Take the stairs challenge

The lovely Sarah over at Live to List posted at the beginning of January that she was challenging herself to take the stairs in January and I decided to join in. I live on the fourth floor with no lift so I do those stairs every day anyway. But there are also stairs up from the underground station near me and when I moved here I was walking up them every day but since then have gotten used to taking the escalator instead.

Of course, I then started the year with a cold, which was particularly bad in terms of coughing and not being able to breath properly. So I gave myself a pass until I was better. And then promptly forgot all about it. Luckily she posted an update last week and so I was reminded and thought I was better enough that I'd better get on with it. And then that evening there were no stairs for me because I ended up walking home. But I wouldn't have done that either if I hadn't been thinking about moving (I'm not really far enough along that I'm calling it exercise yet, for now it's just movement). On Wednesday I did take the stairs, so that was once at the main train station and once at the underground near home. Thursday and Friday I walked up the stairs from the underground near home and on Thursday I even did two flights at work. I normally do take the lift at work, where I work on the fourth floor, as I'm so often carrying piles of stuff but this time I had just one small file with me after collecting a signature from someone on the second floor so I just walked. I'm keeping track of this on my food tracking blog, because I suspect that much like tracking food, if I don't write it down I'll keep forgetting to do it. But I'm pleased with my progress this week anyway.

And very pleased at my weight loss - at my heaviest last April I had reached a point where stairs were starting to sometimes become a problem as my knees were hurting. Thankfully, the weight I regained between September and December didn't tip me back over into that 'knees hurt' weight but it was definitely one of the thoughts that helped to get me back to trying relatively quickly. I shouldn't have weighed myself until the end of the month but I was actually starting to worry a bit about whether I was even heading in the right direction because while I have done well with food planning the past week, there was also quite a bit of chocolate and the time while I was sick wasn't spectacular in terms of healthy eating either. So I was thrilled yesterday to step on the scales at see a THREE kilo weight loss. Only one more kilo to get rid of the regained weight. And an overall weight loss of 7 kilos since April. Taking the stairs might not seem like a huge deal but it's small things like that which can contribute the most, since they're daily occurrences.

The next thing I want to incorporate into my day is some stretching exercises in the mornings. I've intended something like this over and over so often but never done it. I even bought some weights last year and the only thing I've done with them since is stub my toe on them (and that more than once!). All just seems sort of overwhelming, when would I find the time, etc., etc. So, I decided to have a CD all lined up and ready to play and the idea is that when I get up first thing to go to the bathroom, I have to stop on the way back to the bedroom, press play and for the duration of the first song to some stretching exercises. I've chosen my Putumayo French Cafe CD (which I used to use as my housework music) as the first song is 3 minutes and 37 seconds long, which is about as much as I want to start with and it has a nice upbeat tempo and feel. We'll see how it goes. If I'm still inclined to head back to bed for another few minutes afterwards that's allowed but at least I'll have done 3:37 of movement.

Edited to add that really, one day what I want to do this full thing (and that part's just the warm-up!) - I have the record (yes, vinyl!) and the video (used to be my mum's but she was about as good as I am now about doing stuff like this) and it's just one of those things that has been in the back of my head for such a long time!