Jumping straight back into it..

So I have been off for about a week visiting the family in rural NSW. I tell ya, we always put on extra kgs when we visit because all you do is eat, eat and eat.

Which is fine, I ate more but I also said no quite a lot too.

I also jumped straight back into training again on Friday night with boxing. I was a little worried because it had been over a week since I had had a solid training session, but I did fine. Really good actually. I have started to make it more and more around the park without stopping (Booyah!) and in the two minute rounds I can now do most exercises for two minutes without stopping.

So I felt good, I got straight back into it and now feel more settled knowing my routine is back to normal.

For me having a routine is very important, otherwise there is just too much to decide and change. Changes for me can often lead to bad choices.

I understand that not everyone sees a routine the way I do, but I was a bit surprised by the number of people who asked me when I got back from training if I was going to have a bit of  a break before I started up again. (As in start on Monday, rather than Friday, or even later.)

For me it doesn't make sense to delay the inevitable, I have to go back at some point so I might as well jump straight back into it rather than putting it off.

Besides the sooner I get into it the sooner I can work off any excess that might have crept on while I was away.

The sooner I get back into it, the sooner I get out of 'holiday' mode. (And the better my body will be! )

I keep saying this lately, but I am really noticing big changes in my body and appearance.

I think this has something to do with the fact that I have also made the decision to stop buying so many clothes and actually wear the ones out in my wardrobe first... which means I am wearing clothes that have been in my cupboard for years but only pull out occasionally. ( So occasionally that it might be the first time I have worn it in 1-2 years.!!)

So the difference of how it fits is amazing. For example, I have an over sized blouse that I wear with a belt at the waist which I normally pair with a black skirt and leggings. This over sized blouse now is almost too over sized.

Other things that I have noticed is that pants and skirts are starting to get too big around the waist. Dresses are fitting  me better, particularly around the bust and waist, but also around my hips and stomach.

I am actually wearing JEANS more often! Which if you have read any of my previous posts you would know what a big deal that is..

I have lost weight in my face, you can see my cheek bones more and weirdly my fingers as well... my ring now feels a bit loose!

All in all I feel amazing. The more I notice the better I want to look after myself, I want to take care of this body that I am slowly falling back in love with. I want to make sure I look my best and feel my best always.

This means that I have started making more time for doing my nails, my hair, my makeup. Making more time to pack healthy lunches and snacks. Making more time to look after my skin. Making more time to do more exercise outside of training, liking taking the dogs for walks. (OK, this might have more to do with the fact that there is a very good looking jogger on the paths at this time.. but it counts right? )

But this means I feel more confident and happy with myself. I feel strong and beautiful and I think others are starting to notice that more and more. I see it in how my friends act around me. I see it in the male attention that I have started to receive.

It is both amazing and saddening. Sad because now I realise how far gone I was before, and amazing because I feel like I've finally started to live life again!

Progress report + some exercises you can do at home

So yesterday's sesh went down well, and because of the types of exercises it would be a perfect one to do at home.

So I do an hour work out, starting off with a 5 min warm up, normally on the treadmill. Then it was 3 rounds of 6 exercises. Usually this would be timed and you would have to do this as fast as you can, but because the exercises used weights and could easily injure someone if not done properly, we didn't time it. Once I realised just how easy it was going to be to injure myself I took it slow and steady until I felt comfortable with the exercises. Beating a time is not worth being injured!

So the exercises. You will need a step, a 5kg weight, a 15kg weight, towel and low bench. If you don't have the weights, just use something around the house that you think would be the equivalent.

First exercise: hold the 5kg weight in one hand, step up onto the step (both legs) then lift the leg on the side that does not have the weight and bring it up to your chest ( your knee is bent at 90 degrees). To work your core you should lean back a little as well. As long as your core is tight you shouldn't fall back. But be careful and take it slow until you feel comfortable.

Bring your leg back down to the step. Step off. Step back on and repeat. Do 10 on one leg, then swap the weight to the other side and do 10 on the other side.

Once you do that get down off the step and settle into a sumo squat with the 15kg weight in the middle of your legs. By bending your legs and keeping your back straight, grab the weight with both hands and bring up until your legs are straight. Repeat this 20 times. BE CAREFUL TO KEEP YOUR BACK STRAIGHT!!

Repeat the first exercise.

Next exercise: lay your towel down with the step at your feet. Place one foot on the edge of the step so your knee is at an angle. Lift the other leg up into the air as straight as you can. Now keep it there. Using the leg that is resting on the edge of the step raise your hips up as far as you can. Now lower slowly back to the ground. Be careful with this one. It sounds easy but you can feel it really quickly and can easily pull something if you're not careful. Do 12 on one side then swap legs and do 12 on the other.

Repeat the first exercise.

Last exercise: You're doing a lunge, except instead of having your back foot on the ground, rest it onto the low ledge. Your back leg should be roughly at a 90 degree angle. Do 10 lunges on one leg and then swap and do 10 on the other.

You've finished round 1! Now to do two more rounds and then finish with 5 min on the treadmill and stretch.

The exercises sound really simple, and easy, but I could definitely feel it into my second round and by the third I was starting to struggle. Good Luck!

Now to my progress:
At the moment I am doing a minimum of 3 sessions a week, with a second session of boxing thrown in on the weeks when I'm not busy. So I end up doing 2x hour sessions of PT and 2x 45 min of boxing most weeks.

So since I have upped my training I have really noticed some changes:

• I'm eating smaller portions.
• I am eating more fruit.
• I have lost about 5 cm around my stomach and another couple around my waist.
• The other day I wore a dress that I haven't worn in about a year. It hadn't fit before then.
• I need to get more bras because they are all getting to big. Not happy about that one!
• I can stop myself from eating mindlessly i.e. I open a packet of chips and can put them away unfinished.
• I have stopped buying "snacks" for my drawer.
• I am having the biggest cravings lately for salad rolls and fruit salad. Seeing as it's a good craving, I am indulging in it!
• I have started reducing my dinner portions- this is the one I struggle with the most.
• I tried on one of my old work shirts, a size 14. It fit except for the arms. So note to self: need to work on arms!!

So all in all, not bad. Especially as it is only in April, and I want to get down to a size 12/14 by the end of this year.

Here is a group photo taken of my friends a few weeks ago. Myself (green scarf) and my friend in the yellow, have always been the "bigger" girls in the group. But when I look at this photo I feel like you can't tell that I am that much bigger than my friend in the pink, who is a size 12. I still have a long way to go, but it's nice to realise I don't look as bad as I think I do!

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.

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

Remembering a Conversation

I was remembering a conversation I had while I was in Sweden with my host-sister Emilie.

Emilie was complaining how her mother, Agneta, was telling her that she needed to jump on the diet bandwagon to lose the 4 kilos she had gained over the Christmas and New Year.

This irritated me to no end. This is because a) Emilie was recovering from being depressed and near suicidal b) she wasn't overweight and was still a comfortable size 10 and c) Agneta had had surgery at the beginning of the year to reduce the size of her stomach and had lost 30 kilos.

Ok so the last one probably doesn't make sense to you, but to me here is this mother who had been overweight for almost all of her entire adult life and who had to resort to surgery for her to lose weight. She has done really well and looks amazing BUT she points it out at every opportunity that she has lost weight. And that really annoys me.

Because it's not because of her that she has lost the weight, it's not because of her changing her lifestyle and eating habits, but being forced to. She physically can't eat much. And here is she is telling her daughter who has no weight problems and who is still in a vulnerable mental position to lose weight??! It just makes me mad.

A couple of days later I was watching TV with Agneta (I should point out that I was staying with Agneta and that she is like a second mum to me) and we were watching an American TV show where they match an anorexic with an obese person together and get them to swap diets. I had never seen the show before... anyways we were talking about the show and it came up about how people can be obese/overweight and can't take advice from others. They need to do it themselves.

So of course she brings up Emilie and how she's just trying to help.

Now you should know that I have a big problem with how I come across to people because I don't moderate what I say or how I say it. It's not that I do it on purpose, I just do it without thinking. So more often than not I try to keep my big mouth shut.

This time I couldn't. So I pointed out to her that I know that I am overweight, I know that I need to lose weight BUT that does not mean I want people to tell me to lose weight or offer me advice. They do not understand nor are they me or know what I am doing. That includes my mother. I made my point.

This prompted me to think of all the people who have well-meaning friends and family who constantly ask questions, or are offering advice or trying to help who don't realise just how hurtful and demeaning it is. Like catching you eat a piece of cake and saying "Should you be eating that?"

Often these people have no understanding of how hard it is. Or they think that because they have lost weight that now gives them the right to tell you how you should lose weight. Or what you are doing is wrong.

Sure there are times when advice is exactly what you want and what you need. But often it is not.

Often I just want to be left alone to deal with it myself, and not be reminded that I am not normal, that I am overweight, that I have to watch what I eat and do exercise.

And this makes me realise that dieting and losing weight can often be a lonely road. Not many of my friends need to lose weight or exercise or even eat healthily. So that means that there aren't many people that I feel I can talk to or relate to.

All I can say is thank god for the internet and blogs, where I can get all the advice I need and meet people who I can relate to who share their triumphs and failures.

Thank you to all the weight loss bloggers out there!






<Me and Mum.

Ball Photos

Myself, My sisters friends, and finally my sisters partner and my sister. You can see I have a lot of catching up to do!