An inflatable one, but a good inflatable one. Now I just need to buy a pump to pump it up with, a paddle to propel it with, and a lifejacket to save my ass with. Then I can get out there and do me some kayaking…
I had such a great time pulling up all the ivy in Stanley Park. I thought it would be a good thing to do but I never realised I would enjoy it quite so much. I felt really happy and energised afterwards (though I ached for the 2 days after – muscles not used to the exercise).
Can’t wait till next month!
For the last couple of weeks I’ve been really focussed on helping myself lose weight.
1) I bought myself some scales last week and weighed about what I thought I did, hammering home the fact that yes, I do need to lose 40lbs. I weighed myself Saturday morning and have been disciplined enough not to weigh myself again all week, so Saturday will be weigh-day from now on
2) I’m doing really well at only eating when I am hungry and have started to retrain my brain into thinking of food more as fuel rather than pleasure. I’ve also been eating out a lot less because of this.
3) I am getting up early and going for a long walk before work – which makes my 10 minute walk to work an hour walk to work.
4) I am also walking a lot in the evenings after dinner, rather than staying in and watching TV (the Canucks bowing out of the playoffs early has been a bit of a blessing). This has the added bonus of stopping me from drinking alcohol so much during the week.
5) I continue to hike through my heel and joint pain. Last weekend we went for a hike and I had absolutely no energy and was very achey, but about 50 minutes into it I started feeling really good and so we carried on for another 3 hours.
Now that the weather has turned all nice and sunny I’m doing a great deal more walking. I started off by going for a long walk after dinner every other night, but now it has graduated to getting up early to go for an hour’s walk along the seawall before work, and about an hour’s walk each evening too.
I’m really enjoying exploring more of the city, plugged into my ipod and smelling the flowers of spring. I’ve been around various different parks, and walked around expensive neighbourhoods with wide tree-lined streets and huge mansions to look at. It sure beats staying in, watching hockey and drinking, or staying in bed an extra hour.
Still doing a longer hike at the weekend as well, and this Saturday I’ve got 3 hours of pulling up Ivy in the park so that should be good.
When I’m feeling fitter and less of an old arthritic woman, I’m going to think about incorporating different forms of exercise too. When we eventually move to our new apartment I’m going to replace seawall walking with swimming, but that won’t be for many months yet. Maybe it’s time to start seriously thinking about getting back into my badminton.
I’m still doing really well at this, to my surprise. I’ve been very disciplined and even when I am feeling jealous at all the nice things other people are eating, if I’m not hungry then it isn’t going in my mouth.
Yesterday, because I ate a donut (it was free!) about an hour before lunch I wasn’t hungry so I went out for a long walk instead of eating, then had a small snack in the afternoon.
I’ve stocked my locker at work up with things like baby carrots, small tins of tuna, rice crackers, dates, canned fruit and a snickers bar so that if I just want a snack/light lunch instead of a big hot lunch I’ve got stuff right there and I don’t have to think about what sort of level of hunger I am at and where I’m going to go. I’ve also got chewing gum for when I feel like chewing but am not hungry.
I’m starting to re-train my brain a little into thinking of food as fuel rather than food as pleasure. Well, rather that food can be pleasurable but that I don’t have to eat what I crave every time I crave it.
Well I’ve signed up to become an Ivy Buster in Stanley Park this weekend, and I managed to get Graham to agree to come as well. We are both passionate about Stanley Park so it seemed an ideal way of starting to get into the volunteering spirit.
If all goes well we should be doing something we care about whilst meeting new people who share a common interest and getting some good exercise to boot! Hopefully this will become a once a month thing.
I’m not taking this off my list just yet as I haven’t done it yet. And even when it’s done I don’t think I’ll take it off my list as I’d still like to find myself a volunteer position somewhere where I can make a more frequent contribution than once a month.
join you in this goal…it’s a little more specific than “Meet New People” at least, but not much!
I always said that as soon as I was settled in Canada with a job and everything that I would start volunteering regularly. I’m settled now and I know that if I don’t challenge myself to do this that I will always make some kind of excuse to put it off.
I’m going to start by looking at the local volunteering website to decide which area I’d like to volunteer in and whether there are currently any available opportunities.
Great skill for gigs and hockey games. Very occasionally useful to get someone’s attention.
I was looking forward to our placement student starting at work last week. Having somehow managed to completely ignore the last one (and her me) I thought I’d really make the effort to get friendly with this one. But as hard as I try to be sociable towards her I am getting no kind of reaction back.
She’s so quiet and serious and doesn’t seem to have any interest in anything – she said she was too busy to have any hobbies but when I asked her what she did to keep her so busy she just said “surfing the net”. I appreciate that shyness is a barrier for a lot of people but I don’t think that that is the problem here. I’ve tried to find out what makes her tick but there’s nothing, and she doesn’t ask anything back.
I give up, it’s obviously not to be. I need someone who is at least more open to conversation and ideas and fun. Back to plan A of joining some sort of club.
I’ll spend so long researching the 100 books I must read that I’ll have not time to do any actual reading. For now I’ll stick with the more attainable goal of READ MORE.
I’ve taken great steps to try and sort my feet out. I bought orthopedic insoles to help my painful heels. I bought some moisturising pumice foot scrub to soothe my feet in the evening and get rid of the dry skin and I bought more Athletes Foot cream to put on the soles of my feet in case the itching there is Athelete’s Foot.
My soles seem to be getting worse so I think it’s not fungal but rather irritated skin, so I’ll stick to just moisturising them daily.
My heels are kind of feeling better, until I walk long distances like I did yesterday, then they hurt like a bitch first thing in the morning and then at periods throughout the day. What am I supposed to do? I can’t possibly rest them as summer is coming up and I want to go walking lots, and I can’t lose weight without exercising which means using my feet lots. And I don’t want to go to the doctor and be told that I have to have corrective surgery which will cost a bomb. I’ll just have to grin and bear the pain at the moment.
I got a new pair of hiking boots which are far more comfortable than my current ones, which were just too small so hopefully that will go some way to helping too
I failed miserably at this last week. Today I have had 1 cup of regular tea, 1 small juice, 1 glass of water, 1 cup of herbal tea and 1 glass of diet coke.
Must try harder from tomorrow
I’ve practically stopped touching and picking at my face, save for a well deserved squeeze here and there of something that really needed it. I’ve bought some good facial scrub so I can scrub in the shower rather than pick and also got some good zit cream so my face is really starting to clear up. Hardly touched my scalp either. I’m very pleased with myself so far!
This has been one of my top three successes since last week. It’s very hard for me to do but I have been really disciplined, especially on week days. Now I just have to keep it up and work on what I eat when I do eat.
I was feeling hungry Saturday and ate a burrito for lunch and lots of pasta and bread for dinner so yesterday I wasn’t hungry all day and only had a piece of toast. Then we went out in the evening and I ate a huge portion of cheesy, sour-creamy, quacamoley nachos which I only had because they were on offer. I paid for it this morning mind!
Anyway, I’ll forget that one little failure – onwards!
So I moved to Vancouver from England 7 months ago. At first me and my boyfriend were all wrapped up in each other and the playground that was our brand new home so I didn’t feel like I needed any friends. If someone came along who I felt I could be friends with then great, but if not, no big deal, I still had all my friends back in the UK that I could talk to.
But now things are shifting. People at work are all very nice but there’s no one who I click with on more than a superficial level. It makes me feel very needy to rely solely on my boyfriend for company and I want to make some new good friends who I can hang out with – have a drink, have a laugh, share my interests, just be myself with and not have to worry about what they think of me because I know they’re my mates and they love me.
I know it’s going to take some time to build up that sort of relationship with new people, but I need to make the effort to go out and actually find someone who I can build up a friendship with as they’re certainly not just going to come knocking on my door. Trouble is, the longer I’ve been on my own the more introspective and less social I’ve become, which makes it harder to put myself out there and harder to make conversation when I do meet new people. So, a bit of confidence is needed to take the leap, join some clubs or something and talk to more people.
By the way, anyone in Vancouver fancy a beer?!
It makes my skin look bad and it drives my boyfriend nuts that he can’t stop me from doing it. Aside from slowly ruining my face and feet and, just recently, my scalp it’s a very gross habit. I thought it would be an easy thing to stop but it isn’t. I don’t do it out of anxiety or boredom or a need to self-harm, just do it subconsciously. My dad still does it and he’s 67 so obviously if I don’t make the effort then it is never going to stop!
I’ll start with trying not to touch my face at all. If I don’t touch it then I can’t find the zits and dry skin to pick at.
I don’t know how much I weigh because I don’t have any scales and therefore haven’t weighed myself since the beginning of January. I thought it might help me stop obsessing over each pound gained or lost, which it has, but it has also stopped my motivation for the whole losing weight thing. So first things first I need to buy some scales, and then try to weigh myself only once a week.
I need to weigh about 40lbs less than I do, so I’ll be the right weight for my height. 4 things stand in my way….
1) I don’t eat because I am hungry, I eat because I like the taste of food and I feel cheated if I don’t give myself the chance to eat 3 nice meals a day. Tasty food tends to be calorific food. For example I love vegetables but normally only when they are cooked in the wrong way. I’m not a big fan of fruit or salad.
2) Eating out is one of my biggest pleasures in life and the only thing I really spend any money on. We all know that someone else cooking takes away any control you may have over your diet.
3) I live only 10 minutes walk from work and my job is pretty sedentary and I find I don’t have the willpower to do regular scheduled exercise. I enjoy being active on the weekends but because of my weight I’m not as fit as I could be and it leads to me being frustrated when I can’t keep up with my boyfriend when we’re out hiking or snowshoeing or whatever. Also I always end up with aching feet or legs which lasts well into the week which makes me less likely to be active the next weekend and more likely to go out and eat a big brunch instead.
4) I enjoy having a drink in the evening and especially at weekends. I drink a lot less than I used to, but I should drink a lot less than I do now. I’m not exactly addicted but it’s quite a big part of my life and it’s not something that I feel I can give up without a great deal of willpower.
I never get that thirsty so it doesn’t really occur to me to drink as much water as I know I should. I’ll generally have a cup of coffee or tea in the morning, a juice at break time, a bottle of water or can of diet pop at lunch, a cup of tea in the afternoon and a glass of water with dinner followed maybe by some wine or beer.
I think if I just ban myself from drinking tea and coffee and pop and beer and wine until I’ve had 8 glasses of water in that day then I should get into the habit. Taking a litre of water to work every day certainly helps to remind me, but it doesn’t half make me pee more than I’d like!
Why do I procrastinate so much? I am barring myself from living the life I want to lead. Procrastination has stopped me achieving at least 10 things on my to-do list. And it’s bloody annoying for my partner too. I wish I wouldn’t let myself down so.
