As I was coasting along doing my thing, the weight business suddenly started to seem under control and all too easy npeasy. I should have guessed that I was about to commence my walk into the abyss that is over-confidence.
Sometimes this weightloss business seems to be like going into war. The weighty mind tries to send in its spies and weapons in the guise of all sorts such as over-confidence and just as one gets all too comfortable, you realise that you have in fact been very very silly. After all if this was an easy journey and if I had figured it all out then so would the rest of the world. We all would nto be spending time writing out histoires and blogs talking about strategies and challenges. Silly billy me.
I had been coasting along very well having gone back to the land of butter and full fat products instead of fat free land. I was also eating somewhat semi paleo lifestyle which just felt soo great on the gut.... and then it happened. I got too confident and instead of having hardly any bread, I went to buying raisin toast and slathering not one or two but three pieces of bread with butter or maybe even peanut butter. One day turned to two and then before I knew it, I was three weeks into this journey to nowhere. I was reclaiming the fatty territory I had already gone past and had become my worst enemy. Damn!
Anyhow, the error or my ways has been noticed and plans will need to be put into place to ensure I am not seduced by the mind and its soldiers again. I need to remember how good I used to feel. I am exercising my guts out to feel good and I am ending up soaking the sweat from the workout into a dollop of butter and putting it right back in. This needs to stop. And yes, no more icecreams, chocolates, biscuits...yuck..I dont even enjoy half that stuff anymore. I guess this week will have to see me quit sugar again. Starting this minute, no sugar and only one serve of banana and one of berries will be my only fructose until this time next week. And while on that, get back to sweet potato and the way it used to be! I know how this works and I need to do this well or I am going to keep going backward.
I think the penny dropped when I weighed myself today and saw that I had only lost a kilo after all this workout. I think I am lucky I did not gain anything more as I have been leading a sugary, buttery, bready life since the past 2-3 weeks that I can remember although I would nto be surprised if it was in fact 6 weeks. It is amazing how much of a short memory we can have when it comes to counting our misdemeanours.
To taking charge and all the hard work I am doing.....have a great week peoples.:)
The amazing race
Monday, 3 September 2012
The Progress Thus Far
Hello anonymous folk :)
Not much to report this end except that I have been working really hard at the gym and doing tons and tons of weights and cardio. I feel much better and the food has been relatively good except there are some improvements to be made regarding fructose.
Not much to report this end except that I have been working really hard at the gym and doing tons and tons of weights and cardio. I feel much better and the food has been relatively good except there are some improvements to be made regarding fructose.
Friday, 27 July 2012
Consistency where art thou?
So since my last post I have been to a 10 day holiday to Queensland (Townsville and Brisbane) and just got back yesterday. As much as I had made plans to eat well and plan any servings of contraband - I failed on some levels. Primarily the issue was that we were staying at peoples places and that proved to be an issue for me. There was no way I was planning on investing in all the spices. I also believed that I was ona well deserved holiday and I was going to spend time exploring instead of cooking away. So we ate out a fair bit and I also indulged in gelato on at least 4 occasions and enjoyed every mouthful. Now that I am back, I feel like I need to get back to being disciplined again and am missing it in fact. I believe I am best when I am in a certain kind of routine and structure. I am still not at the stage where I can be confidently left to my own devices foodwise.
I noted that there were some changes in how I do things now. Things that have improved. I am not always looking for opportunities to eat just because I can as I am on holiday and that alone provides the justification. My portions have reduced considerably to how they were in the past. However, I still recognise that I am still vulnerble to the sweet seduction of sugar. I feel as though I now need to get back to a plan to eliminate sugar from my life.
I found I can walk without trying to avoid it. I walked around in Brisbane for a few hours browsing and tired but continued to enjoy the sights. My biggest achievement of all was climbing CastleHill in Townsville, a total distance of 1744m/2180 steps - the ironbark track. I never would have imagined that I would ever climb a mountain and so when I decided to join my hubby in climbing this one, I was amazed. It was hard at the beginning especially as the initial bit was extremely steep and I was struggling to breathe but as I warmed up (or should I say steamed up and sweated) it got better and better. All I will say is that next time I will buy proper shoes instead of runners as runners do not really work as climbing shoes.
So now the aim has got to be that I need to get back into discipline and maybe get a wee bit strict with my self - in other words - plan my meals during the week so I can cut myself a wee bit of slack over the weekend. I think the stage has come for me to tighten up a bit more as I have shown myself that I am capable of change and my body can change. As much as I struggle with food diaries I think I should at least aim to try and keep a sugar diary where I record anything with fructose I am eating including fruit just to keep an eye on what I am having.
the holiday was great - lovely warm queensland sun although I could not live there in summer....it would be soooo hot and humid.
health to all - until next time - keep healthy
I noted that there were some changes in how I do things now. Things that have improved. I am not always looking for opportunities to eat just because I can as I am on holiday and that alone provides the justification. My portions have reduced considerably to how they were in the past. However, I still recognise that I am still vulnerble to the sweet seduction of sugar. I feel as though I now need to get back to a plan to eliminate sugar from my life.
I found I can walk without trying to avoid it. I walked around in Brisbane for a few hours browsing and tired but continued to enjoy the sights. My biggest achievement of all was climbing CastleHill in Townsville, a total distance of 1744m/2180 steps - the ironbark track. I never would have imagined that I would ever climb a mountain and so when I decided to join my hubby in climbing this one, I was amazed. It was hard at the beginning especially as the initial bit was extremely steep and I was struggling to breathe but as I warmed up (or should I say steamed up and sweated) it got better and better. All I will say is that next time I will buy proper shoes instead of runners as runners do not really work as climbing shoes.
So now the aim has got to be that I need to get back into discipline and maybe get a wee bit strict with my self - in other words - plan my meals during the week so I can cut myself a wee bit of slack over the weekend. I think the stage has come for me to tighten up a bit more as I have shown myself that I am capable of change and my body can change. As much as I struggle with food diaries I think I should at least aim to try and keep a sugar diary where I record anything with fructose I am eating including fruit just to keep an eye on what I am having.
the holiday was great - lovely warm queensland sun although I could not live there in summer....it would be soooo hot and humid.
health to all - until next time - keep healthy
Thursday, 5 July 2012
Pre-holiday thoughts
Since my last blog, I have been continued feeling rather good about myself. I have only dropped a kilo but I have shaved off 6cms off my waist and hips, 4cm off my bust and 6 off my thigh. So I have been feeling as though I am doing alright. I have put on muscle which is good.
However, along with the good news is also the not so good news and a kick up my own bum. Since the time I found that I am doing well with my body I have begun to be a slight bit slack. So I have slowly crept back to the time where I am buying a raspberry and white chocolate muffin with my coffee at work. This will not do. I am slogging me arse off only to start the day with a muffin. Same mistake I have been making all these years. So new rules are in the making - for starters:
- NO sugar from Monday to Thurs. Of course this does not mean that I will gorge on the stuff from Fri to Sun. It just means that I do not have any sugar decisions to make from Monday to Thursdays and over the weekend I can partake but choose when and where. This I think will work well as a few weeks ago it was a pattern which produced results was quite similar.
- I think again chanting the consistency mantra is key. What is working for me at the moment is that I am a lot more consistent in trying to be healthy than I have been in years. In my recently 'past life', I was pretty consistent with doing guilt and chocolate in turns. In my new life, guilt hasn't really featured and life is sooo much better without it. I could get used to this.
- I am NERVOUS. I am a structured person and work best if I have a structure. I tend to fall apart without structure. So in another 10 days we will be going on holidays. This is scary. For the first time since the last 6-8 weeks of great structure working - my formula - finally - there has to be a break - a holiday of 10 days of pure sunshine and relaxation - something our family is in dire need of. But I am nervous - what if I go mad and go back to my old ways? Afterall, I did have the moments of temporary insanity where I was eating muffins with my coffee post learning I was beginning to shrink? What if I think - like I used to in the past - oh let me enjoy (read indulge) this holiday and I promise when I get back I will be good again! What happens with working out? I am used to highly intense work outs and anything I do during the holidays will not be the same - will my level of fitness (which has been achieved after the horrible stage of the body feeling purely in pain due to being plain unfit) decline in 10 days? I have never exercised in all my life whilst on holidays what makes this time so very different?
So these are the questions plaguing me at the moment. At the moment I think one thing is clear - I need to enjoy the holiday because I am on holiday - and not to mention relax - but I clearly need to structure my days. So if I am used to waking up early there is nothing stopping me from going off for a walk - joining my family in walking everywhere instead of being the one to tire first. This is a short holiday and this is a little test - afterall, I cannot rely on ALWAYS being in the gym working out with the same trainer for the rest of my days? or his? The test is simply to prepare me for my life and the pleasant things like holidays and breaks that will occur and who knows even getting myself independent of the gym one day? So I will stay balanced and keep a sugar diary - I have never been regular at food diaries coz they have seemed tiresome and far too long and tedious. However, one thing I know I can do is keep a sugar diary where I note down everything I eat that has sugar in it. That is more manageable and easier to do - convenient even.
- Lastly, of course the key is to keep moving all the time - we will be in sunny Queensland and at the very least there is the guarantee of sun - so move, move and move. The rest we will know when we are back and I am getting measured up. Heeee hawwwww!!! :)
However, along with the good news is also the not so good news and a kick up my own bum. Since the time I found that I am doing well with my body I have begun to be a slight bit slack. So I have slowly crept back to the time where I am buying a raspberry and white chocolate muffin with my coffee at work. This will not do. I am slogging me arse off only to start the day with a muffin. Same mistake I have been making all these years. So new rules are in the making - for starters:
- NO sugar from Monday to Thurs. Of course this does not mean that I will gorge on the stuff from Fri to Sun. It just means that I do not have any sugar decisions to make from Monday to Thursdays and over the weekend I can partake but choose when and where. This I think will work well as a few weeks ago it was a pattern which produced results was quite similar.
- I think again chanting the consistency mantra is key. What is working for me at the moment is that I am a lot more consistent in trying to be healthy than I have been in years. In my recently 'past life', I was pretty consistent with doing guilt and chocolate in turns. In my new life, guilt hasn't really featured and life is sooo much better without it. I could get used to this.
- I am NERVOUS. I am a structured person and work best if I have a structure. I tend to fall apart without structure. So in another 10 days we will be going on holidays. This is scary. For the first time since the last 6-8 weeks of great structure working - my formula - finally - there has to be a break - a holiday of 10 days of pure sunshine and relaxation - something our family is in dire need of. But I am nervous - what if I go mad and go back to my old ways? Afterall, I did have the moments of temporary insanity where I was eating muffins with my coffee post learning I was beginning to shrink? What if I think - like I used to in the past - oh let me enjoy (read indulge) this holiday and I promise when I get back I will be good again! What happens with working out? I am used to highly intense work outs and anything I do during the holidays will not be the same - will my level of fitness (which has been achieved after the horrible stage of the body feeling purely in pain due to being plain unfit) decline in 10 days? I have never exercised in all my life whilst on holidays what makes this time so very different?
So these are the questions plaguing me at the moment. At the moment I think one thing is clear - I need to enjoy the holiday because I am on holiday - and not to mention relax - but I clearly need to structure my days. So if I am used to waking up early there is nothing stopping me from going off for a walk - joining my family in walking everywhere instead of being the one to tire first. This is a short holiday and this is a little test - afterall, I cannot rely on ALWAYS being in the gym working out with the same trainer for the rest of my days? or his? The test is simply to prepare me for my life and the pleasant things like holidays and breaks that will occur and who knows even getting myself independent of the gym one day? So I will stay balanced and keep a sugar diary - I have never been regular at food diaries coz they have seemed tiresome and far too long and tedious. However, one thing I know I can do is keep a sugar diary where I note down everything I eat that has sugar in it. That is more manageable and easier to do - convenient even.
- Lastly, of course the key is to keep moving all the time - we will be in sunny Queensland and at the very least there is the guarantee of sun - so move, move and move. The rest we will know when we are back and I am getting measured up. Heeee hawwwww!!! :)
Wednesday, 20 June 2012
Something strange is happening to me :)
In my last post I spoke about 'liking' my body a wee bit. Well since that post I have had my trainer, my husband and a friend comment on how I seem to be shrinking a wee bit.
My trainer, 'you seem to be changing since the last fortnight'
Hubby, 'you are getting firmer'
Friend, 'looks like you lost some weight'
All comments I will gladly accept and feed off. Yes something seems to be changing. I don't quite know what it is apart from maybe I am firming up. Weightwise I am still around 120 kilos depending on what day or time I weigh myself. Although this is pissing me off, I am ignoring it for the moment as the aim is to be consistent and to copy that from day to day.
What am I doing?
- Trying to keep off the sugar. This means that apart from a teaspoon of honey I put in my yoghurt everyday, and one or two fruit a day, I try not to have any sweet things.
- I have gone back to full fat food and butter. I am no longer having fat free food and feeling eternally hungry and unsatisfied. I have made the decision to go back to full fat milk and use butter instead of margarine. I am feeling less hungry and having smaller portions of food as I am satisfied for longer.
- I have started experimenting with what makes my gut feel better and what does not. Bread does not make me feel good in my belly so I have decided not to have it. I am not anal about it but instead of having bread everyday, I only have it when I really want to. Same thing for rice and noodles and pasta. I am however having more sweet potato mash. I think on a very basic level I am experimenting with paleo type foods without becoming totally paleo.
- I have limited lentils and pulses. This is again with the paleo type experiment I am currently on.
With these little changes I am feeling better - working out is giving me a sense of self worth like never before. Seeing my body changing I am learning to appreciate it more and more. Maybe to an extent having had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant has been at the back of my head ever since and slowly and surely I am finding that I am thinking more and more about long term health, being healthy and active instead of slow and sluggish.
I do have my aberrations and am still a work in progress but I am very much improved from eating 2 medium sized cadbury bars from the local 7-11 every cpl of days to having one dark chocolate Lindt this week, most of which I do blame on my period. However, I think one thing I am doing a lot of nowadays is not giving myself hell and putting myself down each time I have an aberration. I accept it, think about why it happened and then move on with some ideas of how I would approach it. So in this instance, I know that had I eaten the dark chocolate slowly focussing on the taste, texture, flavour I would have not only enjoyed more but would have eaten less as the feelingof being satiated would have come after 4 squares or so. I know that in eating the chocolate I focussed on the taste, texture and flavour the first couple of squares and then went back onto the old pattern of throwing it in without any awareness of taste.
I am enjoying me and little by little I am learning to like me and enjoy the journey. Afterall there is no fun in a journey I dread? I will try and update as I go along a bit more regularly than I have been. Watch this space :):)
My trainer, 'you seem to be changing since the last fortnight'
Hubby, 'you are getting firmer'
Friend, 'looks like you lost some weight'
All comments I will gladly accept and feed off. Yes something seems to be changing. I don't quite know what it is apart from maybe I am firming up. Weightwise I am still around 120 kilos depending on what day or time I weigh myself. Although this is pissing me off, I am ignoring it for the moment as the aim is to be consistent and to copy that from day to day.
What am I doing?
- Trying to keep off the sugar. This means that apart from a teaspoon of honey I put in my yoghurt everyday, and one or two fruit a day, I try not to have any sweet things.
- I have gone back to full fat food and butter. I am no longer having fat free food and feeling eternally hungry and unsatisfied. I have made the decision to go back to full fat milk and use butter instead of margarine. I am feeling less hungry and having smaller portions of food as I am satisfied for longer.
- I have started experimenting with what makes my gut feel better and what does not. Bread does not make me feel good in my belly so I have decided not to have it. I am not anal about it but instead of having bread everyday, I only have it when I really want to. Same thing for rice and noodles and pasta. I am however having more sweet potato mash. I think on a very basic level I am experimenting with paleo type foods without becoming totally paleo.
- I have limited lentils and pulses. This is again with the paleo type experiment I am currently on.
With these little changes I am feeling better - working out is giving me a sense of self worth like never before. Seeing my body changing I am learning to appreciate it more and more. Maybe to an extent having had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant has been at the back of my head ever since and slowly and surely I am finding that I am thinking more and more about long term health, being healthy and active instead of slow and sluggish.
I do have my aberrations and am still a work in progress but I am very much improved from eating 2 medium sized cadbury bars from the local 7-11 every cpl of days to having one dark chocolate Lindt this week, most of which I do blame on my period. However, I think one thing I am doing a lot of nowadays is not giving myself hell and putting myself down each time I have an aberration. I accept it, think about why it happened and then move on with some ideas of how I would approach it. So in this instance, I know that had I eaten the dark chocolate slowly focussing on the taste, texture, flavour I would have not only enjoyed more but would have eaten less as the feelingof being satiated would have come after 4 squares or so. I know that in eating the chocolate I focussed on the taste, texture and flavour the first couple of squares and then went back onto the old pattern of throwing it in without any awareness of taste.
I am enjoying me and little by little I am learning to like me and enjoy the journey. Afterall there is no fun in a journey I dread? I will try and update as I go along a bit more regularly than I have been. Watch this space :):)
Thursday, 7 June 2012
Consistency - my constant desire
Is it possible to always be in serious muscle pain?
So thats how I feel. I have been training my arse off (except the arse is still around) and when I am home I fall like a deck of cards. I train 4 days a week at a fitness studio doing loads of weights and cardio and in an hour they have me focussed and revved up like a mean machine. Its just that when I get home, I just am soooo exhausted that I collapse. What I love about this place is that they really work me out full and proper. There is no room for shamming through the workout as my trainer has an eagle eye on me. I often wonder if I am sooo unfit that I am plain exhausted by the weekend? I have been doing this for 8 weeks now and food woes aside (coz the great Tom cannot come home with me and monitor my food), I feel great.
The other day I surprised myself when I commented ( for the first time since I can remember) that I like my body a little bit when I saw myself training facing the mirror. Usually I do not look at the mirror but this time as it was a new move and I needed to check my posture and whether I was engaging the right muscle groups. I actually thought that my thighs looked firmer than the bulging discs of fat I saw them as. How much of the self criticism is valid and how much is mental. I think most of it is mental. For me, I tend to 'like' (note: I didnt say love), myself a little bit more when I am exercising. I feel better about myself than I have in years. I still have stacks of weight to lose and I still have a gut and big tits but my arms are firmer than they have been in ages, my thighs are stronger and I am slowly - exceptionally slowly getting there.
Food has been the struggle it always has been. I am now trying to eat a lot less bread, rice, pasta, indian breads and trying to replace them with mash - sweet potato, carrot, pumpkin, potato in lesser quantities and increasing the vegetable intake. I have been sugar free for one day. I am trying to take each day at a time and not get bogged down into chocolate and the semantics of I have touched a grain of chocolate and so I can have the whole bar. I am trying to remember that consistency is the name of the game. Hence the new mantra, lets deal with today while we are living today, tomorrow will be taken care of tomorrow. I did end up with a raging headache early evening and all of last night which probably had to do with no chocolate. I will be tightening up on fruit too as itis all too easy to replace sugar with stacks of fruit as I found out yesterday. Fruits I ended up eating yesterday were banana, grapes, mandarin. Although this is a far cry from the day before where there was more fruit when I gave up on sugar, I know that today there will be less fruit on the table.
Consistency has to be the mantra to better living I think. I started thinking of people at work and friends who appeared to be successful in my eyes. Mind you the measure of success has not been by how much they get paid or what level positions they hold but how I percieve them in terms of health and fitness and a general aura of positivity. The key thread common to all these people had to do with their being consistent in how they ate, slept, worked and exercised. They were in control and not the other way around. There was a balance I sensed that they had. They seemed to take care in how they ate and they did this as humans and weren't the freaks who were solely gym machines etc. Yes they did eat chocolate but instead of someone like me who went the whole hog and bought the family bar and ate it in one sitting, they bought a small caramello or freddo frog - you get the drift. This group of people exercised because it was part of their routine and something they did just like brushing their teeth and did not think of it as sometkhing that needed to be ticked off - admittedly they do not have weight battles which I do and I do not think most of them ever did - but they are aware that they can abuse their body with food easily. This I think is the core. I seek more awareness on a conscious level. I eat to drown stress or as a comfort blankie. During the period of eating I am comfortable but the moment the food is finished, I am already on the merry go round to feeling horrible about myself and ona nd on this merry go round goes.
So seeing that I have started again - and again - lets see where this again takes me.
So thats how I feel. I have been training my arse off (except the arse is still around) and when I am home I fall like a deck of cards. I train 4 days a week at a fitness studio doing loads of weights and cardio and in an hour they have me focussed and revved up like a mean machine. Its just that when I get home, I just am soooo exhausted that I collapse. What I love about this place is that they really work me out full and proper. There is no room for shamming through the workout as my trainer has an eagle eye on me. I often wonder if I am sooo unfit that I am plain exhausted by the weekend? I have been doing this for 8 weeks now and food woes aside (coz the great Tom cannot come home with me and monitor my food), I feel great.
The other day I surprised myself when I commented ( for the first time since I can remember) that I like my body a little bit when I saw myself training facing the mirror. Usually I do not look at the mirror but this time as it was a new move and I needed to check my posture and whether I was engaging the right muscle groups. I actually thought that my thighs looked firmer than the bulging discs of fat I saw them as. How much of the self criticism is valid and how much is mental. I think most of it is mental. For me, I tend to 'like' (note: I didnt say love), myself a little bit more when I am exercising. I feel better about myself than I have in years. I still have stacks of weight to lose and I still have a gut and big tits but my arms are firmer than they have been in ages, my thighs are stronger and I am slowly - exceptionally slowly getting there.
Food has been the struggle it always has been. I am now trying to eat a lot less bread, rice, pasta, indian breads and trying to replace them with mash - sweet potato, carrot, pumpkin, potato in lesser quantities and increasing the vegetable intake. I have been sugar free for one day. I am trying to take each day at a time and not get bogged down into chocolate and the semantics of I have touched a grain of chocolate and so I can have the whole bar. I am trying to remember that consistency is the name of the game. Hence the new mantra, lets deal with today while we are living today, tomorrow will be taken care of tomorrow. I did end up with a raging headache early evening and all of last night which probably had to do with no chocolate. I will be tightening up on fruit too as itis all too easy to replace sugar with stacks of fruit as I found out yesterday. Fruits I ended up eating yesterday were banana, grapes, mandarin. Although this is a far cry from the day before where there was more fruit when I gave up on sugar, I know that today there will be less fruit on the table.
Consistency has to be the mantra to better living I think. I started thinking of people at work and friends who appeared to be successful in my eyes. Mind you the measure of success has not been by how much they get paid or what level positions they hold but how I percieve them in terms of health and fitness and a general aura of positivity. The key thread common to all these people had to do with their being consistent in how they ate, slept, worked and exercised. They were in control and not the other way around. There was a balance I sensed that they had. They seemed to take care in how they ate and they did this as humans and weren't the freaks who were solely gym machines etc. Yes they did eat chocolate but instead of someone like me who went the whole hog and bought the family bar and ate it in one sitting, they bought a small caramello or freddo frog - you get the drift. This group of people exercised because it was part of their routine and something they did just like brushing their teeth and did not think of it as sometkhing that needed to be ticked off - admittedly they do not have weight battles which I do and I do not think most of them ever did - but they are aware that they can abuse their body with food easily. This I think is the core. I seek more awareness on a conscious level. I eat to drown stress or as a comfort blankie. During the period of eating I am comfortable but the moment the food is finished, I am already on the merry go round to feeling horrible about myself and ona nd on this merry go round goes.
So seeing that I have started again - and again - lets see where this again takes me.
Thursday, 3 May 2012
Hmm not sure and sure and not sure again...where to from here? Reporting back to Base
I have always struggled with my weight. Today is literally day 4 of keeping a count on my food and I am trying very hard to keep it to 1800-2000 cals for a start as I do not want to go cold turkey and become a snappy bitch which I am known to become. 4 days later there have already been some ups and downs:
Downs:
The weight - I weighed myself this evening - last time I looked (sometime in March) I was losing weight and had come down to 118 kilos. This evening I took a sneak peak and I am 121.6 kilos. This really gutted me. On the one hand I know I should weigh myself first thing in the morning and all of that but on the other surely I would not be sooo much lighter in the morning!
So I have decided that hubby is to weigh me every morning before I eat anything just for the science of it all. Hubby is a scientist and he reckons everyones journey is different and water retention, weight gain, loss, periods etc is all different. He wants the chance to prove it to me by weighing me over a period of time - perhaps 6 months or so. Maybe this should be his chance and I can take a peak every week or fortnight.
Portions - I have always struggled with portions. I grew up in a culture where portions were big. Everyone in my family (parents house) eats big. Gor example if a brick of ice cream (1 litre) were brought home we would split it 4 ways. When hubby and I got together and were visiting my parents, he was horrified and did his best to not show it. By then my eating habits had improved (read: improved not perfected) and I was also shocked. Portions torment me. I love food. Not only am I an emotional eater, I also have a love for good food. I enjoy food, in particular desserts. So this will need to be reined in. I was drinking less water and eating more bad food. This will change NOW
Fruit - I love fruit. Fruit has sugar. In the past I have been known to eat more than 5 fruit a day. These days I am aiming for one apple and one and a half banana a day. The half comes from the one that goes into my morning oats to sweeten it up as I do not use any sweeteners, sugar or honey (another journey which I will explain one day but something I am rather proud of). The amount of sugar in a measly apple amazes me and annoys me but I am trying not to get tooo ANAL at this stage. I use www.calorieking.com.au to track my food and I find it amazingly helpful. I do not think it is great to track exercise but when I want to track my exercise, I use it to get a rough idea.
Ups:
- I feel energetic
- I am happy
- I am less bitchy
- I am more productive
- I am motivated
- I am gradually becoming more aware of my food intake.
- It is cold and even now I am drinking close to 3 litres of water every day.
- Event though I seem to have gained weight, I actually feel more confident and feel good about myself.
- My skin is sooooo much better. I even got a compliment about it today and this is just a week of being really careful with food and exercise.
Given the ups and downs I have just written about, I think it is a no-brainer that I have to continue this regime. I enjoy getting my arse kicked at the gym and so look forward to it. I go 4 days a week at present but I am going to have to think of other things to do with my family over the weekend so that exercise is not something that I do alone at the gym but something that is a way of life for the family. My hubby loves exercising and I think he feels left out when I tell him all the fun I have had . He is hugely encouraging but I think he really would love to do something together as a regular 'our' thing and quite frankly I think it makes sense. Our little bub will also learn this is our normal life where one does not have to go to seek exercise to lose weight but it is part of a daily routine like brushing our teeth.
I have loads to think of in terms of tightening things up realistically. I do not want to make it too hard to follow so I will have to think carefully and consult with the trainer, hubby, fellow bloggers and their journeys and put something together. So until next time ta ra...xx
Downs:
The weight - I weighed myself this evening - last time I looked (sometime in March) I was losing weight and had come down to 118 kilos. This evening I took a sneak peak and I am 121.6 kilos. This really gutted me. On the one hand I know I should weigh myself first thing in the morning and all of that but on the other surely I would not be sooo much lighter in the morning!
So I have decided that hubby is to weigh me every morning before I eat anything just for the science of it all. Hubby is a scientist and he reckons everyones journey is different and water retention, weight gain, loss, periods etc is all different. He wants the chance to prove it to me by weighing me over a period of time - perhaps 6 months or so. Maybe this should be his chance and I can take a peak every week or fortnight.
Portions - I have always struggled with portions. I grew up in a culture where portions were big. Everyone in my family (parents house) eats big. Gor example if a brick of ice cream (1 litre) were brought home we would split it 4 ways. When hubby and I got together and were visiting my parents, he was horrified and did his best to not show it. By then my eating habits had improved (read: improved not perfected) and I was also shocked. Portions torment me. I love food. Not only am I an emotional eater, I also have a love for good food. I enjoy food, in particular desserts. So this will need to be reined in. I was drinking less water and eating more bad food. This will change NOW
Fruit - I love fruit. Fruit has sugar. In the past I have been known to eat more than 5 fruit a day. These days I am aiming for one apple and one and a half banana a day. The half comes from the one that goes into my morning oats to sweeten it up as I do not use any sweeteners, sugar or honey (another journey which I will explain one day but something I am rather proud of). The amount of sugar in a measly apple amazes me and annoys me but I am trying not to get tooo ANAL at this stage. I use www.calorieking.com.au to track my food and I find it amazingly helpful. I do not think it is great to track exercise but when I want to track my exercise, I use it to get a rough idea.
Ups:
- I feel energetic
- I am happy
- I am less bitchy
- I am more productive
- I am motivated
- I am gradually becoming more aware of my food intake.
- It is cold and even now I am drinking close to 3 litres of water every day.
- Event though I seem to have gained weight, I actually feel more confident and feel good about myself.
- My skin is sooooo much better. I even got a compliment about it today and this is just a week of being really careful with food and exercise.
Given the ups and downs I have just written about, I think it is a no-brainer that I have to continue this regime. I enjoy getting my arse kicked at the gym and so look forward to it. I go 4 days a week at present but I am going to have to think of other things to do with my family over the weekend so that exercise is not something that I do alone at the gym but something that is a way of life for the family. My hubby loves exercising and I think he feels left out when I tell him all the fun I have had . He is hugely encouraging but I think he really would love to do something together as a regular 'our' thing and quite frankly I think it makes sense. Our little bub will also learn this is our normal life where one does not have to go to seek exercise to lose weight but it is part of a daily routine like brushing our teeth.
I have loads to think of in terms of tightening things up realistically. I do not want to make it too hard to follow so I will have to think carefully and consult with the trainer, hubby, fellow bloggers and their journeys and put something together. So until next time ta ra...xx
Saturday, 28 April 2012
Some progress
I have been lying low for a while now - close to a month now and that is because I have been struggling with motivation and tha ankle has been good and bad from time to time. Although a lot of the swelling has gone down it is still not a normal ankle. I have also been feeling the pressure of close to full time work, the gym, looking after a one year old, not having enough time to spend with hubby and have a chat like we used to pre-baby and feeling like I am failing and so on.
In some ways since the last week things seem to have stabilised. I went to the gym after work 4 times and feel really great, I seem to be eating better than I used to and after ages have been feeling relaxed and chilled out.Gym has become more and more challenging. The fitness trainer I like working with really pushes me and on Tuesdays when I get to the gym, I am usually the only person in the gym and so he really smashes me around. I have still not started to run or anything and wont do so for a while but I have started climbing the stairs as additional cardio in the gym. Last Tuesday, trainer Thom got me to run 12 times up and down the stairs. After two sets of the stairs he was waiting with the boxing gloves and we boxed and I went on for another 2 sets of the stairs - before the stairs there was more cardio I had already done - loads more boxing and cycling and and and...for the first time this century I found that my elbows were slipping on the exercise mat when I was trying to do planks....sweating felt great.
I think mentally I have seen a drastic metamorphosis where when I get home even though my muscles are crying out loud, I am crawling around the floor playing with my little one and when I am in bed I pass out - in other words I sleep really well and have a lot more energy the next day. I love being challenged in the gym aI work really well with Thom as he really pushes me to my limits to the point where if I feel I cannot do something he makes it possible.
However, as a result of all this exercising, I am feeling more hungry and am ending up eating sweet stuff. Now that is something I need to bring under control as I am already running behind on a challenge. I will mention it in another post but basically I am trying to get to gym 5 times a week and also try and eat better and cleaner. The gym bit is doing pretty well and I am making it 4 times a week without a problem - but the food leaves much to be desired. So how about I try again to write a food diary and go no more than 2000 cals a day? I know it sounds like a lot but for someone that is enjoying eating in an unrestricted manner - even this is likely to be a challenge.
Mood for the moment: cheerful, hopeful, enthusiastic
In some ways since the last week things seem to have stabilised. I went to the gym after work 4 times and feel really great, I seem to be eating better than I used to and after ages have been feeling relaxed and chilled out.Gym has become more and more challenging. The fitness trainer I like working with really pushes me and on Tuesdays when I get to the gym, I am usually the only person in the gym and so he really smashes me around. I have still not started to run or anything and wont do so for a while but I have started climbing the stairs as additional cardio in the gym. Last Tuesday, trainer Thom got me to run 12 times up and down the stairs. After two sets of the stairs he was waiting with the boxing gloves and we boxed and I went on for another 2 sets of the stairs - before the stairs there was more cardio I had already done - loads more boxing and cycling and and and...for the first time this century I found that my elbows were slipping on the exercise mat when I was trying to do planks....sweating felt great.
I think mentally I have seen a drastic metamorphosis where when I get home even though my muscles are crying out loud, I am crawling around the floor playing with my little one and when I am in bed I pass out - in other words I sleep really well and have a lot more energy the next day. I love being challenged in the gym aI work really well with Thom as he really pushes me to my limits to the point where if I feel I cannot do something he makes it possible.
However, as a result of all this exercising, I am feeling more hungry and am ending up eating sweet stuff. Now that is something I need to bring under control as I am already running behind on a challenge. I will mention it in another post but basically I am trying to get to gym 5 times a week and also try and eat better and cleaner. The gym bit is doing pretty well and I am making it 4 times a week without a problem - but the food leaves much to be desired. So how about I try again to write a food diary and go no more than 2000 cals a day? I know it sounds like a lot but for someone that is enjoying eating in an unrestricted manner - even this is likely to be a challenge.
Mood for the moment: cheerful, hopeful, enthusiastic
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
Im on my soapbox: Looking for motivation, inspiration and reading other blogs
So the ankle has been looking worse for wear although it is not feeling that bad. We removed the bandage last night and it looked really gross.
Now I can only hope that the swelling goes down. Apparently the surgeon thought that my ankle reacted to the mesh he had put in during the last operation. Do you think I know whether the mesh has been removed or not? Nope. Will my ankle react to the mesh again? I don't know. The nurse said it would take 3 or 4 days for it all to be fine but it hasn't and I am still sitting at home nursing my ankle. I feel as though I am intruding each time I try and ring them just cause the surgeon is busy and strangely enough his flunkies seem to think that they are also royalty by default! Anyway, I have just left a message for them and lets see if they ring back. To me it looks like it is on the road to recovery but that is because I want it to look that way in a desperate attempt to feel I am fine and go back to the gym and my activities.
MEANWHILE, foodwise I have been nothing short of shocking. I have eaten my way through most of the chocolate and raspberry mousse my friend brought over 3 days ago. In desperation I asked hubby to pack away the remaining one piece and give it to his colleague or it would also find its way into my belly. I have also eaten my way through most of the grapes that come into the house, some chocochip biscuits hubby bought last Monday and frequent serves of bread and jam. For some reason, I seem to give up TOTALLY if I am unfit and unable to exercise instead of controlling what I can control and letting the rest control itself. So I am in no doubt whatsoever that I have gained weight and I also do not want to know how much. I suspect a couple of kilos. Meanwhile I am trying hard to research what modus operandi I want to use to get back on the horse. I am missing gym terribly. I will be trying to get out of the house on Thursday and come next week I will try and get back to the gym. I can only try my best and I don't think I am trying my best.
There are a lot of blogs I read. Among the ones that succeed the key common theme is consistency. They still make mistakes and get tempted, they still eat out but they are generally pretty consistent 80% of the time and are also people that are active and are people who for instance could never ever run but end up becoming runners, they push their minds boundaries and they end up succeeding and enjoying the newly explored. I have to start thinking in terms of the consistency element and practising it. I will have days where I will eat that piece of chocolate and it is okay as long as it is not a family sized bar of chocolate and is only a piece or two. I have to start thinking of writing that food diary. It is about discipline and repetition. Instead of repeatedly eating more bad food I have to start repeating good things and making them habits. I turn 42 today and I have a time machine which tells me I have 268 days to make sense of this body I have destroyed. It is redeemable and I need to work with it and not against it as this is the very same body that has been carrying so much weight. I need to give it a whole load a lurving instead of the step motherly treatment. This body has to last until my daughter grows up and is settled and experiences all my love and is taught all the lessons of life. This brings me to the goals for the next 7 days.
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| Now thats what I call needlework! |
MEANWHILE, foodwise I have been nothing short of shocking. I have eaten my way through most of the chocolate and raspberry mousse my friend brought over 3 days ago. In desperation I asked hubby to pack away the remaining one piece and give it to his colleague or it would also find its way into my belly. I have also eaten my way through most of the grapes that come into the house, some chocochip biscuits hubby bought last Monday and frequent serves of bread and jam. For some reason, I seem to give up TOTALLY if I am unfit and unable to exercise instead of controlling what I can control and letting the rest control itself. So I am in no doubt whatsoever that I have gained weight and I also do not want to know how much. I suspect a couple of kilos. Meanwhile I am trying hard to research what modus operandi I want to use to get back on the horse. I am missing gym terribly. I will be trying to get out of the house on Thursday and come next week I will try and get back to the gym. I can only try my best and I don't think I am trying my best.
There are a lot of blogs I read. Among the ones that succeed the key common theme is consistency. They still make mistakes and get tempted, they still eat out but they are generally pretty consistent 80% of the time and are also people that are active and are people who for instance could never ever run but end up becoming runners, they push their minds boundaries and they end up succeeding and enjoying the newly explored. I have to start thinking in terms of the consistency element and practising it. I will have days where I will eat that piece of chocolate and it is okay as long as it is not a family sized bar of chocolate and is only a piece or two. I have to start thinking of writing that food diary. It is about discipline and repetition. Instead of repeatedly eating more bad food I have to start repeating good things and making them habits. I turn 42 today and I have a time machine which tells me I have 268 days to make sense of this body I have destroyed. It is redeemable and I need to work with it and not against it as this is the very same body that has been carrying so much weight. I need to give it a whole load a lurving instead of the step motherly treatment. This body has to last until my daughter grows up and is settled and experiences all my love and is taught all the lessons of life. This brings me to the goals for the next 7 days.
- Keeping a food diary
- Calories to 2200 per day for the first week
- Drinking between 1.5-2 litres of water per day
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