One more off the bucket list?

I've been cycling 3.5 (each way) miles to the train station for the past 3 weeks and I've noticed a definite improvement in my fitness. The hills are much easier but I'm still puffed when I get to the top, I'm even doing them in 2nd gear instead of the lowest. Logistically it's working too, I get to work at about 8:15am (or 8:45am if I catch the later train) then have a quick shower and back to my desk to start working. Downsides are my entire office gets to see me in lycra, I sit on a train for 40 minutes being sweaty and I have two showers a day which is very drying.

My swimming is coming along too, I've mastered front crawl breathing every other stroke, now I'm working on breathing every 3 strokes (so alternate sides) with the help of a nose clip (and Pete). My next goal is to be able to swim 4 lengths in a row, currently I can do just about 2.

Tomorrow I'm starting a new diet called Zest4Life which is run by nutritionists. A girl at work is a trained nutritionist and is starting to run these classes, so she needs volunteers to do a dry run. It's a 4 week trial which happily covers my 'Detox for a month' life goal. The diet is more about eating healthily (low GI) not reducing calories specifically, so lots of vegetables, fruit and natural stuff. Tea is restricted to one cup a day, so I'll be switching to fruit teas at work and chocolate is 100g a week, so a big reduction there. I'm hoping it will teach me more about food options and get me cooking again.

Talking about cooking, I've bought a slow cooker! Tomorrow I'll be treating Pete to slow cooked leg of lamb and during the week I'll do a chicken and tomato effort. Our eating habits aren't great, Pete tends to eat when he gets home from work as he trains later in the evening. By the time I get home, he's eaten and generally on his way out which means we both cook and eat separately during the week. However, if I set the cooker off in the morning and Pete turns it off when he gets home, we'll both eat the same thing but at different times.

My first evening class was this week, I'm doing an Introduction to Counselling at Bracknell for 10 weeks. I really enjoyed it, the other students are lovely and the teacher is very good. I'm really looking forwards to studying again and will probably go on to do the next course which is a year and more commitment.