Update on pretty much everything but the kitchen sink

I'm sorry, blogland, for being so absent recently.

Between work, freelance work, half marathon training, cooking, sporadic social activites, and sleeping, I've not had much time to sit at a computer and write.

But I'm going to take the opportunity now to empty some stuff out of my head, in no particular order!

I hope you're ready for a pretty long and probably boring post, but if I don't update on all this stuff now, I'll probably never get round to it and then I'll forget that you don't know everything I know and the world may well implode. Fact.
 
Things I need to catch you up on:
* Half Marathon Training... 
* The Vegan Conundrum... 
* Absence of Calorie Counting... 

* 1st July Weigh In Results...

* Other Random News...

*Half Marathon Training...

 

I don't want to jinx myself by saying this, but so far, it seems to be going pretty well! Last night saw me run a pretty respectable 9.8 miles in 1:44:00 (well, 1:49:00 if you include the super long pee break!) and I ran the whole time. Yep, no walking! Still can't believe it, I've been so reliant on 'just one minute to rest' for so long that I don't know what took over last night, I just kept plodding on!

Okay, so I'm not going to break any land speed records (unless they currently belong to a snail) but that's a comfortable pace of 10:37 min/miles and if I could sustain it for the remainder of the half, I'd have a totally respectable time of 2:21:41 (thankyou to fetcheveryone.com for the maths and predictions!) which is well inside my goal time of 2:30:00, so I'm currently a very happy bunny and *touch wood* I might just be able to complete this without dying, making an utter fool of myself, or other life threatening conditions like being the last over the line!

The plan from here onwards is to do a 3 or 4 miler twice a week, interval style, to work on speed a little, and a long run once a week, dropping the distance back every third week as I don't want to burn myself out, but building up to a distance of 12.2 miles two weeks before the race. I figure if I can get to that, I can do one more mile on the day, with the atmosphere to drag me round (and the promise of cake with forum friends at the finish line!)

There's only about 7 weeks to go now, so the nerves are kicking in. But so long as I keep remembering that this is my first race, whatever time I do is a personal best, and I'm really only doing it as an excuse to meet up with forum friends that I'd probably never get chance to see in real life otherwise, then it's all going to be fine!

* The Vegan Conundrum... 

After my posts the other week about feeling more, how shall I say, squemish about dairy being included in my diet, I did have a heart to heart via email with a vegan friend (I posted them on here too for reference). I  also had a pretty good conversation about it all last weekend with a vegan friend who came to stay, and it's all given me a lot of food for thought.

Have I told you about that, blogland? This couple, I haven't seen in 7, yes SEVEN years, and having them in our home, going out for dinner, relaxing in the garden with a couple of drinks, felt the most natural thing in the world to be doing. Just like we do it every week. That's true friendship, the sort that just picks up exactly where it left off all that time ago, despite being out of contact for most of it. So glad to have them back in my life, and we're intending to go see them in Edinburgh for our 1st anniversary in October. So excited!

Anyway, I digress. The point I'm meant to be making here is that having her to visit, having my birthday barbecue, and normal life, I've been making a point of having dairy alternatives in the house, and using them wherever I can. And it's felt absolutely normal to be doing so.

I've not been stressing majorly about it, if I eat out, and there's not a vegan option, or if I eat at a friends, and there's dairy involved, then I'm going with the flow, but I am feeling much calmer in myself at the minute that I'm making dietary choices for myself, when I'm cooking for myself, that are vegan, nutritionally balanced, and really not much different to how I was eating before. The husband pointed out to me as well that since I've always been a cheese hater I've prepared vegan meals most evenings anyway since I went veggie! So it has been a fairly natural transition.

I wouldn't sit here and label myself as vegan, anyway. Nor would I sit here and say I'm going to be vegan in the future. But I will sit here and say I'm happy to be a vegetarian with vegan tendencies, and I don't feel like I'm missing out on life because of it. Who really knows what will happen from here? I'm quite happy not eating eggs, I'm quite happy eating soya yoghurt, I'm quite happy experimenting with different types of non dairy milk, and we'll just see where natural transition takes me next.

My weight loss, my exercise intensity, my vegetarian lifestyle, have all been things that have altered fairly organically with little control enforced upon them from me, so I'm going to trust my body to work out what to do next. We shall see.

* Absence of Calorie Counting...

I'm struggling what to tell you about this one. I'm still not counting calories, and for the main part, it feels good.

It's been 1 month and 2 days since I made the decision to take number crunching out of my life, and I do feel better for it.

I don't obsess about how many cals I do or don't have left for the day, so I'm calmer.

I eat according to what my body is saying it needs rather than what I have left in the cal bank, so I feel I'm eating better, and I haven't gone majorly off the rails at all, which I was so sure I would do!

I'm sure some days I'm over cals, but I'm sure some days I'm under cals too. I'm sure the two must be balancing each other out though, so it's all good! I think I've been making better food choices, and I've still been weighing portions of things I know I have little control over, so binges have been much less of an occurrence than they were previously, a great thing considering my, shall we say, chequered history with food!

So I'm going to keep it up.

I'm still keeping a food diary (I should do that on here really), and I'm still aiming for balance by limitung the number of  'nutrition free' foods I eat in a week, and that seems to keep me reined in enough not to balloon again, but free enough to enjoy food, to enjoy life, to enjoy being 'normal'!

* 1st July Weigh In Results...

Well, it's debatable on whether this will be a success or not, but June was a strange month.

Llots of social (food-related) things happening, my birthday weekend, the first month without counting cals, the first month without any gym access for weightlifting, and the first month of experimenting with life without dairy, it was a lot of variables that could have a lot of impact on my body.

Anything but a massive weight gain could be viewed as a success.


So here goes nothing...

Green = Loss (positive result)

Orange = STS (no change)  

Red = Gain (negative result)

Weight: (06/01: 144.5lbs)

 01/06: 138.5lbs, 01/07: 138.75lbs 

(+0.25lbs this month, -5.75lbs this year)

BMI: (06/01: 22.0)

01/06: 21.3, 01/07: 21.3

(STS this month, -0.7pts this year)

Bust: (06/01: 35.5in)

01/06: 34in, 01/07: 34in  

(STS this month, -1.5in this year)

Underbust: (06/01: 30in)

01/06: 29in, 01/07: 29in  

(STS this month, -1in this year)

UpperWaist: (06/01: 28in)

01/06: 26.5in, 01/07: 26.5in  

(STS this month, -1.5in this year)

LowerWaist:(06/01: 33in)

01/06: 31.5in, 01/07: 31.5in  

(STS this month, -1.5in this year)

(upper = narrowest point, lower = belly button)

Hips: (06/01: 37.5in)

01/06: 36in, 01/07: 36in  

(STS this month, -1.5in this year)

Thighs: (06/01: 22.5in) 

01/05: 22in, 01/06: 22in  

(STS this month, -0.5in this year) 

Bicep: (06/01: 11in)

01/05: 11in, 01/06: 11in  

(STS this month, STS this year)

Forearm: (06/01: 9.5in) 

01/05: 9.5in, 01/06: 9.5in  

(STS this month, STS this year) 

Lean Body Mass: (06/01: 106.28lbs) 

01/06: 102.49lbs, 01/07: 102.68lbs 

 (+0.19lbs this month, -3.6lbs this year)

Body Fat Mass: (06/01: 38.22lbs) 

01/06: 36.01lbs, 01/07: 36.07lbs   

(+0.06lbs this month, -2.15lbs this year)

Body Fat Percentage:(06/01: 26.45%) 

01/00: 26.00%, 01/07: 26.00%  

(STS this month, -0.45% this year)

Yep, I gained a teeny weeny quarter of a pound. Big whoop. But look at it again... MOST OF IT WAS LEAN MUSCLE GAIN! 

Thats only the seocnd month this year that I've actually gained muscle, and I'm not even lifting anymore! It must be down to the running training, musn't it! And yes, a small amount of it was fat, but my overall bodyfat percentage didn't change, so that's fine.... My measurements are all the same still too, so I don't seem to have anything to worry about! Hurrah!!!

Now everyone cross everything that next months weigh in does the same, and I'll be very happy indeed!

* Other Random News... 

I have a wedding to go to at the end of August. Oh yes. Very excited! Have found a gorgeous dress from Phase Eight, bargain at £44.50, size 8(!), but proving to be a nightmare for accessories as it's light pink and slate grey. Thinking I may just try and pass the grey off as black and go with black hat/bag/shoes etc. Will show you when I have the full lot together!

I'm considering taking up yoga, I'm just after some recommendations on dvds as the classes at the gym are permanently full and we can't afford to keep our membership up after 1st September anyway. So if you practise at home, please let me know what you use!

I'm going on holiday tomorrow, a week in Devon, and I'm really looking forward to it. However, I have NOT packed, and I have NOT made the compulsary holiday mix tape for our mini competition on the drive down. Me thinks I may have lost that game already!
We're staying on a converted working barge, it's enormous from the sound of it, it even has a pool inside the boat! Will post pics when we get back, but for now, have one from their website. There's also a putting green on the roof, and strawberries to help ourselves too, so cute!

So yeah, that's me signing off for the week I suppose.

I promise I'll make more effort to keep the old bloggeroo up to date  when I get back, it's such a good way of sieving through my day, keeping tabs on my food and health, and making sense of my life, I should really make more effort with it.

See y'all soon lovely people! x x