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!!!!!