Saturday 25 September 2010

Putting my best foot forward


Up to the summer of 2007 I had been Nordic walking regularly, I had lost weight, and was down to 61 kgs.... I wasn't at my dream weight, but I looked pretty good, I had tons of energy, and I was happy with myself.

Fast forward to the summer of 2010...I had put on 15 kgs, and I was not looking good, I didn't have tons of energy, and I was not that happy with myself.

How did this happen? Well, a variety of reasons, including grief, stress with work, children, life, the universe and everything, and the perimenapause, all of which together meant that I stopped taking care of myself, and the weight just kept piling on. A short time ago I decided that enough was enough, and that I had to watch what I was eating and drinking, and start moving again. One of the tools in this is sparkpeople.com, where I can track both food and exercise.

And the other is taking up Nordic Walking again.

I am particularly blessed for the latter, as I live in rural France, and have wonderful walks at my doorstep. Also, even though I work in a larger town, my place of work is on the outskirts, and I can do a 2.6 mile walk (sparkpeople has a mapping facility) in my lunch hour largely along a country road.

I came to Nordic walking through a desire for fitness....., and weight loss! The first mention of it I came across was in a book called "Walking for Weight Loss" I liked the idea, and talked about it to my partner. We had intended to go canyoning one weekend, butt it was raining and as the CAF (French Alpine Club) in Annecy was having an introduction, we went along. http://www.actumontagne.com/la-marche-nordique-progresse-a-annecy-article_0348.html I loved it, bought poles, researched it on internet, and came across David Downer http://www.nordicwalkingnewsonline.com/ I then walked regularly for a year or so, lost weight and got a lot fitter.

So, the purpose of this blog is to chart my progress, publicly, the walks, and a decrease in weight with an increase in energy!

Oh, and it makes me accountable, so more likely to do it!

I have been watching what I eat, so the weight is going down, slowly.... I'm down from a high of over 76 to 73.5 or so.....Moreover, I am less wobbly, which is even more important than the weight.

I'll blog again, after my next walk.