I thought I would call this little segment Lou’s Lifestyle!

Before I start just a quick disclaimer:  I don’t know anything more about health, weight loss, calories, exercise and diet than your average person and I really don’t want to upset or offend anyone – this is just something I am doing at this current moment in my life that I wanted to share on my personal blog to keep me motivated.

I have always been the type of person to dip in and out of fitness and healthy eating, I will do it for a while and get bored which was never going to get me anywhere but my weight always stayed the same so I didn’t see the point, I guess this was down to being busy socializing and working. Of course not  being able to  do much more than worry about everything happening in the world and stare into the fridge hoping that it holds all the answers for 4ish months, I’ve realised I can put on weight very quickly. I know I’m not the only one that has done the same during lockdown and that’s ok because my god has it been a hellish year for everyone and there unfortunately still is a lot of suffering. Whatever we can do to make ourselves feel happy and positive at the moment we should do it!

Let’s start with – it is not all about weight it’s about how you feel in your own body and that’s my problem I feel sluggish with hardly any energy which I hate. To add to that all my summer clothes are extremely uncomfortable because they are so tight and your girl hasn’t got the money to go out and buy a whole new summer wardrobe.

I want to document whatever the hell it is I’m doing on here because I have tried writing it down and I just can’t stay motivated – no one knows if you have a day off which then leads to a week off then eventually you’ve not exercised for over 3 months (aka me) so if I do a weekly type diary on here and its out there for the world to see I might actually stick to it and who knows you might see me really getting into it and I’ll realise my love for eating healthy and exercising!

Just a little bit about my overall health and fitness at the moment – I never exercise, I go for a few slow walks here and there and clean my house a lot lol which trust me can be a workout sometimes but other than that I do nothing. I don’t eat too badly, I think overall I have had 3 takeaways since lockdown began (honestly mainly because I’m worried about the germs lol). I make healthy choices, I eat meat on very rare occasion and try hard to get as many fruits and veggies into my system every day, I think I could definitely make more lunches and dinners from scratch and my downfall is probably big portions (I notice I have the same size portion as my husband most nights and he is 6ft 3 lol) oh and sweet treats!

I am starting this now because from today I have 3 weeks before mine and my husbands postponed romantic weekend away for our 1st wedding anniversary. The place we are staying has a hot tub and right now I’m wondering if I could even get into one of my bikinis. Three weeks is not a long time and realistically I won’t have lost much weight by then if any but I’m sure I will notice a bit of a difference even if it’s just in my energy levels and how I feel and not how I look!

I want to be honest and open on this blog, I do want to lose weight that’s why I am starting this but once I reach that goal weight that feels right for me I want to hopefully continue with a healthy active lifestyle.  I will post my start weight now but then won’t weigh myself again until the three week mark and then after that probably every 6 weeks or something as I don’t think it’s healthy to weigh yourself often its how you feel that really matters.

I have downloaded a calorie and fitness tracking app so I can find out my personal daily calorie goal.  In my next blog post about my first week I will put screenshots of a few of my days to show you the kind of things I’ve been eating and some of the workout videos I’ve tried. I will also talk about how I’ve found eating less and doing more and what I feel like one week on! Hope you follow me along for the journey.

My plan for the next 3 weeks – nothing crazy I just want to ease my body into moving again and change my eating habits slightly.

• Stick to eating nutritious foods under 1,630 calories a day as advised by the app according to my goals to help aid weight loss.
• Drink 8 glasses of water a day.
• Walk for 45-60 minutes 3 times a week.
• Follow a 20-30 minute workout video every weekday – can be anything from Pilates to HIIT. I’m hoping I find some routines I really enjoy and then will start to tailor them more to what parts of my body I want to focus on.

Yes I am giving myself the weekends off from the exercise part! That’s all I am going to stick to at the moment. I am not going to try a strict workout routine as of now, I think that would be asking too much of myself so I will just do whatever exercise I feel like doing that day as long as I’m engaging those muscles and getting my heart rate up for a good amount of time.

My weight now on the 24th July 2020 = 9st 5lbs !

I had to mention that I found this old print out yesterday from the scales at the gym I used to go to and was amazed when it was the exact date 2 years ago from today that I’m starting this! How crazy, It feels like a sign! As you can see I was 8st 2lb this is not my goal weight nor do I have a goal weight i’ll just know when I get to the point of feeling my best I’ll try to maintain it. I thought it was interesting to see the 2 year difference because that was when I was enjoying exercise going to the gym I’d say 3 days a week!

I hope I have covered everything and this all makes sense. Thank you for making it to the end of this post, not sure who will read this but if you do and have any tips or want to do this with me leave me a comment below and lets chat 😘