Week 16 Summary

I can proudly say that I am back.

Diet & Fitness

I'm back on track with some of my workouts. I've been able to take the dog for a few walks this past week. They were gentle, as I didn't want to aggravate any musculature pain.

I also restarted my C25K Program. Which is quite big as I am jogging at 7.3km an hour in the jogging sections. I managed to complete Week 2 Day 1. I also didn't feel any soreness the next day nor the day after. I did do some stretching after that program but I am wondering if I should incorporate more stretches after all my workouts to avoid the soreness I had the week of the 44km were covered.

Any advice on effective stretching that you do after your walks or jogs would be helpful.

Career

The interview at the temp job went very well. They were very friendly and the interview as quite informal. I was able to answer all their questions and hopefully I answered them correctly. I will find out whether I have been successful or not for the position by the end of the week.

I called the Manager at the University and I was told yet again that he was in a meeting. I am really starting to doubt whether or not this Manager has anything for me. I hope I am not going to be disappointed by the outcome of this as it has been a few weeks now that he's been telling me that he is arranging meeting and getting into contact with people to get something happening for me.

I guess there's no point expressing my frustration to him as I wouldn't want to sour the relationship / rapport that I have built with him. I just need to continue being patient and see where this goes.

In the mean time, I guess I'll just keep looking through employment websites and keep prostituting my resume to everyone.

Technorati Tags: C25K Program, Job Seeking, Interview, Walking, Treadmill

Doctor's blood test result

This is a bit of delayed post as I found out my blood test results a few weeks ago. 


My doctor has been doing routine blood work on me to monitor this sudden laziness with my insulin production. He has also been testing my thyroid as my weight loss has somewhat stalled a bit and he wanted to know whether or not it may be related to my thyroid. 


I went to the medical centre and the doctor told me my results were good. My insulin is now back to normal which is great news and has been achieved thanks to the Dukan Diet. 


The bad news is that my cholesterol seems to be increasing each time I've seen him. It is not considered as high but it is not as low as it originally was (4.6) it is now 5.8. I've been slowing down on my egg consumption the past few weeks as I will be getting a blood test in the next 2 to 3 weeks to keep abreast on both the cholesterol and diabetes issue. Other bad news is that my vitamin D is abysmal. It should be in the high 80's and mine is 24. I have been prescribed some vitamin D tablets to take. I guess all those years of avoiding the sun so that I wouldn't get more freckles have caught up with me. 


Have to keep working on my health. 


What do you do to stay healthy?


Technorati Tags: The Dukan Diet, Diabetes, Blood Test, Routine Check Up

Week 15 Summary

Work has taken priority over fitness this week.

Diet & Fitness

This week has been the first time that I have been able to move around without my legs feeling sore. I don’t believe that it took three weeks to recover from the week that I completed 44km.

Now that my muscles are all better, I am hoping to get back onto the treadmill and restart my Couch25K program and also to walking the dog as I feel like I’ve fallen behind.

Even though I felt better, I just couldn’t bring myself to workout on the days that I was working. I just felt either too drained or just couldn’t be bothered to visit my old friend the treadmill.

Working on improving all those areas throughout the upcoming week. So keep lookout for my comeback in next week’s summary.

Career

I’ve applied for the full time position that is being advertised at the workplace that I am currently temping. I had an informal interview with one of the colleagues and they seem pleased with me experience thus far. I was advised that I will be having an interview with the General Manager on Friday.

I am very happy that I will be interviewed as I really enjoy the workplace and fit into the team well. They are very entertaining and it almost feels like these people hardly work because there’s always laughter and jokes and people talking loudly all the time. Which differs marginally from my previous workplace where I was basically isolated and iced out because the lady that I managed had it in for me and bad mouthed me to everyone.

Regarding the University position, I touched base with the Manager that had interviewed me and mentioned that he would circulate my resume through the University. He advised me that he has sent it to everyone he can think of and he has received three expressions of interests. He mentioned that he will be in communication with those colleagues and that I should touch based with him again this Thursday.

I was so pleased that he had received interest in me as I would absolutely love to work there as it is in the city, it would be a great career move and also they pay very well.

If I had to choose between either it would be very hard as I have already built a very good rapport with the people I am currently temping with but it would make more sense for me to work at the University in terms of career progression.

If you were in my position, which would you choose?

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Four week review of the Dukan Diet

Over four weeks have passed and I am still loving the Dukan Diet. I have to admit that I have not been completely true to the Dukan Diet (in other words, I haven’t followed it to the letter) but I have seen some good results.

For weeks, I was stuck in a rut of being between 94 to 96 kg and by undertaking the Dukan Diet I was able to break through that barrier and made it to my lowest weight this year of 90.4 kg, which is a loss of almost 4 kilos. Not bad for over four weeks of just eating certain foods and also cheating.

The Dukan Diet was easy to follow as it was just eating the right foods. During the Attack phase (a protein only phase), I ate to my cravings. At that moment I had a big salmon craving so I ate it in different ways. Grilled, as sashimi with soy sauce and wasabi, with cracked pepper and lemon, poached, etc.

The Cruise phase (a mixture of protein only days and protein plus vegetables days) was a bit more difficult for me as I was craving my vegetables. I found that on certain days I was skipping the protein only days and still eating vegetables. I mainly ate broccoli and spinach and my all time favourite, my mixed lettuce that I completely pounced onto.

The Dukan Diet made me feels very healthy. I felt less bloated after my meals, my stomach didn’t feel rock hard after eating like it previously was and wasn’t sticking out like I was pregnant either. I felt like my food was being digested instead of feeling like it was stuck underneath my chest and suffocating me.

Since the Dukan Diet is a low carb and high protein diet, it is said that you may experience constipation. I found that that wasn’t the case with me. I was fairly regular. I found that I became irregular when I reintroduced carb into my diet. Breaking my Dukan Diet has happened over the Easter period and I have found that I have not been regular since.

Though I have cheated plenty of times on this diet (the occasions that this happened have been while being out with friends at restaurants and I’ve had to choose the closest item of food that would be Dukan approved, when I’ve had cravings and gave in, when I’ve been too lazy to cook a Dukan meal and ate what ever had been cooked at home) I think that I’ve still had an amazing success with the diet.

Overall, this is diet that I would recommend to others as it didn’t feel invasive and harsh on my body and it was simple o follow. Success was still gained even though I didn’t stick to the diet 100%.

What has been your experience of the Dukan Diet?

Week 14 Summary

Is pain a good sign of progress and achievement or not?

Diet & Fitness

I received my weekly summary from Daily Mile and I have beaten a personal record. I achieve to walk / jog 44 Km for the week ending of 1 April and boy am I feeling it. I took my dog for a walk on Monday and the remaining days of the week became hard to work out. My thighs felt like the muscles were being torn off the bones (might be exaggerating a little).

My legs felt really tight and it was painful when I did simple things like walking up stairs. I really felt it over the Easter period. Having to kneel down at church was painful and I really hard to force my muscles to get back up.

I took the week off and got a 2 minutes massage from my dad as I couldn’t handle being massages for any longer. Hope I get back into the swing of things by next week.

Can any of recommend good stretches for the sides of your thighs and sides of the knees?

Career

Well I found out that I didn’t get the University position. But the Manager of the department was very impressed with my resume and interview that he has asked me for my permission to circulate my resume around the University. Let’s hope that something comes from it.

The temp position is going well. I was hired to help out with their education program but so far I am doing a lot of photocopying and collating. Which in hindsight isn’t bad as it’s a smoother transition into the workforce than getting a full time job and being thrown into the deep end to learn a new system.

The people there are very lovely and welcoming. By the end of the week it felt like I had melded into their little department. The person that I report to is very nice and has informed that there is a full time position available in their department. After talking to her about my previous roles, she advised me that I should apply.

I did my research some research and found the position online. After reading the job ad I feel like I have a good chance of getting the position, just need to apply for it now. IT doesn’t pay as much as I was getting at old workplace but I think I need a workplace that has a good environment than paying a lot of money.

P90X Attempt 1 Review (Before & After Photos)

90 days have come and gone. Who knew that it would go by so quickly. I have to admit that I didn’t follow the program to the letter. I did the videos here and there instead of doing them on a daily basis as I did them here and there.

Also, half way through the program the connector cable from my laptop to the TV broke. So I couldn’t transmit the videos on the TV anymore and did the workouts  from my laptop. Not a good way to workout at all. This is why I didn’t complete all of the 90 days of exercise.

Here are the before photos.

The after photos.

Not a drastic difference but my stomach is less protruded and my arms are a bit firmer.

Pre P90X measurements and weight

Weight: 95 kg

Chest: 116 cm

Waist: 104 cm

Hips: 110.5 cm

Post P90X measurements and weight

Weight: 91.3 kg

Chest: 114 cm

Waist: 102 cm

Hips: 110 cm

I enjoy the workouts (with the exception of plyometrics) it’s just trying to find time to do the workouts now that I have to squeeze it in around work. But I am really keen to undergo the program again.

Round 2 here I come.

Happy Easter

Hope you all had a lovely Easter

Week 13 Summary

Not smoothly cruising through Dukan.

Diet & Exercise

The Cruise phase has really been playing with my mind this week as I was only losing 100 grams daily for the first few days of the week. I couldn’t understand why because I had increased my exercise this week. I have been walking 5km for most days but I persevered through.

Towards the end of the week, I do have to say that I had given into my cravings and had a chocolate croissant and also several fun sized chocolate bars (Twix and Snickers). Luckily they didn’t make a difference in my weight and actually stopped my continuous loss of 100 grams and moved to losing 200 grams. I am not quite sure how that works but I’m happy that it was a loss instead of a gain.

I think I spoke too soon as I had a gain of a 100 grams the following day due to eating at a restaurant the night before. I had Thai fried rice with some yummy Thai noodles. Luckily it was only a 100 gram gain.

This week, I decided to start to the C25K program. I downloaded it after seeing that a lot of my friends on Daily Mile had used it and since I wasn’t enjoying the running program that I had been undertaking the few weeks I thought I would try it out.

Week 1 down and I am loving this training app!

Career

Well good news (finally). I got accepted for a temp position, working 3 days a week for 3 weeks with a possibility of extending the timeframe.

I had a great interview at a University that I had applied to work in. I would absolutely love to work there.

How was your week?

Week 12 Summary

Diet & Exercise

I completed the first 100km on Daily Mile since joining roughly over a month ago. I am so proud of myself and I am astounded that I have clocked up 100km already.

This Dukan Diet has been quite enlightening. I have to say that I have changed on so many levels. I have been cooking a lot more since my food needs to be prepared a certain way and I have to say that I am quite enjoying it. On odd days, I do get lazy and don’t really want to cook but I have to since I cook a meal at a time.

The diet has made me more focused and more resilient to wanting to binge which was something that I would do quite a bit on previous diets that I had undertaken.

Since being ill the week before I had gained a little over a kilo and this I found that I had been losing it quite quickly an average rate of 300 grams a day which is great. I am now back to a low 92 kg.

Saw my doctor this week to get an updated medical certificate and he mentioned that I should get some blood work done to check whether or not my blood sugar levels had dropped back to normal and if my vitamin D levels had risen. I get the results next week. Hopefully, it will be good news.

Work

I had a Centrelink appointment this week to finalise my application and was 10 minutes late due to not being able to find parking in that area of town. I spoke to a consultant and they advised me that I would have to wait in line as I missed the appointment and would have to reschedule. I cursed in my head as the line was a little long and I knew that I would be waiting at this god forsaken place for hours once again.

After 25 minutes, I was seen by a consultant who took 5 minutes to tell me that I would to take a seat and wait to see someone to make an appointment. I was furious as this just seemed so ridiculous and such a waste of time. After a 35 minute wait, my name was called and it took another 5 minutes for them to make my next appointment and I was done.

I seriously loathe that place and I don’t believe that I had to go there once more next week.

Love

I am still talking to architecture guy but it’s been a bit of a slow process as he doesn’t go onto the site much and neither have I lately. Lately I haven’t really been in the mood to shop for a boyfriend / potential husband. I just feel a bit over it and that I should concentrate my efforts on finding a job for now instead of a man.

So I am going to give that site a rest and only log in to reply to architecture guy. Going forth there won’t be a love portion in