Author: Kate O'C

Dr. Weight Loss; or, How I Learned to Start Writing and Love the Pen

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I have to admit, this post has no intention of cleverly satirizing the fad diet by drawing comparisons between burning belly fat and the Cold War… I’m just a massive nerd and have been wanting to crow-bar a blog post into Dr Strangelove’s title for some time. And now I have.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve lost about half a stone in weight (just over 3kgs, for those of you who deal in non-anachronistic units of measurement). I haven’t gone out of my way to do so – I haven’t gone on a calorie controlled diet, or gone mad in the exercise stakes, but I have started blogging. I am almost certain that there is a direct correlation between these facts.

Yes, I'm a nerd. No shame.

Yes, I’m a nerd. No shame.

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Foxtrot Oscar: When ‘Competitive’ becomes ‘Aggressive’

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It’s confession time, chums. I played Touch Rugby with K-Ferg last night and did two things of note, neither of which involved scoring or assisting a try:

  1. Gave myself a touch of groin strain. Yum.
  2. Colossally overreacted to a man obstructing me by literally screaming “F**********CK YOOOOOOOOOU” in his face. Many eyebrows were raised.

I recently wrote a post (10 problems sporty girls will understand) where I stated that it annoys me when people, guys in particular, accuse me of being aggressive, when in fact I am just very competitive. My outburst last night however goes to prove that I can, on occasion, be quite aggressive, albeit contained to the sports pitch. But what I’m wondering is… why? Why does a competitive streak overflow from time-to-time and manifest itself as out-and-out aggression? Continue reading →

Kate and Katie go on the Rebound – Class Review of Rebounce London

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Last Wednesday Katie and I went rebounding. No, I don’t mean we hit the dating scene of SW11 hard… rather, we were invited by Missie Frank (dancer, choreographer and founder of Rebounce London) to try a new quirky, sweaty, bouncy exercise class. Being the intrepid explorers that we are, we duly signed up and ventured to Fitness First at Clapham Junction (I say ventured, one of us lives in Battersea and one in Balham so it wasn’t like we had far to go).

Both of us had trampolined before, and there is still a trampoline in the back garden at our respective childhood homes (though, admittedly they are mostly now only used by visiting younger cousins or for sunbathing), but Rebounce is something quite different – it’s fast, choreographed and done to the beat of a pumping playlist!

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10 Problems Sporty Girls Will Understand

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Here’s a popular one from the archives for you peeps – still as true as ever! We’d love to hear your #sportygirlproblems in the comments below or on Twitter

1. Your bedroom is perpetually in need of hoovering.

Especially if you play anything that involves wearing studded or moulded boots… Why is it so damn hard to get rid of every last bit of mud / grass / dirt? Or worst of all, these little blighters:

artificial turf

Whoever thought 3G pitches were a good idea has CLEARLY never spent entire weeks, post-training session, picking rubber pellets out of crevasses they hadn’t realised they had.

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2015 Goals

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Katie: I’m going to try and make myself accountable somewhere other than in my notebook so let’s put this year’s sporting aims out for all to see.

#1 3:29:xx at the London marathon.

#2 sub 21 5k

#3 do a triathlon

#4 tackle a century on the bike

#5 do this all whilst HAVING FUN (and sleeping more, going to work, having a super touch rugby season, eating well,learning Portuguese properly, eating less more raw cookie dough, not forgetting to do my physio exercises, icing, rolling, yoga, stopping buying kilogram tubs of peanut butter and eating them in like two weeks, doing my squats, drinking more prosecco, getting promoted, buying a new bike, getting the hang of tri bars, getting back to polo, saving some money….)

Kate: Alrighty, a few generic, but very serious goals to aim for this year. Here goes…

#1 Improve my attacking game when playing Touch. Relying on being good in defence is a cop-out.

#2 Go on at least three surfing trips. In the UK, or otherwise.

#3 Run my first half marathon. Probably begrudgingly.

#4 Get back to something resembling the fitness I’d attained by my final year of university.

#5 Try at least one new type of sport in earnest: Korfball? Murderball (wheelchair rugby)? “Real” Tennis? Soapbox Derby? Suggestions welcome!

She May Look Healthy But…Why Fitness Models Aren’t Models of Health

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A really interesting look at the other end of the modelling scale to my post on plus sized models (https://thesegirlsdo.com/2015/01/30/weighty-issues-loving-the-skin-youre-in/).

Time to strike the balance and promote health and happiness in fashion, sport and the media!

Tracy I's avatarFIT IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

ShayAs our regular readers will know already, both Sam and I prefer athletic values and performance goals to aesthetic goals, even when the aesthetic goals include “looking fit” instead of the old ideal of being stick thin.  It’s not because there isn’t something admirable about looking fit, not even because there is no accomplishment in looking that way. It’s because we distinguish between looking fit and actually being fit. And there’s a real range of body types among those who count as fit and healthy.

One less well known fact is that fitness models and people who compete in the figure category in fitness competitions aren’t actually at the height of healthy when they compete. By the time “game day” comes, they’ve followed a regime that no one recommending a healthy approach to fitness and diet would recommend.  They’ve eaten too few calories for the intensity of workouts they’ve been…

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Q&A with Kate and Katie (Part 2)

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Back for more are we? Really sold it to you with the Clare Balding love and egg hatred? In the second of our two-part, tell-all exposé, Katie reveals rather too much about her gross, old pants and Kate is thoroughly ‘smashing’…

  1. What would you always find in your fridge?

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Laughter: The best medicine

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I totally subscribe to the notion that exercise is a ‘miracle cure’ or, more accurately, a miracle preventative. It’s well documented and widely reported that the NHS would save millions of pounds annually if we all just got off our wobbly bottoms for a saunter more often (and if we PUT DOWN THAT NUTELLA SANDWICH, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STEP AWAY FROM THE REFINED CARBS, but that’s a different story). I love the way exercise makes me feel – maybe not at the time or immediately afterwards, but within half an hour there’s a real, physical warmth, along with a sprinkling of smugness, that tells me I’ll sleep well tonight. And god knows a good night’s sleep does wonders for one’s state of mind.

One of the big draws for Girls, and Boys, that ‘do’ is the sense of wellbeing that exercise brings. Levels of ‘happy chemicals’ like serotonin rise and a sort of non-awkward post-coital glow envelopes you. Who doesn’t love feeling good? There’s a hedonist in us all, it’s just that some of us get out kicks in our trainers rather than under the sheets or through a hypodermic needle. Each to their own though, of course. Here, I will make my confession. I have another love. One that pulls my attention away from sporting endeavours by tempting me with feel-good factors that even Mr Grey’s Red Room could only fantasise about. The name of my mistress? Laughter. Continue reading →

Bonus Tips for the Cycling Commuter

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Recently Katie’s been tempting you all with delicious morsels of advice on commuting to work by bike / by foot / via the gym – so I thought I would add a couple of tidbits from my own experiences in the world of London’s superhighways to this smorgasbord of tips and tricks… Okay, I’ll leave the grossly extended food analogy now. And possibly make a snack before continuing to write.

 

  1. Indulge in a liquid breakfast

Okay, so my morning generally starts between 6.30 – 7am, depending on what time I need to get into the office. Not being much of a breakfast eater at the best of times, the idea of stomaching actual food at this hour (especially before a 40min bike ride) fills me horror. Enter, my juicer – my pride and joy – and his wee sidekick, blender. Although I really struggle to force down a couple of slices toast without feeling a bit on the queasy side 20 minutes into my cycle, I seem to be able to knock back a freshly squeezed juice or smoothie without any associated nausea – hooray! Continue reading →