Home Sweet Home

I would first like to apologize to you that find my new obsession with exercise and calorie counting boring but it's hard to find other things to write about right now for the simple fact that it is a 24/7 lifestyle change and so much of my time is centered around this right now.  I hope you don't find it too boring!

Anyway... Look what I got today.

This is my new heart rate monitor!  I have used it four times already and I can not say enough about how much I love it!  The chest strap is just worn during any kind of exercise and it transmits your heart rate to the watch. You are able to keep track of calories burned, heart rate, laps and much, much more.

After you are done you can go to the Polar website and by putting the watch next to the microphone on the laptop it will transmit all of the details it recorded directly to your profile where you can monitor your progress.


This is my main diary page. It loads the data into the time in which it was recorded and then you can click on it for more detail.


These are the overall details from the exercise. This was recorded during a 30 minute exercise video 'Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred'.  As you can see it shows my average heart rate and my maximum heart rate.

When you click on Training Zones...


It then breaks down the data into even more detail.  It will show you what percentage of time was spent in each Training Zone. I had no idea before starting all of this that there are better zones in which to keep your heart rate in as it will burn more fat in those zones.  For me the best zones to be in for this are Zone 3 & 4 (Green & Orange).

I would also like to say that of course when you do things such as exercise videos you have no idea how many calories you are burning as everybody is different. But on some machines, such as my treadmill, it has a calorie counter.  It had always told me that 3 miles = 424 calories. However now with my Heart Rate Monitor I know exactly how many I am burning which turns out to be more around 280! That is a big difference!

Okay enough about this... I think you guys get the idea of how much I love it!

At work we had a collection for Laura C. She is leaving us to go on maternity leave and won't be back for nine whole months!

She is a very creative crafty person so I knew she would appreciate something with a little thought and effort put into it.  So I discussed my idea with my co-workers and they all agreed she would love this gift.

Here is the before shot [after a long day of shopping in the 68° heat]...

After I found the colorful polka dot tea towels I knew that they had to be used and that it would be bright and beautiful.

Here is the after shot...


I couldn't really figure out a way to get the digital thermometer in the cake without taking up much needed diaper space so I decided to wrap it on the side.

So each level is made from folding and pinning the tea towels together and then rolling up diapers inside. It officially held around 85 or so.  Then all around the tiers, as you can see, I added little goodies for the baby.


My favorite part of the whole cake was the cute little caterpillar... how adorable?


I was off work on Friday but I took it in for Laura's last day and she LOVED it!  As we all knew she would.  I'm so glad it turned out so nice cause she deserves the very best!  I'm going to miss her loads over the next nine months. But I've already told her that there will be lots of visits.

This past Friday was our last day at work for two weeks! That's right... 16 whole days off with nothing planned but lots and lots of relaxing and football watching.  *bliss*

As I am sure most of you know (even if you don't follow football/soccer) the World Cup has started. Last night was the England vs USA match.  As I am sure you all know I live in England but I still support USA and there has been quite a bit of banter at work regarding this match.  I would have loved to have had a win but having a draw at 1-1 was about the most politically correct score there could have been.  We kept up with England even though they planned on blowing past us and now nobody has bragging rights.  Good stuff!

As you can see in my previous posts I had started Couch 2 5K but I have decided to put a hold on it.  I made it through Week 1 Day 3 but noticed that my right knee was not liking it at all.  I had to take three days off from walking because of it and that is not want I'm wanting to do.  Right now I'm trying to lose at least 2lbs a week and yes working myself up to Running 3 Miles straight would help with the exercise but if it stops me from even being able to walk then I'm not going to get any exercise done.  So for now I am going to hold off on running and just keep walking as much as I can.  My knee still hurts a little a day after a long walk (did 5 miles yesterday) but I'm allowing myself one day on and one day off to rest and it seems to be better then.  After I have gotten myself to a comfortable weight then I will look to start the program again.

When Andy and I started tracking all of our calories I thought it was going to be a pain in the butt to track every little thing but honestly we find it so easy now.  We are both tracking them at My Fitness Pal and it has to be the easiest thing to use ever!  Almost all of the food we have come across is already listed and only a few things have had to be corrected. 

I have also found my measuring to be much easier than I first thought because of me purchasing the below cutting board.

When I first moved to England I found it so hard to cook here.  I am used to using tablespoons, ounces, cups and Fahrenheit.  Now everything is in milliliters, grams, liters and Celsius.  It has been a learning curve to say the least.  Well know with this handy cutting board I just have to look down and compare. 

I love it!

Well today (for England standards) was a scorcher! The highest was 75° with the sun shining bright... thankfully the weather says it is going to start cooling down tomorrow and there might even be some rain.  Yay!

So I figured I would give everybody a glimpse into where I have been spending a lot of time lately...

As you can see... This is my treadmill.  Of course I have a much needed fan pointing right on me.  I have my iPhone plugged into speakers next to me.  I don't listen to music though, this is used for my Couch to 5K application, it tells me when to switch from walking to running.  Instead of listening to music I choose to watch TV which honestly seems to make the time go by really fast.  I use the time to catch up on all of my shows, right now I am catching up with Brothers and Sisters.

Today I also bought some cool new wrist weights.


They have nifty little thumb holes that make it so that they don't slide up and down, which can really hurt.  They had two sizes so I went with the smaller ones for now, they are just over 1 pound each.  I was surprised at how much I actually felt it when I was walking.  I didn't use them while doing the C25K (Couch to 5K) Week 1 Day 2 as I don't need any extra weight during the running portions right now!  But after that 30 minutes was over I continued on walking for another 47 minutes so that I could make it to 4 miles so I used them then.  Yes.. Me.. 4 miles.. It's crazy! I hate walking, but again I come back to the TV, it makes it so much easier to just focus and watch it.

Here is how it ended up...


The distance is in Kilometers and not Miles so I always have to convert it but I have already remembered what 2, 3 and 4 miles are so that is all I really need to know.

Tomorrow will be a rest day so that on Monday I can attempt C25K Week 1 Day 3.  But even more exciting than that... Andy and I only have 5 days of work left until we are off for 2 whole weeks! I am so excited to have 16 days off in a row... And that will be filled with tons of football watching, I am SO excited for the World Cup!!!

Not sure if you have noticed the little weight tracker off to the right side of the page? ------------->

Well Andy and I have both started a lifestyle change... I like the sound of 'lifestyle change' rather than diet.  We are weighing all of our food, counting our calories and exercising.  We started on May 20th and have picked Sundays to weigh in.  This past Sunday we both did and the results were good!  After a week and a half I had lost 5 lbs and Andy had lost 6 lbs.  Of course with any change such as this the first couple of weeks are easy to lose as they say it is mostly water weight. But that had to be on me somewhere and I'm just glad it is now off and never to return!

Andy joined a gym not too far a drive from where we live but I have decided to focus mainly on using our treadmill.  I like using our treadmill and for now it is perfect for me.  I have it in our dining room/kitchen area and there is even a TV set up just in front of it so I just catch up on shows I have missed.

Over the weekend Meg had mentioned that she was going to restart the Couch to 5k (C25K) program and asked if there were any others that wanted to be her fitness buddies. So I jumped on the bandwagon and decided to give it a go.

Over the past two weeks I have been making sure that I walk 3 times a week, 3 miles each time.  Not bad as everybody who knows me, knows how much I hate walking!  Well the C25K program is designed to gradually get you from walking to running for 5K (3 miles).  You can read all about it HERE.

Well today was Week 1 - Day 1.  You start with a 5 minute warm up then you alternate 60 seconds running then 90 seconds brisk walking.  You do this for 20 minutes and then end with a 5 minute warm down.

I honestly think I may have blacked out in the middle of it but it seems I have made it through alive!  I will not lie it was tough.  After I was done I had gone 2.68km/1.66mi.  Since I had been normally going 3 miles I decided to stay on and walk at 2.5mph until I hit 4.83km/3mi... and I did it!

I was knackered like I haven't been in ages but am so proud of myself!  I know it can only get easier from here so bring on Week 1 - Day 2!  Well after my day off in between of course.

I have an overall goal set in terms of weight loss but have also set my first 'mini' goal.  It is to lose 22 lbs before August 11th.  Why August 11th? That is Andy and my 10 Year wedding anniversary and we will be in Rome so it would be nice to be a bit lighter for all the walking we will have to do in the hot Italian Summer sun!