Sunday Weigh-In: Fitness Fanatic

Yet another week avoiding the scales, it still frightens me but at the same time it's having an incredibly positive effect. I know it could swing either way, avoiding the scales could mean not caring about what exercise I do and what I eat as I don't have the dial telling me if I've been good or bad - not that it always lines up that way. Instead I'm more cautionary, I work-out harder and have been watching what I eat even more carefully, basically I play it safe.

So another week judging how I did with no official statistics, well apart from my step counting. I had a really good week, I worked out on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday plus I didn't feel too tired on Sunday, I was even looking forward to my next workout. I hope to add another day next week I only plan for that to be either yoga or standing pilates.

This focus on exercise has meant that I log my calories slightly differently, I've always believed you should eat your exercise calories back as much as possible. This is really down to using the My Fitness Pal system, you are given total calories for the day excluding exercise calories so you should be eating them back although I know some people avoid.

So I now log calories from exercise but only by using half what they suggest I would have burned. I always remember when I first started on My Fitness Pal, everyone always mentioned how inaccurate the total they give for calories from exercise, I found them not to be that far off but I only discovered this when I bought myself a heart rate monitor. This heart rate monitor was cheap but good although it is now broken after at least 12 months of heavy use which is why I'm playing it safe and only logging half of what MFP suggests as it doesn't know the effort I'm making as I could log 30 minutes on my cross trainer and that wouldn't take into account how much work I'm putting into it. Which is why I've decided that now I'm back to exercising regularly I should treat myself to something a bit more robust, which I have, hopefully this time next week I will be using the Polar FT7. Not only will I be able to log my calories from exercise more accurately but I'll also be able to focus on improving my training to optimise weight loss - very major.

I've found that now I've focused on exercise the healthy eating has improved. I'm eating more in a way but spread throughout the day. I've carried on eating breakfast at work as I found no matter what I was eating at home I was always hungry by 10am but never really hungry when I first woke up. I've also managed to sort out my 5/6pm hunger attack, I've done this just by planning to have a little something when I get home, so now I have a nice amount of snacks here and there to keep me going.

Thanks to James for taking the photo and always putting together my lunch for me!

I'm also still in love with the lunch I've been taking to work each day, see above, I usually have some salad leaves, sweet peppers, cucumber, tomatoes with a 50g portion of durum wheat cooked in some reduced salt vegetable bouillon - I also have a hard boiled free range egg so that I have a little bit of protein. As I don't have meat or fish I can find it hard to make my salad interesting at lunch but this wheat is keeping me entertained and if I feel myself getting slightly bored I can always have a small portion of pasta instead for a while. On top of this I have a nice mixture of food throughout the day so I'm not feeling hungry, tired or bored - I hope I always feel this way!

Short Term Goals

Focus on the exercise, that is my priority. Continuing to keep my calories on target and discovering new interesting food to eat for lunch that transports well and doesn't make my salad soggy/smell so that I never get bored of my lunch at work. I want to really strengthen myself and build on my exercise routine. Even though I still have some pain from the surgery it is feeling better and right now I feel working on my stomach muscles can only help.

Long Term Goals

I want to go on holiday and wear a bathing suit,  not even a bikini just a swimming costume, At the moment I couldn't imagine doing so but I still have this gorgeous swimming costume I won last year to try out, if this year isn't the year then 2015 has to be. My Joseph trousers and vintage dresses need to be worn again also. On top of that I want to be super fit, I want to be super fit, toned and muscular.

Even though I'm not weighing myself at the moment I feel the need to proudly display the badge showing how much weight I've lost since 2011 - certainly not to be sniffed at and just slightly over half way there!