Well well well. What have I been up to this week you might ask yourself?

Firstly and rather excitingly my Facebook page reached 500 likes! In fact, thanks to some of my awesome Facebook buddies it reached 500 likes and just kept going :D I'm now pushing for my first 1, 000 likes! If you've not swung by and given me some love, feel free to ;) I try and post something....um, inspirational....every day (yaha).

Diary of a Pole Addict on Facebook

Secondly, and rather excitingly: I've been working on a new line for my craft shop. Slogan t-shirts :D I'm super excited about them and have lots of slogans in the making but at the moment it's all about #liftlikeagirl. Because I do. And I'm damn proud of that!

I'm working on t-shirt suppliers but they're almost ready to go! When they're ready they'll be available for sale in my Etsy shop here!

So it's been a pretty exciting week here at Squidgey-land. I didn't pole last week though. This has put all things out of whack (blame Tom, he had to go off and have a holiday....sheesh, some people!).

And how have I been progressing with my body fat cut? I hear you ask.....here goes!

Physical

Lets see.....

Slower loss this week with a total loss (overall) of 3.7cm but it's still moving in the right direction! Feeling a little bloated on the ol' tummy there but the tape measure does say it's smaller....can't see it tbh!

Physically I'm feeling FIT. Fitter than I have in a long while. The HIIT that is incorporated into every workout is giving my heart a run for its money and to finish off with the low-intensity steady state cardio just helps with that bit of endurance. I'm not much for steady state cardio, but I'm enjoying it to let the sweat keep flowing  after the heavy lifting and the heavy-going HIIT.

Scales

Yeah, the scales and I....we're not really.....

Saying that, whatever water weight I had on seems to have come off, so the scales are sitting at a handy 155.6Ibs - down from 157Ibs.

Still, as I've said many times - the scales don't *really* represent much and becoming too reliant on that scale weight....well it can drive ya crazy (believe me).

The bigger victory came this week when someone told me my "shoulders were looking more defined" and said they look like "swimmers shoulders". Not going to sniff at that :D He was a little taken aback when I replied "yeah, it's more likely the pole dancing" - but he recovered well :D (lol).

TOP SCALEY TIP: Keep a log of all of the lovely NSV's (non-scale victories) you have! e.g. those trousers you couldn't get into a month ago suddenly fit!

Food

Ah food. So the cut I'm following has me moving down to 1545 calories this week. It's a MUCH lower number than I'd usually consider, but it's for a week and to move some of this stubborn fat....lets see how it goes!

The food thing drove me to experimentation....which ended up looking like this.....

I'm afraid they didn't taste much better than they looked :( back to the drawing board!!


A sweet recipe for you this week?

170g Greek Yoghurt
15g Honey
15g Peanut Butter
5g fudge

Mix it about and YUM. You're eating and suddenly you come across a reserve of PB, or fudge xD It even elicited a "oooh, what have you got? Is that ice-cream? Can I have some?" from DH ;)

Macros: 
304Kcal
30g Carbs
17g Fat
29g Protein


What are your favourite low calorie/carb recipes? Leave them in the comments below! :)

Ever get those "OMG I NEED CHOCOLATE.....LIKE....5 MINUTES AGO" moments?

I'm just working through one now.

I may have worked through it by eating chocolate.

I may have made myself feel sick.

If this is the case, I totally deserve it ;)

Anyway, welcome to Wednesday. But on Thursday. It's always nice to be behind the actual day in your head, because when Friday comes you're not expecting it. Wooo.

Happy Friday eve!

So. Yeah. Wednesday pole blog.

I'll have to confess as to why I didn't write my pole blog yesterday. I was sulking. Not only was I sulking, but I couldn't actually type without it hurting - I thought you guys wouldn't mind me missing it.....right? I know, I know - the abandonment smarts, but I was with you every moment. Right in here....

Awwww *soppy moment*.

I was going to go for a picture of a real heart, but thought it might actually detract from the soppy moment. That and the real heart isn't responsible for emotions....it should have been a brain, but again, back to the original point... :P

So, yes. I was stropping.

Why? You might ask. Ooooh. Well.

We go to pole, all is well in the world. I'm looking forward to getting back on track after a couple of weeks where I've either not progressed at all or just sort of slipped off of the pole.

We warm up. My shoulder is stiff from the incident with the empty bar on Sunday (don't look at me like that) but it seems like it'll play ball.

I go to spin and BOOM. On the floor. OUCH.

Apparently, we weren't ready to commit to the pole like that. It was 5 minutes into the lesson and I was benched. I couldn't even get my arm above my head. Useless.

Luckily Tom and Amy were in a wonderfully beneficent mood and quickly decided (after MAKING me tell Karen I'd hurt myself) to show solidarity and spin with me. So we got Karen to work on thinking of one armed spins. It's not quite as much fun with one arm, but it passed the time just as quickly xD

Still, Monday's spins looked pretty and they worked well - I'll even share them with you here ;)

Maybe not the prettiest name, but it looks good xD

I'm working on making that kick even bigger (as Karen keeps telling me to!).

Anyway, I've still not quite regained my arm. No pole, no yoga and no lifting and I have to admit I'm getting a little cranky. Luckily I managed a little pilates this evening with no drama, which has alleviated the yearning to go and do REALLY fun stuff that might break me. More. *hmppph*

To distract myself from thinking about the pain, I've invested my time in neatening my left-handed writing (I can write with either hand, but having been encouraged to use my right hand more my left hand is a little wonky....) and paying attention to what I'm eating. Well. Paying attention to what I should be eating. The first statement was a bit of a lie, since I just consumed the weight of a small elephant in chocolate. Not that the chocolate is a coping mechanism. It just tastes really good.

I think I need better mechanisms to deal with being unable to stick to my normal routine!

How do you deal with being laid-up from exercise?

It occurs to me that there's an awful lot of love that gets passed around in the blogosphere. Bloggers love reading other blogs, linking each other up and generally being nice to one another. It's a part of this adventure that I never expected - there's a real sense of community that goes with being a blogger and I have the great honour of being part of a couple of blogging communities that have allowed me to meet some fantastic people!

A few weeks ago a Liebster award nomination came my way, which I had a lot of fun writing and passing along.

About a week ago, I got another nomination from the amazing Annabel Krantz. Not only is she a great blogger, with a lovely looking website but she also donated several $'s to the Trailwalker project I was running. What an amazing lady :D On top of all of that she nominated me for the honour of being an inspiring, versatile blogger.

Annabel herself got passed the award and you can see why if you check out her blog at AnnabelandAlice.com.

Ok, so you guys already know a lot about me, but lets give you seven pieces of information (I hope) you don't have!

One: when I was seven I knocked both of my "newly-minted" (no pun intended) adult front teeth out when I was on a see-saw. I now have two "false" front teeth (luckily the roots ARE all mine though!).

Two: I got married at the age of 21 and my husband and I have now been married for 6 years! When we got married the most common question was "am I pregnant?". No, I was not - we just knew it was a match :)

Three: I started my degree at the University of Wales: Bangor but took a gap year (or two) at the age of 19 due to illness. I felt that I would never get to finish my degree at all! I finally finished my degree through the Open University whilst working a full time job and a part-time voluntary job at the age of 22.

Four: I couldn't swim until the age of 20 when Simon (not yet then my husband) taught me whilst we were on holiday in Greece. Apparently the possibility of me drowning whenever he took his eyes off of me didn't appeal. I call melodrama though, I can float :p

Five: I became vegetarian at the age of 14 when my grandad thought it would be funny to joke about how the poor sheep-mums would never see their sheep-children again. I did not think that was funny, in fact, I thought it was really, really sad. Since then my philosophy hasn't changed too much. I still believe that I have no intention of eating things that feel, breathe and live in the same ways we would although now I can talk about Singer's theory of moral evolution to make it sound more fancypants ;) I believe the biology of life is amazing and beautiful and personally, I can't bring myself to cause death just so I can live. Not when there are viable alternatives.

Six: I cannot eat roasted sun-dried tomatoes or aubergine.....they look like slugs *gags* I do NOT like slugs.

Seven: I used to keep reptiles as pets. I had a chameleon called Daisy (whom I loved dearly!), a crested gecko called Burt and a leopard gecko called Spike. Now we don't keep reptiles, but we do have two rats (Coco and Moomoo) and of course, Dave the cat :D

So my nominations are as follows!

Syaza Suhana - one of my HCBN sisters - this lady has an awesome lifestlye blog at "bloobs and blurbs!" She covers fashion, personal stuff, lifestyle and opinions, for a great versatile read, check her out!

The next nominations are all for my kickass #sweatpink sisters - these girls are healthy, fit and keep things in perspective, I could learn a lot from them!

Mary-Elizabeth - Mary is a truely inspirational lady, she works hard to keep fit and stay healthy. Her blogs are relatable and enjoyable, check her out at "Health be a Hippie"

Taylor  - Taylor is my kind of girl. She blogs about keeping everything in balance and getting the most out of life - a really good read! Check her out at "Healthy Balance"

Diane - Diane is truely one of our kickass sweatpink sisters. She's been nothing but supportive and I love checking up on her blog - she's recently been running marathons (madness!!) and taking loads of lovely photos! Check her out at RunninRocker

Well done ladies, keep up the amazing work!!

I'm back baby yeah.

I decided to lay low for a week, eat and sleep my way to being as strong as "usual" and then get back on the wagon in style.

Today marks the day I feel fully alive again. It's a strange sort of feeling, one I'd never have realised was possible before I started working out, but it felt like I'd been suffocating all week. It's one that some of you will nod your head in acknowledgement of and some of you will quirk your head to one side and pass it off as part of my madness, but living without workouts is like living without air.

Ok, so that's being *slightly* melodramatic, but for me workouts represent something very important. As you know I've battled with depression during the course of my life and working out is a very real way of keeping myself alive, happy and functioning. They may as well be air - they're a lifeline to actually being alive.

Last week I initially spent thinking "oh yes, time to eat ALL THE THINGS and relax", but by Wednesday my mood had taken a nosedive and Sunday I was positively dangerous. I spent most of the week feeling like I was meant to be doing something, like I had missed something. I was restless and hugely irritable. I felt lethargic, bloated and very, very unhappy.

It was when I threw a mini tantrum trying to find a sock earlier today that I knew it was time to work my way back to the gym. I'm going to be honest, but running isn't going to happen just yet on account of a HUGE blister on my big toe that squelches every time I put my foot down (yummeh) but the weight room was calling and who am I to turn it down?

Having uncovered my FitBit that had been washed for the second time in as many months (it's still working thank goodness) and found two socks (not matching of course) I headed out to the gym to meet Tom for our usual kick-ass weight session.

The gym kicked my bottom. I'm not going to lie. I struggled through weights that I usually don't have quite as much trouble with, but I did it. I persevered and finished all of my sets, even upping the weight on my flyes and doing three sets of decline push-ups (which strangely I find easier than normal push-ups....). I even managed half a pull-up. Get me.

My arms are sort of shaky now. And I'm starving

Now one of my amazing #sweatpink sisters has been asking for people to try out her 4 week fitness plan, so on account of my #sweatpink sister Angelena I will be trying out her "4 week Shape Up Plan" for the next four weeks. (You can find out more about Angelena here at her blog "On Fire Fitness"). The shape up plan calls for a quite drastic change in the way I'm going to be eating and feeling about food, which should be interesting - as you all know I'm very much an IIFYM kind of girl (I talk about that in depth here) so trying out the Paelo diet will be interesting. I'm especially excited about weaning myself off of sugar and processed sugars - I went to the dentist recently and got told I need a filling. Fillings do not make me happy. Therefore, sugar does not make me happy! (Given I don't drink, smoke, drink fizzy drinks or eat tons of sweeties and I brush and floss my teeth 2-3 times a day with an electric toothbrush the only "real" culprit is the amount of processed sugars in my diet). It's funny that the final straw on the sugar train has been my teeth - but hey, they have to last a lot longer, so we'll have to keep them in good nick!).

So, my plan going forward will be to follow Angelena's plan - which calls for considerable weight training and HIIT cardio training (just my sort of thing). I'm also planning on seeing how long a streak of Yoga I can get. I plan on doing 20 minutes a day, every day for as long as I can in an unbroken streak. I'm currently on half a day.... 0_o I'm also planning on being able to do a full pull-up by the time I go back to school in Sept.....wish me luck xD

I have to go and take my measurements and get some "before" photos for when I do my final write up for Angelena, but I'll keep you all updated on how it's going! Today is chest, triceps and abs and I feel that it's gone very well :D I just have to finish my dreaded planks (yes, I know they're awesome for core strength but I HATE them. Almost as much as I hate burpees. Actually, possibly more. At least with burpees you're DOING something!).

See. At least someone out there agrees with me! You're not alone Vanessa Guerrero!!

Ha.

Anyway peeps, I'm off to soak my massive blister (which has taken offence to the shoes I put it in) and take my measurements.

Be good and stay happy - keep working out :D

Well, I finally dragged myself out of bed. Granted it was because I'm RAVENOUS, but still, it's out of bed right....!

I made it to pole last night. I think it's a sign of the depth of my addiction.....either that or just the depth of my stupidity, but I made it there. Ok, so maybe spinning round the pole twice was actually too much exertion, but hey, at least I could stand ;)

So, good day all. I hope everyone is having a fantastic Wednesday! I'm currently working my way through a lot of food, many episodes of Arrow and lots of sleep in an attempt to recover from what can only be described as the most amazing thing I've ever done in my life at the weekend.

I still can't really process the size of what we accomplished this weekend. We hiked, continuously, for nearly 30 hours. It's beyond my processing capabilities!

I've had loads of people asking what is was like? how did it feel? how did you do it? So here goes :D

The course took us 29 hours and 17 minutes to complete, we lost two team members along it (not literally) and we hiked in 28°C+ temperatures during the day. It was a slog at points, but it was all totally worth it - so let me tell you the full story :)

At 6am on Saturday, Snailstalkers set off from Queen Elizabeth Park. We'd gone to bed at around 10:30pm on Friday and had woken up at 3:30am on Saturday ready for Kenny, our support team lead, to take us down to the start line. Arriving at 5:00am there was enough time to set everything up, leave several things in the car that Kenny had to run back (I blame the distraction of the flapjacks personally) and get and eat plenty. Amber and Simon somehow managed to eat TWO sets of breakfast!

And of course, there were plenty of photos to take! You'll see George, my pink pony in several photos - he naturally had to be included so that I was continuing to #sweatpink for my SPA sisters ;)

It was warm already at 6am, we should have known really. I was just holding out hope that we wouldn't end up being rained on too much, but of course, what Mother Nature had in store for us was equally as testing. I'm still grateful that it was dealing with just one type of weather really, last year we baked in the sun all day only to have torrential downpours on us overnight!

From the start to checkpoint one was fairly simple, it was warm and everyone was sweaty, but we made good time for the stage and got into the swing of walking. Poor Tash had started the day feeling really poorly, but she made a good effort to get into the walk as best she could. We came into CP1 in 1:51. Nicely done team. Time to sit, eat, change socks and get moving!

The only thing was, we all knew what was coming...

I shan't repeat what we affectionately named this hill, simply because I don't use that kind of language here ;) but these photos really don't do it justice, it's a bit like climbing a cliff face at certain points, but you know, the view from the top is almost worth it.....!

From checkpoint 1-4 there were no real incidences, Simon, who had been dealing with a bum knee for a while now was in a lot of pain, but bravely pushed on as long as he could. Eventually at CP4 he went over on the ankle of the same leg and tore a tendon in the front of his ankle. At that point it was game over for him, the bruising and swelling even two days later really show how painful it must have been.

Naturally he was gutted to have to come out, we'd all trained for so long, so hard that it seems like you lose a little bit of yourself when you have to withdraw, but it made sense and luckily we now had Simon to help out on the support team to give them an extra pair of hands!

As we pushed on to CP5 the sun was really beginning to take its toll on people. We'd been talking to other groups as they went along - several people had minor sunstroke, there were lots of blisters on the course now and everyone was getting a bit tired. We'd been walking for 10 hours by the time we set off to climb the second largest hill on the course. At this point, Tash's damaged ligament in her ankle made itself known. There's no way I know how she got up that hill, but again, the view was breathtaking at the top. Or maybe that was just the ascent ;)

This event really tests people. It brings out the strength in them and shows their true grit. So many people push themselves so hard through the course when they're injured or ill, and Tash was one of those people. By CP5 she had some serious damage to her already damaged ankle and was into the depths of advanced dehydration.

In 28°C weather it's not just about drinking enough, we'd all had roughly 5 or 6 litres of water by 50km in but you also have to make sure that you're balancing electrolytes. As you drink more, you sweat, and as you sweat, you lose a lot of essential salts from your body. Most of the team ate those back through salty crisps, peanuts, squeezy cheese (mmmmm, cheeeeeeese) but Tash, having felt poorly to start hadn't eaten enough. At CP5 the paramedics told her she was not fit to continue.

The flame was for me and Amber to take on now.


Amber and I decided that at 50km, we would be finishing this event. So we continued. It was heartbreaking to leave Tash and Simon behind in that field, but we knew that we both had a darn good chance of making it for the team. We even managed to make some new friends and trade some Hula-Hoops for a Glo-stick. Seriously, the Hula-Hoops saved our lives :p

When you've been under constant physical strain for a long period of time, by this point we were 13 hours in, we were simply not interested in eating. Eating was only a means to an end and I know for both of us, every time we ate there was a slight nausea attached to it. Don't worry, SO not the case now ;)

When we met our support team at cp6, there had been a lot of wondering whether we'd make it, wondering whether we could eat any more and a LOT of emotional outbursts. Fatigue makes you do funny things and every time we saw supporters, Gurkha's, our support team or anyone who said anything nice there was a bit of blubbering. What can I say, it's an emotional roller-coaster and everyone is SO nice and SO supportive *hiccups* Ah you guys.

Between cp6 and 7, Amber didn't think she was going to make it. She told me she'd have to drop out at CP8. I told her to wait till we got there.

At CP8 there was a large bunny, who gave us stones that were painted by his children with one word to make us feel better. I got "strength" whilst Amber got "hope". Amber got up and left CP8 and carried on walking. What an utter star.

I'm not going to lie here, CP8-10 was the hardest thing I've ever done. CP8-9 was actually a 13.8km stage of the course and it felt it. At this point we were beyond fatigued, we discussed the word "knackered" in reference to how we felt and decided it didn't ACTUALLY cover what we were feeling. We'd been walking for 23 hours now, we'd not had a proper meal since the start as neither of us could keep any amount of food down and we were dead tired.

This is where my squeezy cheese came in. Squeezy cheese helped me......a small dollop every 10 minutes kept me salted and with something in my system to help me continue. Amber turned her nose up at the squeezy cheese. More for me ;)

There were several points where we sat down to adjust shoes/socks/go to the bushes (I don't recommend bush-weeing when you've been using your legs for 20+ hours fyi - it's almost impossible to squat which leads you to sit on whatever is on the floor. In my case, this was a nettle bush *sob*) and we almost nodded off right there on the trail. Luckily though, it was light, the sun was out and we could see other teams looking EXACTLY as we felt and pushing on through it. That was inspiration enough.

Just before CP9 I did consider stopping. I know, I know. It seems stupid, but I WAS delirious. Naturally when we got to the CP stopping wasn't an option. With 10k to go we had to do it, and we had to do it in time.

So, beyond-knackered, aching everywhere, hot, hungry and almost out of time we pushed through CP9 to complete the course with 43 minutes left. The last stage took us 2:26 minutes, we power walked the first part of the stage giving us enough time to comfortably stumble the last 6km.

It's strange psychology, but that last 10k could have been 100k for all it felt like - it seemed to take forever. The last 3km felt like the whole course all over again - it stretched out into eternity, until eventually, we could see it. We could see the end......WE HAD DONE IT!!

I can't imagine how it must have felt for Simon, or for Tash, who had set her heart on 100km to see us cross that finish line. I'd like to think that she felt proud, that she knew we'd done it partially because we couldn't let her down, but all the same, it must have been gutting to see something you wanted to achieve happening in front of you.

At the point of crossing that line though, there was so much noise, so much commotion, people shouting, cheering us on, us being announced as we crossed the line, cameras snapping. For two people who'd been awake a LONG time, it was overwhelming. I hope the people that came to support us at the finish line know how deeply thankful we both were for their support, for the cheering, for the celebration of our success. It felt amazing. Nothing I have experienced has felt like crossing that line and finally sitting down, knowing that we don't have to walk anymore!

So, the THANKS I have to say here!

HUGE thanks to the walkers - Amber, you really are amazing; Tash - your progress has been exceptional, just like you - don't be sad, you helped us make it; Simon - you rock, I saw how much it cost you.

MASSIVE thanks to our support: Kenny - thank you :D You were amazing, well done as support team lead; Lynn Reynolds - you stayed up way later than you ever thought and were still amazing, great job; And Amy Nightingale - you made all the difference at CP6, that bagel really helped and the green tea - great idea :D

And then thank you to everyone who has supported us and sponsored us! The list is still growing in sponsors, but you guys are amazing and you make the pain worth it :)