How the Real Houswives of Beverley Hills are making me fitter

You might think it is because I am following some crazy diet plan one of the ladies is promoting.  You would be wrong.

You might think it is because I want to fit in to an outfit from one of their clothing lines so am starving myself until I do.  Nope.   Again, you would be wrong.

The Real Housewives of Beverley Hills are making me fitter for a very simple and basic reason.   I could also add that Marcella, Line of Duty, and a whole host of other TV programmes are all in on this fitness regime.

The idea is a simple one.  I need to lose weight, and get fit.    I also need to juggle that with being tied to my desk for ten hours a day and not really being able to leave the house for very long during the week.    This makes joining a gym or jogging around the park pretty tricky.   I needed to come up with a way of beginning to get fit that didn’t need any special equipment, didn’t cost anything and provided no opportunity for avoidance.

Step forward my new walking regime that ticks all those boxes.

You see from our back door to the front door is 20 steps.  I can do that in just under 25 seconds, so 50 steps in a minute.   Multiply that up and you get to 3000 steps in an hour.   There are roughly 2000 steps in a mile.  Ish, this is all ish obviously but for the purposes of my tiny brain it is a close enough ish to get me motivated.

So in the time it takes me to watch an episode of Real Housewives of Beverley Hills (or to be more accurate, listen to it as I am not really watching it unless I am walking towards the TV.  On one of the loops I am walking away from the TV so have to listen not watch, but let’s face it you don’t really need to concentrate) I can walk a mile.

I get to catch up on all the trashy TV I love and used to watch in secret on my laptop AND get my step count up.   It could be argued that telling me to turn the channel over is hampering my new get fit regime.  That I should be positively encouraged to watch TV for maybe four or even five hours a day.

I admit it is wearing the carpet in the lounge out but it’s hideous anyway so it is a great excuse to get rid of it eventually.  I can pay for it with the money I am saving by not eating chocolate or biscuits.   And I have never been a girl to get excited or motivated by teh promise of new shoes or clothes.   A handbag or a carpet however, oh hello.

I am also avoiding two foods I adore and that are my go to “I have missed breakfast and lunch and I need food NOW” grabs.    All the blood tests I have had recently have tested me for all sorts of things, one of which was diabetes.   I was sure I was heading towards it but the tests have shown I am not.  Thankfully.    But I have no cut them out of my diet (though I hate that word, I don’t believe in diets, I believe in eating healthily) and feel much better for it.

In fact I am almost a stone and a half down since I started.

And I can keep track of my steps with a Fitbit that my parents recently bought me after Caity and my dad got bitten by the Fitbit bug.  They kept inviting me to join in challenges but trying to keep up by using the step counter on my phone just didn’t work.  I would frequently leave the thing on a table so they didn’t register.   I really need the visual goals and achievements all the time to keep me going and this works brilliantly.

Walking this weekend, whilst not watching TV I admit, in London meant I won the family weekend step challenge.   So determined was I to win it just once I even made my friend, Mrs Cooke, (teacher, always called her that, long story) walk over a mile when I got us off at the wrong tube station and we decided to walk rather than get back on the tube to the right one.

Back at work on Monday though and I am back to pacing the hall and lounge.  I was pacing to the back door in the kitchen rather than the lounge but my still sizeable arse was tripping the automatic bin lid every time I walked by it.

  And have you seen the price of batteries these days?