Let the Christmas celebrations begin

Why does Christmas have to include masses of food celebrations. I mean really, aside from the gift giving aspect of Christmas, the only other thing I can really see happening is eating – eating lots and lots of food (of course, this eating is normally done with loved ones, but it’s still all about the food). Now I know I’m sounding a bit like the Grinch at the moment, and also sound like I’m complaining, but as someone who is trying to lose weight, I am already struggling – and it’s not even really Christmas yet!

I go to the shops and everywhere I look there is candy, biscuits, cakes, puddings, chocolate, rich deserts, dripping roasts and my favourite – mince pies! And I’m frustrated, because I just want to buy them all up and sit down at a table gobbling everything in sight, but I know that I can’t. So I’m getting frustrated, angry and just a little resentful, which really is not putting me in the Christmas spirit at all. I know that there would be people out there saying, well just buy one mince pie and eat that, make sure you count it into your daily calories, and work it off. To those people I say, I wish I could. But really, my self control is almost non-existant (otherwise I probably wouldn’t find myself 40kg overweight now would I?) I honestly feel like I can’t tempt myself, because I will cave in. Which just brings on that angry frustration again.

Last night we had my work Christmas dinner to attend. It was all planned weeks ago, before I had even contemplated doing 12WBT over the Christmas period, while I was stil quite content to blithely shove food into my mouth while trying to secretly convince myself that I wasn’t gaining weight and that it wouldn’t creep up on me and that I wouldn’t pay for it later (pfftttt, paying now I can tell you!). We had organised to go to a local winery who were putting on dinners where you could select from a few things on the menu and voila – instant fancy dinner. In the end we probably didn’t choose too badly and thankfully going to a winery, they don’t exactly serve up massive serving sizes, but let me tell you that I would definitely have gone over my calories yesterday.

I spent all day thinking and obsessing about food. Minimising my food intake – small fruity breakfast, little leftover serve for lunch, a snack of celery in the afternoon (with a smidge of cream cheese on it) and masses of water, all to compensate for this dinner last night. By the time we got there I was ravenous. But a funny thing happened – I didn’t gorge myself like I normally would have. As they brought out dish after dish (we had six dishes on the menu), I ate from each of the small serves very slowly. I didn’t take any of the extras that were offered to me (though I admit, I ate my bread roll – I was THAT hungry) and I had one alcoholic drink all night. I felt in control and very well full and satisfied when it was all over. So well satisfied in fact that I turned away from the chocolates that were on offer (OMG lush looking truffles too, that’s how serious I was, I turned down truffles) and I said no to dessert.

I did well – at least I think I did well, and I know I did well considering what the old me would have done. I didn’t lack for food, it was all excruciatingly delicious, I had great company while I was eating and I even allowed myself one alcoholic drink. So why do I feel like I was still missing out? On the one hand, something must be sinking into this brain of mine about eating properly and moderation and portion sizes, but on the other hand, something else in my brain is seriously lacking if I keep thinking that I was still missing out because I didn’t shovel food into my mouth, and it wasn’t all fries and schnitzels. I’m hoping that eventually something clicks in my head and it just happens and these stupid thoughts keep popping up.

So tonight, we’re off to a pizza night with friends. This one I’m really dreading, but I’m going to go through my list of 12WBT recipes and find some options that I can make. I will not undo my good work of last night! Nosireebob!

Oh and on other news – weigh in on Wednesday went really well. I was down 2.2kg – biggest loss for me in one week ever I think. Here’s to a good weigh in next Wednesday and here’s to Christmas finally being over so that the food shopping and eating can go back to some sense of normality!

Weigh in day

Previous weight: 107.0kg.
Today’s weight: 104.8kg.
2.2kg loss!

Yoga and the fat girl

So two new things have happened to me lately.

  1. I have started using the word FAT. *ugh* *shiver* I hate that word, but hey, let’s be honest, I am fat, it’s a truth I can’t deny, in fact people have called me names of so many variations of the word for almost my entire life, that I thought “hell, if I can’t beat them, I may as well join them”. I really hate the word though, so in some respects it’s a bit of a motivator for me to lose weight. So that I can stop calling myself fat. FAT FAT FAT. See I’m saying it all the time. Tina is a fat girl! It’s almost cathartic. (Almost, I won’t pretend that I like it).
  2. I tried yoga! Who knew I would ever do something as insane as that. I’m very lucky that in the town I live in we have a system set up where there are two free yoga classes offered every week (though the ones who go regularly are encouraged to make a gold donation – hell I think the least we can all do is make a gold donation, I don’t know anywhere else where I can get a yoga class for $2 at the most). I have never been before, but I have a good friend who has gone to every single class since they started six months ago and she loves it. She has tried so often to get me to go along with her, telling me how much better she feels for going, and how it just makes her feel taller and stronger. But I always associated yoga with hippies. I laughed when people would talk about doing the downward dog and other moves (I won’t pretend that I know any other names, except for the downward dog), but I have to take back everything I have ever said. I apologise to all yoga lovers and goers out there. I was wrong. I have a newfound respect for those of you that put yourself through that torture every week. You are all awesome! I swear to God!

    Turns out though, that being fat and doing yoga do not go hand in hand. Turns out that when you have a big stomach, it makes some of the moves very hard, trying to kneel and bend and touch my toes (TOES? I could barely touch my knees thanksverymuchly). It also turns out that when you have a plate in your wrist and can’t do weight bearing exercises using that wrist, it also makes it quite hard. But you know what, I did the whole class, only stopping twice to say “WTF???” but quickly getting back into it. I didn’t burn a whole lot of calories, but I’m okay with that. I get now why my friend kept going on about it. I left that class feeling stretched and pulled and overall more relaxed with myself and my life. I still don’t get the mumbo jumbo (again, sorry for offending all yoga lovers out there) that goes along with it, I can’t quite get that last relaxation part happening, I don’t lie there thinking of sandy beaches and thanking my body for being wonderful (because let’s face it, my body isn’t wonderful – yet), I lie there during the relaxing part thinking of all the things I have to do when I get home. But maybe with time, I might get that last relaxing part. Strangely, I’m looking forward to next Monday when I will be attending my second ever yoga class, and then again on Wednesday. I’m going to make the most of these free (or rather, gold coin donation) classes while they last.

So here’s to trying new things. Saying ugly words to empower yourself and not letting others hurt you with those words and to trying exercises that you only ever found to be kooky. I know I feel better for trying these new things. So what new things have you tried lately?

A loss… and a win (or two)

Tuesdays are supposed to be my super smash it day, the theory being that I get up first thing in the morning and go for a swim, do my 40 laps and then have a nice relaxing spa for ten minutes before heading home to start the day, whereupon I finish work and head back to the pool to do an aquaerobics class. That’s the theory anyway. The reality was that I spent way too long watching tv last night and ended up turning my alarm off this morning and sleeping. It was bad and it was the wrong thing to do, but I know my body well enough by now to know that if I had gotten up, by 2pm today I’d have been a walking zombie (note to self, get some more iron tablets from the chemist…) So I felt quite guilty this morning when I finally got up and Mick asked me what happened to my early morning session. I think the look I gave him was enough for him to know that this was NOT a conversation to have with me first thing without any coffee (bless him, he really is so patient and tolerant with me). So that was my loss.

But – and yes, there’s a but – I had a win. Actually I had two wins. One a physical win, and two more mental.

First off, I did actually make it to aquaerobics tonight. Got home from work and put up our new Christmas tree (not a lot involved really, it’s just a wooden one, that really doesn’t require decorations – I’m going for minimalistic this year) and pottered around and contemplated – I hate to admit it, I really did contemplate it – calling my mate and telling her that I couldn’t make it to aquaerobics. But that’s giving in and I can’t continue to do that or I’m never going to get where I want to go (and I’m still trying to decide exactly where I want to go) so I struggled through the laziness and went off to do the class. And I’m so glad that I did. It was just fantastic. I could really feel it in my core and I think I’m going to continue to feel it tomorrow. I feel so refreshed and pumped now, that I’m really sad that I didn’t go swimming this morning. But it’s okay, there’s always tomorrow and every day after that.

Second little win was a thought that I had on the way home from work. Normally, when I get home from work, I scoff down food. Sometimes it’s healthy, most times it’s not. I have no idea why I thought of it as I was driving home, but I suddenly realised that A) I only eat when I get home because it’s habit, not because I’m actually hungry and B) I haven’t done that since I started 12WBT and OMG I’m still alive and haven’t starved to death… Hmmmm. So that just made me happy, because I realise that I can come home and just do things, without having to shove food in my face and that habits can be broken. Not that I think this habit is broken yet, but it’s a work in progress.

Third little win, was again a mental thing, and actually happened last night. I was watching TV last night (the reason that I was up so late and missed swimming this morning, so maybe this isn’t a win after all…. Might call it a draw) in particular the documentary “Fat, sick and nearly dead”, about Joe Cross who started drinking fresh juice every day for two months. Not just drinking a little juice, but only juice. He stopped eating and just drank. He convinced another few people to do the same and the whole time I was watching it, I was thinking “Wow, what an easy way to lose weight” (okay, now that I’m not half asleep, rationally, I know that wouldn’t be easy, would require a lot of willpower – we know I don’t have much of that, read above to see my exercising willpower *sigh*) at the time, I really thought that would be great. I watched him lose so much weight in two months and kept thinking to myself. Two months, that’s eight weeks, that’s two weeks less than the end time of this round of 12WBT. I could totally almost get to my goal weight in that time just by drinking juice! I almost convinced myself that I should do it. But then I mentally slapped myself. What the hell was I thinking? Why would anyone in their right mind (and I’m really sorry if you’re a fan of Joe Cross – if you are, maybe stop reading now…) why would anyone who is mildly sane, willingly cut out every other food group except for fruit and veggies to lose weight? That’s all he was doing to start with, drinking juice. Not exercising, not actually cooking food up, cutting it up, chewing it and swallowing it. Just drinking. WHY? Personally, I think he took the cheat’s, easy way out (and again, I know it wouldn’t be easy…) And that’s where I’m counting my last win. For brief moments, I seriously considered cutting out my eating and just drinking juice for a couple months. But I’m so glad to say that I thought better of it. I love that on this program I don’t have to give up any food group. That I can learn about healthy eating, that I can still enjoy the occasional piece of chocolate if I so wish to. That I am learning about exercising and creating a healthy balanced life. So to Michelle Bridges, I say Thank you. Thank you for not getting me to only drink juice (and it really was vile looking juice too!)

Now here’s hoping that tomorrow morning I get my lazy butt out of bed at 6am and do some exercise.

Yummy ugly balls

Our weekly surprise for 12WBT is to create a snack. The rules were that we had to only have 5 ingredients and be quick to make. Well these technically don’t qualify because they have 10 ingredients and are not super quick to make, but I love these. They came about by a bit of an accident, I had so much dried fruit left over from another recipe and I bought Quinoa and had no idea what to do with it, so here we go:

Yummy ugly balls

Each ball is about 25g and has only 58 calories.
You should get 16 balls out of this mix.

Ingredients

  • 1/3 cup quinoa
  • 1/3 cup oats
  • 3/4 orange juice
  • 3 tablespoon craisins
  • 3 tablespoon prunes
  • 3 tablespoon dried figs
  • 1/8 cup almonds
  • 1/8 cup walnuts
  • 1 tablespoon maple syrup
  • 20g Dessicated coconut

Method

  1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees (celcius).
  2. Place the quinoa and orange juice in a pan and cook the quinoa until it has soaked up all the orange juice.
  3. Meanwhile, chop (or blitz) the almonds (I use flaked almonds), walnuts, dried figs and prunes.
  4. Place in a bowl with the oats and add the cranberries. When the quinoa has soaked up all the juice add this to the mix.
  5. Let the mixture cool slightly and then add 1 tablespoon maple syrup to the mix and mix up well.
  6. Take a tablespoon full of the mixture and roll into a ball, flatten slightly and roll in the coconut.
  7. Place on a baking sheet and put into the oven to cook for about 12 minutes.
    (The cooking step is optional – you can just roll these into coconut and put in the fridge, but I like the extra crunch you get when you cook these).
  8. When they’re cooked, let them cool and put in the fridge.

So if you’re looking for something that’s maybe a little like a muesli bar, but with less calories and super yummy, then may I suggest these. And if you do make them, drop me a line and let me know what you think. Are my tastebuds just weird?

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!

Hurting bad

Today’s daily food intake…

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.

The damage I do to myself

More damage

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.

12WBT day one – over almost before I began

Today’s daily food intake…

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.

Date Weight Chest Waist Hips Thighs Arms Total lost
          Left Right Left Right  
02/01/2012 110.0kg 109cm 110cm 133cm 72cm 73cm 45cm 47cm
13/02/2012   104.5cm 106cm 129cm 71cm 70.5cm 43.5cm 46.5cm 18.5cm

Terrible munchies

Today’s daily food intake…

Weigh in day

Previous weight: 104.6kg.
Today’s weight: 103.4kg.
1.2kg loss

Ack, today I have had the worst munchies. I have been craving salt all day long. I’m putting it down to having popcorn over the last couple of days, which I easily get addicted to. I don’t normally go for the sweet sugary things, I’m not a huge chocolate lover, I like the occasional piece of cake, but I can’t eat brownies because I find them way to sweet for me. But put a packet of chips in front of me and watch me gobble the whole packet up. Without blinking! Today, if you had put that bag of chips in front of me I don’t honestly know that I would have been able to say no. I think I might have caved.

I had a bad start to the day. Turned my alarm off and didn’t get up to do my shufflin’ and when I finally did crawl out of bed when the other alarm went off an hour later I had the worst stinkin’ headache I’ve had in ages. I haven’t felt like that for a long time, but today it’s been hanging around like a bad smell. I’m working on a new website at work which means I’m sitting in front of the monitor all day staring at code and thinking and I’m starting to see the connection between the coding and the headaches. Methinks it might be time for me to start wearing my glasses again. But I’m happy because I didn’t cave in and get any bad munchie food to sit and eat at my desk today, just had a Carman’s muesli bar in the morning and that kept me going.

Not a lot on the exercise front sadly. I went to softball training tonight, and once again, ended up burning sweet FA in the form of calories. Seriously, we really don’t do anything at training, it’s such a waste of time, I could have been doing some proper exercise. I did speak to one of the ladies there tonight though who is a high school P.E. teacher and I asked if she does any person training. Turns out she is the coach of a B-Grade hockey team, and she said I’m more than welcome to come along and see if I like it and if I do then I can join the hockey team. Funny thing is, I’m seriously considering it. It means giving up Friday night food shopping because they play on some Friday evenings, and they play in rain, hail or shine, but I think I could like it.

Which is scary for me. Here I was only 6 months ago having never, ever in my life played a team sport, and having no interest in changing that fact, and now I find myself on the softball team (which okay I don’t really like, but am still considering returning to next season) and now I might possibly find myself on a hockey team. Yay go sporty me! Soon they will be calling me Sporty Spice hahaha *thump* (sorry I fell of the chair then I was laughing so hard…) but it’s all things to take into consideration for the future of my exercising.

Fitness is that you?

Today’s daily food intake…

I got up this morning after my disastrous attempts yesterday to do my C25K run at the bright and early time of 6.30am. I did briefly consider ignoring the alarm and sleeping for another hour, but two things spurred me on:

  1. 1) I really didn’t want to have to say that I failed again, and
  2. 2) Mick said to me last night before we went to sleep that he doubted I would get up when my alarm went off and that I would sleep in and not do my morning shuffle (I can’t call it a run or a jog, because all I do is shuffle – in a jog like kind of way).

So with those two things spurring me on, I got up, got dressed, got my phone hooked up – RunKeeper on, music ready and C25K app open and ready. And off I went.

I happen to live in a very gorgeously beautiful town and right next to the ocean, so my track took me along the ocean edge on a walking trail. It was all good up to the point that the trail stopped. Because when the trail stopped, I was faced with beach – sand, lots of sand. I can’t run well at the best of times, trying to run on sand was hell. But I did it and when I got to the end and looked back over where I had come it was so beautiful that I stopped to take a photo.

Now here’s a hint for everyone out there. If you use the C25K app on a HTC Desire and press stop, then go into your camera to take a photo, you may find yourself having to start all over again. Because that’s where I found myself. When I’d finished taking my photos I went to restart C25K, only to find that it had shut down and when I re-opened, it faced me with the start screen!!! No!!! I could not believe that had happened to me. (But on the plus side, take a look at the gorgeous views I had while doing my shuffle…)

It was at that point I could have screamed (if it wasn’t for all the campervans in the area I was standing in, I was a little afraid of the people I’d wake up), so I stomped off, full of huff and fury, leaving the C25K off and trudged home.

So now I have to restart the program from the beginning, but I think I may give it another few weeks before I try again. Between Zumba last night and the shuffle this morning my knees were very tight and swollen feeling today and I think I may have overdone it just a tad. But it’s nothing that a fantastic swim this afternoon didn’t fix up.

Now, speaking of swimming. I started doing laps at the local pool about three weeks ago – going twice a week and swimming, in the beginning, for an hour – doing 40 laps, which equals 1km. And three weeks ago, it took me 58 minutes to do those 40 laps and each lap was a struggle. I couldn’t even do a whole lap of breaststroke, I had to do a bit of a paddle in between. It’s amazing how far I have come in just three weeks.

Tonight I powered through my first 14 laps in just under 15 minutes and pretty much the whole time I was doing breaststroke (well, my version of it anyway – I’m planning on taking adult lessons to learn the proper technique). It was hard and I was damn puffed, but I was amazed at just how quick I did those laps tonight and how many of them were pure breaststroke. It seems that I may just be increasing in my fitness after all. It’s very exciting and it’s definitely keeping me going.

My aim now is to see how many laps I can swim in 60 minutes, rather than how long it takes me to swim 40 laps.

Another round of 12WBT

Last year I flirted with the 12WBT challenge (12 Week Body Transformation Program), joining up for Round 1. I made it through pre-season and I made it into the first week or two and then I let everything slide. I can’t really explain why I let it slide, except to say that I was in a very bad headspace for a lot of last year, with everything starting right around the time of my birthday and the official beginning of Round 1. Yes, these are excuses I know this, but I also think it’s a little bit of explanation thrown in. I knew, as I was wolfing down cake and making calorie rich spaghetti sauces what I was doing to my body, just as I knew that every moment I sat down watching TV instead of exercising that I was ruining all the work I had done the previous year and that this was all bad news for me. But I just couldn’t seem to stop myself.

I remember from doing the pre-season training about having to sit down and write out how we would combat our inner demons and our list of excuses, but a problem for me is that I don’t make excuses. I totally block out the noises and voices in my head that say – eat healthy, exercise more. I don’t even reach the stage of making an excuse not to exercise, which is where I find my downfall really begins.

But that was last year. 2012 is going to be a better year. I can feel it in my bones. I’ve not felt quite so happy being in my own skin and body for such a long time, not to the point where I’m happy with my weight – I’m really not at all – but I just finally feel as if I’ve pushed that black cloud far away from me and I’m letting the sun back in. A lot of this has to do with moving away from Adelaide, moving to a gorgeous town, with the man I love and starting a whole new life away from all the bullshit that I seemed to find myself in back in Adelaide. I feel calm, content and just happy. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve just felt happy.

So yesterday I started my pre, pre-season training for Round 1 of 12WBT. Officially pre-season doesn’t start for another two weeks (so if you’re at all interested in doing the challenge, then you still have time to sign up. Don’t look at my failures and think it’s crap, it really is a fantastic program that works!), but I’m raring to go, I’m in the right headspace so I have to start now and get myself rolling and set myself up for a great year ahead.

So far, I’m doing great – two days in and I’m eating well, and at least thinking about exercise, even if I’m not actually doing it. I’ve set up my spreadsheets and set up another blog where I will be recording all my monthly measurements, as well as my daily food intake and exercise. I don’t really want to clutter this blog up with all of that, but I will be linking daily to my intakes so that when I look back at the end of the year I can see where I did well, and where I fell off. Because I have no doubt that I’m going to fall off once or twice, but that’s life and there will be lessons learned from that.

So on the issue of exercise – what can you suggest to get me out there and doing some. I’m going to be totally honest here with you all. I hate exercise. I have tried to love it, but I just don’t. I hate getting hot and sweaty and in pain from my muscles all screaming out at me, and knowing this puts me off doing anything. I know I need to exercise, but I just can never seem to push myself to do it. So what gets you motivated and raring to go? What do you find are the forms of exercise that make you sweat the least lol.

W1-D1 – Daily food intake
W1-D2 – Daily food intake

And just to completely seal my fate I offer you my first set of monthly measurements. Oh god, they are so very not pretty, but lets see what they look like at the end of Round 1.

Date Weight Chest Waist Hips Thighs Arms Total lost
Left Right Left Right
02/01/2012 110.0kg 109cm 110cm 133cm 72cm 73cm 45cm 47cm