I did three sit-ups first thing this morning.

I know it doesn't sound like much, but there is only a certain number of times you can switch your alarm on to snooze...

Ah Monday. My nemesis.

This morning my alarm didn't go off. Well. It might have. I might have rolled over and turned it off. Several times.

Either way, I woke up when I'd normally start walking to work. Oooops. Queue a quick protein shake, putting my knickers on backwards and grabbing a pair of decidedly questionable socks.

I spent the rest of the day feeling like my eyes were on fire. Seared shut in fact ;) How is it that you feel that way until the final bell goes and you're ready to go home? I was raring to go at home time!

After yesterdays 30k I expected to feel a bit worse for wear, but actually, I feel fine. It's so tempting to take myself off for a run whilst the house is quiet, but I *know* it's important to rest (starts chanting). I think I may also eat everything in sight. Including the cat. I'd probably eat my keyboard too given the amount of food in it....TMI? I am RAVENOUS!

Anyway, that's enough of that. Who wants to hear the ramblings of a madwoman....(aw c'mon, someone could have spoken up *sob*).

This week's challenge:

Starting today: Add 10km to your training this week.


The rules:

• It can be done in one go, it can be done in little bits - but it has to be done
  
• It can be walking or running
  
• You need to take a photo or a video of yourself doing whatever it is!
• If you miss a day YOU FORFEIT

This week's forfeit:
You will be asked to go into a busy town centre and whilst you're walking along, suddenly stop and start dancing. Remember, you need to video your forfeit too for it to count. *grin*


If you need a recap on how it works, check out my blog from 23rd May!

If you've been playing along and would like to renew a previous challenge remember for every ADDITIONAL week that we complete a set challenge we will donate £1 to our charity!

There have so far been NO forfeits.

Previous challenges:
Week 1: No fizzy drinks for the duration of the challenge.
Week 2: Complete (at least) 10 minutes of running every day of the challenge.
Week 3: Try at least one new thing every day.
Week 4: Say "yes" to anything you're offered to do for one week.
Week 5: Try at least three new things in the week.

Remember: You can either renew a challenge or pick this weeks challenge up. Members of the challenge can choose to take the ultimate challenge and run challenges together....!
(For every renewed week we will donate £1 to our fundraising - for a maximum of 5 weeks per challenge).

*excuse the typo in the title. It is actually week 6 of our challenge!

Want to take part? Want to accept our challenges? For everyone who takes a challenge and completes a RENEWED week (so two weeks of a challenge) Snailstalkers will donate 50p to our charity (for a maximum of 5 weeks renewal). Maybe you could make it about your own donations to charity and match our donation?

You'll also get mentioned in the blog (of course!!).

Want to think of the forfeits we do? For suitable forfeits submitted (and approved) we will film ourselves doing them and put them on the website. Please though, nothing that will endanger health or anything that is outrageously inappropriate!

And some photos to show you the progress of our challenges so far!! :D

6 months ago I started weight training. I mean, "properly", weight training.

When I started this endeavour I wondered about the possible consequences of what taking a load of cardio out of my routine would do to me.

I've always watched the debates on the forums on MFP where the newbie female weight lifter/possible weight lifter is having the benefits of weight training explained to her whilst also having the concepts of muscle VS fat density and why "muscle doesn't weigh more than fat" and trying to explain why she won't get "bulky" there is always someone who throws their toys out of the pram and exits the conversation.

The effect is always somewhat diminished by the plethora of silly gifs and memes that follow the declaration that everyone in the world is stupid and that they are going to lock themselves away forever.

I enjoy watching these debates but I try not to get involved in them. I've identified myself as a "lifter" for over a year now, but today marks my 6th month "properly" weight training. Properly weight training. Whoa, loaded phrase huh. What I mean by this is being consistent and working my ass off lifting weights that always look far to heavy to bother lifting up in the first place.

This year I discovered the benefits of having a gym buddy. We train hard. Six months ago I believed that my arms were too weak to do a bench press. Now I'm sitting on a PB of 50kg. Maybe that's not so much compared to what you lift, maybe it's loads - that's not my point. My point is that until you put the effort in you never know what you're capable of.

I don't see the reason in leaving the gym until I'm covered in sweat, you all know this - I like to be "positively amphibious" before leaving the gym and this time, working with a partner I've made real gains.

I actually upped my caloric intake for a while, putting on in total 10Ibs mass. 10Ibs. You should have seen my face when I got on the scale after bulking. I would like to say that I took it in my stride and accepted some of that would be muscle. I would be lying.

I then panicked a little bit (and by panic I mean sobbing wildly that I'm "too fat to fit anything" and by little bit I mean "give me an Oscar people, it was a performance worth watching") when it didn't start coming back off with a caloric deficit but with Kenny's challenge (thanks Kenny!) the increased protein diet appears to be shaving that excess fat off nicely.

I have to confess, I had been plateued for over a year when I started weight training (weight loss plateaus SUCK). And then I gained 10Ibs. Not selling the weight training so well am I - but when the water weight had settled it was a mild (MILD....MILD?!)
8Ib gain but the most important discovery for me was in that balanced macros are more than essential in weight loss!! My 60% carb diet was just leading to increased fat stores. No matter how much I worked out it wasn't working. Play with your macros till you hit something that works!


Anyway, I've been dying to have "guns" to show off and finally some of the largest gains can be seen in my arms. According to my darling hubs I could pass for a 15 year old boy now. Thanks hun.

Anyway, thought I'd show some progress pictures - the first picture (top left) was taken on 15th January this year and the last picture (bottom right) was taken today....

Go for those boy arms :P

Today I said "yes" to a 10k run :D

After finishing the 10k run (ok, when I say run I'm REALLY using that term loosely - what I mean by run is more "run for about 5 minutes and then disintegrate into a puffing heap of sweat dragging my feet behind me") and an uppers session at the gym I have to confess that my bum is totally dead.

It's the same muscle you need for handstands....I swear....if I could just find that muscle I'd train it but I've no idea where it is in my body ;) It's like a magic muscle - I only know it's there when I try to do handstands or do legs day followed by a run. Otherwise it just doesn't exist!

Anyway, that's me done for today. I'm going to take my bottle of frozen milk that I'm currently sat on (apparently it needed defrosting and my pain is helpful for that....) and nurse my bum muscles with another protein shake and some football. Hopefully it'll rain again. I like it when it rains in the football....

Before I go lets do all of the important announcements:

HUGE thanks to Lewis - I'm amazed that you'd sponsored us again and you're one of our largest benefactors. Your support means so much <3 £40 is a massive chunk of fundraising done and the whole team sends massive virtual hugs. We're also waiting for that video of you doing a handstand...(and Kel has assured us that this would be good entertainment ;) ).

Also, we're £2.50 into Google Ad-sense funds so keep checking out those links, it's all for a good cause!

We're also adding stock to our handmade gifts/jewelry so please keep checking out our shop here or on the Etsy site here!

We also have some great #Fitspo, funny memes, current health news and lovely quotes - not just a pretty blog peeps check em all out!:)

#gym #workout #physical exercise #fitness #you #challenge #fernwood fitness #humour #blog #fitness blog # fitfam #news #bbc news #free weights #resistance training #training #trailwalker #Oxfam #fundraising #money #free #you #donate #charity #charity shop #jewelry #bitch #boobies #girls #funny #weights #bro do you even lift #lift #physical #personal trainer #porn #bum #weighttrain #lift heavy #weight loss plateau

Oh it's Friday it's Friday gonna get legs day on Friday....

Evening all, I thought we'd go for a picture book format tonight! :)

But first, I need to say a few things!

• Thanks again to one of my year 13s for donating another 20p - Hi Colette :P You're now famous - officially!
• Thanks for all of the advert clicks, keep investigating peeps - it's all for fundraising!
• If you want to talk about sex roles and babies, check out today's health and fitness article ;)
• And finally, the whole team will be at Horsham Boot Sale tomorrow - check out the details on our events page (here) and come buy some stuff and contribute to our fundraising whilst getting cool stuff!! We'll have all of our arts and crafts on display - all hand made, excellent cheap gifts and free sweeties!
  

So...today was legs day :D Whoop.

When I got home I looked at Simon and said...

And he said "aren't we supposed to do some cardio today?"
So I responded...

He even suggested we skip legs day...

So I explained the rules of legs day

And as I left the gym...

But it had started after the deadlifts and was recognisable now as I walked across the car park....

Climbing up the stairs to the flat....

And this is what I'll be like tomorrow at our boot sale event!

But always remember people...

Afternoon all.

Apologies for being absent yesterday - we had a rather jam packed day with a trip out to London and some perfectly bad news to complement the way the rest of this week has been going so far.

There was even a moment I feared for my work laptop's life today. You've all known that moment. It's the one where you've been working on a document for ages, go to print something else and word closes. Ooops. Didn't save it. Crap. Then the printers don't work and chew the paper up, so what you're left with is actually only a ball of inky paper that you've crumpled up and jumped on in frustration and a half a document. Saving work saves lives people!!

But you know how it is, chin up and stay chipper.

I have been looking at our Google Ad-Sense account and then I made a Google Webmaster account. And THEN I made a Google Analytics account and they all have really pretty graphs on them BUT I DON'T HAVE A CLUE WHAT ANY OF IT MEANS!

The graphs are in blue and red. And that's about it. So yeah, any ideas about what it all means are welcomely directed to our comments box below. Remember also to keep clicking and checking out the links around the site! All pennies go into our pot and there are some great offers :)

Anyway, so. Today we're going to talk about pole dancing and utter bliss. If you want to try pole but don't know what to expect check out my resource page by clicking here!

Pole. Ah, my love.

Pole this week was an amazing awakening. I felt strong, I felt sure, I felt reassured that all was right with the world. For those of you who are into a routine with exercise you'll know the feeling - that yearning, the gnawing restlessness in your body before you work out and then that amazing, ecstatic feeling of release when you get the feeling of being completely centered, concentrating not on who said what or what's going to happen tomorrow or when will the funeral be but just on BEING.

There's nothing like it. Even as I write this I'm itching to be there, zoned and completely blissful.

I know that people who don't workout, or who are very new to working out or even those people who are doing something they truely despise won't understand what I'm talking about. I remember people saying that exercise was addictive and that it gave you peace, but I always dismissed it with a wave of my hand and a can of coke.

This week was a perfect example of this phenomena. It could be blowing a gale, or even raining horses and I wouldn't notice so long as I'm in that zone. Perfect. It's like being asleep but you're in control of what's going on. Bliss.

So this week we started as usual and something different happened. I went to invert and my legs just shot up without me even really thinking about what I was doing. All of a sudden, in one smooth movement I was hanging upside down. It surprised me so much I slipped off the pole.

It was the only time that happened - the rest of the evening went as usual, a bit like a monkey gaining purchase - the utter stubbornness to make sure I get upside down (you'll see what I mean when I post the video!).

Then even MORE strange things started happening. All of a sudden my butterfly seemed easy and the gemini didn't seem impossible any more!

Impossible? Try I'm possible.

I have the bruises to show it ;)

Then Karen suggested doing "Geneva". Ah, I looked at her like she'd gone perfectly mad - I'm not ACTUALLY going to let go of the pole with my legs and swing it round so that I'm sitting up.....how on earth am I going to do that?

Then the best thing of all evening occured. I nodded confidently, got up onto the pole and did it. I just did it.

Excuse the monkey imitation at the start. And the cleavage - not much to do about that when you're hanging upside down on a pole by one leg. Jus' sayin'.

The bruises may look like I've been run over by my amazingly fat cat (he really is - but don't worry, he's on a diet....) but they're worth it. I FEEL strong. I feel confident and there is NO-ONE that can take that away from me.

#gym #workout #physical exercise #fitness #you #challenge
#fernwood fitness #humour #blog #fitness blog # fitfam #news #bbc news #free
weights #resistance training #training #trailwalker #Oxfam #fundraising #money
#free #you #donate #charity #charity shop #jewelry #bitch #boobies #girls #funny#cleavage #hiking #walking #hand made #gifts #new

So, short update for this evening!!

We have had some bad news tonight - Kirsti (one of our team members) has decided that she does not want to take part in the Trailwalker event. On the back of that we're looking for our 4th team member - if you fancy walking 100km with a bunch of girls let us know.... xD

Anyway, I had a sleepy day today. You know those days. The ones where you can't really remember what you were doing 10 seconds ago.

So I had a sleepy day today....you know, one of those days....

:p

Anyway. Tonight was Pole night xD

As the last night of the challenge I decided to film myself on the pole! I'm still waiting for that from Tom's phone - I'll have to write my essay on the amazingness of pole tomorrow with attached footage (I also did the Butterfly from last week....whoop!!), so instead I'm going to go with the theme of running.

Today I went over my blogs from when I started the c25k programme back in March 2012. I read through the posts on my old blog and whilst I was writing the article for our "today's news section" (Light, sleep and Obesity) I considered what some of my problems have been in the past that still haunt me today. I'm scared. Why can't I do handstands? Why have I sabotaged my own weight loss before? Because it comes back to the fundamental fear of failure. Why lose weight when I can blame something or someone else? Well, I'm not getting enough sleep/I'm too busy at work to work out/my husband makes amazing food....we've all used those excuses before - when do they become redundant?

They became largely redundant for me a little over two years ago. Don't get me wrong, I still have those days where I want to blame ANYone else for my unhappiness or failure to do something - Ah, Dave the cat ate my sock, damn I can't go running or ooops, Tom is busy and can't go to the gym. Neither of those things mean that I don't have to to, or that I can't but it's still tempting to believe that outside circumstances have a large impact on my choices.

I believe we all make choices. They lead to outcomes. Sometimes those outcomes could never been seen in a million years, sometimes it's an obvious one. At the moment I know I'm CHOOSING to allow myself to be scared. Scared of failing, scared of hurting myself (those damn handstands), scared of looking silly. When you think about it though - what do any of those things actually mean in the long term? Obviously choosing to play chicken with 10-tonne lorries is off the cards, but that's a RATIONAL thing to be scared of. Going upside down on a pole or doing a handstand.....well, I'm sure it happens but how many people actually hurt themselves doing those things?

The fear is everywhere too. Don't ride a motorbike - you might get killed. Don't eat too much sugar - you might get killed. Don't eat carbs - you'll get fat. Don't don't don't. How many of us consider what would happen if we do? Where would our lives take us if we just said "yes" and trialled it?

Anyway, talk about a tangent! Running. I came across this whilst I was looking for something else and found it an interesting read - ladies, it always feels hard to work out during period week and this article explains that it's not just in our heads!!

http://www.active.com/running/articles/running-for-women-6-ways-running-impacts-the-female-body?page=1

Anyway, it's past bedtime for me - so over and out.

Happy running XD

p.s. keep those clicks coming peeps :)

Evening.

This is going to be a short one. I know, I know, you'll miss me but I'll be right back tomorrow don't worry!

To update you on the Google Ad-Sense fundraising - we're now at £2.00 into the pot via your clicks!! Thank you!! <3 It all adds up! Remember it's completely FREE for you to fundraise this way (unless you find some awesome deal of course!) and you might actually find something you like :)

We have several eBay auctions up at the moment and we have lots of products in our store - so please check these out here (for our store) and here (for eBay).

To take part in our challenges you can sign up here on our Facebook event page - I'm even going to push the boat out and say for EVERY NEW COMBATANT WHO TAKES THE CHALLENGE FOR THE WEEK, WE WILL DONATE £1 TO OXFAM.

Remember it's also not too late to submit yourself for the challenge this week and get your face and adventures in our blog!!

Why is tonight's blog so short? Well, Eddie the gecko is finished!! Whoop :D He's up and ready to go to a good home, along with Brenda and Ollie the owls :)

You can find more details and prices here. These little guys are super cute though! And at £2 for Brenda the bookmark owl they'd make someone a nice little (handmade and lovingly crafted) gift!

Anyway, you're here for the dirt on today's challenge right?

Today I did the 30 day ab challenge.

So lets start today with our general updates:

£1.84 has been raised so far through Google Ad-Sense. Thanks to everyone who has been investigating the advert links - please keep doing it!! It's completely free for you (unless ofc you buy something) but we generate revenue from it which ALL goes to Oxfam.

We have several eBay auctions up at the moment and we have lots of products in our store - so please check these out here (for our store) and here (for eBay).

I'm just in the process of painting Eddie the candle-holder and I'll get some pictures up of my other clay projects!

To take part in our challenges you can sign up here on our Facebook event page - I'm even going to push the boat out and say for EVERY NEW COMBATANT WHO TAKES THE CHALLENGE FOR THE WEEK, WE WILL DONATE £1 TO OXFAM.

What did we try today?
Today we decided that rock climbing was going to be our goal as something new. I feel it's about time to confess that I'm actually a little jittery around heights. I don't think that's an irrational fear - it's adaptive, cmon, surely some caution around high things is common sense...

As it turns out, so is Tash. I got a call this morning saying that she'd lost the money she was going to use to pay for the session....ooops, I paid on booking sis - no backing out now *laugh*

Amber has done rock climbing before, so when she left Crawley earlier she was still brain storming what she could do for her challenge...we'll have to see what she came up with ;)

So, anyway, rock climbing. I've wanted to go rock climbing for quite a while now but have never had the guts to book a session. This challenge gave me a perfect excuse to do so!

After doing some research I can see that there are some great health benefits to rock climbing! Check out this site, or this one and definitely this one if you need more information on what rock climbing can do for your workout routine!!

So we booked through High Sports at K2 Crawley yesterday and turned up at around 12:30pm and prepped for our session - the harnesses were a little alarming, but James (our instructor for the session) patiently explained how they fitted on and where to put everything (there are so many holes.....!!).

After a few minutes and doing the signature of certain death (you know the one - when they hand you the piece of paper it was time to become acquainted with the walls....

James took us through the safety (don't walk under other people's lines - see I remember!) and then explained that we were attached to him and he'd help us down. At this point I looked him up and down and wondered whether I'd actually lift him off of the floor when I was coming down....he didn't look like he weighed more than me! I could just picture the see-saw motion of me and James stuck in an eternal struggle to reach the floor....

Turns out he was fine. Apparently though he does have to plug himself into the floor when slightly heavier people come climbing - is it bad that at that point I was just glad he hadn't attached himself to the floor?!!

Getting to the middle of the walls was terrifying and exhilarating all at the same time. The last wall I even touched the top xD That's progress for you. Although, at the top I made the mistake of looking down. Ooops. That's the moment when the "oh crap, what am I doing? I'M GOING TO DIE" kicks in - how am I going to get down? That's so far. Um. Drop and roll? NO NO DROP AND ROLL. Never. Look. Down.

We tackled 4 walls in total and O...M...G, my forearms (and my butt muscle that was pulled in the multiple handstand incidences). What a workout. If you're looking for a workout that combines endurance and resistance and fun you NEED to try rock climbing!! I am officially hooked and planning on going again next week!

Our instructor James was upbeat and really, really supportive of both me and Tash when it came to declaring that we were scared of heights. He even complimented us a lot on progressing and made a big deal of the steps we took - spot on!! As you can see in the video he allowed us to try out going up and abseiling down and made no comment on what must have looked really silly!

I'm so glad I finally found the courage to book this - it's something everyone should try at least once in my opinion.

After the rock climbing we went for a short walk around the gorgeous Tilgate Lake, which was beautifully sunny (the weather, not the lake...) and then into town for some shopping and a coffee courtesy of Amber. Great training session. We definitely need more coffee though... xD

After all the excitement I came home and logged into WoW. Yes, I play World of Warcraft. Yes, I raid. Yes, I know. A few weeks ago I cancelled raiding to go and see the new Captain America movie. That is when I realised (and one of my lovely friends pointed out) that I had hit ultimate geek status.

In fact, it was when I'd got to fat to bend down and face-tank that I decided it was time to lose weight....thanks WoW ;) Sweating profusely when you're playing should be reserved for those tricky "YES WE'RE GOING TO DOWN THE BOSS" moments and not just when you're walking about the nearest town....

Anyway, I was talking to one of my friends (who dropped a couple of comments about my hand-standing abilities....git) when I got the comment "well, handstands can't be that hard can they". Well. I've told him to go away and film himself trying. I'll post up the footage if I get any ;)

So, look forward to that moment peoples!

That's me done for tonight. Over and out!

Lets start off with some general updates...

£1.20 has been raised so far through Google Ad-Sense. Thanks to everyone who has been investigating the advert links - please keep doing it!! It's completely free for you (unless ofc you buy something) but we generate revenue from it which ALL goes to Oxfam.

We have several eBay auctions up at the moment and we have lots of products in our store - so please check these out here (for our store) and here (for eBay).

There are lots more necklaces coming up and I'm experimenting with modelling clay at the moment, so we'll soon have some candle holders and other knick-knacks coming along :D

To take part in our challenges you can sign up here on our Facebook event page - I'm even going to push the boat out and say for EVERY NEW COMBATANT WHO TAKES THE CHALLENGE FOR THE WEEK, WE WILL DONATE £1 TO OXFAM.

Now, onto today's adventures...

Today was a gym day, so I thought it'd be fun to rope one of the personal trainers at my local gym into this challenge. Sophie had a definite gleam in her eye as I explained what I'm doing and said that she had free license to think up things for me to do....uhoh!

I have a bad feeling that she started me off easy....

You'll have to excuse the sweat and the mussy top - this was post workout Michelle!

So these are the *affectionately* tagged "Death Burpees".

They look easy right.

Ha. When I finished doing them Simon turned to me and said "you know, they're the kind of thing that looked really easy to do". Didn't see him doing them! :O

Death burpees are well named (there was some discussion on what to name these things, Sophie came up with a much more technical burpee battle rope star jumps). They make you want to stop. Stop jumping, stop moving, stop breathing.... *laugh* It was about half way when the shorts decided it was time to play about (I have two pairs of the same brand - great for weights day BAAAAD for cardio day). I thought I was going to flash you all....(a bit like I flashed the gym when Sophie originally showed me what to do).

I did flash the gym when I tried handstands (Simon *might* have lifted my bum and legs into the right position and I *may* have started squealing shortly before I faceplanted). The guy on the treadmill next to us got an eyeful. Poor guy. He was grinning though so I'm sure the damage wasn't too severe.

I also flashed everyone when I did a shoulder stand. I mean, what do you do at that point? Oh crap...my stomach is out. I'm upside down. Uhoh, it's even started coming out of my shorts. Ooops, my shorts have rolled down when I was getting into position, now I'm showing ALL of my midriff and a little more than that. Crap. Drop and roll DROP AND ROLL.

Anyway, training today consisted of a gym session (weights). For good measure I even tried a new strength move - Front Squats. Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVE squats (just ask Tom who loves legs day with me *sarcasm font required* or Simon who when last doing a squat with me and was told to "go lower" just sat down and refused to get back up..../sigh) but these squats are really...interesting...! The technique feels really odd, I'm not entirely sure I had it right but it felt like it was constricting my wind pipe.... 0_o They work everything though, so I think I'll be incorporating more of those (look guys, legs day is just as important as uppers day).

Know what I'm sayin'

Anyway, gym done, challenge done it was time to head home and go play on my pride and joy Beena. Beena is amazing. Beena is fast. Beena is bright pink.

Now, just a side note that's not to do with training (oh come on, I don't do it a lot....ok, well, sometimes. But you love it...) when you see a motorbike don't slow down. There's no need. If we're going to overtake you, we'll do it. Frankly, slowing down is slightly insulting for a machine that can tear your hair out from the roots in acceleration. We appreciate the sentiment, but just go at a steady pace. It's safer for everyone involved and you know, maybe we were never intending on overtaking at all until you decided to slam your breaks on, slow down to 20mph and crawl along at the side of the road in the gutter. Thanks though to the people who do notice us and try to be safe - it is noticed and appreciated!!

So, yeah. Several cars later I'm home, safe and writing this. I might have to go find something to eat. Something with protein in naturally. I have done two days of Kenny's challenge and every time I see a piece of bread I start salivating. All anyone has to do is mention the word cake and I'm gone (apparently even TYPING the C word makes my mouth water...).

What have I learnt today? I have issues with cake *drools*

Moral of the story? Be careful who you ask to dream up challenges for you ;) (no, but really, thanks to Sophie for playing along - she even shot that video off duty :) ).

Tomorrow is rock climbing....this will be fun.

Happy clicking friends - come play with us :D