Day 10 Oh that's right, this feeling

Day 10 is when it really starts to get hard. I'm tired from all the work, I'm eleven days off my body having recognised this as a habit and starting to pump me full of the happy endorphins.  I'm noticing it in the mornings and the evenings. Possibly part of the day as well.  Definitely in the mornings. The alarm went off at 5 and I didn't.  No spin with Lisa for me this morning.  Quick breakfast at home and then I'm off to work.  I'm really enjoying my weetibx in the morning.  Strange the tastes that adjust for you as you get older.

Having missed spin in the morning, I rearrange some of my day to hit the class at lunch.  There are only 2 of us today for some reason.  One fan for each of us. Which is lucky cos I feel like I'm in my own personal sub tropical zone.  I find cycle very hard to get into musically.  It doesn't seem to have the sync, music to track that RPM does.  This means I do a lot of clock watching.  How long have I survived, how much longer do I have to survive? Oh well, more motivaton to make the RPM classes I want to make.   I'm finding that I'm able to climb more and that I'm starting to lift the resistance a little more each class.  Back to work where I devour the tuna salad I have for lunch.

I've made a date with one of my red team members to meet her for boxing and group slim.  It's nice to see the team starting to bond and make some friendships.  I'm back at the gym by 5.30.  This is a really different boxing workshop.  It contains a lot more shadow boxing and conditioning exercises  (abs, squats, pushups etc) as opposed to the glove based workshops I'm used to.  My heart rate is definitely up and I'm puffing away. No need to grab my puffer which is great.  It's nice to see at least 3 of the red team at the workshop today.  I use it as example of why they should do body combat as well.  Ah, body combat, it seems only yesterday I was enjoying your sweet, sweet torture.

The group slim class is looking at healthy snacking options and making informed fast food choices.  It's a big group, over 20 of us, sitting around and sharing ideas.  Apparently you can air pop popcorn using only a brown paper bag and plain corn kernels.  I suggest trying this at home prior to having to accidentally evacuate your office over lunch.  Nothing like being the dieting girl who set the microwave on fire.  We then move on to looking at the healthier choices that fast food are offering.  There's a lot of giggling and a general consensus that we're getting really hungry.  There's something about sitting in a class situation talking about food that seems to return the general group dynamic to that of a year 9 girls school.  Be afraid, be very afraid.

A quick swing past the greengrocer (for your information, you can buy a lot more vegetables for $3 than you imagine) and I'm home. Time to make dinner for the lovely M. I love to cook, not just for me but for others. It's a real joy so having dinner guests is always quite inspiring.  Tonight it's a beef stirfry with capsicum, onion, snow peas, eggplant, zucchini, some soy, some coriander, ginger and garlic.  M is a wonderful guest to cook for as well.  She's part of my collection of fabulous women who come and have illicit non husband friendly dinners at my house.  We're talking about starting a swimming program today which is exciting, particularly as I've just bought the bottom half of swimsuit required to start the program (top half previously acquired).  We're also looking for an aqua aerobics class in the evenings. Bit nervous about the swimming but thinking it would be a great thing to do health wise.  I'm very pro immersion in water, it's just the swimming rather than splashing about factor.

Think about some dessert and decide I'm not really in the mood.  Head to bed after Dance.  A good day.

Day 8 - Wow

The fact that it was pouring with rain this morning may have been a contributing factor to me staying in bed rather than getting up at 5 to head off to the gym by 6.  The other factor may have been that Monday's I finish choir rehearsal at 9 in the evening having dashed there from the gym following a group PT session. I say dash, stagger may be more appropriate. I'm finding one of the changes I've noticed from my first week is that I'm not scrabbling about for solutions when I need to have a meal at home whether that is breakfast, lunch or dinner.    Take breakfast for example, because I've planned I can just grab some weetbix, add a spoon of sultanas, a teaspoon of sugar and go from there.  Makes me feel a lot more confident about making the right choice.   

Today was D day or weigh day for week one.  Even though it was in the evening, it did linger on my mind a bit. I knew how hard I'd worked and really wanted a good result to show for it.  The old fears kept coming back and I could feel myself starting to find all the excuses for a poor result despite the work.  Had those 3 drinks on Sunday night undone all my efforts?  The home made pizza?   

The draw of healthy choice awesome provided me a nice lunch and snacks for the day.  I had to stop myself being stupid and not eating, this isn't about starving myself for a good result, its about making some healthy choices that benefit my lifestyle and get me to achieve my goals.  My afternoon is filled with meetings which helps distract me from the scales that lie in my future.

Get to gym - hop on a bike until Leanne is able to see me.  We jump right into the deep end and hop on the scales.  Wow. Okay, that was far less painful than I've been making it all day.  I lost SEVEN PERCENT body fat in one week.  I'm gobsmacked.  Plus the 1.5kg weight loss really didn't hurt at all either.  I'm really really happy.  I'm also pretty damn happy to hear that I've topped the challenge for our gym this week.  Our team is in 5th place but I'm not sure that all our team members have been remembering to record their points each trip.   

Back onto the bike.  45 minutes later I've done 15km and am a tad warm and sweaty.  We're going to start our group PT session with the endurance challenge for the week which is holding a isolated wall squat for as long as possible while holding a min of a 2kg weight.  We all aim for a minute and we manage to do it!  Our group PT session tonight is boxing.  Tam (Tamara) our team leader regularly runs the boxing workshops at Canberra city and is one of the toughest boxing coaches I've worked with.  We work out guts out for 45 minutes.  It's a mix of speed, conditioning, strength, all about keeping our heart rates up as we jab, cross, uppercut and high punch our way through the session.  There's an evil set at the end that involves punching for 20 secs followed by a plank for 20 secs repeated for 2 minutes.  It nearly kills us all and we lie like a bunch of stunned mullets at the end of the session. 

Get to rehearsal a bit later than normal as we ran a little over time.  I'm knacked.  Absolutely knackered.  The music is lovely and manages to give me the energy to go on.   Miss C and I sing our way through the tenor parts (I'm having fun singing tenor, have previously sung alto and soprano) some beautiful harmony lines.  I throw together a quick pork, zucchini and eggplant curry when we get back to mine just after 9.  Yay for leftovers for lunch for tomorrow.

Really happy with my first week, now to keep it going!