Training with a capital T.

So I had personal training last night, and all day I was like "I'm sore, I'm tired, I really don't want to go to training". But I did. Because I know it's good for me, and because I am starting to see results, and on the way home from work, thinking about that, I was like "You know what? I am tired, I am sore, and I have been sick and haven't being giving it my all this last week. So today I am going to go HARD."

So I did. But I swear my personal trainer had the same thoughts as me because crikey did she have a work out planned! I have to say I am very pleased with myself, I did more than I thought I would and I didn't need to stop as much as I normally would. I think my trainer was happy - and so was I . I was proud of what I had done.

So to give you an idea of the work out I did, and also because most of these can be done at home, and because I'm thinking of doing some at home in my spare time- but if I don't write them down I'll forget them all!!

So what it was was a circuit basically, with 50 seconds doing as many of the exercises you can and then a 20 second break. You do the circuit twice. (Or more, but I only train for 30 minutes, with 5 min warm up, 5 min cool down and stretch)

Exercise 1. 4 Sumo squats, 4 lunges. Repeat as many times within the 50 seconds.

A sumo squat is a deeper, wider squat which instead of going straight into the next squat after you come back up, you bring one leg up as high as you can and back down. Squat, come back up and then bring your other leg out and as high as you can. So basically you kind of look like a sumo as they're getting ready to wrestle. =P

Exercise 2. 2 Push ups, turn it into a burpee and tuck jump. Repeat.

So push ups everyone gets- then you have to jump in with your legs, jump up and tuck your legs up to your knees and then down. Repeat.

Exercise 3. She calls these the "Crab" . Repeat.

So the crabs is where you are in a bend back position ( so basically you look like your a weird table facing the roof) and then you have to bring your arm up and the opposite leg up to touch. Repeat on the other side.

WARNING: THIS ONE WAS HARD!! ( At least for me, I think this one was the one I struggled with the most!!)

Exercise 4. 6 Hikers (?) not sure exactly the name and 6 star jumps. Repeat.

So your on the ground in a push up position ( a real push up!) and then you pretend your climbing a ladder, bringing your knee up counts as 1. Then you jump up and do star jumps. Repeat.

Exercise 5. Sit ups with a medicine ball. Repeat.

So a normal sit up except you start with the medicine ball on the ground behind your head with your arms fully stretched out, then bring the medicine ball to your feet. Repeat. I started with a 5kgs medicine ball and then I used a 7kg for the next one to make it harder. Yes that was my choice!! ( what was I thinking??)

Exercise 6. These she called "Get ups". Repeat as many as you can in 50 seconds.

So you start on your back with a 3-5 kg weight in your arm. Your arm is held straight up in the air. You now have to get up onto your feet while keeping that arm straight! ( This is hard- just because the urge to bend your arm is so hard to resist!!) anyways once you get back up, you have to get back down. Once you're back on the ground in the position where you started you swap arms and then do it all again!

Exercise 7. So another version of a squat. You hold a sand bag at chest height - do five squats and as you stand up, push the sand bag up over your head. Bring back down as you move into a squat. After that stay in the squat and do 5 mini squats- so basically don't stand fully up. Repeat as many as you can in 50 seconds.

Exercise 8. Another version of a sit up.

Lie on your back, bring your legs up so that so that your knees are bent. Then try and touch your ankles. Repeat as many times as you can in the 50 seconds.

There were two more exercises, but now I can't remember them! Ah well. You get the idea. At the end of the training I felt like I was a wet rag. My limbs were really loose and floppy ha ha

But as you can see the majority of these would be great to do at home- if you don't have the weights I'm sure you could substitute it with something else that weighs the same.

Another exercise which I love targets your love handles. AND it's not hard!! But boy do you feel it the next day! So your standing and you have a weight (or a tin is what my trainer suggest if you're at home) in one hand, you basically just lower the weight until you have fully stretched the other side. Repeat 10 times and then swap sides. It's that easy! :)

Anyone got some good exercises that they do at home in between sessions?

Learning to love Myself.

Something which I have always struggled with, is loving who I am as a person, and what I look like as a whole.

In general there are things that I love about myself, my hair, eyes and lips. My quirky tastes in fashion, design and books.

But in general, what with the whole FAT- thing going on, I don't generally think of myself as WHOLE.

As I am doing more training, I am learning to love what I can do, I can do sit-ups non stop for a minute. I can do squats fro two minutes non stop. I can do burpees and push ups (not very good ones, but hey I'm working on it)

Slowly but surely I am learning to love myself. I love that standing up relaxed (not sucking in my belly) my stomach is NOT the biggest (OMG I HAVE BOOBS!!). I love that my pants are getting more and more loose, and the dresses flow smoothly over my hips and stomach.

I love losing weight and gaining strength and muscle and tone. I love learning more about what I CAN do, not what I CAN'T do.

I love learning about the new me. :)

Beating myself up.

So this week has been full of guilt. I've been sick and because I've been sick I didn't go to training.
This alone makes me feel guilty even though I know I made the right choice to not go.
But this last week I totally let myself go and this is why I am feeling like crap and guilt tripping myself. Being sick is no excuse to eat whatever I want, and made worse by the fact I didn't go to training so I didn't even work any of it off!

It also dawned on me that I have slowly becoming complacent, I'm doing my training and I have been acting like this is enough, I do my part to be healthy so the rest of it I can let go. NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

Here I go on about how good I have been and I want to eat clean and then I am eating chocolate or lollies. Yes I am eating better than I was a year ago, but it is still not good enough. If I want to lose all the weight and make significant changes in my life I need to commit and stop being a hypocrite.

I think the problem is that on weekends I give myself leave to do what I want because I don't really have a routine and weekdays I am so worried about portion control that I am not eating enough and then I end up eating junk to make up for it. Which basically means that I need to rethink my diet and work out a better way of eating.

I have been looking into the idea of Clean Eating. It's basically taking out anything processed out of your diet. To me this seems extreme, however there are certainly some good ideas and points in the program which I would like to incorporate into my diet. Mostly eating more fruit and vegetables and cutting back my processed foods.

I have already started to do this, just be taking over the cooking and looking for recipes to replace the packaged foods/sauces I use now. The problem is time. I get up at 6.20 in the morning, I am out the door at 6.40. I grab my coffee at 7.20 and am at work at 7.30. I work until 4ish and get home at about 5.

Making dinner doesn't faze me, but because I have zero time during the day I need to plan ahead to make sure that I take good foods with me and am not tempted to go spoil myself with treats from the shops just across the road.

The good news is that I am getting better, and while chocolates and lollies are still an issue, I can't remember the last time I had fast food ( Maccas etc) or soft drink.

I already eat a good breakfast, porridge or boiled eggs on toast plus a coffee, and I am quite happy with eating these for breakfast.

It's snacking that's the issue. I'm one of those that like to eat every couple of hours, so breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner.

I think that I need to start bringing in more fruit and veggies cut up, with maybe some dip or something so that this what I snack on instead. I already bring in a piece of fruit and yogurt, however I get bored of these or eat them in the morning and still need something for the afternoon.

So. Goals for the weeks ahead:

Eat better snacks>> prepare snacks the night before so that I can just grab and go in the morning.
Start doing more incidental exercise>> stop relying on just my training and go for walks when I can.
Start getting myself into a routine on the weekend>> healthy breakfast followed by exercise.

Useful link

http://www.helpguide.org/life/healthy_weight_loss.htm

Try this useful link, lots of great tips and ideas for healthy sustainable weight loss. :)

23rd July 2012. Almost a year on.

It has been almost a year since I first decided that I must do something about my weight loss. A year since I got my first job after uni and realised I now had the time and money to focus on me and my health. A year since I realised that now was the time to lose the weight.... before I found Mr. Right, before I decided I wanted to have kids, before I travelled again. Before things got harder and life got in the way.

My dream was to find something sustainable and that fitted me. Something that I could do for the rest of my life and not get bored or feel like it's a chore or a duty. Something I enjoyed and was good for me.

That meant a lot of hard thinking, and looking into the core of myself and discovering WHY I am like this way. WHY I have this problem in the first place. And HOW to make it better. HOW to combat the "whys".

And what I discovered is that I love food. Particularly when I am bored. Or emotional. Or stressed. Or hungry.

And once I discovered that- I could learn to put things in place to combat my cravings when at times all I wanted to do is down a bottle of soda and eat myself to oblivion with ice cream.

 Bored, stressed, emotional. These are the hardest and I still struggle with them. But I am slowly learning that there are two ways for me to combat these; relaxation and exercise. Relaxation is my first point of call, this does not mean being lazy, but simply doing something for me.

Usually this includes drawing, reading, walking, taking photo's or baking. Something creative.

The other end of that is when I am so wired relaxation isn't going to help. These are the times when chilling and taking it slow, just aren't good enough. And that's where exercise comes in. I take what I have learnt at my training sessions and do a little more. Or I try to do something more active, jog to the letter box ( I live on a property, so my letter box is like 500 metres a way ) or jog with the dog. Do sit ups in front of the television. Lift weights. Something to take my mind off what I am thinking and get rid of my nervous, stressful energy.

The good thing about exercise is that it makes me happy, it makes me less likely to stress or get emotional, because twice a week I feel like I am going through my very own therapy sessions and get everything out. Not this constant building of stress and pressure.

I have realised that there are times when I feel so hungry that I just want to devour the nearest, easiest and yummiest thing there is, and the reason for it is that I don't eat the right foods, or enough of them.

I would eat a small portion, only to feel hungry not that long after and wonder why. Other people ate the same amount and they stayed full, I said.

It took me a while to realise it was what I was eating, not how much. I need to eat often and in small portions, with protein in almost all my meals.

This is hard to do, mostly for taste reasons. So it takes planning. Planning what I am going to eat for breakfast, lunch and snacks. Just so that I am full and sated and don't turn into some hunger crazed sugar obsessed monster in the afternoon. :P

So a year from when I started this journey, this snail trail to weight loss, and I have learnt some of the reasons why. I have learnt some the hows and now finally I am on a path that I believe will be sustainable and healthy and will be a path I can follow for the rest of my life.

There are things that are emotional that I need to deal with still, how I look, how I feel about myself as a person. As a person who happens to be fat, not a fat person. But I no longer feel like this is impossible, after all I got this far didn't I?

Eating. The good, the bad and the ugly.

So here is roughly what I have learnt about eating from my weight loss journey. I have also included roughly what I am eating at the moment.

I felt like after reading some other blogs, that a lot of the eating plans that they are on are too complicated, or they are taking short cuts. Not that I am perfect, this week I have had cookies and chocolate! But the thing is, I know they are bad for me. What I worry about reading some of the other eating plans is that the people that are creating them/following them do not realise this might be sabotaging them.

So back to all the things I have learnt.

Do NOT eat white bread. Even though it is delicious, it is way full of sugar. Lucky for me I prefer wholemeal with seeds anyways. But there are days when I love a freshly baked loaf of white bread to go with my soup.

Yoghurt. Everyone thinks this is great. Me, I have never been such a fan. The thing is you have to be pretty particular about what brands you use and keep an eye out for the hidden fats and sugars. That and your portion sizes. It's very easy to eat more yoghurt than you mean to. This is where I find buying it in the small tubs is a lot easier than trying to measure it out myself.

Added sugars, salts. Adding any sugar or salt is a bad thing. Not necessarily the worst thing, because chances are the majority of sugar and salt that you consume is already in the food you eat. Bread, sauces, cakes, pastries etc.  As a rule of thumb I do not add any salt or sugar to my food. I hear chef's and good cooks saying I am nuts, but hey it tastes just as good. This of course does not apply to sweets. Yet.

Lite. No fat. No sugar. All these labels you see on foods, and anyone on a diet immediately goes and grabs thinking that the product has done the hard work for them. Personally I have read far too many articles on how many additional ingredients there are in those foods and who knows what they can/will do to you. I would much rather have a small portion with proper ingredients that I understand then try to work out which preservative means what and how that is going to affect my body.

Sauces. This is a big one. I love my sauces, mayonnaise, butter, easy to add curry sauce, spaghetti sauce etc. I am in the phase at the moment where I am trying to reduce the number of store bought sauces and trying to learn how to create my own. It's hard going, but slowly it is happening. The reason is for the same as I have said above, all those additions: sugar, salt, preservatives etc

Fruit. I love fruit in summer. I struggle to eat fruit in winter. That does not mean I should substitute juice or a pill for it. It does mean I try to make myself eat one piece of fruit in winter, and I eat more in summer. I also try to make sure I do not eat too much fruit, as it does have natural sugar as well and I feel it is better to err on the side of caution.

Drinks. At the moment I am not drinking alcohol. So right now I drink coffee (no sugar), water and tonic water and lemon/lime when I need a change. That is not say that sometimes I crack and have a hot chocolate/milo or a soda. But I try to avoid it as much as possible and use it as a treat.

Fast foods. Lollies and all those yummy things. I eat lollies, I eat chocolate and occasionally I eat fast food. Not that I am supposed to. I actually don't buy cookies, pastries or sweets that often. So right now I am trying to make my own sweets, with ingredients that I know and trust to substitute the store bought ones. It's had mixed results. My chocolate craving is the worst. I have found though that chocolate almonds seem to be a good alternative to just eating a block of chocolate. I find that I savour it more and don't just mindlessly eat until it's all gone.

SO back to what I do eat. Now I have said that I shouldn't eat all of the above, but I do. I just try to eat it in moderation and slowly move away from it to a more organic and healthy way of eating.

Morning: two pieces of toast with two boiled eggs and a coffee.

No butter, salt, pepper. Nada. Just as it is. This used to turn me off, but now I am used to it. I love protein as it actually fills me up, for me eating cereal or fruit for breakfast means I am still hungry twenty minutes later. I usually boil up the eggs at the beginning of the week to save time during the week.

Morning snack: Fruit.

Lunch: Left overs, or chicken and salad.

No dressings. I always make sure I eat about a cup of salad/vegetables for lunch.

Afternoon snack: Sometimes a yoghurt, sometimes a packet of soup, chocolate, cookie or just another cuppa.

I am searching for a good alternative right now for an afternoon snack as this is when I crack the most.

Dinner: Whatever I feel like. I always include vegetables with my dinner and am usually pretty good. Probably as this is the one meal that I have the most time to prepare and cook things properly, as opposed to using a microwave at work.

I don't snack after dinner. I used to, actually quite a bit in my uni days, but I have gradually cut back until I rarely have dessert. Only if I go out for example.

Drinks: So water all day, usually about 2 litres and lately tonic water and lemon with dinner.

And that's it. Not hard, not extra pills, vitamins,extra's etc. Eventually I want to be able to say that I cook and prepare most things myself.  I doubt I will ever be able to cook all my bread and pasta etc but things like sauces and treats I would like to do it myself. Everything else I would like to keep as close to it's organic form as possible.


The reasoning behind my thinking is that I want to have something sustainable and healthy. Not something I am going to struggle for the rest of my life to stick to, or to not know what's in it and find out it's secretly killing me. Extreme I know. But hey you never know. I have also planned it to fit in with my work schedule, preparing extras at dinner for the lunch the next day, baking and boiling the eggs the weekend before etc I know that this might not work for everyone as they have a different routine, or might not like cooking etc.

So tell me about your plan/diet. Is it hard? simple? Does it make you think about how you're getting your daily requirements? Nutrients? Does it make you feel satisified, healthy? How does it fit in with your work/social life?

Progress in Photos.

 This is me 5 years ago. When I originally lost 20kgs. Look how skinny I was!! I was an Australian size 16 on the bottom and a size 12 on top. I weighed 80kgs.

 This is me a year ago at a friends birthday. (I'm in the centre, if you didn't realise) This is probably where I was the biggest. I have very few pictures of this time, and certainly none where I was alone. As you can see I really wasn't the biggest or the smallest at this gathering. But I certainly felt like it.
I weighed 112 kg.

On Monday my trainer showed me a picture of me when I started training. I was scared because I didn't think there would be any difference. Except that I did notice. My shape has evened out. I have lost some weight around my stomach and legs and my face. Particularly the back of my legs. My pants and stockings are so much easier to get on and I look forward to the day when I can scrap my pants and buy new ones - a size smaller!! At the moment I am a size 18 on bottom and a 14 on top.

So there you have it, progress in pictures!