Exercising has just been disastrous. I just don’t have the energy or inclination to walk on the treadmill. I know I should walk, because getting your heart rate going is good for a lot more than losing weight, but I just don’t have the motivation.

I have not reached any of my weight goals that I set for myself and wish I had the motivation to really diet strictly. I am just so hungry all the time and always want food. I bought USN Phendra Cut XT a couple of weeks ago, to help me with the hunger. I started the week before I went away, then read that you can only take it for 5 days then have a break for two days, so taking it from Monday to Friday would be the logical thing to do, because you have to take one in the morning and another 6 hours later, but not after 2pm, so weekends would be a problem waking up late. Anyway I started on a Wednesday, then decided to not take them whilst I was away, so started again yesterday, having forgotten on Monday. I must say they have not done much for suppressing my appetite, the first week that I took them nor yesterday. I have had to force myself to not eat, even though I am hungry. They also make me feel sick so I have been sucking on butterscotch sweets – not good for someone trying to lose weight. The reason why I decided on Phendra Cut XT, is because they did a huge promotion on Highveld 94.7 radio station , with give aways and competitions etc, so all day long I heard about how good they were and decided to try them – who says advertising does not pay! Well I will give it a go and see what gives – hopefully my appetite.

I really really want to lose weight. I guess every overweight person does, but we all know dieting and staying slim is not easy. If it was there would be no fat people around. I was so disgusted in myself and ashamed whilst we were away. We went to the sea and I could not swim and lie in the sun and enjoy the sun and sea, because I am too fat to wear a swimming costume. The most I did was put on a full swimsuit and cover up with a big sarong. I don’t care that there were people my size and way fatter than me in swimsuits, I just cannot stand to see my fat and have to do something about it. Whilst I was away, the whole time I kept saying to myself when I get home I am going to go on a very strict diet and exercise, because I cannot go away being fat again, but once I got back the “tomorrow is another day” mindset came back.

I joined a challenge on Fatsecret to eat only 1200 calories a day for 4 weeks. The challenge started on the day I went away, so I failed the first week horribly, but now I am trying very hard. Knowing people are more than likely reading all my recorded food makes me far too embarrassed to go over, although when I was away I did not mind. I thought I had a good excuse to cheat.

The exercise part of the challenge I know I will fail, nothing motivates me to exercise, mainly because I have never needed to exercise in the past when I had loads of weight to lose, but saying that, I do know that now that I am older, I need all the help out there to get my metabolism going and exercise is a big factor.

I will just have to see as the days go on, whether I will get the motivation to walk again.
Till next time

Next week Wednesday, school closes for ten days and I am hoping to go away for a few days. Nothing confirmed, but I really feel that I need to get out of Joburg and away from my normal routine.

I have not blogged about this before, but have made references to a traumatic event in my life, which is also how my real addiction to food started. I am still not ready to blog about it in detail, but I need to say a bit more about my life, which will make my current feeling of hopelessness and sadness more understandable.

As I said in my introduction, I am a mother and live with my life partner, I did not further elaborate on my life, as I find it hard to blog about. I was blessed to have the two most wonderful son’s any parent could ask for and I was very proud to say that I was the mother such good well-mannered special boys, until the day my eldest son’s life was ended by someone who broke the rules of the road and my beautiful angel died as the result of the collision. Yes, I still have my other child and am still the proud mother of him, but in many ways his life ended on that day too. On Tuesday, the 21 September 2010, my son should have turned 21. Right now I should be arranging his 21st and I should not be mourning and crying. It is supposed to be a happy time, to celebrate his life.

So right now I am back to finding it very difficult to worry about such trivial things as losing weight and being healthy, when in fact does it really matter whether you are fat or thin, fit or unfit, healthy or unhealthy, when some criminal can just do as he pleases and wipe you out and whether you are fat or thin, when you are dead it all means nothing.

I know I have to try and preserve my life so to speak for my younger son, because my health has suffered over the years and I have been warned about having a heart attack or stroke, but not because of my weight, but my anger and stress.

Just right now I am back to feeling that what is the point when life is not only very cruel and unfair, but also unpredictable.

so for now I won’t be stressing about what the scale has to say tomorrow or Wednesday, but hopefully I won’t eat too much and I am hoping to get back on track after the holidays, if I survive living through my son’s 21st.

Thats about all for now

In a couple of days, it will be 2 months since I started my Fat Fight – Battle of the Bulge, whatever you want to call it. I never set any goals for the two month mark, I added 10 days to the next goal, making it almost 6 weeks to lose 10 Kg’s, but last night I realised it is almost 2 months and by now I should have lost at least half of the weight I need to lose, but have not even reached a quarter. I felt so despondent and angry at myself for my lack of discipline and motivation. Especially since Monday, I was able to get through the day without eating much, but then yesterday, I ate too many carbs and bad foods. The difference is on Monday, not only was I not hungry, but I also did not feel like eating.

Yesterday, I was hungry and irritated so I ate. So last night when I realised it was almost two months and I had my little inner tantrum, blasting myself for not being disciplined etc, I suddenly consoled myself with the fact that perhaps it is better to lose weight very slowly and always be aware of how much I am eating, because perhaps in that way I will be able to keep my weight down, instead of losing lots, fast and just putting it all back.

I don’t think I will ever be able to give up sweets, chocolates and other bad carbs and trying to convince myself that I can, by going on a strict diet and losing weight fast does not work. If it did, I would not have been a yoyo dieter at my age.

What I do know is that I have to stop turning to food for comfort and rather use something else. If I am tired I eat, if I am angry I eat, if I am sad I eat, if someone disappoints me or lets me down I eat. Food is a great comfort to me, but at the same time it makes me feel even worse, because I feel fat and guilty, but at that moment that I am eating I feel “healed” so to speak. Food won’t disappoint or let me down, but the truth of the matter is, that it does disappoint and let me down.

I do know that I should eat a more healthy diet and eat fruit and vegetables whether I want to lose weight or not. I just don’t find the same comfort in an apple or orange than I do when eating a chocolate or slice of bread. To be honest I prefer vegetables to fruit and hardly ever eat fruit. In fact I have not had a piece of fruit for months. Whatever fruit I do buy, gets given to the wild birds. So I do take the giant step and go out and buy fruit, but then don’t eat it. I need to change that and eat even one piece of fruit a day.

Yesterday, I never walked either, I had my “valid” excuses as usual and today I am hoping that my will power is stronger than my excuses. Once I start walking I enjoy it and feel good after walking very fast, but to actually get onto the treadmill is a huge power struggle.

Thats all for today… till next time

Yesterday, I was so exhausted. I had to wake up at 4 am to take my partner and my son to the airport, because they were going to Windhoek. I went to bed late and slept badly, because I was worried that I would not hear the alarm and they would miss their flight. So I turned to chocolate for energy to get me through the day. Well that was my excuse. I have to get this chocolate thing out of my mind and put that addiction to bed too.

I never walked on the treadmill yesterday – was too tired, but actually lazy was more of the reason. I also only drank one litre of water instead of two. It’s almost as if, because my normal daily routine had changed, I could change my ‘dieting” routine.

Today, I have a very muggy head and am also feeling very emotional today. I feel very tired and feel as though I did not get enough sleep. I slept for nine hours, so should have felt refreshed this morning, but don’t.

I have been having one of my mind fights for a while now, about getting out my Hawkins Machine and using it, but it has also become one of those “just could not be bothered – too much trouble” fights. The benefits of using the Hawkins Machine is quite remarkable, yet the hassle of using it on myself, just overpowers the benefits. I thought I would list the benefits here on my blog and maybe as I type them, they would make a deeper impression on my brain and I would use it, instead of just thinking about using it.

It provides intensive muscular training and exercise.
Increases blood and lymph circulation.
Promotes weight loss by burning calories.
Drains toxins from tissues.
Firms skin and muscles.
Improves muscle tone.
Drains excess body fluid.
Reduces cellulite
Produces heat in tissues.
Accelerates metabolism
Restores muscular vigour
Relieves muscle fatigue
Reduces body measurements.
Increases physical energy.

And for the real deciding factor:-
At an average intensity setting, the exercise value derived from a 30 minute session treatment, is equivalent to:
1600 push ups
1600 full-squat and jumps
1600 sit ups
1600 scissor-leg lifts.

So for 30 minutes you have gained 6400 strenuous exercise movements without any fatigue whatsoever, resulting in the dissipation of thermal energy equivalent to approximately 750 calories, without any effort.

So to sum up or argue the point further. I have poor blood and lymph circulation, I have very little muscle tone, but loads of cellulite, my body MUST BE full of toxins from a poor diet and sedentary lifestyle. My skin needs to be firmed as do my muscles. I could go on and on, but would just be repeating the benefits. The question you are probably asking is – why does she have an expensive piece of equipment that has all these benefits, but does not use it?

The answer to that is:-
It is very difficult to put all the pads on yourself – FRUSTRATION
The wires get all tangled and the pads slip out of the belts – FRUSTRATION
You need to get undressed – COLD
You need to lie still for 30 minutes and do nothing – BOREDOM
You need to wet the pads and keep wetting under them whilst they are on you – DIFFICULT
You need to clean the pads with spirits or alcohol – LAZINESS
You need to wipe your body with spirits or alcohol – NOT PLEASANT
You should wrap yourself in a plastic sheet and use an electric blanket for extra benefits – NOT PLEASANT
You have to only eat protein, no carbs to renew damaged cells – VERY DIFFICULT.

Ok so I agree the benefits far out weigh the negatives. I need to give this a lot more positive thought. admittedly, it does hurt, especially if you turn it up very high and if you don’t put enough water on the pads or still have cream on your body.

Nothing about losing weight is easy, yet it is so easy to put on weight. Oh the unfairness of life – she wails!!
I also always use the excuse that I have NO TIME. I could do it whilst watching my favourite shows on TV, but I usually watch TV and do other things during the adverts. If you have a look at my Fatsecret exercise list I “rest” for sometimes 8 to 14 hours a day. I don’t know when these hours are in a day or what I actually do in those hours, because I can honestly say that I don’t rest in those hours. I add sitting to my exercise calendar, because sitting is when I am at appointments or meetings or when I watch TV at night, but as I have already mentioned, I do all sorts during the adverts. I would love to know what I actually do during those “rest” hours, perhaps it is just impossible to record every last thing we do in a day.

Well it is back to the Hawkins Slimming Machine fight, along with my fight with fat, till next time.

Addiction is a very difficult thing to overcome, no matter what the addiction is. Alcoholics know that drinking alcohol is destructive, they know that having just one tiny sip of alcohol will set them off, but they can’t answer the question as to why they have no self-control. The same goes for food addiction. We know that eating and eating and eating IS going to pile on the kilos. First our clothes start feeling uncomfortable, then they are too tight so we buy a bigger size and soon those clothes become uncomfortable, then tight and then they don’t fit. Tomorrow is another day and we will always start our diet tomorrow, on Monday; next month, end of winter and we conveniently forget that those days are gone forever, but the weight is there forever.

What I did not realise is that it is far more difficult to lose weight as we get older, yet saying that I should know by now that since I turned 40, losing weight has been so difficult, yet I tipped the scale at 92 Kg’s, before I consciously realised that I was disgustingly obese.

I am unhealthy, uncomfortable and always out of breath. I feel ugly and bloated and uncomfortable, yet with all these feelings, I just cannot put my foot down and stop eating all the junk I eat.

I must say since I started walking on the treadmill, I am starting to feel less breathless and I feel good, yet I never walked for three days last week. I thought my reasons were valid, but they really were just excuses of a lazy mind being more powerful. I consoled myself with the thought that I would walk twice over the weekend, but on Saturday, I did not even get out of bed, except to eat.

I was feeling so down and emotional and tearful on Saturday, I just lay around the whole day, doing nothing, except trying to sleep away the blues, but sleep evaded me, so I was still very tired, irritated and tearful, not forgetting the guilt about not walking.

Sunday, I woke up feeling more energised and walked early in the day, not to get it over and done with, but so I could walk again in the afternoon to make up for the days that I did not walk. No guessing there, I did not walk a second time. I ate too much and drank alcohol and too much. Not to get intoxicated, but perhaps to numb my thoughts. Did it work? no not at all!!. I just felt like the refreshing taste of whiskey and the relaxed feeling it gives me. I don’t drink often, hardly ever, but enjoy a whiskey from time to time. Problem is I drink it with Sprite, which makes it a very refreshing drink, but full of empty calories.

Again, tomorrow came and went. I was going to NOT eat on Monday – well not starve exactly, but cut down and I ended up having a vienna on a roll mid morning, then my son and I went shopping for new shoes and T Shirts for him and he was hungry so we had a burger at Steers. I had the smallest one on the menu, but still a burger is a burger and the closest I could use on Fatsecret was Mc Donald’s burgers as I don’t have the calories for Steers Food. So I probably ate more calories than what I have recorded.

I don’t know how today will pan out. It is after all Tomorrow again!!! Only problem is tomorrow always becomes yesterday and no change.

I have joined a group on Fatsecret, thinking that will be motivation, but seems that is not even motivation. I also joined a challenge this morning – Not Snacking At Night, which includes drinking 8 glasses of water, which will be easy, as I am drinking my 4 “500 ml” bottles a day and drink them with ease and sometimes a glass or two early in the morning or late at night, because I am thirsty, except over the weekend, I think on Saturday I only had one bottle and it was an effort and Sunday two, but during the week, I have been very good. The other part of the challenge is planning meals and snacks, which is going to be a huge challenge as I don’t plan meals or snacks, I just eat whatever on the spur of the moment. My addiction is too great to resist something tempting and to say NO. So I eat with my eyes and nose and not when my stomach tells me that I need food.

Tomorrow is weigh day, it comes around too quickly for my liking and my weekend binges always catch up with me on Wednesday’s weigh day. I have also developed this new habit of going off to the shops at about 3pm on a Friday to buy a chocolate and I don’t buy a small chocolate, but a 90 g slab. I need to STOP that bad habit. It has become something that I look forward to and can’t wait for Friday afternoon to eat my chocolate. I can’t even say it is a reward for being good during the week, because for one, food MUST not be a reward and secondly I have not kept within my limit during the week, so I am “rewarding” myself for bad behaviour

Here’s hoping today will be better!!!

Driving around all morning in high uncomfortable shoes, then walking and standing in them puts a huge strain on my feet and the aching feet do nothing for my mood on top of the rejections. I am not doing too well.

Turning to food for comfort is what I do best and have been struggling to eat less and eat healthy. I have been walking on the treadmill a lot faster and perhaps that is what has balanced out the eating this week to help me go down. Although I missed my walk on Wednesday and Friday, feet too sore and I really regret it, because those two days have gone forever. It is a constant mind struggle to get on the treadmill, but I always feel better after I have walked. Just those two days the idea to not walk was far more powerful, so I let myself down. I am hoping to walk twice today and tomorrow, not sure if I will as I am feeling very emotional and tearful today and just feel like cuddling up in bed all day and letting the world pass me by.

I am not in the mood for blogging either, I thought I was, but am overcome by this feeling of dread. As if the day is going to end in some sort of disaster or stress and emotional turmoil.

So I am going to snuggle up in bed again and see if I can fall asleep and maybe wake up feeling better

So do you think that made me determined to do better – nope!! I just decided what the heck, do I really want to do this. Yes a tiny part of me does, but my addiction is greater than me. After weighing I did have good intentions and that is where the Oats comes in.

I decided to have oats for breakfast. Kick off the weekend with a healthy bowl of oats. It is a low GI food which makes you feel fuller for longer and helps with low blood sugar dips during the day. So why do I feel hungry after eating a bowl of oats. Why do I feel like I have low blood sugar the whole day and crave for something all day long. Something that I can’t put a name or taste to and end up eating whatever I think I am craving for half the day and the other half just feel hungry, irritable and frustrated.

The shocker came when I added my oats onto Fatsecret and actually took note of the fact that it did not state whether you should be measuring it raw or cooked, which is a huge difference. I have always measured it as raw, this time cooked and the calories and carbs in it is sky-high. Eating a scone this morning was far less in both carbs and calories, so why eat something healthy, when it is full of carbs and calories, as opposed to eating something unhealthy, but tasty and fewer carbs. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy oats, but not everyday. It is one of my “stages” I go through and Saturday morning it was not a “stage” it was to climb back on the wagon. It was depressing when I saw I had nearly used up my limit for the day on just breakfast so I fell right back off.

I did not totally fall off, because I still walked on the treadmill and have increased my speed and incline, just not my time, but I am walking about 2.5 Km’s in 20 minutes, so for me that is good and better than walking slower in more time. The calories on the treadmill are now far higher than on Fatsecret, but I am loading the highest on Fatsecret for 20 minutes brisk walk and the difference is just ignored, because I don’t know which is correct – Fat Secret or the treadmill.

The whole oats thing is still bugging me. As I have mentioned before Hawkins is a purely protein diet, but there is a basic eating plan for people with high cholesterol and oats is recommended for breakfast, yet it is full of carbs. Is it then ok to eat healthy carbs, I don’t know. There is so little that you can eat that contains only protein, I mean even lettuce and tomato contains carbs according to the nutritional breakdown on Fatsecret, so whatever you chose to eat either has fat or carbs in it, so do we live on fish to rebuild fat cells and lose weight? I don’t know – maybe someone can answer that. When I did the Hawkins course – none of these questions came up, but I think I need to get the training manual out and go through all the allowed foods and start my journey again.

Questions; questions, questions that is all I have for today!!!

My iron levels have been extremely low again, so I bought my supplements and have been taking them with Calci-Vita to make sure that my body is absorbing the iron. With the Calci-Vita came a huge appetite and cravings for food, so I have decided to just eat whatever I feel like and start again on Monday. So yep, I have fallen off the wagon AGAIN!!!.

I don’t feel totally hopeless, because I have stuck to my promise of walking everyday and have increased both the incline level and the speed on the treadmill. The incline level I only increased yesterday to No 2 and my speed has been between 6 and 7. I have not increased the time yet and I am hoping to do that on Monday, that is if I walk today and over the weekend. That is the plan so I hope I stick to yet.

I am not expecting a weight loss tomorrow and am actually expecting a weight gain as I have gone over my limit of 1000 calories a day. A couple of days I stayed under 1600, the limit calculated on Fatsecret, my average being 1367 at the moment, will definitely go up today.

I had a chicken and mushroom pie for lunch, which is a huge NO-NO, but I felt like one and was hungry so I thought I would.

I think I need to do a detox. This morning I woke up and my face was so swollen and puffy, I looked terrible. I am not sure if it is because of sinus or from something I ate or perhaps, because I have not been sleeping well and am very tired.

I have been through a very stressful week. After threats and fights and calls, I finally got my money back from the guy who tried to scam me and would never have received it if it was not for the intervention of a very kind old man who this guy worked for over a year ago and was fired for theft, but this old man was to kind to lay criminal charges, but has a load of info on the guy and threatened him and something he may have said or my threat to lay a criminal charge against him or just to prove to me that he was not a con man and the other man was the liar, I don’t know, but I got my money back. It is a relief, but I am still feeling stressed over it and it is taking a toll on my body.

That is also the reason why I thought I would just turn to food like I usually do and get through this. I need to find a new healthy way to comfort myself in times of stress. It will take a long time to get out of this pattern of abuse on my body, but I have to try and try and try.

It is an awful feeling of despair as your body and mind just slumps and drops at an alarming rate and all you want to do is stuff your face with food and lettuce leaves and tomatoes do not have the desired effect. In fact neither does a piece of protein. It is only carbs that have the desired effect. The satisfaction of a fix for an addict. It does not last long though so you must have some more and then the guilt starts so you feel bad and then find something even more fattening and today was my chicken pie. Right now I feel like sinking my teeth into a lovely bar of chocolate and can see myself going off to the shops shortly to satisfy my craving.

Yesterday, I almost bought a lovely rich chocolate cream cake. It looked so good, I could taste it, but never did and was proud that I did not cave in. I need to stop blogging about forbidden food and start blogging about healthy food and maybe I will start craving healthy food. I eat so little fruit and veg. In fact I hardly ever eat fruit. I only enjoy bananas, the rest I eat when forced to. A couple of months ago I started making smoothies to get my fruit intake for the day, but added ice cream and yoghurt. The problem is fruit is very high in sugar and defeats the object of losing weight. I should start again and have it in place of the unhealthy carbs I eat as well has the refined sugar in my coffee – my other bad vice.

Thats all for now, I am going to spend the time fighting the urge to go and buy a yummy chocolate.

Have a great weekend – be it fat-free or not………..

I am really struggling to cut out forbidden foods and ended up eating a chocolate again yesterday. Admittedly, I am under loads of stress, having just been taken for R10,000.00 by a con artist who I had planned to go into business with. All I want to do is curl up in a bundle and eat and eat and eat and wallow in the misery of being conned, lost money and all the other things in my life. R10, 000.00 might not sound like a lot, but it is for me and all the personal money I had. Plus M and I have lost a hell of a lot financially over the past three years over and above our tragic loss that nothing can ever change, but just having been duped again, says a lot for my emotional state, so food just seems like the answer.

I am trying to rise above the temptation of surrendering to food and more fat and weight gain and I really need to take myself in hand and do something about it. I need to exercise. Yesterday, I walked again on the treadmill and stomped out my anger by walking very fast and managed to get the calories calculated on the treadmill to 110, so it was more than what is calculated on fatsecret for a moderate walk of 3mph. If only I can always use exercise or walking to take my anger out on instead of food.

The problem is that I need to also do other exercise. I am trying to lose weight at a steady rate and reading the forums on Fatsecret, I am quite a pathetic joke, because others are doing hours of hard exercise. Perhaps that is the kind of motivation and competition I need.

I have been mulling over the idea of using my Hawkins Slim Pro Machine for a while now. It definitely does make a difference and did when I had the slimming clinic, but to see drastic results you need to go on a complete protein diet and one day of the week, usually a Monday, only drink clear fluids and take a laxative, which I don’t agree with as I don’t like taking laxatives, especially on a regular basis. You also need to take extra calcium. The clear fluid day, is to help your body get rid of toxins and to give your liver a rest.

The Hawkins Machine is the lazy way of exercising, but it is also very difficult to get yourself all padded up on your own and then control the machine. It probably takes as long to get hooked up as what it does to lie and “exercise”. You can set the machine for 15; 30; 45 or 60 minutes but 60 minutes four times a week is the best. The problem is lying doing nothing for 60 minutes – it ends up feeling more like 60 hours.

Excuses; excuses, excuses!!! I am very good at looking at the negatives but bad at looking at the positives – the story of my life.

What I do know is that today I will be walking again, unless something totally unexpected and or urgent pops up, but I do plan to stomp away, walking out my aggression and building up a sweat and ridding my body, mind and spirit of the ugliness and anger I am feeling. Added to that I will be stomping out the anger at myself for eating too much and not losing weight this past half week. I definately have to stay within one thousand calories, because going over is not going to allow me to burn fat and lose weight. I have gone over everyday now and must now behave.

Lets hope I stick to my plans…….

So there are a variety of reasons why people order a double cheese burger fries and then a diet soda. At my obese weight, I still insist on drinking Tab, because I like it. I think that is the main reason why people do and possibly because they are diabetic and can eat the fattening food but not the sugary drink.

I once worked with a very short and extremely obese woman. I was thin and had been for as long as I knew her. She was a work friend. Someone you chat too, gossip with and sometimes confide personal stuff to, so I found the following coming from her very strange. Not only because she was extremely overweight and being so short made her weight even worse.

I went through a stage of eating a Barone chocolate everyday, for months. I would go to the vending machine, which was in the smoking lounge and I would buy a Barone, a Tab and sometimes a packet of chips. One day whilst we were having our chat and smoke with quite a few others, she piped up and said “I can’t understand why people eat a chocolate and then drink tab. Do they think that the tab will cancel out the chocolate?” My reply to her was “Well considering that I do that, so you must be referring to me, the reason why I eat chocolates and drink Tab, is because I like the taste of Tab and don’t like coke or else I would be buying Coke instead of Tab” She was all flustered and did not know what to say. She was addicted to Coke and did not drink one can a day, but several. I never thought of it at the time, but years later I realised that she was probably jealous, because I could eat chocolate everyday and not put on weight, so she was just being nasty and trying to make me look like an idiot in front of everyone else, because most people knew that I bought a Barone and Tab everyday. If she was just curious, she would have just come straight out and asked me. I would have even if I was not very friendly with the person. Thats’ friends for you!! Well at least she now knows the answer to that stupid question. The fact that I did not put on weight by eating chocolate every day, was because I did not bring Tupperware’s full of food for lunch like she did or go to Mac Donalds for a Bic Mac. The chocolate and sometimes chips was all I would eat whilst at work and chocolate has far fewer calories as a plate of stodgy food or a big Mac, but yes just as unhealthy.

Right now I would do anything to go back to the days of just being able to eat a Bar of chocolate for the day and not get hungry or have any food cravings.

I managed to stick to my guns and walked on the treadmill yesterday for 20 minutes and at quite a reasonable speed to. From 5.5 which is pleasant to 6.5 which felt like I should be running so I averaged 6.0. I did it without too many cramps and chest pains and the twenty minutes went by quite quickly. I only struggled the last 5 minutes, working up a sweat and getting bored more than tired. Perhaps I need to walk faster and for longer to really build up a sweat, but my leg muscles were pulling so I thought it was good enough.

Admittedly, I had the setting on Zero, which is flat, but doing any inclines will be for a later stage, lets see if I can stick to 20 minutes every day, before tempting anything harder.

Hopefully next time I blog, it won’t be with my tail between my legs, feeling all sheepish because I gave up walking before I started. Although it is a bit of a let down, because I only burned 97.7 calories according to the treadmill and I could have burned more by sitting at my desk for two hours, but hopefully I did start doing something about building muscle mass.

I have started my day badly by having two fried eggs and a slice of white toast for breakfast so have gone over my breakfast calorie limit of 300, because of my sweetened coffee as well. I need to cut out my high caffeine in take as well, but cutting out too much is just that – too much. I did have two litres of water yesterday. Buying four 500ml bottles a day is so much easier to keep track of how much water I drink. One bottle in the morning, one at lunch time, one early evening and one at night. Easy peasy. At least now I am not gulping down a glass or leaving half in the glass and later having another. Now one gets finished before I take another out the fridge.

So from a water-logged blogger I will now say Ciao……