Louisa's Weight Loss Blog

This week has been really hard going as I have found that it is very hard to attempt to do such an intense workout on a daily basis.

I usually find exercise extremely difficult as in my experience, far from any endorphins being released, I actually found myself experiencing terrible mood swings after running. During this challenge, I haven’t experienced mood swings and instead of feeling exhausted and irritable, after exercising on the Versaclimber I’ve felt able to carry on with my day without throwing any china mugs at the wall. I don’t think I can credit the Versaclimber with banishing my post-exercise grumps though!

I’ve tried to do much shorter sessions on the days I’m not attempting to register a time for my challenge. This keeps me motivated as exercising doesn’t feel like a chore anymore.  Like with most things, if you don’t feel like you want to do them then you’ll do a rubbish job or eventually quit.

This week, I managed to do the full 1/4 mile (1320 feet by my calculations) twice. This is a noticeable improvement on last week when I had to attempt to complete the challenge in sections which was a little embarrassing to admit. I’m much more proud of this week’s results!

Thursday: 20 minutes 55 seconds

Sunday: 19 minutes 36 seconds

As I have weak knees, I do try to take shorter steps (about 6inches) as it eases the pressure on them. Swollen and red knees at the age of 24 are just not sexy! I’ve also found that listening to music makes a massive difference to my stamina otherwise after 5 minutes I’m bored and focusing on the ‘burn’ and how I dislike feeling out of breath and sweaty.

What I will say now is that if you’re new to using a Versaclimber, don’t attempt to go for 20 minutes at a time because when you try and walk normally, your legs will feel like jelly and the chances are, you’ll fall over like I almost did!

I wonder what next week will bring!

So I’ve been using the Versaclimber most days for the last month. I’ve lost 5lbs this month just from exercising  more.

If you have sedentary lifestyles due to your career, it  may be best to address your exercise routine before you reduce your daily calorie intake. Not eating enough can slow your brain down and leave you struggling to concentrate, which is why I am suggesting dieters look at exercising before cutting calories intake, especially if you feel your diet is already fairly healthy.

I went to a gig with my sister a couple of weeks ago and as we danced, clapped and cheered one thing I noticed was that the tops of my arms or ‘bingo wings’ weren’t wobbling anywhere near as much as they used to. Now, I am technically only just overweight rather than fat and certainly have never been obese so my arms have never been a part of my body that I’ve paid much attention to but boy, have I noticed the difference.

Anyway, as I’ve seen some promising results, I thought I would share the technique I have been using on the Versaclimber.

My arms feel firmer and I spend roughly 10 minutes a day on the Versaclimber, broken up into 2 minute bursts. I have been alternating my work outs by adjusting the machine so I work slower but the result is that I feel like I’m stepping through treacle or I can work faster and get my heart racing but make the stepping easier.

Using the Versaclimber with the backs of your hands facing you (as demonstrated in the image to the left) you will work your biceps.

If you turn your arms around so that your palms are facing you as you use the climbing machine, you’ll work your triceps. Nice change from having to do ‘dips’ to lose bingo wings!

Versaclimber - an intensive bit of kit

So I said 2011 was the year of exercise, well here is the device that is giving me a fabulous kick start – the Versaclimber.

Because of the involvement I have with looking into the best weight loss methods, I have been loaned a Versaclimber to use and review.

As I work from home at the moment, it’s been really handy to have an exercise machine kicking around. I’m too busy to trek down to the gym, work out for 30 mins to an hour, shower and trek back.  Realistically, that is going to take two hours out of my day and cost me £50  ($80) a month plus the cost of parking three times a week. Like a lot of people who work hard for a living, that is a lot of time and money to invest in your health and fitness when all you want to do after work is rest of the sofa with a glass of wine (red of course for the antioxidants!) There really has to be other options.

Having a Versaclimber at home means I can take 5 minute breaks throughout the day and have intensive bursts on the machine. I find it re-vitalises my mind and helps me to re-focus on my work. It also doesn’t take up too much room which is handy as we live in a modestly sized house with very little space to spare.

Over the coming weeks, I’ll be blogging about my training programme and the effects working out on the machine has on my body. I won’t be using any other bit of gym equipment as I’d hate to skew the results.

How did time go so fast? It doesn’t feel like that long ago I was blogging for Total Chunk every day!

In the last six month I have started a new job, had some b****** crash into my car and Jonny and I bought our first house! It’s been a stressful time and in October/November 2010 I went on a popular low calorie diet with disastrous results. It’s all very well reducing your calorie intake but you need to eat enough of the right foods to allow your brain to function. I could barely concentrate, I was dizzy and felt nauseous most of the day. I was grumpy and struggling to sleep. This was no way to live – I’d be a crap anorexic!

So I lost half a stone in a month which was great… except I couldn’t keep my diet up and keep my job. It’s generally accepted that you need to be of use or ornament for someone to pay you to turn up to the office everyday and unfortunately, I was neither.

I was also stressed about purchasing our house and to keep our home running, my job ticking along and get everything in place for the mortgage company and the solicitors then adding on diet and exercise was too much and I admit that myself.

We finally moved in to the house just before Christmas and in January I started yoga classes (new post coming soon!)

For me, 2011 is about exercise.

A few weeks ago I had a stroke of good luck and came in to a bit of money at a casino. I gave myself a small shopping budget as I’ve not had much time to shop and not really had the spare money to revamp my wardrobe as I’d like. The first thing I bought was a pair of Fit Flops. I was going to opt for the cheaper Walkstar range at £36 but I figured I might as well shell out a bit more for the pair I actually like!

Fit Flops - £50 from John Lewis

I bought the silver sequinned Fit Flops from the Electra range from John Lewis for £50. I did consider the studded ‘Rebel’ Fit Flops but at £60 for a pair, I had to draw the line somewhere!

What do Fit Flops look like?

Looks-wise, the fit flops are rather chunky but the more expensive designs are worth picking if you want to wear your Fit Flops to work and want to look a bit smarter. I’ve got scary-looking skinny feet and ankles so on me I look like I’m wearing someone else’s shoes!

The Electra range come in black sequins, white/iridescent, gold and bronze so you can always colour-coordinate your Fit Flops with the outfits you would normally wear. The makers of Fit Flops also do shoes for men and children. Fortunately for those who want to try Fit Flops but can’t get along with toe-posts, there are other designs that have the same microwobbleboard technology so deliver the same results. The clogs are discrete but not exactly to my taste but there are open-toe sandal versions for men which are particularly good looking for summer. In women’s there is the ‘Rockstar Walkstar’ shoe which is a flip flop style encrusted in Swarovsky crystals. These are only available from Harrods though.

What do Fit Flops feel like?

My Fit Flops are incredibly comfortable. This is because the sole of the shoe is thick so when your heel strikes the ground it is well padded. You’d think that flip flops that are meant to give you a ‘workout as you walk’ would hurt but to begin with I wasn’t really sure they were working as I walked. I only noticed the difference between Fit Flops and normal shoes when I took them off. They are certainly very comfortable to wear and even if they didn’t do what they claimed, I would be happy to wear them but rather resent the price.

Do Fit Flops really work?

According to the Fit Flop website, their shoes do the following:

• Ease back strain
• Ease pressure on the knees and ankles
• Improve your posture
• Improve muscle tone

Fit Flops incorporate microwobbleboard technology – this basically de-stablises the body as you walk working your calves and bottom more than you would if you were walking bare foot or in normal shoes. The pressure on heels, ankles and knees are relieved as the wearer walks. After wearing the Fit Flops regularly, you should notice your calves are slimmer and bottom firmer. No studies have been officially conducted on people who are overweight but those who do have weight problems and purchased a pair of Fit Flops have reported that pressure on their knees and ankles has been a relief and as a result overweight Fit Flop wearers have been more mobile and able to start their weight loss journey in earnest.

Conclusion:If you don’t mind spending £36-£80 on a pair of Fit Flops then they really are comfortable enough to warrant the price. Like most women, I have cellulite and the appearance of it makes me feel rather sick if I catch sight of my bottom or thighs in the mirror. After two weeks of almost constant wearing of my Electra Fit Flops, my bottom looks slightly less dimpled but I would imagine you would have to wear them for that much longer to see a real improvement without energetic gym visits.

I bought my Fit Flops from John Lewis as they sell a great range of styles and colours of Fit Flops. They also do free standard delivery on orders over £30 which is pretty handy.

New research by Birmingham University suggests that exercise does not help to alleviate period pain. 650 students aged between 18 and 25 were surveyed with 28% confessing to regularly experiencing moderate to severe period pain.

Researchers took into account weight, general health, mood, ethnicity and whether or not participants were smokers when assessing the results of the study.

Astonishingly, researchers could only conclude that exercise only helps on a case by case basis, i.e. some women may find it helps. Royal College of GPs chairman Professor Steve Field said women with period pain should do what works for them and exercise might make them feel better in general but this is little comfort to the thousands of women like myself who suffer debiliating pain every month.

I have vomited due to the pain experienced, my stomach can bloat to twice its size and I need to visit the bathroom far more often. I’ve missed work as I’ve been physically unable to get out of bed and I regularly experience migraines too. I’ve had a laparoscopy to find out what might be the precise cause of my monthly problems. I’ve been prescribed an awful amount of pain killers and hormones. Some pain killers have made me like a zombie they’re so strong…

Personally, this new study has not surprised me as I have found exercise to be unhelpful to me. Thanks to 11 years of experience dealing with period pains, I have some advice to offer women who are trying to lose weight:

• Keep a diary of symptoms and come to know WHEN they will occur. I get a migraine when I ovulate so I know very soon when one is on its way and if I am not at home, I have time to get there before my vision is obscured and I’m vomiting.
• See your doctor, the contraceptive pill can often help women but I have found this not to be the case. I am clearly a freak of nature – I should be put in a test tube and studied.
• Periods are not an excuse to overindulge in chocolate – see my blog post on chocolate cravings and why women crave chocolate
• Try herbal remedies and aromatherapy before you drug yourself up to the eyeballs with pain killers
• Try gentle exercise like yoga but if you don’t feel up to high intensity stuff, don’t do it! Walking is preferable to sitting on the sofa for a week
• Warm baths are lovely and make you feel nice and clean. If you’ve had a hard day at work, treat yourself with a bath rather than a whole pizza!

I had a rare day off today and decided to visit a lunch time spinning class at my gym. It was great, I left the class covered in sweat, glowing and cheerful after such a heavy but rewarding workout.

Spinning is a really hard going, high energy workout involving a big heavy bike and adjustable settings that can make your workout harder or easier. A group of people will get together and cycle to the music and turn the settings up and down as the instructor tells you to. The higher the settings, the heavier your legs get, but if you can build a speed up, it actually feels like the pedals have taken over your feet and the bike is cycling for you. This is SO not as painless as it sounds!

Even though it is heavy going, spinning is a great class to start with if you’re getting into fitness. You’ve got the group setting, so you have other people and an instructor to spur you on, the music is high octane and banging, you’re not forced to balance with your knees on a Swiss ball or obliged to squat into a pose with foot cramp. You can only do your best with what you can do, so you might not turn that quarter turn or sit down and pedal for a few moments while everyone else is stood up. Of course you can only get out of it what you put in, but I couldn’t run for 45 minutes, but I can cycle with no break damned hard for 45 minutes so I leave the class feeling well worked out.

Spinning is great if you don't feel comfortable cycling outside in any weather.

Spin classes at the gym are often very popular and at peak times after work, you will need to book, I think this is a great motivator to go, book a class or two a week and you pretty much have to go otherwise you’re denying someone else a place. My gym also does 7am and 12.45pm classes, so you can go first thing in the morning or in your lunch hour. It’s a very popular class that encourages a lot of regulars so it’s a great opportunity to meet other people, get tips, encourage each other and maybe even make fitness friends.

Spinning has had some common misconceptions, like you will still burn fat for up to two days after a class. It is true, the more exercise you do, the more your metabolism will continue to burn fat, but two days is too good to be true. However, you do burn a lot of calories in a class, so twice weekly classes on top of your diet is going to see results. No one exercise is going to change your body completely, so you will need other cardio, resistance and toning exercises, but I would recommend spinning every time as a great fat burner!

If you are trying to lose weight, there is now no excuse for an untidy home!

Actually, yes! Cooking and cleaning DOES apply to you!

Depending on the household chores you embark upon, you can burn around 150 cals or more an hour just by tidying up your house. Obviously, making the bed, gardening, vacuuming and rearranging furniture require more effort but you can burn off calories and increase your metabolism simply by spring cleaning your home.

Based on a 150lb person, the following activities will burn off a surprising amount of calories:

• Ironing burns off about 150 calories an hour
• Washing up the dishes burns off 50 calories in 20 mins
• Enthusiastic vacuuming burns around 110 calories in half an hour
• Carrying small children burns 200 calories an hour

Bear in mind that if you are heavier than 150lbs, you need to consider your muscle mass. Fat doesn’t burn calories, muscle does and so if you are obese without much muscle mass and a low metabolism, you may not burn this many calories. In this case, you need to build more muscle mass and raise your metabolism and you can do this with exercise. If you are obese, cleaning is an excellent start as it is one of those things that needs to be done but is a workout that can be adapted for your exercise needs or time constraints.

You can increase the amount of calories burned when cleaning by listening to music and singing and dancing to the tune if you aren’t shy! The NHS website has some great tips about how to make everyday chores work harder for you by turning them into a more vigorous aerobic workout. Cleaning isn’t a replacement for the gym but if your time is limited and you can’t make it down the gym, half an hour of enthusiastic scrubbing, washing and buffing will kill two birds with one stone.

I’ve not done one of my top tips for a couple of days now, apologies for my neglect! I should make it a good one. Now let me see…

Ah yes, stomach crunches! I have fallen victim to this problem. So many women who are trying to lose weight through diet and exercise complain that it doesn’t matter how many stomach crunches they do, they still don’t have a gorgeous washboard tummy. WHY OH WHY OH WHY?!

As a teenager, I bought one of those roll cage dooberries that help you to do sit ups. I must have done thousands but all I succeeded in doing was getting some hard muscle under my flab and the lower part of my stomach remained blobby to say the least. I so desperately wanted to be thin enough to get my belly button pierced but alas, it wasn’t to be. Last year I got a tattoo of a butterfly on my tummy because I figured a tattoo would look better and not get infected. You can see a picture of it on my twitter page, it was taken in April before I put on another 7lbs!

Sit ups are great... but they must be combined with a cardio workout

What was I doing wrong?

Sit ups are fantastic for working the muscles in your upper abdomen and that it. If you want to get that blobby bit under your belly button to catch up and also get toned, you need to do leg lifts and weights. The best place you can do this is at the gym because people have been over-ambitious and given themselves hernias! You can also hurt your back doing sit ups so please do take care.

The reason why I had killer abs under fat was because I wasn’t obeying the most basic of exercise rules: if you’re trying to tone an area as stubborn as your stomach, muscle exercises must be combined with aerobic exercise. So if you want to fix your stomach, go for a run, do an energetic step class, boxercise, spin whatever and THEN concentrate on your stomach crunches. You will see the results you want much quicker as aerobic exercise encourages the loss of fat so that you can see those gorgeous muscles you’ve been toning.

Totalchunk Top Tip: Only do stomach crunches when you have completed aerobic exercise. Your muscles will thank you for releasing them from under their fatty prison! Bring on those weird cut off belly tops that skinny celebs seem to love so much right now!

It was really chilly yesterday evening! The afternoon was beautifully sunny up here in Nottingham whilst I understand it was grey and miserable back home in Gloucestershire, much to my mum’s displeasure. It’s still not that warm though, what is happening to our BBQ autumn that we were promised by the Weather Man?!

I hate it when the nights start to draw in, it happens so quickly and you don’t even notice it until you step outside the door at 8pm to realise it’s dark out there! It makes exercising e.g. jogging harder too, because if you don’t live in a particularly salubrious area, it is perfectly understandable to be nervous for two reasons:

• You are worried of experiencing crime under the veil of darkness
• Even if you are wearing reflective gear, it is still possible to be hurt by a cyclist with no lights or a car driver not paying attention.

The truth is that women out on their own at night are more vulnerable in general. I would advise that you go running with a friend or two in winter. You could try to run during daylight hours over the weekend and stick to spin or swim classes in the week if you prefer to run alone

Running is a great way to exercise if you’re not looking to spend money. Many people enjoy listening to dance, trance or house music when running to help with the pacing. I like to listen to power ballads and rock music but that’s a personal preference! The key thing to remember when running in the dark: we want you safe and slim!

On to Tuesday’s diary, apologies it is a bit late!

Breakfast: Large bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes with 1% fat milk

Lunch: 2 seeded bagels with cream cheese

Dinner: Spaghetti bolognaise with cheese on top. Muller strawberry rice pudding.

Proactol: 4

Exercise: 20 lengths swimming

Drinking coffee before my 10k run for Cancer Research last October