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?

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.

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

    RAAAWWWRRRRRRRRR. ‘nuff said.

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

Busy, very busy night tonight, so just a quick post. Trying to get a quilt that I’m making all finished and bound, so that I can get another two – strike that – three quilts finished, one of which is for a quilt swap and needs to be posted by early March and I haven’t even started it yet. No pressure though…

Noteworthy news from today though. My cat Maximus Catticus loves me sooooo much that he bought me a super lovely belated birthday gift today. Introducing Leroy (the left shoe) and Rodney (the right shoe)….

And okay, maybe Max didn’t go out and get them himself, maybe I might have helped him with it, but I’m sure he wanted to get me my new Asics Kayano 18 sneakers. I have never in my life spent so much money on a pair of sneakers before so damn they better be worth it. I shall let you know when I test them out tomorrow morning. Here’s to no falling over ever again in these wonderful shoes.

Just a quick post because it’s my birthday today and I’m still celebrating (read that as I’m sitting on the couch with Mick spending good, quality time together).

Have had a super lovely day and had some super lovely food and went way over my calorie limit – with dinner alone – but every single bite has been worth it.

I know I should be sitting here saying that I ate super clean and healthy, but I’m of the opinion that I have one birthday a year and I should be allowed to let loose a little. So I ate really well all day – healthy breakfast and lunch, only had a wee tiny little slice of the birthday cake that work bought me (and I mean, really small slice – it all fit in my mouth in one go, but I made it last two bites lol), and let loose a little with dinner – grilled rump steak, with chips and mushroom gravy (that’s where the calories came in) and then a wee little lemon cupcake birthday cake.

I loved every single mouthful and am happy that I didn’t say no, I can only eat grilled fish at this restaurant. And I will work hard tomorrow to make up for the food I ate tonight.

With that said, I’m back to my mooching on the couch with Mick. More tomorrow.

Okay, maybe not running, but I’m back to my shuffling. So WooHoo and yay me!

Admittedly it took me two days more than I was saying it would. I swore I was going to get back out there on Friday and do it, but woke up so sore that I just couldn’t physically do it, and then I just lost my nerve. I know it sounds stupid for me to be scared to go for a shuffle/jog after only a little tumble, and it’s really hard to put into words the stupid irrational fears I have in my head. But I’ll try.

Three and a bit years ago I left my house in the morning to go to work. It was my fifth day at a brand new job, a job which I loved and was so excited to be going to. I stepped out on the path and there was broken concrete under my foot, which I hadn’t really noticed before. Hadn’t noticed until it came out from under my feet and I fell down. Hard. I smashed my wrist up, both bones, right up near the top where I couldn’t just have it wrapped in a cast. No, I had to do it hard and ended up with a plate in my wrist.

That alone was enough to scare the beejeezus out of me. I was too scared to walk alone anywhere because I didn’t want to fall over again. I went from being a girl who would wear heels everywhere, dancing for hours in stilettos, to someone who was too scared to walk with even flat shoes on, like I had on when I actually fell – that’s the weird part, I was wearing damned flat shoes when it happened. That broken wrist was just the start of the crappiness that followed though. I ended up with full blown pneumonia a week and a bit later – a result of the surgery on my wrist, and then it was almost a weekly trip back to the doctors having blood tests and ultrasounds to find out what was going on with my body after that – think liver and kidney problems. Then started the therapy to get movement back in my wrist – almost (actually sometimes moreso) as painful as breaking the wrist. Finally two months later I got back to that job I loved, but by then just getting to and from work was a struggle in itself.

But the worst, was the constant feeling of sadness and despair that came with all of this. Took me a while to really talk to the doctor about it, but eventually I was diagnosed with full blown depression – something I’d been fighting for years, but never done anything about because of the shame that I associated with it. But when I went to the doctor one day and just couldn’t actually get any words out because of the tears that were choking up my throat. I couldn’t explain what was wrong with me. I didn’t know why I wanted to cry all the time, why getting out of bed every day was a struggle. How just looking at the scar that I now had on my wrist could leave me sitting in a pile of mush for days and make me want to vomit. That was probably the best doctor visit I ever made, because to be honest, I don’t know where I’d be today if I hadn’t gone to the docs.

This is just a quick overview of the crap that happened all at the same time. I know it wasn’t all caused by the broken wrist, but every time I think of falling, I just associate it with bad things. Very bad things. It’s stupid. It’s irrational. But it’s just something that’s so hard to get over. I’m trying and the fact that I actually got back out there today and did a jog (a slow and careful jog, with Mick right by my side the whole time – even though he caved earlier than I did…) shows that I’ve come a long way, because three years ago I would have gone back inside, shut the door and not gone back outside for a week – and that’s after sitting down and bawling for a few hours. One day, I’ll be able to get back up after falling, brush it aside and just keep going. But until then I’ll just take it one day at a time and keep trying.

But the positive thing to take away from this (very maudlin – I’m sorry, it wasn’t where I was going with this post, it just kinda came out) is that…

I jogged again today.

Yeah baby, I’m back!

Nothing new to report today. Just feeling really sad and glum and want to cry. Had the best of intentions of getting up early and doing lots of exercise and actually doing a SSS, but that didn’t happen because I actually got to sleep in for once. The sleep in was really nice, but didn’t get me up and exercising.

And that was the tone for the whole day. Pretty much I did nothing, until this evening when I finally felt guilty for not having done anything and finally got off my arse and did the Jillian Michaels 30 day shred dvd and burnt a measly 205 calories.

Today I just want to cry. I don’t know why I’m so sad, or what’s up with me, but I just want to curl up in a ball and hide myself away and cry. But I can’t do that cos I’m a big girl now. Hopefully tomorrow is a better day.

No.

Did I do any exercise to make up for the lack of run?

Very little.

Has today completely sucked?

Absolutely!

Have been in lots of pain today, I did a little bit more damage to my wrist yesterday than I thought I had, apparently landing the way I did wasn’t a great idea. My palm is all cut and bruised and of course it’s my right hand which I use for everything. Oh and my face looks like a mix between someone with really bad case of cold sores and someone who’s been beaten up. So all round, I’m in a pretty crappy mood today.

The one bright spot is that Mick came home last night and asked how I was going. When I told him I wasn’t sure when I’d get back out there to try jogging again he actually offered to get up with me in the morning and go for a run with me, which is pretty big for him as he is the King of Sleeping In. Made me love him so much more than I already did.

So the plan is tomorrow morning, first thing, we’re going out there for a jog. At least he’ll be there to pick me up if I fall!

Weigh in day – yesterday (oops)

Previous weight: 103.4kg.
Today’s weight: 102.6kg.
0.8kg loss

Today was not my day!

Finally, finally after so many times trying I got up at 6.20am ready and energised from yesterday to do my shuffle in the morning. Got myself dressed and out the door, ready to do the whole route this morning before I had to go home and get ready for work.

Right, well that lasted a whole ten f*cking minutes. I was really pumping my legs and jogging (it wasn’t even shuffling today, it was proper jogging) and my back was straight, my arms were pumping, I was breathing well…

Until.

Until my shoe found a rock (or a twig, or something, I don’t even know what now) and I fell. Not on my arse, no. Flat on my face. Arms outstretched, jarred my plated wrist and smacked my teeth into my lip. All I could do was get up in masses of pain and literally scream “Why the hell does this happen to me all the bloody time?” I was so upset. I was hurt, I was angry, I was sad and glum, I was every bad emotion you could think of.

It was at that point that I turned around and went home to assess the damage I’d managed to do to myself. So my total training time was 15 minutes. Unbelievable. Thankfully I didn’t chip any teeth, but the damage to my lip was not pretty. Sliced it nice and deep on the inside, bruised it at the bottom and managed to slice the outside of my lips both top and bottom. But the worst is that the impact of smacking my hand into the ground has left me with terrible wrist pain again all day, not to mention the fact that my palm is all grazed up too.

But seriously, the worst part of it all is not the physical injuries but the mental thoughts going around and around in my head now. It took me so long to work up the courage to get out there and try running, telling myself that of course I’m not going to fall over again, I’m not going to break any more bones. And now I’ve gone and done that. Fallen over and hurt myself again and it sounds stupid, but I’m so damn scared of doing it again, because I really, really, really don’t want to break any more bones. I don’t want any more plates in my body and more than anything I don’t want any more scars on my body. But that’s all arguing with the want to be able to get out there and run. At the moment though, I just don’t know which voice in my head is going to win. But I do think I need to look at my exercise plan and perhaps change it in case I don’t get back out there shuffling.

1. You shouldn’t turn your alarm off in the morning (I kinda knew this one already, but it’s been slammed home to me again today), because if you do turn your alarm off in the morning, that means you have to make your exercise up in the evening. Which means:
   • That you’re out in the heat and you sweat more.
   • You’re already knackered from a day at work, so it’s going to be even harder work for you when you do your shuffle and it’s really going to hurt more than in the mornings.
   • The cooking won’t have miraculously done itself while you’ve been out doing your shuffle, so you’re still going to have to go home to do it
2. If you play little games, it makes it more fun and makes the time go quicker.
3. When you really push yourself, you can do better than you thought you could!

Let me explain that last one. Last Monday when I did my shuffle I only managed to do 4.10km and that took me 43 minutes, which gave me an average pace of 5.56km/hr. Tonight when I did my shuffle I managed to do the whole planned track of 5.37km, and at the 43 minute mark I had done 4.60km – which is 500 metres more than my time on on Monday. I know that 500 metres doesn’t sound a lot, but to me that’s a whole helluva lot. Now while I’m in my statistician mode (I can see a whole new career coming on for me here…) here’s a couple more stats for y’all. My average pace last Monday was 5.56km/hr but today I had an average pace of 6.32km/hr. Yeah baby I’m gonna kick arse soon! I’m not quite at running yet, but by George I’m definitely getting quicker.

So to make the time go quicker and to really get my pace going quicker I played a little game with myself. I got my heart rate up to 155 and kept it there for a bit, then I jogged hard until I got my HR up to 170, held it there as long as I could and then dropped back to a walk, until my HR dropped back down to 155 and then repeated the process again and again. God that was killer. Almost like interval training. So that’s how my shuffle went today.

Tomorrow the plan is to NOT turn the alarm off in the morning and get it over and done with and out of the way first thing!

Till tomorrow.

So today was kick-off, the first official day of the Twelve Week Body Transformation Program (12WBT) and I got up early to do my shuffle (I’m starting again because I never got out in the morning again last week after my Monday morning efforts) – determined to make a good start to the week and start as I meant to go along – with daily exercise in the form of a shuffle, followed some nights of the week by extra exercise.

Except of course, being Monday and the first official day of the program I had to weigh-in. Got up, went to the toilet, and got on the scales. And then nearly almost collapsed in tears. Since last Wednesday I have somehow managed to gain 1.4kg. WTF??? I have eaten well, I have exercised, I have done everything right and I’ve gained weight in only 5 days. I was so upset.

But you will be pleased to know that I still got out there and I did my shuffle after I finally got myself dressed and had my little sob over my weight gain. I’ve decided to ignore that number on the scales this morning and only pay attention to my Wednesday Weigh In. On the plus side I did my measurements and I’m happy to announce that over the last 6 weeks I have lost a total of 18cm in total, which makes me pretty chuffed (and also makes it a little easier to ignore that number on the scales).

So here’s to the next four weeks and smashing my fitness test and having more CM’s lost by then.