On the home stretch!

...in which the (probably) final target is so close I can taste it.

On Saturday we had Saira and G around for a barbecue (probably the last one of the summer). The wine flowed freely, and (as usual) a good time was had despite mine and Gary's insistence on creating as much noise pollution as possible via the medium of our guitars and voices.

So to help make up for the wine, on Sunday (despite the rather late finish on Saturday) I decided I would do a pre-breakfast 5-mile run; I'm told by people that know such things that if you run before you've eaten anything your body burns fat immediately rather than using up stores of carbs (the body stores carbs as glycogen and the body will burn this first during exercise if it has reserves of it. Apparently). 

I'm not sure if this is 100% accurate or not (there seems to be some debate on the Internet, but that's a bit like saying there's some discord between cats and dogs), but I did actually really enjoy running early in the morning and will probably do it again next week.

Since I'd also had cider last Monday I wasn't that hopeful for weigh-in yesterday; however, the run (plus 3 visits to the gym and runs on other days), along with eating sensibly the rest of the time, seem to have done the trick; I had lost 2 pound (0.9kg), which means that now I have just 2lb to lose to get to my new target of 11 stone 4lbs, so I'm really hopeful I'll get that next week. 

That will mean I'll have lost a total of 4 stone (yay! another sticker and certificate! I love those. No, you're a bit of a child at heart :P) in a little under 9 months; I haven't had to go hungry (I have had to eat sensibly, of course), and I'm really very impressed with the way Slimming World fits together so many strands of common sense into a single diet plan that's easy to follow, doesn't involve fiddly weighing or measuring and lets you eat loads and still lose weight.

This is also the last week of my platinum body magic award; that's 16 weeks of doing 150 minutes of exercise over 5 days. I have become the sort of person that has a fitness regime; I go to the gym for an hour every other day, do resistance and "core strength" (I'm not even sure what that is but apparently that's what I'm doing) workouts for 30 minutes and then 30 - 40 minutes of cardio (treadmill or elliptical, rowing machine, and exercise bike or cross trainer (Oxford comma seemed appropriate there)). 

So, with any luck I'll get a hat-trick of awards next week (4 stone off, target and platinum body magic). Go me! :)

On the days when I'm not in the gym I run (generally a minimum of 4 miles), and am aiming to get up to 10 miles by the end of this month (I've done a couple of runs that are close to 7 miles and been fine, and I'm planning an 8 mile run after lunch today. I usually have one rest day per week as that's all I feel I need right now.

And I feel good about it. There, I said it. I like being the sort of person that can run 5 miles without struggling. I like the feeling I get after exercise (not so much the feeling I get during it). I like the effect it has on my body. I'm not vain (I hope), but I like what I see when I look in the mirror now; I still have (very small) man-boobs and a bit of a tummy, but they're shrinking and slowly becoming more toned....I may do a topless before/after picture. If you're really unlucky ;).

On that rather horrendous thought I shall bow out for the week...till next time.