2011 in Pictures

Starting the positivity with a post of the fun things I did this year :)

This is really the only photo I have of me doing a fun run this year haha, and you can barely see me! I'm behind the dude with the white shirt and red bits - wearing blue shorts. But this year I ran in three - Bridges 10k, Run for a Reason 14k & City 2 Surf 12k. Next year, many many more races!

Hiked about 100 km of the Bibbulmun Track in Western Australia, in four days. It was stunning.

A sunset on the track.

Another evil hill, this is the part where I would always get separated from the group (That's me in the red jacket).

Looking exhausted on day four (me on the right)

Went to Vietnam, here is where I rode on the back of a motorbike up the Hoi Van Pass... it was about a four or five hour ride and with some amazing scenery.

A sunset on one of the small islands I stayed at overnight in Vietnam. This was one of my favourite nights there. After spending the day picking fruit, cycling around the island and chilling in a hammock... we watched the sunset and then had a traditional Vietnamese dinner. So relaxing.

I stayed in a five star hotel in Vietnam for my birthday, and when I had returned from the day's travelling, the hotel had left me a card, cake and a REAL bunch of roses!! It made me so happy to receive that when away from home :D

Did boot camp for a month. I LOVED it, but it was really inconvenient! 20 km from my home meant that on my busiest uni day I would be getting up at 5 am, driving there, doing the session, driving to uni - changing in the car!! (No showers at uni unless you pay!) and then being at uni from 7 am to 7 pm... driving home... which took another 40 mins. Was a REALLY long day... plus boot camp is super expensive and not feasible on a student budget. But I would love to do it again!

Got back into kickboxing and fought in a novice tournament after being back for one month :) I forgot how much I missed it till I got back, and can't wait to return after Christmas break.

One of the very few skydives I did this year - There was a Christmas themed party where we jumped in santa suits and elf suits, etc. I am the one I suppose you could say "facing" the camera. Was a fantastic day and so good to catch up with people I hadn't seen for months!

I wish I had more photos to share, but I think I got pretty slack with my camera... so there's not too many. I am not making new year's resolutions for 2012, but I hope to run the City 2 Surf half-marathon and to run as many 5k's as I can find. I also hope to adopt a more positive mindset in general, and to take more photos! :)

Ending the negativity

I've realised lately that I'm actually not as recovered as I thought I was. 

I've written several posts - about five, in fact - that I have decided not to post as they were just so negative. 

This isn't what I wanted this blog to be about at all. I'm confused about everything.

There is no need for another blogger out there who posts negative things or talks all about their ED, or seems to "encourage" the idea... I wanted this blog to be about being fit, healthy and happy - not counting calories and being unhappy - which is really the place I am at. I hate reading other blogs and seeing that people think they are better, when really they are not. It just makes me sad.

One thing that made me realise I am not recovered was how hard Christmas was for me. It wasn't that I was forced to eat anything I didn't want to, but I was constantly on edge and bit my whole family's head off with my attitude. They were mad at me for it. I did not enjoy Christmas at all.

I have made an appointment with a dietician, but I couldn't get in until the end of January. I don't know what the problem is, exactly... I'm not anorexic or bulimic as before, but I seem to be leaning much more towards the orthorexic ways and it's just not cool. I also think the fact that I've been quite depressed plays a big part, and eating healthy is something else to focus on. It's completely complicated by so many other factors!!

But as I said, I don't want this blog to be about that. So from now on, expect an end to the negativity - it means I will post much less, most likely - and a return to posts about my passions in life - running & kickboxing. I suppose that will become easier next year when I start doing more races.

I think I will make a start to posting positive posts soon, perhaps with some more "things that make me happy" type posts.

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas all!! :)

Not going to lie, I love christmas, presents, the christmas spirit... but it's this time of the year that both the social anxiety (family get-togethers) and ED thoughts hit pretty hard!
Here's hoping for a better Christmas this year and not letting negative thoughts ruin things.
Hope everyone has some good times planned and is not struggling with their own thoughts too much over the Christmas break to stop their enjoyment :)

Progress!

It's really strange that the busier I am, the more posts I write. Since finishing exams, I have hardly written a thing in this blog! I guess because there is more to say when you're busy. I'm going to mix it up and write a post with random list type things, because lists are awesome.

I am, ever so slowly, increasing my running speed without trying. To be completely honest, although I've been "running" for a year... I've actually only been consistently running 3x a week for 16 weeks now. So I'm super happy that my pace has gone from roughly 6:50 to 6:00 in that time (KM paces), and who knows what it can improve to with time, maybe if I actually start doing intervals and tempo runs and all that kind of thing... all in good time though!! Too injury paranoid - plus I'm not training for anything in particular right now.

Well, that was point 1.... point 2.. I attempted to make the peanut butter protein cookies featured in my WIAW post. The batter was amazingly awesome. When it cooked, the texture came out strange, and the flavour wasn't quite the same. I haven't figured out where I went wrong yet, but I will give it another go at some point!! Would love to have some daily protein cookies mmmmmm....

OK, that's actually all I've got ;) My iPhone has stopped being able to import photos for some stupid reason, so I've got no photos and probably no WIAW tomorrow :(

WIAW #9 or #10... Random goodness.

I originally started WIAW for a few reasons - meet new bloggers, find new recipes & to encourage myself to try new foods - mainly vegetable related as that is my weakness (love veg - can't be bothered preparing it) But I've gotten a bit lazy with it and end up just taking pictures when I eat something interesting - and mainly only stealing recipes for sweet foods ;). Oh well, at least I'm trying! :) 

Here's some eats from the last week or so.

One of the ugliest bowls of oats - steel cut oats soaked overnight and then cooked in the microwave this morning, mixed with a banana, tbsp maple syrup, cinnamon and about a tsp of peanut flour. Great combination :D

Peanut butter protein cookie by Titan. Only seem to be able to buy these at my gym, but it was sooo good! Soft and gooey like a cookie should be. Should definitely try making my own.

These were some peanut flour pancakes that didn't really go to plan... needed waaay more liquid because they were super tiny and fat. Tasted great though! Topped with mixed berries & cottage cheese.

A packed breakfast for Sunday since I was out all day Sat up until Sunday afternoon. Chocolate Hazelnut milk + Dark Choc, Cranberry & Almond Bar.

Packed snacks for Sunday - cherry tomatoes, blueberries & medjool dates. 

Saturday's packed lunch - my attempt at a bento box!! Included: 1 PB & J sandwich (in roll-up form), chocolate animal cookies, 2 medjool dates (stuffed with chocolate cookies), blueberries & a luna bar (nutz over chocolate?)

This was a bit of a challenge... was over a friend's place one night and we had cocktails and chocolates. First time I tried Blue Caracao... wasn't a huge fan!

A peanut & choc chip banana bread from the freezer, yummooo

Gummy vitamins... cheers to whoever's blog I saw these on. Best way to get vitamins ever :D Who cares if the packet has "Kid's vitamins" on it hehehehehe.

Here's my workout for today - I missed the BodyPump class I was going to attend due to my car having a flat battery, so I devised my own home circuit. This is copied from dailymile:

Circuit sesh 00:36 mins

Missed BodyPump but made up for it with a wicked home circuit. Had 10 "stations" with bits of paper telling me what to do (something I do often) and went around in a circle in the room 3 times (no rests). All weights used 2.5 kg per hand (or bodyweight)
1st station: Biceps x 15 & 1 min wall squat.
2nd station: chest press x 15 & tricep dips x 15
3: Lunges 15 each leg & bicycle squat thing
4: Shoulder lift thing x 15 & shoulder side lift thing x 15
5: wall squat again
6: 15 x pushups
7: situps with medicine ball x 15
8: squats with medicine ball x 15 & upright row x 15
9: plank 1 min + side plank each side 30 seconds
10: deadlifts x 15 + army situps x 15

After doing that 3 times I did this mini circuit once (all the exercises I hate ;)
mountain climbers x 15
burpees x 15
turkish getups x 15
toe taps x 15
jackknifes x 15

And then lay down for five minutes catching my breath ;)

It was a pretty good circuit, might have to repeat it next time! Definitely had my heart going a lot more than in a BodyPump class.

2012 Running Goals

I've been pretty slack with both blog posting and blog commenting, even though I have been reading people's blogs. Not really sure why! I even missed WIAW because I was too slack to take pictures ;) Actually I've been pretty slack in everything. I've still been keeping to my running plans but all my other fitness plans have fallen by the wayside... this happens to me every now and then so I suppose I'll just take it in my stride and know that the motivation will be back again :)

I have been playing a disturbing amount of The Sims 3.... hey, don't judge me, I've got a 4 month break and have to fill my time somehow ;) I've had this legacy family that I've been playing with for years, and I'm almost up to the 10th generation! It's begun to go all slow and laggy though and is a pain to play... anyway, END that nerd talk! Ha!

Anywho, back to my original topic... or beginning my original topic? Instead of doing December goals I'm thinking of my goals for 2012. It's early, I know, but I have some pretty big goals for 2012.

Today I joined the WA Marathon Club (WA = Western Australian), who run a heap of fun runs throughout the year (3-4 runs every month!) and I plan on pretty much doing as many of those as I can. You have to do eight to get recognition in the yearly award things, so I'll aim for at least eight. There's a few cross-country runs too, which I have never run, so I'm excited for that.

I also plan on running a half-marathon in August, and have made myself a super-conservative rough plan on increasing mileage super slowly up until then. I figure I'd rather slowly up it instead of doing one of those 12 week super-quick increase plans. Makes sense to me, anyway. I've made it so it stagnates for a couple of weeks, then increases by 10% for a couple of weeks, then drops every 4 weeks by about 5 km for a "rest week" followed by going back to the previous week's mileage. If that makes sense?

eg:
Week 1: 25 km
Week 2: 25 km
Week 3: 27 km
Week 4: 29 km
Week 5: 25 km
Week 6: 29 km etc etc

The club also runs a couple of free training sessions during the week, so hopefully I'll be able to make those occasionally. Excited!!!

The difficulty again is fitting in kickboxing and strength work ;) I always find that difficult! Running is so much easier for me to stick to, because I can go at any time in any place.... kickboxing is at 7:45 pm at night, which is super late and I often spend all day finding reasons not to go (I'm always happy when I do go though!). Strength work... well sometimes I like it, but mostly I don't. Necessary evil to me.

Next semester I'm excited for my classes:
Cancer Control
Introduction to Psychology
Mental Health Promotion
Sexology.

None of them really have much to do with Nutrition but I think these will be very interesting. Not really sure what Sexology will involve just yet but I think it has to do with what makes your sexuality or something?? Only one of these classes has an exam so that's pretty cool too :) The rest are assignment based.

Anywho enough rambling for today. I'm off to decide what to make for dinner...

Banning myself from grocery shopping!

I have come to the conclusion that I need to ban myself temporarily from grocery shopping. With all the free time I've had since being on uni break, I have seriously been to the grocery store FIVE times this week... there were so many new products that I had to buy... like, I actually can't leave a new product on the shelf. I'm beginning to think it's a problem!!! I have spent a ridiculous amount of money on food I do not need! Of course it will get eaten but there is already plenty of food in my house.

I am going to *attempt* to fill the grocery shopping time with going for a daily walk instead, every day of December (Unless I'm going for a run that day, in which case I will run). This ties in with my (again) efforts to try and lose weight. I want to do it, but there's no pressing need. I'm in the healthy weight range, it's just that I have put on 8 kg since last year (I have no idea how... but moving back in with the parents probably didn't help) and my clothes don't fit the way they used to. Losing the 8 kg again will still put me in the healthy weight range, considering I am right at the upper end at the moment.

My plan is to hopefully see a dietician, as all of this "eat back your exercise calories" "don't eat back your exercise calories" and conflicting information all over the place has confused the hell out of me, to the point where I seem to switch between the two and probably confuse the hell out of my body. Obviously 1 year of uni has not taught me enough yet to figure out how to do it myself!

As well as that, continuing on with increasing my running mileage should help + more weights sessions...

I'm sure this blog entry had a point, I just can't remember what it was... anyway, the sea breeze is now in so it's time for a walk. (36'C / 96'F today!!)