Day 3 & 4

So on day 3 (yesterday) I did day 3 of the 30 Day Shred, and having just completed day 4 I think people are right when they say days 2 & 3 are the worst. I think by day 4 you've pushed through the initial second day pain - you know what I mean, when you feel fine once you actually stop exercising then the next day you can barely walk? - and your muscles are probably starting to get used to being used.

I think it probably, in terms of the rest of level 1, will just get easier from here as hopefully the muscles will start to get stronger. Not that I'm saying it will get any easier doing the actual work but I mean in terms of not finding pushing yourself through it as daunting a task as it appears at the start, and Jillian does say 'those of you who are on days 5,6 and 7 - I bet you're seeing a huge difference in your endurance from day 1". I think the Shred does help you get from 0 to fit fast, and that's part of the reason I'm using it to kickstart my journey to slim.

I'm currently using 0.5kg weights as the last time when I used the 2lb weights I started gaining on my arms, so my goal is to tone without building muscle, but I'm thinking the last 2 days of each level I'll use the heavier weights just to give myself an extra push. (If I need it!)

In terms of running - I am able to keep going through it all and on day 3 I didn't need my inhaler. I was going even slower on day 3 than on day 2, because I did one section of level 1 and one of level 2 again but only covered 3 miles(half a mile less than day 2), but I took 2 of my friends out 'running' with me and we were chatting during the walking, which I think slowed us down a bit.

On day 3 I finished my 3rd attempt at level 2 and technically this means I should move on to level 3, but I definitely don't feel ready for that! Due to lack of feeling ready today I decided to do level 2 on its own and only did the half hour, but I ended up needing my inhaler, however I definitely do think it's to do with having to do the run at 10.30pm tonight and the night air going for my chest because as I said I managed yesterday fine. My plan for tomorrow is to do a run at a more reasonable time and go for 2 sections of level 2 just to try and assess how I am realistically coping with it - fingers crossed!

Yesterdays Exercise & Food Photos

Today's Exercise & Food Photos

Day 2

Today I am sore. Very sore. And for a good portion of the day I didn't smell too great either. But on the plus side - I have completed another day of the 30 Day Shred and done not 1 but 2 sections of the couch to 5K program.

Days 2 and 3 of 'The Shred' are supposed to be the worst, but you just have to push yourself through the pain and do it. Despite being only a 20 minute (I think it's more like half an hour once you add on the warm up and cool down though!) work out, as Jillian says 'if you want to work out for 20 minutes a day and see a difference you're really going to need to push', so it's 20 minutes of HARD work. My legs tremble and my whoel body aches and my arms become these dead weights I have hanging off the side of my body. But I get through. Not sure how, but I do. I guess in the scheme of things 30 days is a short time period to see a difference in, and you do see a difference - if you stick with it.

The reason I decided to start with the Shred was because it targets all areas. My main issues right now are my arms and my stomach - but the funny thing is that those are my skinniest areas when I'm slim, I tend to really not carry weight around my middle at all up to about 10stone, so that just highlights how overweight I really am. Due to this though I just want to really concentrate on burning fat off and dropping the lbs, because the last place you gain weight is the first place you lose it - and I don't want to get caught up in only working 1 area of my body. I will be focussing on different areas later on in my weightloss but in addition that I will hopefully still be doing to couch to 5K program (or maybe even moved on from it!) so I should still be burning fat all over.

So in keeping with my burning fat all over the best way to burn fat seems to be cardio - which is why I did 2 sections of the C25K program today. I noticed yesterday that despite feeling like I was in hell for part of it the running seemed to get easier towards the end once I got into the stride of it so to speak, so I decided to start with level 1 before going on to complete another day of level 2. I wasn't expecting to see any dramatic difference in my running ability in a day and I didn't - but I did take my inhaler and I did use it once, but only when I was on to the level 2 part of the workout. The difference this made was that I didn't have to pause or take any extra rests, I was able to keep going with the program and run when I was meant to and only take the rests I was meant to - so that was encouraging. I'm not saying it was easy but I did it. In an hour I covered 3.5 miles, so I'm obviously running really slowly and walking so slowly that I may as well be at a standstill but I'm really not fussed about times at this point - I just want to be able to keep going.

I'm away to the cinema just now, which is going to be hard because I'm usually a bag of minstrels and an ice cream type of girl but I have gone to our little tesco extra (the beauty of living in the city centre) and picked up a berry medley - strawberries, red grapes and blackberries - and 2 Juicy Fruit Twist fruit salads - pineapple, strawberries and apple - to take with me, that should hopefully let me feel as though I'm still eating something.

And I'm going to see The Avengers (again - I love it!) so if I can't get motivated from looking at Scarlett Johansson, who believe it or not has the same body as me when I'm thin, in a cat suit then there's probably no hope left for me anyway!

Day 1

Brimming with enthusiasm I decided that today would be the start of a new go at the 30 Day Shred. It does what it says on the tin - you do it every day for 30 days and there are 3 levels so you do each level for 10 days then move on, and it sculpts your whole body.

If I remember correctly the last time I did this I lost inches with level 1 and weight with levels 2 and 3- but we'll see how this one turns out this time. My only slight issue is that I live in a city centre flat with the neighbour from hell underneath me who literally gets what I can only presume is the broom she flies about on at night and bangs it on her ceiling/my floor anytime I make noise or move. Which means that the cardio sections are not worth the hassle. I did step out the jumping jacks, complete the punching sections and march on the spot for the jump rope and butt kicks, so I'm not exactly standing still and having a rest, but it's hardly the high impact 2 minutes that it's meant to be.

With this in mind I also decided to have a go at couch to 5K. Cuch to 5K is an app you can download to your ipod/iphone and it talks you through a workout - telling you when to start and stop. It's a 9 week program that takes you from running for a minute and walking for a minute and a half in week 1 to running for a full half hour. In theory. We'll see how this goes.

As I said I was full of enthuasiasm and motivation (you know those levels that only are there right at the very beginning that you spend ages trying to refind later on in the program?) so I decided to skip level 1 and go straight on to level 2 - which involves 90 seconds of jogging with 2 minutes of walking. It wasn't quite a biggest mistake of my life moment, but I wouldn't recommend it. Running a minute and a half wasn't so much the issue - it was the fact that I require more than 2 minutes to recover from that! #unfit

Having said that, I think had I had my inhaler with me at the time it might have gone a bit better. I have astma, that usually doesn't bother me. I used to only need it when I had really done exercise. Like proper, physical exercise. Not because I had run a minute and a half.

I'm not a natural runner but being hardly able to breathe after I finished running for a minute and a half is probably a repercussion of how overweight I now am - which really brings it home that beign overweight isn't just an issue for me and my visual appearence, but it's a huge issue for my health. The strain I'm putting on my body by being clinically obese (my bmi is 34 - clincially obese. I always thought of obese as people who took up 2 seats on a plane but no, obese is me. That's kind of scary, because I don't stand out on the street as being ridiculously overweight. But that's a thought for another time.) is dangerous. So it needs to stop.

So tomorrow will be day 2 of the 30 Day Shred, and day 2 of level 2 of couch to 5k. Even if I do need my inhaler.

The Moment.

I've had it. The moment. You know the moment. It's like in Bridget Jones when she pauses the picture of herself and says:

"And that was it. Right there. Right there, that was the moment. I suddenly realised that unless something changed soon I was going to live a life where my major relationship was with a bottle of wine... and I'd finally die, fat and alone, and be found three weeks later half-eaten by alsatians. Or I was about to turn into Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction."

Or actually, what I've had is a lack of moment. What I've had is the realisation that I've been sitting around waiting for this moment to happen and it hasn't, and maybe it's not going to happen. Maybe the world isn't going to stop around me and make me realise I need to start exercising more and eating less and out of nowhere I'm going to suddenly have the most amazing willpower and my life is all going to magically change and start going perfectly to plan.

So I've decided therefore to make my lack of moment my moment, so to speak.
This is it, this is the start.
From here on I am going to take control of my life, stop waiting for things to happen to me, and start going after the things that I want.

Namely weight loss.

I don't have a life spinning totally out of control with nothing going for me, don't get me wrong, but I'm not happy. Because of my weight. I don't like what I see in the mirror, and I don't like getting dressed or going shopping because they involve trying things on and slowly but surely I'm inching out of the size 10's and 12's and into the 12's and 14's, and more recently I'm not sure my hips aren't going to stop being in 14s and start being in 16s. I'm pretty miserable, truth be told, about it - I used to love shopping and getting dressed up and now I hate it. The other day I was getting ready and my boyfriend actually said to me 'could you please not snap at me'. I hate getting dressed so it puts me in a terrible mood, I snap at anyone near me which is horrible, and then I don't have a good time when I go out because my clothes are tight and uncomfortable and I know that they weren't always - I've lost count of the number of times I've had trouble putting something on or doing a zip up whilst thinking 'the last time I wore this it was fine, totally fine'.

So it stops, here and now.

I'm not going on a diet, or an exercise program, I'm undergoing a lifestyle change.

The url of this blog is isobelwillbeslim.blogspot.co.uk because I WILL be slim. And happy. And I will stay that way because right now I'm young, just started university, and supposed to be having the time of my life - but I'm not. And nevermind not having the time of my life, I'm not having a life.

So I will be blogging from here on in about the ups and downs of a journey to be slim, healthy and, most importantly, happy.

Start

Now
Weight:180 / 12stone 12lb
Height:5'1
BMI:34

Measurements:
Chest:102 cm / 40.2 inches
Upper Right Arm: 39 cm / 15.25 inches
Upper Left Arm: 38 cm  / 15 inches
Upper Waist: 93 cm /36.6 inches
True Waist: 91 cm / 35.75 inches
Stomach:107.5 cm / 42.25 inches
Hips: 112.5 cm / 44.25 inches
Mid Right Thigh: 64 cm / 25.25 inches
Left Thigh: 62 cm / 24.5 inches
Right Calf: 40.5 cm / 16 inches
Left Calf: 40.5 cm / 16 inches

First Goal
Weight:170 / 12stone 2lb
BMI:32.1

End Goal
Weight:120 / 8stone 8lb
BMI:22.7