Challenges over the Easter weekend.

Hi All,

I'm accountable for my actions and since I made my weight challenge public, I owe it to the people who support me an update. So, here I am, telling you about the challenges I faced over the Easter weekend.

First off, I want to congratulate everyone who took the challenge with me, and thank my friends and family for their ongoing support.

Over the Easter weekend I asked myself "How does one maintain a diet and still get involved in social events?" The answer I now know is with a strong will and a lot of determination, something which I lacked this weekend, but aspiring to achieve through the next few months.

To recap, last week I lost 1.85kg, which put me at a weight of 88.80 kg. This week however, I picked up a whole 200g! I'm back at 89.00 kg and feel like I have to start all over again. That's the thing about changing your lifestyle. It has to be one day at a time.

The whole weekend wasn't lost though - I started my training again on Sunday. We were out at Emmerentia Dam early on Sunday morning and went for what I thought was a gentle walk. However, I was nudged a bit to do a bit more (thank you Faizel), and I ended up doing a brisk walk and worked up a bit of a sweat. I did 3.7km in 40min 58sec.

I knew I had to "catch up" on exercise (especially since Craig's mantra is "Eat Less, Walk More"), so I decided to do it again on Monday morning. This time, I thought I could beat my previous time by jogging instead of walking. I thought I did pretty well, and according to the heart rate monitor that Faizel let me use, I was in the "fat burning zone" for most of the time. However, not being as fit as I should, my recovery times were longer for jogging and because I wanted to rest a bit more under the Wild Cherry tree (its tough), my times was a bit worse than on Sunday. I completed 3.7km in 41min 25sec.

Immediately after the jog I thought "What's the point?". But every little bit helps, even just taking a walk across the street to the shops makes a difference.

So the moral of today's update is: "Instead of giving yourself reasons why you can't, give yourself reasons why you can." If I can get out there, jog and try (eventually I'll succeed), so can you...