Here comes 2014

I just about have a year of 'My Time' under my belt.  And that's great!  I am a a lot fitter and smaller - although with puting my gym membership and a lot of my regular activities on hold during these long summer school holidays, I may well have some catching up to do.  But I am actually looking forward to it!  I think that what I want to do this year is:

• be more organised, as when I am organised I am more relaxed
• do more Yoga, as when I do Yoga I feel more relaxed and my body feels more balanced
• study - not sure what yet … but due to family commitments it will still have to be quite flexible, so probably online.
• seek out freelance writing work - because I think I have something to say :-)

I feel like not only did last year represent a major turning point in my life - i.e., my youngest off to school, but with that year behind her my daughter is more independant and my boys are getting easier too!  So I kind of feel like I am over the mothering hump and I might be able to relax and enjoy my role a bit more this year

We have had a magnificent holiday in Thailand earlier this month, and when my review is published I will put a link to it on here, which really illustrated how different life is with our kids now.  I can jump in a car now with no additional supplies!  No nappies, changes of clothes, snacks, concerns about toiletting etc etc.  They are more and more like real independent beings!

Things that worked well last year that I will continue will be

• my relationship with my gym/personal trainer,
• tennis lessons, 
• my awareness of macro nutrients and the right balance between protein, fat and carbs 
• and my general 'can-do' attitude.

2014 is looking good from here!

What are your plans for 2014?

It is definitely harder to maintain a fitness program during school holidays with house guests [GRRRRR]

For the past two and a half weeks I have had my Parents in Law staying with me from Europe - keeping it vague :-)  I have been trying to show them a good time and present myself as a totally normal mother who cooks one meal for the whole family every night, where as the reality is that I usually feed the kids and then later I eat my high protein low fat low carb dinner.  I did try them on this for a bit, but it felt pretty mean watching them go to bed hungry.  It is enough that I don't serve afternoon tea of home made cake every day and that they have to eat their high carb breakfast on their own.

Throw into that challenge the added pressure of school holidays which is when I usually give up all hope of getting to the gym in combination with actually going away to a Resort in the Whitsundays (see my Simpiet Instagram photo below) for a week where you have to eat every meal and snack in a restaurant and yes - I am scared to get on the scales.  And I was drinking alcohol too - uh oh.

My loving husband put on 2kg's under those circumstances and I am hoping that I would not have done quite as much damage - but I am not even going to check until school has been back for a week and the PIL's have gone back home.  When I look in the mirror I look like I haven't changed much and I really did feel much more comfortable by the pool on holidays than I would have otherwise.  Anyway - stay tuned for the dreaded weigh-in, in about a week or so.

Having said all of that, I did keep quite active while away.  I went to a Yoga class, a Pilates class, kayaking, hiking, and went to they gym for cardio.  The Pilates was the stand out as it ended up being a 1:1 class, so lots of fab attention from the instructor.

Great weekend... Yoga and Swimming

Continuing on my journey of fitness, and trying to ensure that I can justify basically paying for two gym memberships at once, I went with a friend to a wonderful Yoga class on Saturday afternoon (that is not me in the photo, but I did do that pose), at my swish gym that is large and has lots of facilities and is quite new and funky.  The class is called Vinyasa Flow and went for an hour and a quarter.  The instructor was very authentic and had a lovely Chilean accent.  Afterwards I felt very fresh, like I'd just woken up from a long nap.  Now I have a new mantra to use when appropriate. And I am probably spelling it incorrectly but it is a silent mantra to go with your  breathing.  On the way in you say 'So' and on the exhale 'Hum'. Very handy to know.  Actually I've just checked and and I have spelt it correctly and you can find out more about it here: www.swamij.com/sohum-mantra-108.htm

And on Sunday I met the same friend, went back to the same gym and swam. I found myself totally out of my comfort zone, dependant as I have become on my swimming aids (flippers and finger paddles), and in my dash out the door I had forgotten them and my goggles.  If I had gone on my own I would probably have decided to do some other kind of exercise, but it is amazing what a little peer pressure can do for your daring.  So I searched out a pair of goggles in the lost and found (probably not very hygienic) and swam like a 'normal' person.  The surprise being that I can swim quite well without the extras, somewhat slower but still with a nice stroke and without drowning or getting too out of breath.  Of course there is nothing wrong with swimming with all the gear, it actually just provides extra resistance into the exercise, but if more cardio if what you are after than less is probably more.  So I will be going at least sans aids at least some of the time in future.

The good times continued through my Monday - woo hoo.  I did a photo shoot for the GF I spent so much time with over the weekend for her to use in her PR for her company.  Gorgeous black and white portraits taken by a local lake.  And later in the day when I met up with my PT Paul, I find out that I am his 'Client of the Week'.