Comfort food

This post may surprise you. 

No I'm not writing about chocolate, crisps, pizza, pasta and ice cream or drinking wine. 

I'm taking comfort from food and exercise. 

Things are going a bit off track with the house purchase (don't ask!) and I've realised I can't control any of it.

So what have I done? Returned to my trusty old friend food and exercise.

I can control what I eat and how often I try and work out.

And as I said I'd blog my progress with the 30 Day Shred here I am writing about it.

I've been completely stressed out all week, tired out and had a banging headache.

As is always the case when you get yourself into exercise you always feel better for it. 

Exercising this week has helped me de-stress and switch off temporarily. 

Tomorrow I am weighing myself to see what progress I've made this week.

I'm really hoping to see something positive.

This week I've stuck to eating healthily, within my recommended calorie allowance to lose weight, for all seven days of the week.

In terms of exercise I've done my workout DVD (30 Day Shred) for five of the seven days. 

Fingers crossed as well as benefiting me to help relax, this week's food and exercise efforts have helped me lose weight and get fitter too. 

Until tomorrow's weigh-in...

New hair new mood

After a lot of debating (and a stressed out rush home) tonight I had my hair done. The last time it was trimmed and dyed was back in December.

I woke up tired today and I felt wound up for most of it after a nightmare journey into work and a non-stop working day. 

Yet tonight I am sat here feeling refreshed and relaxed.

Why?

Because I had my hair done.

I was starting to feel my hair was getting in a bad condition and it was taking ages to dry where it had got so long and thick.

Now this evening my hair is freshly dyed, the dead ends are cut away and my hair feels healthy.

It's made me feel better.

In the same way I've been decluttering my flat, as I've blogged about, to get it ready to be valued by estate agents. 

Finally I looked at my bedroom and after bagging up six big sacks of clothes and six bin liners of rubbish I can see my clothes more easily and everything is in order.

Again this made me feel better.

It's something a couple of people have touched on lately, but tidiness and order in your home and appearance truly does seem to equal a clear mind.

Similar to diet and exercise where I can lose weight, I feel I am in control.

For someone like me that hates to feel things are out of my control all these things give me a real boost.

Why these types of order in various elements of our life make us feel this way I really don't know.

Maybe it's also a sense of achievement at having those things organised? Who knows.

I'm just glad I finally managed to make a decision on what to do with my hair! All one colour, more off the length, keep the dip dyed look? I honestly was changing my mind even when my hairdresser first arrived!

For now I'm feeling relaxed and happy that my hair looks and feels healthy right now. 

How long that will last who knows. I guess I'll have to find something else to control...

Control freak

Those that know me well will not be surprised to hear me label myself as a bit of a control freak.

I love to be in control, whether in my personal life or at work.

This often causes me problems.

I get very frustrated and down when I don't have control and things are out of my control and can't be fixed quickly or within a reasonable time.

I am one of those To Do list people, but I want to tick off that list every day and not have long term items that I have to rely on others for. Not a fan. 

Therefore of late I have been a tad down, frustrated, angry etc because lots of things I want to control but can't. 

In turn I've been 'letting my hair down' a tad too much and have let my healthy eating and exercise slip.

Last week I had loads of junk food - burgers, a Chinese, chocolate, cakes etc and I had just one day where I exercised. Topped up with lots of booze. 

The result? Over the last few weeks I've put on weight and am now feeling flabby, tired and a failure. 

So on Sunday night I decided enough is enough and I have to start taking control.

And where is the true area I can do this?

With my diet and exercise of course.

Hence I am now being strict with my food and drink intake, now on Day 4 (Thursday) and I am ensuring I regularly exercise.

Knowing I was on the 'late shift' this week (7pm finish) I knew I needed to be realistic. I also knew that I needed to do something different with my exercise as my spinning routine was becoming exactly that - too routine and the same thing.

My body needed a shock.

So although I wanted to do Insanity, I knew my downstairs neighbours would not be so keen with all the jumping etc. And so I am where I am now.

Doing the 30 Day Shred Jillian Michaels DVD. I've blogged about this before and how good the workout is for such a short (20 minutes) DVD to do at home.

I've never done it for the whole 30 days though and have always used it as an exercise to do when I miss spin or can't be bothered with the gym or the weather outside is no good for a run.

I'm currently on day four (technically I did it on Sunday and it's day five, but I ate bad so am not counting it!) 

I am finding it hard to stick to the healthy eating as the sun is making me crave ice cream and barbecues! The exercise has been a pain once I get in from work past 830pm and am starving for my dinner.

However I find if I push myself I feel better for it after.

I've also decided to try blog about it on here to try and share my thoughts, progress and hopefully results. 

Here's to getting shredded! 

As Jillian says Don't Give Up Unless You're Puking Fainting or Dying.

Here's goes...