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?

Kangaroo with pumpkin mash

At the start of the program we were told to make a commitment to it – put it in words, say it out loud and let our family and friends know what we were doing so that we would get their support and be accountable to others for what we were doing.  This is the commitment I wrote then:

My commitment is to be a fit and healthy mum to my daughter, wife for my husband and most of all to feel great for me!

I will lose the weight I need to feel confident and happy in the way my body works and looks, this means at least 10kg off my weight and being able to exercise for an hour without suffering for the rest of the week as a result.  I will be fit and healthy so that if we decide we want to try to have a second baby my body is in great condition to handle pregnancy and childbirth, unlike this time.  I will eat more fresh fruit and vegetables on a regular basis instead of taking the lazy option of frozen veg and tinned fruit.  I want to set a good example for my daughter as actions speak louder than words.

I need to keep reminding myself of this.

Monday lunch

So apparently you can sign up to the challenge weeks and weeks before it starts.  Then each week in the lead up to the event, a new task is released to get you in the right frame of mind and all sorted out so that you give yourself the best opportunity to succeed.

Unfortunately I’m a bit of a spur of the moment, last minute kinda gal, so I only signed up last week!  There’s a group of new mums I’m friends with online and several of them had signed up to get themselves into gear post-baby and in the end I decided, what the hell, this is the motivation and support I need to get my eating and exercise back on track.  I had just started to get the exercise together a year ago, but once I was pregnant that all went out the window as I found myself too exhausted to do anything other than lay on the lounge and eat, just going to work was a major struggle.  So needless to say, there are a few extra kilos there that I can’t just blame on baby weight!

So, I got myself all signed up and plowed through the pre-season tasks.  I thought the videos would be a bit hokey, but this program is nothing of the sort.  I’m impressed right from the start, which is definitely making it easier to get motivated.  I have to admit I did skip through some of the pre-season activities I was supposed to do - I’m not emptying the cupboard of all its goodies, but I’m also very, very rarely tempted to help myself to things I shouldn’t have.  If it becomes a problem, then I will deal with it then.

The interesting part for me was the fitness test – oh boy!  I was definitely scared here – 12 months since I’d done pretty much anything…  I’m happy to say though, that I was pleasantly surprised with my results.  Technically, I should probably put myself in Intermediate (what the?), however I’m starting off firmly in the beginner camp.  My abs are shot - pregnancy and a c-section will do that to you.  And with ligaments still a bit lax from pregnancy, I want to really ease into the jogging/running side of things.  My results put me as 100% beginner for the abs – no surprises there.  I was 1 second off being intermediate on the walk/jog and would have made it if I had any idea of what my time was.  My husband was timing me and since I thought I had no chance of making it I didn’t push quite as hard as I could have in the final stretch.  Was still knackered at the end of it though!  All my other results put me in Intermediate, but, as I said, I’m happy starting in beginner and easing into things a little more than I am guessing the higher level would let me.  I can always swap up in a few weeks if everything starts getting stronger.

The other side of things – food!  Once the meal plan was released to us, I did a HUGE shop on the weekend – I’ve never bought so many veges.  There are a lot of salads in this plan, which I’m generally not a fan of, but you know what, I’m going to give it a go.  If I really don’t like something, then I won’t have it again, but these meals look really, really tasty and if I want to make a change, this is a damn good place to start.

Oh, and my quads nearly died on the fitness test.  They’re still giving me grief 3 days later…