Blogging challenge week one: Interview with myself

Today’s daily food intake…

Weigh in day

Previous weight: 102.6kg.
Today’s weight: 103.8kg.
1.2kg gain (arghh)

Well I was trawling around the forums the other day when I saw a post about a blogging challenge. Well you know me and blogging, or hell, me and challenges even. Anyway I have decided to take part in the 12wbt blogger challenge. I’m doing this because it’s a different thing for me to do, takes me out of my comfort zone, because when I blog, I just sit down and randomly put up the stuff that I feel I want to talk about on that particular day. But doing a challenge forces me to think outside my own square. So here we go, first weeks challenge – Introduce yourself:

  1. Tell us a little bit about yourself. What makes you, you?

    I always find that this is such a hard question to answer. I’ve just turned 36 years old and I’m still trying to work out the answer to that very question. I think what makes me, me is my bubbliness. When people describe me they always seem to describe me as bubbly, which is what I always try to project to the outside world – even when inside I feel as if I’ve sunk into the deepest darkest pit imaginable. I think my sidebar really describes me best – I am Tina 36 pierced tattooed partner daughter sister step mother aunt best friend in love web developer graphic designer pisces dragon hermit anglophile reformed smoker paranoid cynical sarcastic funny unstable bubbly clever bitch dynamic flirt genuine overweight losing weight lunatic outspoken playful forgetful indescribable gregarious sometimes lazy busy stressed being positive and many other things. I think on there I should also add that I’m quite competitive and don’t like to lose, especially to myself and my inner thoughts. I would like to be more courageous, but at the moment I’m a bit of a scardey cat, vey scared to try new things. The other thing that makes me, me is my overwhelming desire to have a child of my own. I absolutely adore my bonus daughter, but I certainly have enough love left in me to be able to love her and child of my own. I know it sounds corny, but I really don’t think my life is going to be complete if I don’t have my own child. I love all my (real and honorary) nieces and nephews to bits but it’s just not the same as having a child of your own. It makes me sad that at my age I don’t have that yet, and it makes me scared that at my age I may never get that.

  2. Why did you decide to do the 12WBT?

    I did the 12WBT back in Round 2, 2010 in order to fit into a nice dress for a very special wedding we were going to. It was a wedding where I was going to meet a lot of Mick’s friends for the first time ever, and I wanted him to be proud to show me off, and I wanted to look and feel good for myself – knowing that there were going to be comparisons between myself and his ex-wife. In the end it came down to my own pride. I didn’t want bad comparisons – and that was such a great motivator. At the end of the day, I looked smashing at that wedding! I finally got to under 100kg and I rocked it! But then over the last 18 months I got slack and went back to my old eating habits and my old habits of being a couch potato rather than exercising and the weight crept back on until when I weighed myself on January 2 of this year my weight had gone back up to 110kg even. I couldn’t believe that I had let myself get to that. So joining up this round I was inspired, not by a wedding, but by my own personal goal of getting slimmer and fitter. As I said just before my biggest desire is to be a mother. But I want to be a good role model to my child. I want to be fit and healthy while I’m pregnant and not get any fatter. When my child is born, I want to be able to pass on good eating and exercising habits so that my child never, ever has to join a 12 week body transformation program. That is my want more than anything, to be fit and healthy – for me – and to pass that on to my family. There’s also the added bit of wanting to be able to go bike riding with Mick and keep up with him, and to be able to jog further and longer than him (I did mention I’m competitive right? lol)

  3. What are you hoping to achieve through the program?

    A more sensible approach to eating and hopefully a love of exercising. I know that I’m never going to be able to go back to eating whatever I want when I want, but at the same time I’m not happy to accept never again being able to eat McDonalds and KFC and Hungry Jacks and all that, or to never be able to go out to a restaurant with friends again and sit there looking at the menu in terror trying to work out how many calories is in this or that. Because even though I know that those foods really aren’t good for you, I really do quite enjoy the taste of them. I think I’m a bit like a smoker – I know it’s bad for me, but the smoking is just addictive so I do it anyway. But I’d like to be able to get to a point where I can say, alright, I’m going to have a hamburger tonight, so what do I need to do today to make sure that I don’t blow myself away calorie wise? How can I plan my daily food around having a hamburger tonight, or how can I fit going out to dinner with friends in without making myself gain 10kgs. What I think I’m trying to say is I want to learn about food moderation. I know that for the next year, these McDonalds and dinners out with friends need to be very limited until I can reach my goal weight – but I don’t want to cut them out completely either.

    The other thing I’m hoping to achieve is a love of exercise. I keep reading about how people hated exercise, but then they got into it and now they love it and couldn’t imagine not exercising, but that love has yet to come to me. I don’t enjoy exercising, in fact I pretty much hate every single minute of it (except swimming, which I love). I really hope, that by forcing myself to exercise every day, that eventually that love is going to come to me, and that exercise won’t always be such a bloody chore.

  4. Why have you decided to blog about the 12WBT? What will be the main focus (eg, food, exercise, a bit of everything?)

    I love to blog. It’s an obsession for me almost. I’ve had a blog of some description for about the last 8 or 9 years or so, probably more – in fact it was blogging that got me interested in web design and led to my current profession as a web developer. So for me, it was a natural progression for me to blog about my 12WBT experience. I blogged about it last time I did it, but I had a bit of a meltdown last year and stopped blogging for quite some time. I’ll be blogging about everything, the food, the exercise, the ups and downs. Into that mix I’ll also be blogging about my everyday interests also – such as quilting (which I’ve had very little time to do since starting 12WBT and the whole exercising thing…)

  5. How will you be exercising this round? Gym, home, outdoors or a mixture?

    This year I’ve taken up running. At the moment, I can’t run, I shuffle. But I’m learning to run. I started the C25K app, but that really didn’t work for me, but then I found this book by Ruth Field, Run Fat B!tch Run (visit her blog!) – and it gave me a whole new perspective on running and how to learn to run. I had a bit of a setback last week when I had a fall which kinda scared me, but I’m back into it now, especially with the addition of Leroy and Rodney – Hettie’s new playmates. It’s a party for us all!

    In addition to the learning to run thing, I’m also going to be doing swimming twice a week and also exercise DVDs at home. When the weather gets colder (which is happening a lot sooner than I thought it would) I’m planning on getting a bike holder for my mountain bike and using that as an indoor exercise bike and perhaps joining a gym for the use of the treadmills alone. But I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. I want to give myself variety this year, so that I don’t get bored doing the same thing again and again.

  6. What is your greatest strength that will help you?

    I think in equal parts my greatest strength is my own determination to finally lose weight, get fit and have a baby and also the help and support of Mick. He’s very quiet about it, but when I’m really down, and don’t want to do any exercise he’s there to push me and help me along. Plus there’s also that wee little competitive streak. I just want to do well, and I’m competing against myself. So I have to win!

  7. What are you afraid of?

    Deathly afraid of falling over and breaking another bone again. Or just hurting myself in general. No so afraid of failing this time, because it’s going to be a long and gradual process, and I will succeed. By not having really given myself an exact time limit on how long it will take me I’ve kind of taken the pressure off myself to have to succeed at “this” much by “this” time. So mainly – falling over again.

  8. What are you looking forward to the most over the next 12 weeks?

    I’m looking forward to seeing just how much weight I will lose. I set myself the goal of getting down to 85kg by the end of the 12 weeks, but my body isn’t really playing the game at the moment, so I’m not 100% certain I’ll get there. But I think I will get close, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how close. I’m also looking forward to seeing what I look like slimmer, because in my whole adult life I’ve never been under 90kg, probably under 95kg. So for me, that will be an experience. I’m also really looking forward to getting fitter, so that exercising in general doesn’t hurt quite so much, and so I don’t look like an epileptic jellyfish when I swim and do Zumba.

  9. What is your downfall? Food? Exercise? How will you overcome this?

  10. My two downfalls are chips – potato chips in a bag, hot potato chips, with gravy or without, chips of any description! The yummy crunchy salty goodness of them. My other downfall is that at heart I’m pretty lazy and would much rather mooch on the couch with a good book or movie than get out there and do exercise. Combine the mooching with chips and you have a lethal combination that has been my life up to now. I’m going to overcome this by just not eating chips at all, because I can’t stop at one and I’m also setting my diary up weekly and scheduling my exercise in and making sure that Mick has got my back and is there to help me. I think I can do it. I hope I can do it.

  11. If you had to pick one word to motivate you over the next 12 weeks, what would you choose?

    RAAAWWWRRRRRRRRR. ‘nuff said.

RUUUNNNNN!
That's me on the right.... Probably how I look too! (Stole this pic from Marshmallow's website - http://large.mmmarshmallow.com/

You should all visit Marshmallows website – Do you have an extra large in this – right now!

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