From Mushy to Marathon

I took this the other day prior to the McDonald’s and chocolate fest when I was still 137!

I started Week 9 on Friday. I did it - I ran for 30 minutes non-stop and ran about 3.3 miles, which is MORE than 5K!!!!!! It was bloody hard work though.

This morning I was planning on doing W9D2 but for various reasons, I couldn’t/didn’t.

Reasons:

1) My older daughter was off school ill and I felt like I couldn’t dump her off on my mum as well as the baby (who at 14 months old and toddling around shouting “DIE! DIE!” is now far too old to warrant that description) while I went running.

2) My ankles hurt last time.

3) It was raining. A bit.

So why do I feel like I wimped out?

Weight-wise, I am doing crappy. We stayed at my hunny’s over the weekend - went out for McDonald’s on Friday and on Saturday night we watched a movie and he lugged out a HUGE tin of Quality Street and waved them about in front of me and I couldn’t help myself! Apparently “you have to have chocolate when you’re watching a movie!” Maybe when you are naturally slim and have been all your life and can eat half a tin of Quality Street without putting on an ounce - THEN you HAVE to have chocolate when you’re watching a movie.

If like me, you only have to LOOK at a Big Purple One and you put on half a pound, then chocolate while watching movies is the LAST thing you have to have.

Came home Sunday and had Sunday dinner made for me by my lovely but equally “not-getting-it” mother. When I make Sunday dinner, I serve myself a small portion of breast, ONE potato, ONE mini Yorkshire pudding, and just enough gravy to moisten it.

When mum makes Sunday dinner I am served with a plate overflowing with a huge breast (no sniggering at the back please), two giant potatoes, two Yorkshire puddings and enough yummy gravy to sink a small battleship. Oh, and a sausage.

And I eat it. Of course I do. No good HIM saying “But you don’t have to eat it, just because it’s there!”. Sh-yeah right!

Upshot of all this delicious gluttony was I got on the scales this morning and am back up to 140!! I haven’t been 140 since September, since LONG before I started running. I have put on 4.6 lb since Christmas. Nigh on a pound a week.

But today I have tried to be good. Not running notwithstanding, I did in fact dig out my old exercise DVD and did that while baby was napping. And I felt pretty good because last time I tried to do before I started the C25K I hadn’t done it in months and was totally out of shape. In fact I turned it off halfway through!! Even before when I was doing it 3x a week, there were certain sections I found VERY difficult and certain parts I plain missed out because I couldn’t do them. Not this time! I sailed through the bits I had previously found difficult and managed to even do the bits I couldn’t do last time. So obviously my fitness level has soared dramatically since I started the C25K. Quelle surprise!

I have managed not to snack today and am preparing a meal which I haven’t tried before - chicken chasseur with rice. It’s made with a packet sauce mix, casseroled with mushrooms, onions and chicken breast. I plugged in all the values into Nutridiary and was pleasantly surprised to find that even with 1.5 oz rice it is only 360 cals! Yay! Also cut down on the milky coffees. Normally I would have had four by now, and have only had two!

What makes it worse is that next weekend is Valentine’s Day and my hunny is whisking me away on a romantic weekend with champagne, chocolates, 4 course V-day meal, the works. So naturally I will not be stinting myself. Which makes it doubly important that I am REALLY good this week!! Otherwise I could well be 145 by next Monday!!

Then on the 24th it’s Pancake Day , although I seem to remember I did quite well last year - I didn’t have much the rest of the day and was able to spend all my calories virtually on pancakes without going too much over my allotment. Then 6 weeks to get my weight back down to something in the vicinity of 135 before the gluttony of Easter kicks in!

Lesson of the day to myself: carry on running!! Even if I eat too much - carry on running. It burns calories and also builds muscles, which boosts the metabolism, which means that even if I do pig out, I won’t put on as much weight as if I don’t run!

Due to weather and busy-ness, I have just today finished Week 8 - which should have been finished last week - but only half a week behind!! So I am running 28 minutes over a route which according to mapmyrun.com is actually 3.27 miles - so I am already over the 5K!! Yay!

As of Friday I up it to 30 minutes, then I start to increase for the 10K in May.

I am doing it but I’m finding it hard going. Sometimes I find myself thinking I must be totally mad to be putting myself through this. But I see the effects and it’s all worth while. Before I started the C25K I measured myself in various parts of my body. My weight hasn’t changed at all hardly but when I finish Week 9 I will measure myself again and see how things I have changed. I can see that my belly has gone down - although I didn’t actually measure my belly, only my waist. My boobs have gone down from a 34F to a 34C/D depending on style and my waist has firmed up considerably!

Oh, and I’m up one boyfriend since I started also :o))

I think I would like to have the beneficial effects of the exercise without actually doing the exercise - lol! Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way so I guess I keep going.

Wow - it’s been a while since I was here.

Good news is, I haven’t let things slide. I had a little time off from C25K because I was ill, then tried Week 4 again, then Christmas happened - but I got back into it after Christmas nd I completed Week 6 last Friday - starting Week 7 tomorrow. I ran for 25 minutes nonstop on Friday - never thought I’d see the day.

Weight wise I am 137, so more or less the same as when I stopped posting. However I did get down to 135.4 just after Christmas - amazingly I managed to LOSE 1.4 lb over Christmas week - no idea how that happened.

I am changing my maintenance range from 136-140 to 132-137 - I really don’t want to get up to 140 before I start to take myself in hand. My boobs have shrunk from a 34F to a 34C/D over the last few months so I really should have lost weight according to the scales - which implies it’s going on elsewhere - or possibly is muscle weight. I don’t know.

So I’m back on the calorie counting for a while - I’d like to deifnitely get back to 135 and see what hapepns. 132 would be nice - that would give me a BMI of 22.

Yay - W4D1 DONE!!!

It was cold today also but I really enjoyed it. I took it at a steady pace and the first 5 minute run was almost easy! I got into my stride sooner than I had been doing before and I just did it! The second one was harder because I was tired by then, but I am so much more encouraged by how much easier I am finding these longer runs. I am beginning to think the marathon might actually be doable, based on how much I have improved in only three weeks!

My body is changing too. I am finding muscles I never knew I had - not just in my legs either, my waist is getting harder and my belly is shrinking.

I’m still nervous at the thought of running for 20 minutes non stop at the end of Week 5, but for the first time since I started C25K I am beginning to feel like I could do it.

Yay for getting fit!

W3D2 today! It was still hard, but at least I don’t cough whenever I take a deep breath like I did on Monday after W3D1!

I also did an extra run. Normally I tack on a 5 min cool down walk on to the end of the schedule - but today I felt like I could run some more, so I ran for 2 minutes of that 5 minutes, then walked for a minute and I was home. So I did the 5 minute distance in 3 minutes.

Also hit my lowest BF% ever today, as well as my lowest weight ever - 25.9% and 136.8 respectively! This running lark is great!

W3D1 done!! Woo!!

At the end of that first three minute run I felt like I was dying!! But I did it, and when I got to the next 90 sec one it felt like a holiday - I was like “yay - I only have to run 90 secs!!” And I did the second 3 minute one also!!

I ran past a bunch of teenagers outside a high school and I half expected them to laugh at me - if I had been 30 lb heavier they probably would have - but they kind of went quiet as I went past! I guess that’s a good thing! Maybe they were impressed!

I have a new man, he is called Graham an he is very nice. We went out last week for a drink and totally clicked. he rang me the next evening and we talked for about an hour and a half. We went out again on Monday for a meal, and he rang me again last night and we talked for 2 hours!

He is coming round on Friday for a Blackadder-fest, which should be fun!

Yay for nice new boyfriends.

I did W2D2 yesterday which went well. my calf hurt a bit again - I will have to be careful, I really don’t want to have to stop again.

I am starting to plan Ruby’s first birthday party - I have so much to do, but I definitely need to have time to fit in my runs! Instead of going in the afternoons, I have a window between 9.15 and 10.30 in the mornings between Ruby having her breakfast, and going down for her nap. I can do it then, then it gives me the whole afternoon to do other stuff rather than trying to fit in my run. It takes 15 minutes to get to mum’s, so adding up the time it takes to get there and back, and to do the run, and a little bit of chat - that is just about right.

OK - I did W2D1 today - felt good.

Bearing in mind last week’s injury, I ran very carefully today - I shortened my stride - I think I might have been overstretching it, so I jogged rather than ran.

I can feel a little something in the calf that I injured but it’s more of a slight stiffness rather than a pain, so that’s good. So as my muscle gets used to running again I think I will be able to gradually increase my stride until I am running properly.

I think my legs are just rebelling and going “What? Us? Run? I don’t think so!”

The weather was lovely today - chilly but not too breezy and very sunny. Tomorrow is forecast to be heavy rain, but Tuesday looks to be nice so I can go out on Tuesday and do W2D2.

Weight this morning was 139.2 - finally got back under 140 - yay me!

Before you all jump on me, this is not the same as a clear liquid diet, which is just coffee, tea, water, fruit juice and broth.

It’s more about the consistency - you can have quite a few different things so long as it is pureed - like baby food. I would be eating the same calories as I do now - just in soft food instead of normal food.

My problem is I think I might have IBS - I tend to get very bloated and constipated. I have to take laxatives once a week to get things moving, which works, but I really don’t like having to do it.

By the end of the day I look about 5 months pregnant when I stop pulling my tummy in. With a BMI of 23 - I shouldn’t be looking like that.

So my thought was if I eat food that is mushy, it should move through more easily, right?

On a full liquid diet, you can eat the following things:
All fruit juices and nectars
Bouillon, broth
Butter/cream/oil/margarine
Carbonated beverages
Cheese soup
Coffee/Tea
Fresh or frozen plain yogurt
Fruit drinks
Fruit punch
Honey/jelly/syrup
Ice milk
Liquid meal replacements
Milk, all types
Milkshakes
Pasteurized eggnog
Plain cornstarch pudding
Plain gelatin desserts
Potatoes pureed in soup
Refined/strained cooked cereal
Small amounts of strained meat in broth or gelatin
Smooth ice cream
Soft or baked custard
Strained lemonade/limeade
Strained or blenderized soup
Thin fruit purees
Tomato juice
Tomato puree for cream soup
Vegetable juice
Water

Has anyone ever tried anything like this? I thought I’d try it for a week and see what happens.

If it does the trick, then I thought I would continue doing that during the day, but having normal meals in the evening - I don’t think I could eat like that forever - lol! But I made an amazing smoothie shake made of 1/3 glass of milk, some strawberry puree I originally made for my baby, and a carton of yogurt - it tastes amazing! So I am having that for lunch with a WW tomato soup.

But I have looked into this on google and have seen quite a lot of websites which say you shouldn’t do this - they give their reasons as you don’t get enough calories. But if I eat the same calories as normal, but just have them as soft, liquid foods, why should there be a problem?

So anyway, I am going to list my foods on here:

Total planned calories: 1400-1500

Breakfast:
Mushed up weetabix and milk - 186 cals
Cup of milky coffee - 59 cals

Morning snack:
1 serving Birds’ instant custard - 106 cals
Cup of milky coffee - 59 cals

Lunch:
WW tomato soup - 74 cals
Milk/strawberry/yogurt smoothie shake - 131 cals
Cup of milky coffee - 59 cals

Afternoon snack:
2/3 serving custard - 71 cals
Mini Milk - 30 cals
Cup of milky coffee - 59 cals

Dinner:
WW chicken soup - 88 cals
Milk/strawberry/yogurt smoothie shake with bran - 136 cals
Cup of milky coffee - 59 cals

Evening snacks
3 x Laughing Cow triangles - 74 cals
Cup of milky coffee - 59 cals

Supper:
Weetabix with milk and 2 tsps bran - 196

Total cals: 1445
Fat/carb/protein: 21/57/22%