Aha moments and beautiful finds

I had such a glorious start to what has turned into a super lazy day. I woke up early to get some breakfast in (same as yesterday: Bircher muesli, banana and natural yoghurt) before my hour with my personal trainer. It was another hectic session but of course I felt so good afterwards. Chatting to Ruth after she made such an insightful comment. I was telling her how many people at work are commenting on how much weight I've lost. People are going up to friends of mine and telling them to tell me to eat something because I am looking too thin. I have also been asked if I'm throwing up! Now I know this is (mostly) not malicious, but I feel that the comments are made without an understanding of all the work I've put into getting fit. I'm up at 5am more mornings than not running and I'm learning (slowly) to choose the right food. It's certainly not perfect but I've never said it was. I think I'll be learning to navigate this new lifestyle for the rest of my life. 

Ruth made an interesting comment. She's always been on the smaller side and made the point that no one goes up to a larger person and says, "you're looking a bit fatter today. Best you don't have too much to eat today" but people don't seem to have a problem saying the opposite to smaller people. I'd really never thought of it like that. I'm working hard at being healthy and the key word here is SUSTAINABLE so I'm definitely not going to do anything that I am unable to maintain for a very long time. 

After that philosophical rambling I decided on the spur of the moment to go to our local farmers' market. My husband and son were out watching cricket (what else?!) so I had an hour or so to spare. I bought them a couple bacon and egg rolls and myself a few gorgeous mangoes and plums. Yum! I could not resist two boutiquy bouquets of flowers. I bought two as I'd planned to give one to my neighbour but I think I may just hang on to both :-). 

I also bumped into a beautiful friend at the market so had a bit of a chat with her and her hubby. I always love moments like that: so relaxed and they leave you feeling all happy and warm! 

I spent the rest of the day pottering - my absolutely favourite thing to do. I just love being at home as of course with a full-time, 40-hour a week job I'm not home often enough. 

For lunch I made a corn, tomato and cucumber salad with a mesculin 

 mix and an organic vegie burger. 

Dinner was a little more experimental and sadly somewhat of a flop... well partly. I spiralled some more zucchini pasta and cooked up some extra lean beef mince meatballs with a tomato sauce. The zucchini and meatballs turned out ok but I buggered up the sauce. I was converting a recipe in the Thermomix to which you were supposed to add pasta. Now what I didn't do was reduce the amount of water to compensate for the fact that I didn't add the pasta. So needless to say the sauce was pretty much flavoured tomato water. And for someone who always likes her sauces and soups on the thick side it was seriously disappointing. 

I still ate it - I wasn't going to waste it now - and it was ok. The zucchini and meatballs were pretty hearty and I added a little sauce to give it a bit of flavour. It had a bit of a kick as I'd added a dash of prego sauce so that was fun. 

Now it's time to clean the kitchen and round the lazy day off with a lazy evening. Bliss. 

Hot as Hades

It's been another crazy week - but a short one at least. My boy and I had Friday off from school and work and we did... absolutely NOTHING. I have still been so exhausted lately. The combination of getting up at 5am every day to get my run in before work (and the heat of the day) and every work day without aircon is seriously taking it's toll. I know I've mentioned it before but seriously!

I'm also still struggling to find my feet as far as knowing how much to eat each day. I'm at my goal weight and my personal trainer has told me I should be on 2000 calories per day but I am really struggling to HEALTHILY eat that much. It's as much mental as anything else. I'm terrified of putting the weight back on and am just in the habit of eating 1500 calories per day. I know that with all the exercise I'm doing I need to up it, but first I need to convince myself that it's not a bad thing to eat just a little bit more each day. I suppose I've got to learn to trust myself (if someone had told me a year ago I'd be struggling to eat enough I'd have laughed at them - that has never ever been a problem for me before!)

I've also been reading (thanks to my personal trainer) articles on metabolism and how under eating can play havoc on it. It's an absolute minefield I tell you. But I'm working on getting it right. After all, this is a lifestyle change and not a quick fix. 

For the first time I did weights training - all by myself! I felt a little silly but I got through it. I was pretty proud of myself for doing it, and today's run felt SO GOOD! I'm not sure if that's because of the rest day yesterday or because of working on my core - perhaps a bit of both. I was up at 5am this morning so I could get my brekkie in before a 6am start. I met a friend down at the river and we did a halfie. It really makes such a difference running with someone. I find that I'm not obsessing about how many kms I've done/have still to go. I also did a bit of a different route to what I normally do which is always so refreshing. 

Well it's another scorcher in Perth - 37 degrees and we're off to my boy's cricket final at the WACA. It's going to be SO HOT. Did someone say it's the first day of Autumn? Thank goodness I got my run done by 8am!

After that it's back home and then book club at The Merchant on Beaufort Street. I can NOT wait for the down time.