Campaign to better myself

Have been stuck in a lifestyle rut for a long while now so have decided to take baby steps to invigorate body and mind:

• I have been powerwalking for some time now but need to up my game and start running so I'm starting the Couch to 5K programme using the NHS podcast. It's largely due to time constraints: to get a proper workout from walking I need to powerwalk for an hour and that, frankly, eats into my early morning. Running, on the other hand, would cut my workout time to half an hour.
  
  
• My brain has gone rusty over the last few years - since I finished my PhD, in fact, way back in 2002. Since then I've exercised the brain matter largely on topics relating to work and parenting. So I am reading a daily quality newspaper every day again. There's no point me reading the news online because I get distracted. During lunch or after I've put Little Planet to bed I crack open the paper and try and educate myself on worldly issues.
  
  
• I've slipped into a chick-lit reading rut too. After a busy day, it's easy to unwind with some pink-covered slush. I never used to be like this. I used to read William Gibson and Margaret Atwood in hardback. So I've consigned the pink fluff to the charity shops and am reading Jonathan Franzen's Freedom. More of that ilk in the to-read pile.
  
  
• I also want to get more adventurous in my cooking. I tend to cook the same ten or so meals but I need to expand my repertoire of recipes. We have loads of cookbooks and Mr Planet is always perusing them and experimenting. I need to take a leaf out of his book.

My writing is going well - slowly, but surely. The book is longer and the plot much more intricate than I originally anticipated so it's taking me longer than I'd hoped. Also, my eating less regime is also going very well. I thought I'd fallen off the wagon for a couple of months but in fact had only put on 3lbs so the rules must be working for me at a subconscious level now, which is terrific.