Clean Diet

So, as I've been having such problems with running, I've been trying to really focus on my diet to compensate. Also I'll be going to home to stay with my parents for a week or two over easter, and I know that my diet won't be great then, (I can never resist their amazing cooking) so I decided to try to eat really clean in the two weeks before.
Those two weeks are almost over now and they've gone pretty well. In the first week I ate 1 small slice of toast or porridge for breakfast everyday, cottage cheese with salad and vegetables for lunch, and fish with salad and vegetables, and sometimes cannellini beans, for dinner. The fish I was eating was breaded and frozen, which I bought simply because it's a lot cheaper and the breading really isn't that bad. So that was pretty good, but I still slipped up a few times and had a few treats here and there, and didn't quite see the results I wanted. So in the second I week I decided to be even stricter with myself (I think it was easier knowing that at the end of the week I'd be going home to have delicious meals cooked for me), I switched the morning toast and porridge for two eggs, and added a bit of variety to dinner, having chicken and beef some nights instead of the fish.
I've also been working out at home everyday this week, alternating between easier, short strength workouts (mainly arms and abs), 45 minutes sessions on an exercise bike, and the more intensive, 30 Day Shred. On the harder workout days I've also been having a smoothie made with a banana, some frozen berries and greek yoghurt to help recovery.

Even though I haven't been able to get any further with my running goals, these two weeks have been really positive and I feel like I've made some really good clean eating habits, which will hopefully help me with my weight loss goals. Only time will tell.

Shin Splints!

After my first run I felt really good and kept up my schedule of running every other day for the rest of the week, but on the third run I was starting to get pretty bad shin splints.
Now I'm no stranger to this, it's a common complaint in beginners and this is my fourth attempt at starting to run, but these were much worse than anything I'd felt before. So I made sure to stretch properly, and after taking a rest day I felt fine, so went on my fourth run as planned. Big mistake. The pain was even worse and continued even after I stopped running.
So I hobbled back home and iced my shins and calves, but I've been stiff and achey through my whole lower legs and even my knees for the past six days now. Obviously I haven't run since, except for the train which hurt like hell.

Leaving the muscles to recover seems to be working slowly, but the problem is I'm not sure what is causing them. A bit of googling gave me so many different causes of shin splints, from improper shoes  to poor form to cold weather... not very helpful.

If anyone out there has any good advice for me or experience with shin splints I would love to hear it?

First run

So, more than a month after I originally intended, I went on my first run today. Yayy! I'm aiming for another four runs this week, I really want to get my fitness level up over the next few months.


Putting my feet up after running


I'm also planning three strength training sessions this week. I've been focusing on abs/core exercises, and now I've added this really good Tank Top Arms workout from Fitsugar. It's only ten minutes but it kills me the next day. 

Adverse Weather Conditions

So I woke up, all ready to run, and then looked outside to find this:

Not really optimal running conditions. I think if this had happened a few weeks into the programme I might have been tempted to go anyway, but I don't trust myself to walk on the snow without falling, never mind run, so I have postponed it in favour of plan B.

In the few weeks leading up to the start of my fitness journey, I was scouring the Health and Fitness category of Pinterest, pinning all kinds of workouts that I thought would come in handy later. I wanted to start with running, and then add in strength training once I had increased my overall fitness level a bit. But not wanting to give up completely because of the snow, I've been doing this workout video from Fitsugar, which claims to "sculpt your core in 10 minutes with core fusion!"
I picked it because I thought that my core would be a good place to start, and it seemed relatively easy. It combines yoga poses with strength exercises and has kind of a cardio effect too. I think I'll write about it in more detail once I've tried it a few more times.

The Plan

It's been a little while, but fear not! I haven't abandoned this blog or my plan, I've just been really busy with uni work for a big deadline. But that's out of the way for now giving me a few weeks to completely focus on my fitness goals.
So without further ado, here is the plan:

I want to be a runner.

I think running appeals to me because it accommodates my incredibly limited space and budget. I live in a tiny second floor flat with my boyfriend and two flatmates, so working out at home is kinda difficult, both in terms of space and noise. And I would never join a gym, I just can't justify paying for something you can do for free. Plus the whole idea of my horribly unfit self trying to work out in front of all those gym bunnies turns my stomach.
So from tomorrow I'm going to be starting this NHS Couch to 5K running plan, which aims to get complete beginners running 5K in 30 minutes in 9 weeks. It starts off with a combination of running and walking, and slowly builds up speed and stamina over the 9 weeks. You can download podcasts with music and a coach who tells you when to run and when to walk, so you don't have to worry about keeping time.
Now, total honesty time, I am not a total stranger to this running plan. In fact this will be the fourth time I have started it. However in the past I have never made it past the second week, always finding excuses, failing to make the time, putting off runs and then falling off the bandwagon completely. It might seem that this means it obviously doesn't work for me and that I should try something else, but I really think that it's my attitude and not the programme that was holding me back, and that this time I can make all the way through to the 9th week. Plus knowing that I can do the first two weeks, because I've done them before, gives me a little bit of confidence.
But this time I want to push myself harder. The programme recommends running 3 times a week, with a rest day in between each running day. But I'm young and resilient and think that at least in the early stages I can push myself enough to run 6 days a week. Along with this I'm going to be doing some yoga, and after a few weeks when I have increased my general fitness level I want to introduce some strength training, but more on that later.

So, I will post tomorrow about how my first run went, wish me luck (:

Toe-gate

Despite my positive attitude about my transformation into a gym bunny, there may be hinderances along the way; particularly, my toe.
I broke my left big toe about three months ago, and really, this is a massive understatement.

This is the least graphic of the pictures I have of the offending digit, as you can probably tell form the amount of blood, it was an open fracture. 

In total since September I have had 1 visit to A&E, 1 visit to a walk in clinic to see a nurse and 6 appointments at the fracture clinic in the hospital. I have had 4 sets of X-rays, 2 local anaesthetics, 2 courses of antibiotics and I think about 8 separate procedures ranging from wound cleaning and dressing changes, to having the bones reset and my toenail removed. 

The fracture has healed now, and I was discharged from the fracture clinic in early-ish December. However, the reason I'm a little concerned now, is that I had an intra-articular fracture, which is basically a fancy way of saying that I broke the joint in my toe. This means that although healed, the joint is still very stiff, and doesn't have complete mobility yet. I'm also still having pain in other parts of my foot while walking, which the doctor says is soft tissue damage caused possibly by walking funny to avoid putting weight on the toe.

But I'm hoping that starting off gently will give it time to adjust, and maybe help it to fully recover even quicker? We'll have to see. 

Resolutions

The lowest I have ever weighed is 138lbs.
Now this may not sound particularly impressive or low, but I'm nearly six feet tall, so on me, 138 looked pretty skinny. But that was about 4 years ago, and today I weigh probably the heaviest I have ever weighed, at 218lbs.

I worked hard to get to my lowest weight, but I did it all wrong. Almost entirely through diet with barely any exercise, I limited myself to sometimes no more that 500 calories a day, and constantly felt ill and tired. Needless to say it didn't last.
So this time I want to do it properly. I don't just want to be thin, but healthy. I want build my strength and learn to enjoy working out, to be one of those people that jumps out of bed at 7am and goes for a long run and loves it, and loves life...

This may seem a little optimistic, but I really believe there are people out there like this. Yes nobody wakes up every single morning raring to go, everybody has days when they would rather stay curled up under the duvet, but there are people whose default mood is 'cheerful' rather than 'tired'. And I'm going to be one of them.