Petit dejeurner chez Jones

Not actually the Jones's buffet! They had more croissants and pains au chocolate...

Typical of me, about to write about healthy eating, whilst watching Hairy Bikers and waiting for British Bake-off to start….

I ADORE food, you couldn’t get to my size without loving food. I need to learn that you can still love food, but you just don’t have to eat as much.

I’ve got to start at portion control. This was apparent on Sunday. I joined the “Big Girls” for the last part of their run (they were doing 10 miles, and I met them for about the last two miles). I have to say I only joined the run when I heard that Liz Jones was offering breakfast, I thought it would be rude not to!

OMG Liz (and Chris) know how to put on a breakfast – what a spread: mini pain au chocolat (is it pains au chocolat? My French is shocking), croissants, toast, fruit compotes (sp – damn you French *shakes fists*), bacon for the meat eaters and beans – also cereal was offered too.

I was eating  with a fair few people I have never eaten with before. I observed that people weren’t really going for it (hands like pistons!), they would take a slice, have one pain au chocolat and possibly at a push have a spoon or three of beans – POUR QUOI??

This was a banquet, a feast worthy of the gods yet there was loads of food left. I muttered this to Liz and we came to the conclusion that is wasn’t them who was weird, it was us!?! It turns out that my portion control is just out of kilter with normal people. I need to get back to that Paul McKenna thing of chewing, savouring every mouthful, actually eating, rather than stuffing my face and not really tasting what I’m consuming.

I’m particularly musing of food tonight as for the first time in a few months I got on the scales. As I suspected, I’ve put on every single pound I lost a few years back, EVERY, SINGLE, POUND. Five and a half stone – that’s 77 pounds (I think).

I know I’m back looking forward to exercising, but I’ve avoided the food issue for long. I know these have to go hand in hand. I have exercised much more control today than usual -  I didn’t have a biscuit at work, even said no to a cheeky bag of Haribo Star Mix, threw away the extra pasta I’d cooked. A few things I should have done: forgot to ask for a skinny latte; probably should have had less pasta, and less cheese on my pasta; should have said no to croutons with my soup, and only had half of the bread – if any; oh and not had that bag of hula hoops…

Must try harder mademoiselle – or should that be madame!

PS exercise-wise, I managed to go to a zumba class last week and this, knocked nearly 2 mins off my previous parkrun time, gone on a mountainous run with Hyde Park Harriers around the scarier parts of Woodhouse – so still am maintaining my exercise mojo. Didn’t Rick’s World of Pain it tonight, as was feeling headachy, sick and woozy all day, as a consequence I am spinning tomorrow as well as doing about a 20 minute interval session on the treadmill

Lady Smug of Smuggington Towers

I’m not meant to be blogging tonight really (as I don’t want to bore anyone), but I can’t help it, I feel really feel elated!

“Why?” I hear you ask – well it is because I didn’t give in to my inner voice. All day I’ve been staring outside into my garden with that feeling of dread in my stomach. It was windy, hail stoning, raining and just very grim to be frank and I kept telling myself that it would be ok, I could treadmill tomorrow.

I’ve read such lovely comments, and one in particular, Lisa Prudhoe,  said that I had helped inspire her to go along to Hyde Park Harriers and tonight was her first session and she was dreading it. So if I didn’t go, I know I was letting other people down, but I also know how rubbish I’d feel if I didn’t go. So I went and I loved it. OK I nearly vommed once or twice, but it wasn’t that bad really.

First Tuesdays of the month are always quite good for me, as it is interval training. This means that although you are pushing yourself hard, you are running in a loop, so you don’t get left behind, you don’t have to run non-stop for 50 minutes and you don’t feel that you are so slow you are holding everyone back. Next week is going to be more of a challenge as it will be a 50 min run- but I’m going to be a big brave girl, and face my fears as I am not on my own .

Also want to say thank you so much for the amazing, lovely supportive comments – really glad you are enjoying my stream of consciousness ramblings.

 

2012 – everyone needs a “Jaz”

Well it is almost a year since I wrote my blog…

Rather than finding my missing mojo, it hitched a lift with Captain Flint and is yet to be dug up. Just need to get like Jim Hawkins and find it again!

I have a huge advantage over most people who want to get fit and healthy… do you want to know my secret??? Well, pull up a chair and come close and make yourself comfortable, go on kick off your shoes and have a cocoa. Well, my secret is that I’ve got a “Jaz”.
“A Jaz?” I hear you cry. Yes, a Jaz! For those of you who don’t parkrun (why not?!) or  not a member of the fabulous Hyde Park Harriers running club (shame on you!), or not read last year’s blogs (don’t blame you ) you might not have met our little running angel. Jaz is the biggest advocate of running I know. We both ran the very first Leeds parkrun together, but it probably took over a year before I really met her. Jaz and Janice had been injured so they were marshalling and they always gave me an extra cheer of support to get me round the course. Jaz always tried to get me to stay behind for coffee, but I was always dashing off for some reason or another. Once I stopped for coffee that was it.

That coffee opened up a world of runners and running, who knew that they would be so welcoming, friendly and interesting?! Actually, I did get a sense of this at parkrun, as I was always cheered on my way round, and got lots of brilliant advice and support.

I started to run with the help of Jaz (and of course the wonderful Tom Williams, of Marathon Talk fame. Tom and Helen even ran with me to get me under 50 minutes for the first time, on their wedding day – how awesome is that?) and eventually joined Hyde Park Harriers.

I lost weight and had a running mojo, once the weight creeped back my mojo skuked off. I stopped looking forward to Saturday mornings and started to dread them again. More and more Tuesday night sessions were avoided and eventually I wasn’t running at all .

Jaz knows me so well, she knows I get scared really easily – and bless her, she knows this and secretly set up a Facebook group and asked our lovely running friends to select a week and run a parkrun with me over the next three months – so to get my confidence and that elusive mojo back.

Well yesterday, 1st Jan, I ran my first parkrun in ages. I have been going, but just walking a lap or two, but yesterday I did it all. Ok I was really slow, over 47 mins, but I don’t mind that. I walky-jogged it with Jaz and I put the effort in. I need to just keep on doing this and the minutes will eventually drop off.

I know in the end you have to run/eat well for yourself, but I am completely blessed to have an amazing group of people who care for me, who are willing to sacrifice their time and run with me – and really it would be rude not to put in the effort for them.

Can you guess which one is Tess and which one is Jaz?

Jogging and eating

Date: Sun 16th Jan
Exercise: Joggy-walking
Distance: 4.5 miles

Woo hoo! It’s Sunday and I’m not dragging my sorry fat ass out of bed when the moon is still in the sky! My usual jogging partners weren’t available today, so I arranged to run with my non-running friends instead. We met at 11am, to time it that we could have a nice coffee/toast break in the  middle of the run….

So we met up, walked a wee bit and then started to jog – it was lovely as the weather was mild and there was  really light spring rain. We managed to run for about a mile or so without stopping (even got up a hill), then I offered to walk for a little bit (I’m all heart!). After a while we jogged a little more until we got to the row of shops with the cafes…. I had a hankering for toasted teacakes and rather than going to the swanky delis or Starbucks, we found a great “old school” cafe and had the largest teacakes EVER! Full of coffee, teacakes and 7-up (what’s the difference between 7-up and sprite anyway?) and as the toilets were out of order, we decided that the jiggling of jogging might not be the best so walked home in the freezing wind and rain. By the time we got to the finish I had brain freeze.

So we probably jogged about 2.5 miles and walked the rest – not great, but at least we still got out (and had a fab teacake!).

It’s Saturday so that means parkrun

Date: Sat 15th Jan
Exercise: parkrun leeds
Distance: 5k

Once again got round the parkrun without stopping. It just doesn’t seem to be getting any easier at the moment, I really hoped that I could break 40 mins, which has been pretty elusive recently. I wasn’t convinced that I’d do it as I stated slow and got slower… anyhoo with about 200 metres to go I realised that I could make it, so with a sprint (well a sprint for me) I got over the line with about 10 seconds to go – phew!

Boo :(

Date: Fri 14th Jan
Exercise: Big fat zero (AGAIN)
Distance: 0

Uh oh, I’m spotting a patten here – a day of exercise followed by a day of nothing… once again I did nothing as I couldn’t be bothered. I had meant to go during my lunch hour, but had to write a few reports so wanted to get them out of the way. Should have gone after work, but just wanted to go home and slump!

Woo hoo

Date: Thurs 13th June
Exercise: jog
Distance: 5.25 miles – GET IN!!!!

As part of the Marathon Talk Jantastic challenge I said that I would run at least four times a week. Last week my good friend wasn’t able to do a Thursday run so we had to do a double run on Sunday – so I said (reluctantly) I’d run with her on Thursday.

I enjoyed it in the end – and my friend confided in me that she throught we were only going to do three miles so she was really impressed that we did over five (we had to do a loop round my house as my Nikeplus band was only showing 4.19)…