To pick up from the previous post, Santa had brought me a rowing machine for Christmas. During school and the dreaded forced torture of activities known as PE, and in particular when we used the gym, my favourite piece of equipment was always the rower. I've always had quite strong upper body strength, so even going for extended periods of time didn't knacker me to the point of wanting to jack it in.
I got around to doing 40 minutes of exercise on it (about as long as most standard American TV show episodes..) five times a week. From that I extended it to six times a week and overtook the New Years resolution average of three months of enforced exercise before giving in with ease. I genuinely enjoyed using my rowing machine. Right up until the point that one of the arms fell off. This was about seven months in at this point. I admit I didn't rigorously keep to the six days a week schedule, (and even had an extended break of about two months following some surgery on a mammoth cyst I unwillingly and unknowingly cultivated on one of my ovaries)but seven months was apparently all my Argos bought rowing machine was willing to give me before one of the joints literally wore out and the metal fell apart. Cue warranty arguments with customer services(we'd lost the box for a while before finding it after numerous phone conversations) until they agreed to replace it.
However, they didn't carry the same model anymore and the new one, which I am currently sat opposite of funnily enough, is evil. We don't get along. My dad fixed it together for me due to my lack of ability when it comes to fixing anything together with lots of screws and fiddly bits. But for some reason, the seat part sticks. I'll be beasting away and just working up a bit of a sweat, and the seat will jam entirely and actually throw me off. Comical I'm sure to bystanders but for me, after ten times of doing that in a row, it's a pain in the arse. So it has been retired. I would go through the warranty fight again but I've actually lost the box this time (you live and apparently don't learn).
So I have had to resort to using the family exercise bike for the last few months. Good for getting the heart rate going but not so good at giving me a full body work out. Not entirely to blame for my plateauing weight loss however. I have moments of an iron will when it comes to food. And moments where I have no will power whatsoever. I have a 'stash' (as my mother calls it) of chocolate in my room which has remained remarkably intact. I do dip into it every now and again but it's more when I fancy a sweet treat and have the leftover calories to justify it.
I have a system of 200 calories for breakfast, 500 for dinner and 700 for tea..and then usually about 200-300 for some sort of naughtiness which I work off with exercise. I know, not the cleverest idea. The snack shouldn't be there but I find it hard to not have a nibble of something nice during the day. That's my downfall. Nibbling things. A piece of cheese whilst I'm waiting for my brew, or a handful of cracker crisp things whilst I'm cooking dinner. That's what I need to work on. That's when my will power is at it's lowest. Or when I've been working and come home at one with a rumbling stomach and eat far too much in a sort of a haze. Mostly keeping within my 500 calories but turning a blind eye if I overstep the boundary a little.
That's where me and the rowing machine used to be a team. I'd consistently work off around 400 calories (by the machines calculator) whereas with the bike I'm entirely unsure how much 40 minutes clocks up because it doesn't work. Hence why, for the last three or so months I have hovered around the 14 stone 5 mark. Recently it even crept back up to 14 stone 8 but I refused to let that happen and beat it right back down again. Hence my starting this blog again. Yes just before Christmas when the calories will no doubt go back up (I refuse to count calories during Christmas week, it's just not happening). But I didn't want this to feel like another empty New Year promise to myself.
I will endeavour to either find my rowing machine box or have another shouting match with Argos and get my arse back in gear and my rower back in shape so, post festivities, I can get back on that wagon.
...Maybe tomorrow.
For the moment though, good boo.
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