Eager Beaver

Ooh I am really enjoying having my own blog. I realise that I was after an outlet for my health and fitness  ramblings and my boyfriend, although he tries, soon gets bored of me talking!

Anyway I have just got back from a quick 30 minute run with said lovely boyfriend and did a few push ups and sit ups.

I also stumbled across this article on the Woman's Health magazine website http://dld.bz/3P2p it has a list of the best fitness foods for woman. I am pleased to say that I fairly regularly eat most of them and whats more enjoy eating them.

One of my friends has commented that I don't have any pictures of myself on here so to finish below are a couple. The first two are of me taking part in my first and only (so far) triathlon. It was an enticer triathlon, I think it went 300m swim, 12k bike and 3k run. I found it about right for my level but wish I had looked a little more graceful during it. The third photo is a 10k Cancer research run that I did with my dad at Jesus Green, Cambridge, England. Again not looking as great as I hoped and expected....maybe something else to aim for!

Food for thought

So I mentioned in my first post that I sometimes lacked motivation...my rest day unfortunately turned into two rest days! I also sometimes struggle to prepare properly. Take yesterday, I went round to my boyfriends parents, they have a pool, perfect for a few lengths, but I forgot my bikini top! 


Last night I went out for a few Halloween drinks, one drink turned into another and before I knew it I was waking up with a hangover. It got me thinking about the effect of food and drink on your body and how it effects training. It just isn't possible to train to your full and still eat and drink whatever you want. In order to train at your peak your body must be at its peak. 


I am already take a keen interest in my nutrition. Here are a few blogs and websites that I read regularly:
http://www.zentriathlon.com/ Also great for podcasts which I find great to listen to while running.
http://www.holisticguru.blogspot.com/ Some great nutrition tips
http://trimarni.blogspot.com/ Love her for her super healthy recipes and cute doggie pics


Here are a few tips that I have picked up on my searches to improve my diet, I am no dietician but they seem to make sense:

• Look at the ingredients list, you want to aim for fewer. I think the logic here is at the fewer indgredients the more natural a product is. 

• I try not to eat anything that has sugar in the top three ingredients, my understanding is that the list goes from highest percentage down to lowest therefore things lower down the list are less prevalent. Unfortunately there are many other things that can still be considered sugar here is a list I pulled from about.com:

Corn sweetener, Corn syrup, or corn syrup solids, Dextrin, Dextrose, Fructose, Fruit juice concentrate, Glucose, High-fructose corn syrup, Invert sugar, Lactose, Maltodextrin, Malt syrup Maltose, Maple syrup, Molasses, Rice Syrup, Saccharose, Sorghum or sorghum syrup, Sucrose Turbinado, Sugar, Xylose

• Eat as many vegetables as you like, although fruits are good they still contain a fair bit of sugar so don't go crazy.

• Try to have one vegetarian day a week and see if you can do the odd vegan meal. 

• Drink lots of water, it will fill you up to some extent, thirst is often mistaken for hunger, it will make you general feel healthier and when you are feeling healthy you are more likely to want to exercise (maybe!)

• Try to avoid white bread, pasta and rice in favour of wholegrain. As the old saying goes the whiter the bread the sooner your dead.

• Don't go more than about 3 hours without eating something. Have a mid morning/afternoon snack, just make sure its a healthy one. Here are a few things I like: humous (try a home made one) and carrot sticks, cottage cheese with apple and celery, trail mix (probably best to make it up yourself that way you can take it easy on the nuts and dried fruit and include plenty of sunflower and pumpkin seeds)

There are obviously many other things that you should consider when planning you nutrition but these are some that come to mind. Healthy eating seems to take a little more planning but shouldn't be too hard as long as you think about your meals. 

I hope to write a fair bit more on nutrition, I am constantly googling ideas and recipes and something I feel quite passionately about.

And lastly I just got my bike back that I had lent to my friend! :) Time for some summer bike rides.




Chubby Katie

Feeling tired

Tonight I ran home from work. I often do it and aim for about two or three times a week. Luckily I only work 5.7km (3.6m) away so it is quite do-able although there are a few gradual hills to slog my way up. I love the fact that I can usually get home quicker than on the bus and save myself $3!
I was feeling quite tired today, I think it is a consequence of a three week holiday with lots of food and drink and very little exercise. Still I made it in 42 minutes and will give myself a day off tomorrow.


As my training increases I believe it is quite important to keep a training log. I currently use the one on Runners World UK http://traininglog.runnersworld.co.uk/register I like the fact that its free. If anyone can recommend a more suitable one for triathlons I would love to hear about it.


I also want to mention my current running shoes. Today I wore my Nike Lunarglide. I got them for my birthday in September and must say so far I am really liking them. They are pretty light and I partly chose them because of the colour :). They are also very bouncy and padded which makes a pleasant change to my old worn out ones however I have currently been reading a little about the advantages of bare foot running and have to wonder whether the extra padding is very beneficial to my running style. More on this in later posts I think. In case you are interested these trainers came from a favourite site of mine www.wiggle.co.uk they seem to be cheap, ship all over the world and have a large selection.


Right now I am off for my dinner, tuna jacket potato I think!


Chubby Katie

First post - a few confessions

Hello and welcome to my blog. This is the very exciting first entry! I must start with a couple of confessions. Firstly I am not really that chubby - I would say more normal size, however I could do with loosing a few kgs after my recent holiday to England and Thailand. Plus I am keen to just get my body fit and healthy.

My second confession is that I am not a complete amature in sporting terms. I have so far done one triathlon, a number of fun runs and one charity bike ride. But it terms of an Ironwoman I am a long way off!

In case you don't know an Ironman triathlon is a 2.4-mile (3.86 km) swim, a 112-mile (180.25 km) bike and a marathon (26.2 miles  42.195 km) run. Each element is tricky enough without the added pressure of doing one after the other. So the aim of this blog is to chart my progress from a person who can at the most run 14km to a fit and toned athlete who can complete the above.

As I sometimes struggle with motivation I am hoping that sharing my efforts with you all with might give me a kick up the bum and shame me into exercise when I am feeling lazy. I hope to also include a few receipes that I pick up along my way (you cannot hope to complete the Ironman distance without some consideration of your diet), some photos of me at various stages of training and some reviews and suggests of gear that I test out. 

I welcome comments on my blog, any helpful advice or (constructive) critism is very much appreciated.

Well I hope that is a fairly interesting first blog. I must also credit my background image. Its from a website called http://www.bornskinny.com/ they have desktop wallpapers that I like to use to motivate me everytime I look at my computer screen. The athlete is Chrissie Wellington, she is great! Look her up. 

Chubby Katie.x