Time to find healthy..

Status
Not open for further replies.
I'm loving this excitement you've got going on! Hills are great, and having companions (both furry and not) is such a motivation. Keep track of how long it takes you to do your routes, it'll be exciting as you start moving faster to watch the minutes (and the pounds!) melt away!
 
Thank you for the awesome support!
I dragged the dog out again this morning.. she was a little less enthusiastic about this mornings walk, but she gave it her all and kept up with me which was awesome. The wildflowers are in full bloom, and we took a few moments to get a couple of pictures. Just gorgeous seeing some vibrant colour around :)

View attachment 22386 View attachment 22387

Thanks Oaks - I am loving the feeling I get after exercising. I was feeling it a bit up the hill today, but told myself it's worth the walk. I cut my time down today; I included more running (sorry dog!), and stormed the hill.. and it feels amazing!

Another walk tonight with the o/h .. may leave the dog at home if she's too knackered.

----

I have noticed that I get a headache, similar to a sugar headache, after I exercise. I wonder why that is? Perhaps I need some electrolytes..?
 
Back from this afternoons walk, and feeling great! I am really looking forward to my walks, I get quite excited at the thought of getting fitter. So unable to wait I refilled the water bottle, squeezed the dog into her harness (it's a snug fit at 55kgs), readied the tunes and told o/h it was time for our walk as agreed.
He hesitated.
I said it's fine if he wanted to stay home, I am a big girl and can battle the wild streets of nana-ville alone. Plus I had the dog. So with that put my earphones in, cranked up the tunes and headed down the road. About half way down the road, bobbing away, I realized the dog wasn't out in front of me like usual, she was just behind me on my heels.
Strange? She is usually so enthusiastic about our walks. I stopped and looked at her, and headed home. 3 mins into our walk and I knew she wouldn't make the 45mins route I had planned. I tucked her up on her outside bed and gave her the night off.

Back out again, I was on my own. I don't know if it's because I didn't have someone to walk with, or because I'm used to walking with the dog, but it feels slower to walk by yourself. But alone I walked, bopping away to my music (which I desperately need to update). Walked down the semi-killer hill (this is the one I plan to run up one day!), looped around through the park, back up behind the school, and then up the semi-killer hill. I walked with purpose, trying to take big steps in a sort of semi-lunge type fashion, but without seeming like I was drunk and unable to walk correctly to passing motorists.. I don't know if I succeeded or not, but my legs got a good work out!

Feeling good. Feeling pumped. Feeling better! My confidence in myself, and believing in myself is coming back - I didn't realize how much different and closed off I was until this week when I really started to feel like 'me' again. Does that make sense? I feel happier, and my body feels different. I can't see the 2.7kgs I've lost since starting, but I can feel it. Even o/h said there is something different - less boomfy? haha .. so technical!

Lamb cutlets for dinner (hardly any fat), with steam veg. Mmm!
 
Love this post so much bean. I know that feeling exactly. One oF my favourite things to do is walk along the beach by my house alone, just me and my music and my feet on the pavement. Absolute calming bliss. Wish I had a dog to walk with--what breed is yours? Sounds like she'll benefit ffrom your becoming fitter too!
 
Thank you Sunflower :)
My loveable, squishable doggum is a Dogue de Bordeaux (French) X English Mastiff. Her name is Juno :)
View attachment 22389
We share a common dislike of hot weather - we both cannot stand the heat. This was her last summer melting into a puddle.. hehe
View attachment 22388

I am feeling MUCH better today. Truly awesome! I am DOWN 3.2kgs since I started 2 weeks ago, and I feel awesome! Finally shifted that pesky 500 grams I gained last weekend, and then some. Happy happy! Another $5 in the kitty for hitting another kilo gone. Woo!!!

I did wake up incredibly sore this morning; my legs felt tight, my shoulders felt tight, and the top of my right leg was really quite achy. I pm'd my PT and asked if a gentle walk was advised on my 'rest day' (also known as it-will-be-too-hot-for-me-later day), and she suggested a no calorie counting, gentle walking day. She said don't time yourself, don't look at the calories, just enjoy the sunshine. So that's what we did! We found a nice, flat bush path and followed that to the end and back, took about 25 mins. Lovely, relaxing, and the dog looked relieved that no hills or running was involved!

The walk down by the beach sounds wonderful, Sunflower :) Walking alone was really quite relaxing, you're right! Alone with your thoughts.. it's wonderful. Better music would help I think - any favorite tunes?
 
Wow nice drop! You're doing great!

Those are beautiful flowers and I like that I have no idea what they are. I identify plants as part of my job, but I'm guessing with those blooms that you live in the southern hemisphere or at least somewhere warm. The yellow ones could be from the genus Forsythia, but if so it's a species I've never seen.

I have a cat named Juno. He's a it smaller than your dog. ;) She's a cute puppy!
 
Thanks Q!
Not sure what the yellow ones are, but I am pretty sure the purple ones are Fringe Lily's (Thysanotus multiflorus) :)
Yep I'm in the southern hemisphere. Surrounded by wonderful bushflowers and wildlife .. a little too much wildlife for my liking, almost stepped on a snake yesterday. Good thing o/h was there to stop me - I didn't even see it slithering past. *shudders*

Here are a few pics from yesterdays walk - thought you might enjoy these!
Aw cute about the kitty! Juno is a good name :)

Lesson of the day: If you squeeze the nutmeg packet too tightly while looking directly into the packet, it will poof up and go everywhere.
Including your eye.
It also stings.
At least I smell tasty?
 
Last edited:
Great plant pics. Please share if you know what any of them are. The first two are dissimilar to anything here. The third one looks like a Plantago (plantain) bloom. I'll have to post some plant pics in my diary for you to see. It was nearly down to freezing here this morning. The flowers are long gone here.

Be careful around the snakes and spices!

Here is a link to a pic of baby Juno. That was about a year ago.



I had it handy because I just posted that in Sunflower's diary. He lost his blue eyes, but he's still handsome.
 
Thank you for the wonderful comment about our Juno :) She is pretty special, and I've passed the message on to her. She is looking well chuffed with herself LOL
She is a very special dog - so happy to have her in our lives :)
Q - your little Juno is just gorgeous! Those eyes are beautiful. Juno is an awesome name!

I *think* the purple flower is Melaleuca trichophylla. The red flower is a common flower here, commonly called the 'wattle bush' (Callistemon). An iconic plant here. The last one is the flower of the 'Grass Tree' (originally called 'Black Boy', but was changed due to the name). Xanthorrhoea - quite cool plants, they thrive on bush fires. However, when we did a study on them in school years ago, we were told that you can be fined BIG dollars for breaking their leaves, or killing the plants. There are a few specialists around here that will remove and re-home them to save you killing them.

3.8kg GONE as of this morning! Yippeeeeee!!

After stressing about my 'rest day', I went down 200g. *phew* If it wasn't for the very odd pain in my right leg and hip, I would have been tempted to jog. But I didn't, 30 min walk on the flat + 10 min evening walk (flat) is all I did.
Then there was yesterday.On Sundays we go to my Mums for lunch, and yesterday she made sticky beef stirfry. Ohmygosh DELICIOUS!! I was good with portion control - minimal noodles, some beef, lots of veg. Yummmmmmmm.
Then she bought out cake.
Delicious cake.
Bean cake.
Whut?
She made the most delicious cake - it had chocolate, orange... and beans?! Black beans. Honestly, you couldn't taste the beans at all. Even o/h ate it (he's a bit funny about beans) .. he ate a lot of it LOL It was *so* goooood. I have another small slice sitting in the fridge for tonight. Then she bought out some freshly made icecream from the new icecream place up the road. This was killing me. I had 2.5 teaspoons of ice cream to go with my small slice bean-cake (Seriously cannot get over how yummy that was!!) and cuppa (no sugar).
Biccies were bought out - I held back. I even piled up the glasses in front of the cookies so I couldn't see them. Pringles also made their way to the table, and I admit, I ate 3. This was before lunch and I was starving, but I stopped at 3 (with home-made hummus - yum!). Then more chocolate made it's way out after cake - and I had the smallest corner only to try it (it was sea-salt dark chocolate .. really nice!). But I gave the rest of the piece to o/h, I didn't want to push my sugar intake and quite honestly, I didn't want it.

I felt quite good for holding back, and could appreciate others enjoying their food. I was really proud of my portion size (3 weeks ago I would have eaten double that size, more pringles, more chocolate, bigger piece of cake.. you get the idea).. I wasn't going to have cake, but when mum mentioned the beans (and the fact she made it) I had to try it. I still did my morning walk/jog, and then a walk/with jogging in the evening with o/h to try and burn off the extra calories from the icecream. I didn't realize jogging hurt his knees, so I did some jogging alone while he walked Juno.
Bike riding - is that quite low impact on the knees? I'd like to exercise with o/h, and he has a bike (I don't).. I guess I could bring a horse down to my place and we could ride around together (him on the bike, me on horse). That might be something fun to do! Need to shed a few more kg's before I'm squeezing my booty into jodhpurs (riding pants). They're not flattering at the best of times, let alone when you have extra jiggle per wiggle!

This morning another weight loss, bringing my total to 3.8kgs gone. Just been for my morning jog (slept in, oops) and decided to change my route. How often is it advised to change route? I was thinking of every week changing my morning path, and then in the afternoon I spice it up depending on how I feel. Went down the hill past the school, looped around through the park, then back up past the school. I did 4 jogs on the flat, then 1 jog going back up the hill .. that was hard! Walked up to my next 'hill' (there is a road that breaks it up), and thought I'd try for one more little jog before turning back onto my street. I was running out of oomph, but didn't feel satisfied with what I had already done.. so I started jogging. Slower than a turtle walking through peanutbutter, but I was moving faster than a walk. I jogged the whole damn section to the top! I was SO chuffed at that I did a little jig at the top. I might have scared some school kids... but I was over the moon!!

Decided that I can't wait until my 5kg loss to buy new runners, I am going to go look for some today. I'd rather not cause injury to myself, and these $15 tackies are just awful. No support at all - but then I didn't buy them for jogging. Time to upgrade! So my new reward will be to get my hair cut (Which desperately needs doing) :) O/h said this morning that he thinks my body feels different, especially around the hips. I gave him a sweaty hug after my jog in excitement of my hill-climb, and he commented that I feel different. That's a great feeling!

Happy days!!!!!!!!!! :)
 
Hehe Thanks ijustwannabefit! I will try to restrain from dancing in front of innocent kids walking to school.. hehe

After 5 shoe shops and many, many dollars later, I finally found some runners.
In the men's section.
Turns out I have flipper feet! But they're so squishy and nice it was worth the money. I hope .. I am not good at shoe shopping, never have been. My feet have always been in between sizes, and they never feel 'right'. I only own one pair of 'perfect' shoes, and they are horse boots (they look like mountain climbing shoes). They are perfect.
I found some beautiful Brooks shoes - absolutely perfect, but needed a half size up. Unfortunately they don't do it :( But these will do - I am excited for my walk tonight!

Silly question time: can I drop 1/2 a shoe size if/when I lose weight? I'd *love* my next shoes to be Brooks. I get that conformation doesn't change, but I am hoping that the foot-fairy will visit and I can go down even just 1/2 a size.

I should have been a swimmer!
 
Congratulations! Lots of respect for your constraint in all things high-calorie at your mum´s place. New shoes sound like a really great idea, especially if you already have a weird pain in one leg. Bike riding is fine for the knees as long as you control your gears. Going uphill in low gear... not so much.
 
Thank you LaMaria!
He said he would come on walks with me, as long as we don't jog, but there is no reason I can't hang back and jog up, or jog forward and wait for him. It'll work :) Will see how we go with the bikes.. I'd like to get a bike eventually, but at the moment I feel too big for one!

Keen to try my new shoes out I headed out earlier for a walk with Juno. Juno decided that every one and everything was suspicious today. Made for a difficult walk! Found a new route which loops around with a more even surface, which I'm keen to try jogging tomorrow! These aren't cheap shoes, and I'm finally getting the support I really need for walking/running.. I could tell, within 20 mins of our walk my outter foot was killing me! Ouchies!!! I have incredibly flat feet, and they roll in, so obviously going from no support (cheap tackies) to $$$$ supporting tackies is a big shock. I tried jogging and wow, so so comfortable! Squishy, shock absorbing ... I could run forever! Or until my legs give out.. I did attempt to time myself jogging, to see how far I could get before I konked out, but at 1min11seconds, Juno decided that leaping into the bush and dragging me with her was more interesting than running up the small hill. At first I was a bit annoyed that she decided that this whole running thing was boring, then I realized - I ran 1min11 seconds, and didn't feel completely dead! I'll count that as a win :) Will try again tomorrow morning .. I don't think Juno will be going with me (she's still asleep from this arvo's jog LOL!).

My calves and feet are still sore, hours after taking the shoes off. But, like with anything, it will take time. I relate a lot of what I do to horses, as this is what I know. I know that changing the hoof of a horse from poor form to good takes time, about a year for new hoof to grow out. With little, regular trims/shoes, this can help the future of the horses feet, form and function. Too much too soon will cause pain and secondary issues. As I walked around embracing the mild pain, I wondered how I could do that with my shoes? I don't think there is a transition shoe..
Then I thought about all those horses in pain, who don't have a kind farrier/trimmer that takes their time and does 'little and often' changes, but instead, like what I did today, makes one BIG change. Thinking about all the aches and pains that I'm having at the moment and relating it to what the horse may experience... I wish all riders could feel this, perhaps there would be more appreciation for the feet.

A horse saying "no hoof, no horse", and that's true when it comes to people too. If you don't have the right shoes, giving you the right support for YOUR individual needs, your biomechanics will be off, and causing secondary issues and quite possibly ending in injury or permanent damage.

I have some new muscle/joint pain spray I picked up as a trial for the horses, will try that on my own muscles tonight I think!
 
Be careful if you're having pain, Bean! It's normal to be a little sore when you start out a new routine but make sure you're easing into it, especially with those hills. You don't want to hurt yourself and then be sidelined after being so motivated.
 
I like the horse comparison :) It really is much the same with people, but instead of having transition shoes we usually take the new shoes for just a short walk at first, building up toward longer walks and then (or parallel) short runs. Take your time, it won´t be a year but if you want to build up healthy and stable feet it does take a while.
 
I imagine running in the cruddy shoes caused your pain. I'm glad to hear that you have better ones. It will take a bit for you to get used to them. It was recommended to me to wear them walking for several outings or during the day before running in them. I really like my Brooks. You can find half sizes online, As far as losing a shoe size I'm doubtful. Even if you have much fat on your feet (doubtful) the lenth won't change. My Brooks are actually a half size smaller than my normal size. That may be the difference in how the Mens shoes fit vs. Womens.

Awesome job on the weight loss. thanks for the plant information. Very cool!

I use Absorbine veterinarian liniment for really sore muscles. It stinks, stains, and burns a little, but it is great on sore muscles. It's good for horses too. ;)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top