Saturday 12 January 2013

Three hundred and fifty four

on Friday I ended up doing 7326 steps according to the pedometer, and Saturday 8400 - Saturday included a 3km run, so it means that the rest of the day was pretty inactive.
We reviewed our insurances and fire plan yesterday which was really good, but living in the bush and talking about the threat of bushfires and what we must do in the event makes me feel physically ill.
Last night I dreamt that I was working in a government organisation and that an old lady told me to look in the paper where they had been quoting me from The Gurge - I was horrified and scoured all of the newspapers in my dream but was unable to find any reference to the blog - hardly surprising as its not particularly newsworthy, but it made me uneasy.

I bought myself a present from ebay recently - a Nintendo DS and Animal Crossing its rather addictive and meditative

Thursday 10 January 2013

Three hundred and fifty five

Its about 35 degrees in Bendigo at the moment. I just left there to drive back down to Ballarat after meeting with a few folk up there - in our office right now, its about 16 degrees, so its rather confusingly hot when you go outside for any reason.
Its 2.05pm and I have only walked 3500 steps so far - most of my day has been yet again spent in the car driving from Waterloo to Bendigo to Ballarat and later back to Waterloo.
I had planned to meet up with some of my ex colleagues this afternoon for a coffee and a chin wag, but they are busy with the Municpal Emergency Control Centre because today is a very, very high fire danger and there's a couple of grass fires burning here and there around the shire - so people in threat can go to the MECC or call them I think for advice - I only ever did one afternoon in the centre when I worked at the City and that was when it flooded, so it was sending folk out to assess damage and what not.
I have stacks of piles of snow drifts of work to do on my desk and I am just knackered and don't want to do any of it.
But I better, or no pay for me.

XX

Wednesday 9 January 2013

Three Hundred and fifty six

I wore my pedometer for most of the day - its only about 5pm as I type, and I have already taken 11,340 steps so far.
I read this on the About.com webshite:
Classification of pedometer-determined physical activity in healthy adults:
1) Under 5000 steps/day may be used as a "sedentary lifestyle index"
2) 5,000-7,499 steps/day is typical of daily activity excluding sports/exercise and might be considered "low active."
3) 7,500-9,999 likely includes some exercise or walking (and/or a job that requires more walking) and might be considered "somewhat active."
4) 10,000 steps/day indicates the point that should be used to classify individuals as "active".
5) Individuals who take more than 12,500 steps/day are likely to be classified as "highly active".

Now, I spent the most part of today sitting on my bum in the car driving to Daylesford and Ballarat and Waterloo for meetings, some of which were actually conducted in the car, and I was able to achieve over 10,000 steps easily. I went for a 30 minute C25K session which took up about 6,000 of those steps, and chased the goat around the paddock for about 10 minutes when I got home from driving all over western victoria. But I REALLY don't reckon that I can in any way be classed as "highly active"unless you are talking about me being highly active in kissing and thinking about kissing - I am defintely highly active in that area.
I am just about to start week 4 of my running routine C25K which is upping it just a bit more on the running vs walking point - there will be 5 minutes of continual running a couple of times in the session interspersed with walking at the same pace and a couple of shorter running stints - I am actually finding the walking parts a bit of a trial at the moment, I just want to run more, but I know building up to it is half the fun... a bit like kissing.
I weighed myself this afternoon and was actually quite surprised to see that I had lost 3 kilos since I started weighing myself again (despite my better judgement) a couple of weeks ago. I haven't altered my diet, although I am not as compelled to snack since I started running again, curiously. I am about 5 ft 7 inches and I started off at 86 kg (BMI 29.8) which was just horrible - When I lay down on my side, my tummy lay down next to me like a puppy, which you know, is comforting and huggable if you can put it down sometimes, but my tummy is / was attached to my front, so its like carrying a dead puppy in a sling... which really actually motivates me to get rid of it. I am currently 82.5kg (28.5 BMI) and now have a slightly smaller puppy to tote around.
My tummy is still baggy and interesting in a way that is not in anyway associated with kissing (scars from badly conducted operations in my youth coupled with the landscape altered by childbearing and ageing) but it IS smaller and my bum is way, way, way tighter than it was but sadly, at this point, and probably each point on the circle of points in my life, I am yet to look like the atomic gorgeousness that is, was, and shall ever be Julie Newmar

I'm sorry... just how does one get hips like that with a waist like that?
Lets take another look:


My goodness... that is something to aspire to- usually not a fan of ankle boots, but hey... but wait just a minute... who is that behind you Julie?
Could it be Batman?
Why don't you turn around and take a look...


Holy latex coated bowling balls Batman!





Tuesday 8 January 2013

Three hundred and fifty seven

I bought a pedometer today, hooked it on at about 1pm - I am going to monitor how many steps I take in an average day and see how close I get to 10,000

I hopped on the scales last night and was rather pleased to see that I had lost 2.5 kg in the last two weeks - I think its all off my bum, although my belly isn't quite as baggy as it has been so maybe that's tightening up too.


Three hundred and fifty eight

Fire! Fire!
the Ballarat sky was orange and green last night with the fires at Carngham / Chepstowe. By the time I had reached home it was about 10 degrees, threatening to rain and not a whiff of smoke in the air, but it was an anxious night for some of my colleagues.

I had nothing in the tank last night but had commiteed to myself that I would get on the treadie and do another C25K session, and half way through I found the magic stuff that makes you want to keep running. At the very end of the session in the cool down, Madonna's Ray of Light came on, so I pumped up the volume and the pace and brought it home at 7 km / hour
Later I weighed myself and it seems I have lost 2.5 kg in two weeks, just from running most days for about 30 minutes - my arse is definitely smaller than it was two weeks ago - it was getting a bit Mums Bums

This morning I woke up with a groan - had some very interesting dreams last night, but probably not great reading unless you were in it. I scraped myself together and put on my favourite blue shirt that I haven't been able to wear because I got too fat for a while, hopped in the car and listened to the fire reports, and when that became too depressing, switched the iphone to random music and this song came on:

Which never fails to make me smile, and I knew then I was going to have a good day, and possibly burst the speakers in the car.

Sunday 6 January 2013

Three Hundred and Fifty Nine

Another stinking hot day in Western Victoria today and another day trying to maintain focus on work.
I spent some time at one of our other facilities today and then headed to the lake to enjoy my salad - driving up one of the posh streets in Ballarat near the lake, a little hatchback car was just sitting in the middle of the road, not moving - there was a lady wearing a hat in the drivers seat and a car was coming in the opposite direction, so I just waited behind her. The other car was traveling quite slowly and there was plenty of room for the lady to pull off to the side, but she didn't, so I waited patiently behind her, as did anothe three cars. Just as the on coming car got close to us, the old lady waved out of her window in a pissed off manner for me to pass her on the right side...which I did when it was safe, and gave her a nice little wave with my middle finger on the way past. I birded a pensioner today.

Saturday 5 January 2013

Three hundred and sixty

Good morning

I finished reading Ewan Morrison's Close Your Eyes last night but I didn't put it down for a few minutes after the last word. I just pressed it to my face with my eyes closed. Pat Kane in the Independent wrote: "Indeed, the whole of Close Your Eyes is an admirable and intimate wrestling with the damages incurred by trying to heal, as Adorno once called modernity, "a damaged life"."

It's a haunter that one, no mistake, in the same way that Tim Winton's The Riders is a haunter, and a book I need to revisit after about 20 years of it sitting on my shelves.

After I had a bit of a think about Close Your Eyes and that I couldn't possivbly get to sleep with that in my head, I picked up another birthday / Christmas present book: Camp David the autobiography of David Walliams.
I have had a bit of a crush on David Walliams since I first saw Little Britain - I had seen him in other stuff (Black Books etc) before and clocked him, but only developed the crush after seeing Emily Howard. I had a dream years ago that I was at a posh function somewhere and David Walliams was near the punch bowl, we exchanged steamy looks across the crowded room and I got all hot and bothered and then woke up.
Anyway, its only 12 hours since I picked the book up and I'm close to half way through - and I slept for a good 8 of those hours, so that gives you and indication of the ease of the read style - also its a big hard cover book with a 14pt font for the myopic among as.
While writing this I just noticed that the Keith Richards book, Life, that I started before Christmas is sitting forgotten on my desk under a copy of 1001 Albums you must hear before you die - life before death, music before life and death. Or something.

I ran again this morning for about 3km. Well, ran and walked with the aid of the C25K program - I am at day 2 week three so its longer running sections and shorter walking ones, which is coming as a bit of a relief because I don't slow the treadmill for the walking bits and have realised that at a pace of 6km - 6.5km an hour it is much easier to run than to walk. I am feeling my legs getting stronger again and my fitness is certainly increasing, I am finding it easier to get into and don't really want to stop after 30 minutes. Today I jumped off the treadie and did a few sit ups at the end. I have little or no core strength and sit ups are like some sort of torture. But I have had success in the past with V lifts and planking and what not, so I will persist.
If I didn't have a bloody deadline to write a strategic plan for 5 home and community care providers which I MUST work on today, I would pull my old bike out of the shed, pump up the tyres, rehome the spiders and go for a bit of a ride.
I might do that anyway, its too nice outside to stay in here all day tapping away like a crab.