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.

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.