My darling friend Louise (Arty Lou) introduced me to a Korean Bath House in South Brisbane and now I'm hooked.
If you feel the need to unwind for the bargain price of $19 ($16 concession) then get yourself over to Hotel Diana (across the road from the Mater Hospital) .
The set up includes a massive hot spa bath (and a nipple tweaking Arctic counterpart beside it). I cannot remember the last time I soaked in hot water up to my chin. Divine!
There is also a dry sauna that totally soothes the chilled out bones from this current cold snap.
You can also book a massage or any other sort of treatment to compliment your day of relaxation.
Sunday, 22 July 2007
Progress Report - Well, at least I'm fitter
Okay, so this hasn't been the easiest of years for me, and getting a dose of PVS right in the middle of my 12-week body overhaul program, NOT A GOOD THING.
The long and short of it is this ... I weigh more than when I started the program (1 1/2 kilos) and I'm slightly fatter (D'oh !!!). The good thing is that my health has returned to where it was when I started and I can now run 1 hour on a treadmill, so technically, I'm very fit.
I think that I'm less-flexible (joints-wise) than when I started as I have been doing little to no Yoga, despite my best efforts to get to classes I rarely manage more than 1 a week.
However, I have fairly consistently managed to work out three times a week and run on the treadmill for four to five times a week, and now I am achieving seven days a week, for an hour at a time.
Now that I have taken an early retirement from work (for at least twelve months) I have more time to put into my exercise program, which is what I have been doing for the last couple of weeks.
From next week I will be attending every Pilates, Yoga, or Body Balance (a mixture of Pilates, Yoga and Tai-Chi) that the gym offers (about 6 or 7 a week) in an effort to stretch and strengthen my exhausted and very tight muscles.
I'm taking a brief break from my PT sessions to re-assess my goals and will be back into training in about a fortnight.
I have re-hung the bikini and am I re-focusing on my goal
The long and short of it is this ... I weigh more than when I started the program (1 1/2 kilos) and I'm slightly fatter (D'oh !!!). The good thing is that my health has returned to where it was when I started and I can now run 1 hour on a treadmill, so technically, I'm very fit.
I think that I'm less-flexible (joints-wise) than when I started as I have been doing little to no Yoga, despite my best efforts to get to classes I rarely manage more than 1 a week.
However, I have fairly consistently managed to work out three times a week and run on the treadmill for four to five times a week, and now I am achieving seven days a week, for an hour at a time.
Now that I have taken an early retirement from work (for at least twelve months) I have more time to put into my exercise program, which is what I have been doing for the last couple of weeks.
From next week I will be attending every Pilates, Yoga, or Body Balance (a mixture of Pilates, Yoga and Tai-Chi) that the gym offers (about 6 or 7 a week) in an effort to stretch and strengthen my exhausted and very tight muscles.
I'm taking a brief break from my PT sessions to re-assess my goals and will be back into training in about a fortnight.
I have re-hung the bikini and am I re-focusing on my goal
BIKINI BY XMAS 2007
Monday, 16 July 2007
Veganism - Is it the new black?
I have decided to try Veganism as a lifestyle choice for a while.
I guess that's fairly confronting to a lot of you, it doesn't seem to be a particularly healthy life-style choice based on some of your personal experiences with food-related diseases, so I can understand if you think it's something dangerous for me to try.
It's not a decision that I've come to overnight, I've actually been thinking about it for a few years, I just haven't been able to see a way that I could work it into my life - perhaps I just wasn't ready to take the leap as it seemed so intimidating and I felt that I lacked the resources to do it in a tasty and successful way.
My health has been, I think we can all agree with this, fairly appalling over the last few of years. On my reckoning I have had 3 potentially life-threatening medical emergencies in the last 36 months, plus assorted other non life-threatening, but terribly annoying medical conditions.
I really don't understand why I have been so plagued by these conditions, but a part of me thinks that they could be stress-related. Stress is different for everyone, and the things that may stress you out might have no effect on me (such as mis-matched clothing pegs, and messy desks), whereas customers who insist on telling you every last detail of their computer problems long after you have solved their problems may not effect you but it sure as hell makes me want to scream at them "Put your computer in a box and send it back to the manufacturer! You're too stupid to own a computer!"
The other factor influencing my health is food. I think I still eat too much of the bad stuff (coffee, wine, processed foods, and until recently, meat). So I have decided to undertake a vegan detox for a while, ensuring that I intake two pieces of fruit, five serves of vegetables and all that I hit all the other nutritionally-related benchmarks.
I have bought a libraries worth of vegan cookbooks, all American unfortunately. Americans love the idea of convenience ... FAST FOOD. Everything in these books comes out of cans or is dried or pre-packaged in someways, and when you cook it up, it tastes like it's pre-packaged.
I have trawled Amazon's for some more interesting vegan cookbooks and will be purchasing a few more in the next couple of months.
Meanwhile, I dine two or three times a week at "The Forest" (Boundary Street, West End) which creates the most divine Vegan food that I have ever eaten, including a dairy-free chocolate cheese cake - which simply was the most amazing, delicious, and wicked thing that I have ever consumed. I ate it and then drove to the gym and ran on the treadmill until I had burned off 880 calories (that's calories, not kilojoules) which I figured should have covered the cheese cake.
I will do a separate post about my progress so far, it's a mixed bag.
Love
Kate
I guess that's fairly confronting to a lot of you, it doesn't seem to be a particularly healthy life-style choice based on some of your personal experiences with food-related diseases, so I can understand if you think it's something dangerous for me to try.
It's not a decision that I've come to overnight, I've actually been thinking about it for a few years, I just haven't been able to see a way that I could work it into my life - perhaps I just wasn't ready to take the leap as it seemed so intimidating and I felt that I lacked the resources to do it in a tasty and successful way.
My health has been, I think we can all agree with this, fairly appalling over the last few of years. On my reckoning I have had 3 potentially life-threatening medical emergencies in the last 36 months, plus assorted other non life-threatening, but terribly annoying medical conditions.
I really don't understand why I have been so plagued by these conditions, but a part of me thinks that they could be stress-related. Stress is different for everyone, and the things that may stress you out might have no effect on me (such as mis-matched clothing pegs, and messy desks), whereas customers who insist on telling you every last detail of their computer problems long after you have solved their problems may not effect you but it sure as hell makes me want to scream at them "Put your computer in a box and send it back to the manufacturer! You're too stupid to own a computer!"
The other factor influencing my health is food. I think I still eat too much of the bad stuff (coffee, wine, processed foods, and until recently, meat). So I have decided to undertake a vegan detox for a while, ensuring that I intake two pieces of fruit, five serves of vegetables and all that I hit all the other nutritionally-related benchmarks.
I have bought a libraries worth of vegan cookbooks, all American unfortunately. Americans love the idea of convenience ... FAST FOOD. Everything in these books comes out of cans or is dried or pre-packaged in someways, and when you cook it up, it tastes like it's pre-packaged.
I have trawled Amazon's for some more interesting vegan cookbooks and will be purchasing a few more in the next couple of months.
Meanwhile, I dine two or three times a week at "The Forest" (Boundary Street, West End) which creates the most divine Vegan food that I have ever eaten, including a dairy-free chocolate cheese cake - which simply was the most amazing, delicious, and wicked thing that I have ever consumed. I ate it and then drove to the gym and ran on the treadmill until I had burned off 880 calories (that's calories, not kilojoules) which I figured should have covered the cheese cake.
I will do a separate post about my progress so far, it's a mixed bag.
Love
Kate
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