Done & dusted

Well, week 1, day 1 is not done and dusted. I successfully completed the first session of my Shape 10km Challenge. I have to say that jogging the 3min sections were easier than I though they would be. Tomorrow is going to be a rest day, but I don't want to do nothing so I'm going to do some yoga or pilates type exercising or something like that. Nothing too strenuous. I'm gonna be doing some weight work each day with 2kg dumbells. I started that about a week ago or so already. I started off with 3 x 5 reps of various lifts and I'm now doing 2 x 10 reps of the same lifts.

Things are definately getting better. I weighed myself today as well and i've lost about half a kilo. Its difficult to tell exact weight loss cause I still have one of those old fashioned scales. I told my hubby that I want to get a digital scale. The reason being, is that you feel less discouraged about the weight loss if you can see you lost even a little weight. With an old fashioned scale, its very difficult to get accurate results. I've been about 63kg's for ages now and couldn't seem to shift any weight and I don't even eat that much.

I think the problem was, that I was eating a lot of bread, mostly white bread, because thats what was available and convenient. I'd have two or three slices of toast for breakfast, then a sandwich or two for lunch and then my supper - not such a lot really, but it was really difficult to cut down on that without starving myself.

I'm now having oats or yougurt for breakfast, a healthy snack midmorning, usually provitas with a healthy topping for lunch (sometimes a low GI wholewheat sandwhich), a healthy mid afternoon snack and then my supper. I'm also drinking more water and having some black, unsweetened herbal teas during the day as well.

On the subject of herbal teas, I can tell you the following based on my exerperience (I prefer if possible to drink them without milk or sugar):

Green tea - pretty revolting, I'll never have it again. Even the Freshpak 'Shape' one with added hoodia was impossible to get down (I even tried adding honey, lemon & cinnamon to try make it more palatable).

Buchu tea - not as bad tasting (with added honey) as the green tea if you can get past the awful smell - I couldn't, so won't be drinking it again.

Freshpak 'Energy' (rooibos with added ginseng)- a very pleasant tea, with a lovely, slight strawberry flavour. My doc has warned me off ginseng, so lamentably I won't be buying this lovely tea again, but I'm gonna finish the container by limiting myself to one cup of it every couple of days (shhhhhhh, don't tell my doc).

Freshpak Fennel (or any fennel tea for that matter) - A lovely tea, one of my fav's and very good for lowering high blood pressure (don't drink it if you have low blood pressure), and also good for lots of digestive problems.

Herbex 'Detox Herbal Tea' - Slimmers Tea: - a lovely tea, which I really enjoy. Its a mixture of rooibos, honeybush, black tea and some herbs as well.

I passed all the teas I don't like on to my fil (father-in-law) cause he'll normally drink just about any weird tasting tea LOL so at least I didn't really waste money buying them.

On the subject of money, the herbal/healthy teas are so expensive, its really annoying, its time the peeps who make them get on the bandwagon of getting the populace of SA more healthy - come on guys give us a break, we're trying to do the right/healthy thing here.

Hmmmm, where to start...

For quite a while now I've had an on and off relationship with healthy living and becoming more 'green'. Sometimes its been more on than off and other times its been more off than on. However things are now on a much more positive front. I guess that in order to get up to day, I need to backtrack a bit and start at the sort of beginning.

First things first - I DON'T LIKE EXERCISE - LOL I know thats bad, but me and exercise go together as well as me and maths, which means WE DON'T!!!!

I used to run at school many, many, many years ago, but since school, nothing (until recently, but we'll get to that a bit in the future).

This year however, seems to be the year when everything seems to be clicking into place (whether I want it to or not :-) Excuse me if this blog is a bit wishy washy or to and fro-ey, cause although I've attempted blogging a couple of times in the past, its never come to anything  - bear with me I'm sure i'll get better as I go along (although I can't promise that hehehe).

So, what's to come is a bit about recycling, a bit about healthy eating, with some lovely receipe's that I've tried out here and there, and a bit about running - maybe more accurately, walk/running.

Its the new me I guess - Carol on the go - and going I intend to be, so keep tuned :-)