Down to the Wire

I have not posted here for a very long time! My friend has been asking me to update this blog for the longest time, and I keep putting it off. The reason is, I haven't been following my training programme.

There, I said it.

If I don't get on track this week, I won't make my training schedule for the Great North Run on the 13th of September. In an attempt to get myself motivated, I signed up to the Nike Women's 10km on the 21st of June.

It is now too late to sign up for the race because it is now full, so if you haven't signed up, it's too late! I'm going to be doing this with Yarn in the City, a friendly few knitting people who I have been getting closer to over the last few months.

So, I'm going to be adventurous and put a timeline in so that all of my dirty laundry is aired, so to speak. This is the schedule, then. Excuse the poor formatting, I'm running on low time!

So that's it. I will be faithful to the blog and to the running from now on. No More Muffins has become less about weight loss, and more about general fitness. The benefit has been I have lost 10 kg since January. Hurrah!

Much love

Corrie xx

Week One of Serious Running Starts Now...

I know it's been a while since I posted here - I've been running like a demon, and am nearly ready to start my 'proper' half-marathon training. I finish Week 8 of the Couch to 5k programme today (I'm just waiting for the weather to clear before I go out) and then I'm on to the big cheese!

I've started running outside a bit - running on the treadmill is still easier, but it's also not realistic, and if I'm to have any hope of succeeding, I need to be able to run on roads, up and down hills, in the wind, blah blah blah... However, I have also been unwell, and am opting for treadmill over no run on days when my cough just won't shift and I don't want to spend an hour in the cold.

That said, John and I went to Somerset and Hampshire last week, and I had two absolutely glorious pre-dawn runs which saw the sun rising as I returned to our accommodation on the last leg. I'm so thrilled to be up to 5 km, and when I think "I'll never be able to run 21km", I have to remind myself that eight weeks ago, I could barely run for a minute at a time.

If you'd like to sponsor me, I am doing the Great North Run on the 13th of September 2015 in Newcastle. All sponsorship money will go to Mind, a mental health organisation that is doing great things! Go HERE to donate - anything helps, even £1.

Much love,

Corrie xx

Great North Run - on to bigger things

It's been a while, hasn't it? I'll make no apologies - since the last blog I have had some mental health things going on, lost my job, moved house, launched a card-making venture, acquired a kitten and started a new, healthier regime of eating.

On a 'diet' side of things, we are currently doing a weekly shop with a strictly planned menu. Everytime my better half asks me what I want to snack on during the day and for lunches (given that I now 'work from home'), I ask him to order me bananas and apples. I'm still working on the vegetable side of things - I've become quite partial to spinach, although don't tell my mother! I have lost a minimal amount of weight, but it has all been on my face which has made me look a little less like a chipmunk. Hurrah!

We now concentrate on exercise. My physical health overall has improved some due to the better food, more sleep and appropriate amounts of Vitamin D and Prebiotics; but my fitness needs some work. To this end, I have signed up to do the Great North Run!

This is a half-marathon that takes place on the 13th of September in Newcastle. It is 13.1 miles, or 20.2 km, and I am doing it in support of the charity Mind. With 35 weeks to go (count them!), I have written out a 28 week training programme that will get me ready to run the race in the beginning of August. All I will have to do then is maintain my fitness!

So far I am on Day Two of the programme. I'm feeling good, and I am definitely finding that having the half-marathon to work towards is motivating me to go on my run. I had got up to running 5K in 25 minutes toward the end of last year, but with a break over Christmas and awareness of potential for pushing myself too hard, it is a slow and gradual increase to the full amount once more.

I'll keep you updated on the training and preparation!

Pick up, brush off, start again

You may well believe that as I have stopped blogging about weight-loss, I have stopped losing weight - and indeed, the diet. You would be correct.

I gave it a go - the Juice Plus diet. It didn't work out for me. I was getting so hungry between shakes that I was about going crazy, and my mum asked me to stop doing it. So, I have. Instead, mum, who has been learning about weight loss and healthy eating for years, has written me a plan.

Note: I know a lot of you were sceptical in the extreme of me choosing to do a meal-replacement diet. I want to emphasise that I wanted to try it out before dismissing the idea. I can say I have done so: and it did not work for me.

So, here is the Mummy Plan. We concentrate on the week first.

First thing in the morning I am to have lemon & ginger tea, rooibos tea or fruit juice (definitely not from concentrate)

Mid-morning I can have two oat-cakes with half a tin of tuna or salmon, or reduced fat hummus.

For lunch I will eat a bowl of fresh, wholesome soup and salad: with leaves, beetroot, carrot, mixed seeds, boiled egg.

Mid-afternoon I will snack on a small handful of nuts (but NOT peanuts), and fruits - apple, banana or orange, with no more than three bananas a week.

Dinner will be a piece of meat approximately the size of a pack of cards, with vegetables. Om nom nommy vegetables like sweet potato, butternut, sweetcorn, green beans, peas, roast peppers and eggplant.

Everyday I must drink 2 litres of water and rooibos/herbal teas per day. I can have two glasses of red wine or two gin and tonics (with less of the gin, and slimline tonic).

Breakfast on weekends is generously two eggs with rye toast, bacon and mushrooms (yuck) and on Sunday's I can have a roast dinner!

I am NOT allowed cake, biscuits, beer or cider!

So, that is that. I also have an exercise plan, which I have not actioned yet as I've been recovering from a general anaesthetic and still have a fairly sensitive face (my tooth was taken out in a fairly tricky procedure owing to a badly placed nerve). I haven't felt like walking, let along going to the gym!

I hope this one will be better, and will keep you all updated! I hope to at least do a daily food diary so mum can keep track - although I'm also trying out myfitnesspal, where my username is corrieberry.

That's all for now! Operation Lose Weight: Round Two has begun.

Week Three of Diet Proper

Last week was a Huge Fail for the diet. It was my birthday week and I ate cake, doughnuts, burgers, drank coke, beer, wine, cocktails....

So we are going to leave it at this for today and I will update you later!

Days 10 to 14

Goodness gracious it's getting hard to remember what days I've done where! The diet part of the diet is still going well - I've got myself into a nice rhythm where I'm preparing my shakes in the morning (i.e. gulping one down and then making the next one immediately) and I've got myself a nice pink protein shaker which has become my primary food-giver.

Additionally, I have now had rice milk, and I have to admit defeat to my mother and say that I love the shakes with it. I am going to buy more. It's a bit more expensive, but I don't mind.

I'm not getting hungry between shakes - but I am getting the munchies. It's quite hard not to snack, and I have had a few snacks over the past few days which have ranged from mini eggs, Magnum's, Biscuits, Chicken....this is something that I must work on. I have three days off from tomorrow and I will really watch what I'm doing.

I still have not been going to the gym. Bad, bad Corrie. I had the urge yesterday and was in the middle of making dinner so I could not act on it.

This is all one big excuse. I will go. Promise.

Now the list of bad things I ate last week:

2 Magnum's
2 Do'nuts
Tuna pasta salad (not TERRIBLE, but processed and ready-made from Tesco so not sure what is in it)
Pizza (Toby came round...)
Ice Cream on Sunday evening (date night)
Hot dog buns (the rest of the meal was fine)

I do not have a list of shame for this week yet - I ate slightly too much yesterday but there were no carbs in there and I had four litres of water.....so I feel OK about that.

I'm finding the food part of this much, much easier than I was expecting and the exercise part much harder than I was expecting. Hopefully I can redress the balance this week.

Only two weeks of two shakes a day left, and I'm a bit sad about that! It's very easy to eat two shakes a day, you don't have to plan meals and think about it.

Have I lost weight? God I don't know. I don't feel slimmer or healthier. Mainly I feel tired! But I am enjoying it and I will keep it up till I'm done and see what happens :) I must get the exercise going and the healthy meals regularly on the go.

Watch this space...!

Days Seven, Eight and Nine of Diet Proper

I know you are probably all disappointed that I did not blog on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, but you will no doubt have the strength to move forward and carry on with your lives!

It is getting quite a lot for me to maintain 3 different blogs - not that I am quitting any of them you understand - but I think that having a blog which is a daily listing of what I ate is perhaps not the most interesting!

I'm still on soya milk at the moment - I cannot find rice milk in the shops I have been to recently, and I find the soya milk more palatable and cost-effective (i.e. cheaper) than the almond milk. So that's what I've been having with my shakes.

So: progress?

Monday was a day of great joy in my mouth when my boyfriend made us a stir fry from my "Healthy Book" - a recipe book full of healthy recipes including nutritional breakdown and suggested portion sizes. It was absolutely delicious. The ingredients included pak choi (which neither of us had ever eaten before), chicken, chillis, garlic, soy sauce, a bit of oil and delicious egg noodles.

Although it was healthy....I will admit that I had seconds, so I probably ate a bit too much.

On Tuesday my brother came to stay and we had steaks. Before I move on to this meal, I will confess: I did not take my shake to work. I ran out of soya milk and I didn't have enough time to go buy some before I went out. Instead, I drank a healthy smoothie that I bought from Waitrose, which had many berries in the ingredients list, and was a SUPERFOOD.

So, steaks - the brother cooked the meat with balsamic vinegar, a bit of salt and a bit of pepper, and we ate salad with it. The salad was one of my concoctions, which involved grated carrot, mixed leaves, rocket, feta cheese and cucumber. I also bought a giant couscous pre-made salad which had chilli in it and was absolutely delicious.

I also ate a bit of chocolate. Slapped wrist for that one.

On Wednesday, last night, we had a barbecue. We cooked up some sausages and bacon, I dry-fried some onions, and I roasted butternut squash and potato with chilli salt and pepper in the oven for half an hour. We had the leftovers of the salad, with bonus spinach and strawberries added in. I had tomato ketchup, which I've been trying to avoid, and I also had bread rolls with my sausages....so not 100% great, but not completely poor either. I did eat more chocolate. Sorry for that!

I still haven't been to the gym. The pressure of this is really getting to me, and I hopefully will be able to kick my ass into gear soon. I'm taking a concoction of medication for gastritis (the condition which kicked off the whole "Corrie shall go on a diet" thing in the first place) and it is leaving me quite low in energy. I had a medication review yesterday and the dose was reduced as I am deemed to have made enough progress, so hopefully the side-effect shall go soon.

I know how you feel, polar bear.

I am hoping to go to "Pure Step" tonight at 6 pm. We shall see.

Much love,

Corrie xx