Louisa's Weight Loss Blog » music

Featuring the ipod with Nike +

Ameila — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:27:35 +0000

AMELIA

I bought the new 5g ipod nano for myself for Christmas with the view that it would enhance my workouts. I have taken it to the gym and for a jog so far and firstly would insist that you get an arm band or holder or clip because as this thing is so tiny, you won’t be able to hold it or rest it on any equipment. I’ve got the armband because it makes me look sporty and it’s in a useful position for me to skip songs.

So not only does it log your steps and workouts, you can get any colour you like!

So far I have taken it to the gym and for a jog using only the pedometer, but it also gives you the option of inputting your weight and calculating how many calories that you have burned and the time you have done it in. This comes with the ipod automatically so if that’s all you require then you won’t need to buy anything like Nike +.

I think the ipod 5g is great, you can monitor your workout or your runs or walks by time, calories or steps, especially if you’re one of these people who don’t go anywhere without your ipod. When you sync your ipod with Nike+, these results are downloaded and you are redirected to the Nike website where your progress will be logged and you’ll get a thumbs up and a few words of encouragement. I think this is a really nice touch because after all, who doesn’t appreciate a bit of encouragement!

If you are really into your workouts then Nike + in which you buy a pack of a sensor and receiver. Be aware that the sales assistant might not be as clued up on the product as you may hope. When I went to purchase the ipod 5g, the sales assistant believed that the 5g model has a receiver in built, only the iphone 3gs and the ipod touch does. You can buy the sensor and the receiver for about £20/$30. How this works is that you put the sensor into either your specially bought Nike+ trainers or clip it to your shoes (you can buy a clip especially for this for £8/$13), plug the receiver into your ipod put the settings you want in and go.

What this pack does is record the distance and pace, time or calories from your workout. I think this is great for running and when the data is uploaded on Nike + you can have a look at what you’ve been doing, and objectively see where you could improve. As I do want to get more into running for its fitness and aesthetic benefits, any help I can get and any motivation is welcome.

On this basic level, there is virtually no difference between the pedometer and Nike + but it does allow you to calibrate the sensor to your own walking and running paces to allow for accuracy in terms of calories. You also get pre-recorded words of congratulations from sports stars such as Paula Radcliffe and Lance Armstrong. It also allows a ‘power song that you can switch to at any point at the touch of a button to spur you on for that final distance.

Nike + allows you to also buy a heart rate monitor which is handy if the purpose of your workout is to exceed X beats per minute. Also, workouts that you can play to yourself as well as many other extra accessories that they will come up with to assist you with your goals.

It’s an expensive and maybe over-technical way of assessing your workouts and your goals, but for those who might like the extra motivation or serious about assessing and aiding your workouts then this might be for you.

The photo that started my diet again…

Louisa — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 14:15:53 +0000

Last pictures of 2009 - Goodbye stomach!

Jonny and I met at the very end of 2008 so technically, even though our relationship blossomed throughout 2009, I accredit my luck at meeting such a sweet and lovely man to 2008.

This is because 2009 was mainly rubbish! I spent half of it unemployed and we almost lost my dad in June as a stupid doctor who I would like to poke in the eye, diagnosed acute appendicitis as wind. He’s ok now luckily but I will never forget the horror of seeing my daddy looking weak and forlorn in a hospital bed with a bile bag attached to a tube coming out of his nose. Cue various car problems and the destruction of our bicycles on a 70mph road on the way to Holland. We had hoped things would start to improve… until Jonny was made redundant just 3 days before Christmas which led to me saying “blow it, I’m going to enjoy Christmas and eat/drink what I want!”

The picture above was taken on New Year’s Eve 2009. As you can see, my waist and hips have expanded massively in the last year. What you can’t see is the thigh fat and that my once lovely bottom is becoming saggier and saggier as the days go by.

These are not the words of a paranoid young woman who is looking for compliments, these are the words of a woman desperate not to let herself go just yet! I don’t want to be one of those women who lament the fact that they hated the way they looked when they were young. I want to enjoy my 20′s and not go through my youth pretending that I don’t care about the belly I am starting to acquire.

Louisa aged 12 in Steel Band

Losing weight and looking good for my own benefit is important to me. I was an ugly and awkward child/teenager who was skinny and clumsy. Continually picked on by the jealous and insecure partly for how I looked and partly for having a mouthy sister, I struggled for years accepting my appearance.

Now I am a grown up, I have absolutely no interest in proving anything to people I used to go to school with. I want to get slim now before I let myself go and find myself needing to lose 100lbs in 2011! When I started blogging, I realised that my desire to lose 14lbs would seem ridiculous! I’ve read so many weight loss stories in the last few months and there are people out there who were desperate – they had to lose weight or they would die long before their time. This is why I changed direction and stopped writing about my diet and started writing dieting tips.

I would love to hear your dieting stories and any unusual diet tips you’ve found to work. Please reply in the comments or on the content page if you would like your achievment to be featured on Total Chunk – just like South Beach Steve

2010 is the year for change, I can just feel it! This is why I am encouraging YOU to take part in the Perfect 10!

Over 10 weeks, we will learn 10 things about each participant and yes, there is a prize but it’s only open to US residents. If you don’t live in America, don’t worry because there is nothing stopping you from getting involved, you just aren’t eligible for the prize but South Beach Steve has kindly said, if you aren’t a US resident, he will try and source an alternative prize, possibly a dvd of his motivational videos. Here are the rules (taken from Log My Loss)

The intent is for everyone to start this on January 1st, but as long as you begin by January 7th and post an update on January 8th, you are eligible.
Begin by commenting on this post letting me know you are joining the challenge, then post your goals on your blog. If you don’t have a blog and you want to participate, you will have to post your goals and your updates as a comment on this blog. Be sure and see rule #1 – I would like to see the goals posted on your blog by the 1st of January, but you have until the 7th. Come on though, if you know about it now, don’t sit around and wait until the 7th. By the same token, you don’t have to wait until the 1st to let the world know you are participating. In fact, I would prefer you tell them right now.
Updates must be done at least weekly. That means the first update is due on Friday, January 8th. If you choose to update on Mondays, you will also need to post an update on Monday, January 4th, or Monday, January 11th.
You need to post a comment on the weekly reminder posts letting me know you have done your goal updates, preferably with a link to your update post. The link is not required, but it makes it easier for others to follow you. Although I will be visiting your blogs and commenting on your posts, I am using the update posts on this blog to help me track the challenge.
You have to tell one thing most other bloggers will not know about you weekly in your updates. For example, telling us that you were a Van Halen groupie in the 80’s or that you spent two years as a nun on a small island off the shore of Greece would do. Well, either of those or something as simple as your family has a tradition of wearing plaid pajamas to your New Year’s Day breakfast. I will give suggestions along the way for this.

Blogging is a fantastic way of staying accountable throughout your weight loss journey. If you want to publicise your blog (and you’re a real person, not a spammer from the far east looking for easy links) get writing and get commenting on other weight loss blogs. After all, everyone appreciates kind and helpful words from a stranger

A special running CD has been released – whatever next?!

Louisa — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:15:31 +0000

Last week, I was sat watching the TV minding my own business when an advert came up through the TV and smacked me right in the face. Well, obviously not literally but I was surprised all the same.

The advert was for a cd box set of 5 cds that is purely songs to go running too. 101 of them to be precise.

Now, a lot of them clearly are not my taste in music but my biggest problem is how the b****y hell are you meant to run to The Fray’s ‘how to save a life‘? It’s hardly upbeat and positive and if anything, the line “I would have stayed up with you all night had I known how to save a life” catches me in the throat every time as we spent 2 days by my grandmother’s hospital bed watching her slowly slip away back in 2006. P!nk’s ‘Who Knew‘ still gets me with the line ‘If someone said three years from now, you’d be long gone, I’d stand up and punch them out, cos they’re all wrong. I know better, cos you said for ever.’ Anyway, I digress but my point was that songs like that are hardly running songs.

If I am running, I like to listen to very noisy rock or even metal music with the exact intention of drowning out my thoughts because sometimes they can be rather loud. ‘Meds‘ by Placebo has a bit that just sounds like noise and it clears any bad thoughts from my head so I love running to it.

Why should you run to music?

Music can help lower your perception about the amount of effort you’re putting into your workout. It’s almost as if your mind and body separate, and if you’re into your music enough, you can ignore the niggling aches that would have bothered you when you weren’t listening to anything at all.
Listening to music as you run can help you develop a more effective running technique i.e. how your foot hits the floor and the follow through (take notice of the beats per minute)
If you match the tempo of the music to your pace, you can reduce the amount of oxygen you need by 6%! (source: www.runtothebeat.co.uk)

I don’t rate this CD very highly as I believe that you should create your own playlists that match your pace and ability perfectly. If you’re more of a placid jogger, running to house music isn’t going to help! Digital music players make creating your own playlists a doddle but if you really can’t live without this 5 cd boxset, you can get it from Amazon