Variety in the Workplace

At my place of employment, we are predominantly all women. We range in age from early 30s to late 50s, with a mixture of younger university students thrown in for good measure. Keeps us youthful and on our toes! We also have the mother hen, or a few of them - looking out for us younger ones, and keeping us on our good morals! Haha. While there are many things that bind us together, the one thing that seems to be a common interest to all of us, is our health. We are all rather focused on improving it, in one way or another - but that is where the variety is thrown in. We are all our own people, with our own opinions. We give each other tips, some of which we listen to, while others we choose to ignore. Some of us are extremely thin already, could eat as much as we want (not me!), but are vegetarian. Some of us are on the heavier side, always trying the next thing. We have Weight Watchers and South Beachers. We have detoxers, and fitness buffs. We have master cleansers, and the Jillian Michaels fanatic. We have all sorts. We have aerobic instructors, non-exercisers, and one girl who hadn't run one step up until last year, who is now going to run the 10K.

Where do I fit into this? To tell you the truth, I've done all of the above, with even more thrown in (Atkins, Body For Life, Cabbage Soup diet, Denmark diet, 5-factor, and now the Dukan). I mentioned before, they all work - but some are more maintainable than others. We'll save that for another post. But for me, my strength throughout everything - what has kept me at my current weight, or thereabouts, is FITNESS. And when I look at the women around the office, the ones that have the least problem with weight gain - are the ones that exercise regularly. They also happen to be the ones that don't 'diet' but just eat healthfully 90% of the time. (They are also the wine drinkers, coincidently!).

With Dukan, we have encouragement to exercise daily. I need to read the book for sure to get his full opinion on fitness - but for me, I know that I require more than a 30 minute workout a day. In a way, I'd rather be at my weight and be able to run 10Km, then to lose 10 pounds. That's me. My favourite quote, and I have no idea where I heard it, is;

"Diet to look good in clothes. Workout to look good Naked." 

That is obviously not my main reason for working out as much as I do, but it's a good bonus! I was happy to read on the Dukan Uk site the story of the Marathon Runner who had great success on Dukan. It gives me faith that an athlete can succeed on a low-carb diet such as Dukan. She's amazing! Such an inspiration!

So, I think that I will keep my workouts as what they are, and esteem for more. I will run the 10K race this Spring (my first), and next year, my goal is to run the 1/2 marathon. And hopefully, the Dukan will help me all along the way. Hopefully, as my weight goes down, my speed will go up. Although I've never really cared much about how fast I went. I'm just proud of the fact that my body, the one I thought of completely non-athletic the majority of my life, can now run as far as it can!

What's your take on the Exercise component? How often do you exercise? Would you rather do without it? 

Exercise Log for today: 
3K walk
Step Class (1 hour), mixed with some weights
25 minutes on the Precor

Meal Log: 
Breakfast: Eggs with Chicken bacon
Lunch: Canned turkey mixed with cottage cheese
Snack: yogurt (2)
Dinner: More burgers (turkey mixed w/ beef)
Snack: Oatbran porridge w/ yogurt

Note: I've done two days of just protein, to see if that will help with shedding those I gained last week. I'm a little scared to weigh myself, so haven't. My tummy feels flatter though, so that is a good sign. But it's been a no-go in the loo. Here's hoping!