get moving

I'm not giving anything away by letting on that the heroine in my latest book - RESCUING THE ROYAL RUNAWAY BRIDE - is a runaway bride ;). She literally jumps out of a ground floor window of a castle and runs across hill and dale in a pretty huge pink wedding dress in order to avoid marrying...well, a gorgeous prince, actually.  (But that's another story...)

I’ve never been a runner.  Or a jumper.  I have bad knees.  And low willpower when it comes to purposely inflicting discomfort upon myself. So apart from a strange aberration at the age of 10, I’ve never been a runner.  A lap swimmer.  Or a bicycler. Cyclist?  See I don’t’ even know the terminology.

The reason for my bad knees is years of dancing when I was a kid.  Because I looooove to dance.  In a club.  At a wedding.  Or in my kitchen with Bruno Mars slipping me some Uptown Funk.

I did Physical Culture (now Physie) for fifteen odd years.  I took Highland Dancing classes for three.  I was a gymnast (avoiding vault with everything I had, for its nothing but running and jumping and therefore the ultimate evil).

"Go Team Go!"

One of my first jobs was as a professional cheerleader. There was some jumping involved but the dance portion, and the pure fun, made up for it.  My team won a lot which helped.  And we got to travel – all the way to the USA one year.  So I coped.

Funnily, I never tried ballet until a couple of years ago - ballet slippers, legwarmers, the lot!  The flexibility and strength required, even from that first lesson, was mind-boggling.  It was truly hard. But those years of dance training as a kid stick so picking up the routines was doable.  And immensely satisfying.  My muscles thanked me for putting them through the wringer, even as they wept.

It's all about the outfit.

My favourite part of dancing was always the part where you stretch at the beginning and the end.  (The least runny/jumpy parts 😊.)

Imagine my state of pure bliss the first time I tried yoga.  Yoga is now my thing.  My bliss.  My time out.  My mental break.  No running.  No jumping.  Just lots of gorgeous stretching and stretching and more stretching. And then you get to lie down at the end for a really long time!

Yoga is the kind of purposeful infliction of discomfort I understand.  Not huffing and puffing and getting lactic acid itches in your legs and stitches in your side.  The kind where you feel your spine unfolding and your muscles sighing.  Where afterwards you feel an inch taller, and like you’re floating just a little off the ground.  Where you can feel oodles of sanctimony for having moved your body while at the same time sending “your positive energy out to your love ones and the whole world”!

Run as far and fast as you like, kids, no track coach will ever give you that 😉.

How about you?  What’s your favourite way to get moving? Do you love exercise or believe its the work of the devil?

(For those who are concerned about the fate of the gorgeous prince left at the altar by the runaway bride in RESCUING THE RUNAWAY BRIDE, do not fret!  He gets his own happy ever after in AMBER AND THE ROGUE PRINCE.)

The Problem with Yoga

Don’t get me wrong - I love yoga.  It is my absolute bliss.  I want to be one of those ninety-year-olds who can downward dog like a teenager.

 

Because I’ve always been more of a stretchy bendy girl than a runny jumpy girl and add the quiet, the strength, the ability to give my mind a much-needed time out and it is necessary to my life.

I’ve also been doing it so long now, that it actually works. And thank goodness.

Outside of yoga my mind is a constant crazy scribble.  A jumbled mess of appointments, memories, things I should have remember but know I’ve forgotten, current books ideas, new book ideas, kids stuff and so on.

Until the moment I step into a yoga studio and for a good hour and a half all that simply goes away.  My mind goes quiet.  My breathe evens.  And I am truly in the now.

Thoughts do happen.  And that’s okay!  Normal even.  One simply learns to accept the thought then let it go.  I like to watch mine float across my mind and out of sight like clouds on a windy day.

Now, here’s the problem.  What happens when the thought that I am meant to watch blow away is a pertinent plot idea for a book?!?!? 

I had that very problem last night.  There I was, lying with my legs up a wall as I began to wind down.  My brain filled with blissful oxygen.  My muscles all warm and tingly.  Getting my yoga on.

Image created by Freepik

Then BAM!  Idea.  And not just any idea, but A Very Important Idea That Will Tie My Entire Book Together.

It was the most truly odd sensation. (In the moment I likened it to drowning, drama queen that I am.)  My mind all floaty and soft, my instincts fought for all they were worth.

Instead of choosing a gentling mantra (inner peace, patience, good health etc) I was secretly chanting the bones of my idea (“Prime Minister, University Grant, Old Lecturer”) in my head, hoping all the while my yoga instructor couldn’t tell that I was totally cheating.  It was very stressful!

The moment Namaste left my mouth I ran to my phone, frantically typing down those notes, breathing a sigh of relief when done.  Phew.  Crisis averted.   

I think I need another yoga class just to get over the last one!

 
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Have you ever tried yoga (if not, you really should!)  Or is running more your bag?  What about Pilates?  Soccer?  Underwater wrestling?  Rescuing wine from a bottle? What’s your favourite way to decompress?

 

 

Challenging Oneself

by Bronwyn Jameson

I was a competitive person once, loving sports and trivia nights and TV quiz shows and writing contests, but I seem to have lost this personality trait as I mellow into *euphemism alert* "late middle-age".  At least that's what I thought until I examined this more closely.

Lately I've been challenging myself rather than others, which is another form of competition, right?

This started with my acquisition of a treadmill desk, which encouraged me to record my mileage walked and to build on this week by week.  Not always successfully but I am walking, in technical terms, a helluvalot further than previously.  My Fitbit tells me so.

I also found that walking while I worked reduced my desire to snack, unhealthily, while writing. That had become a nasty habit.  Which led to further examination of my eating habits, my mindless eating, my laziness in meal preparation, and my addiction to sugar...or sugar-loaded treats.

My 2017 challenge has been, if not to quit sugar, to be mindful of my intake.  To eat healthily day to day, week to week, and to keep the treats for special occasions.  Again, I'm not always successful, but I'm proud of my efforts thus far and my pursuit of the goal: to work more on "how I feel" and less on "what the scales say."

A couple of months back I added another challenge: I started a gym program based on strength and resistance training.  I am no gym junkie, that's for sure, and most weeks I only make 3 visits but it does make me feel good.   And by the time our 2018 ski trip comes around, I hope to notice the difference in my strength and endurance.   

At the moment I'm halfway through a two-week challenge with these amazing girls, making healthy meals and eating and living more mindfully and joyously.  The meal/eating part = success.  I'm loving these recipes, which are largely gluten-free, sugar-free and dairy-free.  The other parts = not as successful, as I'm flat out organising the household ahead of a two week trip to London.  

This involves a lengthy To-Do List, arranged within my go-to organisation tool, Todoist.  I adore this app, probably because it appeals to my latent competitive spirit,  granting various karma levels as one completes tasks and crosses them from the list.  As evidenced below, I am a Master.

Are you a competitor?  How do you challenge yourself with your writing, your reading, your everyday life?

I Have Walked One Hundred Miles

by Bronwyn Jameson

Last month I blogged about my new acquisition, a treadmill desk which I hoped would be the ultimate multi-tasking, time-saving tool: working and exercising at the same time.  Huzzah.  Four weeks later I am reporting, as promised, on how that is working out.

In order to report, I've been recording my daily stat's...although I didn't realise until a couple of weeks in that the default setting is miles and not kilometres.  According to the manual, I can switch to metric but since I'd started recording miles I decided to stick with miles.  Also, the Proclaimers' song is a jaunty walking singalong in miles, not kilometres. (Sorry if the title has created Scottish ear-worms!)

So.  My report.

I've walked while working on 20 days for a total of 60-and-a-bit hours, averaging 3 hours walking per day.  Fewer hours than I would like, so I am setting a goal of getting this up to 4 hours per day during May.

The good news is that during those 60 hours, I have walked almost 335,000 steps and 106 miles.  Hence the title of this post: I really *have* walked one hundred miles (and a few more) during April.  Cool, right?

My average speed works out at 1.76 miles per hour which is quite a dawdle.  My farmer husband says even sheep walk faster than this but they're not typing while they walk, are they?  Nor are they scribbling notes and pausing to consult the thesaurus and coming up with brilliant (or not) character motivations. Anyway...

According to the treadmill, my month of dawdling has burned a total of 4,618 calories.  Let me put that in terms we all understand.

Suffice to say that 4,618 calories is quite a few slices of cheesecake or scoops of ice-cream or pastries or chocolates but actually I've been eating less of these.  Partly it's the walking, partly it's the recording of numbers, partly it's knowing how far and for how long I need to walk to make up for the cheesecake.  I've been eating less snacky foods, drinking less coffee and sleeping better. Bonus: I've  lost a satisfying two kilograms without trying too hard.

It did take most of the month to reach a level of comfort with typing while I walk.  If I had been able to work at it every day, for several sessions every day, then I'm sure this settling-in would have been quicker.  But this past week I've been able to lose myself in the work, to not realise that I'm walking, to not notice that an hour or more has passed since I last checked the clock.

Give me another month and I will have this working-while-I-walk mastered.  That is the plan.

PS:  I've become slightly addicted to the numbers, to adding them to my spreadsheet and watching them add up, so I may continue recording for a wee while longer.

Walking While I Work

By Bronwyn Jameson

I don’t remember exactly how this came to my attention.  I think I may have followed a link from Facebook or Twitter which I bookmarked and promptly forgot about.  At the time I was quite happy sitting on my expanding backside while I wrote and read and internetted and watched TV and and and...

I really was sitting far too often for far too long.  Especially, when, as my sons kept telling me, “sitting is the new smoking.”  But I need to sit to get my work done, right?  Butt in chair, hands on keyboard, right?

Not necessarily. Let me introduce you to my new desk.  

Note to self: must tidy up those cords!

I would have included a picture of me walking while I work but that would have included pictorial evidence of that ever-expanding backside.  My treadmill desk has been operational for only a week, you see, and needs much more time to work it’s magic on my body.

My thoughts after the first week:

* Luckily it arrived before Easter when the handiest of my three sons was home.  There’s some weight in this baby so assembly was a two-man/woman job.

* To fit this in my office, I had to move my big desk out. I wanted to keep both – a small sitting desk and the treadmill -- but Son3 convinced me to go all-out so I wouldn’t slip back into the familiar routine of sitting all day.  I compromised by moving a comfy armchair into the corner.  (After he'd left!)

* I started out doing pre-writing tasks.  Outlining, planning, making notes and researching.  But I have started writing new words and that’s taking some adjustment. It is encouraging me to write “rough”, to get the words down without going back to correct typos (I make a LOT of those while walking) or to play with words and sentence structure. I’m thinking there isn’t room on this treadmill for me AND my internal editor.  A very good thing, yes?

* Writing notes on paper is even more difficult than typing.  Rough doesn’t even begin to describe the scribbling but, again, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  As long as the scribble is legible.

* Walking speed is slow: anywhere between one and two miles per hour while typing or writing and a tad faster when reading (which I’ve been doing this weekend, on my Kindle.)  I find 90 minutes a session about right and then I need a break.  In that time I do 7,500 steps so I'm killing the 10,000 steps a day thing.  I want to spend my entire working day at this slow amble – that’s the end point – but that’s going to take some practice and a better pair of walking shoes.

* One big positive: I’m snacking far less than usual and my coffee consumption has more than halved.  Water is my new best friend!

* A negative: woosiness when I get off the treadmill. Despite the slow speed, it takes me a few minutes to find my land legs.

* A bigger negative: you have no lap while walking and therefore no lap dog or cat for company. 

Early days but I’m optimistic this will improve my health and fitness exponentially and I'm cautiously optimistic that this will help, rather than hinder, my wordcount.   I will report back next month on my progress.

Question: how do you manage your fitness/activity level while putting in long hours at your desk job?    

Audio books - yea or nay? by Amy Andrews

So I've been walking (grumble grumble....) to try and get fitter and lose weight (again. Grumble grumble....) The thing is I really HATE exercise. And not the tough hard slog of it - although that doesn't exactly set my world on fire - but the sheer utter B.O.R.E.D.O.M. of it!

I swear, it's what puts me off the most. I know people who listen to music to help them through - never worked for me. I know authors who nut out all their plot issues and dream up new ideas while exercising. Not me. I spend the entire time thinking - god, this is boring, god this is soooo boring, dear god this is soooooo boooooring.

Yes. I am like a petulant teenager whilst exercising.

And then..... (I feel like I need a harp sound here)

Oh look....I found one!

I got myself an Audible subscription.

Best. Decision. Ever.

I've only downloaded one book (so far, but it is 64 hours!!) It's a book I've been meaning to read for about a decade mainly because my bestie has been nagging me about it for that long. And everyone in romancelandia adores it and now there's the TV series...well, I couldn't watch that without at least reading the first book in the series, right?

So - Outlander it was.

 And because it was a much anticipated read, I made a pact with myself. Its my walking only book. I am NOT allowed to listen to it unless I'm walking. I figured if I liked the book enough it will help with motivation. And, its worked a treat! Because I'm enjoying it very much.

Now, when I go for a walk, I tell the hubs, I'm off to Scotland.

Yes, I literally feel like I'm in Scotland! Much more so, I think, than if I'd been reading it myself which has been an absolute revelation. I  wasn't prepared for it to be such an immersive experience. I think its the passivity of it all. Being read to like this has completely freed my mind to go into the world of the book. Of course, I do this when I'm reading to myself too, but I realise now, that it's nowhere near as vivid. I think the process of reading itself occupies my brain just enough to make it an active experience and therefore roots me, even if only a little, in my own world. But with nothing else to do other than listen? I am right in the room as Claire meets Jamie for the first time and tends to his dislocated shoulder. I can see him and her (thanks to the TV series, its those characters I see). I can really feel the earthen floor under my feet, smell the fire and the stench of unwashed men and raw whiskey, feel the nip in the air outside and the palpable air of comrades in arms.

Of course I have to give kudos to the excellent narrator. Davina Porter is fabulous. Who knew a person could do so many distinct Scottish accents - male and female?? Maybe if she wasn't so good, I'd feel differently about the whole audiobook experience but, as it is, she's initiated this virgin with a very skilled hand! Or should I say voice?

The best thing? The walk goes so quickly and I don't even feel like I've been exercising at all. I just feel like I've been whisked away to Scotland!

I am a complete convert! Both to Outlander and audiobooks. Exercise not so much.... But I've found a way to make it bearable and that is something I NEVER thought possible.


What about you guys out there in the blogosphere? Have you tried audiobooks? What's been your experience? Do you think they're more immersive than reading yourself? Or is that narrator dependent?

My New Toy!

By Barbara DeLeo

I'm a complete sucker for new and shiny exercise equipment and I haz a new toy! Yes, I know those late night T.V ads can be as seductive as Joe Manganiello in boxer shorts, but this is different. It's not one of these:

or one of these

it's one of these

This is my Fibit. 

What's a Fitbit and why would I ever want to use one, I hear you ask? It's the perennial problem of WWB (writer's widening butt) which comes from hours spent in a chair when the only thing getting exercise are my fingers on the keyboard and my elbow as I shovel chocolate into my bouche.

So, what is a Fitbit? Well, it's like a jazzed up pedometer. I wear it all day, hooked to the waistband of my jeans or clipped to my bra, and it counts the steps I take, how far I walked and how many floors I climbed, but that's not all. It also monitors my sleep, helps me track how much water I drink as well as what I eat. Because it syncs with my phone I can see a whole lot of charts and graphs to monitor my progress which is really motivating.

Yesterday for example, this is what I achieved. The step info fell off the bottom of my picture but it does show the green line to indicate that I met my goal of 10,000 steps.

I can set my own goals and get little messages of encouragement sent to my phone and collect stickers for milestones met. I'm also in a Fitbit group with other writers where we have a leaderboard to show how many steps we're all doing. 

One of the really interesting things I can monitor is how well I sleep. I pop my Fitbit in a little wristband at night and it monitors how long I sleep and what the quality is.Not surprisingly,  I've found that the more exercise I do during the day, the better I sleep at night. See how my sleep was much better yesterday than the day before? The red line means awake and the blue means restless.

                                                       


















So, that's my Fitbit. I'm hoping that it doesn't end up in the garage like the Ab-Circle Pro or a glorified clothes rack like my treadmill.....Have you had success using exercise equipment at home? Thought of getting a Fitbit?