Focus on fitness

Volleyball and netball season has drawn to a close and now my writing course has ended I find myself with a fair bit of time on my hands. With no more volleyball or netball training/matches until August (save for the summer netball tournament if it goes ahead) what on earth will I do with myself? Well, crack on with the next fitness campaign, of course..

My buddy reccommended a personal trainer to me and this little bundle of fitness – her name is Jade – has put together a six-week training plan tailored to my needs and aims.It rocks, in a “no pain, no gain” kind of way!

What do I want to achieve?

• To look like Kelly Brook in six weeks. Actually, just to look and feel fitter will be fine
• To notice a difference in my shape, noticeably the muffin top which volleyball and netball seem to neglect
• To give me a focus over the summer
• To maintain/increase fitness levels ahead of the new sports season
• To make sure I look hot on the beach in July

So, Jade has taken the above into account and meticulously put together a programme of activity, which includes five days of exercise per week, with two rest days. Activities include swimming, biking, running and a series of weights and evil lunge type exercises to boot. Jade talked me through the programme to make sure I was happy and inside I was chuckling to myself ‘cos she kept referring to me as an athlete. She knows all about my volleyballing and netballing activities and has therefore labelled me of athletic ability. I like it!

I started my programme today with a half hour sesh of weights and lunges, plus the plank and a bit of wobbling around on a fitness ball, followed by 50 minutes in the pool where I managed 88 lengths. I was knackered. I’m not used to weights and lunges and I felt a bit sick after doing some backward crunch things. And while 50 minutes in the pool did drag a bit – and I looked like a wrinkled prune when I got out – I felt bloody good, if a little tired, afterwards. That’s the feeling of achievement my friends!

Coupled with a decent diet and a whole load of discipline I’m hoping I stick to this programme and see the benefits come mid-June. Jade also said you need to eat every three hours or the body thinks it’s starving and I know this is something I can stick to. Sadly, you can’t snack on cakes and biccies, boo.

Tomorrow’s fitness agenda comprises a half hour run which will be a challenge – I’m a crap runner and usually give up after 10 minutes – so it will be interesting to see where I get the stamina from. Wish me luck!

Tip of the week

Want to shed a few pounds in the weight department and gain a few pounds in the cash department? Then here’s my tip: start planning your meals.

This is something I started for 2009 and so far it’s working; I’m spending less money on my food shopping, only need one supermarket trip per week and I am eating healthy, balanced meals that taste scrummy too. No more microwave meals for one! And it doesn’t mean spending hours in the kitchen either.

What I do is draw up a chart, with columns for each day of the week under the following headings: breakfast, lunch and tea, and a fourth section for whatever you do in your evenings. Mine is pretty much defined by a sporting activity, but this could include cinema trips, eating out, seeing friends or working an evening shift.

The first three columns are relatively simple. Just write in what you plan to have for each daily meal. And this is where the fourth column comes in: it helps you decide what to have for tea, depending on how much time you have, and also what to have for tomorrow’s lunch. Will you have time to prepare it the night before?

I know that if I have volleyball training in Leicester on Wednesdays that I’ll need a quick bite to eat before I jump on the M1 – beans on toast perhaps? – and I won’t want to be preparing the next day’s lunch when I get home at midnight, so Thursday’s lunch will probably be a tin of soup.

I only do one shop a week, on a Thursday, and the food I buy keeps me going all week, because I’ve planned it all out. And I’m not throwing away an abundance of rotting leftovers, a common occurance when you live alone.

It sounds like a bit of a chore to be so organised, but it’s saving me time, money and even effort. Before, I was quite capable of spending £80 in Tesco and still have very little that would combine to make a meal, let alone a week’s worth. And I would always nip into Tesco Xpress to get milk, fruit, bread and whatever else took my fancy, on a regular basis. And I could come home after a long day followed by a sporting session only to find I had an empty fridge… and a rumbling tummy.

I know this is a really boring thing to write about but it really has revolutionised the way I eat and shop for food. I am better off and my diet has improved. And I’m enjoying cooking, sometimes experimenting and coming up with new dishes/food combos.

Just try it folks, see how you get on. And if you have any quick and easy recipes, feel free to share…

My day with Documentally

What a strange day it’s been. I’ve not blogged for a couple of days ‘cos I’ve been too weak to lift my fingers and type. In complete contradiction to this blog post, I have delved into the miserable world of diets and had a second bash at the lemon detox diet, thus resulting in headaches and severe lack of energy.

This involves five days of drinking nothing but brown gunk and eating….er…actually, there’s no eating involved. Yes, that’s right folks, nothing, nada, nowt. I’m on day three now and I’ve just caved in and eaten an apple. I’m playing netball tonight and a tad concerned I might faint on court and collapse in a heap with my netball skirt around my ears. Could be embarrassing!

Anyway, enough of this detox talk; there’s been another drain on my energy source today and his name is Christian. This cheeky chappy, a social media generalist, blogger and video boffin, came into work to carry out some quirky video interviews with some of our academics and it was my job to babysit him.

And oh what fun we had. Now, I defo have a face for radio (see this blog post) but time spent with Christian, aka Documentally, invariably means being recorded and with little notice. No time to apply more make up but just enough time to develop a stutter.

Anyways, I told Documentally guy about my detox and he crept up on me, video-recording mobile phone in hand (the Nokia N95, I must get one) while I was innocently working at my desk. Well, I need say no more but you can watch frivolity here.

Needless to say, I am pooped after a hard day in (and out) of the office and will have to go home and battle with willpower. To eat or not to eat? One thing’s certain, I can cross off a career in broadcast journalism or modelling. Talking bullshit? Yeah I could make a career out of that!

PS Documentally suggested using the word “gag” in a blog post to see if it generates hits. So here it is again: gag. Will keep you posted.

Bloody hangovers!

I have managed to pretty much waste the whole day today – all because I had a wee bit too much to drink at a party last night. Champers followed by Southern Comfort and coke is not a good combination. Ugh.

I had the best of intentions today: while back in the shire (Shrop-shire, that is) I wanted to raid mum’s fridge before visiting my bezzie mate’s (BM) new flat and heading back to MK to crack on with my diploma assignment. What actually happened was this: woken by ringing phone (BM checking if she had time for a shower before my arrival), clamber out of bed, wipe dried dribble from my chin, throw clothes on and (stupidly) jump in the car for five minute drive to mate’s new flat. I arrived at said flat at 11.30am, didn’t leave until 5pm and even then I didn’t feel well enough for the two hour drive home.

BM had a hangover too so we gave each other sympathy, drank endless cups of tea and made each other laugh hysterically over the most childish of things. We have decided to rename going to the toilet for a number two “emptying yourself”.

During our witty and intellectual conversations BM and I pondered over the evil that is the hangover. Why do they hurt so much these days? I actually feel bruised all over (in part due to manic dancing in nightclub no doubt, worsened by lack of sleep), dizzy, sick, headache, and just holding a mug of tea to my mouth seemed to require 100 per cent concentration. Trips to the toilet to empty yourself double when you’ve got a hangover – the hangover poo me and BM call it - and you feel like your body is being controlled by someone else.

I still don’t feel normal and even three incredibly unhealthy meals hasn’t made me feel better – bacon and egg sarnie for breakfast, MacDonalds for lunch and Indian takeaway for tea. Not a very healthy day diet wise but Maccy Ds usually do the trick for a hangover. Not today.

If someone could invent a pill that would instantly disolve a hangover they would be a very rich person. I would certainly invest in them!

So sick of other people’s diets

I must have reached the age where us girlies start fretting about our weight. Well, I think girls of any age fret about their weight but lately it seems like some kind of epidemic has taken hold. All I hear is “I’ve started a healthy eating regime”, “I’m on a diet”, “I need to lose weight” or ”I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been”. Bla bla bla bla.

Honestly, who cares? Yes, I would love to shed a stone but if it means starving myself, avoiding any kind of occasion where there might be cake and pretending to be satisfied after scoffing a rabbit food lunch, then I’m just not interested.

Maybe I’m unsympathetic to diets because they just don’t work for me. I’ve tried a few out, just like every other gal on the planet, but for me it’s more a scientific experiment than an attempt to shed poundage. I did the Carol Vorderman detox diet some years ago and wrote a weekly column for the newspaper I was working for. It was pure hell and the column inches were the only thing that got me through it. I felt shite, had a permanent headache and wanted to chew my own hand off at the end of the month. I did feel wonderful after four weeks, sleeping like a baby and bouncing around with energy. But I’d only lost a couple of pounds.

I did lose a bit when I did the five day tree syrup diet. Basically had to substitute food with a gloopy drink for five days and although I had a nice flat tummy at the end of it, I was utterly miserable. I like eating food, I like the taste of eating food and I want to carry on eating food. I don’t want to swap my size 12 for a size zero if it means no more rare steaks, chocolate brioche or cheesecake.

I understand some people want/need to lose weight but most of the people I know who say they’re going on diets actually don’t look any different afterwards. If I’m going to the effort to eat celery for a fortnight I want to look damn good by day 14!

Nope, diets are not for me. That said, if I didn’t play sport I would be the size of a house. For me, exercise is a fun way of ensuring I can eat like food it’s going out of fashion. Okay, so I can’t shake off the love handles, but if we all had figures like pencils life wouldn’t be very interesting would it?

Doughnut anyone?

Am I a well person? Hmmm

A trip to the occupation health department at work today has informed me of the following – my blood sugar and cholesterol level are excellent, meaning I have a balanced diet and I’m not diabetic. All good.

However, apparently I am a binge drinker whose BMI is teetering on the edge of “overweight”.

They were offering these screenings at work and I thought I may as well go along. I had no idea about cholesterol etc and whether mine was good or bad so it was interesting to find out, even if it did mean stabbing my finger and seeing blood.

Now, I don’t smoke, never have, and I do up to four hours of exercise a week. Excellent, said the nurse. What about alcohol consumption? I explained that it’s quite difficult to work it out on a weekly basis. I can easily go a fortnight without touching a drop and then consume three bottles of wine or equivalent on a night out. Hmmm, she said.

“I know it’s not the healthiest way to drink,” I blurted out, but it was too late. The “bad for your liver” speech had started. I know that this way of drinking isn’t good and that a glass of wine a day would be better for me. But I don’t always fancy a drink, especially not on a school night, and when I do go out or have a special event to attend I like to make the most of it.

“I’m sure as you get older you’ll binge drink less,” the nurse said. “Yes” I replied, “Because my hangovers are getting worse.”

Right, onto my BMI which is 25 apparently. Anything above this and you’re classed as overweight. I’m teetering on the edge apparently although I’m not convinced the BMI is a good measure of a healthy weight.

I don’t confess to being a skinny minnie but I don’t think anyone would class me as overweight either. I play a lot of sport, am tall and a size 12. Pretty normal really. But what BMIs fail to take into account is muscle.

A lot of my friends are athletic folk and therefore carry a bit more muscle than the Average Joe. But, as muscle weighs more than fat, this tends to have a negative impact on their BMI. A few of my friends have been classed as obese – which is just plain libellous in my view.

The nurse also asked me about stress management. I didn’t tell her about the mass of ex boyfriends buried under the patio but explained that my sporting activities took care of all that. This has definitely been proved by the six-week break I had when I rolled my ankle. Stress build up and anger was present on a daily basis. Friends will confirm this. And I defo put weight on during this time, adding to my inflated BMI

So, am I a well person? Generally yes, but I need to change my drinking habits (unlikely) and lose a bit of weight (possible, since I am reclaiming my fitness level after the ankle injury and have embarked on my campaign to get a body fit for beach exposure come June).