What do you want out of life?

What is that motivates you each day? That gets you out of bed in the morning? That makes you put that ice coffee down and pick up the weights instead?

Why do you go to work today, tomorrow or the next? Why do you see your friends, have a BBQ or go away for the weekend?

What do you want out of your life?

These are some of the questions that have been bubbling around my head more and more often. I am now at the age where my friends are either off travelling or settling down with their partners (some of them are further along in that department than others).

I have travelled, or at least enough that I don't have that "urge" to get "out" that my travelling friends seem to feel.

I don't want to "settle down" either.

So that doesn't leave a lot of options. Ha. What a joke!

I'm a big planner. I like planning and having direction in my life. Most people who come to know me realise this. So they often ask me what plan I am sticking to with my weight loss.

While I agree everyone should have a plan, that they should have strategies and things that they stick to, people also need to work out what works for them. Which is different for everyone, and there is not right or wrong answer.

For me, right now, I am not "planning" so much as "doing" my weight loss. I spent so much time thinking I wanted to lose weight while eating myself into gaining 5kgs. I was thinking so much about going to the gym, about walking each day, about cutting the calories that I never actually did it.

So I stopped thinking about it and started doing it. Obviously there are things I still need to plan and use, there are tricks that I have picked up and use and I plan to stay away from fast food and plan to exercise this week.

But I am not following a plan. Nor do I believe I will succeed if I do. Not for the long term anyways.

This is my life. This is not some short term stint that is supposed to whip me magically into shape and somehow I will be able to follow a no- carb, low sugar, 8 hours of exercise a week diet.

No, this is long term. This is permanent. This is about re-learning how I think about food, exercise and life.

Which brings me back to the question: What do you want out of life? What do I want out of life?

I want to be healthy. I want to be normal. To not be the person who always eats salad when everyone eats a curry. I want to enjoy eating and going out with friends without being self conscious.
I want to enjoy life to the fullest. I want to breathe easier, lift easier, walk easier.

I want sunshine, grass, walks by the river, sweat and tears, muscles, toned arms and stomach. I want to create yummy recipes which are also healthy.

I DON'T want to always be looking over my shoulder. To always count my food or to feel guilty, or unhappy or cheated. I DON'T want to be fat and lonely and left out. I DON'T want to feel like life is passing me by.

So now comes the part where I do what I need to do to make that things I WANT happen.

And that is not counting calories, it is not denying myself. It is going to training at least three times a week and fitting in other sessions when I can. It is making sure I eat my fruit and veg daily. Drinking my water, getting out in the sun, putting myself out there and joining in. It is about me changing my mind and to stop thinking of junk food and large portions as something I need and am entitled to.

To think of quality not quantity. To think that a good coffee and catch up with friends is better (and it is) than sitting at home eating chocolate while watching a DVD. It's about changing my lifestyle not just what I put into my mouth.

And that is what I am doing. I now exercise regularly. I eat good food. I snack less. I eat smaller portions. I think twice about eating junk food, but don't cut myself up if I do.

And my pants and getting bigger and bigger, I am getting stronger and fitter.

This is working for me. It may not work for you. And that's ok.

I'm not planning I am doing.

Emotional Well-Being and Catching up with Friends

I was talking to a dear friend of mine on the weekend. We caught up on Saturday for movies and pizza, I ended up staying the night as I couldn't be bothered driving home at 12pm when I was tired. And then we went to a cafe near the ocean and had breakfast and after heading back to her place we chatted and before I knew it was 4pm!

(Then I had dash off and get home to get myself organised for the week ahead.)

So what has us talking for so long? Well besides family, life, friends, boys and all the usual things that come along, there was also weight loss and emotional well being.

Something that I have been accepting more and more is that I am happy. I am proud of myself, I am happy with the decisions I have been making, I am happy with my exercise and I am happy at where I am in life.

Partly this is to do with my weight loss so far, which while I do not weigh myself, it has become more and more obvious I am losing weight through my clothes and shape.

My happiness with myself is being reflected in my confidence and appearance and also my decisions and how I am with friends with family. Everything else just seems to be so much better. Decisions that might have made me depressed or upset or got me down a year a go are just so much easier to handle, they are just a bump in the road.

It is amazing how everything is interlinked. You look good, you feel good, so you are happy and this affects how you deal with things.

It also goes the other way.

Sadly, my friend is in a similar position to where I was when I first started this journey. She is unhappy, she is depressed, she feels guilty and hates herself for the decisions she makes that mean that she is gaining weight not losing weight, which just makes her more unhappy and everything else in life is just that bit harder and more stressful.

It's exactly how I felt when I first started. It took me a long time of thinking about how hard and long and how I don't have enough time to do anything else etc before I realised I needed to stop thinking and start doing.  That meant I started going to the gym, and when the gym didn't work and I realised I needed something more, I started PT. Best decision I ever made.

So we talked about my journey, how hard it has been and how far I have come and how much it has been worth it. But most of all I made sure she didn't feel judged for how she is and how she is coping. I made her think about little things she could be doing and told her I still make mistakes today. That one day she will just have enough and start making the right steps.

I made sure she knew she could talk to me, that I would understand and not make her feel like a "lazy fat person who obviously doesn't try hard enough" because that's what we all have in the back of heads anyways, that that's what all those "skinny" people think of us. (Whether that is true or not is irrelevant, it's what we think.)

The reality is weight loss is not just about controlled intake and exercise = weight loss. It's about all the emotions and pain that got us there in the first place. And if you don't fix that then you will never maintain your loss once you get there, because you never really understood how you got to be so big in the first place and will make all those mistakes all over again.

I hope that if you have a friend out there that needs help and guidance that you will make them feel loved and understood and not mock them for their weight battles, because we are often our own worst judge and enemy and need support from our loved ones more than anything to help us take the first steps.

The difference between fat and fit..

The difference between the fat and the fit.. is more than just the waistline! It is about motivation, commitment and the belief that you can do something.

My biggest problem when I train is that I am so used to not being able to do something, that I still have that mentality, even when it is no longer true.

The biggest difference between someone who is fit and someone who is fat, is that they know what they are capable of, and believe that they can do something. So they are able to push themselves harder and further than someone who is not fit. And in turn, stay fit.

Last night I pushed myself. I pushed myself hard, and it was worth it.

I was given 3 rounds of 5 exercise to complete as fast I can. My trainer had done it earlier in 19 min, one of her clients had done it in 42 min. I was told I had to beat the clients time.

The exercises were:

10 x  push up then bring your knee up as close to your arm/shoulder as possible, try and touch the ground near your knee with your elbow then stretch up and behind you. Repeat on the other leg.

20 x kneeling with 8kg weight, hold it to one side, bring the weight round and above your head in a tight controlled circle before resting on the side opposite the one you started on. Repeat by alternating which direction you take the weight.

20x backwards lunges with the 8kg weight held at your centre. When in your lunge, make a controlled turn from the waist with the weight. If you right leg is down, the turn to your left and vice versa.

20 x in the plank position, bring your knee straight up above the ground, then twist out to the side. Replace on the ground and repeat on the other side.

30x on a wobble board (but with the flat side down, so you are standing on the soft side) stand with one leg on the board and one off. Now jump to the other side, landing so that your inner leg is now on the board. Touch the ground near your outer leg with your inner arm.

I did it in 24min!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You can't believe how happy I was. Not only had I thrashed the time I had to beat but I came close to my trainers as well!!

I finished the session off with 1000m on the rower plus a couple ab exercises before cooling down on the treadmill.

I almost died at the end, but I feel fantastic now. So worth it!

Old clothes, new body!

On Saturday night I was heading out with the girls for dinner to celebrate my friends birthday. At the moment I'm living with my sister with limited clothes until we move into our new house (2 weeks away!)

Anyways, so my clothing is limited at the moment. As soon as they walked into my house I knew I had to go find something else to wear, they all looked dressed up and I was wearing a very casual shirt and skirt combo. So I quickly went out into the garage and searched for my suitcase full of clothes that I had packed away. When I opened it I knew straight away that I had very little chance of finding what I was looking for!

So I grabbed the first two dresses I could find then went and tried them on. The dress I chose to wear was one that was a little bit tight when I bought it, not uncomfortably so, but it was fitted. When I tried it on, it was loose! Luckily I had bought it fitted otherwise I wouldn't be able to wear it!

You can imagine my delight and surprise! I had only bought the dress not long before Christmas and had worn it once.

It's nice to see progress in my clothes! And to know that what I am doing is paying off!! Lately I have been exhausted from training and still doing really well with food, even when I slip a little- it is only a little! Then I just get back on it again.

Let's hope this continues and I can get into my size 14 jeans that I have packed away somewhere, it will be the first time EVER (that I remember) fitting into a size 14 pair of jeans!! :)

Hope everyone is going well and sticking to their training, be strong, be brave and remember: you are worth it! xo

Breakfast, the best meal of the day!

I was driving to work and my stomach growled. I was excited, I was looking forward to getting to work, to sitting down at my desk, sipping my coffee, catching up on the latest news and emails before grabbing something to eat.

Two things occurred to me.

1.) That I was hungry. This is not such a big thing to most people, but for me who used to be huge snacker at night, I would often still feel full in the morning. Which is not what you're supposed to be like. So feeling hungry in the morning is always somewhat satisfying because it means I did well the night before and it is now time to start a new day on track.

2.) That I have always looked forward to breakfast. Breakfast is probably my most looked forward to meal of the day (does that make sense??). It is easy, uncomplicated, delicious and there are so many options which are so healthy for you, so it is hard to go wrong so early in the day.

This of course got me thinking about my mother, or rather the fact that in the last year she has just started to train herself to eat breakfast in the morning. My mother is the opposite to me. She rarely eats, often eating dinner and that it is it (until recently, as I said she now eats breakfast). She likes wine, nuts and raisins and her ice coffee, and the occasional hot chips. But she rarely rarely eats anything else bad, by that I mean junk food, chocolate, chips, ice cream, cookies etc etc She can go weeks on end without being tempted.

Anyways I am getting off topic. So back to breakfast.

I struggle to understand the people, like my mother, that do not eat breakfast. For me it is one of the best moments of the day.

Since starting my weight loss journey, breakfast has become even more important. If I start the day off well, I usually set myself up for the rest of the day. If I don't, well it doesn't take long before I'm thinking of all sorts of foods that I shouldn't have.

Do you eat breakfast? What do you eat that sets you up for the day? If not, why not?

During the week I often have weatbix with fruit and rice milk. On the weekends I will either have cereal or eggs on toast, depending on how much time I have. But I always eat breakfast, as I said if I don't, I essentially can throw the day away. Such a simple thing, but so so simple!

Is there a meal that you look forward too more than anything? Or does eating/not eating breakfast affect you as much as it does me?

The cost of healthy living

Talking with a friend over coffee and breakfast on Saturday morning and as always we end up on the topic of healthy living.

It is something that is very important to both of us, as we both are on a journey to better ourselves.

For my friend, health at the moment is of particular importance as she wants to start a family. Unfortunately she was told that she has poly cystic ovary syndrome (I hope I spelt that right) and needs to lose weight in order to make this manageable and in order to conceive.

This was a huge blow to her, as she has always wanted children and now just when she is in the right spot (partner, home, age etc) her weight is holding her back.

About the same time as she received this news I started personal training and focusing on my weight loss, so when we catch up it is almost a check in and time to go over our mistakes and seek support from one another.

She is probably one of the few friends that I will openly discuss my weight/health journey.

One of the points that we were talking about is that she had just done some sessions with my personal trainer, but because she cannot afford them she won't be going back.

I understand that not everyone has the money to spend on a trainer, I understand that not everyone needs a trainer. But for people like me that do, and I think that my friend does too, it is one of the best things you can do, and well worth the cost.

People often baulk when I tell them how much I spend on training, despite the fact that my trainer is actually quite cheap when compared to many of the others out there. Often when I tell them the cost, the answer I often hear is, "I don't know how you afford it". Which infers that they can't afford it.

Most people (at least the ones I talk to) believe that they can't afford to have a trainer and to eat healthy. The reality is of course, that they can. They are on a similar wage to me, they have similar bills to me, so how is it that I can afford it and they can't. The truth is they can.

When I go into all the benefits, most people will nod their head and agree and then walk away. All they think about is the immediate cost.

So what if it costs a little now? If it stops you from having to buy expensive clothes because you have limited options, if it means that you can play with your children, go out with your friends, enjoy your holidays more, enjoy sitting, walking, climbing stairs easier, take less medication, go to the doctors less, you don't need radical weight loss surgery, or die ridiculously young from a heart attack.

So what if it costs a little now?

My training session costs $30 for an hour, I do that twice a week. That is $60 a week.
I do boxing once a week as well, that is only $10 a session.

That's $70 a week on my health. That doesn't sound like much. That would be less than the amount most of my friends would spend on clothes, alcohol, a night out, dinner, getting their hair done, their nails done, a pair of shoes, their tans, waxing etc

All of which they do without thinking about the cost.

Now I am not saying I do not do some of the above, but the difference is that I put those second to my health. There are ways to to do all of those things cheaper, especially if you cut out alcohol. But even if you do not, you could do some things at home yourself rather than going to a salon.

You could host a party at your house, rather than paying the expensive entry fee and drinks when you go out. You could simply reduce the number of times you go out. You could sell off the clothes/shoes that you no longer wear on ebay or gumtree. You could host a clothes swap with your friends if you are similar sizes- this is a great way to get your hands on those dresses your friends own and you have been eyeing off!

There are a million different ways you can cut costs so that you can afford a healthier lifestyle. Eating organically costs more up front but goes a lot further. A bag of apples will last you all week as opposed to a packet of Tim Tams (chocolate biscuits for those not from Aus) that will disappear in seconds once they're opened.

So next time, think about the costs. Long term and short term. Weigh up what is more important to you, and what you can live without.

Maybe personal training isn't for you and you can go for a jog each day or work out to a DVD instead. That's great! I'm jealous!

But it is important not to trick yourself into thinking you can do it on your own, when you need help, seek it. It is your life, your body and you get to choose what you get out of it. Make sure you make the best decision for you, long term and short term.