30 before 30: #11 - lose 5kg

When I came up with my 30 before 30 list, I thought achieving my 11th goal of losing 5kgs would be the hardest of the lot. Since my knee reconstruction, I had let my eating habits get the better of me and was no longer listening to my body about what it needed in terms of energy.

I am pleased to say that I'm down over 5kgs (WOOHOO!) and would ideally like to drop another 5kg to get smack bang into the middle of my healthy range (according to BMI).

I attribute my success to two key factors:

1. Sessions with my wonderful hypnotherapist... 

...who has helped "reprogram" (for want of a better term) my habits and behaviours with respect to eating. Seriously people, get yourself a hypno. Pronto!

I'm now eating (and, for that matter, living) much more mindfully and in the moment. I find myself listening to my body and more frequently asking if I'm *really* hungry, or just reaching for the biscuit jar out of habit. More often than not, it's the latter. There are no rules or calorie restrictions - it's all about eating when I'm hungry, enjoying my food and not over-eating. You can't get any more simple than that, right?! The changes I've made are both empowering and liberating, and I'm glad to be back in a healthy and sustainable head-space when it comes to my eating habits.

2. More moving!

I am close to half way through completing the Up & Running 5k program. This is the brain child of the brilliant Shauna Reid and coach extraordinaire, Julia Jones and provides a virtual training program  for women with the goal of completing a 5km run at its conclusion. I cannot endorse the program highly enough - the support and bonding of the women involved keeps participants accountable and, on a personal level, keeps me striving for success.

Although I have run a number of 5km runs (i.e. doing the course wasn't about achieving a distance goal), my times have been extremely slow. This is unsurprising given that in the past, I've done no more than about two training runs before every fun run. However, this time I've set myself a time target that I'm working towards and have a fun run locked in in mid-August.

In between my three running sessions per week, I'm participating in work-run group fitness classes twice a week and the odd game of basketball here and there. I realise that this is a lot of activity and am very carefully monitoring my body. I expected that I'd be feeling sore and run down as a consequence of all this moving (especially through this cold winter), but instead I'm feeling energised and very healthy. Win!

As an aside, one of the coolest parts of my three weeks of regular running has been seeing the definition that is developing in my thunder thighs. They are still thunderous, but there are muscles under the thunder. Muscles, I tell you!

Anyway, enough rambling. To sum it up, I'm feeling fit, healthy and positive - a good place to be when one is about to enter their thirties, me thinks!