FitMoog

Thankfully today was a lot more successful - I managed to leave the house in good time and make it to the gym before 8am, and thus had time to complete my leg day routine. Managed to up the weights on several of the exercises - up to 140kg on the leg push machine and 30kg on the leg straighten and leg curl machines. (You'll notice that I have no real idea what the proper name for various exercises are, I tend to translate them into something I'll recognise when trying to remember where to go in the gym next!) I think it's a bit of a cruel joke that they always seem to put gyms upstairs - after a leg day workout I end up walking down them like I've just had my knees operated on, and crossing the road becomes an absolute hazard as I hobble around like an arthritic penguin! I'd brought in a load of the chicken I cooked last night, so I had that and some of my usual fruit and greek yogurt for breakfast, so that was already 46g of protein. I've still not quite go...

This morning I woke up in an utterly foul mood. My "sunrise" alarm clock had failed to go off, so I was instead rudely awakened by my backup alarm clock screeching in the corner. My body was being a nuisance as I tried to get ready so I spent way too long in the bathroom, and then I couldn't find my heart rate monitor either. As I was almost ready to leave I remembered that I'd put some laundry on overnight I needed to hang out. Things were not going well. I eventually left the house much later than planned, at around 7.45am. Just missing a DLR, I eventually made it to the gym around 8.10. Everything in my head had been telling me it wasn't going to be worth going, that I shouldn't bother as I'd not get anything done. And I was ridiculously close to believing it and just going straight to work. But somehow I managed to use a bit of logic to shut it down. Yes, I might be a bit late, but that still gave me just over half an hour in there to do something . ...

I don't gym on Mondays. In fact, I don't do much at all. This is usually because my head is all over the place after the weekend and so are my sleep patterns, so it's bad enough trying to get up at a normal time to go to work, let alone early. I wasn't quite as discombobulated this week as last week, but it was still a struggle to get up and go to work, a struggle that will only increase as the weather gets worse towards winter. A nice warm bed will always be more welcoming than the cold outdoors! I was anxious as I knew I needed to ask my boss for a favour - our cleaner usually comes on a Monday afternoon and my sister usually stays home to let her in (she's a bit funny about having people in the flat when neither of us are there). However, she's about to go on holiday for a few weeks so it's down to me to keep things going, and I needed to ask my boss for permission to work from home certain afternoons. Even though I knew it was probably going to be fi...

It's been a busy weekend! Saturday started as it usually does - my weekly rowing outing with the Otters. This week I was assigned to be in David, which I wasn't entirely happy about as the seats in that boat really don't agree with my bum - there's something about the shape of it that chafes, and true enough it really wasn't comfortable at all, so I was digging out the sudocreme afterwards! Straight home from the docks and straight into putting together my halloween costume for the rowers' party that evening. My idea involved a hula hoop, some coathangers, a load of duct tape, hair gel, and a shower curtain. Yes, that's right - I was going as the famous shower scene from Psycho. I've always designed my own halloween costumes - it's much more fun than just buying something ready-made from a shop, even if it doesn't look quite so polished. Last year I was a dead Lightning from Gladiators, with a blonde wig and a pugil stick made from two Coke b...

In an unusually hardcore move, today I did two bits of exercise! In the morning before work, a back-and-biceps gym session, and after work the Spinder spin class I often go to. Both went pretty well, although mid-spin I was visibly flagging with tiredness. This is the shortest entry so far, mostly because I'm knackered. I was so tired and hungry that I stopped off at the chippy on the way home for some fish and chips. It might not be the best diet food but I'd definitely earned it!

So it turns out I'm better at going to the gym than I am at remembering to write this blog. So let's whistle through the gap between the last entry and this one! Since the last entry, I went to the gym again on Thursday and did legs, which then meant I couldn't walk very well for the next 2 days as my lower body felt like parts of it had been dismantled and put either side of a large wheelbarrow. Friday gym didn't happen thanks to my body deciding just as I left the house that what it'd really prefer to be doing is dashing to the loo. Very helpful of it. However, Saturday was my first rowing session in about 3 or 4 weeks, and I had a lovely 2 hours rowing up and down the dock in some quite gorgeous weather. Thinking "hey, it's late October", I brought several layers of long-sleeved tops, with a sleeveless top underneath as a sort of bodywarmer layer, plus some leggings (the ones with a hole in the side, as I discovered after I put them on, torn d...

The alarm went off at 6.25am. The loud alarm went off at 6.30. I somehow hauled myself out of bed around 6.45 and got some gym kit out. I'd packed up my bag with everything I thought I'd need, but it seemed oddly empty until I remembered I'd need a towel! The gym was lovely and quiet by the time I arrived around 8am, so I didn't really have any problems getting onto the equipment I needed. I'd got a bit confused between gyms I'd been to in the past, and thought it had one of those machines where you kneel on a pad that's counterbalanced with weights, and haul yourself up from some handles, but it didn't. I also spent a while looking for the cable machines, gave up and did the exercises slightly differently, then immediately spotted them at the other end of the gym. There was a stunningly attractive guy doing weights, which made the view while I was doing some of the exercises very pleasant. Unfortunately I then had to completely humiliate myself in f...

Today I had a call with Matt to see how I was settling into things, so I relaid some of the food prep work I'd been doing over the past few days, and revealed that I was planning to go to the gym this evening to start on some workouts. In the end I didn't actually make it to the gym as I had my cousin over for the evening, but I did make us an interesting salmon and cream cheese pasta dish - I'm not sure I'd make it exactly like that again (and for once I'm not sharing the recipe) as I'm not quite happy with it - while it was perfectly edible I think the Dijon mustard I added overpowered all the other flavours. One to work on! As a tasty dessert (and because Bake Off was on), I made some apple cakes. Those ones I *will* share the recipe for, so pop back to this post when I've got round to adding it. Instead of going to the gym this evening I've set an alarm to go in the morning - assuming I wake up in time - I'm not really a very good morning p...

So Monday was a bit rubbish because my stomach decided to throw a strop and as such half the day was spent in the bathroom. This is probably helpful for any weight loss as I didn't really eat much during the day - no breakfast, some soup for lunch, and a chicken breast to snack on. However it also meant I didn't do any exercise at all (not that I would have had time anyway - we had a new cleaner start, so I needed to be in to show her around). By the evening I was thankfully feeling a bit better so splashed out on some of the Waygu beef burgers I'd bought in Iceland a while back, which were delicious - great comfort food, especially when covered liberally with crispy onions and ketchup and mustard. I then spent the next hour and a half going through the set of gym exercises I'd been sent, watching YouTube videos and translating from "gym people speak" into words I actually understand so I'd have some idea what I'm doing when I get there. I have t...

So last week began pretty reasonably with some decent meal prep and even at one point some press-ups. But then towards the back end of the week, everything piled up a bit and I slipped. Which is an encouraging start, not. Wednesday began well as I completed another 50 pressups, though my arms were still aching from Tuesday's batch so about halfway through I had to switch to doing them from the knees. My arms continued to ache all the way to the weekend, causing me to worry I'd actually sprained something, though since it's now stopped that might be an overreaction. I need to restart the pressups today. Wednesday night's exercise was my usual Spin class thanks to the lovely Rich at  Spinder  - a suitably camp playlist of various divas kept things flowing nicely, though I'm as appalling as ever at the "armography" (dancing with your arms, in case you wondered). So I didn't feel quite so bad about not having yet had time to make it to the gym. Thurs...

So today I was planning to actually do some exercise, and get properly started. However, time was not on my side this morning as I rushed to get things sorted for my first day back at work after a fortnight off, and remembered that I'd be carting a load of stuff home that evening, which meant a gym visit straight from work was going to be impractical. Instead, I was going to have to take things a bit easier. My mind often gets itself in a tizz when I have a lot of things I need to do, and it was doing that a lot today. My thoughts were between guilt-tripping myself that I still hadn't done anything in the gym yet, and that I wasn't even vaguely prepared for the week's meals despite yesterday's organisation. I also remembered that this weekend I have a trip away planned which means I've even less time to squeeze in all the things I planned to do, given it starts on Friday! It took until very late in the afternoon for me to calm myself enough to make some deci...

This blog is to chart my progress trying out some online personal training to attempt to get into some sort of shape. I'm using Matt at  Fitter Confident You  after some friends recommended him, and this week is the start of it so we shall see how it goes. In case anyone wonders, no I'm not getting paid or bribed in any way to write this, so if it turns out to be a load of rubbish I'll say so. But I hope it won't be! The first part before starting was answering some questions about my body, lifestyle and diet to get a personalised nutrition and exercise plan. Thankfully my diet's already pretty reasonable and the calorie goal was around what I already used on MyFitnessPal, but the alarming part came when I read the bit about increasing my protein intake - the target was about 3 times my current one! This was going to take some work! My biggest fear, I think, is the exercises. Not the fear of doing exercise in general, as a rower (for pleasure, rather than compet...