Running, or walking, with your dog is a great way to get some exercise and keep fit.

I have started a dog walking business so I am hoping to get a lot of exercise while out walking with various dogs each day.  I love dogs and would much prefer to have a job walking dogs than to sit behind a desk from 9 til 5.

Along with the dog walking, I am also going to take up running with my dog.  A friend of mine in Queensland, Australia has a training program that is designed to train both yourself and your dog to eventually be able to reach a 5k run.

The training program is three sessions a week over 12 weeks and starts of slowly and gradually works up to a 5km run.

I am starting the first session of the training program today and am really looking forward to getting out three times a week with my dog and looking forward to the change as I hopefully get fitter over the following 12 weeks.

You can find out more about the Pooch to 5k run HERE.

So if you have a dog, why not download a copy of the training program and get out running with your pooch.

My Dog at the Beach This Morning!

I’ve been pretty slack with my exercise and always seem to have an excuse not to do it.  It really is just lack of motivation and I need to find something to get me motivated.

So this week I found my motivation!

My sister, who is 2 years older than me, has started a Facebook group called ‘Exercise or Excuse’.  In the group we go on each day and say what exercise we have done.  My sister is preparing for the City to Bay run which is in September so I’m thinking that perhaps I will train for it too and having this group to record our progress is something to keep me motivated.

I’m just starting out slowly and will work my way up.  Yesterday I did a 2.25km walk and today I took the dog for a walk to the beach and did a 2.25km walk with around 2/3 walking and 1/3 jogging.  I’m going to stick to around the 2km distance for a couple of weeks and then increase the distance to 3km, then to 4km and so on until hopefully I can do 6km at mostly jogging.

The City to Bay run is 6km so that is my goal.

I must remember to do some stretches before and after as  I do have a sore leg that plays up every time I walk or jog.

What exercise have you been doing this week?

Well I’m happy to say that although I’ve been really slack as far as updating my blog goes, I did actually reach my goal weight a couple of weeks after my last blog post.  I only had a couple more kilos to lose and it took me another 2 weeks, so on average I lost around 1kg per week following the Every Other Day Diet.

The great thing about this diet is that I now eat so much healthier than I did before and I feel great.  The annoying part I guess was that I was following the diet myself, but still cooking normal meals for the rest of the family.

Just last week though I decided that I was going to change things for my family.  I have three kids and although they are not overweight, they certainly do eat too much sugar – way too much sugar.  So it’s time that the sugar got cut right back and they started eating a healthier diet before they do end up overweight.

So last week when I did the grocery shopping I bought very few sugary snacks and for snacks the kids now have similar options to what I’m eating – nuts and fruit.  Of course, I did buy some snacks as we haven’t cut sugar out completely and even with the Every Other Day Diet you have the days when you can eat your favorite foods, so we all still have some ‘real’ treats from time to time, but in general are eating much better.

Since November when I reached my goal weight I have managed to keep my weight down and am enjoying life so much more.  I will try and update the blog more often and will try to include meal ideas and recipes that I use myself.

Please feel free to leave a comment and if you are following a diet, please let us know how you are going.

I’ve been slack – I have been really slack.

I didn’t weigh in last week at all and this week I weighed in but didn’t lose as much as I’d hoped.  I was aiming to lose 1kg a week and I lost around 1.5kg in 2 weeks.  However……. I have been a bit slack with the diet and not sticking to it 100% so I am actually happy with the 1.5kg loss.

If you have trouble sticking to a diet and only half stick to them then I might be the right person to follow, because at the moment, I’m not doing very well.  It’s not that it’s a hard diet to stick to, it’s just that I haven’t really got my head in the right place to follow it 100%.  I also went away for the weekend last weekend and was a bit naughty with a few drinks and snacks.  The fact that I’m still losing weight while not following it completely is pretty good, so imagine if I was following it 100% I would easily lose the 1kg a week I wanted.  So how much do I now weigh?

Read the rest of this entry »

Well I started the Every Other Day Diet a week ago so today is the first weigh in since I started.  Before I started the diet I was 62kg and today I weigh…………………..

60.9kg

So I have lost 1kg which is actually a surprise.  My aim is to lose 1kg a week and I’ve met that goal this week but I really didn’t think that I would.  I have been sticking to the diet reasonably well but not quite as well as I should be, but the problem is the exercise.  This program does require exercise every day and I haven’t been doing that, so I really didn’t expect to lose any weight.  I was actually too scared to step on the scales this morning because I thought I’d have to come on here and tell you that I’d gained weight.

So a nice surprise to know that I actually lost 1kg.  Now to really get serious and start exercising and hopefully I will reach my goal weight soon.

Now for a little bit about the diet.

THE SHAKES

The other day I wrote a post about the morning shakes and how I was struggling with them.  Well I have managed to master the shakes and have made some delicious shakes that are very easy to drink.

The problem I had with the shakes was the texture, I just couldn’t swallow them because they weren’t smooth enough.  I have made two changes to fix this.  Firstly, I changed to using the food processor instead of the blender and the food processor tends to blend them better into a smoother texture.  Secondly, I was using egg whites as the protein for my shakes and egg whites do change texture when they are beaten so I’m thinking the egg texture was contributing to the awful texture that I didn’t like.  So I am now using some Protein Whey powder and it has made a big difference.

Now my shakes are reasonably smooth and taste delicious!

FRUIT & VEG

I’m not usually a big fruit eater but I am actually enjoying the added fruit to my diet and am now quite happily grabbing an apple out the fridge instead of grabbing a fattening snack.  I should be eating a little more vegies than I have been so will try to up my vegie intake this week.

So off to a reasonable start!  How are you doing with your diet?