The Grim Reavers Are Born

My last post was about my desire to wear skates and injure myself in an attempt at getting fit. Well, we had our very first training session last night and it was Ah-maze-zing . . . after a wobbly start I surprised myself with an actual ability to skate. I think lots of the other ladies that turned up thought the same thing. Super proud of everyone involved. See, sometimes I have an idea and it becomes a fully functioning reality that other people want to take part in too. We now have a team logo, courtesy of a very awesome lady named Penny, I’m thinking team tattoos already seen as Penny is a tattooist too. Talking of tattoos, my latest addition is this beauty at the base of my neck between my shoulder blades . . .

A small reward for reaching my last weight loss goal and continuing to lose weight.

I’ve lost 1lb this week which is fantastic considering it was my birthday week. I also went for a 3 mile run on Friday, the first time I’ve run for nearly 3 weeks. It felt good to be out running but again the weather is really putting me off this exercise, plus roller skating is much more fun.

In celebration of the launch of the Grim Reavers, you can get 10% off your order at my online store using the code ‘Reavers’ . . . this offer ends on 9th December 2012.

As ever keep up to date with us on Twitter by following the #LittlerFairies or #GrimReavers tags

I Think I Want To Try Roller Derby

Greetings and apologies, I have been very, very busy but I have finally got a few minutes to update all you #LittlerFairies on my latest antics.  Running has been shelved due to bad weather, busy schedules, tiredness, illness, snot . . . who am I kidding, we have lots of excuses not to do it.  I think I’d be more inclined to push myself if it was my only form of exercise though.

I’ve started taking my 3 year old son swimming every Tuesday morning and we’re loving the time we get together. Unfortunately this Tuesday will be our last session for two weeks as I’m having another tattoo on the 28th November (my birthday, yay). I’ll also have to miss Aqua Fitness on a Wednesday morning for a fortnight too. But wait . . . that’s two exercise sessions I’m missing along with my non-running . . . never fear fellow fairies, I have a plan.

I shall be roller skating! Oh yes, you heard me correctly, I’ll be roller skating. I had a dream, a dream of attending Roller Derby training and becoming awesome at it and joining our local team . . . what do you mean we don’t have a local team? Well, now I’m less fat and all confident and such, I’m not going to let this minor detail stop my dreams of awesomeness, and so The Grim Reavers were born. Grimsby and Cleethorpes very first Roller Derby team has been brought to life. If you’re local come join us for our first training session on Sunday 2nd December, full details can be found here

OTHER NEWS

Weight update – I lost a massive 3lb this week, that’s without running, so I am pleased I managed a loss at all.

I had my 6 month Smoke Free review last week and I’m thrilled to continue to be Smoke Free.

It’s my birthday this week, I expect to not lose any weight as I plan to overindulge in wine and chocolate and cake. Although my new skates will be here so maybe I can work it off. As part of my birthday celebrations there is 50% off selected Jewellery by Little Fairy Cult items until 28th November 2012, check it out here . . . you will also find selected stud earrings for £1.50 a pair and sets of 6 pairs for £6. Help me celebrate and grab some beautiful handmade stocking fillers.

Just Keep Running and More

I’m just going to come out and say it . . . Gyms are boring and I bet 98% of the people using them think so too. That being said, I actually joined my local Everyone Active gym last week and shall now embark on another exercise experiment . . . is it possible to lose weight and get fit without stepping foot in my gym.

Now, I’m not saying I won’t be doing any form of exercise as we have 3 Everyone Active centres in my area, all of which I am entitled to use as part of my membership, all of which have a swimming pool, one has an ice rink and they all offer facilities for fitness classes and racket sports. What I will not be doing is going into the actual gym and spending time doing weights, running on a treadmill or cycling on an exercise bike. All of these seem to be an important part of everyone else’s exercise regime but, really, I can not be bothered with it.

I’ll still be running 3 times a week and Zumbaring on a Monday evening, but I’ll also be taking full advantage of the free classes and amenities.

So my exercise plan now looks like this –

Monday: Running and Zumba

Tuesday: Legs, Bums and Tums class

Wednesday: Running and Aqua Fitness class

Thursday: Badminton and Supple Strength class

Friday: Running

I can not wait for my first Legs, Bums and Tums class or my Aqua Fitness one . . . I have, however, attended our first Supple Strength class and survived, just!

Supple Strength is a combination of Yoga, Pilates and Tai Chi, attended by Yoga bunnies, in their yoga pants with their yoga mats and me in my Zombie Outbreak tee and Yoga pants . . . turns out my spare running pants are actually yoga pants, who knew. I enjoyed it, even if I failed quite badly due to being directionally challenged and not very supple, on the plus side it did what I wanted and that was to help my leg muscles stop tightening so much when I run.

Quick weight update, I lost 2lb this week, 1lb of which is the weight I gained last week. Stay tuned to see how well I achieve my goals with all these classes by following the #LittlerFairies tag on Twitter.

Ease Into 5K – Week 8 and Graduation

It is with immense pride that I tell you all that myself and Lisa graduated from our run training this week. Wahoo! A mere 8 weeks . . . well 9.5 weeks, after deciding to start the Ease into 5K app we can now run for 30 minutes. I am so proud of us. When we started I could barely run for a minute and now I can run for 30 and intend to keep going to increase my run pace and eventually start training for 10K. Onwards and upwards, right? Lisa has plans to complete a marathon, I have no such goals but will happily train with her.

So, other than learning to run what other amazingness has my run training taught me . . .

1. Most women will look at you in a kind of ‘WTH, are you mental?’ way as you run past them.
2. Most men will make a smug remark like ‘run faster’ or something similar as you run past.
3. It is impossible to not run like Rocky Balboa when your iPod offers up Gonna Fly Now by Bill Conti
4. I will always wonder why the pavement doesn’t light up when Billie Jean comes on whilst I’m running
5. I will sing Thriller as I run if it chooses to come on *thank you shuffle function*
6. I can not be held responsible for doing the Beat It dance moves as I do my cool down walk
7. I have a surprising amount of Michael Jackson tunes on my iPod
8. My mirror is not one of those ‘yes, wear the tight jacket, it looks great on you!’ types of mirrors. My mirror is one of the ‘you take that off right now, fatty!’ types. *Thank you truthful mirror*

As ever, keep up-to-date with our training and progression by following the #LittlerFairies tag over on Twitter.

Ease Into 5K – Week 7 . . . and a bit of 8

I’m not going to lie to you, part of my need to conquer this running thing is the possibility of hopefully surviving any future Zombie Apocalypse by being able to run away . . . and keep running.  It is also because I want to participate in the awesome 2.8 hours later event, hopefully next year.

As you may be aware we missed another week of run training. This was due to an unfortunate accident involving a pair of hair straighteners, a naked bum, copious amounts of alcohol and a Lisa. Needless to say it was sore and she couldn’t actually run . . . or sit down, so we had a week off.

I didn’t want to start week 7 from the beginning again, as Lisa had bravely managed to do our Monday run, so we carried on with Day 2, a straight run of 26 minutes. I have to admit I am loving the straight runs much more than the run, walk, run part of our training. Wednesday was a run of 27 minutes and today saw me begin Week 8 Day 1 with a 28 minute run. I had to run by myself today as I knew I had a lot to do today and people popping around so I decided to get it out the way with as soon as possible.

I actually sprinted the warm up/cool down part, so managed nearly 40 minutes of running. This also meant my walk pace was faster than my run pace. I felt fantastic afterwards. This week I believe I have finally caught the shiny, happy, running bug.

In other news, I managed to lose no weight this week, probably due to lack of exercise last week and not adjusting my daily calorie intake. But I did still get my tattoo last week and booked myself in for another one in November.

Join in with our joy of exercise over on Twitter by following and tweeting the #LittlerFairies hash tag

Ease Into 5K – Week 6

Welcome back everybody . . . settle down at the back and we’ll get started. Today we completed Week 6 of the Ease into 5K app. Yes, I am aware that last week was meant to be the whole ‘Hooray we completed Week 6’ thing, but we didn’t, hence the missing blog post.

We completed Day 1 of Week 6 last Monday and then Wednesday happened, Lisa was very poorly sick so cancelled our run . . . I was up and ready and phoning her at 5:30 demanding she get up. I am yet to figure out exactly why I thought I was capable of running for a solid 20 minutes, after 2 hours sleep and technically still being rather unsober. Still, for the record I was up and dressed and ready to go for a run at mental o’clock.

Anyway, we decided to rest up for the week and get back to it this week. When I say rest, I obviously mean that I still attended my gym sessions and started Zumbaring on the Monday night. So, this Monday saw us complete, for a second time, Week6:Day1 and actually look forward to the 20 minute run we knew would be coming on Wednesday . . . and we did it. Or as my status said ‘ran non-stop for 20 minutes, didn’t die’. Quite an achievement really, from complete non-runner and non-exerciser 6 . . . er, 7 weeks ago, to running non-stop for a whole 20 minutes and managing to not die. I felt amazing and then today it was back to pushing for that extra bit as we completed a total of 25 minutes running. Tonight I ache all over having completed a huge amount of exercise:

Monday: Run Training and Zumba

Wednesday: Run Training and Gym

Thursday: Gym and Zumba

Friday: Run Training

Then there is all the walking I do. Walking the dog, school drop offs and pick ups, walking the daughter to the bus stop, etc. I am very much looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend of doing nothing, although I have three children so the ‘doing nothing’ isn’t exactly going to happen.

On the plus side of all this exercising and calorie counting I have managed to lose a massive 3lb this week and I can tell I have lost inches everywhere.

Continue to join in with our antics by using the #LittlerFairies tag on Twitter and don’t forget you can win a Ouija Board necklace from Jewellery by LittleFairyCult if you join in with the Pin Fairies October Projects

Ease Into 5K – Week 5

Huzzah! Today I ran, I ran like someone who runs can run and it felt great. At first I read our training schedule for today and was all ‘yeah right’ and ‘never, ever going to happen’ . . . but it did and I ran.  I ran for longer than I ever thought I could ever manage and afterwards felt amazing. It’s taken me 5 weeks but I think I finally got to that ‘I love running’ moment.

That’s enough of all that happy running nonsense for now. This week saw me lose 1.5lbs, and I took my measurements again too, and have lost 8 inches from all over my body since 31st August 2012. I am thrilled with these figures and I have finally reached my ‘lost 10% of my body weight’ goal. Which means I have booked my celebratory tattoo for 17th October and I am so excited. I’ve reset my goal and I’m looking forward to reaching this new one.

On a more serious note, we found out this week that The Poppy Run in our area has been cancelled. So we are currently runless, but we are still happy to train and hopefully will find another 5K, or maybe even a 10K one.

Annnnndddddd finally, Monday see’s the start of Stoptober . . .

The blurb

During October, thousands of people across England are taking part in Stoptober – a new, exciting 28 day challenge to stop smoking.

There’s lots of free support to help you along the way – and the great news is that by stopping smoking for 28 days, you are five times more likely to stay smokefree!

So if you fancy becoming smokefree . . . and I can highly recommend it . . . why not kick start the process by joining in with the NHS Stoptober challenge.

I took this screen shot earlier, so I have now been SmokeFree for 137d. I will try not to sound all ex-smokery here, but I don’t miss it and I certainly wouldn’t be running and getting my breath back as quickly as I do if I was still smoking.

As ever, join in the fun and tiredness over on Twitter by using the #LittlerFairies

*note* Tune in next week to see how my uncoordinated butt manages at the Zumba class I’ll be attending on Monday nights.

Ease Into 5K – Week 4

This was me this week, full of snot and convinced I’d die on my runs . . . I obviously didn’t as I completed Week 4 and lived to tell you all about how great I feel . . . I don’t actually feel great, I feel a bit defeated to be honest. I managed a massive weight loss of zero. Yep, near enough ran myself into the ground to lose nothing.

I have still got my first goal set as losing 10% of my body weight. This goal has been in place since May . . . I still haven’t achieved it and it’s driving me crazy. I only needed to lose 1lb this week to achieve it, I still only need to lose 1lb but it’s another week away from my goal. I’ve promised myself a little tattoo as a treat for reaching my 10% goal to keep my eyes firmly focused on my goal this week. I even spent a day clearing out all my ‘safety’ clothes. The ones you keep in your wardrobe for when you feel a bit fat and they cover everything up and they’re loose fitting so you don’t need to hold anything in . . . well, they’ve all gone to the charity shop now and I am only left with a few items that fit me now and the rest is all my ‘used to fit me’ clothes. So, unless I intend to walk around naked or in my pyjamas I guess I’ll have to blooming well stick to this torture exercise routine.

Next week I shall be much more positive and hopefully get that ‘isn’t exercise fantastic’ feeling, and if I don’t I shall just look forward to feeling fantastic when I fit into my clothes again.

As always keep up-to-date with our shenanigans by following the #LittlerFairies tag on Twitter

Whilst I’m on here, hot foot it over to my Promotions page to check out the awesome free gifts you can get in my Halloween Promotion . . . *is saving up for a tattoo and all that*

LiveJournal Tags: c25k,couch to 5k,ease into 5k,exercise,fitness,health,iphone,iphone app,jogging,Littler Fairies,losing weight,my fitness pal,running,the poppy run

You Are Your Own Gym – Week 2

Yep. This is what I kept telling myself as I work through 36 of them on what is W2:D2 of You Are Your Own Gym.

I’ve slightly adjusted the plan, so technically, this was my W2:D3. I’d like to lie and tell you it’s got easier, but it hasn’t, it’s been harder and I’m wondering if I should increase my calorie intake a little more to Moderately Active, this would take me to 1960, which seems an awful lot. Dan, who designed the Road Map advises me to if my weight loss stalls, but I’m beginning to think I might anyway as I’m pretty tired, even on 6-7 hours sleep. Weigh Day is Monday and I don’t do my stats until next Sunday. I’ve swapped and changed my plans 2-3 times in the past 3 weeks so I think I might be best to give my hormones a good chance to settle and wait until after my stats next week.

Back to YAYOG, this week saw a huge update, Mark and the team have made the whole app sleeker, it looks a whole lot better, every exercise has a workout video to accompany it, and the best thing for me was target reps on the 4-step ladders. I’ve clearly been going to fast as my squats were 43 on my first day, today however I did 36/36, so I’m happy that I’m on the right track with those. One legged Romanian deadlifts on the other hand. Have you tried these? I have no balance as it is, but these are a whole new kettle of fish. I’m supposed to do 36, I managed 15 because I spent so much time trying not to fall over. Look:

 

You stand up.

Then you bend forward from the waist while lifting one leg in the air and touching the floor, then repeat on the other leg. Who can’t do that? Well, actually, me. I wobble like a weeble. Here’s a Weeble, in case you weren’t aware of their existence.

Apparently ‘Weeble’s wobbly but they don’t fall down’. I remember them from my childhood and I definitely felt like one today.

In other news, I’m actually freaking out about all the running that’s going to be happening on Monday.

 

14. Yep 14 whole minutes of the running, not 9, but a whole 50% increase. I’m scared. I may actually die. If not I’ll be back next week when I’ve moved onto W3 of YAYOG, when I start the Strength Block which begins with 36 Push-Ups. Actaul Push-Ups, not modified ones.

As always follow us through the week on the hastags #yayog #LittlerFairies #C25K and possibley a new one for this week #notdeadyet

 

Ease Into 5K – Week 3

We did it, we completed Week 3 . . . it is not getting easier and we have looked ahead at next week’s running schedule and scared ourselves.  Personally, I think Lisa might be dragging me home or calling for an ambulance or adopting my kids and organising me a nice funeral with a bio-degradable coffin. Not that I’m ready to admit defeat, just yet. I shall run and I shall complete the week safe in the knowledge that I’ll be freaking out again about Week 5’s schedule.

To be fair, I never thought I’d be able to run for 1 minute, now I’ve managed to run for longer than that, with my run pace being around 10:50 min/mile or about 5mph, which I think is quite impressive for me. I do love these apps that do all this calculating stuff for you.

Another fun little feature on the ‘Ease into 5K’ app is the journal entries. After each run you get your stats filled in by the app, like Distance; Calories Burned; Average Pace; Duration of run; Run Pace and Walk Pace . . . then you get to enter how you feel about your run, I, bizarrely, have mainly smiley faces for my runs. You can make little notes too. Let’s see how my notes have changed over the last 3 weeks.

Week1, Day1 – Hooray, I did it!

Week1, Day3 – Not as bad as I thought!

Week2, Day 1 – Eurgh!!!!

Week2, Day3 – Hurtie shins and knees, but not too bad!

Week3, Day1 – My knee really hurts, but my run pace is faster!

Week3, Day3 – Do not like!!!

So, going on my quick notes straight after my run, I’m kind of enjoying it more than hating it. I think my last note was due to that run being after I’d been up all night with my sons and the beginning of my cold emerging.  This is how I am rationalising how bad I felt afterwards. In an ideal world, I’d get up after my full quota of sleep, go for a run and come home to a peaceful house . . . the reality is insanity, chaos, demanding children, hardly any sleep . . . and then dragging my ass out of the house to run like I am still managing to be a super fit mum to 3 demons delightful children.

Oh and I managed to lose 1lb this week, which is fantastic seen as I have been a bit forgetful with my calorie tracking. I have been concentrating on ‘strength’ training at the gym instead of ‘cardio’ work which is making my gym sessions much more enjoyable and very hilarious. I found a machine that looked like a torture contraption at the gym on Thursday, so being the inquisitive person that I am, I made the gym lady show me how it worked . . . the funniest best abdominal exercise on this machine was the Cable Crunch. The lady on the video is obviously less prone to the giggles than myself and Nikki were when we did this exercise.

As always keep up to date with our fitness endeavours and join in yourself over on Twitter by following the #LittlerFairies tag.