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.

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#fernwood fitness #humour #blog #fitness blog # fitfam #news #bbc news #free
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The usual updates - £2 made from clicking around this site. Following the links allows us to claim back money from Google Ad-Sense so don't be shy about investigating these advertisers :) It's totally free for you to do too - unless you see an amazing deal!

More eBay auctions up - Today it's Eddie the Gecko! He's £9.95 via our eBay store, he's hand made completely from scratch (I didn't use a template) and he turned from a blob of clay into something I'm really proud of!

He's on eBay at this link.

We also have a range of cute little owl bookmarks coming along, Brenda the bookmark will soon be joined by Alan, Jeff and Judy!! I'll upload finished pictures, at the moment they're still white and rough!

Tom's talking reptiles have also agreed to sponsor us here, you can find more information about them on this page. Kiddies parties (I'm sure a fair few adults would like their parties too) that actually dispel misconceptions and allow kids to get up close to reptiles!! Awesome :D Check out the link :)

So what was today's adventure I can hear you saying?

Well everybody, today I tried ballet! I never took ballet lessons as a child - they appeared to be reserved for the skinny, rich, popular girls that I didn't seem to fit in to at primary school. Mostly because I was an awkward lump. Ah, not much changes does it ;) Well, at least I'm not socially awkward anymore (shush you people that know me. Don't dispel my illusions....I'm happy with the silences....).

After a years worth of begging, wheedling, reasoning and ordering my dear hubs finally persuaded me that he should buy a BIG TV.

What I didn't forsee was the conversation upon leaving the store.

"Hey Babes, you're doing that challenge right? Do something new every day?"
"Yep that's the one..." *something starts feeling suspicious*
"Have you actually decided what to do yet?"
"Well, I was going to go to Pilates but I'm too late now...." *definite suspicion forming*
"How about you carry this thing to the car then? Get going"

*sigh*

It's the kind of thing that doesn't feel heavy at first....you know, wow, it's even easy - but 5 minutes down the line it starts weighing a lot. Then a minute later the weight doubles. And then triples.

The damn thing eventually got to the car, with a lot of "hey, be careful" and "don't drop it".
I'll drop him.

You can't imagine how the conversation went when I suggested that money could have been put to charity. Apparently that's not even something to joke about.

I didn't feel that that was quite enough to class as a "new" thing, so I also decided to try out a couple of new yoga moves....boom, day one.

Tasha and Amber opted for gardening today. Apparently that's completely new to them - I didn't want to have the conversation that wondered how you can get to 21 without doing any gardening....

This morning I also decided it was time for W3D1, and that because I *can* already run, that I'd use it as fartlek training (speed intervals). Now there's one thing you probably don't know about me. I'm asthmatic. It's not usually a huge problem, I manage it well. But today was humid. You know, that sort of air that feels like you're breathing water. Apparently my lungs don't like that.

On the first interval I realised that my heart was actually going to explode and that my lungs would crawl out of my throat.

The second interval I realised that I sounded like Godzilla's overweight, aged mother. Oh well, just keep going....

The third interval was downhill. Oh sweet blessed downhill, I felt like my feet had grown speed boosters. That was until my shorts started falling down. Oh come ON. So as I'm speeding downhill, faster than a decrepit snail....I mean, speeding bullet....I realise that my stomach is hanging out over my shorts and that my top has ridden up. Crap. Time to try and pull my shorts up without losing stride. Uhoh, not possible. Ok, look cool dammit. Great, now they're falling down at the knees. Ah man. So with the trademark hop, skip and a jump I managed to install my shorts where they were supposed to be. For about 60 seconds.

At this point I made an executive decision that Crawley would just have to put up with my stomach. Sorry to anyone who passed me, but sometimes sacrifices have to be made and I feel that it is only fair that the populace of Crawley makes a sacrifice at some point.

The rest of the run passed in much the same way, until one of my favourite running songs came on.....and there was a bus. It was full. So I decided to do my "real runner" face and run. It felt pretty good :D Shame that after I'd slowed down round the corner the bus came round the corner too. Oooops.

It only took 30 minutes, but I'm pretty sure my lungs will never be the same again. They'll learn....

Thanks to Kenny Millington for his challenge: Eat (at least) 1gP[rotein] for every 1gC[arbohydrate].

This sounds like a pretty hard one to me! As some of you will know over the past 2 years I have gone from being a size 16-18, weighing in at a little over 14st to being a much more moderate size 8-10 to being a little over 10st. It's been a really long, arduous journey that has cost me a lot of time and effort, but boy-o-boy the payoff has been brilliant! I've been using an excellent app called myfitnesspal to monitor my exercise and caloric intake for the past 2 and a bit years! Lately my focus has turned to body re-composition and fat removal -The protein/carbohydrate ratio in my diet is my last Everest! (hence the mad rant about protein last post...).

To those of you who measure your macros....how on earth do you keep up your protein levels?! Being vegetarian has always been my "excuse", but actually, I know that in reality it shouldn't stop me from balancing out nicely!

All vegetarian recipes that are yummy should be submitted via the comments box *grin*.

Right, time for my 10 minutes of running....it's going to have to be the Wii tonight :p I have some confirmation pictures from Tash that I'll make sure to upload ;)