Xmas, New Year etc.

Hello everyone!!!  Long time no see!
Apologies for the lack of blogging over the last few weeks but uni placement, Xmas, work etc just took over my life!

I hope you all had a good Christmas.  Mine was nice and quiet, just with immediate family plus my grandma.  My family doesn't really go crazy for Christmas, just a nice lunch and small gifts for eachother.

Our Christmas tree

I got a new digital camera from my parents, a handbag from my sister and an iTunes voucher plus a refill for my Filofax diary from my brother.

Xmas presents

 On Boxing Day, I headed over to Doncaster after work but I didn't really see much that interested me.  I ended up just getting some underwear from Target, a tshirt from MNG, a bracelet from Mimco and some jeans (which weren't even on sale).  I went to Greensborough on Tuesday and picked up some tshirts at Rebel Sport which were 50% off (I got five tshirts for less than $55) and a dress from Dotti which was $30 marked down from $80.  Overall, I thought the sales were pretty "meh" and I think I probably found some better bargains in pre-Christmas sales rather than after.

Then for New Years I went to a pool party at a friends place.  Was quite nice and I got to see some high school people I haven't seen for a while.

I usually don't really keep New Year Resolutions, but here are mine anyway (maybe now they've been immortalised on the internet, I'll have more motivation to keep to them, haha!!):

1. Exercise a minimum of 3 times per week and download the bridge to 10k app and hopefully work my way up to 1 hour of jogging.  I'd also like to try some different types of exercise, maybe swimming or yoga or cycling.
 2. Reach my goal weight (2.1kg to go, hopefully should get there by March) and stay at or around my goal weight.
3. Eat healthier and continue to bring lunches from home rather than buying at work/uni (too expensive).
4. Build up a decent amount of savings. I bought my first car in August and have been broke ever since!
5. Find a graduate intern position (I think I am already on my way towards this....the hospital I did my placement at in December said they would like me to apply there for my pre-registration internship and I am seriously considering it!)
6. Maintain my current average mark at uni (or improve) so I can hopefully graduate with honours.
7. Go on a holiday (I haven't been out of Melbourne since Jan 2008).

Happy New Year to all of you!!

Getting Back in my Running Shoes

These are my running shoes:

Just my old Asics X trainers which I've had for probably about 7-8 years.

 I put them back on today for the first time in almost a month and went for a run.  I told myself that I'd be happy to get to 20 minutes, but I managed to push myself through another 10 minutes to make it to a full half hour without stopping!  Very proud of myself!!!

Since finishing C25K, it's been a struggle to stay motivated as I feel like I don't have a set goal.  I'm thinking I may try to find a local fun run or similar in the near future and sign up for that as motivation.

I'd really like to be at my goal weight (55kgs) sometime early in the New Year (although I imagine that Christmas will be a significant obstacle standing in my way).  I'm hoping to start bikeriding again during the holidays with a friend - I think this will help with motivation as I will want to go bikeriding to avoid letting my friend down.

Thanks for reading and feel free to email me or leave a comment if you know of any good fun runs (around 5km distance) in the Melbourne Metropolitan (esp. North Eastern) region.

NOTD: Ulta3 Watermelon + other random tidbits

Today's nails are Ulta3 Watermelon.  The name says it all, really - it is exactly the colour of watermelon!  Gorgeous colour which I predict will be on high rotation for me this summer.

With flash - this colour is a little lighter than this in person

This was two coats plus a topcoat.  It almost doesn't need the topcoat as it has a really nice sheen to it, but I just added the topcoat in the hopes that I will get an extra 1-2 days of wear out of it.

I had a really great sleep in this morning and in the afternoon went shopping at Westfield Doncaster to look for a dress for my mum to wear to her work Christmas party/my brother's uni graduation.  She didn't end up buying anything and neither did I.  I did try a nice fragrance in Myer - Ralph Lauren's Summer Romance.  I have the original version of Romance and I'm almost finished it, so perhaps I will put Summer Romance on my Christmas wishlist!

Also, I hopped on the scales this morning perparing for the worst (as this would be the first time weighing myself since before swot vac and exams started) and was surprised to find that I had lost 0.1kg, despite eating pretty badly (not junk food, but just snacking a lot throughout the day, especially on days where I stayed home all day) and doing pretty minimal amounts of exercise.  I'm not really counting 0.1kg as a loss, I was just shocked as I thought I would have gained at least 2kg.  Time to start cracking the whip again and get back into running as I'm only 3kgs away from my goal so it would be nice to reach it by the end of the year.

Thanks for reading!

Couch to 5km program/my weight loss journey

I have recently completed the Couch to 5km program so I thought I would do a mini-review/opinion post on it as well as a brief overview of my weight loss journey this year.

To start from the beginning, I was always a bit of a tubby in primary/high school (not obese or anything, just not skinny and not really interested in sports).  I blame this partially on my primary school PE teacher who was not very nice haha!  Anyway, I was the type of person who would say they had their period for every swimming class, would always “feel sick” on every school athletics day or always offer to help out and be an “official” (recording times etc.) for school sports events to get out of actually participating.  In about Year 9 I lost quite a bit of weight by dieting and exercising (mostly walking, but I would go for like 1 -2 hour walks most days of the week), but I honestly can’t remember how long I kept it off (not very long).  Then between year 10 and 11 I went on exchange to Germany and I lost weight then as well (maybe 3-4 kgs, can’t remember exactly), probably just because it was cold all the time and I did a lot of walking as well.  Between year 11 and 12 I lost a bit of weight again because I went on a school hiking trip over the summer and for “training” for that I did a lot of swimming and walking with a heavy pack (15-20 kgs), and then there was the actual hike itself as well.  I was really proud of myself for doing this hike because I signed up for it to challenge myself and push myself out of my comfort zone which I think I did do.  Then at the end of year 12 I lost some more weight when we went to Thailand, Laos and Cambodia because I got sick (I think I had a really bad reaction to the anti-malaria prophylaxis medication I was taking).  This was pretty temporary though, once I stopped vomiting/having diarrhoea (TMI? Sorry!!) and was able to eat properly I probably put it all back on.

Once I got to uni, I kind of stopped exercising (I would occasionally feel like exercising and randomly go for a walk or bike ride or something, but didn’t do anything regularly) and I think my weight slowly crept up on me until about March this year probably (the start of my third year of uni).  I think I weighed around 63-64 kgs (I’m 163.5cm tall for reference) and I found that clothes were fitting a lot tighter and my mum remarked that I’d put on weight.  So I decided to try to do something about it.  Initially, I just tried to make an effort to eat healthier (i.e. avoid junk food etc.) and I think that helped me loose maybe 2-3 kgs over a few months.  I did try using some of those protein meal replacements but most of them tasted fairly average and I honestly didn’t find them to be all that filling either.  Plus I think a lot of them contain protein derived from animals blood products (gross).  So then I decided that I should probably do some form of exercise.  A few years ago I made an attempt at trying the Couch to 5km program.  I think I did one work out lol!  But this was before the age of iPods and I was just estimating distances which didn't really work very well.  I think I also wore Dunlop Volleys and had really sore feet afterwards - idiot!! Hahaha!

So this time I decided to wear proper shoes (haha!) and purchase the app for my iPod touch ($2.49 well spent!).  I really like the app as it gives cues when you need to run and walk.  Also, I found the countdown cues really helpful when you start doing the longer runs (e.g. the ones that say 10 minutes left, 5 minutes left etc.)  I ended up taking a LOT longer than the 9 weeks recommended.  I started at the end of May and finished in mid-October (so probably around 14-15 weeks in total) as I repeated a few weeks if I felt that I didn’t manage very well.  It would have been nice to finish in 9 weeks, but I’d rather take longer and actually finish than push myself too hard and fail and then just give up.  Also, I think the three workouts a week they recommend is not enough.  Most weeks I did at least four workouts, some weeks I even did 5 or 6 (I never tried to do two weeks worth of workouts in one week, I would just do an extra lot of the same week i.e. I would do 6x week 3 workouts, not do week 3 and week 4 of the program in one week).

So, what now?  Well, at the moment I’m jogging/running for 30 minutes at least 3 times per week.  I’m not running 5km yet in the 30 minutes yet (I only run about 4km), so I’m going to work on getting a little bit faster to get to 5km in the 30 minutes.  Also, my sister has expressed some interest in trying this program so I’ve done a few of the early weeks (since finishing) with her.  This has helped me notice the difference in my fitness – when I started out myself I was struggling even with week 1.  Now, I can do a week 1 workout and I’m barely even puffing at all!

So did I lose any weight?  Only around 2kgs, which seems disappointing, but I think what I have lost is inches.  I’ve dropped a pants size, can fit into things that I haven’t been able to for a while and people have commented to me that I look like I’ve lost weight.  I have Biggest Loser style before photos (in my underwear) and I’ll get around to taking some after ones soon.  I’m not sure if I’m game enough to put them on the internet though?  I’d still like to lose another 2.5-3 kgs and I’m thinking about doing something like swimming or cycling as well as jogging, during the holidays.

Hope this was of interest to some people.  Feel free to comment and tell me about your experience with C25K or any other similar jogging for beginners program.

NB. I am not claiming to be any kind of expert on any of the material contained in this post.  Please ensure that you seek proper advice from relevant professionals before undertaking any kind of diet/exercise regimen.