100 Happy Days...Day 65

Day 65 - Dance studios

This is probably going to sound really cheesy but, there's something magical about a dance studio. Once your in the room of mirrors and the door is shut, anything that mattered on the outside world is forgotten. It's such a nice place to be with nothing but your balance, technique and positioning to worry about.

The studio was such a nice escape tonight. I left work in not the best of moods, getting more and more annoyed as I drove to class, but when I left I felt so calm and relaxed it was unreal.

If I won the lottery I'd definitely build myself a dance studio in my house.

100 Happy Days...Day 64

Day 64 - Chinese Food

I have a big love for Chinese food, I very rarely turn down a weekend takeaway. However, I always find I eat too much, feel very bloated and don't enjoy it after it's been eaten as much as I did when I was eating. After tonight's dinner though I think I've found a way to stop this.

Eat with chop sticks.

The CFO at my company took our department out for a Chinese meal tonight to celebrate the end of a good first quarter financially. We went to a vey nice restaurant in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, called The Landmark, and I really recommend you give it a go if you're in the area.

Between the group of us we shared a few different appetisers and mains, all of those I tried were amazing. The shredded beef in chilli sauce was my favourite, and probably one of the nicest Chinese dishes I've ever had.

By eating with chop sticks I found I took my time with my meal and didn't wolf down my food like I normally would. I was eating smaller bite sizes and could feel myself getting full as I went. I managed to notice I was satisfied and that any more food would spoil what I'd eaten so stopped. I'm now comfortably fi and thinking about how nice the food was.

Maybe I should start eating everything with chopsticks from now on.

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.