I made some notes the other day on my way to training with Tom. I seem to be at my most philosophical whilst sitting on the Northern Line. It may be the limited number of songs my phone will play underground that forces my mind to wander but never the less I came up with some good stuff the other day. Well – it’s good for me.

Firstly – see how a number of us are chasing goals? Goals are good. Agreed. BUT… if your goal is “I want to be a size 8” or “I want to be 15% body fat” or “I want to be 55kg” then hear me out for a minute and think about this. WHY is that your goal? Picture it. You hit your goal weight. You can now wear tiny jeans. What next? How do you feel? What has changed? Will you be exponentially happy when you can’t pinch an inch?

Don’t get me wrong… I’d love to have my abs back but this time I am trying to focus on the journey (gaaaaaaaay) rather than the finish line. Essentially what I mean is this. Actually no, I’m going to use my analogy/metaphor here. Here goes. So my mum climbed to Mount Everest Base Camp a few years ago. When she got back she told us what an achievement it was (OBVS) and she said she couldn’t believe how hard it was and how people must be mad to climb the whole thing. Ok so our starting out on a quest for a healthier life is climbing to base camp. With me? You get to base camp and you think “you know what? let’s step it up a gear – let’s climb to middle camp” (Middle camp doesn’t exist but whatever, camp three or whatever it’s called). Middle camp is pretty cool. There’s showers and life is comfortable with people to hang out with and fun things to do. Middle camp is your daily sweat sessions and your mostly eating good food but with the weekend glass of wine and the sunday pizza and pyjama day. One day you wake up in middle camp and you think “nah – fuck it – let’s go to the summit”. Strap on your oxygen mask and gather up your crampons. It’s time to take this shit really seriously. You’re in pain. You don’t have any wine. You get to the summit and you’re like “hell yes – look at that view! Shit I’m freezing. Get me off this mountain”. The summit is your super low body fat, your counting and weighing every calorie and macro, your lack of nights out, your gym chat 24/7. Living at the summit is really really hard work with it’s benefits of a ripped six pack but it’s negatives of pizza once in a blue moon and probably some obsessive behaviour (I am generalising here – don’t shoot me if you have abs and eat Nutella – we aren’t all that way).

So now you have two options. Throw yourself off the summit and land back at sea level for some serious fat storing and lack of activity – OR – get yourself back down to middle camp for a bit and live a life.

The point I am trying to make is thus: the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. Chris says this a lot to me when I moan that I wanna do another Ironman and I don’t feel like an athlete any more. He says “yeah ok but you can train if and when you want, you can lie in, you’re not walking around like a zombie and you have social life”. Humph. Ok fine fair point.

You get to 15% body fat. Now what? When I hit that goal I was nuts. My disordered eating was having a ball. I was scared of nights out in case I couldn’t log the macros from the meal. I lived for cheat days when I could consume entire pizzas and tubs of ice cream only to feel like a total loser for “undoing all my hard work” aka complete bullshit. For me, it was not a long term lifestyle.

We already know it’s nigh on impossible to stay on track 24/7. Shit happens. We smash it some weeks we don’t smash it some months (if you’re me – ha). I read something the other day that has made me think.

Joking aside… I am going on holiday with my family this weekend. My sister is a wine buyer and we are celebrating my mum’s retirement. Now then, here is my train of thought “behave yourself Cat – you can have ONE night of champagne and treats and then it’s training on the beach every day and eating sensibly”… it’s been a few days since I had that mental chat with myself and I am now of THIS opinion “YOLO”. Seriously though. In a few months or a few years time I want to look back and think “shit that was funny when we built a pirate ship and drank rum and ran around being ridiculous when we were nearly 30 (in my case)”. I don’t want to look back and think “goddammit I wish I’d just LIVED a little”.

We have all the time in the world to be ripped with 6 pack abs – I bet a few of you are sitting there thinking “yeah but it’s nearly summer and I wanna be clean eating and HIIT workouting NOW” – and that’s totally fine. My main point is I think we, or rather ME/I, need to enjoy the day to day process. I love being sweaty and smashing a lifting session or getting a PB on my 100m sprints in the pool. I love prosecco. I love pizza. I love my bloke and I love my family (Marion Mac on half a bottle of champers is better than a stand up comedy night at the apollo).

It is so hard to fight the demons sometimes but ultimately it is not a race. Enjoy your training. Enjoy your food. The streets don’t turn to solid gold and the Thames doesn’t flow with champagne when you hit that certain body fat percentage. Get your balance right. Or at least try to.

I have taken a serious 180 on some of my previous blog posts but I swore I would always be honest…. and frankly this is where I’m at. Yes I want to be able to do pull ups. Yes I want to be a little leaner. It will happen because I will work for it but it will be a continuous mission… Not a “OK I’m lean again – I’ve achieved world peace and cured cancer”.

 

 

I’m noticing a pattern that quite a few of my titles sound really weird. Take today for example; it is actually referencing the popular movie ‘Big Daddy’ with Adam Sandler. I am going on the assumption most people have seen that movie. If you haven’t then you really need to asap. So there’s this scene where they go to McDonald’s for breakfast. But they’ve stopped serving it. Sandler goes mental and shouts “AAAAAHHHHHH – HORSE – SHIT!!!” at the top of his voice. Well Chris and I have now taken to shouting this every time something isn’t completely as we expect or want it to be. This could be anything from “babe we can’t order Dominos again… it’s not good for us” to “we napped for 3 hours – now it’s 6pm and we haven’t done anything”.

Both of these examples did actually occur at the weekend. After being plagued with London’s worst cold (Chris two weeks ago – me last week) we were both on the road to recovery but not quite 100%. The napping occurred on Saturday afternoon. The Dominos conversation occurred on Sunday at around 4pm – *cover your ears Tom* – we ordered Dominos. Mwah ha haaaaa. F***ing sue me OK? I turned to Chris and said “would you still love me if I stayed this body shape forever?” *as I stuff pizza in my mouth* – Him = “eh?” – “well if I didn’t get super ripped again would you mind?” – Him = “are you joking? I’d be buzzing if you looked like this forever. You’re gorgeous”. BLESS. Pass the sick bucket!

Point of the above conversation is this whole learning to RELAAAAAAAX around food is actually going better than I originally thought. Ok I haven’t dropped the 10 kilos I want to – dominos and deliveroo may have something to do with that – but I have been ill and all over the city/country with work and I enjoyed my weekend (took full liberty with the free mars bars on offer at the swim event on Sunday – FOUR in total are now in the fridge… well actually three ‘cos I ate one). I missed a full week of training last week. I drank wine, I ate chocolate, I had pizza…. it’s all ok. This week I will try harder to eat something decent, I’ll be training, I won’t be drinking. Yin and yang. Etc etc. As we already know; these things take time.

HOWEVER – and here is a good lesson to be learned. Just because you THINK you are letting yourself down or not making progress etc etc. Hold fire. During the swim on Sunday I felt slow. Like really slow. My form took a while to relax, my breathing was a mess, I was zigzagging around the swim course like a mental bumblebee trying to get out of a small room with no windows. I was horrid to myself for a lot of the swim “you’re so slow – get a move on – stay on course – swim faster”… turns out – I WAS EXACTLY THE SAME PACE AS I WAS FOR IRONMAN LAST YEAR. Which, if you don’t mind, isn’t bad.

Considering this was my first open water swim of 2016 I reckon that’s pretty good. Few more pats on the back for my tortured little brain. Stuck my tongue out at the nasty demon in my head telling me I am rubbish and proceeded to be awesome. As much as possible.

How was your weekend? Few vinos? Few BBQ’s with too much mayo and cheese on the burgers? Too many pizzas? Well it’s life innit. Tom (trainer/coach/guru) had the most mental sized pizza I’ve ever seen on Friday, however, Tom was in a calorie deficit from a hard week of training and therefore earned that pizza. Damn him. This is where I/we need to get to I guess. Then it’s pizza for dayzzzzzzzz. Ha.

Made some nice food at the weekend though! Well, I think it’s nice, Chris think’s it’s gross. Shut up Chris. AAAAAAAHHHH – HORSESHIT! Ha. You can’t get mad about stuff without laughing at that sentence.So I had a bunch of cooked chicken in the fridge and I hate throwing stuff out. I was also in dire need of some veg (NOT veggies – stupid word) after feeling like crap all week. So, cooked chicken breasts, broccoli, spinach, reduced fat cream cheese, parmesan, frozen peas, ham…. Chuck everything in a tray, thin the cream cheese with some milk, pour over the veg with some spring onions and garlic, sprinkle on the parmesan. Result = chicken and veg a la non boring. I just had some for lunch. Tasty.

Heading up to North Uist next week. PSYCHED. Gonna run around on beaches, sleep, catch up with family. Cannae wait. Asked Tom to write me a beach training programme. Bring on the broad jumps and the lunges. Dad is gonna laugh his irn bru oot his hand watching that spectacle. Ho hum.

Half a quest protein bar for coffee break in two hours. Urgh. It’s so far away. I love snacks. I could snack 24/7. I don’t even LIKE quest protein bars any more but I bought loads and need to finish them or Chris the accountant will throw me out for wasting money. Humph.

Gonna lift some really heavy stuff tomorrow morning though. Actually can’t wait. Gonna do some skipping too. Pow pow – see ya later Dominos….

C xx

I am, right this minute, having a very interesting chat with my friend Alice. Essentially we are discussing methods to stay strong and fit and lean but also enjoy food… because we both love food. A lot.

I think I have carb brain today. Not sure what’s going on but I don’t seem to be able to concentrate and I was wibblywobbly on my feet walking to work. Probably because I am eating a proper diet this week instead of the 5000kcal a day of junk diet I had on Sunday and Monday. I’m not even joking. It was incredible.

Anyway – today’s title is pretty random but it makes sense. I have a really bad habit of being waaaaaay too extreme with food restrictions. If I decide I am going to be “clean eating” then I am ridiculous about it. Won’t go near even a tiny piece of cake in the office for someone’s birthday. Won’t have diet coke because of the sweeteners. I really really restrict myself.

Well not any more. It has come to light that having this attitude towards food just isn’t good for me. It makes me obsessive and not very fun. It also leads to massive massive blow-outs (I’m talking enough Dominos for two people here). So – yesterday, in the office, we had a visit from a client, they make Nutella. They brought us free Nutella. Yes – I have the best job in the world. They also brought us lots of Ferrero Rocher and Kinder chocolate. I took some of the Kinder home last night for Chris and had one of the tiny little bars. It was 70 calories. This morning I had a teaspoon of Nutella in my 0% Total yoghurt. Ground breaking stuff huh? Well no… it isn’t…. it’s basic nutrition that should be part of every day life. Considering I ate around a kilo of salad and veg yesterday I think I’ll live…

I am hoping that over the next few months my 80kcals of Nutella here and there will prevent me doing 800 kcals of Ben & Jerrys on a weekend. Don’t let the cravings build up = much happier healthier mentality towards food. That is the theory – I actually think it could and should work.

The brain is a powerful powerful thing. I honestly have conversations worthy of the silver screen with mine sometimes. Take yesterday for example. ALL DAY my head was saying “please don’t go swimming tonight, please don’t, just go home and chill… it’ll be so much nicer”… but I knew that wasn’t the way to go – even if my brain was right – it WOULD be so much nicer. It took me EIGHT hours of arguing to finally persuade myself to go to the pool and even then on the way out of the office my brain was STILL trying to tell me I could go and swim another day instead. Shut UP brain. You are talking pure nonsense.

I spent a bit of time last week looking at old pictures and social media posts from the last year or so. It was really good actually. Made me realise what I had achieved and what I can do when I really put my mind to it.

I feel like I am running out of steam here but I just wanted to get some words down about the balance of Nutella and the importance of having a plan. My programme for strength training is the only thing that ensures I work hard in the gym. I have it printed, I take it with me, I stick to it – even when I am ready to cry with muscle exhaustion. I have had DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) pretty much every day for a month now. That is a product of hard bloody work and lifting really heavy weights. My workouts are longer and they are non stop. This is the product of a professional writing me a plan. Totally changed my approach. It is a similar story with my swimming. I wrote a plan and now I stick to it. If I don’t I’ll fail my 10km swim in August.

Anyway… I’ve been seeing some really really awesome effort by people recently. Katie – you know who you are – those 5k runs are inspiring. Every time I go on Facebook there’s another one logged! Just love it. I think it’s really important to seek and offer support to people around us. We should be nicer to each other. That’s almost an inspirational image on insta but it’s true. I saw a friend of mine yesterday, Rhona, haven’t seen her in TWO AND A HALF YEARS, she is still one of the nicest people I know. Straight through the pearly gates for her. Life is better when we are nice and we are positive. Nice to ourselves and nice to the people around us. Nutella is nice too……….

C xxx

….and bin the haters

Nothing does my head in more than people who can’t just be happy for someone. I’m going to have a right good rant here and then get onto the good positive smiley happy stuff. I feel like starting this with the words of Shakespeare because it is THAT important:

“Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean”

Yeah cracking stuff Will but I need to make this more applicable to fitness. Right so I am training with Tom and Tom is very very supportive and encouraging. Exactly how anyone who wishes to make a living by coaching people should be. Nothing is too much bother. Whatsapps regarding diet or “what the hell is a broad jump” are replied to within minutes more often than not and it doesn’t matter if I am not PERFECT at a new exercise e.g. barbell squats or cleans. Ok so Tom is the house of Montague because let’s face it – that house is just better. On the flip side we have the house of Capulet – boooooo. Now I’m not going to name names because there is no need. The guy working for the house of Capulet is a “friend”. His response to my efforts? “Pssssh could the bar be any further away from your body on that clean? Amateur”. Aye – great friend. See ya later.

Now – don’t get me wrong – I love a bit of banter and a bit of joke but the fact of the matter is some people are negative. Always have been always will be and frankly, I don’t give a damn if they read this because at the end of the day this is what holds people back.

I’m going to leave it there because I don’t want to spoil my moment of friggin’ ELATION at this mornings session with Tom. Shake it off Tay Tay and let’s move on.

Last time we caught up I was negative as *rhymes with duck* wasn’t I? Whining and waa waa but I got over it. I always do for the most part. So moving beyond the negativity I got my training session with Tom last Friday and he wrote a programme for me. A PLAN, if you will, to get me stronger faster better happier and healthier. It’s been a week and I feel like a weapon. Yes really. I’m eating more. I’m training harder. I’m calmer. I’m stressing less (hardly at all to be honest) and I’m thinking about stuff less and life is just easier. My swimming is stronger, my confidence is getting stronger – KAPOW – it’s just going good.

I’ve been chatting with a really awesome friend this week, we haven’t actually spent masses of time together as she lives up north in York but we’ve known each other a long time and recently have been talking a lot more. Her husband is a hero and I originally chatted a lot with him last year when he was trying to get some training together for walking the Sahara. He did it and made a lot of people very proud. Anyway, my friend wants to start doing some training at home because she has a little boy and a full time job. We were emailing yesterday and I sent her this:

“Just stay consistent with whatever you choose to do. Don’t worry about what other people are doing. A good one for time pressed people is first thing when you wake up. I’ve started doing 15 minutes skipping first thing in the morning. For food don’t get too worried about it. Aim for 2000 calories and use myfitnesspal to make sure you get over 120g protein a day. You won’t be starving yourself and after that you don’t need to worry about anything until you start to get really strong and fit. People get really stressed about it all including me! If you have a crap day where you smash nothing but carbs and cheese then just deal with it and move on. I spent years going back and forth with restricting and over eating when really you just have to stay pretty decent for 6 days a week and keep at it.”

I AM NOT A PROFESSIONAL AND I AM NOT TRYING TO GIVE OUT PROFESSIONAL ADVICE

However, I know this girl is around my height and age and I know roughly, ROUGHLY, what I’m talking about because it works for me (not that that means it works for everyone!!). Anyway the point is you can drink your detox tea and you can have your bullet proof coffee and you can take your CLA and you can do your fasted workouts and you can add whey protein to everything but at the end of the day it does, pretty much, at the beginning, boil down to calories in versus calories out and making sure you have a deficit and just keep doing it.

Before people come at me with pitch forks yeah yeah there’s loads of other methods and things to take into account but generally speaking if you do the math you will drop some weight.

So – the mega morning I had… I am reeeeeeeeally impatient and for years have thrown hissy fits because I can’t squat. WHATEVER haters! I can squat now! Bit of mobility work, bit more weight on the bar, a proper teacher and kowabunga it’s squats for dayyyyzzz. See SEE!

The point I’m trying to make is you can do anything you want to do. One of my best friends ran her first marathon on Sunday – THREE HOURS FIFTY EIGHT MINUTES – she was totally nonchalant about the time, I was silently screaming into my hoody because there’s no way I could run a marathon in that time haha! She had her doubts leading up to it and even during the run but she smashed it. Right in the face. POW.

Just be patient. Keep going. Work at it. Get a plan. Stick to it. Make goals. Doesn’t matter if they take years to achieve. Shit I’ve been trying to learn pull ups and chin ups for THREE YEARS. I will get there and you will all know about it when I do! You lucky monkeys.

Have a freakin’ brilliant weekend guys. Stay positive. Love those bodies and to re-quote my favourite water bottle from Ironman days….

“You’re Stronger Than You Think”

 C xxx

Couldn’t disagree more… I FEEL like an elephant this week and I had totally forgotten how difficult it is to have some self restraint… and patience… and maintain a positive mindset.

My hamstrings hurt and I am going to whine my little face off until I feel I’ve cleansed these bullshit thoughts from my head.

I’ve been trying to get back into a really solid lifestyle for at LEAST two weeks now and I’m not back to 15% body fat yet. WTF? Why isn’t this happening right now? Why is it taking so long? Why am I still about THIRTY percent. Humph.

Oh right yeah…. it took 6 months last time to drop the best part of 10kgs. Great. That’s just fucking perfect. Sorry for swearing but that’s where I’m at right now. I have lost the use of vocabulary and I’m just on a one way street of expletives and rage.

It’s not even rage. It’s just kind of disappointment. It’s pretty depressing how much damage can be done in 6-8 months. The worst part? I’ve BEEN going to the gym and out on my bike and going for the odd run. Sadly when I combine that with “yeah totally – treat yourself to enough food for two people” I don’t stay lean. Combine THAT with a pretty dodgy diet set up of Deliveroo and sandwiches and everything else that I tend to crave and it’s just a direct ticket to fatsville.

Goddammit.

The worst part is my head actually. Yeah ok feeling pretty squishy isn’t exactly ideal but trying to keep the balance of self love and self loathing is damn hard. One part of my brain is like “shhhhhh it’s ok… take a deep breath… just keep eating better and working hard and you’ll get back to where you were a year ago” and then the other part of my brain is like “jesus wept woman – now look what you’ve done – you gotta act fast. No more food today. Just go back to throwing up any junk food you eat”.

TOXIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

Not going there though. No point sitting whining and crying and then not doing something positive.

Neil just whatsapped me the best image ever:

He’s so damn wise.

My tummy is so round today. Sitting on my arse all day at work is NOT helping. Ironic isn’t it? I go to the gym and swim and walk 5 miles a day religiously for two weeks and don’t feel better. I feel WORSE! I remember this from last time though. I remember doubting everything and thinking I had made a huge mistake and I should switch things up etc etc. Actually that’s bullshit. I just need to stay committed and focus on the end goal – CONSISTENT HEALTH AND HAPPINESS. I am determined this will be the last time I feel like this. Lean with abs one year and feeling chunky and rubbish the next. I did an Ironman for crying out loud. Get a fucking grip woman. Again — sorry for swearing.

It definitely feels better to vent and be positive. No point sitting hating food and my body and all that negative stuff eating me up that’s for sure.

The first month or two is so hard though. You’re used to eating when and what you feel like and you think eating salad for a few days is killing it and then you realise it’s more work than that and that’s pretty damn shite ‘cos you thought you were doing really well but then you have to kick it up a notch.

(I actually love salad)

Thing is….. I KNOW what I’m doing is the right thing to be doing. My macros are decent. My training is solid. I’m getting enough sleep. I’m drinking enough water (ish). I just need to KEEP doing it. For weeks and weeks and weeks and then months and then FOREVER.

This is where I sometimes find having a PT or a nutritional coach can come in handy. You can put your doubts and fears and questions on someone else. Provided of course they know what they’re doing – you can trust them when they say “stick with it” or “ok let’s switch things up”.

I get that some people don’t need or want that sort of thing but for me it makes a massive difference. For this reason I literally can’t wait to start working with a PT again.

HOWEVER – it is also up to me to work out what works for me and what doesn’t. Perhaps I should give the scales another go. Ok they don’t account for muscle gain etc but they do at least give a good indicator for motivation and progress in the first few months…. hmmmm.

Ok these work pants are really not comfy now – I swear I’ve gone up 8 clothes size in the past twenty minutes. Humph. That’s another thing! FUCKING LEGGINGS. Those bastards are the devil. I mean obviously they’re not. They’re awesome and they look cool and they’re comfy as hell but they do NOT do us any favours when it comes to indicating if we are getting a bit chunky. Double humph.

Went to TK Maxx at lunch time – spent £7.99 on a vest that says Keep On Keeping On… how very appropriate.

Watch my mum’s reaction… “YOU CAN’T AFFORD MORE CLOTHES”

Oh leave me alone with my stretchy pants.

C x

…didn’t write my final blog on Friday last week did I – FAIL.

…didn’t stay on track with my lean clean food over the weekend – FAAAIILLLL

…didn’t stay sober, not even a little bit – BIGGESTFAILOFEVERRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Needless to say, I’m not exactly basking in the glory of willpower and sticking to plan right now. Instead I am still feeling ever so slightly hungover and just to make it worse I think I am about twenty stone heavier than I was on Friday. Excellent. Humph.

Staying positive though ‘cos it’s the only way to be. The weekend didn’t go to plan in terms of food and drink but I DID have a solid run of training and diet through to Friday evening and an absolute blast with my buddies and my man in Wales. Major laughs and totally worth it… although a couple of GLASSES of wine on Saturday would probably have been a better call over a couple of BOTTLES. I can’t drink to save my life. I am rubbish. Paid for it yesterday though – when we got home I forced myself to do some skipping. It’s my new thing. 10 minutes burns over 100 calories. Incredible. Determined to look cool as f**k like those boxers do when they skip in the gym. Once I stop whipping myself in the face or getting the rope stuck in my hair mid jump I’m sure I’ll look awesome…

I had some interesting thoughts during the long drive(s) to and from Wales. Remember a couple of weeks ago I was saying my head was all messy with Instagram images of people smashing a billion workouts and lean food this and clean food that and juice this and low carb that? Well I was feeling a bit like that again over the weekend (squashed the messy thoughts with Kettle Chips and wine though) and when I started to think clearly I couldn’t help but compare the world of health and fitness with the world of fashion.

Picture this ok… You see those people walking around wearing every single ounce of “fashion” all in one go? The girls have the false lashes, fake tan, huge earrings, some kind of ribbon bow in their hair, a floaty blouse with some ripped denim pale wash jeans tucked into thigh high faux suede boots and a patent leather handbag with twenty decorative padlocks hanging off it which is clutched in their manicured to look like talons fingernails? The guys are wearing sweatpants with the knee length crotch, huge white shiny trainers, a super low cut t-shirt, a snapback cap and some beats around their neck? Now it is personal opinion and taste of course but I am not such a massive fan of the “put ALL the fashion on me” look. I think if you like your fashion maybe opting for one principal at a time is a better look.

Now if I think about health and fitness it can be similar. People (i.e. ME) read all the articles and follow all the social media accounts and then try and do everything without really thinking about what works for them or what suits them best. I am terrible for this. I forget everything I learned studying nutrition and training like an athlete for Ironman and I let myself be brainwashed by the masses and masses of information I come across each and every day.

I keep trying to wipe the slate clean and stick to the basic principles that I know work and yet I keep falling at the 2nd or 3rd hurdle. However – as Michael Jordan said – “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying”. TOTALLY. Like really absolutely yep. So I will keep trying until I find the glass slipper of health and fitness that keeps me happy and healthy and strong.

Speaking of basic principles – I spent a couple of minutes this morning doing some really hard sums (a 7 year old could do these sums…) to work out my BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). This then allows me to determine how many calories I need in a day to maintain my current weight. I can then subtract 20% of that total and it gives me a starting point to drop some of the kettle chip softness around my previously abtastic midriff. Here’s the equation if anyone is interested:

http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator

That link then gives you the option to calculate your daily calorie needs which you then subtract 20% (or around 500kcals) from to get you shifting some lbs. No further complicated method needed (for now). I’ll be sticking with this for 2-3 weeks and then adjusting it.

HOWEVER – this method is focused on weigh ins and scales which I am not a fan of so I will be going with pictures and clothing and general “do I feel leaner or fatter”. Scales and past eating disorders don’t go hand in hand.

Week 1 of my swim training this week. 3 swim sessions and I’ll aim for 2-3 weight/strength training sessions on top of that. Depending on how my energy levels hold up I might keep up with some random skipping at home. It really is good! It counts as HIIT if you do it, funnily enough, for intervals. I reckon 60 seconds skipping flat out and then 30 seconds rest repeated 5-10 times over will be pretty conducive to torching some fat.

It’s bloody hard work though…

Consistency…. consistency…. consistency….. keep going….

“Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen”

(Michael Jordan though #motivationalspeakernumerouno)

Remember Popeye and his spinach? How mental is this?!

“He might have well eaten broccoli,sprouts,cabbage or any other vegetable, Why Spinach ? It is widely believed that there was a study with a displaced decimal that said spinach contains ten times more iron that it actually did. The Creator of Popeye succumbed to this belief of High Iron content in Spinach and hence chose it as the ‘instant power source’ for Popeye. This myth is known as ‘SPIDES’ – Spinach,Popeye,Iron,Decimal,Error Story.”

As IF there is an entire story behind some cartoon character eating spinach?! That’s cray. To be honest though I don’t care why Popeye ate spinach. The only thing I care about is the AMOUNT you can eat…. wowee. That stuff is LOW calorie. However, not exactly a party on the palate is it? Well now it is. Check what I made last night…

I got home from work and my new saviour for “I’ve been at work, I’ve walked home, I’m worn out and I need some bloody food right bloody now” are my blueberry yoghurt lollypops. Like the frozen kind. They are brilliant. You can’t cram twenty of them into your mouth at one time but they are sitting there in the freezer waiting to be enjoyed on the sofa whilst the FEEDMEFEEDME demon in my head chills his beans for a few minutes (Chris will be freaking out that I just said I have a demon – we watched Paranormal activity – all four of them – at the weekend… he did NOT enjoy pahaha).

I’ll include the recipes for both dishes at the bottom of this article. Sharesies.

Anyone else find Mondays are awesome for eating clean and feeling inspired? It’s that age old “ohhh I’m on a diet” but then by Wednesday you’re like “balls to this – I’m gettin’ a cake…and some crisps….and a glass – no wait – a BOTTLE of wine”. Yeah I get it. It’s always hard when you’re breaking bad habits or just trying to be slightly better to your body. The other flipside is your head is putting out the bunting and celebrating your willpower and then out of NOWHERE this pizza arrives and it’s party over.

The only thing I find that works is bloody stubbornness. I am stubborn. Sometimes its a bad thing. Sometimes its a good thing. For example – I point blank refuse to give in to temptation and laziness this week. I said I’d do a week of eating good clean food and training hard and I will damn well do it. I should work for Nike. JUST BLOODY DO IT. Commit to that. Get it done. Kapow.

Oh the other thing that winds me up. Chris and I both agree it takes a week for your body to catch up with what you’ve eaten and the training you skipped. So whilst I’m chowing down on the lean protein and the kilos of spinach this week my butt is like “ha – dream on – you ate 6 easter eggs last week – no way yo jeans are fittin’ today”. DAMN YOU giant ass – and whilst I’m at it – DAMN YOU chubby tummy…..

To be fair though – we should still love our bodies. Seriously though. Yeah ok sometimes they’re not so firm or fast or lean or whatever. Sometimes they don’t look good in bodycon but at the end of the day they do a pretty bloody awesome job. After Ironman I vowed never to hate on my body again. My body went through hell and back to get me over that finish line. I have massive amounts of respect for these thighs!

Back to the spinach – I went off on a bit of a tangent there sorry….By the way, never google spinach, the wikipedia article is unbelievably boring. So the mighty little green leaf! Per 100g this bad boy has a mere 23kcals. TWENTY THREE!!! When you consider I had nearly 400g of spinach in that dinner last night and I could barely eat it all that’s insaneio. Less than 100kcals. Well – not quite when I added some grassfed butter, some super low fat cream cheese and a grating of parmesan but STILL – it was huuuuge amounts of food for hardly any kcals and it tasted awesome. If you like creamed spinach you will LOVE this. Oh and if you haven’t tried creamed spinach then get on that band wagon cos it’s the dogs dangles, but mine is better, obvs… I mean the spinach, not the dogs….  MOVING ON.

Oh and buy your spinach frozen. Sainsburys do like 2kg for about £1. It’s mad cheap and way easier than cooking and chopping those giants bags of leaves when it’s fresh.

Before I go, here’s a little list of other foods I swear by because you can eat loads for hardly any impact on your booty:

1. Raspberries – amen
2. Tzatziki dip – the greek cucumber stuff but make it yourself cos it’s dead easy
3. Salad leaves – sounds dead boring but if you’re going to have salad for dinner use the whole damn bag of leaves if you’re mad hungry
4. Courgette (Zucchini) – grate it or spiralize it and go to TOWN with it instead of spaghetti or whatever
5. Butternut squash – any recipe that needs sweet potato can basically use butternut squash. Way lower in carbs if you’re looking to keep it lean(er)
6. 0% Total Greek Yoghurt – those little tubs have less than 100kcals. I had that with TWO packets of raspberries for breakfast. Loadsa food #boom

So here’s how I made the lollies and the spinach and I’m off to do an online foodshop for our weekend away – wine, chocolate, crisps, croissants…. Jokes

C xx

Lovely Faux Creamed Spinach (Serves 2 or one CatMac)

• 350g cooked spinach that has been squeezed in a clean tea towel to get rid of the water. This weight is AFTER the water has been removed, it was about 700g when it was straight out the freezer, it needs a zap in the microwave to get the water content oot of there
• 2/3 tub of Extra Light Philadelphia
• 1 Tablespoon butter (Did you know Kerry Gold is grassfed? Me either. Fact of the day)
• Half a teaspoon grated nutmeg
• Tablespoon grated parmesan
• 1 crushed garlic clove
• Big splash of milk to get the consistency you prefer e.g. more for sloppier
• Salt and pepper

Mix the whole lot together over medium heat and then chuck it on your plate.

Berry & Yoghurt Ice lollys (Makes 16 lollys)

• 800g Frozen berrys (I did blueberries)
• 600g 0% Total Greek Yoghurt
• Teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 Teaspoons powdered stevia (You can buy vanilla flavour stevia drops from Amazon, I use them, you need 5 drops instead of the extract and powdered stevia)

Blend the whole lot together in a food processor and then freeze in whichever lolly containers you have. Roughly 70 kcals per lolly in the size I made below…

You know when you’re asleep and you suddenly wake up or jump because you feel like you’re falling? That’s essentially what just happened to me. Except I’m at work… and I remembered I was supposed to be writing every day this week. I always said I would only write stuff when I felt the “urge” to do so i.e. I actually had something to write about. Well let’s see what floats to the surface this afternoon.

The main headlines tonight: I fought the greed last night and won – aaaand I will be training with the England rugby team soon.

Ok maybe not quite training with the England squad – BUT – I am going to do some training sessions with Tom Wright (insta:tomwright_fit) who trains at Reach Fitness in Clapham and James Haskell sometimes trains there so that’s basically the same. Bit like the time I met James Gandolfini… LIES… he was sitting at a table in the restaurant I was in.

Those headlines are boring as shit aren’t they? Well what do you want me to say? At least I didn’t succumb to the leftover tagliatelle or the sharing bag of popcorn #progress. Man alive it’s hard trying to tame my appetite for …. ALL FOOD, but Neil is watching (that’s creepy – he isn’t really) and I promised myself I would kick the “eat anything and everything” habit for a week to try and snap myself back into ‘lean mode’. It is actually going pretty well. I use myfitnesspal app – anyone else use that? I think it is a bit marmite for some people. You love it or hate it. I love it. If I am trying to hit some calorie and macro goals it is very very helpful.

Take last night for example; dinner was poached eggs and smoked salmon on seedy type english muffins (http://www.musclefood.com/high-protein-snacks-1/grains/7-sprouted-grains-english-muffins.html – these are AMAZING). After dinner though I was still hungry – or maybe I was bored – either way I wasn’t satisfied and Sons of Anarchy wasn’t distracting enough. A week or two ago I would have been all “meh whatever I’ll have [insert any food]” but last night I was all “no Cat – be smart here, you studied nutrition for gods sake, pick something good for your body”…

…fresh mango, total yoghurt, peanut butter. Three of my favourite things and fortunately all within reach last night. So I went over my calories – big deeeeeeal – at least it was with good food and not a bag of processed crunchy air (popcorn).

Oh my god as if I didn’t mention this earlier. I met up with Alice this morning, my new bff at my new gym. I found Alice on Instagram after looking up my new gym on there to see if there were any cool people to train with. Alice is super cool. She can do weird balance things on park benches (aliceinlondnland) and she loves a bit of lifting. So we were larking around this morning with 1 rep max (heaviest you can lift only once) on leg press and deadlift and it turns out I CAN deadlift more than my own bodyweight – eyyyohhhhh! This was awesome news! 80kg IN—YOUR—FACE deadlifts… So that’s now the benchmark.

It also made me realise I get too hung up on maximising my time in the gym, yes it’s good to get in, smash a session and get home but if you ENJOY something then it doesn’t necessarily have to be straight faces and seriousnessessessss 24/7. We had a grand old time just picking heavy stuff up and putting it down. It didn’t matter that it was twenty sets of 192587 reps or whatever. I should chill with my OCD more often.

Should everything I write have a lesson learnt or a moral or whatever? Are ramblings interesting? I dunno.

C xx

 

 

I just typed listen to Dora — good start — can’t even get her name right. DORY though, the blue fish from Finding Nemo, you know her song? ‘Just keep swimming, just keep swimming’. That is literally the only phrase I can come up with when I think about long distance swimming. It’s crap. And she does my head in. I mean the saying is crap – not the actual swimming.

Speaking of which – went swimming this morning with Chris. Alarm went off at 5:50am. VOMTASTIC. Didn’t get up till 6:15am, Chris goes “how long did we lie in for?” (I am in charge of the alarm clock)… my answer? “Aw only ten minutes *cough*”. I hate getting up early. Once you get into the habit of it it’s pretty good, but the first few weeks of alarms like that are really really grim. So swimming again, time to stop mucking about with my half arsed swim sessions – smashed out 1500m. That’s my longest swim since Ironman. Ironman was 3900m. Ooft. When I say smashed out I really mean “attempted to look pro and like I wasn’t really trying but it was really really really tiring”.

So — this morning inspired me to think about my “challenge”. I have mentioned my swim in August, it’s 10km. That’s 10,000m. That’s…. a lot. Um. Yeah. So I figured I have roughly 20 weeks until the swim in Wales in August. If I start training properly next week I can start at 2000m and then add 500m to that distance every week. That get’s me to week 17 and gives me 3 weeks to taper (this also falls nicely into my Aussie holiday #win). The basic plan is swim three times a week. Two of those sessions will be 2000m drill sessions. Sounds fancy, it isn’t. It basically means I will mix in some ‘arm only’, ‘leg only’, ‘sprint’ lengths into a 2000m set. Then once a week I will swim up to my added 500m goal e.g. 2500m, 5000m, 7500m and so on.

Is this really boring? Probably but I said I would write every day this week to show I am staying accountable.

Another thing I discussed this morning was visualisation – check this out, email from my buddy:

“I had a right diva moment at spin last night.

End of the class, told it was the last 90 seconds and everyone should be flat out, giving it everything they have. I was absolutely gunning it, thought I was going to pass out. I was visualising the last few laps of the Olympic final in the velodrome. THEN, she says, let’s do another 90 ‘flat out’. No one should be able to do another 90 after doing the first one flat out.

I felt robbed of timing my finish to the class. So just got my stuff and left the class. She made a comment but I ignored her.”

So ignoring the diva moment and focusing on the visualisation…. SO TRUE. I get asked a lot how I forced myself to do the training sessions for Ironman last year and I don’t know if I ever mentioned my imaginary moments?! They were brilliant… Sometimes on the treadmill or out for a run I would put really really loud trance music on and think about crossing the finish line. But not just THINK about it – I’d see it, sometimes I even closed my eyes (DO NOT DO THIS RUNNING ON ROADS OBVS). It used to give me shivers. It was so so important. If I was out on the bike and climbing a hill I’d frown and go to my determined place in my head which was generally picturing the hills on the course and imagining my family and friends cheering me on. Doesn’t matter what it is – find what does it for you and focus on it. It’s awesome and it works if you really get into it.

Oh oh! I forgot to tell you – I ate a whole cauliflower last night! Fortunately it wasn’t too giant, pretty small once I got rid of the leaves and the stalk but I made that cauliflower egg fried rice stuff and it was goooooooooooood. I’m going to do it again but with prawns and spring onions and coriander. I only had some cooked chicken and peas last night – was still pretty tasty though. About 90 calories in the entire cauliflower. Mental.

Too hungry to think of more words of wisdo-nonsense now so going to inhale my salad and probably my 3pm snack too…. it is only 12:15.

Numnumnunmnunmmmmmm

C xx

Damn all these fit, burpee loving, consistent healthy folk. Damn them all to a chocolately carby grave… See how THEY like it.

Easter – the “holiday” (what are we ‘merican’s now?) where we celebrate the birth, no wait, the resurrection of Christ and all go to church. OR we consume massive amounts of chocolate and have some extra days off work. Whichever you choose it generally amounts to the same thing for me. Fluffy waistlines (aka FAT) and rapidly regretting the “but everyone else is eating loads” mindset.

Bah, never mind. So I’ve had like, 8 days off work? Amazingly I actually did some form of physical pursuit most days. I went out on my bike, I ran, I went to the gym a couple of times. Doesnee matter though does it? No. No it doesnee. Not when you eat enough pasta to kill Mama Italia and then wash it down with an entire tub of frozen yoghurt. Up yours Waitrose. So what if your froyo is 85kcals per serving. Come round to my house and I’ll show you what a serving is. YOU try having 1/5th of a tub when you’re 80 minutes into Paranormal Activity 3 and you’ve got to go to work in the morning. Rage.

Never mind. The pasta was lush. So was the garlic bread. And the easter egg. And the froyo. And the Itsu milk chocolate rice cakes. WHAT?! I never said this was going to be a “look at me I only eat cauliflower rice” style blog entry.

Mind you – I am actually going to try cauliflower rice tonight. First time for everything the reckon. I am feeling virtuous after my lunch time gym session. LIES. The cauliflower has been sitting in our fridge for about two weeks and I feel sorry for it so I’m going to chop it up into tiny pieces and fry it and eat it. That will cheer it up. Stole the recipe from Pinterest/The Londoner blog. She’s got goooood recipes. Nice pictures too. I sent her blog to my friend and told him to marry her. Nice wholesome girl. We need more of them. Love her thesis on dieting too. Eat some veg 80% of the time and you’ll never need to diet again. Or something like that. Either way she’s cool. I’d like to be mates with her. You hear that londoner? We’re gonna be bff’s. http://www.thelondoner.me/

So Happily Ever After… I am STILL chasing that dream of having a fun social lifestyle whilst achieving some kind of abtastic body composition for ze summerrrrr. I’ve been seeing a lot of “summer is just around the corner” type advertisements recently and I dunno if it is supposed to stress us out or what it’s purpose is but they need to chill their beans. I still maintain it’s a pretty toxic mindset to chase the “summer body”. I think it is better to have a healthy strong body all the time (with some Easter type fluctuations now and again because it’s gonna happen and there is no point crying about it).

With this in mind, I woke up this morning and was all “right… gym AND swimming today and no carbs and only water and no straying from the path of health and fitspiration”. Sigh. Will I never learn. That’s a total dipshit way of thinking. Instead I am going to channel my inner Neil – that sounds really weird – remember Neil? My buddy from up north. The best PT in the world. Fact. He isn’t a PT. He is a guru. His voice is stuck in my head and it is saying (in a geordie accent) “stop mucking about Cat – have a week and stay accountable and strong – no gimmicks – just train hard and eat proper food – but don’t drink booze and don’t slip with the nutrition”. This always, well almost always, works for me. We have our day, ok week, ok two weeks, fine fine SIX MONTHS of freestyle diet and laziness but then we realise being lazy and fat isn’t very fun so we decide to go crazy on the gym and the food restriction and it lasts like a few weeks and we get sloppy again.

Neil practices a variation where I basically have to stop whining about being fat or whatever and actually stick it out for a week. It’s almost like a reset. It makes me realise I DO have some form of willpower and I CAN say no to stuff. Or yes to cauliflower in today’s case. One thing I know is getting to the end of the week of looking back and thinking “f**k yes – I totally didn’t eat any crisps this week” feels damn good. Seriously. Try it.

So on that note this is Monday, well done Cat, you nailed that one. No excuses. As my instagram profile picture says – “winners train, losers complain”. No flies on me. Or rather no CRISPS on me.

Daily blog posts this week. Staying accountable. To the internet. Whatever.

C xx

 

(My mum is going to go mental at all the swear words in this post)