Literally no progress this week as Christmas!
To be fair, I have trained most days. It makes me feel good and whilst sessions have been short as I come back from feeling ill, I like training over Christmas, not to beat the calories consumed but for my mental health.
Whether you train or not, diet or not, celebrate or not, Merry Christmas!
Honestly December has just been a cough.
It’s starting to ease now but I’ve just been laid up with this never ending cough, and it’s not just the cough that’s caused issues.
I’ve pulled muscles and put my back out coughing, have had trouble keeping food down and trouble sleeping just with how aggressive it has been and to be honest it gets you down after a while.
It makes training almost impossible and cooking hard because you just have no energy and generally feeling run down doesn’t make you feel good about yourself does it.
I even had to cancel a trip I’d planned to the Christmas Markets in Cologne because there was no way I’d have lasted outside in the current weather feeling like I do.
I can see the end of the tunnel now though. Let’s be honest of course, Christmas is almost here and a calorie deficit isn’t likely unless I want to be a Scrooge. I am looking forward to being able t train a little over the next week or two before a proper re – focus in January.
Well I’m still ill. The flu from before my holiday may have gone but the cough certainly hasn’t. I don’t know about you but so many people seem to have a lingering cough and I am well and truly past it now. It feels like since Lockdown I have no immune system and just catch everything, things my body would have once brushed off are flooring me, perhaps it’s all those months without interaction and everything being cleaned within an inch of it’s life.
Anyway, I feel like my lungs are full of liquid and there is something constantly stuck in my throat. The cough is so violent I’ve had days I can’t keep food down simply because I’m coughing so much, my voice is hoarse, I can’t lie down to sleep and I’m quite simply knackered.
So training has really been low on my priority list, I’ve done bits where I feel ok, although I’m getting short of breath super quickly and it seems to aggravate the cough, but I’ve generally had to take a step back. My step count is lower too, but again I know I need to rest up.
It’s tough but we need to remember that being healthy is more than being fit, strong or a certain weight so sometimes you need to forget all that and focus on getting over little bugs before they become longer more annoying bugs that keep you out of action for longer.
That being said I’d love it if at the end of week 7 I was writing that I could actually go more than ten seconds without coughing!
Week 4 of Project 40 kind of consisted of rest.
After a decent start where my nutrition was in a good place and I’d trained consistently on Thursday I found myself with the worst headache, I originally thought it was a migraine. It’s definitely a cold though and I’ve been laid up all weekend trying to recover.
When this happens it can feel like progress stalls a bit which is frustrating, but it’s important to remember that rest is vital too and pushing through won’t always bring positive results in the long term.
So I’m starting week 5 still feeling a bit off colour but hoping I’m past the worst. This week I’m away from Thursday and so super busy in the first part of the week so I’ll have to be mindful that I can only do so much, but balance and being realistic about things was something I wanted to get better at anyway so here’s my first test.
Week three of project fitter at 40 and I have focused this week on my diet. Having spent the last couple of weeks looking at where I’m at it’s been clear that for me the amount of calories I’m eating is just too high for me to see the type of results I’d like, so this has been my focus this week.
I’ve not looked to make dramatic changes, but I’ve increased my protein intake (to keep me feeling full), increased my fruit and veg intake and tried to remove the evening chocolate and cake snacking that in reality I know is my downfall.
I forgot to weight myself this morning so I don’t know how this has affected the scale but I feel a bit less bloated so I feel like this change is taking me in the right direction. I know my challenge though is going to be the weekend when I’m at home more and will feel the urge to snack more acutely than I would in the week.
Next week I’m going to continue to stick with my focus on my calorie intake but also look to tackle my morning routine.
I’m a snooze button pusher and it means I feel rushed in the morning and that can have a negative effect on my diet and training as I don’t have food prepared, time for breakfast or end up getting a taxi instead of walking to work. I feel like working on improving this will have a dramatic effect on how I feel overall. It will also help me consistently hit 20,000 steps a day, something I used to do easily but recently have been hit and miss with.
Week 2 of Project Fitter at 40 and this week my goal has been to improve consistency with various habits.
Some, like going to the gym, are habits I find easy. Hitting 20,000 steps a day, not drinking too much coffee, daily gratitude journaling are habits I find a bit harder to hit. Whilst I’ve still got room for improvement I have been more consistent with these habits and I feel like I can continue to work on this.
What I’ve definitely identified as my issue this eek though id my diet. Specifically, quite simply, I’m eating too many calories each day. In reality I’m less active than I used to be, simply because I’m teaching fewer classes each week, this is why I’ve put on weight. So what I need to look at next week is planning my meals and sticking to that plan with a view to lowering my intake. I’m looking to make no adjustments to my training, as I feel like if I’m reducing calories a bit I might want to adjust to that before I look at training intensity, although I might do a few classes as a participant just to mix things up a bit.
Honestly I’ve felt fat this week, probably hormonal as I’ve neither gained nor lost any weight in weeks, but to be my face in particular looks fatter in the mirror (not helped by a spot outbreak I don’t think). When this happens it’s natural to feel an urge to do drastic things to feel better (detox, strict diet, up training sort of things) but my new approach is to consciously avoid this kind of self talk ad approach my week in a kind way, a way I’m more likely to stick to and enjoy.
Project Fitter at 40 has begun.
I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t really care about being super slim or fast or the strongest person in the world.
I would like to feel healthier, better, more positive. I have some aims I’d like to complete this year for myself of course but I also want to just feel good, organised, relaxed ad comfortable in my own skin.
So my approach needs to be different to previously. I know what I could do if I wanted to see big results but I also know that part of feeling positive and good about myself means no sacrificing things for a result, enjoying the things I enjoy (and one of those is food).
This week I have:
Next week the plan is to focus on the areas I’ve identified for tweaks.
Heather Sherwood Fitness 