Welcome back to my little series about as you can guess from the title… Losing weight before Christmas! To catch up on why I am doing this have a little read here… it’s okay, I’ll wait.
So the gist of the challenge is that I want to lose around 30lbs before December 25th. It is a high aim, but one I feel I can do! Let’s see how well I have done thus far.
10th November
Today, Victoria and I went for a lovely 10km race down in Carrickfergus. This was Victoria’s first 10km attempt so we weren’t expecting too much timewise, she just wanted to be faster than 1hr 20mins. We finished at 1hr 12mins! I was very happy and proud of this especially considering we were in fancy dress… Literally. Victoria was in a dress and I was wearing a shirt, tie and waistcoat with shorts and running tights. The theme was a wedding as a couple from the EAMS group had just gotten married and to celebrate EAMS was hosting a running event for them.
I knew we would be walking a lot, so I didn’t think a gym session was necessary. In total, we rocked over 30,000 steps. So pretty decent!
To celebrate afterwards, we went to Tony and Jens. Victoria had double stack pancakes because ya know pancakes! I had some nice stew that I love to have when there. I had an apple and a banana for breakfast, so I was pretty hungry post race! I weighed myself and I had lost 1lb from the start of the challenge on the 9th. So pretty damn good start!
TOTAL LOST 1lbs, 29lbs to go.
11th November
This was going to be a low workout day as I was going to spend quite a lot of time in work. Luckily it is a Saturday! So that means ParkRun! Victoria had decided upon volunteering as she is nice like that. This meant it was my first ParkRun on my own, so I thought it would be a good taster to see how my fitness was at this point as I knew the fastest 5k I had ever run was in 24mins. I ran and I was getting pretty tired and I am not sure if that was from the 10km the day before, or just from the lack of running at a certain pace. I finished at 29:40 which was okay. I had wanted to finish in a sub 30min. But, the positive is that I now have two base times. I will try and work these two times down for the rest of the year.
I will aim for a sub-59min 10km and sub-26 min 5k before Christmas day. I may even do this run on Christmas Day, then I can earn that dinner!
To eat, it as a pretty basic day, just a lot of vegetables and some chicken, with a load of fruit. I had lost half a pound that day and I was a little disappointed with that, but because I didn’t exercise as much, it was to be expected.
TOTAL LOST 1.5lbs, 28.5lbs to go.
12th November
Today was a low food today, I ate a lovely dinner, but not much else other than some fruit for breakfast. I didn’t exercise much either, but I did walk over 18,000 steps and I was slightly disappointed with not getting to 20,000. But I was a little tired that day, so I only had a quick morning stretch/yoga session in the morning.
I had tried to log my food for these days, but good, did I just keep forgetting, plus some of the food I have I cook myself or Victoria cooks and I don’t want to ask about what was in the meal to add it up. A bit too time-consuming to my liking sadly. I will try and keep at it and do more with it. But the fact that I am eating better I have found that I am feeling good!
TOTAL LOST 2.5lbs, 27.5lbs to go.
That is the first update finished! 2.5lbs down, which is less than what I would have liked, but I haven’t gotten into my full workout schedule as of yet, that will be starting from Tuesday, so the next update (Thursday) will provide a better idea of my first week. I would like to hope to over 6lbs lost overall, but we will see! Until then.
If you want to chat more about any of my posts, please follow me on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook also to receive updates, Until next time, thanks for reading and I hope to see you again soon!
Scott H Gilliland 