Weigh in - 28th April

I am very pleased to announce, another 1.2 lbs loss this week. I'm now pretty much back where I started at the beginning of the month, but I'm not going to complain because that extra weight I ate from feeling sorry for myself is now gone and I'm looking to the future and not backwards.

I was back at dancing last week, training hard for our performance. It's amazing how much progress the ab challenge has helped me make at class. Our core ab exercises are a lot easier now than they were in January and it's definitely helping with my technique. I've still got a long way to go though, but thankfully I'm feeling quite motivated.

After coming up with 101 reasons why not to go to the gym on Thursday, I talked myself into going and managed a 20 min cardio workout and some leg presses. My head wasn't in it so I didn't fully achieve what I should have done but an 8 min run non-stop was good. I'm getting closer to that 10 min run, it's just taking longer than I'd hoped for. (I'm still not falling in love with running).

I'm now in the 4 week lead up to my exam which means there's going to be less working out for the next few weeks and more studying. I'm still going to aim to dance once a week, and one gym session but work has to take priority for a while. My weakness is going to be snacking. I like to eat whilst I study and I normally just grab chocolate/biscuits/cakes etc, but I'm going to keep my goal in my mind throughout and opt for the fruit option as best I can. I'm determined this study session wont put weight on my, if I have to I'll maintain but I'm still going for a loss.

I now have only 2 more days to go on my 30 day challenges. I'll take the last progress pictures on Thursday morning and when I do my monthly round up we'll all be able to judge if there's a difference in the photographs.

Happy Monday everyone!

100 Happy Days...Day 63

Having a lightbulb moment. In preparation for my exam I've been studying today and finally had that 'ding' moment when calculating NPVs on projects, including tax & interest rates. The concept behind it is all finally making sense, and I'm actually kind of excited to do some more. Yes I know it's not the most exciting topic but as an accountant, I'm allowed to get excited over such things.

100 Happy Days...Day 58

Day 58 - Seeing progress

So today I was back at dance after a few weeks off and I'm very pleased to say that my 30 day challenge has majorly helped me at class today. We do lots of core exercises and normally I struggle through them, but today I managed to complete the exercises with only a little bit of wobbling throughout. So pleased with how much progress I've made with this challenge so far. 1 more week to go!

Weigh In - 21st April

I'm always very surprised to see the scales drop, especially after a few very bad days. I dropped another 0.5lb which I'm really chuffed with after my bottle of wine, cakes and chocolate I've enjoyed these last few days.

My plan to cut back on the amount of diet coke I was drinking didn't go too good. I managed until Wednesday as work didn't have any diet coke for me to buy, and then I gave in when it came back in stock and started drinking again....I blame this new system testing, it's pushing me over the edge. Tomorrow is a new work week though so I shall give it a go and see how I get on.

I missed dancing a lot last week, I only managed 2 workouts and the second wasn't as good as it should have been. I really do think dancing is what keeps me going, I might look into options for taking a second class...force me to do that extra hour. Maybe after my exam.

Being off work today has meant that my Monday night gym session hasn't happened, the major downside to where I live, it's so far away from everything I do. Not long now until I'll be able to go whenever I want. I'm actually quite excited at the thought of being able to go on weekends, late at night, or before work on a morning. I just hope this enthusiasm carries on and I'll actually put a bit more effort in over the summer.

Today is day 21 of my 30 day challenges. I'm loving the abs one, it's such hard work but I can definitely see it paying off. I'm struggling a lot with the Plank challenge though, for some reason my ability to hold a plank for more than 90 seconds has gone and I cannot keep up with the timings I'm supposed to do now. I'm going to keep trying but I may restart the plank one properly next month and concentrate on getting my form right in the mean time. I'm not enjoying the squat challenge as much as the abs, largely because I really don't like squats. I'm persevering though.

I've taken some photos to show my progress through the challenge, once it's completed I'll post them all and we can see if there's a difference. I do think there is but maybe I'm just being optimistic.

Happy Easter Monday everyone! Hope you've all enjoyed your chocolate.

Weigh in - 14th April

Unsurprisingly, the scales went up 1.4lbs this morning. To be honest, I'm surprised it wasn't more after my lack of cardio and over eating for the past two weeks. Anyway, today is the start of a new week, and back to being good.

I'm making the effort to cut back on the amount of diet coke I'm drinking, trying to stick to water instead to get my 8 glasses a day and if I feel the need to drink diet coke then it'll be only 1 can a day maximum. So far so good, I've managed 6 glasses today and no diet coke. My weakness will be when the weekend, but I'll worry about that when I get there.

Back to the gym tonight and I was pleased to see it was relatively quiet again. I got back into my little routine and did 10 mins on the bike, not as high resistance as I had been doing previously but a good steady pace, followed by 12 mins on the bike (8 of which I ran), and 10 minutes rowing. My pace was much quicker on the rowing today, I averaged 36 strokes per minute rather than 33.

I'm quite impressed I've managed to improve on my routine from the last time I was there. The week or so off has obviously done me good, and I'm assuming the 30 day challenges have helped me a bit.

Day 14 of the challenge got completed today. Cannot believe at the start of it I could barely manage 10 proper situps and I've just done 65. The challenge is proving to be difficult, I really do push myself through it all, but I just keep thinking it's going to be worth it at the end of day 30. Only 16 more days to go.

100 Happy Days - Day 49

Blue skies. Getting up to blue skies, going to work in blue skies, leaving work in blue skies and arriving home in blue skies definitely makes the day feel better. I'm a tad jealous that one of my friends is enjoying the blue skies of Marbella right now whilst I'm stuck in the UK working, but at least I have my own skies to cheer me up. Fingers crossed we keep this weather for the weekend.

100 Happy Days...Day 36

Day 36 - Completing day one of my 30 day challenge

So yesterday I posted my challenges, today I started them. I split the exercises out so I did some this morning and some before bed. But they all got completed. Ready to start day 2.