If you're still pretty when you're done, you did it wrong!

That quote was posted on a facebook page and it's brilliant. I'm never pretty when I'm done.

It's been a couple of days since my last post and I'm pleased to say I've kept up pretty well. I had a rest day on Wednesday and then stayed at the boyfriend's on Thursday. I knew I'd done nothing on Wednesday so packed my gym clothes for the boyfriend's house and walked to the supermarket to pick up the stuff for dinner and back. 4km round trip took me 40 minutes or so. I didn't remember my HRM (heart rate monitor) so don't know how much I burned but I guessed at 250 calories.

Then Friday we did a supersession at the gym. The 12WBT program calls for 1 'Super Saturday Session' (SSS) of 1000 calories burned. It doesn't necessarily happen on a Saturday, but I suppose it works well for the purposes of the program to have lots of 's' in a row. Jac and I headed to the gym and did Week 2 Day 2 of the C25K for 30 mins, then did our usual upper body weights circuit, and then jumped back on tready for an hour doing the hill program. Burned 945 calories and switched my watch off for the stretching session - so I'm sure if I had have let it run I would have ended up burning the 1000.

We meant to do the stairs this morning (Saturday) but got there and it was packed - cars parked everywhere. We're both not so confident yet, and didn't want to tackle it with so many people there, so we trundled back to the gym and did another 60 minute hill program on the tready.

It's almost halfway through the first month of the year and I've exercised every day except 3 - which is pretty good considering I only set my goals and really got organised on 3rd of January and had done nothing on the 1st or 2nd. I'm allowing myself 4 rest days a month - firstly because it's friggin tiring doing all this shit, and secondly because if I tell myself that I have to exercise every day, it will seem like a massive commitment. But if I allow myself a couple of days rest each month, I can take them (all at once, or one at a time) and then kick myself to exercise every other day. On days that I don't really feel like it, I'm committing to 20 minutes of cardio. If I still don't feel it, I'll go home. Most of the time, once I'm at 20 minutes though, I figure I might as well keep going for the hour, so I'm hoping that will continue.

Preseason for 12WBT starts Monday and that's when I'll be really strict on food etc - if I go over 1200 calories for the day I'll have to exercise my normal 500 calories and then whatever extra I've eaten. That's extra motivation not to rip into that block of chocolate or buy my lunch at work when I've clearly bought a good option with me.

I can do this, and I WILL do this. I need to get healthy.

I've also come to the realisation that I'm going to have to work this hard for the REST OF MY LIFE. Well, maybe not this hard, but I'll certainly have to be putting in 30-60 minutes of exercise a few times a week to maintain the body I want, and have worked so hard to achieve.