September - Month-end Round-up

Hmm. Well every month my main aim is to work out more times than there are days in the month.

There are 30 days in September, and I worked out 33 times so that's pretty good.
Having said that, a great deal of those workouts were done in the first half of the month, when I had a week off work and did several extra sessions. The second half of the month I had times when I had 3 or 4 days off in a row which is not good. I need to even that out a bit.

And, as I seem to say at the end of every month (and every week!) my diet has been a bit shocking. The last month or so especially, as I've started eating chocolate and drinking Coke again. Not as much as I was before, but enough that it's not good. I'm also suspicious that this desire to eat crap and lay about under my duvet feeling sorry for myself rather than going to the gym may be down to the contraceptive pill I'm taking.

The shortened version of this story is that I changed my contraceptive pill abut 3 months ago, and since then I've had a couple of rather irritating side effects. When my trainer weighed and measured me in the week I was pretty gutted to find that I'd lost 2% body fat, but still put on weight, and a couple of inches around my waist and hips. I think this may be down to water retention - partially from my diet, and partially from the pill. I also think my diet may be partially down to the pill. Therefore the pill may not be such a great idea. I'm going to give it another month to see if it settles, and if not then it's out.

So for October I will still be on this pill, but I need to be more strict with myself when it comes to eating junk and lazing about. I feel like crap at the moment, really foggy and miserable. I need to try and push past that and go to the gym any way. There are 31 days in October so am aiming for at least 35 workout sessions. And a better diet, of course!

Month-end round-up

I've not done as well as I hoped this month. I've managed to stick to the no chocolate, no Coke rule, and have also given up Irn Bru - but my diet has still been pretty shocking, and I've not worked out as many times as I would have liked.

In August I worked out 25 times and had 10 days off. I think a lot of the days off were due to the overtime I've been doing starting to catch up with me. This month was the worst for extra hours - I did more than in May and June combined. From now on it should hopefully ease off a little, and I should be able to get to the gym more, and not feel so knackered.

Since I was out celebrating a friend's birthday last night, I pretty much wrote off this weekend as being full of bad food and generally a bit messy. I've allowed myself to drink a can of Coke and possibly eat some chocolate, for today only. Tomorrow the ban on Coke and chocolate continues.

In September I need to workout more than in August, start training properly for the Great South, and get my diet back on track.

Month-end round up

I think I've done pretty well this month. At the end of June I felt I'd not done enough exercise, my diet was shocking, and I was generally failing.

At the beginning of July I decided not to eat chocolate or drink Coca Cola all month. I've stuck to this. At the beginning it was tough, I had shocking headaches from the withdrawal from Coca Cola (I was drinking loads before!), and was substituting for the chocolate with all sorts of crap. I'm still drinking too many fizzy drinks, but I'm trying to choose the "free" or "zero" options, and have lemonade as much as possible rather than the others. I've taken to drinking a lot of Irn Bru though, which has to stop. I've decided to keep the ban on chocolate and Coca Cola for August as well. Once I've decided I'm not having it, then even when it's put in front of me it doesn't really tempt me. I still have a bowl of foil-wrapped eggs from easter on the side in my living room. I think having the weekly food diaries to hand to my PT has helped - it's made me think twice about what I'm eating and drinking, and also helped me to plan my meals - life is so much easier when you already have the food you need in your fridge!

This month I've worked out 32 times, which I'm pretty pleased about. I took 6 days off, which works out as 1 or 2 days a week, which I guess is acceptable. These were mostly Tuesdays, where I was doing overtime after work and couldn't make it to a Pump class. I think the timetable at the gym has changed now though, so that Pump is on a Monday evening so I should be able to go. This last week has been a slow one, because I knew I had a lot of overtime to get through and didn't want to burn myself out. I ended up working Monday, Tuesday and Friday evenings and am due a long day on 1st August too so need to preserve my energy!

The plan for August is to keep up the momentum. This last week the food diary has been dropped, I don't think my diet has suffered too much (until tonight when I called out for pizza for dinner!) but I'd prefer to be keping track of these things. If I don't write it down I tend to forget I've eaten it, and think I've done well when I've actually been eating junk all day!

August is going to be the month I kick my own ass until it shrinks a bit more!

Month-end round up

Well actually this month has been pretty slack. Each month I allow myself one day off for each weekend on the calendar, and aim to complete more exercise sessions than there are days in the month. Normally I achieve this fairly easily, as I often do something before work as well as at lunch - and was doing Pump and WRN on Tuesday evenings.
This month, between being ill, other commitments and just being plain lazy, I've not done very well at all - only 21 sessions for 30 days.

My diet has improved somewhat though, so that's a good sign. The weight is still hovering around about half a stone heavier than I would like.

July is the month when I will manage (finally!) to put the healthy eating and exercising together, and kick some proper ass. Watch this space!