Melbourne Dairies #1

There are so many times that I started writing about Melbourne and couldn’t finish the post as i get lost in the memories it gave. Today, i atleast want to start this series. These days i keep feeling that I’m dumping all my sadness and pain into this blog but not collecting any of my good memories, the happy ones. If i keep on doing this, one day, when i look back at my blog, all I’m going to get is a recollection of sad memories. I don’t want that and so i made my mind to post atleast one happy post a week. No matter how small or big it is. So, it is a gloomy but happy post today. 😄 It is raining while i started for office. I have always loved rains. I’m a July born and being in a small town for most of my life, i have never known the ugly side of rains until i came to the city. And then, I started hating rain .. that is until i met them again in Melbourne. Melbourne is a weird city. Before going there, i have read that one can see all 4 seasons in one day. I thought it was a bit exaggerated. But no, Melbourne is that way. It will be all warm and sunny when you wake up and it will be drizzling by the time you leave for office and by lunch it will be windy and by evening the chill comes back. 😉 It is like that. And the most important thing is, the weather isn’t harsh over there. And the rains, oh water comes down too sharp unlike the rains here, but the weather becomes all too pleasant when it rains. I just loved it. Watching Fidaa after being drenched in the rain is my most wonderful memory of rain in Melbourne. I think it is an amalgamation of all the things that i loved. I love rains. I love singer Rain. I love Melbourne and i loved the movie. And those long walks in that windy weather and occasional drizzles, they are just too good. I cannot wait to go back. To me, Melbourne is love and peace. At a time in my life when all I had was pain and sadness, was depressed and low, Melbourne gave me love with all the ☀️ sunshine in the world. It gave me the courage to face the world despite how messy my life is. To smile at strangers, to talk to people again, to introspect, to write, to heal, to recover, and to just be myself, it is all Melbourne that helped me. Before 2017, if anyone had told me that cities have life too and that they mean something to people, i would’ve laughed at that dialogue. But now i realise how true it is. I know what it is like. When a place gives you love and hope for future, you will love it back. The live and vibrant Melbourne will always love anyone who loves it back. It is this introvert’s paradise. One day, i will be back in Melbourne, to be there forever. 😘😍😎☺️🙏😄.

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The 30 day walking challenge – Day 2, 3, 4 & 5

I actually thought it would be easy to work out/walk on a week day rather than on a long weekend. I was so wrong.
October 2nd is a public holiday here in India and that makes this weekend a really long one. But you know what, against my strong belief, I walked on all three days. I’m so proud of myself.
October 2nd – Day 2 of the challenge
My first day’s effort, the blog post and responses to it worked amazingly on me. I was motivated and active throughout the day and there isn’t one dull moment. I cleaned up my room, did laundry, watched recent episodes of grey’s, scorpion and Castle and even went out to watch a movie. I thought I will be back by 8 and I can walk for an hour after that. But why will they be called Friends if they let you be on schedule. We were shopping, walking, window shopping and doing what not in the mall and I didn’t even see any sign of me leaving anytime soon. I can’t blame them for that as I was never the one to leave early and they thought I was joking when I told them that I have to leave to do my walking challenge. But as time went on, my temper really went up as I was so unhappy at the thought of failing at the challenge. And then, this idea popped up. I was already walking for the past 2 hours. Though not at a walking pace, I was doing some walking. I didn’t even sit for a few minutes and that must count for something. But then the guilt lady started talking in my head saying that I am cheating. I am supposed to walk 5500 steps that day.
Then, I decided to ditch my friends for a while and walk around the mall. I told them I was going into some other shop and just started walking. I walked for 20 minutes, joined them for a few minutes, walked again and repeated the process. Instead of cheating on the challenge, I cheated on the time I spent with my friends. But I must tell you, malls are such interesting places to walk with a crowd around you that doesn’t bother you at all. I love that alone in the crowd feeling. The cons are less friend time, not in comfortable clothing, no proper walking shoes.
I counted my steps and did nearly 2000. I was so happy and was sure that I did more than 6000 on the whole as it is 3 hours of walking altogether. Once I’m done, I didn’t care what time I got back. I just enjoyed my rest of the day spent over there.
I felt good because I really wanted to walk and was sad even at the thought missing my walk. I felt good because, I didn’t want to eat every second thing I laid my eye on. I thought of healthy and filling food and ate it.
And like Carl said, the first few steps were the hardest and once started, everything’s normal and easy.
October 3rd – Day 3 of the walking challenge
It is Friday and I convinced my sister and her friend to walk with me. We were doing rounds on the terrace. While my sister danced to songs, did cat/dog walks and had fun, we walked and walked untill we completed 6000 steps. Music is my saviour today and I did it today with no excuses or stories. And huh, I counted my steps today and I realised that I’m walking faster and covering more steps than my pedometer and is almost 30 steps ahead of it for every 500 steps. I didn’t mind the difference and in fact, I was more happy that I was doing more. 🙂
October 4th – Day 4 of the walking challenge
The other day when I was at the mall with my friends, I had to give my phone away to buy some time. Some crazy friends I have!. They told me that they will be exploring my phone for my secrets. I laughed out and thought, what kind of secrets are those that I would store in my phone and happily gave my phone and went of for my walk. on day 4 along with music, I also had a lot of thoughts that kept me very busy. First they are about this conversation on secrets. I am really astonished at my stupidity. I totally forgot that my wordpress had no locks or passwords on it and access to my phone is the only way for them to ever figure out about my blog. They haven’t said any word but I really don’t know for sure about the secrecy of my blog anymore. Since there’s nothing that I can do about it, my thoughts wandered in a different direction and was totally lost in my thoughts when I crossed my 6500 step mark and went on walking for another 400. 🙂
October 5th – Day 5 of the walking challenge
I woke up at around 5:30 when my sister is about to leave for her 6am class. Tried to sleep and rolled over the bed for another 2 hours and gave up which led to a tiresome day filled with nothing but work and yawns. I didn’t have a single coffee at office since 1 month and had to break that to control my brain. I felt as if I’m bribing my brain to work. 🙂 What choice do I have, when my brain forgot to put tea bags in my hot water until they turned icecold! And that happened twice!.
Anyways, with the tonnes of work to do and unplanned meetings that I had to attend, I reached home at around 9:30. It was 10 by the time I changed and had my food.
And here I thought that a weekday would be more planned and perfect for workouts and exercise. I didn’t even have a minute for myself until the clock stuck 10. We warmed up for a while and then started walking. I must tell you, this is the most difficult walk of all days. I was so tired and even dragged my feet a few times. It made me think about walking in the mornings. I have to give it a try even if I find it really difficult to follow. But again when the whole world rests, it is also a pleasure to enjoy the cool breeze while basking in the peaceful glory of the night. I love early mornings and late nights equally. I love the peace they bring with them.
And finally, I reached the 7000 mark today which made me really tired but really happy for not giving up. Its 5 days in a row and I’m surprising myself by showing some rare determination that I never thought I had. 🙂 I wish I continue this for the next 25 days too.
Thanks people for supporting me and encouraging me and most importantly, putting up with my ramblings. 😛 :).

Take care people.

Love,
Sahasra.

The 30-Day Walking Challenge – Day 1 – Oct 01 2015

Life has taken so many twists and turns(should I say twisted turns) in the past few months that I never found any time to pause and think for a while. And if by any chance, my brain is willing enough to go through all that mess and recollect any of those memories, I will gladly post the details of  those dark months as a reminder of all sorts. For better or worse, some things happened and as life always comes in a full circle, it landed me in the very same place I started shattering every possible dream I had in the meanwhile. I guess, I am now starting afresh. Luckily, this week wasn’t a busy one and I got real time to surf through what’s happening around me and trust me there’s lot that I missed while I was neck deep in my own mess. But I hope to cover everything and catch up the pace soon and trust me, I missed reading your stories so much as if they were my own. Things settled down and I even see happiness around the corner and so I’m back here. 🙂

And, I am here today to tell you all about the 30 day walking challenge that I am taking up this month which is just for me and not for anyone else. I have to stop doing things for the wrong reasons and this is the first step. Talking about steps, today I covered some 5000+ steps in 56 minutes. Trust me, it isn’t easy. I have been a couch potato for a while and thought to do 2000 steps today. But then, I wasn’t tired at all after the first 2000 and so proceeded towards the 2nd which was not so easy.

The challenge has a different pace for Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced level walkers. I choose the Intermediate one that starts at 5000 steps a day. The target is to be achieved in 50 minutes. i.e. 500 steps per 5 minutes. The step count gradually increases on a day to day basis and ends at a maximum of 10000 steps. Know what, there are rest days too. Sounds cool right. If you are interested, you can get more details about the 30 Day Walking Challenge by clicking on this link. And the site is the blog on myfitnesspal site. The blog contains many wonderful articles about fitness and food. Check out if you wanna know more.

It is cool because it is doable and is an achievable target. All you need is the determination to walk. I know, that is the hardest part of all. But that is the least I can do for myself. I hope I don’t find any excuses to skip the challenge. I really want to complete this one. My physical fitness levels are at their worst levels and looking at the way I’m going, there is no way I’m getting better without any immediate efforts. So, I will have to complete this without any excuses. Wish me good luck people. I need all the luck I can. My body is already aching with the sudden walking from this evening. But I don’t care. I completed my day 1 successfully and 29 to go. Yayy for me. And I  hope I can do a bit food control too. But that’s for another day and another post. Good Bye for now.

Good night and take care people. And most importantly, spare me a smile and be happy.
Love
Sahasra