Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Progress

I've now been exercising for 5 weeks, and watching my food for the same duration. I found that though there have been changes, I've not recorded them much. Interesting. I think it's because I see the results first hand, so am inspired. I decided to write anyway, because I know that something will cause a break, and I want to remind myself of what this has been like.

5 weeks later, my cardio vascular fitness is pretty good. I would now be willing to do a trek and even sign up for a 5k, knowing that I could jog/walk it in about 1 hr. Not ideal, but much better than last year, when I wouldn't even have considered it.

I'm also now hovering around 70 kgs. Somewhere between 70 and 71. But I've not been near 74 for 3 weeks and I'm hoping that in 2 weeks, I'll be below 70 consistently. This would be tremendous for me, not having been below 70 kgs in what may be 10 years.

Also, a couple of days ago (Monday it was) I was not very enthusiastic about exercise. I got back from a weekend away, didn't do much work, was tired and sleepy, but went out for the walk/jog at 8:30 p.m. and did about 20-25 minutes. I naturally felt better after it, and slept well. Every so often I feel like I don't want to exercise, but then I remind myself that it's just 20 minutes, and there are usually very few other people out. So it's a great walk/jog with just myself and some music, and it's all good.

The thing that I'm slowly growing proud of is my body's willingness to adapt and stretch. The Couch25k ramps up at some point. Week 2 has 90 second jog intervals. Week 3 pushes this to 3 minute jog intervals. Week 4 has 2 5 minute jog intervals. Week 5 has 8 minute intervals (2) leading up to a 20 minute jog, etc. Each jump up has me scared. I'm never sure my body can do it. I mean, 90 seconds you could push yourself for, but 3 minutes? Then 5 minutes? So I did a test run yesterday (in the gym). I needed to do my 20 minutes of exercise so I figured I'd do 1 set of 3 min jog, 90 sec walk, 5 min jog etc. I could see the pace and I was jogging at 6.3 kmph, fairly slow, but just enough. The 3 minutes was fine, I recovered in the 90 seconds, then I started the 5 minutes and just thought about something else - like the song that was playing, and I got through it! I even recovered in about 2 minutes, enough to jog another 90 seconds.

Basically, the Couch25K is a brilliant program and really works! Now I just have to find something to fill the in-between days, and maybe to look at some strength training. I was thinking that in March (next week) I'd start riding on weekends. And maybe start swimming in April. Basically, add activities that I enjoy. I love riding, but you need to have some prevailing fitness level or it can be pretty punishing, and no fun.

On the body front, I've certainly lost flab, from my legs and hips, from my chest (some) and a little bit from my stomach. My stomach makes me still a size 14, but this is still better than where I was 5 weeks ago, so I'm not complaining at all!

On the food front, I'm not sold on the meal replacement for 2 meals anymore, as I find I'm proficient enough to prepare and cook a vegetable dish in about 30 minutes. So far I'm mostly sticking with the meal replacement in the morning, as when I come in to work, I don't have time to prepare breakfast and milk, toast and fruit, don't last for more than an hour. I'm eating salad whenever possible for lunch, so that the 4 p.m. can be a sandwich without much guilt. In short, I'm trying to restrain myself to between 2 and 4 slices of bread a day, and as much fresh vegetable as I can find. Fortunately I like quite a few vegetables, so this is not hard.

I'm a little concerned that I'll stop and not be able to restart, but keep reminding myself that it's only 20 minutes a day. In some ways it's sad that I don't have this level of confidence in myself, to know that I won't quit, but given my history of not quite finishing stuff, I understand it. I'm cautiously optimistic :)

No comments: