Image vs. reality
- Lorraine Browne
- Apr 9, 2018
- 4 min read
Well I’ve made it through another weekend, and it really wasnt so bad. The good thing about exercising a bit more and having a focus on eating healthily, it’s a lot easier to resist the temptations of eating junk and drinking myself into oblivion ever weekend.
It really helps when you start the day off right, and this morning I was up and at it for a PT session with my head coach Paul Parry from We:Bo at 9am. Today our focus was on completing a ‘Get Strong’ session, improving all round strength, posture, core stability and boosting metabolism. It really is amazing that after less than a 40 minutes workout, when I checked my fitbit just now it said that I stayed in the fat burning Zone until well after 6pm this afternoon and we didn’t go into the cardio zone at all although it felt like it at times. It s like the gift that just keeps giving!!
Cardio is short for cardiovascular exercise, which refers to endurance exercise that strengthens your body’s circulatory system (the heart and blood vessels). …Strength training is exercise that uses resistance to contract muscles in order to increase strength, boost anaerobic endurance, and build skeletal muscles.
Cardio
Helps to improve aerobic fitness and stamina
Helps to burn calories/fats
Usually the most convenient to do – go out for a run, at home; minimal equipment required
Strength Training
Increases muscle mass and tones the muscles
Increases metabolism and burn more calories round the clock
Like many other’s I’m not a big fan of Cardio workouts, but I really enjoyed todays Strength session. Knowing that todays 40 minutes has helped boost my metabolism and burn more calories round the clock makes it even better.
Something else really positive happened today and its the reason for the blog title ‘Image vs. Reality’. Now there’s no getting round the fact that I’m fat but today proved that it’s not as bad as I had thought. Should it be excess weight or any other part of our bodies that we are not happy with, it’s very easy to perceive yourself to be worse than you think.
When reading into this a bit today I found a great piece were someone said, “While weight can be quantified by a stepping on a scale, a person’s self-image is a more abstract thing,” “Our beliefs, past experiences, relationships, cultural context and behavior all play a part in how we think and feel about ourselves.”
So in my head I was still a size 24 even though I know I’ve lost a little weight I still saw myself as my bigger size. And I was delighted today to find out I’m a size 20 now, and I have my mother to thank for it. So cheers ma, you helped me out more than you know today.
So how’d it all come about? My sister-in-law to be’s henparty this weekend and I’m now looking forward to it just a little bit more. I think I need to give you a little back ground on this one and the larger ladies and gents out there will understand this one. When your bigger like me clothes shopping is a nightmare and fashion is not made with us in mind.
I’ve spent the last 15+ years not wearing jeans because they just don’t fit, and quite honestly look horrendous on me. Skinny jeans and all those other trendy cuts wouldn’t even go over my calves never mind up to the thighs. And even if I did get a pair big enough they’re so uncomfortable being wedged into them, I’d no sooner have them on till I’d have to get them off. Now there is also my nickel allergy and the back of metal buttons and zips do bring me out in a rash, but I could probably live with that if I wasnt wedged in so tightly with the zip and buttons fused to my skin. So I’ve spent years wearing leggings with dresses over them, comfortable and baggy and using the allergy excuse if anyone asked why I’m never in trouser or jeans.
One of my fellow bridesmaids has been organising hen party T-shirts and as soon as I heard this I declared myself out as it would mean wearing jeans. The odd one out again!!
Then this morning when coming back in from my PT session, my mum happened to say that I should wear something like my yoga boot cut workout bottoms along with the t-shirt to the hen party, as in her words ‘they really looked pretty good’. So that got me thinking – I knew at the back of the wardrobe there was a nice pair of black boot cut jeans that I’d never worn, so after some searching and holding them up for inspection I was absolutely certain they were about 4 sizes too small, and miracle of miracles they fit and there’s even a bit of wiggle room. Bonus!!!
So I guess the moral of the story is things really may not be as bad as they seem. Try things out, you might be pleasantly surprised – I certainly was today.
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