That's my neck gone again

I felt it go whilst I was in the gym, luckily because I recognised it, I went and found one of the PT's and got him to crack it. And wow, did it crack!!  I think that has stopped it working its way up from between my shoulder blades, up to the back of my skull like last time. 

I decided I would take a week off cardio and just do weights and yoga, as I feel like I have hit a plateau. Its been a while since that has happened, but percentage body weight wise
now, every pound is so much more!

I can feel the muscle under my scapula knotting up now, I rode Millie quite hard tonight and she isn't the kindest to my shoulder blades at the best of times!!!

A pound for my sins, whatever they may be this time!

Yep, I still gained a pound at the weekend.  How I am ever going to sustain a weight is beyond me! I can consume around 1800calories whilst being active (not gym) and still gain?? I think I must be missing something.  As a guesstimate, my maintenance calories should be around 1890, no idea where I am going wrong, but I do know that my maintenance diet woes should keep this blog going well beyond getting married! 

I have no idea where I am aiming for weight wise, I like the idea of 133lbs (9.5 stone) but if I get ere and I'm still not happy then we will see, and on the flip side, if I am happy before I get there then I will stop. I think I am more interested in body fat than weight though, as this is a more defined measure of health in a way. 

Not got much to share today really, I'm so busy sorting stuff for the move and working that I don't have much time to think! I am in the process of ordering a load of Nakd bars online so that I can try the different flavours!

Do you need a hand with that?

Samuel decided that he was the logistics supervisor today,in charge of operation house move, cheshire style.

The casualty in todays little adventure is my back.  Expectedly of course, and Idont think its anything horrific.

We moved a load of our stuff today and it has given us an idea of how much room we will have, or how little is probably closer to the truth.  Thats fine though, cozy is a good thing!  And think of all the beautiful money weare saving!! 

I stuck really well to the diet this weekend, will be interested to see if that is reflected on the scales tomorrow!  We are also onto day 7 of our sleep hacking mission and its going really well.  I'm not sure I am even going to push it to 11, as I feel like I am getting so much done with just the extra half an hour! 

Time to watch Troll Hunter with Tom. I shall leave with a beautiful little shot from this afternoon 

The move is on

We have started to pack our stuff up to move to the 'west wing', as Tom has started affectionately calling it, next Saturday.  We have packed up a load already and we are shifting the brunt of the big items today.  Should burn a few calories!!

I've been a busy little, make stuff from scratch bee.  I tried out making my own cashew butter. You start by roasting them, and then blend away!! For AGES! You have to keep stopping the blender so the motor doesn't overheat and you also have to keep pushing the nuts back down from the sides and scrape the bottom to loosen the mix up. 

This is how they started, post roasting.  I may have toasted them a touch too long. 

After quite some time, its starts to turn into a thick, dry consistency, but this is quite a way off the finished thing.  When its like this, it constantly rolls itself up into one ball so you have to keep breaking it up.

At one point I actaully thought that that was it.  And then all of a sudden, it did this: 

I stopped at this point, but it is still quite thick, so I am guessing that I could've carried on a bit but I wasn't sure if maybe it was because I toasted them for a little too long. 

Whilst we were sorting our stuff out, I found an old dress of mine that I wore to a couple of weddings.  I thought I would try it on before deciding what to do with it. Bearing in mind, this dress was incredibly fitted the last time I wore it, I was really quite surprised.  I thought I would've had a picture but I couldn't find one. I have actually cropped my head off because I look like I've been dragged through a hedge backwards!! 

Not the best look, but wow, its unbelievable how big I was without realising!

We went to the rugby super league final yesterday evening.  Was a really good night and I resisted a pie and a chocolate bar.  Quite proud of myself!

First move day today, lets see what I manage to injure!! 

It's official

Weighed in at 140.8lbs once again, which I then translate into it being a genuine weight rather than a fluke!!  I get the feeling that the next stage in my weight loss is going to be tough! I don't know how much truth their is behind the shared 'knowledge' of well established weight being harder to shift! If it is true, then the next few pounds have been on for 50 of my life, so that's gonna hurt! I suspect it is in fact a load of rubbish, it's just the well established fat is there when you aren't a massive buffer so the weight loss is slower anyway as it takes more than just stopping eating crap to shift it.

Finally, the car has arrived.  What a palaver; it took the delivery guy an hour and a half to do a 20 min journey and all the phones were down at the dealership, so I had no idea what was going on.  Consequence of this being me tearing a strip of the delivery guy! I haven't been that fuming for such a long time, I forget how much I hate it!

Lunch today was amazing and came in at 154 calories!! This wasn't my intention and I made sure my breakfasts took up the difference! It was Ecuadorian organic king prawns with roasted veg.  I had a double dip banana smoothie and my normal toast etc before the gym.  I put plenty of oats in the smoothie to increase the calories

There we go, all stages! Look at those lovely prawns, fresh out the pan!! I had some cabbage too, forgot about that.  It was something with a fancy name, cabenero negra or something like that. I can't recommend these organic king prawns enough, they are taste amazing!

I also had my obligatory nakd cocoa bar to keep me going and then ended up buying another one in the supermarket on the way home because I found a diff flavour.  Cashew cookie, just cashew and dates. Mmmmmm

The gym today was a little fragmented, I didn't feel like killing the bike and then I just couldn't get comfy on anything.  Tried a couple of different types of cross trainers and I absolutely hate them!  Managed half an hour cardio in dribs and drabs though.  Finished off with some upper body and stretching. I can do 5 pull ups with a 10k assistance now, so near yet so far!!!

I am currently having a painful spell again, was alright all day and it has kicked in again tonight. All up my forearms and my knees, oh the infinite joy.  I have had a bath yl relax myself whilst Tom play on GTA 5, his latest obsession!  We all have them!

Lunch tomorrow looks utterly yummy yet again, more calorific than today though as there is a piece of salmon along with the veg.

Asparagus makes the cut yet again.  As this is fairly high calorie and I don't know what I will manage in the morning at the gym, depends on my pains, I need to watch my second breakfast so I am going to have egg whites and cottage cheese.  Seems like ages since I last had that!! 

Sleep hacking is still going well, I do keep getting a low level dull headache, but I think that is more to do with my hormones! 

Well, that didn't quite go to plan

Went to pick up my new car tonight, did all the handover etc and came to drive away in it and its engine wasn't idling properly. I have had to leave it behind to be looked at tomorrow, little bit gutted but it looks amazing!!

I weighed in at a mere 140.8 lbs this morning, almost the lightest I have been in my adult life! So chuffed, as much as I bitch and moan, I have to agree that every so often you have to have some time off! I just did some walking on the treadmill this morning and some stretching as I had really bad stomach pains, these have grumbled on throughout the day on and off.  Could be anything with me, it doesn't take a lot to set me off!

Have done my weight loss pics, going to put them on here as well as stats page so they don't get missed

These are all 1st pic Jan (apart from back which is August) 2nd pic Sept and 3rd pic this time. 

I have lost this month:

Hips - 1 inch

Waist - 1 inch

Thigh - 1/2 inch

Bicep - 1/4 inch 

Pretty chuffed with that. I can see a huge difference on my sub scapula fat just from last month and I'm sure its all the stretching that Martin has had me doing, freeing up my shoulder blades and working them properly! 

Another one of my mates told me that Tom and I are what has motivated him to get fitter and slimmer! That's my 3rd fitsporation achievement, I'm made up! I feel really proud of what we have both achieved!! 

Sleep hacking is still going well, feel alert and switched on most of the day too, feeling positive about this! 

Day 2 in the sleep hacker household

We are onto day 2 of the sleep hacking mission.  I am currently asleep for 10.30 and getting up at 5am everyday and so far so good.I feel a little bit shattered on and off throughout the day, but nothing major and it does pass. Plus, the extra stuff I can get done with the extra half an hour is only driving me to carry on with it!

PT session was good yesterday, I was a bit stiff but not too bad and martin gave me a load of new exercises to do.  My forearms are quite sore today though, it keeps feeling like someone is forcing their fingers in between the muscle fibres!  I think that is from the front squats as there is quite a bit of strain when holding the Olympic bar in front and forcing my elbows upwards.  I will be interested to look back through my blog posts too, to see if this pain coincides with the last time I got pain all over due to hormones.

I braved weigh in today, wasn't too bad, body fat was up by .2% but my weight was down by 3lbs.  My height wasn't the same as last time so that puts the percentages out.  Better than I thought though. Photos and measurements in the morning!

I've been looking for alternatives to my piece of toast that I have pre gym, I wanted something other than the bread that would keep me going.  I found some alternatives, but technically its still bread! I do like to mess though!

Sainsbury's FreeFrom bread and some other random rye bread that looked yummy.  The free from is only 85 calories per slice, but that's because they are tiny!!

There we go, toasted and ready to go! You can see my Nakd cocoa delight bat in the background too.  This is my snack for the day, I made some of my own but they just don't save enough money to make it worth while, they take quite a while too and everything is really hard to clean afterwards! 

Smashed the bike at the gun today, only did 30 mins, but 10 mins of that was standing and it killed me!! Spent 45 mins stretching off afterwards and felt great.  It is now 8pm and I have got to add the finishing touches to the soup that tom has just made and I need to empty out my car, I pick up my new one tomorrow !! Woooo. 

Let's see if I have managed to get my weight back down to it's lowest again tomorrow!