This Weekend!

Oh my days - this weekend has been one of dreams and nightmares! The sun has finally started shinning here in the UK so the husband, kids and I headed to the beach on Saturday! 

Well no trip to the beach would be complete without traditional English Fish and Chips and boy were they good! In fact they were actually amazing............

Sunday saw us go for a Picnic at a local park - again more bad food!! Having a healthy picnic is down right hard - made even harder by the fact the park sells the most gorgeous Scones, Jam and Cream.

I don't even want to weigh myself this week - I am actually far too scared. It's gotten to the point where I am considering not eating until after my PT session on Friday! Yes I know this probably won't help but having to stand there and feel miserable about my one weekend of fun isn't going to make me feel good.

At the very least I plan on drinking as much water as humanly possible to flush all the bad crap out of my system. 

While I had a great weekend I actually feel pretty crap from all the shit I've eaten!

Back to taking it one day at a time again!

cardio vs strength training

This is something that took me a while to get my head around! For a long long long time, I genuinely believed the only way to shed any of my weight was to spend hours and hours pounding the treadmill. So when i first started back at the gym this is what I did. However I very soon go bored and would talk myself out of going! I then found spin, and fell in love and whilst I was really pleased I had found some cardio exercise I liked, again I found myself getting fed up in the gym!

Until I found the confidence to head into the weight room. Now, other than my warm up I maybe only do 1-2 sessions of cardio at the most and 9 times out of 10 those cardio sessions involve HIIT training.

Since I started using weights both in body pump and with my trainer my entire body composition has changed! I have muscles in places I never knew existed!

Honestly when I started I was terrified, it can be really intimidating and complicated looking. There are still certain times of the day when I avoid the weight room - you'll never catch me in there in the evening! 

Even taking all this into account I still believe the benefits of weight training (see below) outweigh the hours of boredom pounding a treadmill:

Weight Training Build Lean Muscle - Increasing muscle mass, increases your metabolism. The long and short of it - you burn calories even while resting (all good in my book)

Boost Stamina - Essentially the less tired you will be! Being able to train for longer helps burn more calories!

Decreased Risk of Osteoporosis

Builds Confidence

Makes you happy - Lets be honest any exercise lifts the happy hormone in you so get moving!

Seriously though, why not give it a try????

Results......Again!

It's that time again! I really need to make myself accountable and showing progress pictures is the only way to do it!
Here is me 2 weeks ago on 8th April 2014 - the first progress photo I had taken:

Here are my progress photos now 2 weeks on.......I think you can see a difference particularly on the side view - I still feel huge and have a long long long way to go but looking at photos of the changes is nice!

Here are some comparrison pics for good measure!

BEFORE AND NOW!

STARTING WEIGHT - 259lb ( was bigger when the before photo was taken but no idea what I weighed)

CURRENT WEIGHT - 213lb

HIIT for Fat Burn

My workouts have changed a lot recently. What started out as hours and hours on the treadmill has now become mega streamlined, but is having HUGE effects!

I now workout on the treadmill for roughly 20 mins three times a week. This combined with weight training is giving me some amazing results.....so until it stops working i plan on continuing in the same way.

Basically my workouts now consist of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). In essence i totally kill myself and burn as many calories as i can, then it's done!

HIIT training on the treadmill is ideal for me as i can change the intensity and speed depending on how my legs are feeling. Generally i sprint on the treadmill for 30 seconds and then do active recovery - either walking or a light jog depending how I'm feeling for 1 minute. 

With HIIT training its important to keep changing things up and surprising your body so I often vary the speed rather than the length of the sprint or i do the same workout but on the spin bikes!

Seriously give it a try and see if it works for you.......It took a while but I'm really starting to love it now!

Spinning, Pumping, Personal Training!

Watch from ASOS

Wow i can't believe how long its been since i posted!

Truth be told I'd decided not to bother with this blog but recently I've been spending a lot of time on instagram and reading other peoples fitness blog and found them truly inspiring. Which made me think, while i may not think what i have to say is particularly important someone might, and just might be inspired by my story to give themselves a totally new lifestyle!

So whats been going on since i last posted.........well I've dropped a s*** tonne of weight.......I now weigh 216 which is considerably less than my starting weight!
Over the Christmas period something changed in my brain and i really decided i want this, so since then I've totally overhauled my diet, added in some weight training (weight machines and body pump class) and taken on a personal trainer!

I've also entered myself into my first 5k race - well its more of a fun run but hey ho!

Over the next few weeks I'm going to be posting about my daily gym, fitness and general day to day activities. My new clean eating lifestyle (i hate the word diet....it immediately makes me hungry), possibly some recipes. I also plan on sharing other fitness blogs that i love reading!

So for now take care xx