New Year Exercise!

I'm sure many people's Christmas pics are much the same - far too many presents, mess and loads of dogs!! This is my sister's younger dog, Treacle and very handsome he is too - rather dim but lovely!
Shelagh - bearing up well under the strain.

Minty not impressed by our attempts to convert her to Islam.

Hilary's elder statemean, Dusty. Now this is one canny boy!

Sister in law and niecelet, Hadi and Laila.

Me, Liz and Andrew - what a lovely young couple they are. Far more sensible than I.

Mary - the family dog lover, currently working in a boarding kennel while saving money to go travelling. Feeling the cold!

Kat - the rebel and livewire!

Littlest Rocky - lb for lb she'd take him though!

Doesn't Minty look pleased with her Christms present?

Shelagh annoyed by Treacle's unwillingness to surrender all his toys to her. He didn't seem to understand that they were hers, all hers.....

Grandad opens his present from me - tickets to see Anna Netrebko at the Festival Hall next weekend! Minty not bothered, happy on Jamie's lap.

See, even this stupid Teletubbie thingy is mine....

We did get out into the frigid air once in a while too! This is me and Lachlan.

I'm surprised how well this week has gone. Normally something like heavy snow and cold temperatures would have been all the excuse my chimp needed to persuade me to ditch the exercise, sit on the sofa and eat. Especially as the lovely Huw has been on holiday this week so I have not had my regular fix of personal training since 22 December.

But, I've been having none of it. Well, maybe a little on the extra eating front. But exercise has been stellar. I think it is due to finding a couple of gym buddies. I have joined up with my pals Vicky and Simon and we text each other about going, make dates in advance and just generally guilt each other into attending. None of us wants to be branded publicly on Facebook as the person who failed to turn up! This is one of the reasons why the gym has not worked for me in the past; it has been too easy just to drive on by or to leave it until a later time which somehow never comes.

It's early days, we've only been collaborating for 2 weeks now, but if we can keep it up I can see a good spring ahead.

The other positive thing about the gym is how hard I am managing to make myself work once I get there. In the past, I have found it inutterably dull. Pounding away on the cross-trainer/rowing machine/bike/treadmill. Forcing myself to stick each one out for 10 or 20 minutes of purgatory. I hate those machines! I find myself playing games with myself - don't look down at the clock until at least a minute has passed - then you look down and 30 seconds has crawled past in abject boredom. Soul-destroying.

So I thought - why is it that I can fly through an hour of exercise with Huw, sweating like a pig, working out and feeling great and hardly ever feel bored? One factor is obviously the conversation which I don't get in the gym but another is the fact that I don't spend hours on the damn machines! We do a warm up of 10 minutes usually and occasionally he hijacks me and we do 20 minutes instead. Then a load of weights and other exercises and then another 5 or 10 minutes warm down at the end with loads of stretches and abs interspersed.

So that's what I now do at the gym. I make sure I do at least 20 minutes aerobic stuff every time, usually 25 but I'm not picky about what sort and, if I'm really bored, I stop and do something else. Then I do weight and pilates based exercises and force myself to do them as hard as I would with Huw looking over my shoulder and nagging me. I am still sweating and whimpering out loud as I do with Huw so I must be working at least 90% as hard.

This strategy has removed about half of the resistance I feel towards going to the gym. It does make sense really - if you hate something, why persist - change it until you don't hate it any more.

So, since last Friday I have managed to go to the gym 4 times, swim once and enjoyed 3 long walks in the snow. And I've been sensible with my eating and drinking and, as a result, I've managed to drop 3 lbs. The eating is the thing I need to work on next week as there have been a few too many treats but it's not been horrendous. The sad thing is that I have lost that same 3 lbs twice since Christmas as I re-gained them over New Year!! Hey ho... That is NOT going to happen in January.

I was also pleased on Tuesday evening at my fortitude. What felt like the whole village was in the pub for early doors that day as we had been snowed in. There was a great atmosphere and much high spirits but I still managed to stick to water, coffee and just one glass of red wine and, when everyone decided to eat in the pub and was ordering starters and main courses of many delicious types, I stuck to a bowl of soup (and didn't even eat all of the bread)! And I didn't feel deprived, just enjoyed the company, which is what I was out for after all. It's not like a pub meal is anything to get over-excited about.

So - keep it up chuck as I say to others!!