Oh, how I love the winter! I really love everything about it from the dark mornings and early nights to filling up on wonderful stews and bangers and mash. Walking in the spring and summer is OK I guess but nothing, NOTHING fills me with such joy as getting out on the hills on a freezing cold and misty day knowing I have a big flask of cocoa and a weighty flapjack to keep me going until the light starts to fade. I’ll be posting a lot more now my favourite seasons are here just so I get to use the words ‘snow’, ‘frost’ and ‘bitterly cold’ as often as I can

Walking for 2 hours a day is a very good thing – if you can motivate yourself to do it every day that is. Walking for 1 hour a day is also good – even better if you can stick to a consistent and regular routine. Walking for no hours a day is a bad thing as I’m finding out as my weight loss slows right down and my energy levels slide to the floor.

I still have the bad chest thing going on which has severely curtailed any kind of exercise but that’s being treated with inhalers and steroids so I should be on the mend again very soon. I certainly can’t let it affect me for another 3 months or I’ll be in danger of never leaving this bloody house again. I can’t say I’ve missed the very early walks if I’m being brutally honest – work is taking up so much of my time these days that I’ve settled much too easily into logging on about 10am and not logging off again until 2am the following morning. I still have sooooo much to learn about my new career and if I’m not actually working on client projects I’m reading up on industry news, learning about a new aspect of online marketing, catching up on forum and blog posts, trying news things, trying to understand other things, trying to catch up….

It struck me yesterday that I couldn’t remember the last time I had a proper “day off” – as in not being online, not reading up about SEO, not doing SEO, not reading emails and articles about SEO. It may have been Christmas Eve but I’m pretty sure I was working on something that day too, I certainly was on Christmas Day. I need to start spending time away from the laptop and work if I’m going to properly recharge my batteries on a regular basis and being out on the hills has always been a fantastic way of doing that for me. It’s so lovely up here at the moment with the daffs out and the trees in bud that I’m going to start walking again for at least 20 minutes a day, every day, and see how that goes. It’ll have to be on the flat and I’ll need to carry my inhaler but at least I’ll be outside and away from the PC for at least a few minutes a day.

Goodness, it seems a long time since I wrote anything on this lovely blog…..the main reason being that I haven’t been walking anywhere at all, which is bloody frustrating. My chest hasn’t been great since Christmas but seemed to get worse around the start of February. Not being the skinniest person in the world, I’m used to getting out of puff after a bit of exercise but I then started to have difficulty breathing after I had stopped – getting worse and worse after about 10 mins and I was starting to take up to 30 minutes to fully recover and breathe normally again. Then, about 2 weeks ago, I had what I realise now are a couple of big asthma attacks in the space of two days – one of which occured in public and was really very frightening, for me and the first aid man involved So, back to the doctors again to finally be diagnosed with ‘exercise-induced asthma’ and to have my peak flow confirmed at 290. I know nothing about asthma but the doctor told me that was pretty poor so she gave me a course of steroids and an inhaler, both of which have made a huge difference, but my peak flow remains at 290 so further tests are required to see why I’m not up around the 400-500 mark as I should be. Walking is on the back burner until things are sorted but I hope to get out and about on the hills very soon – I’m dying to walk in the Peak District this summer so that’s something to aim for.

It’s been about a month since my last post and I think I have walked precisely 0 miles since then It’s not for want of trying, but I can’t seem to shake off this stupid bronchitis which is making even the shortest journey on foot a bloody ordeal. Another visit to the doctor this week should confirm whether there’s any improvement and when I can start seriously walking again.

However, despite the (forced) lack of exercise, the losing weight bit is going brilliantly well. After a shaky start in the New Year, I went back and re-read Paul McKenna’s “I Can Make You Thin” (ICMYT), and caught the repeat of the series on LivingTV. Like regular walking, I knew this worked because I successfully lost a stone very easily on it last year. Also, like regular walking, I knew it wouldn’t work if I slipped back into my old ways of over-eating/bingeing. As an emotional eater, I know from bitter experience that ‘diets’ don’t work – it isn’t about the food I eat, it’s about how I act towards the food I eat. Limit me to 1500 cals a day and they’ll be gone by 10am if it’s a bad morning. 25 years of almost constant dieting has made me heavier than I’ve ever been with such a twisted attitude that sometimes I literally don’t know how to react when left alone with food. Pretty sad, eh? What I like about the ICMYT/NLP approach is that it forces you – gently – to change your behaviour in a very simple way. Bottom line is eat when you’re truly hungry, eat slowly and conciously and stop when you’re full. I don’t know why it’s clicked with me, but it has – I don’t argue, I just enjoy feeling like a normal person for once. Although I can eat what I want (as long as I’m truly hungry), there’s a big round tin of Kitkats, Swiss chocolate & pecan fudge in my kitchen and a packet of custard creams in the cupboard (along with lemon sorbet in the freezer and cheese, hummous and luxury yoghurt in the fridge) but I don’t want them. It’s not willpower, I just don’t want them. I’m genuinely not hungry. I can’t describe why I don’t want them, I just don’t. It’s a nice feeling

As an aside, knowing that McKenna does wonders with other problems, I used his tapping technique before going to the dentist today. To say I’m frightened of the dentist is an understatement (the last time I went I was so hysterical he advised psychiatric treatment before returning) so I wasn’t looking forward to it. However, the tapping worked, I felt calm and relaxed and I even laughed while in the chair.

Unheard. Of.

Goodness, it’s *checks watch* the 17th of January which means I have done approximately 34 hours of exercise since New Years Day! I’m still holding out about the not weighing thing but my clothes definitely seem a bit looser, especially around the middle.

Due to a wheezy chest I’ve been mainly keeping to flat ground but yesterday I went for a much anticipated walk up Pendle Hill. Starting off from Barley at 8am, I finally reached the top about 10am. It was a blustery, drizzly day and I really struggled at times on the steep path to the summit. I wore my new size *mumble* bright pink look-I’m-a-proper-walker Regetta coat and I even managed to get it zipped up all the way up which was handy considering the weather conditions. I still haven’t got round to buying a good pair of walking trousers so I ended up wearing some linen things which I managed to ruin within 20 minutes of setting off by sliding on some mud and ending up on my arse.

Ate a granola bar on the way up but wasn’t really that hungry until the second I changed my clothes in the loos at Barley when I could have suddenly ate a scabby cat. Luckily I found a little cafe so I was able to snaffle a bit of breakfast – scrambled egg on toast has never tasted soooooo good. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera which is a shame because despite the drizzle the views were as breathtaking as ever.

The one that gets you moving everyday of course. I’d love to think I could spend a couple of hours in the gym each evening, or play netball twice a week or train for the London marathon but I won’t and I’ve finally stopped wasting money on gym membership and running magazines. Like many people, I’ve grown up believing there is a magic formula to weightloss and the fat will just melt away if I stick to my alloted calories, points, syns or carbs/proteins and exercise to a schedule devised by someone who has never met me. Such is the grip of the diet industry, it has become perfectably acceptable to live on breakfast cereal or liquid shakes all day or waste hours in front of the tv jumping along while some C-List celebrity shakes their arse in your face. Sometimes, it takes years of failure and let downs before you realise that eating a bit less and exercising a bit more is all it really takes.

I choose to walk because it’s something I enjoy and can stick at. I’m lucky enough to live in a little town surrounded by beautiful fells and moors, canal paths and city walks so I get the variety I crave and the chance to explore places I’d never think of going to in the car. I can roll out of bed at 6am and chuck a coat and boots on and get out on my own for a couple of hours and it feels great, and well, it just feels like the most natural thing in the world to do.