Battling Onward!

Still fighting towards that finish line!

I was reading through my previous blog posts last night as I've been feeling like a bit of a failure recently. I beat myself up too much I think as I haven't failed, I've lost over 2st now! I hit that milestone last week. 2st 1lb to be exact, in 4 months. The last time I lost a significant amount of weight it took me about a year to lose 1st. That is certainly not a failure. 

Yes, I've been finding exercising hard recently and I have cut it back, but I've not given up. On that score I've almost completed week 9 of couch to 5k and am now running for the majority of 30 minutes, 3 times a week. That is also not a failure.

I am only doing zumba once a week now but with more umph than ever before. I'm finding the routines easier and enjoying them so much more as a result. I can push myself harder now and feel a real sense of achievement from doing so.

Yoga is falling a bit more by the wayside, I'm managing once a week on and off. But when I do kick my butt into gear I can really feel how much more flexible and stronger I've become. It really is great for the mind as well as I do feel more peaceful, positive and happier once I've done a session.

I also read last night that when I hit my 30th birthday goal I set myself the following goals - 

"As of Wednesday I'm back on the diet wagon and heading off to my next set of goals. I want to be comfortably in those size 14 clothes within a month. I'm running the Race For Life in May and want to be jogging the 5k in about 30mins by then. I'm going on holiday in June and plan to lose as much weight as possible by then and hopefully be somewhere close to my 10st goal. I'm even looking forward to fitting in my running on holiday by running down the beach near where we're staying. I love the beach and I'm actually looking forward to it - to exercising on holiday!!"

Well, I'm in those size 14's comfortably. I've been in them for a few weeks so I forgot about this goal but its now been a month since then and I've definitely achieved that. I'm on track to run the Race For Life. It might not be in 30 mins, at the moment if you include warm up and cool down I'm doing approximately 5.2k in 40mins. But I've still got 3 weeks to go, thats a minimum of another 9 runs, so I might be able to tighten it up a bit. Even if I don't though, I will still run the majority of it and thats good enough for me, its better than previous years where I didn't run any of it! 

Also, since that big milestone I've lost just short of half a stone. I'm 11st 12lbs so just short of 2st off my 10st goal. I'm still on track for those runs down the beach on holiday which is about 2 months away.

Another big achievement for me is that I've set up a Facebook group to try and provide a space for people to discuss their diet issues where myself and others can help and offer suggestions. Its still new and I need to build it up a bit but I'm proud its there. I've purposely kept it private so peoples posts aren't broadcast all over facebook and only members of the group can read whats posted, but if you would like an invite we'd be more than happy for you to join us!

My husband has also directed me to a free learning site where I can learn more about health and nutrition as it has become a big passion of mine. It would also mean I would actually be qualified to talk about all this and offer proper help and suggestions. I need to find time but once I do I'm really looking forward to that. 

I think sometimes we all need to remind ourselves how far we've come and what we've actually achieved. It can be a bit easy sometimes to tell ourselves we're doing something wrong or we're not up to scratch. I have heard people out there beating themselves up because they don't eat right all the time or they're not managing to get their 5 a day, or they don't exercise as much as they'd like. Sometimes it will be like that, but it doesn't mean you've failed. There's nothing wrong with a treat or a break now and again, just so long as you don't go too far with it - remember everything in moderation. You've only really failed if you stop doing all the hard work you've put in and let your old habits take over again.