Never Mind, Moving Along

So once again the best laid plans and all that… no chance to get the rest of the posts up that I wanted to accomplish. Never fear, a post about October is here.

Once again, busy busy. However, a couple of things:
I was going to quit my gym. My company has now a sponsored membership at another national gym that I could join for less than what I’m paying now at my gym in Velp. I was annoyed this summer – every time I would finally make it to the gym, they would be closed for “summer hours”. OK I know they are a small gym, and definitely not a chain, but this is just not convenient for me. I want to go when I can go, not have to go during limited hours, you know? So, my annoyance was already built up some, when they phoned my husband (cue more annoyance; he doesn’t even WANT to go) to find out what they could do to help him be motivated to work out at least once a week and that was enough for me. Why didn’t they call me? I’m the one who wanted to be there! I wrote a letter immediately stating that I wanted to end my contract and I sent it along with my membership card a few days later. I was done.

A few days later I get a call and they ask me if I’m really sure I want to quit. I explain I could have a cheaper membership somewhere else where the hours are better for my schedule. We talked quite a bit about my annoyance regarding their summer hours (well, I had them on the phone, so…) and that on the weekends it’s really hard for me to get there before 1pm (when they close) because I’m not only tired, but the weekends are in general the only real time I have to take care of stuff that I can’t get to during the week because of work and commuting! The woman then asked me to just reconsider, to change my membership to just one time a week and then work with one of the personal trainers to help me keep my weekly appointment with myself and work on a program that fit my schedule. I caved and said “ok”.

That means, since October 1st, I have been consistently to the gym every week! I went on the 1st to meet up with my trainer Nico and we did an analysis and fitness test and these were the results:
Bodyfat Percentage: 36.9% – too high
Body Moisture Content: 45.23 – optimal
Blood pressure: 83/124 normal
Static Hand Grip Strength Test: 47 low
Technogym Bike Race Fitness Test: 43.5 outstanding

So what does it all mean? Pretty much that I’m very fit, but I could work on getting my body fat percentage down and that I could benefit from building up strength in my arms/upper body. To be honest I was extremely happy with these results, especially the “outstanding” result in the overall fitness test. Some days I find myself very frustrated and angry with how this whole “journey” has gone the last two years – now I just need to remember my weight, the number on the scale, is not the be all and end all. I’m 43 years old and very fit for my age! It could be worse! I could have never started at all! I could have given up completely! But I didn’t, I’m still trying, I’m still focusing on it every single day even when it may seem I’m not!

Anyway, plan is to continue for now at one time a week at the gym, though I don’t honestly know that I will really stay, it just depends. The other membership would mean I could go anywhere in the Netherlands where that gym is located, this could potentially be handy to go straight after work for example or later on a Saturday or Sunday.

I have also been tracking more consistently on My Fitness Pal but I could definitely improve on this. One thing I find quite challenging still is calculating food that we’ve made at home and determining the portion size. I’ve started to “trick” myself a bit with some types of meals (the curries my husband makes are divine and I tend to overeat with them) by using a small bowl instead of a “normal” bowl and then splitting out one portion into two to make me feel like I’ve been able to go for seconds.

Another thing that I’ve found to work better for my hunger levels is to eat breakfast later. I am usually up at 5am, so breakfast at 6 was normal. Now I’m focusing on bulky breakfasts, with a lot of protein (so let’s say scrambled eggs with steamed broccoli and mushrooms) and I’m taking that with me to eat in the train at 7am. For lunch again bulky with lots of veg, protein and a good fat and then a snack of fruit and yoghurt or cottage cheese, tomatoes and Wasa crackers. I’m still hungry-ish but it’s a lot less. It’s not perfect and I can tell you I definitely can’t sleep past 5 if I’m going to take a cooked breakfast with me, but it’s helping.

One other thing for October: I recently joined a challenge to do burpees every day for 30 days with no excuses. Though I didn’t make every day because I was well and truly sick last week (I missed 3 days), I resumed and have added 1 burpee each day. This challenge came from Scott over at Your Inner Skinny

Don’t know what a burpee is? Click on the link to see a video from beginner to mega-advanced to just downright insane! I started off as beginner at 5 and as of today I’ll be doing 15 adding one each day. I thought to myself, how hard could it be??? Well, let me tell you, I can seriously feel it in my CORE. This is a great exercise that anyone can do at any fitness level using just your own body weight and strength. I’m so annoyed with the fact that I can “only” do the beginner ones, that I’m going to keep doing these things until I can do the advanced ones!!

So that’s kind of this month in a nutshell. I hope I still have one or two readers left (but if not, that’s ok too :) ) – I’m planning more posts for November, ferreals!!!!