get back on the wagon.

It's hard to explain why times like this occur. I just really really wanted to eat homemade nachos on Friday. The problem was that my off switch was broken and I finished off all the ingredients instead of having the single serve that I'd planned.

I don't really know why I'm bothering to blog all of this. It's not like anything anybody else says is going to make me feel any better, so I have turned comments off for this post. I guess part of me hopes that writing it down will make it easier to deal with next time. I'm sure there are plenty of you who have great advice. Normally I'd really appreciate it, but not this time.

I've been thinking back over the weekend, trying to think "what could I have done to stop this" and the answer is really "not have nachos". Part of the problem is that you can't buy just enough ingredients for a taste of nachos. The problem for me is really the cheese. In general, I have a cheese ban at my house. I used to buy cheese slices, on the basis that they were a measured portion. That worked for ages, but then I found myself eating whatever was left of the packet whenever I fell off the wagon. I think nachos are an excuse for me to eat cheese.

I started Saturday well, but I fell off the wagon when I ate a savoury shape biscuit. I thought I could keep it at a handful but the packet was there. I ate the lot. I have a real "must keep eating until the packet is empty" mentality. I think it stems back to my childhood in a large family where a packet of biscuits was a rare thing. If you didn't have a second one when it was offered you could be sure that it wouldn't be there later. I ought to be over it by now, but I'm not. Usually I manage to handle it, but I didn't do too well this time.

On Sunday, I just didn't have an off switch. I was continuing on from Friday and Saturday. I guess by Sunday it had become emotional eating, because I was so disappointed with myself on Friday and then again on Saturday.

I've been trying to pick the trigger and I think I know what it was. It will sound silly, because it was really a positive thing that started the whole crash. I'm leaving my job at the end of the week, and I wanted a copy of a security photo that was taken of me in January 2005. It's only my face, but I don't have photos from that time in my life.

The guy who sent me the photo printed an A4 size copy of it for me, and the difference in me is so dramatic. I was really proud that I'd come so far, but I was also ashamed of myself for letting myself get to be so overweight. My friend brought the printout out to the social club bbq and so I found myself put on the spot, having to show it to people straight away, which I hadn't expected. I pretended to be okay with the whole "old me / new me" but I wasn't. I continued showing the photo to people during the day. I guess I worked hard to suppress the "shame" but my subconscious certainly wasn't fooled. The cracks showed on Friday night when I bought enough nacho ingredients to sink a battleship.

On the exercise front, I went for a run on Saturday. Not the long run I'd planned, but it was a lovely day and I was running outside, which is something I'm growing to like more and more. Today I just went for a walk. I was feeling too miserable to get off my backside and do anything more active. I knew it would make me feel better but I think I was wallowing in my misery today.

Well, I've had my "junk food blowout" and I've wallowed in it long enough. I'll make sure I think of my motto lots over the next few days: "I am a fit and active person, who makes healthy lifestyle choices."

Exercise plans for the week to come:

Monday - bike ride in morning, weights session in evening
Tuesday - outdoor group fitness session in morning
Wednesday - run in morning, squash in evening
Thursday - outdoor group fitness session in morning, weights session in evening
Friday - run in morning, celebrate last day at work
Saturday - rest day
Sunday - Mothers Day classic run, fly to Queensland on holiday on afternoon