A breath of fresh air

I saw something yesterday that made me really happy. An old friend of mine on Facebook (you know the type: used to live next door to her in University Halls, so we knew everything about each other for a year, but since then communication is sadly limited to the occasional “like” on a Facebook wall) posted something I rarely ever see from anyone: a positive statement about her body.

How great is that? How often does a woman ever think such positive things about herself, let alone make her thoughts so public? I have to say, she looked gorgeous ten years ago when we lived together, so I doubt she’s ever had a good reason for not liking her body, but how often does having a great (or, at least, acceptable) figure stop us from whinging about how we look?

And even if we do think we look gorgeous, it takes real guts to tell the rest of the world about it. I’m so proud of my friend, not for getting fit and losing weight (although that’s great too) but for reminding the rest of us that it’s OK to shout about the things we love about ourselves, rather than moaning about everything we don’t like.

Countdown to Edinburgh

It's absolutely ages since I entered a race, and even longer than that since I actually trained for one. In fact, strike that, I've never trained properly for a race. I used to enter the Great Manchester Run every year and my training would consist of going for a few 4-6km runs in the two or three weeks running up to the race, and then dragging my screaming body around the course in a horribly slow time before spending the next six months not running at all.

I think the problem might be that it is actually possible to get round a 10k without putting in any training (even though, in my case at least, it hurts A LOT), which seems to remove any motivation on my part to train. So, in an effort to remedy the lack of motivation thing, I've entered the Great Edinburgh Run, which will be 10 miles around the city centre, Royal Mile and Arthur's Seat on April 27th. I'm sure to a seasoned runner, 10 miles feels like nothing, but I can assure you it scares the pants off me. Especially since I mapped the route on Map My Run and saw the elevation profile of this supposedly "flat" course:

Um, hello? Flat? I suppose hills mean a different thing in a city like Edinburgh that is essentially built on a huge hill, but still, that profile doesn't look "flat" to me in anyone's language.

Anyhoo, the aim of scaring myself into training properly seems to have paid off, and I've started running again. Slowly, I admit. This was one of my 100HappyDays photos last week:

Hardly world-beating (although it did include a looong cool-down, which lowered the average pace somewhat). But a start is a start. Just need to get in some hill runs now.

Keep Alert and Drink More Water

Do you drink enough water? I can say without hesitation that until January 1st, I definitely did not. In fact, most days I drank a cup of coffee and a cup of tea and that was about it. Then I made a new year's resolution to drink 1600 mL of water every day, and my life changed. Literally.

Honestly, so many things in my life are better now that I keep myself hydrated. The best is that I need loads less sleep. I honestly believed that I needed 8-9 hours sleep a night (which I usually didn't get and was consequently tired and grumpy all day). Now I'm happy with 7 hours, and when I get up in the morning I drink a mug of hot water rather than necking two cups of coffee.

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Other changes? I have more energy, I'm more on-the-ball at work, my workouts are better, I snack less often (turns out it's true that we tend to mistake thirst for hunger) and my skin already looks clearer. This morning, after possibly having one too many pear and apple martinis last night, I stumbled into the kitchen looking for water rather than coffee. I seriously cannot believe that such a small and simple habit has changed my life so fundamentally.

If, like me, you could do with drinking more water, I can heartily recommend the Waterlogged app. Free on iTunes, the app helps you keep track of your intake over the day, as well as giving you your numbers for the preceding week in handy graph form. If you pay for an upgrade (I haven't) the app will  keep track of all your data since you first started logging. You can also set reminders throughout the day to encourage you to keep drinking.

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As a slightly (my husband would say very) anal person who believes that everything is better when in list or table form, I adore this app. I am so much more motivated to drink my daily water quota when I know I can enter it on Waterlogged, and I still smile every evening when I get to click the "I am successful" button the app developers have kindly programmed to pop up when you reach your daily goal. You know what they say about simple things and simple minds...

100 Happy Days

Do you have time to be happy? According to the people running the #100HappyDays challenge, 71% of people who committed to the challenge gave up because they didn't have enough time.

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The challenge is really simple: for 100 days in a row, take a photo of something that makes you happy and post it on the social media site of your choice. 100happydays.com says that people who commit to the challenge feel happier, luckier, more optimistic and can even fall in love during the 100 days. Sounds like maximum gain for minimum effort, I'd say. So why do over 70% of people not have enough time to commit to it?

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Obviously not having "enough" time to post a photo every day is a different thing from not having time to be happy, so I would dispute their claim that the people who "fail" the challenge are too busy to find even a moment of happiness in their day. And you definitely don't need to take part in this challenge in order to be happy, or to realise how lucky you really are. But it does sound like a lovely way of reminding yourself every day that the tiny things count just as much as the big ones when it comes to happiness.

One of my new year's resolutions this year was to be content with what I already have - mainly in an effort to stop spending money on stuff I really don't need. As part of it, I've been keeping a gratitude journal, and it's mainly full of the little things in life - looking back over our wedding photos, a lie-in on an unexpected day off work, a hug from my husband, an invitation to lunch... I think the #100HappyDays challenge sounds like a lovely addition to what I've already committed to doing this year, so I'll be starting tomorrow, and I'll post some of my favourite photos here.

You can join the challenge at any time by signing up at 100happydays.com

Resolutions

Finally, after 31 years of making them, I’ve had a bit of an epiphany about New Year’s Resolutions. The fact is that every January for about the last fifteen years, as the old year morphs into the new so promisingly, I’ve made about twelve really exciting resolutions.

Two of these I’ve disregarded the minute I’ve woken up on New Year’s Day (boring, pointless, or Too Much Like Hard Work). Nine of the remaining ten I have thrown myself at enthusiastically for somewhere between one and three days before either forgetting all about them or finding really good excuses not to worry about them any more. The final resolution often gets kept for anything up to a couple of weeks, but eventually that falls by the wayside too.

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This year I suddenly remembered the resolutions I made as a child. Unlike those of recent years, usually created in an excited haze on a New Year’s Eve fuelled by bubbly and the collective enthusiasm of the assembled group for the promise of the new year, my childhood resolutions were different in three ways:

      1. They were actually important to me – I’d thought about them for weeks

      2. I only ever made one at a time

      3.  I actually kept them

Until I was about twelve, the concept of making more than one New Year’s Resolution wouldn’t even have occurred to me. Then I read The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ (a genius book – run out and buy/borrow/steal it if you haven’t already read it) and noticed that Adrian made about ten resolutions every year. Suddenly I realised that I could too – so I did. In more recent years, Bridget Jones’ list of resolutions that fills two pages at the beginning of her Diary has probably encouraged thousands of us to make as many resolutions as we can think of in the hope that we might actually end up keeping one of them.

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Finally I’ve seen the error of my ways. I can’t even remember any of the resolutions I made last year, although I know I made several. So this year, it’s all different. I’ve made two resolutions, both of which I’ve been thinking about for ages, both of which are really important to me, and both of which will make a real difference to my life if I keep them. Which, so far, I am doing.

I’ve already got an enormous sense of achievement for having managed (easily!) to keep my two resolutions for a week. If I get to the end of the year having turned my resolutions into habits then it won’t matter that I “only” made two – my life will be immeasurably better for having kept two than it would have been had I simply forgotten about another twelve.

Bring on 2014!

I Used to be Fit

Embarrassing fact: I love I Used to be Fat on MTV. Can’t get enough of it. I even Tivo it to make sure I can always get my fix when I want it. I don’t know what it is about watching overweight teenagers dedicate their entire summers to losing weight that entertains and inspires me.

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One thing I have noticed a whole lot, though, is the amount of vomiting that seems to go on in their first workouts. I mean, ew. I get the concept of elite athletes or SAS recruits pushing themselves to the point of puking, but 18-year-olds in the gym – really? While a little bit of me is impressed that they're able to push themselves that hard, most of me just finds it pretty gross, and surely unnecessary?

Then I did my first proper workout in months (well, years) yesterday. Just to put this in context – I am by no means overweight (although I will be delighted when my bottom stops moving independently of the rest of me) but I am ridiculously unfit compared with my university days. With the pressures of job, commuting, house and husband, and just generally Being An Adult, I’ve gradually lost fitness over the last 5 or 6 years, and the less said about my tennis skills these days, the better.

So there I was yesterday, at the gym I’ve been wasting membership fees on for the last half decade, designing a new gym programme and going through a nice little circuit with a PT. I guess the fact that I don’t look too out of shape, plus the fact that I have a vague idea of what I’m talking about in a gym setting, falsely reassured him. And, let’s face it, when I threw myself at the circuit hell for leather, my brain clearly thought I was still 25 and at the peak of my fitness.

To my credit, I did complete the circuit - once. Killed it, in fact ;) Then I had to retire to nearly faint and be sick. In fact, I felt nauseated for the next half hour. Seriously thought I was going to throw up there. And in that moment I identified so much more with the poor I Used to be Fat kids, even though for me it was more a case of I Used to be Fit.

I’ve got another date with the gym tomorrow, and this time I actually want to get through the circuit more than once. Doing the prescribed cardio workout after the circuits would be nice too. I definitely don’t want to spend another half hour sitting next to the bin willing myself not to throw up. So, in the interests of not looking like a complete jessie again, I’ve done a little bit of research on How Not To Chuck Up at the gym, and this is what I’ve come up with.

There are basically three points during your workout when you might feel/be sick: before, during or after.

Before

This will probably be due to anxiety, nerves or excitement. I definitely used to feel sick before tennis matches, and even a tough scheduled workout can bring on the nerves. This is basically due to the fight-or-flight response that releases adrenaline and causes you to feel tense, jittery and sick.

The solution here is to employ your favourite nerve-calming strategies – deep breathing, visualisation, going back to your familiar pre-match/workout routines – whatever works for you.

During

The most common cause of nausea and vomiting during exercise is the diversion of blood and energy away from less important systems (such as your gut) towards the parts of you body that need it most during a hard workout (mainly skeletal muscle, heart and lungs).

For this reason, you need to make sure your gut isn’t already overloaded – so don’t eat too soon before exercising. The amount of time you need to leave varies from person to person, but 2-3 hours is probably about right. On the other hand, don’t do a hard workout without having eaten anything at all – low blood sugar is another good way to feel sick and dizzy.

Don’t take in too much sugar during your workout either – there’s only so much your stomach can deal with. If you’re taking gels, make sure you take them with water rather than a sports drink, or you risk taking in more glucose than you can handle. You also need to make sure you’re well hydrated before you start –  dehydration causes nausea, plus if you have to drink too much during your workout your stomach will just reject it.

After

This is usually caused by the sudden cessation of exertion – your body just isn’t ready for you to stop abruptly. I think this was my problem yesterday – when I finished the circuit I just felt tired. As soon as I sat down, I felt sick and dizzy.

The solution to this is to keep moving, even if only gently, between sets or circuits, and to cool down properly at the end of your workout.

I am totally going to follow my own advice before tomorrow’s workout. I’m already hydrating, I’ve got my pre-workout breakfast planned and I definitely won’t make the mistake of going straight from 100% effort to sitting on a step again – the results are just too unpleasant.