Getting On With It

First weigh-in after two weeks of solid exercise and food documenting. I think I pulled 10 sessions over the past two weeks, mixing it up with: weights program, spin class, boxing, Body Pump, and a personal-trainer session that I shared with a friend.

The result: 2.5kg down. I was talking on MSN the other day and an optimistic friend suggested: 1.25kg x 24 = 30kg = results blown out of the water = science.

Given that I'm aiming to reduce 20kgs in six months - it looks like things are on track.

I was also keeping a Food Diary. This detailed what I ate for the last two weeks. I posted it up on the Inthemix Forums ready to be slated. It served a binary purpose: one, a wake-up call that I have a long way to go with this, and two, to illustrate what I'm currently eating and keep myself accountable.

I plugged the results into Calorie King and I came out in the clear, but that's almost exclusively due to exercise - I can eat much better and will be aiming to do this. I'm still keeping the food diary - it's a habit I like.

But this isn't a weight-loss blog! (Yet). Work's going well - starting to get a better feel for my clients and becoming quicker at the day-to-day tasks. I thought my previous experience in this field would augur well for me - and it has to a degree - but I'm rapidly realising that I still have a long way to go down the digital media path.

How this path unfolds is still yet-to-be-decided, I'm still keen to pursue copywriting, but think I'll focus on my Masters for now rather than taking on any additional courses. The AFA AdSchool piqued my interest but the $2,000 price tag for a course was a little out of price-range. I think I'm going to gun for Award School in March next year - it's competitive, but I'm determined.

It's around this time of year that I start thinking about my tax-return too. How much will it be? What will I spend it on? Can I put it to good use? This answer I think I can. I'm setting it aside so I can go to Thailand in November to see two dear friends. Hopefully with all the kerfuffle going on I will be able to get a cheap flight. As I've mentioned in the past - I really need to bust my travel cherry.

I'm languishing as a 26-year old and the time to strike is nigh. Once Thailand is conquered I'm setting my sights on the UK. Ibiza in September next year, then a working holiday in the UK and seeing the rest of Europe.

Planning Marshwah is planning.

Socially things are humming along, Winter hasn't seemed to dull any of my friends' enthusiasm for going out and this Saturday I have a friend's birthday to attend. I'm keen to try out the cider I just purchased from Thorogoods. I got a mixture of six bottles - and two or three of them on the weekend ought to keep me chatty enough without going overboard. I'm in two minds about drinking given my new-found fervour for fitness, but controlling it seems to be better than abstinence.

A New Me

Right now I'm feeling a slight ache all over. It's not mind-numbingly painful, more the relaxed kind of ache you get after a workout.

Whoa- workout?

That's right. After a year and half of listening to my housemate and friend get in my ear about going to gym, I bit the bullet and joined. And I don't do things in halves. It's all-or-nothing in my world. And what a world it is.

Since coming back from holiday, I've done a program, personal trainer session, body pump class, weights session, and gone for a long walk. I started a thread about it. The crux of it being that if drop 20kg within six months - and keep it off - I win $200 bucks. There's some motivation.

More motivation comes via the fact there's shitty picture of myself at current weight (105.9kg last weigh-in). The vain part of me needs to deliver. I want to be looking good come 7th November - just in time for Summer too.

It's not all vanity, I want to start eating better. My current habits see me subsisting off carbs, carbs, and more carbs. It doesn't help that I'm ekeing out an existence in media-land and that the bread here is free, but my days for excuses are now extinct. I'm making myself accountable, for the next two weeks (and probably thereafter) I'm keeping a food diary. At the end of two weeks I'm going to open myself to the slaughter and post it on the web to my friends. Judgment day is nigh and all that.

I've been busy with uni as well. The major assignment was due on Monday. I had a debaucherous Saturday night that saw me belting out John Secada - Just Another Day for a friend's send off. This meant that I had to piece together my brain and smash out a two-thousand worder. No worries, I thought, and smashed out a thousand. Went to the work the next day (the temptation not to was strong), went to gym afterwards (I needed to get the endorphins going so I could write), and managed to smash out the other thousand.

I was quite pleased with the end-result, it's worth 60% - so I should bloody well hope I'm plased. What annoys me though is that I have to enrol in my next semester subjects by tomorrow - yet I still don't know how I've done this semester. I want to know the results to know if I'm capable of doing two subjects (full-time) instead of just one. I think I'm going to bite the bullet and just do two - I'm all about giving myself a challenge these days.

And another challenge has arisen, while browsing through uni stuff I discovered a scholarship for unfinished manuscripts. In case you've been hiding under a rock and/or are unfamiliar with my life I'm writing a book. And have an unfinished manuscript. Details about the scholarship are in the link but essentially it's aimed at young, Australian, unpublished writers - i.e. Me.

I'll be putting my thinking cap on and coming up with a killer application, but the whole process should be quite the learning experience - it would blow my mind if I actually won.

That's it for now. I'm doing boxing class tonight. Bring on the pain I say, it's good.