A Filofax Malden A5 in the color ochre. It was an impulse buy. I saw it, hesitated for a while and then simply decided to get it. I had an Amazona in my hands before and it was just too stiff for me. The sales lady told me that the new model, Osterley (of which I thought it would be my dream Filo) will be just as stiff. So I decided to stay with the one I was looking at for quite a while: the Malden.

So far, I L-L-L-LOVE it! I already moved in. The setup is pretty much the same as in my Domino (with my new hand-made dividers). But if you’re interested I can of course post some pictures of what everything looks like in my Malden.

My new sections include:

• Year: for my yearly planner pages
• Diary: for my week on two pages Filofax format
• Uni: for anything uni-related
• subtab Uni notes
• GTD: for my to do lists
• Travel: for maps, public transport info etc.
• subtab Miami
• subtab International Information: for holidays, measurements, time zones, area codes etc.
• Lists: for shopping lists and any other lists
• subtab Lists: yes, this sounds repetitive, but the subtab includes my 101 things to do in 1001 days list and any other pre-written lists
• Contacts: for adresses
• Notes: for, well, notes…
• subtab Blog: for blog-related notes
• Misc: for anything that didn’t fit in elsewhere

I also changed my diary format. I switched to the Filofax Week on Two Pages format. I just transferred my appointments and birthdays and everything today, so I can’t really tell yet if it works for me. But at first glance: I really like the MUCH bigger writing space (compared to my Dodo Acad Pad) and I also like that the writing space for the weekends is not smaller than for working days. Because you may not believe it, but: I have pretty busy weekends and I just NEED the space.

I also like that there’s a separate notes section on the top of every left page. I don’t know what I’ll use that for just yet, but I’m sure it’ll come in handy.

But first things first: my new hand-made divider tabs (inspired by Thomas’ great blog post):

You’ll need:

• paper of your choice (I took 160 gram paper with mostly flower motives)
• scissors
• a ruler
• a paper knife
• a pencil
• a calculator (if you’re not good at mental arithmetic)
• and transparent adhesive foil

I just drew out an A5 size on the colored paper. Then I decided how many tabs I wanted (I did nine) and divided the length of the A5 paper so every tab would be the same size (mine were 3.3 cm long and 1 cm wide). I drew this part on the paper as well and cut the whole shape out with the paper knife. I did this nine times. And then I did five top tabs. They work just the same except that the tabs are on the top – obviously. I did not bother about the sides of the tabs being cut all in the same angle. I just cut them in whatever angle I thought looks good.

That’s what the finished product looks like (those dirty toes on the pic belong to my 3-year-old nephew, by the way ):

I have to say I was pretty proud of myself at this point. Then I named the tabs. I wrote the titles down with pencil first so I could make sure that the writing is the same size. Then I re-wrote the titles with my Pilot FriXion Pens.

The next step is to cut the transparent adhesive foil into small pieces (mine were 6 x 4 cm). I used those to put them over the tabs so the part would not bend or crack as easily. I’m not sure if I’m describing this the right way (as you know my first language is German, not English), but you should be able to see what I did on this picture:

The point was to make them look just like the “real” Filofax tabs. I cut the edges of the foil with my paper knife again and that was it.

I then punched them with my A5 hole punch from OPTO and just put them in my Filo. Done

When I saw the new Filofax collection, I immediately fell in love with the Osterley. This is the baby:

It’s one of the more expensive Filos but it would be my FIRST real leather Filo. So I feel like I can justify splurging on this one. I have to see if I can get it in one of the shops in Vienna before I move to Florida in two weeks. If not, I might have to wait until they get it in the Filofax-USA online shop.

What do you think of it? Which color do you like best? (I’m in love with the grey one…) Do you think it’s worth the money?

First, I got myself the first pair of running shoes ever. Believe it or not, I’ve never owned running shoes before, although I had to run once a week for 7 km while I was in high school. Those are the Saucony Pro Grid Lady. I know the colors are not that great, but I didn’t have a lot of choice since I wanted a shoe to run on asphalt as well as on trails. I need good shock absorption since I’m overweight and I need a neutral shoe (no pronation support or whatever this is called in English), because I’m wearing foot orthotics. This made my choice fairly easy because there was only a handful of shoes that fit my criteria. After trying all of them, running around in the store, only one was a good fit, which was this one:

These shoes are very comfy (I got them one and a half size up because you’re supposed to get running shoes at least one size bigger than your actual shoe size because your toes need enough space while running). They have really good shock absorption and I used them on asphalt so far. I didn’t have the chance to do trail running since I got them, so I don’t know how good they work on trails.

And I’m even more excited about a belated birthday present I got from my godmother and favorite aunt ever (she’s also a fitness trainer – yes, I have a great family!). She got me the Polar FT 40F, a heart rate monitor that not only measures your pulse, but also the calories you burned while working out. It measures your fitness (by measuring your maximum oxygen intake – although it’s only an approximation of course) and tells you what’s your fat burning zone and what’s your fitness zone. I haven’t tried all possible features yet, but I already love it. I always know how long my workout lasted, how many kcal I burned and if I stayed in the fat burning zone. Also: I can use it for swimming and it looks cute.

The belt is in the size M-XXL which is on the smallest setting REALLY small (it fits my brother’s girlfriend who wears U.S. size 2 to 4). I don’t think it would fit really big men or at least it wouldn’t be very comfy for them. For me, I absolutely love the Polar FT40 and it fits perfectly. It beeps as soon as I go over a certain heart rate. It measures my heart rate perfectly (I did a test counting my own pulse and as far as I could tell it’s exact), it’s waterproof and has all the features I need.

I talked to my aunt (the fitness trainer) about it and she said it’s good for beginners like me to train at a very low heart rate to burn fat as efficiently as possible. I’ll have to get used to that first, because when I do Zumba and especially when I run, my heart rate goes way over what it should be (which is below 145, or even better below 125). I try to adapt my workout to not let my heart rate go way up. But I have to say it’s difficult. Yet I’m already satisfied with the fact that I now work out almost every day (at least five days a week) for 45 minutes.

Wanna know what I’m going to reward myself with for my next goals?

The FIRM Cardio Weigh Set

The Complete Book of Running for Women

Armband for my iPhone for running

SparkPeople Smart Portion Prep Kit

SparkPeople Meal on the Go Combo Kit

Do you reward yourself for reaching a goal? If so, how? Do you buy yourself stuff? Do you reward yourself with food? With time? (i.e. time with friends, time in a spa, time for yourself)

At first I want to tell you how much I still love my Filofax Domino A5. One reader asked about how I liked the size and whether I take it with me everywhere I go. Well, I love the size and wouldn’t by a smaller one now that I’ve tried the A5. BUT: I don’t take it with me everywhere. I take it with me to work, when I go to class, and other places where I know I might need it. I don’t take it when I have coffee with a friend or go to the gym.

The size is my absolute favorite thing of this Filofax. I love designing new pages, printing my own ruled notepaper etc. I’m still not quite sure about the Dodo Acad Pad insert, but I might have figured this out by the end of the year and I can always change back to my Filofax W2P inserts for 2012 (which came in this Filofax when I bought it).

And without rambling too much, here are the pictures:

I was hoping you could see the scratches on the cover of my Domino on the first picture. But due to the flash it looks like new in the pic (which it doesn’t really…).

But what you definitely can see is that it slimmed down a lot comparing to my initial setup. It also feels a lot lighter because I don’t carry that much empty paper around with me anymore. I really like this setup a lot more, although my diy-tabs don’t look as neat and in order anymore because I took out several of them (which I explained in my recap-blogpost). But now my Filo just has what I really need and use.

On the last pic you can see that I added top-tabs. I really find these come in very handy within a section. I was briefly thinking about making new normal tabs for the things I currently divide with top-tabs, but this would just make the Filo heavier and bulkier and I really like the top ones.

Sorry for not having posted regularly in the last few weeks. I am preparing my move across the Atlantic to Miami, Florida and it’s been really busy lately. I hope I’ll be able to tell/show you more frequently what’s been going on once I’ve settled in Miami.

Hi everybody, I’m back again. I had a very stressful week, presenting my dissertation proposal to a committee (which accepted it) and working at a conference 50+ hours in 4 days. I desperately need this weekend to recharge my batteries and to sleep in, relax and eat non-catered food (oh my, conference food is NOT good when you’re dieting, it’s just too seductive).

I’m still on track with my weightloss and lifestyle change challenge (I’m gonna need a shorter term for that – do you have any ideas?) and there are several sources of information I’ve been turning to on a regular basis. But let’s start at the beginning.

First of all, if you want to make a drastic lifestyle change and lose weight, talk to your doctor and make sure your body is healthy enough to endure this time (it’s not going to be easy, believe me, I’m right in the middle of it…). I have the great advantage of having a big family and an uncle who is a doctor. And the best thing: His wife is a dietician. So I have all information I need concerning my health, fitness and my diet right on hand. Make sure you do the same and talk to experts about how much exercise is okay for you and how low you should go with your calorie intake. (Don’t go too low because then your body will enter starvation mode and the kilos will be back faster than you can say “jojo”).

That was the first step in my lifestyle change. I’m going to talk about my change in eating habits and exercise in another blog post. This one is just about where to get information and what to read. I do read several magazines online (although you have to take their articles with caution) and I read lots of health related blogs. I especially love dieting/weightloss blogs because I think they can be extremely motivating.

But first of all, I want to tell you about an online community I became a part of a few days ago and I enjoyed ever since:

SparkPeople

It’s a healthy living/weightloss community which is completely free. You enter your data (weight, how much you’d like to exercise, your health conditions etc.) and there are many useful features on this site:

• nutrition tracker: I’ve stopped using the food diary in my Filofax and use the nutrition tracker on SparkPeople instead. I try to track my food as exactly as possible (and I enter a lot of what I eat myself – so I can be sure the kcal count and the nutrient content are right). You can just search for the food you are eating and enter your portion size (nutrients and kcal amount will be calculated autmatically) or you enter your food yourself and provide the system with the data provided on the package of whatever you are eating.
• exercise tracker: You can schedule exercises and you can enter your own. SparkPeople even provides you with a custom strength training if you want to. I especially like this feature because it consists of exercises you can do at home without any equipment at all. Of course you can also let SparkPeople prepare a gym workout for you. Just tell the system what you want and it is yours (like when it’s Christmas )
• water tracker: I LOVE this. Finally I have an overview of how much I drink throughout the day.

The trackers calculate how much kcal and nutrients you eat (that was a bummer… I lack a lot of nutrients when I’m eating my “normal” diet, but I’m constantly improving by choosing more consciously what I eat) and the exercise tracker calculates how much kcal you burn. You can see your progress every day.

Then you have your goals. You don’t have to select/enter goals, but it is very motivating if you choose to. My goals are to drink 8 glasses of water each day, to exercise 30 minutes 3-5 times a week, to get up without hitting the snooze button and to eat at least 2 fruits/veggies each day. I know these are no high reach goals, but attainable ones for beginners. Your goals can/should/will change over the course of your lifestyle change. So will your status at SparkPeople. I don’t know what is yet to come, but at the moment I’m at Stage 1 (obviously). The purpose of this stage is to get accustomed to new eating habits and to a new lifestyle. I’m taking it easy and so should you.

And of course SparkPeople is and incredible information resource: You have a forum that is full of friendly, helpful and motivating people. It’s amazing that there are no haters at all. It’s a positive place. You can join groups for the city you live in, for how much weight you want to lose, for different sports and hobbies, for companies, lifestyles (students, runners, journalists etc…) and for whatever you can imagine. SparkPeople also provides many articles on health, fitness, diet and motivation.

I will update you with any new features I discover on SparkPeople if you’re interested.

Okay, after rambling about SparkPeople, I’m going to keep the rest of this article short. Here is what else I’m reading:

Magazines:

FitSugar.com

Health.com

Self.com

FitnessMagazine.com

Shape.com

RealSimple.com

WomensHealthMag.com

Blogs:

Oh She Glows

Skinny Emmie

Beth’s Journey

Carrots’n'Cake

Truly Madly Fit

Kath eats

Team Giles

Fitness Cheerleader

Nourish And Flourish

Vitamin Amy

Greek Yogurt and Apple Slices

Cardio Pizza

Hungry Runner Girl

Meals And Moves

Peanut Butter Fingers

Squat like a Lady

Fitnessista

Big Girls Small Kitchen

Mental Toughness Blog (I’ll do an extra blog post on this program – it’s amazing and I feel like it really works and helped me a lot)

Unfortunately, I forgot my camera at my parents’ place and I can’t show you any “after”-pictures. (I’ll post them as soon as I have them, promised)

In short, I changed the following to make my Filo work for me:

• Goals Section: I took out the whole Goals-tab and all my DIY goals sheet. I just didn’t use them. It was a nice idea and I thought it would help me stay on track. But the sheets were just sitting there and not being used. So I decided to slim my Filofax down and take them all out.
• Money Section: Same here. I started recording my spendings but I wasn’t consistent with it. So it was useless because half of my spendings were missing anyway. I do – though – keep all important receipts and safe them in my Filofax first (right when I spent the money) and I put them in a box at home in chronological order. This is a VERY useful habit I think. My parents have been doing this forever (also because of taxes etc.), I just didn’t bother enough. But now I’ve had several cases where things broke and I had them repaired for free because I still had the receipt. But I don’t want to write every cent I spend down. So I just kept the clear envelope in my Filo and tossed the Money-tab and all sheets in it.
• Health Section: You may have read a short blog post about my recent weightloss and healthy lifestyle change. I’m still on it, of course. And I still feel motivated. But I’m using different tools now. I joined SparkPeople yesterday and it worked so well I decided to take out the health section of my Filofax. I record all my food intake and my exercise, I even record how much I drink and sleep. You can basically record anything you want. It’s a healthy living community and it’s free. I was sceptic before because the site didn’t really show what it offered unless you registered. And I don’t like that AT ALL. I want to know what I get if I give them my data. But I’ve heard so many good things about them, I decided to register anyway and I’m glad I did. It’s an incredibly supporting community. There’s so much positive energy. No haters. And there’s people on there who have lost 100, 200 pounds… It’s just amazing and so motivating for me. If you are on there too, send me a message or add me as a friend. My username is Katie-runs. (with hyphen; there’s also a Katieruns, but that’s not me)
• Journal Section: I decided to keep a bound journal after all. I can take notes during the day if I feel like writing something down when I have time (I’ll do that in my notes-tab), but I felt kind of weird carrying my journal around with me, since I tend to write down (very) personal stuff to get it out of my head. I just didn’t feel comfortable with it. I have a whole collection of blank bound notebooks at home, but I haven’t decided yet which one will be my Move-to-Miami-and-start-grad-school-plus-lifestyle-change-journal.
• Diary pages: I love the colorful design of my Dodo Acad Pad. I really do. But I’m still thinking about switching to the standard week on two pages diary layout that was in my Filo when I bought it. It has just so much more space to write in and no distracting grid lines. I’m not sure yet. So for now I still use my Dodo Pad. We’ll see what the future brings…

So, that’s it basically.

One of the next articles in my blog will be about my weightloss (I’ve lost about 15-20 pounds so far – I don’t own a scale so I can’t tell you more precisely how much I lost) and what I changed to achieve it. Thanks to all the nice people who supported me!

I’m still struggling a little bit with being a nicheless blogger… I have so many ideas of what I want to blog about and at the same time I have none, because I feel like nothing really “fits” in my blog. At the SITS31DBBB challenge I read somebody calling herself a “lifestyle blogger” and I really liked that idea.

Two and a half months ago I decided I wanted to change my habits, my lifestyle, the way I ate and the way I (did not) exercise. This change has become very important in my everyday life. I’ve lost about 10 kg since then (well, I don’t own a scale, but the last time I checked I had lost about 7 kg and since then my clothes already feel more lose). I do exercise daily – or at least I try to.

I have to admit moving to Miami in about two month’s time has contributed a lot to this decision of a lifestyle change. I was never a shy person. I have been overweight my whole life but it was never a major problem for me. I’ve never been bullied and I always had a group of close friends who liked me the way I was. Yes, I am one happy girl. But after gaining more weight about a year and a half ago, for the first time in my life I started to feel uncomfortable in skirts and I stopped wearing shorts and spaghetti strap shirts. My weight never REALLY bothered me before (yes, I knew I was overweight to a degree where it really was bad for my health; my BMI was and still is over 30). But after gaining several more kilos, I couldn’t be 100 % happy when I heard/decided that I’ll move to Miami. There will be a lot of heat, I will meet all new people (I don’t know a single person there) and they all would get to know me as the overweight Katie that doesn’t wear shorts or spaghetti strap shirts. I didn’t like this idea at all. In addition to this, I had to take several health examinations and my weight had already affected my blood pressure (which was too high for my age). It took me several months to really decide that I had to change my lifestyle. I don’t know if I’ll be able to stick with it. And this is why I’m writing this blog post.

I’d like to incorporate this important topic in my life (health, nutrition, fitness, exercise, lifestyle change) in this blog. I’m even thinking about renaming my blog, but we’ll see about that… I’m not doing this because I feel like I am an expert now and I can help others. I’d like to do this because I feel more accountable to my lifestyle change, to exercising and to sticking with my plan. Let me know what you think about that and if there is anything you’d like to read here (like what I eat, which exercise I do etc.)

I’d love to be comfortable enough to post a picture of myself. But this might take me a little longer. This lifestyle change is still new and somehow fragile and I don’t know if I can handle hater comments right now.

Anyway, I’d love it if you were interested in this part of my life as well. Of course this does not change the fact that I’m into Filofaxes, into girly stuff like makeup and handbags and into organizing everything and everybody. I’m also looking forward to blogging about my experience as a PhD student once I’m in Miami. (I booked my flight yesterday, so there’s really no way back now…)

Let me know what you think of that idea!

I know I’m a little late on the band wagon for the SITS31DBBB challenge, but here are my 10 blog posts to come:

1. Tips for cleaning out your closet (you guys know that I’ll be moving to the U.S. from Europe soon. So I have to do a LOT of cleaning out, sorting etc.)
2. How to organize a busy life (I used to have up to three jobs, my two majors and a big family and friends. Yes, I’m a fan of my busy lifestyle, but it taught me how to get organized)
3. Book review “Vintage Chic” (I haven’t read it through yet but I already love it.)
4. Books on my to-read-list
5. Favorite quotes
6. Favorite YouTube beauty gurus (yes, I actually do watch beauty-related videos on YouTube. Quite a bit to be honest. I’m gonna let you know who I watch and why. I’m even thinking of doing my own videos, but I haven’t had the courage yet…)
7. Books I read as a girl (there was one great article in the Guardian that impressed me so much, I wanted to do my own list of books I read as a girl, since I did a LOT of reading. My birthday is in early June and holidays here in Austria start in early July. Usually my mum would buy me a big pile of books for the holidays. And usually I would have finished this pile before holidays actually started…)
8. Moving to another country (I don’t know yet how I’m going to organize this blog post, but it’s a big experience for me, associated with many fears and insecurities, with many new things and obstacles to overcome and I want to document this process  not just for you to hopefully learn from my mistakes, but also for myself to be able to look back upon this crazy time….)
9. Blogs for grad students (I’m still collecting. If you have ideas or if you yourself have a blog for grad students or about grad student life, let me know)
10. Books for grad students (I actually have quite a long list on my Amazon wish list and I’m looking forward to letting you know about what I think are great books for grad students or students striving for a career in academia)