Almost there

Two exams down and two more to go...


Snacks

I find that I snack more during exams. Does that happen for everyone, or just me? Some of my snacks have been healthy options, mandarins are a great snack fruit, they come in their own wrapper and are already in bite sized portions AND they happen to be in season at the moment and so cheap and delicious to boot.
But I have been having lots of low nutritional value high salt, sugar, fat etc snacks as well. This exam period the snack of choice has been honey joys.


Reminiscent of childhood parties, these babies take about as long to cook a batch as it takes to eat (a batch).


Gym

Luckily I have been finding time to drag myself to the gym. Whilst there is no chance it balances out my compulsive snacking I'm sure it's better than nothing.... right? RIGHT??

Last weekend I tried the boxing class at my gym. OMG! It's now Tuesday and most of the pain has gone away. I might have to try and make it a regular dealio, except on weeks where I may need to be able to lift my arms on the following few day...

The class really brought home how rubbish my lungs are. I was tomato faced and panting by halfway through the class.
It also brought my diminishing flexibility to my attention. It seems someone hasn't been stretching as much as she should... Any suggestions of a yoga routine to start the day with?


Letters

Have I ever mentioned how much I love receiving mail? I used to have a pen pal, but when he got released from prison *cough* he stopped writing. I guess he had some competing priorities what with having a life and all... le sigh.
Today I got my first letter from a new pen pal who is the cousin of one of my friends. I am so very excited. I can't wait for my last two exams to be over so I can write my response on my awesome letter writing paper and send it off.

The tea is a-brewing in it's pot, the biscuits are fresh from the oven, sounds like it's time to catch up...

Well hello there. How are you? Sorry for my absence. It seems lots of things have been happening but not much forward motion in the goals department, I haven't even stepped on the scales since we last spoke... but I have been doing other things, crafty things! So lets talk about them shall we?
...And I stepped onto the scales for you my dear, so we can talk about that later too I guess...

Jam
I have a feijoa/pineapple guava tree in my front yard. It's been there about as long as we have lived here which is around 23 years, but we generally forget it exists. But this year for some reason it was making it's presence known and we have been collecting and eating its weird delicious fruit the whole time it has been producing it.

Now every year about Easter time the season finishes and it drops its green oval shaped fruit (which is great for hiding green oval shaped Easter eggs) This year we decided to do something with them. So Nani and I made them into Jam. Neither of us had ever made jam before so it was a bit of an adventure, but it turned out perfectly. It is delicious and jelled/set/whatever you call that thing that Jam does (jammed?) perfectly. We are both pretty proud of ourselves.



Walkies
After the eater gluttony my brother, Nani and enjoyed the perfect weather and I went for a walk around Kakarook Park, a big arsed water filtering wildlife filled park. Even though it's 10 minutes drive from my house I had never been there before.
We walked, talked rubbish and took some photos. Here are some friendly little fungi we met:




Health stuff
When I decided to write this post this morning I also decided to brave the scales. It came as a great, and pleasant surprise to see that they haven't moved. I haven't put on or lost any weight in my time off.

I am working my way back into the gym habit. To help me out Nani and I have made a pact that we can choose to either eat sweets and go to the gym or to do neither on any day. And let me just tell you, Nani is doing great. I on the other hand have been doing nothing. To be completely brutally honest, and I am amongst friends so why not, I bought 10 chocolate elegant rabbits. I will eat well all day and then not go to the gym, then the sun will go down, the heater and the pajamas will go on and then THE RABBIT WILL COME OUT!!! They are irresistible!

But I am getting myself to the gym on occasion (on three occasions so far this week) and other than the legion of chocolate bunnies I am starting to eat better again.

So I have a few more little crafty projects I have been up to to fill you in on, but I will save that for next time.

Get into the groove

Time

As I write it is midway through the second week of uni. Have I been sticking to my study timetable? Of course not.
Have I at least been going to all my classes? What am I a first year? No!

Okay, so far I have missed two lectures, one of which I have since listened to online, the other I will listen to once it's been uploaded.

I have been putting in nowhere near enough hours of study. I am slightly behind in my readings, but have more or less been prepared for any classes that involve interaction and have studied sufficiently for the two tests I've already had.

Most of my subjects have an open book exam at the end of the year which requires concise and ordered notes. I have so far in my university career failed to keep up to date with this during the semester and end up putting these notes together when I should be revising. Together with not doing enough work this has really reflected in my grades. I passed one subject last semester by 3 marks. Yes 3! I have a suspicion they were pity marks.

I really want to transfer into a combined degree as soon as possible so it is really important for me to get into the groove of studying every day to get my grades up. I seem to have difficulty studying in my huge breaks at uni, so I'm going to try focusing on these times and getting my routine tighter there.

I have however been finding the time to go to the gym, which brings me to:


Health

Last week I once again managed to get my lazy derriere to the gym 3 times! Four if you count the time I walked down to renew my membership but didn't actually go in passed the reception desk.

I still haven't moved from 75Kg (although my weigh in day is tomorrow, cross your fingers for me) BUT, I did notice a dress I used to have to squeeze myself into was a little roomy. My family have also made some really supportive comments about seeing some difference. So whether the numbers change when I get on those scales tomorrow or not this week I'm feeling pretty happy.

And finally tomorrow the lovely lady whose blog was the inspiration for me to start is doing a training session with me at uni tomorrow. She tells me she is going to work me hard. If I can get results like she is getting I'm sure it will be well worth it and then some.

Stuff stuff!

Stuff

So far my goal to sort out my stuff and junk has gone nowhere. my stuff is in more chaos then when I started. So rather than putting off blogging until I have something to write about my newly found organisation of my junk, I am going to blog about it if and when it actually takes place.

Instead, lets talk some more about health goals


Health

Last week I not only met my three times a week gym goal,I beat it! I went to the gym 5 times last week. That's right 5 times mother lickers!! Lets see if I can at least make the 3 again this week.

On one of those times was an aqua aerobics class, which was fun and made me feel like I looked really silly, which in all probability I did. Luckily the only other person in the pool (not counting my lovely friend K and the instructor) was an older woman walking laps.
One of the other times was a boxing class. Girl did I feel that the next day.

The scales still haven't moved significantly (74.9Kg, 75Kg) and neither have my measurements. Think it could be because of diet? The other day I had pizza for breakfast (it was only one slice, but still...), a latte (my second that week) with my carbie lunch, and then after dinner demolished half a share bag of choc coated honeycomb.

I don't have a huge guilt response when I do this kind of thing. I also find that I can justify being slack in my health goals because I am not terribly unhealthy, I eat lots of fruit and veggies, I'm not hugely overweight... But I am more overweight than I let myself think about. And my cardio vascular system is very poor. I see seniors hitting the treadmills faster than me and taking it in their stride while I am panting and red faced. I told you last entry that I was off to donate blood, my veins are so tiny and lazy that after unsuccessfully trying to tap one, we had to have the discussion as to weather it was worth me coming back another time or if it would be a waste of their time. I guess that's not so much about what I'm putting in my mouth, but it does come back to maintaining motivation and remembering why I'm trying to get healthy.

So I need to find some other motivation to get my diet (and health goals in general) under control. What works for you when the cheesecake, burger, chocolate or whatever else is your undoing is beckoning to you? How do you beat craving? What about the couch, x-box, next season of nurse Jackie when you could use the time in the gym?

Health

The plan

I have about a month until classes start back at uni. Until then I am footloose and fancy free and able to spend as much time as I please getting into some good healthy habits. I want to make changes that I will be able to sustain once I go back, so they are still going to be on the small side.

As most plans for improving general health do, my plan focuses on diet and exercise.


Diet

As per my last post my main issues with diet is take-away food and sweets. I am also a bit of a comfort eater so if anything is a bit stressful or I'm not feeling great, I quick as a flash reach for a pack o' something.

So here my goals are:

1. To cook more healthy meals at home. I am aiming to allow myself three meals out per week.
2. To cut down on snack and packaged foods.
3. To reduce the portion size of my meals and ensure I eat the regularly.

Last week I hadn't put this plan into effect but was trying to watch what I ate. I had mixed results. When my mid was on the task I had some small healthy meals.

Here is one day in photos. There is no dinner because I went down for a nap at about 6pm and didn't wake up until the next morning. I'm guessing I was catching up on sleep I missed when I was flying home from holidays.

Breakfast: Muesli - about 40g, Yoghurt - a lot, pineapple, apricot, lychees, diluted orange juice, 'bojenmi' herbal tea. This was actually far too much for me to eat, gonna have to scale it down moving forward.


Snack: Corn thin, humus, cucumber, tomato, grated carrot. The corn thins and humus were both out of a packet but I might as well use up what I already have in the fridge right? Luckily my fridge doesn't contain ice-cream, chocolate or anything else likely to derail me too heavily.



Lunch: Bagel, tofu burger, tomato, lettuce.



Exercise

My plan for exercise could be boiled down to 'do some'. I currently do very little physical anything.

I have a gym, of which I am a member, 15 minutes walk from my house. Before last week I had gone maybe three times in the two months I have been a member. My goal; minimum three times a week. I'm going to give myself the added flexibility here that a very physical activity like rock climbing or kayaking can be substituted. Hey, it could happen...

Last week I met the goal. Tuesday morning I walked to the gym then did a Yoga class, then came to the realsation that I am very average at yoga.
Thursday I walked to the gym and did the 'fatburner' class ... which it turns out is a step class. I was red faced and panting by the end of it.
Saturday I walked to the gym (again) and did a personal training session. We wrote up a program and ran through about a third of it, one rep of each exercise rather than the three I should do. It was still a lot for me to do. Red face made another appearance.