Getting there...

Well, today is the day I see the dress maker and how have I done in my challenge?? Ultimately not brilliantly. I did not get rid of the 5 pounds I had hoped. Boo hiss. I did however, put on a pound, lose it, put it on again, lose it again and then finally by today lose another two. So since I started just over four weeks ago, I am now:

X-2 stones 11 lb and 3/8.

Which, while not my target, I'm pretty pleased with, particularly I have essentially lost 3 pounds in the last week!! Or there abouts... That's what happens when you actually exercise I suppose. And eat reasonably too. I don't think not eating very much helps me very much - I think my body just hangs on to the fat and calories it is storing to compensate for not getting very much. Or something...

Flâneur and I were out for another run yesterday, geeing each other along. It was pretty tough for me as I'm not so good first thing in the morning. I'm better a little later in the day once my legs have warmed up a bit. But we went and we did our route in just under 31 mins, which is still a good time. He ran on on the home straight (the last 20 secs or so) as he likes to sprint the last bit and I'm just about fit to collapse and am lucky to still be running at all! It still felt pretty good though and we were basically doing our 3:1 run:walk ratio. We're slowly getting better! We then walked to the cinema (a good 50 min walk) to see 'Away We Go', which was a lovely little film I would thoroughly recommend. We also walked back, so yesterday was excise tastic!

Today is a random local holiday in Edinburgh that randomly we get off at work (I'm wondering how many customer type people turned up at the building not knowing today...), so I took the opportunity to have a bit of a lie in and then go to the gym. I think I'd do that more in the mornings if I didn't have to work. Great way to start the day. I did my usual treadmill then cross trainer routine, but was very pleased with myself getting up to 17 minutes of running at 7.5 kmph. I'm slowly adding a minute here, a minute there, but have already added 7 minutes since I started going to the gym. All good stuff and I'm sure the reason why the pounds finally appear to be shifting!

Not achieving goals...

Yup, I am officially rubbish at them. The appointment with the dress maker is on Monday coming and I have failed to lose five pounds (and am unlikely to do so by then). In fact, I've pretty much failed to lose any and mostly put one on. Harumph. I have now lost that one again, putting me back at my start point, and if I'm very good I may loose another one by Monday (finger's crossed) but that will mean I have lost a grand total of 1 measly pound in 4 weeks.

Ok, so I wasn't trying my hardest, I must admit, so have no-one to blame but myself. In fact even after the lovely meal Flâneur cooked for Wastrel, SAM and me last week (stilton stuffed pork wrapped in Iberico Ham with little boiled potatoes and aspargus cooked in butter, followed by lots and lots of cheese, wine and port), I managed to be 1lb lighter the next day. How does that happen?? Delayed reaction, I know, but even so... I have been pretty rubbish on the exercise front, failing to get up and swim, failing to go to the gym after work, even failing to get up in time to walk to work most days...

That was until this week! Ha ha! I realise it's only Wednesday, but even so, this week is already going better than the last two-three put together I think!! Admittedly I've had a bit more energy this week and not been quite so dog tired, but I also made sure that I just did stuff anyway as it always makes me feel better in the long run. So on Monday I managed to walk to work and went to the gym after work. At the gym I managed to run a whole 15 minutes on the treadmill without dying (at 7.5km/h), walking for 2 minutes at the beginning at 4km and 4 minutes at the end for 4. I was most impressed with how quickly I managed to recover, not just my breathing, but my heart rate too. The gym had great equipment that has integrated heart rate monitoring bits (I realise lots of gyms probably have these, but it's still fairly new to me for them to either work or be anywhere near accurate). I get a bit obsessive at checking my heart rate, partly to pass the time, and by the end of the run it was way up in the 160s. But after a couple of minutes back down to walking it went back down to the 120s. I was pretty pleased with this. Then it was on to my usual routine on the cross trainer. (See previous posts, it never seems to change!). In total I exercised for about 53 minutes and burned off around 550 cals. Pretty cool.

Tuesday was a bit of a wash out as I managed to neither walk to, nor from work, but we shall gloss over that... Tonight, however, was a lovely sunny evening. The sort that cannot help but put a smile on your face and a skip in your step (got to love September sunshine). So I thought we should go for a run. When I got in Flâneur was in the process of running a bath, but I managed to persuade him to come out for a run with me anyway (he could always put more hot water in when he got back). I'm glad I did as I think it probably did us both some good! He's still not had any holiday this year (I'm sure that's not legal) and it's really getting to him, so anything I can do to distract him helps. Even if it is going for a run! I felt really great on the run tonight and think all the gym work is helping. I certainly felt much much better than last time we went and we managed to up our run/walk ratio to 3:1 for most of the run. Hurrah! At one point we even did 5 mins of running. This is a big deal for us, so I'm very chuffed! I did nearly want to die on the next stretch of running (which is up hill in a gentle but steady and killing way), but who cares, I had just run for 5 whole minutes!

Yes, I know I can do more than that in the gym, but it's entirely different having your pace regulated and running on an entirely flat surface that is the treadmill. Anyway, I am extremely pleased with myself (and with Flâneur, who came out despite not really wanting to) and now just waiting for these endorphins to stop flooding my brain with that post exercise euphoria so I can collapse on the sofa in peace!!

Fabric

One other little post today. I received (thanks to Flâneur going down to the sorting office for me), a little bundle of fabric that I bought last week from Quilter's Cloth. It's 8 half meters (Lily Pond by Wendy Slotboom) and I just had to share as it's just fab (images not best quality, but hopefully you get the idea!):

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet, but I do love it, it's so cute! I can't wait to come up with a project to use it for!

Manchester

For those who read this (is there anybody there?) who don't know, and let's face it, you all do, my dear lovely clever Flâneur has gone and got himself a new job. This is superb news on so many levels, not least because it means he can relax a bit to the end of his contract without worrying what he's going to be doing in January and how we are going to afford life without him having a job... It is also superb news because it's such a brilliant job. At last someone in the academic world has recognised his genius and that him being interesting is a good thing (not, you're really interesting, but we're giving the job to someone else). And the best bit: it's a tenured Senior Lectureship! Hurrah! No more short term research contracts and constant job hunting. All fantastic stuff.

The only downside is that this fantastic job is in Manchester. That in itself is not a bad thing - it's a great young vibrant department that he will fit in to well and the city's not bad either. However, my job is not in Manchester. My job is in Edinburgh. And I do not have a career that is easily transferred - I need to wait for a job opportunity to arise in Manchester in a suitable organisation (the uni or a business like Co-op, who I know do have an archive based in Manchester) that will pay me on some kind of equivalent level to what the Scottish Government pay me. Perhaps the problem of being a well paid archivist... Rules out the local authority as they are skinflints.

Anyway... I had never been to Manchester and we thought we should probably go down and have a poke about, so we did, for three days last week. The streets were hilariously familiar as they are currently doing works to the tram tracks, so there are road works and fences up everywhere, reminiscent of Edinburgh at the moment... We stayed in Malmaison, so as to make sure we had somewhere nice to stay while we were down there (it was our first holiday together for some time). We had a nice room (with a fantastic shower. I want that shower) and right in the city center - handy for walking everywhere. Which is what we always do when we are away! We had a nice weekend, exploring the city center and what it has to offer. We found a great little bar that serves good Japanese food and great cocktails (Walrus), a fab fab Japanese restaurant where we ate far too much but enjoyed every mouthful (New Samsi), but that also has a little Japanese supermarket in the basement, which will be handy for when Flâneur is in Manchester. I got very jealous of the fantastic looking fish monger in the Arndale Markets, and the butcher opposite, and we fell in love with Selfridges. (Or at least Flâneur did and a Paul Smith suit he spotted there! ;o) ). I also walked the length and breadth of the Trafford Center while Flâneur went to chat to some of his future colleagues. Quite exhausting!

And yet I managed to lose no weight while I was away - the discovery of Hotel Chocolat in the Arndale Centre probably didn't help... and thus my plan to lose five pounds is not going well. At all. But the shopping does look good. Similar to Glasgow but a little bit less spread out, which is good!! I'm quite looking forward to my weekends down there. For yes, we will be living between Manchester and Edinburgh, at least to begin with while my job remains up here. No ideal, but we're sure we'll cope.

Catch up

After a two week exercise drought due to my non-cold, I have been back at it with avengeance this week.  A fairly cultural weekend, reasonable weather (with the odd down pour to keep us on our toes), and our general propensity to walk everywhere in this fair city, saw me walking around 6 miles on Saturday and a further 2.6 miles on Sunday.  Then on Monday I was at the gym after work (the usual 12 1/2 mins run on the treadmill, with some walking either side, then the cross trainer), and on Tuesday I was finally back in the pool.  Very happy about this.  Having not been since 20 July (eek!) I was expecting terrible things.  While I was not doing my under 32 minutes that I had been in July, I did do my 40 lengths (1km) in 33 minutes, which I was pretty pleased with.  Yay!  This is not to mention walking to and from work (all but twice).

As for the culture at the weekend, this was great.  On Friday night we went to see the new dance production from Michael Clark (who I shall pretend I have heard of!) that was on as part of the Edinburgh International Festival (proper culture like).  Flâneur was quite keen to go as it was a mix of ballet and contemporary dance to Bowie, Iggy and Lou Reed tracks, all of which he is interested in.  I must say it was really really good.  In fact, as someone who is generally not interested in seeing ballet etc, I really liked it!  I think the contemporary mixed with the ballet helped here (not to mention the music).  Some of it seemed very yogic to me - a flow of strong movements - and it was quite hypnotic.  

Saturday saw us at the cinema in the afternoon to see 'Broken Embraces', the new film from Pedro Almodovar with Penelope Cruise.  It was also very good.  Almodovar's films really give Penelope Cruise a chance to show the world that she can actually act, or at least I think so, and I like them for that.  It was also an engaging story.  I am no film critic, so all I can say was I enjoyed it and would recommend it. 

After the cinema we were out at the book festival (festival season!) to see Raymond Blanc talk about his life and his passion for food and cooking.  I think it was supposed to be questions and answers with the guy chairing it, but Raymond was just too enthusiastic to talk and talk, so we'd get a question and then a massive long answer that was rambling, engaging and making some serious points all at the same time.  He couldn't sit in his seat, he was itching to get up and talk and gesticulate and show us his passion.  I loved it and could have listened to him talk for much longer than the hour we were given.  The three audience members who got a chance to ask questions all asked sensible ones (inlcuding: is there any food you don't like?  Mostly the answer was: well in Japan I had... this made me giggle).  Obviously he was there to promote his autobiography and on the strength of his talk, I really look forward to reading it sometime!  :o)

So, fairly cultural all in all.  But that's the festivals over for another year, the nights are drawing in again, the weather is turning and we're getting our city back from all the thousands of tourists.  Hurrah, I will be able to walk home again without getting stuck behind the meandering visitors.  Don't get me wrong, they are good for the economy and what do I expect living in a prime tourist destination, but during August it gets a bit much when you can't go about your usual business without wading through them.  But I shan't rant about this, I shall go back to the gym, back to the pool and hopefully, hopefully get fitter and healthier, and maybe even a little bit slimmer...