That's about my walking speed too, 45 minutes for 2.6 miles. I really am glad to see you doing so well with the exercise.

Thank you, Cannon. I do value your comments and support.

That seems to be my natural speed now when I'm making an average effort. It's consistent with my natural walk speed on the weekend when I wasn't pushing it, to a time I bothered to record a few weeks ago in my diary, to today! Even though I had slow patches and fast patches today, it evened out to the same thing.

Breakfast 12:150 2 weetbix,. 1C lowfat soy milk. 1/3 C tinned peaches. 1 slice wholemeal toast with plum and cinnamon jam. Boiled egg. 2 C coffee with 40 ml Hilo milk.

Lunch 1:00: Toasted sandwich: 2 slices wholemeal bread. Lowfat hard cheese. Coffee with milk.

Snack 3:30 Snow peas

Dinner: 7:15 125 gm grilled veal. Ratatouille: capsicum, celery, onion, garlic, black olives, ~ 2 tspns EVO olive oil. ~ 10-12 gm lowfathardcheese. 100 gm potato, ½ C broad beans with a smear of margarine, lots of broccoli.

Snack: 9:301 diet apricot yoghurt. 1 C green tea.

Exercise: 2:05 35-40 minutes, stair climbing at the DNA tower.
5:25 Local walk. 45.5 minutes 4.3 km (2.6 miles)

This was my first stair climbing since May, and my first truly intense exercise in quite a while (Wow I guessed 3-4 weeks – but looked back in my diary and see it has been much more. At least 6.). I realized yesterday that today might give me this opportunity and I was looking forward to it.

For the stairs, I did a couple of stretches, then started walking up at an easy pace. I remember dying before the top on the first set once before, when I misjudged the distance, and I didn't want that. Despite the gentle pace, half way up the first set of steps I was wondering why I had looked forward to it. It actually felt very unpleasant and I was thinking that to look forward to it, I must have remembered some sort of previous afterglow or feeling of virtue, rather than the actual stair climbing. However I didn't get any real fade in my legs until about the fourth set. Then I managed 3-4 sets where I actually felt like running until half way. The first of those was a run til half way then a real lactic acid thing starting at ¾. From then on, whether running half way or not, they were all killer lactic acid legs from half way onwards. On the last set they were legs that felt like they hardly could finish. Despite that, I would have done another set at the end, if I'd had a different number in mind, and if I hadn't needed to get the girl home. I still had legs enough for the beginning of another climb – even if maybe the end would have been dodgy!! Frankly though, I was glad to have a reason to leave!!

Despite all that, somewhere in the middle of it all I was noticing that I was puffing and sweaty and focussed and taking great lungfuls of air and actually enjoying the walks down at least (despite the jelly legs that come with walking down), and enjoying the sensation of having pushed myself. The scenery at the top is good too. 360 degree views - to the city and hills one way, to the coast and Rottnest Island the other. Fortunately, though there were a few tourists, there was no one who actually made me have to stop and restart on the way up, which is a total killer. However, I probably should have had more of a cool down – I just drove straight home, then hobbled inside!

I finally found out how to use the stopwatch on my phone properly, so I'd like to record my times. I was able to check my diary today for a rough idea of what I was doing before and I think I am just as fast as I was which was a pleasant surprise. However, I used to have trouble using the stopwatch so don't have much to compare it to. I don't know what it is about timing these things, but I somehow find it motivating – helping me feel as though I'm achieving something, and giving me a measure of whether I'm improving. Today I was just hoping to find that I hadn't lost too much of my previous gains while I'd been taking it easy. Disclaimer: Maybe the stairs today would have been harder but I had had a muscle spasm in one hip for a couple of days so took 2 ibuprofen before I left home.

10 sets. 1:08 2:15, 1:00 1:38, 1:00 2:17, 1:03 2:15, 0:55 2:11, 0:56 3:20, 0:56 2:22, 1:11 3:06, 1:17 ?, ? ?.

Standard local walk. I realized this is not the same as a couple of my older “standard local walks”, cos I kept extending them. Also I did sometimes do this particular standard local walk and add bits on to try and get an hour's worth. Today was the stock standard with the loop up towards Warwick, the wiggle at the local park, the loop up to the top of the hill, and once around the oval!! Anyway I have checked the length and am now confident it is correct. Today it took 45.5 minutes, including the time it took me to stop and pay the lawnmower guy, and say hi to the gasmeter reader! It wasn't all walking though because my thighs were soooo stiff, that I really felt like jogging a fair bit during the first part of the walk. And I did. And then I thought I'd stirred up my heel spur! I oughtn't complain. The knees have been good and the ankle has become a specific issue which I can mostly avoid by not twisting. Actually that whole 6 miles on Sunday was without knee grief. And by now the ibuprofen at lunch must have worn off but the muscle spasm is gone. He he. Something worked.

way to go for the stair climbing.. that's tough stuff

I need your energy. I'm so flat today *sigh*

Wow on the stair climbing. Do you a stair climber machine or actual stairs?

Thank you! It does feel like it lasts longer than it says on the clock. LOL.

Skipping? Puffing is good for energizing.





Aaaw.

I went to this tower. Sorry the picture's a bit dark. I took it on an overcast day, not all sunshiney like today.

that is a cool looking tower -what's i about 5 stories? neat-o

OMG!!!!! How many times times did you asy you did it????? i can't belive it. It looks like the dang stairs at Universal Studios and they killed me 12 yrs ago!! Way to go and I was impressed before!!!

LOL

It is 100 steps. I don't know how high.

Most excellent workout girl!! I'm proud of you doing all those stairs, WOW those suckers are HARD WORK! I'm still trying to figure out however what that dinner item is in your menu???Ratatouille: capsicum??? Your food always sounds yummy and I wish you could send some my way. mmmmmmm

Ratatouille is what we call it at my house when we fry onions, garlic, tomato and capsicum (red and green peppers) together in a little EVO oil until they are soft, and add some herbs. Other things we might put it in would be zucchini (courgettes) and eggplant. That would be in keeping with the traditional Provencale dish. I try to keep down the amount of oil of course and also left out the tomato, and put celery in it this week because my vege crisper was so empty. Also I garnished my own serve with sliced black olives - but that really is not too authentic! (Yummy though).

Usually it is my husband who makes it, and we have it on the weekend, on top of veal, and with a little cheese on top of that, which we melt under the griller. However, he wasn't feeling good last night so he decided he wanted meat during the week and I made that. More often than not I cook two different meals during the week, a meat based one for the children and a fish/vegetarian one for him. I join in whichever appeals to me most that night - adapted to my low fat, controlled carbs taste! Now and again the three of them have the same thing - eg nachos, and I have something else. When it's fish we often all have the same thing as each other. Last night was the same meal for everyone, served at the same time. Bonus!!

A bonus I will say!!! Wow to the tower and the steps chicky - holy crap - that thing is super cool!!!

awesome job with the stairs felici i really hate stairs. of anykind. i will rather do numerous repetitions of squats and lunges with weights but please don't make me climb stairs, although there are stairs all around me hehe, my hometown has lots of hills. i do take them rather then the elevator but i really don't like them.

it does feel good o exercises intensely after a while doesn't it?
hope you're having a great day
Lena

Cerella - Yes. It was a bonus. Then today my girl was asking for the cannelloni she tasted last week, and I got to make just one meal for everyone again today! A two day bonus!!

Lena - I do somehow enjoy that stair climbing, and don't regret it despite the hash I made of today's exercise (ie by not doing it), and the price I'm paying in sore muscles.

It is a bit weird that I do like it though, and I don't exactly know why I started. I was just looking for add ons to my walking at one stage and this is where I ended up. Maybe I like them because climbing them so strongly reminds me of the progress I've made. They used to puffed me so much, that I would make sure I had both feet on one step before I took the next one. I clearly remember attending a party this last January and noticing that I had climbed a flight of about 6 steps with just one foot per stair and being pleased at the progress.

It's very strange to have made such a big change. I know I was different but it's hard now to grasp how different. I think it's worth continuing to remind myself about the other me so that I don't morph back into her again. I'm quite conscious of all the little things that creep in to my day which are part of my old behaviours and could start to lead me backwards. There is a part of me that feels that I have always just been the same person, but how could I be the same and look so different and behave so differently? Another part feels I always was the way I am now but that my body was different, and that my current one is more like the real me I always thought I was. I thought I was like this, but I was not. Perhaps if I had more thoroughly taken in just how fat I really was I would have made this change sooner. Maybe not. I still get a bit surprised when I walk down the passage and look up to see myself in the mirror.



Nice things from today.

Walked past a shop that has started to show some new season's clothes, and didn't try them on because I don't want to spend the money. NOT because I knew they would look totally different in my size, and probably didn't even come in it.

I got back a fasting blood sugar reading that was significantly lower than any I've had for quite a few years. It wasn't wonderfully low, but was a lot better.
5.4. My last few were around 6.0- 6.1. 6.1 is the old line where they would send you for a glucose tolerance test. Now it's 5.5. So yes, I'd like it to be better, but still it's progress.

Wednesday

Breakfast 11:00 2 weetbix,. 1C lowfat soy milk. 1/3 C tinned peaches. 1 slice wholemeal toast with plum and cinnamon jam. Boiled egg. 2 C coffee with 40 ml Hilo milk.

Lunch: 4:15 Toasted sandwich: 2 slices wholemeal bread. Lowfat hard cheese. Coffee with milk.

Dinner: 7:15 Cannelloni : 4 tubes, ~ 65 gm ricotta cheese, spinach, egg white, tinned tomato, EVO oil, ~ 15 gm parmesan. (+ 15 gm extra cheese, cos I forgot to adapt my bit of the recipe). Microwaved carrots and broccoli . 1 slice watermelon. 8 fresh dates. A bowl of sugar snap peas in front of the TV because I felt like snacking. 1 sip green tea before I fell asleep.

Snack: 11:00 Caffeine free diet coke.

Exercise: Well I stayed in bed forever, finally got all the paperwork and signatures completed for the passports, shopped for tonight's dinner, and cooked it, and ate it, and fell asleep. That was my entire day. No exercise. And did I ever need tonight's walk!!! My legs are about 99% seized.