• 1km time trial – 5:32 (down from 8:01)
• push ups – 28 (up from 21) in a minute
• ab test – level 2 (up from 0)
• stretch – 13cm (up from 6cm)
• wall site – 2:36 (up from 1:08)

The only real changes from 4 weeks ago is the time trial and the wall sit.  And can I just say I’m pretty damn proud of myself for the time trial.  At the start, I think I managed 300 metres jogging before I slumped back to a walk and I was absolutely shattered at the end of it.  I didn’t have the best prep for it either, I had barely any lunch, no afternoon snack, not enough water during the day and I have always done my exercise in the morning, not the evening.  So to kick another 30 seconds off my time is so cool!  I think the improvement has come from the damn hill intervals I’ve been doing over the past 2-3 weeks.  Cranking the treadmill up to 10 incline has really pushed my quads and given them the extra strength needed to push harder and faster.

Oh, and yes, I DID lose a decent amount of weight.  Over 10% body weight in fact – I’ve gone from 82.2kg, down past my pre-pregnancy weight and this final week I dropped below my previous “holy crap I need to lose weight” weight.  I’m getting close to my previous stable weight, but if I keep exercising and watching what I eat, I’m aiming to get back to my old “kinda fit” weight.  I’m not aiming for my old “fit” weight – too time consuming but my next target is to get below 70kg.  I’m thinking this is entirely do-able, possibly within the next 4-6 weeks since I managed nearly a kilo this week.

So onwards and downwards… Not sure what’s going to happen with this blog, I still have a few more posts to make for this round and then we will see what happens.  It won’t stop, but it may change focus a litttle!

Japanese style prawn noodles

Well, not much to write about at this point.  Less than 2 of the 12 weeks in the program left to go and it seems a bit strange that it’s nearly all over.  I know once I finish I need to keep eating right and keep exercising – and luckily my husband is 100% behind me in this.  In a lot of ways it will be a relief to have some of the time back, but I also know that I still need to find time for most of the activities I have been doing anyway.

My struggle at the moment is to stay focussed.  I stuck to my plan to do some exercise each day over the long weekend which was good, but I slacked off in the eating department a little.  Not a huge amount, but I had a couple of glasses of wine that I wouldn’t usually have and probably snacked a bit on the wrong things.  Nothing major, but it lets me know that I am really going to have to watch things once I’m off the plan to make sure I don’t get back into old habits.  The hardest part is that my husband needs to eat more than what we have been at times, so he will have dessert or extra yummy things in dinner and I have to talk myself out of having them too.  It really doesn’t seem fair sometimes.  But then he doesn’t need to lose as much weight as I do!

I just need to keep reminding myself that I’m getting really close to my original goal weight and once I get there I can ease up a little on the strict calorie control to maintain rather than lose weight.  It’s not really taking that long to lose it – if I look at the past 10 weeks, I’ve lost well over half a kilo a week, almost a full kilo a week if I take out the 2 weeks over christmas when I didn’t stick to the plan, and I’m still losing the weight well.  I haven’t really had a slow down in weight loss, it fluctuates from week to week, but overall I’m still losing a decent amount each week – I haven’t hit the “I’m restricting calories, exercising, but my weight doesn’t change” plateau yet.

I also need to remind myself why I’m doing this – to feel better about myself, fitter and healthier, to be able to keep up with my daughter and play with her as she grows, to be a happier, healthier wife to my husband and to give myself a focus and a plan for getting there.

Steak sandwich

Slow week for me.  I’ve been absolutely exhausted all week, mainly from not sleeping too well and from the baby not sleeping as well either.  As a result, I’ve been hungrier than usual and the 1200 calories just isn’t cutting it.  I’ve had a few “extras” to eat while still being mainly good about the choices I make so still managed to drop some weight but I haven’t had the energy (or time) to do any exercise.

Actually, today is probably the first day that I’ve felt up to it all week and I still didn’t do any exercise.  But you know what – I’m ok with that.  For now.  I spent the morning doing other useful stuff that I hadn’t been able to get on to in the rest of the week, so I already feel like I’ve accomplished something today.  Exercise picks up again tomorrow and with it being a long weekend I think I’m going to exercise every day to make up for being slack the rest of the week.

With only 2 weeks left on the program, I’m starting to feel a bit burnt out.  It’s been a lot more time consuming than I expected which has affected all of us.  While the exercise is only for an hour, it takes up most of the morning once you add in cool down and a shower – which usually doesn’t get to happen until the baby has been up for a couple of hours and goes back down to sleep again.  Then the food prep has taken a lot more time than I’ve expected some days as well.  I’m trying hard to stay focussed but it’s getting more and more difficult as we get closer to the end.

It’s not like I’m going to just stop everything once the program finishes either.  We plan on going through the recipes, pulling out some favourites and putting them on regular rotation for dinners.  My lunches have definitely changed too and I’m happy eating a mountain bread wrap or corn thins with some yummy toppings.  I’ll also keep doing regular exercise - I’m enjoying feeling fitter again and that as I’m losing the weight I’m also getting more toned.

So really, I’m not stopping, I made a commitment to see this through, I’m just feeling a bit run down and am looking forward to this weekend and getting things back in order again and seeing what I can achieve in these final two weeks!

Taco corn thins

175 assorted squats

137 assorted push ups

95 step ups (each leg)

90 tricep dips

120 assorted ab reps

Finish off with a few stretches and that is the Saturday Session done.  I actually completed all reps (some modified) in the program, and check it out – all those push ups too!

Chicken with salad

Another bugbear of mine…  I hate hills.  Yep, I’ll walk as far and for as long as you want me to – on the flat.  I’ll charge madly down a hill faster than I should.  But put me in front of a hill to walk UP and I’ll grumble and groan and carry on like it’s the end of the world.

So todays cardio session with “hill sprints” in it had me groaning in anticipation of what was to come.  Admittedly, I have to do all my training while at home during baby naps – especially anything on the treadmill.  Cardio days seem to put me on there for about 40 minutes straight, so I have to be sure she’s down and hope she stays down long enough for me to get through everything.  Today I was in luck…

20 minutes jogging at 8km/hr – no worries.  Yes, of course I worked up a sweat – it was 90% humidity outside and I had the windows open.  Then interval sprints.  This is tricky on a treadmill that only goes up to 10km/hr!  So I just reduced the rest period between “sprints” and got through it ok.  Then came the hard part, the hill interval sprints… I have NO idea what a “steep” incline is on a treadmill.  So I just cranked it up to 10 (percent? degrees?), kept the speed at 10km/hr and went for it.  Can I just say OUCH!  The first couple were ok, but after that the quads and butt really started burning.  Felt damn good to get it done though!

I think this is going to be a really tough one for me, but definitely satisfying to get through it.  Actually, thinking back on it, I don’t think I did enough intervals… hmmm, something to remember next time!

And how are the push ups going?  Well, I haven’t actually made it to 50 in a day yet.  But I am doing several sets of 10 each day and they ARE getting easier.  Tomorrow for sure!

Smoked salmon open sandwich

Wow – two thirds of the way through already!  Christmas did put a bit of a spanner in the works and I missed out on a bit of what was going on, but I think I’m all back under control again now (kinda).  Enough, anyway!

Had a bit of a busy weekend, so didn’t quite get around to doing everything I wanted to, however enough got done that I don’t feel like the weekend was wasted.  Today was time to run through the fitness test again and while there wasn’t much improvement, the fact that there was any at all while I hadn’t been doing the exercise was very satisfying.

I comfortably kept up a good jog for the entire kilometre and picked up my pace nicely in the last 200 metres to finish one second short of the six minute mark – dammit!  Well, there’s my target for 12 weeks set out nice and easily.  I honestly think I could have pushed a little harder, but I was still pretty knackered by the end – but very satisfied with my slight improvement.

In other tests, I improved my wall sit marginally, did a bit worse in flexibility and maintained the same result for my abs.  The big surprise was the push ups – I have so much trouble getting through the number scheduled in a session and usually only manage less than half, so was amazed (and pleased) to see a decent improvement here.  I went from doing 21/22 in a minute at the start and 4 weeks in, to doing 28 today.  I have a cunning plan in place starting tomorrow though to really get this one improving though!  OH, and just in case you were thinking this was pretty good, they ARE on my knees…  And my husband put me to shame by doing 36 in a minute (on toes).

So really, pretty pleased with my results given my lack of exercise over the past 4 weeks.

Seafood marinara and couscous

I’m back!  Must be around 4 weeks since I’ve made a post, terribly slack of me.  I was away for a couple of weeks over Christmas and was almost totally off the program for that time.  No excuse, just terribly slack of me.  I did hardly any exercise at all and didn’t follow the meal plan.  I DID watch what I ate though and avoided snacking just because it was there, made sure I didn’t drink too much and only had a little chocolate – much less than I usually would!

As a result, for the 2 weeks I was away from my scales, I still managed to drop half a kilo which I was really pleased to see.  I was organised to kick back into things again, but seeing this loss really gave me the boost I needed to start up again.  Meal plan started up again this week and damn there are some tasty things on it – japanese style prawns with soba noodles to start the week was amazing!  Didn’t get a photo of it though so will need to make it again.

With exercise, I started up again last weekend with 1hr picked form a Super Saturday Session and was sore for 3 days after!  Oops, I shouldn’t have gone that long doing nothing!  I had been finding it difficult with various demands on my time to work on anything else I needed to do after using up most of the morning to fit in exercise, cool down and a shower while my bub is sleeping.  So I’m shuffling things around a bit.  I’ll now only be doing 4 (possibly 5) days of exercise a week.  Two of these will be on weekdays and two on the weekend.

With this all in place I was very excited to see over a kilo drop off the scales this week!  Slowly but surely getting towards my goal weight and very comfortably under my pre-pregnancy weight which is fantastic.

Fish and chips

Eek!  It’s been just a tad busy here with one thing and another.  Christmas at the in-laws on Saturday, then beach lunch catch up with friends on Sunday – all takes longer than I expect with a bub in tow.  Plus I did a little morning exercise each day and there went my entire day.

Saturday was the 4 week re-take of the fitness test and was supposed to be my mini-goal exercise.  I had time to do the fitness test, but we ran out of time for anything else, so my “bush run” had to wait for Sunday morning.  The fitness test was a bit of a mixed bag – I did amazingly better on some things and worse on others!  Can’t work out why some would be worse when I’ve put in the hard yards over the last 4 weeks, at least some things improved to keep me happy.  One of those as I mentioned before, were the ab test.  I can actually do some now!  The other, the big one, was the 1km walk/jog/run.  First time around it was a bit of jogging and a bit of walking and took me a smidge over 8 minutes to complete.  I was happy with that at the time as I hadn’t run for so long.  This time I kept going at a steady jog the entire way and pushed a little harder for the last 100m and managed to complete it in 6 minutes 10 seconds!!  Yep – nearly a 2 minute improvement.  That absolutely blew me away – I don’t run anywhere near that pace while training on the treadmill and certainly not continuously for that length of time yet.  This is the result that will keep me going.

My bush run Sunday morning, well, lets just say my legs were still feeling a bit worse for wear from the day before.  It really didn’t help that it was already temps in the high 20′s and ridiculously high humidity down in the river valley – very pretty, but no breeze gets in down amongst the trees and it traps any moisture, so it was a bit like going for a run in a sauna…  Not really my idea of fun yet.  I ended up walking for the most part and took around 40 minutes to do my 4km, but my heart rate monitor assures me I burned off close to 500 calories so I must have done something right.  Will have to do this one again in another 4 weeks and see if I’ve improved again.

What did you do for your 4 week mini-goal exercise?

Thai beef salad

Yep, after deciding that my abs were probably going to be shot for good, they made a comeback yesterday.  Ab test results at start of the program was zero, couldn’t even get my fingers up over my knees.  Every couple of days since, I give it a go and see if I can do it yet.  Yesterday for some reason I was doing hamstring curls with my feet up on the lounge instead of using the coffee table.  At the end of a set I put my feet on the floor and they tucked in under the lounge.  The thought crossed my mind as to whether I could do a sit up with my feet being held down by the lounge – cheating I know, but if I could, then it would give me some hope.

Well, what do you know – I did it.  Easily!  So I tried all the levels and could do them all with my feet being tucked under the lounge.  Next step was to try without the lounge, but I had the momentum now and nothing was going to stop me!  Step 1 – too easy.  Step 2 – a little harder, but no real problems.  Step 3 – sooooo close, my feet just lifted off the ground a tiny bit.

I was so excited I became a little distracted and forgot most of the rest of my workout for the morning.  I kept stopping mid-exercise (luckily I was already into the second circuit, so it wasn’t a total waste) and trying the sit ups again, just to be sure I wasn’t making it up and I could do it.

I even had to show my husband when he got home!  It deserved a celebration, so I let myself have a beer – I had the calories (and more) still available.  Unfortunately, we had a rotten evening with the bub, so any beer enjoyment was lost and we ended up with two grumpy parents instead.  Oh well, it was still a win, my abs work again!

Healthy muffins

Very exciting – got my new heart rate monitor late Friday!  It’s a basic Garmin model but does everything I think I want it to do and after a workout I can get a summary on the watch itself or transfer the details to my computer and get graphs of my heart rate over the time of the workout.  Unfortunately it didn’t seem to be picking up my heart rate for about the first half hour, but otherwise it’s looking pretty good.  Am looking forward to using it on a run or walk outside so I can get the gps involved and plot it all on a map.  My average heart rate for the workout was 118 with a spike up to 196 at one point!

At the start of the program I was doing the beginner level – even though I achieved Intermediate on all the activities except the sit ups (no surprise there with post-pregnancy tummy!) and missed Intermediate by 1 second on the 1km time trial.  I thought having done no exercise for so long and with the pregnancy in the middle that I should start at the beginning.  Seemed like a good idea at the time and the first week I found it all hard enough. By the end of the first week though and through the second week I was getting through the exercise feeling a bit tired from it but otherwise pretty good.  I had no post exercise muscle soreness and although I struggled on one or two of the exercises and couldn’t complete all the reps at the time, I recovered really, really quickly.  So afer talking it over with my husband and a couple of friends, I decided to move up to Intermediate.  Then of course this week I missed half the sessions… I’m not sure how much of a difference there is between Beginner and Intermediate there is at the moment, but damn, I certainly noticed the session yesterday.  My quads were still sore in the afternoon and this morning I am feeling it in my upper back and calves.  Feels pretty good though!

Looking forward to a day of rest today and spending time with my little family – trying the baby out on solids for the first time, should be interesting!