Health and weight loss update

A few times recently I have spoken about doing more exercise and trying to be more healthy. It really started (again) after the boys went back to school after the summer holidays. The Hubby and I need to  get more exercise and lose weight and we took the opportunity to start when school started. It's been a little over a month since I started and I wanted to let you know how I've got on.




Starting point


Weight: 14st 5.1lbs
Fitness: non-existent - couldn't run at all.

When the boys went back to school I did the weekly shop with healthy food in mind. I was on a mission to do well. While I wasn't at my all time highest weight I didn't feel good and knew I should've done something about my weight ages ago. On 8th September I weighed myself and learned I was 14st 5.1lbs, it was going to take a long time to shift that weight.

My target is 10st but that is one big target, that's a lot of weight to lose. Instead of focussing on the whole amount I focus on the fact that I am losing weight.

Again when I started I wasn't doing daily exercise and I hadn't done any running since 2015. Not Good. I vowed to start running again. The first day back at school I set my alarm for 6am, got up and went on the treadmill for 30 minutes. It killed me. That first 30 minutes, walking at 3.5mph, really pushed me and I was worn out by the time I'd finished. But I did it. I got up and achieved something before the kids were even out of bed.




Where I am now


Weight: 13st 6.6lbs
Fitness: um, better. Can run for 10 1 minute sessions within 30 minutes.

I have almost lost a whole stone! Woo! That's a milestone right there. It feels like it has taken forever but when you think about it hasn't even been two months yet. I'm hoping that by the time I reach the two month mark I will have lost a stone. I know 1.5lbs doesn't sound like a lot of weight to lose but sometimes it's tougher than it sounds.



My fitness level has improved massively. In the last few weeks I've been pushing myself more than usual and I've managed to run for 2 minutes straight. Some might laugh at that but for me that's quite an achievement. In my 30 minutes on the treadmill I run for at least 10 single minutes. Sometimes I'll string a couple of the minutes together if I'm feeling energetic but those couple of minutes do tire me out. Yesterday I managed to do 11 minutes, 4 of which were paired into 2 minute runs. Does that make sense? Basically I run for 2 minutes, walk for 1.5, then run again for another 2 minutes, or something like that. The key to building up my fitness has been doing it every day, including weekends. I am up at 6am every single day. I get out of bed, put on my running gear and head downstairs to the treadmill. That 30 minutes of exercise sets me up for the day, gives me a good feeling and a sense of achievement. I'll take that, even if I wasn't losing weight.




Food


Food is always a big issue when trying to lose weight. Whether it's working out what healthy thing to eat for lunch or trying to get something healthy we can have whilst on a car journey we've been quite good at watching what we're eating. 

We have been using the MyFitnessPal app for monitoring our food and this has really helped us understand what we can eat and how much. For me, I've reduced my portion sizes massively and for the Hubby he is aware what calorie allowance he has to play with. We are still allowing ourselves the odd chocolate bar and the more we learn about recipes and various kinds of food the more we're realising we can still eat nice food without compromising our weight loss.






In the past month we've had sausages on buns, stir fry, turkey mince with spaghetti, chicken lo mein (from the Tasty website - video below), and prawns. We've enjoyed some of our favourite meals as well as some super healthy ones. I'm feeling pretty good about our choices.







Where to next


Nothing really changes. I'll continue with my exercise and eating healthily and hopefully the weight loss will continue. The exercise is becoming more of a routine now and while I'm super tired by 9pm I feel like it's worth it. 

I'm even beginning to notice a difference in my clothes, my jeans tend to fall down a lot at the moment and I've had to resort to using a belt to hold them up. It won't be long until I'm going down a size!

There's still lots of work to do but with the lovely meals that are still healthy, still being able to eat chocolate, and getting me-time to do exercise I feel like I can take it all. 



How do you stay healthy?




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