I know my blog has been extremely quiet since I started working. I'm working five days a week, usually in the evenings and sometimes I start in the afternoons and end up working twelve hours (with a break in the middle). Its a job and for that I'm grateful. Not everyone has a job, Andy still doesn't. He's still looking, but has started a course to gain IT skills. Hopefully these skills will land him a much needed job.
I might say that it feels like not a lot has happened since I las wrote, but as I write that, I know its not true. I haven't written about my birthday, Christmas and Hannah's visit, nor have I written about my New Year's resolutions.
So, as some of you know, my birthday is right before Christmas. I had requested the day off, since it was on a Friday and I almost always work on Fridays. So I got to spend the day with Andy and his family. It was great. Andy and I went into Crawley together to spend a few hours together. It was really special being able to celebrate my birthday with him like this. Hannah also came over on the 24th of December for two nights. It was the first time we've seen each other in nearly two years (when I spent Christmas with her in Paris). It was very last minute as she wasn't sure about it until a few weeks before, by which point the Christmas schedule at work has already been made, so I ended up working on the day she arrived and the day she left, but thankfully I had Christmas Day off. Andy's family threw a lovely Christmas and we had the cousins from Belguim come over, so it was pretty busy. I did enjoy it though. Its the first Christmas Andy and I have spent together and I know that there are many more to come our way.
I worked over New Year's so I didn't have much time to think about New Year's resolutions until afterwards. It was something I stopped doing because I was so go at failing after a month, but this year I chose ones that I know I'll be able to achieve it. Every year I aim to loose weight, but it never works. I always end up plateauing and then it goes back on. However, this year I decided to give Slimming World a try. Slimming World has a healthy eating guide, which you follow and you have weekly weigh ins, but you also have the support of the group you go to, which is great. So I'm not loosing weight on my own, there's a group of people there to support me through this, just as I'm there to support them on their weight loss journeys. Its been a great three weeks so far, and I've managed to loose half a stone (7lb; 3.175kg) since I started on the 6th of January. Andy and I have also been going for runs more regularly. We're aiming to be able to run 5km in a few weeks, without stopping and I'm really looking forwards to that. The last time I ran 5km was in 2016 and I struggled with it, especially since my foot started going numb half way through. Once we can run 5km we'll be heading for the 10km mark. I also got a Fitbit, which is a watch that tracks your heartbeat, steps taken, stairs climbed, etc and sleep pattern. I've got it on all the time and have found that it's been a great help tracking my heart rate (I'm trying to get my resting heart beat down). It's also given me a rough idea of how many steps I make when I'm working (roughly around 25,000 steps, which is about 16.8 km). To be honest, a lot of people think that doing exercise makes up the large portion of the whole weight loss scheme. This isn't true. 80% diet, 20% exercise will dictate weather or not you loose weight. You need the two in this balance to get the weight off. If I ran for half an hour, I'd only end up burning the same amount of calories as in a chocolate bar. We often think we've burned more calories than we actually have and will eat a larger portion of food more than normal, and will add the sugary treats as well. So the idea, for me, is to follow Slimming World's cleaning eating plan and to run. The two together should finally get these pounds off for good (and keep them off). I'm thrilled I've got Andy to help me stay accountable with what I eat and what exercise I do.
Until next time.