Week Four - No Pain, No Gain?

We all know that successful weight-loss is all about diet and exercise but sometimes I feel I concentrate far too much on the food and too little on the muscles. Earlier this week Starfish264 (Sue) and I were talking about her windsurfing holiday later this year and it reminded me how much fun I used to have windsurfing and canoeing back in the days before my weight crept up on me. For me, jumping on the exercise bike or cross-trainer is always going to be a chore - I will do it, but only to get the weight off and tone up as I get no joy from it at all - but does exercise have to be "No Pain, No Gain"?

So I've been thinking about other things I can do to boost the exercise half of the weight-loss equation that I might actually enjoy doing. As you all know by now I had a fantastic time skiing on hols and the improvement in my experience having lost 1.5st since last time out was incredible. Today I'm looking out at a beautiful sunny day and thinking racquets. . .I used to love playing tennis at school and we have enough room in the garden for a knock-about but DH is a badminton man so perhaps I need to look for a higher net and shuttlecocks instead.

And what about learning something new? We've been talking for a while about what we should do for our holiday this year and something I have always wanted to do is learn to scuba dive. The thought of shoe-horning myself into a wetsuit in full view of the public (and the number of weights they'd need to sink me) has kept it a pipe-dream for years but my confidence is growing and I'm seriously considering giving it a go this year!

Right, I'm off to dig my old badders net and shuttlecocks out of the loft. Have a great week all and let me know what sport you'll be going back to or trying out for the first time in 2009!