The Flitch Way

I went a little bit fitness mad today!  I did a 4.8 mile walk with the kids, followed by a 2.7 mile run when I got home!  More on the run later, but first - the walk!  I took the day off work to entertain the kids, so we drove about 40 minutes north to a town called Takeley to walk part of a path called "The Flitch Way".  This path has fascinated me from the moment I stumbled across it in one of my daughter's homework books.  Basically, it is named after something called "The Flitch Trials", an ancient tradition taking place in a nearby village every leap year where married couples - who can prove that they've been happily married for a year and a day - compete to win the trial and a "flitch" (or a side of bacon)!  I so loved the thought of this kind of tradition, that I've desperately been wanting to visit the path ever since!

The path itself is a disused railway line and goes from Takeley 15 miles east ending in Braintree.  As much as I would have loved to have attempted the full 15 miles, there's the small matter of getting back to your car, etc, - not to mention the fact that walking 15 miles in one day is a pretty big ask, even for a mega-fit person!  It actually took some patience to find the start of the path anyway because the "station" in Takeley is tucked behind houses, not sign posted from the road, so I had to do a wee bit of digging and take quite a few wrong turns before we eventually found it!  When we arrived, we noticed that the old train station is now council offices and there was a meeting taking place as we walked past the front door!  A very nice man came out and said we looked a bit lost, could he help us.  I told him we were looking for the Flitch Way and he directed us to an opening in the fence behind the station where you can access the trail.  He asked which direction we were heading, I told him we were going east towards Great Dunmow, but he recommended heading west which would bring us to Hatfield Forest - he said it was a much more interesting walk, so we decided to take his advice!

The start of our walk, Takeley old station is on the right

Me and Verity at one of the "stations"

This was sweet - a swing on a rope at the end of someone's garden

The fabulous thing about the trail is that it's very well maintained, mostly flat and very quiet.  A beautiful canopy of trees covers most of the path, so when it started raining about 30 minutes into our walk, it provided much needed cover!  We walked for about two miles before dropping down into the forest briefly.  There was no distinguishable path in the forest and I was worried about finding our way back to the main path, so I decided we should just re-trace our steps.

When we got back to the car, I decided to drive a few minutes to a pretty little village called Hatfield Broad Oak that we had driven through on the way.  It was a typical old English village with a beautiful stone church and crooked old buildings.  We wanted to find a tea shop to have a nice cup of tea (or coffee for me!) and a slice of cake, but apparently the only thing people in Hatfield Broad Oak like to drink is alcohol because there were two pubs and not a single tea shop!

Crooked old archway in Hatfield Broad Oak

Crooked old house

Frustrated, we started walking back to the car and Josh said "this village stinks", just very matter of fact!  It was SO funny!  An ice cream from the only shop in the village made up for it, though!  All in all it was a good day - I'm glad I finally got to see the Flitch Way and hopefully one day we will go back and do much more of it.

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So, the reason I went a little bit mental today with my exercise is because I'm in a hurry to bring my running up to speed for Saturday.  A bit slow on the uptake, I noticed that Adam at The Boring Runner is hosting a virtual 5k race on Saturday called Sweat your Thorns Off 5k! Basically, anyone can join in and you just run 5k where ever you want!  He's got some wicked prizes up for grabs too!  I thought I would join in because I'm running a 5k race at the end of August and if I run the whole 5k on Saturday, it will be a good benchmark for me.

I repeated session 2 of my 5k training today so walked 5 minutes, ran 3, walked 3 and then proceeded to run the whole way home.  Walkmeter stopped counting after 25 minutes - but I reckon it was more like 27-28 minutes in total.  The run was fine - it was a bit hard going, but I figured that was due to my long walk earlier in the day, and the heat (it was HOT today!).  Now the only thing standing in my way is finding a 3.1 mile route!  I added a bit extra to my usual loop, but it only seemed to add about 0.20 of a mile - making the total about 2.7 miles.  My Walkmeter has a programme where you can set distance - so basically you tell it you want to run 3.1 miles and it will tell you when to stop.  I think I'll just have to do this on Saturday and hope I can find a bit more distance somewhere!

Well, that was my very busy, very active day!  Wish me luck for the race on Saturday!

The Accidental Runner

You've heard of that film "The Accidental Tourist", well, last night I was sort of an accidental runner.  I fully planned to run my first session of Week 7 (these weeks have gone by mega-fast!).  Walkmeter called for a 5 minute warm up walk, 6 minutes running, 3 minutes walk, 16 minutes running with a five minute cool-down walk.  This didn't stress me out in the slightest - I had just run 18 solid minutes for the first time on Friday, so I was pumped and ready to go!  But when I started out, I must have accidentally skipped forward on the plan because when I got home I realised I had actually done session TWO of Week 7, which comprised of: Warm up walk 5 minutes, run 3 minutes, walk 3 minutes, run 20 minutes!

I suppose it was a good way to get in a 20 minute run - completely by surprise!  It was a good surprise though and glad that I did it without realising :-).

And this morning, I had an even better surprise on the scales.  I've dropped one pound since last week!  Clearly, my low-low calorie intake was taking its toll and now that I've upped my calories to 1623 per day (there, or thereabouts), it seems the weight is slowly coming off again.

Yesterday was also a good day because my son played his first tennis tournament in over a year and came second in his group!  First he had to play a boy two years older and about two feet taller too!  But, he beat him in straight sets!  The second match he lost, as the first match was played indoors and for the second match he was switched to an outdoor court.  I'm not sure if he would have beaten the boy he played, because he was super good, but he probably would have given him a tougher match if he'd been warmed up outdoors.  His third match again he won in straight sets.  I was really proud of him and pleased that he played so well.

This pic is just crazy!  He's actually serving!

I'm off work again on Wednesday and am trying to find something for the kids and I to do.  I've been toying with the idea of walking a trail (it's actually a disused railway line) in the north of the county.  Today I found a map that incorporates part of that trail in a circular 9 mile walk.  It's pretty much a flat trail, and the weather forecast for Wednesday is good - so I'm thinking we might go for it!  Watch this space for pics and sore feet!

Hope you all have a good week and are enjoying watching the Olympics!

A very British weekend...

The Olympics have officially begun!  I stayed up til midnight last night watching the impressive opening ceremonies (well done, Danny Boyle!) and I must say I was really proud to be British!  (I took dual nationality in 2002).  It's been a long time in the making, but I think the Olympics will be fantastic!  Shame we didn't think to apply for tickets!

Yesterday I took a day off work.  My husband has been off for the past two weeks and has been taking the kids on various day trips, etc.  I thought it would be fun to have a day off with the family and we could go to Cambridge.  Unfortunately both my husband and my son have been coming down with cold and sore throats and when we woke up on Friday morning, it was apparent that Cambridge was off the cards.  Not wanting to waste the day, I decided to take my daughter for tea and cake at a sweet little antique shop about 10 minutes from where we live.

I hadn't been to Blackmore in about 14 years.  When we got there I wondered why on earth I haven't been more often.  It's such a picturesque little village.  When we arrived, I noticed a sign that said the church was open, so I thought we would have a look.

I love looking around old churches - it amazes me that they've stood for hundreds of years and are in continued use today.  This particular church is over 600 years old!  This is why I love England.  Buildings 600+ years old ten minutes from my house!  That's awesome.  The tower was open, so we went in and had a look.

The beams were amazing!  It was quite dark, and my iPhone doesn't have a flash, but I think you get the idea from the photo above.

After we had a look round the church, we walked down the lane and headed for Megarry's Tea Shop.

I took my mother here when she visited some 14 years ago and remembered it fondly.  It's like an old curiosity shop.  At the front there are a beautiful collection of antiques for sale and at the back a lovely tea shop selling freshly baked cakes - bliss!  I knew Verity would love this - a proper afternoon tea!

Divine carrot cake

One happy kid :-)

I decided to have a slice of carrot cake.  I know I would be going out for a run later, so decided to reward myself early!  It was delicious, moist, everything carrot cake should be.

My training session last night was the last session of Week 6 and comprised of a warm up walk for 5 minutes, run for 3 minutes, walk for 3 minutes, run for 18 minutes and cool down walk 5 minutes.  This would be my first attempt at running for such a length of time and I was quite nervous as I set out.  I did the 3 minute run with no trouble.  Almost immediately my left hip started hurting - this has been my latest ache and pain.  I can't figure out if it's from running or if it's from the kettlebell workout, but thankfully it eases after a couple minutes of running and doesn't cause me too many problems.

When I started the 18 minute interval I didn't feel great, so I slowed my pace way down and kept at quite a slow pace throughout.  18 minutes is a loooooonng time, but I did it!  I was seriously sweaty when I got home!

Why the long face?  Seriously, how long does my face look in this pic?!

Today there was a village fair at Navestock - again about ten minutes from the house, so I decided to take both kids.  It was quite a bit bigger than I expected, complete with bouncy castles, magic teacups and they even had a little dog show called "Scruffs"!  The kids enjoyed themselves and were happy to have ice cream, plus to look around all the different animal displays.  There was a man who had the funniest looking chickens I've ever seen - shame I didn't think to take photos of them!

So, once again, I'm taking part in Melinda's Blog Hop.  This week there's an Olympic theme - and how fitting :-)

This week's question is:

What is your favourite event to watch in the Summer Olympics?

This is not an easy question!  I really like to watch most of it - I won't say all because I seriously lose interest when it comes to volleyball, table tennis, and that weird indoor cycling (yeah, lets ride a bike in a circle - hell I'd fall asleep doing it, let alone watching it!).  I suppose I most enjoy watching the racing - both men's and women's.  I like the hurdling - it staggers me that people are able to do this!  I can barely lift my foot up above knee height without fear of tripping over something, so kudos to hurdlers!  The swimming and rowing are both quite exciting to watch and I also enjoy some of the gymnastic activities.  As I type, the badminton mixed doubles is on and again, I'm just staggered at the speed!

So - now it's over to all of you!  What do you enjoy watching most in the Olympics?  You can join the blog hop by entering your details via the link below and then answering the question in a post on your blog.

Liebster Award

Exciting News!  Abby over at Back at Square Zero has chosen me to receive a Liebster Award!  I'm really thrilled about this for a few reasons.  Firstly, it's a way of sharing some not so commonly asked facts about myself with all of you, and secondly, it means that (hopefully) I get to learn a lot more about all of you too!  So, here it goes...

So what is the Liebster Award:

The Liebster award is given to upcoming bloggers who have less than 200 followers.  The meaning: Liebster is German and means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing and welcome.

Rules for receiving this award:

1. Each person must post 11 things about themselves.

2. Then answer the questions the tagger sent for them, plus create 11 questions for the people they've tagged to answer.

3. Choose 11 people and link them in your post.

4. Notify the people you have tagged.

5. No tag backs.

11 Things About Me:

1.  I’m originally from Indiana, but moved to England at the age of 18 with my university (Ball State University).

I still have no idea what's in the box!

2.  My husband and I used to be penpals.  He’s British and when I moved to England to study, I turned up on his doorstep!  This in itself is a bit of a miracle because he hadn’t written to me in a while and so all I had was an old Christmas card with most of his address – [  ]8 Marlborough Road… I knew that I was missing the first number, so I proceeded to walk down Marlborough Road and knock on all the doors that ended in 8!  He lived in the last house!

3.  My husband and I are passionate about amateur dramatics – we have our own club, Mustard Seed Players.

4.  I love Twilight – the books and the films.  I’m not proud of this, it’s taken me quite a while to own up to it, but now that it’s out in the open I feel so much better!  In case you’re wondering, I’m Team Edward without doubt! 

You are the glow...

5.  I love curry.  I love to cook it, I love to eat it.  I actually think I should have been born in India I love it so much!  Oddly, I never actually tried it until about 8 years ago when I worked in London.  A colleague of mine was Indian and took me to the most amazing restaurant called Bombay Palace (I later discovered that literally every other Indian restaurant in London is called Bombay Palace!) – but this one was fab.  It was the start of a lifelong love affair with spice!

6.  I am an only child.  Growing up my parents decided that they would like to host a foreign exchange student, so when I was 14 years old my ‘sister’ Nina from Germany arrived!  She was 18 and we fought like cat and dog for the year she lived with us!  But, 22 years later (yes, I am 36 now), we are still in contact and either she comes to visit me, or we go to visit her in Germany at least once a year.  She became and always will be my sister :-).

Me, Nina, and Will & Kate (and a plate of chips!) at the Royal Wedding

7.  My favourite place on earth is the English Lake District.  It’s in the north of England, about a 6 hour drive from where I live.  We go there at least once a year and climb the mountains there.  The mountains, or “fells” as they are called in the Lake District, are quite small by most standards (ranging from 1000-3300 feet), but they’re still quite a challenge to climb.  And the views from the top are utterly amazing.  I can’t think of a more rewarding experience than climbing a mountain.  There is sheer beauty and utter silence.  It’s an unforgettable experience!

Buttermere Lake - doesn't get much more perfect than this

8.  I love to sew.  My mother passed this passion onto me.  I’ve made various things to sell from time to time, mostly for church fairs, but I have sold some pretty amazing cushions in London!  I went through a period of making wedding dresses to earn a bit of extra money, but the stress that this put on me was SO not worth the reward!  I still make myself and my daughter dresses in the summer and handbags from time to time.  I love vintage fabrics.

One of my own handbags

9.  My favourite colour is green.  I think this stems from my love of nature and being outside.  I grew up in rural Indiana and played among the dogwoods.  I had loads of toys, but nothing captured my attention more than just running outside and playing in the mud!  One of my favourite things is to walk barefoot through the grass – I love the cool feeling of the soft grass between my toes on a hot summer’s day!

10.  I am completely and utterly terrified of flying.  I appreciate this sounds totally absurd coming from someone who clearly had to get on an airplane to get to where she is today – but at the time I came to England I didn’t have the fear.  It only came later and it wasn’t really anything in particular that triggered it, I just suddenly decided that I liked to have both feet firmly planted on the ground!  I never let it stop me going somewhere I really want to go, or need to go, but I am a nervous wreck the entire time!

11.  I have two tattoos.  One is an ankh on my ankle which I got when I was 17 and went to Australia for the summer.  The other is horrendous and I wish it would go away!  It’s a very ridiculous Egyptian eye shade around my belly button (seriously, what was I thinkin?!), which has been stretched and distorted over the years through weight gain, weight loss, stretch marks, pregnancies, blah!  I can’t tell you how many times I heard a midwife say “that’s…interesting” when I went for antenatal checks or scans during my pregnancies!  I’m not anti-tattoo – I still love the one on my ankle – but I wish that someone would have made me think about the implications of getting a tattoo on your tum before you have babies!  Maybe eventually when I lose all the weight I’ll be able to have a tummy tuck and they’ll just cut it off!  Here’s hoping :-)

Abby's Questions for me:


1.    Why did you start blogging?


I actually started blogging after I came across a very inspirational blog called Runs for Cookies.  Katie was such an inspiration to me both in terms of her weight loss and her journey to become a runner.  I really loved how her blog chronicled that journey.  I thought a blog would be an excellent way to keep a record of my weight loss and fitness journey, but also a way of connecting with other people who are going through the same things.


2.    What has been your favorite part of the experience so far?


My favourite part of the experience so far has definitely been connecting with so many amazing people!  It has been so encouraging to read about other people’s experiences, trials and victories!


3.    If you could gain one thing from blogging what would you hope it brings to you?


Well, the main reason I blog is to help me mentally through the weight loss journey, so if I could gain one thing from it I would hope it would be an understanding of how to maintain my weight loss for good.  I have previously lost 100 pounds, but gained most of it back because I didn't incorporate permanent changes to my lifestyle.  I am hoping that by blogging it will keep me on the straight and narrow!


4. What are you most looking forward to right now?


Without doubt, my holiday in the Lake District in August!  I am already planning which mountains we're climbing and studying maps!


5. What do you do when you are stressed?


In times gone by I would have binged.  I would have gone out, bought a huge bag of Mars Planets chocolates and many Dr Peppers, along with pretzels, popcorn, etc and eaten the lot - probably in one sitting.  Now I either go to Pinterest (somehow looking at pictures of stuff I can never afford relaxes me!) or I go out for a walk/run.  In addition to this, I will generally talk it out with a friend.  Nothing compares to good friends when you need to relieve some stress!


6. What is one food you could not live without?


As mentioned already above - CURRY!  I love ALL Curry, chicken curry, prawn/fish curry, beef and lamb curry - from Kormas right up to super, knock your socks off spicy Vindaloos!  And most of all - the Peshwari naan.  God bless the little Indian man (or woman) who thought to put coconut in naan bread!


7. If you could only watch one TV show a week what would it be?


Hmmm... I'm not a big TV watcher.  What my husband and I tend to do is to buy whole series on DVD's and then watch them in bulk.  This is mainly because all the good American TV shows take ages to get over here, whereas they're available much earlier on DVD.  If I could choose only one, however, it would have to be The Office.


8. Where is your dream vacation?


I would love to go to New Zealand.  I went to Australia when I was 17 and loved it, but having seen so much of the New Zealand landscape (confession: via Lord of the Rings!), I would love to go and spend a good month down there just exploring!


9. What is one goal you are currently working towards?


One goal I'm working towards is actually becoming an Interior Designer.  I'm doing a course at the moment through KLC and will have a qualification at the end of it.  It's quite tricky fitting in the time to study with kids and everything else that goes on in my crazy life - but I'll get there eventually!  I love design, fabric, colour and everything associated with it, so think this an ideal career for me!


10. Do you have any children or fur babies?


Yes!  I have two children.  Josh is 12 and Verity is 10 years old.  They are both equally as crazy as I am and I love that about them!  Josh is without doubt more like me and Verity is more like her dad - both in terms of personality and looks.  Josh is very easy to panic (ahem.... yes!), he worries about things (again... yes!), but he's also very outgoing and determined (yes and double yes!).  Verity is incredibly artistic - a trait she gets from both her parents, but she's also very quick tempered (dad!).  The kids get along well together as a general rule and I'm pleased having grown up as an only child, that they have each other.


11. Favorite ice cream or fro-yo flavor?

Favourite ice-cream flavour is coconut!  I love good ol' plain chocolate too - but coconut is awesome!

And now my questions to all my lucky recipients:

1. What inspired your blog name?
2. What do you like most about blogging?
3. What was your dream job when you were a child?
4. Where is the furthest place you've ever travelled?
5. What is the strangest or most exotic food you've ever tried?  And did you like it?
6. What is your favourite film?
7. Who is your favourite TV show character?
8. Do you have a crazy, far-fetched ambition and what is it? (for example - mine is to be an Oscar winning screen writer, or to climb Mount Everest!)
9. If your friends could describe you with one word, what would it be?
10. If money were no object, where would you live and why?
11. What is your favourite book of all time?

And finally here are my chosen recipients for the Liebster Award!


Does this scale make me look fat?
Eating Away Ernie
Minus One hundred
Poonapalooza
Hello Fitness…We Meet Again
Can I borrow that?
Losing It
Burning lbs by Bridge
Goal of Losing
Spicing up my life
Skinny Sonja

Conquering the plateau

I'm not loving my scales at the moment.  I'm on a plateau.  From previous posts you'll all know that I'm not a plateau girl - I like the challenge of climbing a mountain, not standing around on the flat!  My weight actually went up by 0.7 pounds since last week and I'm struggling to understand how this could happen.  I mentioned in a previous post that I really struggle drinking enough water, so understand this could play a part in the weight not coming off.  I have now been making a conscious effort to drink more water each day and hope I can stick to it.

Another possible factor recently is my serious addiction to Pimm's and Lemonade.  This is my summer drink of choice and I would go so far as to say that I'm a Pimmsaholic.  It's about 85 calories for a glass - ish and lately I've been having one a day.  The biggest problem with this, aside from the alcohol content, is the sugar in the lemonade.

In England 'lemonade' is like Sprite or 7UP - it's a carbonated drink and is quite often used as a mixer.  Our summer had thus far been such a wash out with loads and loads of rain that I hadn't been craving Pimms until a couple of weeks ago when I had a party and bought two big bottles of the stuff.  Of course I used a smidgen at the party and am now left with the remainder in my house, calling my name every night!

So, here are two obvious factors for my weight not shifting.  The other possible problem could be that I'm not consuming enough calories.  I seriously struggle with this because my brain automatically flips out when I even think of eating more than 1500 calories a day "Are you crazy?  You'll gain weight!"  Even though my actual caloric needs for weight loss are 1623 per day!  Somehow I just can't get my head around eating more to weigh less!  Having said that, I struggled with a plateau in May and when I increased my calorie consumption, sure enough the weight started to drop again.

I suppose it's even more difficult because when I started losing weight back in January, I put myself on a very strict 1200 calorie per day limit.  So now, of course, anything higher than 1200, seems like I'm overeating!  In retrospect, I would definitely not recommend starting off with such a low calorie intake because moving forward from that - as I'm discovering - is exceedingly hard!

The final factor which may be playing a part in the scales not budging is my exercise.  Aside from my 5k training programme, which consists of 3 sessions per week, I've not truly been pushing myself as I should with exercise.  I've been for a few lunchtime walks and done a few sessions of 30 minute aerobic DVD's at home - but nothing that is pushing me to the limit.  Ultimately, if I want to see drastic results, I need to make drastic changes!

On Sunday night I decided to try another Jillian Michael's DVD called Shred it with Weights.  I bought this because I was intrigued by kettlebells and I wanted a workout that incorporated some weight training.  When I did the workout on Sunday, all I had was a dumbbell (which Jillian says is fine), however at the end I didn't feel as if I'd had a really good workout.  So, on Monday night I borrowed a friend's 5kg kettlebell and tried it again - flip what a difference!  By the end of the 30 minutes I was seriously sweating like a pig and felt as if I had really pushed myself, so I would definitely say that this workout definitely needs a proper kettlebell to be effective.

I suppose that workout has taught me that it's very easy to fall into a pattern.  If I want to prompt my body to change, I'm going to have to keep it guessing about what is coming next - so I think the key to this is to make sure I'm doing a variety of activities.  I need to mix-up my workouts.  A bit of kettlebells, a bit of running, maybe a bit of swimming if I can summon the courage to put on a swimsuit!  I need to increase and vary my calories to keep my metabolism guessing.  And I need to watch that I'm not consuming too many 'dead' calories in things like alcoholic drinks!

I found this on Pinterest, and need to keep reminding myself that it's true!  Let's hope that changing things up a bit will give a better weigh in next Monday :-)

Stop by Saturday on Sunday!

Happy Sunday Everyone!  I am sipping a cup of coffee with a full belly on a restful, sunny, Sunday afternoon and am thrilled that at long last, summer has come to England! To welcome the season fully, we decided to have a small barbeque at lunchtime today - reasonably healthy grilled chicken, sausages and salad - so I'm feeling quite virtuous for a Sunday (unusual, as this is always my most calorific day!).  I will be going out for a run later, so the trifle I had for dessert should be balanced out by that (I hope!).

Man cook food!

Delicious bbq chicken breasts and pork sausages :-P

One happy kid :-)

So, this is actually my entry for Stop by Saturday, on Sunday!  My fellow blogger, Melinda Ott over at Does this scale make me look fat, has designed this fab blog hop!  She asks a question on her blog and we all answer it on our own blogs.  It's a very clever way of getting to know some other blogs and some other bloggers :-).

This week's question is:

What is your exercise of choice?

Given the title of this blog and my love for walking, my exercise of choice would have to be just that.  If distance were no issue, my everyday exercise, without doubt, would be fell walking (that's climbing up small mountains).  Sadly, I live nowhere near the mountains, so have to settle for the hills of my local country park instead!

On a daily basis my exercise consists of my 5k training which is three or four times per week (I sometimes repeat a session), the occasional 3 mile walk during my lunch break at work, and less frequently (but should be more frequently!) a Jillian Michaels DVD in the evening.  I am not a member of a gym a) because I cannot stand the gym,  and b) because I can't justify the cost.  I love swimming though and would do much more of this if there were a pool closer and more convenient.  I'm a very slow swimmer, so if I do go, I generally go to our local church pool, but it's outdoors so depends largely on the weather.

So that's me - now it's over to you!  First join the linky, then answer the question in your blog post and be sure to include the code below in the body of your post.  Then enjoy reading everyone's posts - simple :-)

A new 'do', a 12 minute run and a pain in the neck!

Sorry it's been a while since my last post - my week has been hectic as usual and most of my 'spare' time has been spent with my nose in my book!  I mentioned in a post last week that I had bought "Where the Red Fern Grows" for my son to read, but ended up re-reading it myself.  Well, last night I finished it and was a complete blubbering mess.  If you've never read it, I won't spoil it for you, but suffice it to say you need a very large box of Kleenex nearby for the last 30 pages!

I had intended on completing week 5 of my 5k training with a session last night - but with my nose firmly in this book, but arse did not move from the sofa!  I also was slightly nervous about doing any exercise yesterday because I woke up with the most tremendous pain in my neck.  I found an old workout DVD from years ago which incorporates some weights and kickboxing and for Monday and Thursday evenings, this has been my main workout.  The workout incorporated a Tricep weight exercise (like in the image below), and unfortunately 3kgs of weight was apparently more than my neck can bear!

It is better today thankfully, and I will be completing my running program later this afternoon.   Wednesday was my midway point in the 5k training and comprised 5 minute warm up walk, 5 minute run, 5 minute walk, 12 minute run, and cool down walk for 5 minutes.  My longest continuous run by this stage had been 8 minutes, so understandably I was a wee bit nervous about adding another four minutes to this!

When I went out my iPhone was acting a little weird.  I bought this new iPhone armband so I can run without taking a jacket with pockets, and the clear plastic cover sometimes doesn't work entirely right with the touch screen of the iPhone.  I'm a very impatient person anyway and when you're trying to concentrate on running, the last thing you want to be doing is fiddling with an armband!  Anyway, I was trying to skip a song on my playlist during the middle of the 12 minute interval and for some reason the Walkmeter app stopped.  But, I didn't realise that it stopped!  So, I just kept on running, and running, and running...  A good few minutes later I thought 12 minutes seemed like a long old time and finally managed to get Walkmeter to come up on the screen.  It had a notification that it has stopped unexpectedly! So, I restarted it, but I do reckon this added at least a couple more minutes to my 12 minute interval.  I suppose this can only be a good thing, but it's so frustrating when technology fails!

Earlier this week I decided it was time for a change.  Summer has literally arrived TODAY in England - we have had more rain in the past few months than I care to remember.  I've been wearing my hair in a ponytail more and more lately and that's generally a sign that I need a change of hairstyle.  I decided to go for a bob.  This is my old standby.  It suits my face shape, it's easy to maintain and I just like it.  So here's me - maybe a few ounces lighter from all the hair I've just had cut off!

Speaking of ounces - my weight is starting to really make me angry!  It's partially my own fault because I've been weighing myself every day this week (I really shouldn't do that!) and I'm not seeing numbers go down, but instead go up!  At the start of this week I was 192.3, and this morning I was 192.9!  What the hell?!  I know it's not a big jump, but it's still frustrating!

I have seriously behaved myself this week, food-wise, haven't gone above 1600 calories and I've exercised every day, except for yesterday.  I suppose two areas that can be improved on is to skip the evening Pimm's (seriously amazing summer drink!) - this is only about 85-100 calories, but obviously has a lot of sugar which I could do without.  The other thing is water.  I really am not great with drinking as much water as I should.  I don't drink anything else apart from coffee, water and the occasional Pimm's - but I know I'm not getting as much water as I need.  That will need to be my challenge for the next week - drink 2 litres a day!  Watch this space!

My question then to all of you - what part of a healthy lifestyle do you really struggle with?