My Spiffing New Torture Machine

Whilst I was doing the bedroom flit in my last post I'd ordered a fabby new elliptical cross trainer thingy in an attempt to get my wobbly jiggly bits less wobbly and jiggly.

 

It is now unboxed and assembled and looking very imposing ... this performance was ahem, a bit tense with lots of "are you sure that's on the right way?" and oodles of "so that's a wavy washer, why do I want wavy washers?", "oh I say, a curved washer" and even more "just hold this will you".

Anyhoo, here's the story of my spiffing new torture machine:

I'm not stupid - methinks - whilst choosing one, I'll buy one that plugs in, no use in overdoing it ... well, I go to foot of my sock! Do you know you still have to move your legs by yourself???? I thought I could just stand there and go for a ride, nope, not a bit of it, mutter, mutter :(

I gingerly climbed aboard and twiddled the knob and pressed the button, dunno what they do yet, I don't do instructions until I'm really REALLY desperate ... which was a bit sooner than I expected.

Twenty hard seconds - and 3 calories - later when my pulse was pushing the top end of the 60s BPM, I thought I'd better have a rest ... and while I'm at it, ahem, have a proper look at the computer doodah.

The damn thing got all personal asking questions like ~ age, height, WEIGHT, SEX ... I spent five minutes looking for the 'not this month' button before having a closer look ... and there was a teeny weeny pic of a stick girl in a skirt alternating with a teeny weeny pic of a stick girl not in a skirt. This may or may not be a boy. I chose the one in a skirt so I would get plenty of fresh air around me wotsits when I'm being taken for a ride - oops I mean, when I'm stepping/pedalling/whatever.

Tomorrow I will raid my under-bed drawer which is crammed full of - hardly worn - keep fittery outfits in lots of white and lovely bright colours. I bought them at the beginning of 2013 when I had a three month flirtation with Zumba. Ooooooh, they might be too big. Way-hey I feel a shopping spree coming on.

I wonder how long this relationship will last...

Weight Gain!!

We all know that I switched to a daily fast last  May - I've still been jigging that about changing hours here and there - but I managed to gain 3lbs at the beginning November ... YIKES!!!

Now there's two things I may have changed or done wrong. One is that we came home from the tin hut, had loads of work to do and I didn't shift off my derrière. The other is the one I've been afraid would happen all along and that is I've cut my calories down to a ridiculous level. It wasn't done in a stupid attempt to get thin, and I'm not deluded when I look in the mirror - well, not too much - I know/think I'm not fat. But just to maintain my weight - with no exercise - meant I had to virtually stop eating.

Well that just ar*ed up the metabolism more - and don't let's forget I'm at a very tricky age, I'm seriously knocking on the menopause door to be let in/out.

Anyhoo, through November I'd gradually ended up eating less and less to the point where I was only having two decent meals a week and fasting 23 hours for 5 days a week and living on Muesli or ham/prawn/chicken salad ... except for the one or two days we ate out.

So, in an attempt to get my metabolism firing on all cylinders, I went back to 4:3 for a fortnight, where I actually had to eat more than I had been doing. I was - almost - prepared to gain a little more weight but seriously 4lbs more!! Yes, I gained 2lbs each week. I only had breakfast twice in that time and didn't enjoy it as I was no longer used to eating before 1.30pm.

Now what was I supposed to do? Well, I went back to my daily fasts as that's what I now preferred  but I stopped being quite so strict. Instead of 5x23 hour fasts I did 3x23, 2x18 and 2x16 hour fasts every week, and more importantly decided the work could wait and we went for a couple of long walks.

Unbelievably I lost the 7lbs gained in just a few days. I know most of it was probably water I'd got sloshing through my system, but it shows how my body needed to move more just to maintain its optimum weight ... I say optimum, I could still do with losing a few more pounds, but at my age, short of living on fresh air, it's not going to happen.

Having brought up my problems in our ADF maintenance group, another lady of a similar age said that she'd had exactly the same problem. Stopped walking - gained weight. This made me feel loads better ... and I think it's really important to be in contact with a group of people doing the same/similar thing, so we can discuss where we may be going wrong - mainly because we're guinea pigs and we've no one else to turn to - as well as giving each other tips, ideas and motivation WITHOUT HAVING TO PAY!!

Uho, December arrived, along with all that goes with it. Now the first year I followed a fasting lifestyle, I continued to do 4:3 throughout the month, only dropping to 5:2 for Christmas and New Year. Last year I had parents both ill and dropping like flies, so I ate when I could which was usually nothing throughout the day and one meal in the evening. This maintained my weight even though it was the last thing on my mind. This year I decided to let myself go. Hmmmmm, will someone please tell me why?

Over Christmas/New Year I regained those 7lbs so recently lost, and another of their little chubby chums came along for the ride. When the festivities had died down - OK, more accurately, after I'd eaten all the Christmas cake, home made truffles, trifle and other sweet stuff I don't really like but forced down anyway ... I discovered that it's sugar my body hates. All my joints ached, I was bunged up with man-flu every morning, I broke out in teenage spots - a nice change from wrinkles - and I was shuffling around like an old woman again ... rather than whizzing around in the best of health like the recycled teenager I'd become.

So, since then I went back to my proper daily fasts - although I didn't actually give them up over the holidays, but I ate far too much crap - I felt loads better but hadn't actually lost any weight, I strongly suspect my metabolism is sniggering at me from behind my left shoulder as I type. It is clearly fed up of me cutting down to the point where it has to make every calorie stretch.

Having still lost hardly any weight after a month - sigh - I've given in and gone back to 4:3, which is guaranteed to work ... as long as I remember to eat properly on the 4 up days. After doing a daily fast where I never eat before 1.30pm - usually later - then finish eating by 8.00pm, this is hard to get my head around ... again.

Anyhoo, one week of 4:3 and - drum roll - I gained 1lb. But as was pointed out yesterday by my lovely, sweet, soon to be ex-grumpy old man when I was swearing at the demon scales ... 'I hadn't shifted off my ar*e all week'. There will be walking done next week, at least as far as the solicitors to see about my divorce ha ha ha ha ha.

I will continue to make note of what I'm doing and where things go wrong so that I can say with authority ... "I wouldn't try that if I were you" ...

Update March:

I eventually lost all my extra pounds - with an odd weird gain towards the end (9lbs in 3 days), which disappeared as quickly as it arrived. I put this down to my muscles being sore when I started using the 'torture machine'. I have gone back to my preferred intermittent fasting and am once again maintaining my less portly figure ...

.....

1. Me and Alternate Day Fasting
2. Me and Alternate Day Fasting ... Three Weeks On
3. Five Weeks of Alternate Day Fasting
4. Eight Weeks of Alternate Day Fasting
5. Ten Weeks of Alternate Day Fasting
6. Alternate Day Fasting Three Months On
7. Alternate Day Fasting in Winter
8. Alternate Day Fasting Over Christmas
9. Me and Zumba
10. Saying Goodbye To My Curves 
11. Eight Months Of Alternate Day Fasting And Me
12. Growing Up 
13. A Year Of Alternate Day Fasting 
14. 60 Pounds Of Blubber - Vanished
15. The Perils of Alternate Day Fasting 
16. Mr Grumpy Is Losing It
17. Mr Grumpy Has Lost It
18. Fasting For Maintenance
19. Tweaking Maintenance
20. Weight Gain 
21. Still Maintaining
22. Four Years Of Intermittent Fasting

  .....

• ADF Facebook Group ... come and join us :)

Me And Zumba ;)

I was at Center Parcs last November (honeymoon) when I announced that I was going to have a Wii with Zumba for Christmas. This was received, as you'd expect - knowing my allergy to any form of exercise - with much hilarity.

I was as good as my word. I didn't go to enormous expense because I too suspected it'd be another brief but frenetic interlude in my life. So, over the next couple of weeks I watched several auctions on eBay until the right one came up at the right price. This only took three attempts until I was successful ... Ooooh heck, what have I done?

Despite the fact that I wrapped the large box containing the Wii, zumba and associated bits and bobs, I managed to look surprised when I opened it at Christmas ... 'Ooooh, look at that ... what's that bit for? ... where the hell do I wear that? It'll never fit around my waist ... oh, phew it's for my thigh'.

Anyway, come December 28th, the Wii was plumbed into the dining room telly, I wore my new bright pink Zaggora top and navy and pink cropped britches. I looked ahem, lovely.

Twenty minutes later and I was dying. I'd shaken my bits, waddled up and down and shimmied hither and thither. My outfit was stuck to me and I had to lie down in a pool of sweat until my heart stopped pounding.

'I can't do this again', I panted, 'it's horrible'. But I did do it again, the following day ... and then over the next couple of weeks, I did it a few more times. Was it any easier? Hmmm, no it wasn't, at first. And it was patently obvious to me that they've speeded that Wii woman up, no-one can move that fast and she must have been suspended on wires.

I tripped over my feet, hit my knuckles on the dining table, knocked over a glass of squash, banged my glasses onto my nose and shoveled my boobs back into my top several times after they decanted themselves ... I need a better bra here methinks.

A better bra was bought ... a level 4 bra, designed specifically for really vigorous exercise or huge boobs. It is a brilliant bra, nothing moves, I can jump up and down, swing upside down from the light fittings and I swear my boobs wouldn't be flapping about around my face.

Alas, after two 45 minute sessions of Zumba I can no longer wear it. Yes it's brilliant, too brilliant, all the weight of the boobs is now on my shoulders and they simply can't take it. They were agony.

I'm already not wafting my arms about as much as the instructor because I can't stand to hear the grinding and crunching from my shoulders, and they were getting sore, it would only be a matter of time before it spread to my neck and I'd be in real trouble then.

Did you notice at all that I'd gone from 20 mins to 45 mins just then? Oh, you did ... very observant.

Yes, I realised after two weeks that I was hardly out of breath after a 20 minute session, never mind not sweating, so I upped it to 45 mins. This is OK methinks but getting a tad boring now. I know all the moves - this doesn't mean I can do them - and frequently tell the instructor off for missing out a couple of steps. So I tried the expert levels.

Oh no, I didn't like that at all. It's a mister instructor. I know he can't see me but I feel like I can't enjoy it the same with a man telling me what to do. He had to go and I went back to 'intermediate' where I was happier.

I do my Zumba first thing in a morning - yes, I do mean first thing in MY morning so it could be anything after 10.00am - 45 mins on my three fasting days and 20 mins on three of my eating days before breakfast - I have one day off for good behaviour. I've read that exercise before eating is more beneficial because you burn your fat instead of carbs even if you consume them later.

All in all I am enjoying Zumba, I knew I'd got to find a form of exercise that didn't actually feel like exercise or I'd rebel against it and sit down with my arms crossed and bottom lip stuck out. I feel fitter at 53 than I ever did at 33 with years of sluggishness in-between.

I've had to be realistic and change some of the moves slightly to suit me and my - very nearly - middle age. I miss some jumps because of a dodgy left knee and as I've said, high arm wafting is out and I've learnt to mostly keep my arms below shoulder height. But ... to compensate for my shortcomings, I wiggle everything else that little bit more. I still trip over my feet and bump into things but I am innately clumsy anyway.

Another benefit of me Zumba-ing endlessly across the same patch of floor means that the floorboards no longer need polishing. Ahem, this would be fine if the dining room wasn't carpeted ;)

I may have to give up the Zumba-ing fairly soon though ... there's this man I know who keeps admiring my bum in its little white shorts when he passes me going one way. Not only that but he's taken to patting my bum on his way back. This is clearly harassment ...

.....

1. Me and Alternate Day Fasting
2. Me and Alternate Day Fasting ... Three Weeks On
3. Five Weeks of Alternate Day Fasting
4. Eight Weeks of Alternate Day Fasting
5. Ten Weeks of Alternate Day Fasting
6. Alternate Day Fasting Three Months On
7. Alternate Day Fasting in Winter
8. Alternate Day Fasting Over Christmas
9. Me and Zumba
10. Saying Goodbye To My Curves 
11. Eight Months Of Alternate Day Fasting And Me
12. Growing Up 
13. A Year Of Alternate Day Fasting 
14. 60 Pounds Of Blubber - Vanished
15. The Perils of Alternate Day Fasting 
16. Mr Grumpy Is Losing It
17. Mr Grumpy Has Lost It
18. Fasting For Maintenance
19. Tweaking Maintenance
20. Weight Gain 
21. Still Maintaining
22. Four Years Of Intermittent Fasting

  .....

• ADF Facebook Group ... come and join us :)