Restart and Reset

Right, I’ve decided that today is my reset day and here is my commitment.

I will unofficially follow the 12wbt program & track my food again through MFP, I will wear my Garmin to the gym to track my calories burnt and also track this through MFP, I will hit my trainer up for a new program to increase the intensity in my workouts, I quit coffee (ouch!), I have become too dependent on it and I want to go back to drinking it only for enjoyment rather than because I ‘need’ to have one, drinking alcohol will be reserved only for special events, no more after work wine. I haven’t fully decided on my calorie intake as yet but it will be somewhere between 1200-1500 calories per day. I will attend blast fit 2-3 times per week and do a workout a minimum of 5 times per week. If I sleep in, my gym bag will come to work with me and I will run in my lunch break, when hubby is away I will run in my lunch break or complete a blast fit session in my lounge room. Water is no issue for me and I will continue drinking water constantly throughout my day. Night time snacking will stop and I will settle with a green tea if I am looking for something more, if daily calories allow a piece of dark chocolate can accompany the tea. My pants WILL fit properly again! I will be able to wear shorts and dresses again this summer! I will plan my weekly menus and shop accordingly making sure Ben has lunch to take to work each day too.

I weighed in this morning – forgot to at first so I had already had breakfast and was fully clothed – the scales read back 86kg!!!! I was down to 74kg at one point, WTF???? I’ll follow the 12WBT timing with a friend of mine as she starts her round today and aim to get rid of 10kgs by the end of the round

There we go , it’s all out loud, time to smash it :)

There is more news of changes in my world, but I'll fill you in another day

The week that was

Following on from a blog I have discovered through the 12WBT forums this week I will give you FFS Friday, you can find out about it here

Saturday was my 12 year anniversary (of being together not married)  No FFS

The kids had been packed off to Nannie’s for 2 nights No FFS

We had pre booked tickets to Gold Class using gift vouchers No FFS

I had come down with some sort of man flu and spent all day on the couch FFS

Sucked it up and got in the car to go on our hot date, this meant lounging in a comfy Gold Class recliner No FFS

Free popcorn for booking online No FFS

Popcorn is not exactly a healthy snack FFS

Hilarious movie, had a great night out No FFS

Movie started at 6.15pm so it was still early when we got home, I went straight to bed FFS

No children meant I got a nice big sleep in and I slept for 12 hours No FFS

Mum bought the girls back to us meaning I didn’t have to do the 12 hour round trip No FFS

Monday hubby took off on the road, leaving me with single mum duties for the week FFS

Took Monday as a sick day and spent another day on the couch No FFS

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday passed in a blur, it went pretty quick No FFS

Thursday hubby came home No FFS

He walked in, I walked out FFS

I walked out to have a delicious dinner with some girlfriends No FFS

Him being back home meant I was able get up at stupid o’clock to go to the gym No FFS

I HATE stupid o’clock FFS

Tonight my bro and his GF are coming over for dinner, haven’t seen them for ages No FFS

The girls are going to be super excited and super happy to see them No FFS

This has been a great exercise, you think you've had a bad week but when you actually reflect back there are many more positives than negatives 

Hubby is on the wagon!

Thought it was about time I check in with an update. On my last update I was writing in a diary, I’m not so much writing in that now but I am tracking everything through My Fitness Pal instead, I really haven’t had any down days so haven’t needed the diary to track my moods but I will definitely write in it when I need to if I’m having a bad day.

Week one is coming to an end and it really has been successful, here is a rundown of what the first week has bought me.

PREPARATION: Actually completed the fitness test the night before round 1 – I have NEVER done the fitness test before, hubby did it with me and in 4 weeks’ time we will redo it and see our improvements. I have also recorded my measurements so when the scales stop moving I can track success by cm’s. Putting my fitness test results into the 12WBT website it told me I should be in the intermediate program which I take as really positive news. I had signed up for intermediate so it’s great to see in black and white that where I am in my mind is right where I should be. The 1km time trial went well too, I was worried about the run and how my knee would hold up but I am very pleased to report that it didn’t give me any trouble at all and I came in under 7mins, woohoo!!! I’m happy to venture out in the coming weeks now and push the knee to 3 km, then 5km and work up to the 9km I’m signed up to run in September. 

PARTICIPATION: Hubby joined the gym!!! OMG!!! What The??? This man does not do gyms….. I am completely over the moon, he has gone to see my trainer twice now to have a run through of his new program and he has come home from his sessions feeling amazing and totally excited about it all, I am thrilled to have him so completely on board with me, it makes life so much easier. He has decided to turn it into a bit of a competition though, and he says it’s on like Donkey Kong & he’s going to win. I tell him it’s not a race, but whatever, it’s great to have someone else in the house focused on exercise and nutrition so on the days I CBF he’ll be right there to give me the boot up the arse I need

PROBLEM: What do we feed hubby for lunch? He is on the road, no microwave, no fridge and wants to be eating properly instead of buying his lunch every day. Put in a call to the bestie who is signed up this round too with a tradie partner also participating, HELP, what do we do for lunches????? Enter pre cut veggies to munch on with low cal dip (Tzatziki, Hummus) wraps and fruit. I took the same to work and OMG yummo! He loved it, I loved it and neither of us were hungry. I have also discovered rice cakes with tuna (he doesn’t do tuna) and due to having a fridge at work I also have yoghurt for snacks. 

PROGRESS: NOT a morning person, HATE getting up in the dark, wet, cold, early morning…. BUT I have done it 4 times this week and gone straight to gym for my morning workout, home for breakfast and all before the kids wake up, next week I’ll aim for 5 times but I’m happy to stick to 4-5 times per week rather than the 6 days prescribed by 12WBT, I figure it needs to fit your life and be easily maintainable if you are going to stick to something long after the program is finished. 6 days a week will not work for me and I say that’s OK

Results? Well in the first few days I dropped 1.6kg, in the last few days another 0.5kg and I’m hoping in the next few weeks I’ll be cemented back in the 70’s and will stay there this time. The ball is rolling, hubby and I just need to ensure we are there for each other and keeping it rolling. These new initiatives in our life must become habit so that it is just the way we live and we just do it without even thinking about it

For those of you along for the ride, hope your round has started strong and you have started seeing results, if not, keep at it and the results will come

Lightbulbs and Diaries

I got a diary….yep what a nerd :) So in the lead up to my 4^th round of 12WBT while going through pre-season, I have been reading the book ‘Total Body Transformation’ to start getting back in the right headspace and in there was a suggestion to start a diary tracking your food, exercise and mood. I thought this was a great idea, I have had quite a few down days lately and as you may (or may not be aware) I suffer from PND, I thought tracking my food and exercise would be a great idea to track how and if this is affecting my moods and may just give me some strategies for managing my PND. I’m also going to try and blog more, it helps clear my head and keep me on track. If you do follow my blog feel free to send me a message if I am slipping and you don’t hear from me for a week or 2, your message may be just what I need to pull me back from the edge of another black hole. I also bought a recipe folder and a pad of weekly planners and I sat and sorted out all of my 12WBT recipes into neatly organised sections. I will be filling in the weekly planner each week and putting it in the front of the recipe folder, the nicely organised folder will ensure I have easy access to each recipe and will also help me when it comes to planning the shopping list. I feel much more organised after having done this and now just need to sit and plan out the first week to kick start the new habit. I did start the diary today including jumping on the scales and doing a full list of measurements to go along with my food log and mood tracking.

The new diary

 

 

 

 

 

Day one - Keeping honest

I also watched the latest mindset video from the pre-season today too and had a little light bulb moment. The task and video is the kitchen makeover. Now most of the crap food Michelle was going through in her video and telling us to throw away doesn’t live at our house. The problem I have with nutrition is not that there is always access to crap food in our house but that when I decide I want something I go out and get it, the shops are only around the corner so it’s very easy to do; this is a habit that needs to stop immediately! Now the light bulb moment happened when Michelle was talking about feeding high sugar cereals and crap food to your children. Now high sugar cereal doesn’t exist at our house, I make sure the girls eat a healthy breakfast to set them up for the day, but what does exist is a container full of snacks for the girls – little packets of chips and biscuits etc. If I am not going to be eating these foods, why would I feed them to my children? If the girls want a snack or dessert they will often grab a bickie but I’ll bet if I don’t buy them anymore and fill up the fruit bowl instead and make sure there is yummy yoghurt always in the fridge they won’t even miss the snacks and will reach straight for the healthy option without a second thought. I have made a decision that I will no longer be buying these items for the girls. Biscuits and the like can become a special treat when we go out for afternoon tea and will no longer be a food that can be accessed daily from our very own pantry. 

Lightbulb moment

What snacks do you have on hand for your kids?

Feeling like i have made good progress and should be ready and raring when the round officially kicks off.  

If only you could workout in high heels

Here we go......AGAIN....

Right, OK, here we go, you'll notice over the last few months I've been struggling mentally, in turn I've let some bad habits sneak back in, hello wine, hello chocolate, hello massive bag of chips!! Needless to say from my lowest recorded weight to now, 8......yes 8 friggin kilos has found its way back into my life, well I say NO MORE!!!!! Hold on tight, I think this is going to be a long post.

I was soooooo excited when a size 12 pants fit me, I never ever thought I could ever squeeze my ass into a size 12, well it got to a point where they started getting loose and I have a size 10 in the back of the wardrobe waiting for me. Well when you gain back 8kgs, those size 12 pants are no so comfy, and you have no hope of getting into the 10's, in fact hubby asked me the other day if my jeans were painted on! He wasn't being cruel, just an observation of how tight they were, I could go out and buy some size 14 pants, but NO! that would go against every reason why I gave all my size 14 clothes to charity the day I shrank out of them, I WILL NOT go back into bigger clothes, if I give in and go buy comfy size 14's then in no time at all I'll be back in the size 18 section utterly depressed because nothing fits, I’ll look like crap, I’ll feel like crap, I’ll have no energy, no confidence and be straight back on the couch to eat my feelings. Not going to happen, why? I know what works for me so it’s back to 12WBT, back to where it all began to get some mindset lessons back into my head, get my focus back, reign in my (almost) out of control eating habits and continue exercising. 

 
When this all began I had no problem fixing my nutrition, I just got on with it and didn’t really have any problems following the nutrition guide, where I struggled was exercise. Fast forward 18 months and now on a bad week I’m still in the gym a few times but the problem I now face is poor nutrition. It all started when I stopped going to the gym regularly and focussed on running. I have never been a runner, never wanted to be but then I started running as my cardio warm up on the treadmill at the gym and was so excited each time I got a bit further, I started with 1.5mins non-stop and built up to half an hour! Then I progressed to my first ‘running event’ which was a 10km run, I made it all the way non-stop, I was so proud of myself, I then finished the 12km event for Run Geelong and from there started training for a half marathon, a half marathon that I never really wanted to do, and rather then pull out, knowing it wasn’t my idea of fun, I allowed myself to go along for the ride and self-sabotaged my efforts by eating rubbish and half assing my training. In the lead up I had events planned to slowly build up my distance, this saw me complete another 10km event, then the 17km Great Rail Run finishing with the grand finale of the 21.1km half marathon. During the 17km event I realised I was having some problems which at the time I thought was my ITB but a bit of rest, ice, Epsom bath, deep heat seemed to do the trick and put it right within 48 hours, still the 4 weeks between the 17km and the half didn’t come with a lot of training and I really struggled to get through the half. I limped to the end in just under 3 hours and pulled up extremely sore, again I was OK within 2 days and the only other event I had planned was the mother’s day classic. I had decided to complete the 8km run (easy after 21.1km yeah) then come back and do the 4km walk with my family. Well that was the hardest 8km of my life, about half way around it started to hurt, I probably should have stopped, I definitely shouldn’t have done the 4km walk, but with 4 generations walking it was something I didn’t want to miss, big mistake!

 

4 days later and still sore I hobbled into the physio, my knee has some cartilage problems and my supporting muscles are not firing properly which is pulling my knee out of line and aggravating it even more. Solution? No more running! I can’t say I was disappointed, so back into the gym to meet with my trainer, assess my program and incorporate some exercises to strengthen my ‘non-firing’ muscles. I have also been seeing my osteo to get my very out of line body back in shape. I do plan to do some running again in the future but no crazy distances and no more being sucked into events I don’t want to do. I plan on training for about a month and will head out at the start of July to see how a short run goes. My next planned event is not until September where I plan to do a 9km run in Sydney with some very good friends, also with weight loss and exercise goals, so plenty of time to get ready, I really want to do this run, it is an amazing course which will take me over the harbour bridge with some amazing views, plus 3 nights in Sydney with just my hubby, while the girls hang out at grandma’s sounds like a good plan to me.

So I’m still exercising regularly and have fitness goals so why am I here? Because my nutrition sucks and I just can’t seem to pull myself out of the hole I have created. I am giving into cravings….EVERY craving, eating huge portions again, not planning meals properly and just can’t break the self-sabotage cycle I created for myself when I was resisting the half marathon goal. This will be my 4^th round of 12WBT and I am now 2kg heavier then when I finished my 1^st round approx. 12 months ago. That 1^st round was my most successful and I managed to lose almost 11kg in the 12 weeks. I will treat this round as my first round, I have the full support of my husband, I will plan my meals, I will watch the mindset lessons, I will actively participate in the forums and I will use my blog to deal with the emotion of it all and to log the battles with food rather than give in to my temptations.

There are so many excuses I can come up with as a full time working mother of 2 but I must fight them all. Sundays are a great day to sit, plan and shop for the week ahead, 5.15 is a great time to drag my ass out of bed, get into the gym and get my exercise done before the day begins. I must focus on how amazing I felt when I reached my 75kg goal, I was so confident, clothes fit me, no belly rolling out over the top of my pants, I had definition starting (not a lot but some) on my abs, I had little baby guns forming, I got compliments all the time (I hate compliments and don’t know how to react to them, but I was getting them because of my transformation) my size 12 clothes were getting loose and I was an awesome role model for my little girls, showing them how to eat properly and keep fit. In 12 weeks all of this will be true again. One positive thing to come out of all of this is that I have not given up, it would have been so easy to go out and buy bigger clothes and say, oh well, it didn’t work, but it DID work, I just have to keep at it every day and I am happy that I have realised that I am slipping and I am going to go out there and rein it back in, get that 8kgs back off, plus an additional 0.5kg and will be able to say I lost 25kg………and kept it off!!!!!