Entries from January 2009 ↓

I’ve just updated my Statistics page with a cute ticker from Ticker factory, and a weight loss graph from SkinnyR. These are much easier to update than having to insert Excel graphs all the time. Go and check them out here

Now I just have to put up some progress photos. That still seems a bit scary though!

I skipped the Gym again this morning, just to get an extra hours sleep. I really have to stop doing that, January is almost over and my sleep patterns are still in holiday mode!! I’m not too worried about lack of exercise, since I’m still running, and my eating is OK, but I am really worried about losing muscle mass as I am doing no weight bearing exercise at the moment.

I know that once I get back into the habit it will not be a problem, but right now I’m not sure how to find the motivation to get that habit going again.

Yesterday I received the hypnosis CD I ordered off ebay in the mail. One of the tracks is motivation to exercise - maybe I’ll give that a shot.

This week I lost 1.4kgs, which is great after my 1kg gain the week before. I’m very pleased.

Yesterday was Australia Day, traditionally a bit of a pig out on little nibblies and alcohol. This year I was fairly prepared. I was attending a BBQ at a friends, so I offered to bring a healthy snack (veggie sticks and beetroot dip) and I took Vodka and diet coke so I wouldn’t be tempted by high cal drinks.

I started out pretty good. I stuck to the veggie sticks, I went easy on the cheese and crackers, although I had a few it wasn’t too bad. I declined the chocolate cocktails, although I did try a sip and they were lovely. I was quite pleased.

Unfortunatly I went a little overboare on my old nemesis, the Chips. (Crisps for non-aussie readers!) I meant to have only a handful, I thought I could handle it. I couldn’t. I snacked on them quite consistently for an hour or so. I don’t know how much I had. I hope it doesn’t affect tomorows weigh in too much.

So what to do for the future? I can’t avoid all social situations with chips. It’s unfair to expect others not to serve them. I think I will have to accept the fact that for me, chips are like cigarettes. I cannott even have just one, because if I have just one, I will have as many as I can physically fit into my gob in the time available.

So, I will add this to my list of motivational sayings - Chips are my cigarettes. Chips are my cigarettes. There is NO SUCH THING AS JUST ONE!!!

The great thing is, although I used to be a smoker, I am now perfectly calm, and have no desire to smoke those filthy things, even when others around me are puffing away. I’m sure that using the same methods I can get over my chip addiction.

usng the Thin commandments principles, I am going to box chips out of my diet. I will not be sad to see them go.

I have had a small drop in my focus this past couple of weeks. The first week I was recovering from food poisoning. I felt very tired and didn’t exercise, and I ate a lot of biscuits as other food made me a bit nervous, and the biscuits seemed safe, settling to my stomach and comforty. Then I had a very bad eating weekend.

This week my eating is better, mostly within plan, although there have been a couple of slip-ups involving cheese… The problem is my exercise. So far this week I have only exercised three times. One run on the pathway, one weights session, and one swimming session.

The problem is getting up in the morning. Four out of five mornings this week I have succumbed to the snooze button.

This is not OK.

Next week is a short week. On monday there is a public holiday. I will exercise, but not early. Tuesday I will be going to work direct from a friends house, after a lateish night - the gym is not going to happen. I’m not even going to pack my gear. Sorry.

So, wednesday, thursday and friday I MUST get up on time, hit the gym early and properly. No excuses, no exeptions. I will practice my getting up with the alarm this weekend since I have some spare time Sunday, and try to think of some other things I can do to make this work.

I may have to move the alarm clock.

In his brilliant book, “Don’t sweat the Small Stuff (and it’s all small stuff)”  Richard Carlson writes about two bricklayers.

The first, when asked what he is doing, replies, “I am an underpaid, overworked slave. I waste my time stacking one brick on top of another”

The secondbricklayer, asked the same question, replies “I am the luckiest person in the world. I get to help turn bricks into magnificent peices of art”

The difference? The second bricklayer can see the Cathedral.

What are the cathedrals in your work? in your life? in your relationships? and especially in your weight loss? can you see the whole, organic structure that all your little bricks make up?

With my weight loss, I am beginning to see the cathedral. The difficult thing is to truly make the connection between the bricks - the little things I do each day, each mouthful I eat, each craving I resist, each exercise session and decision to take the stairs, and the Cathedral - The healthy, slim, attractive body I am aiming for. It’s important to visualise the endpoint and make that connection.

On the other hand, it’s important to enjoy the journey too - I imagine even the bricklayer who can’t see the cathedral would take pleasure in going home with the knowledge that he had worked hard and accomplished a wall that day.

In my work it’s a little harder, because the Cathedral and the individual bricks exist at the same time. But I do find it satisfying to think of each little task in relation to the operation of the whole, a part of the structure of the organisation and what it acheives and maintains. What does that have to do with weight loss? Well, if you are happy in your work, you are less stressed, less discontent, and less likely to binge to aleviate those feelings. Generating that calmness within yourself is an essential tool for life as well as weight loss.

But to do that, to acheive that unconditional happiness in your life, you do need to be able to see the Cathedral.

This morning I weighed in with the PT - it wasn’t good. It basically confirmed what my sunday weigh in told me - I gained a whole kilo this week. I got a bit of a lecture, and some encouragement to do better with my monitoring this week.

Funny thing is, despite this little slip up, I am feeling that my motivation has snowballed to the point where the weekly weigh ins with the PT aren’t as neccessary as they were. It IS great motivation, but I feel like I have broken through a barrier and I don’t need it as much anymore.

Last night I joined a swim squad. I really enjoyed it, although I am a little sore through the shoulders this morning! I think I will continue to go. It’s great exercise, nice to meet a few new people, and it gives me a chance to catch up with a friend of mine each week as she’ll be coming along with me.

There were also a couple of cute guys there… it’s a shame that I managed to kick one of them square in the chest.. oops.

It’s true. When Iweighed myself on Friday morning I was maintaining at 74.8 kgs. This is despite the fact that I had done no exercise all week. (My excuse was that i was still tired from having food poisoning the weekend before, but really, that was just an excuse, and not a very good one either. I could have exercised if I’d wanted to.)

So from friday morning, where did I go wrong?

1. I had a friday afternoon binge on biscuits at work. That is discussed in my last post.
2. Since I’d already binged, and I knew I was going to have a relaxed weekend, i continued eating friday night, with two chocolate bars and McDonalds for dinner, and PB toast since I had to buy butter to make cakes.
3. I went to an overnight hen’s party this weekend. It was awesome I had lots of nibblies and lots of Vodka. To be honest though, I could have gotten away with all of that and only had a minor gain it was Friday and Sunday that were the problems. In fact, I don’t think I went overboard on the nibbles the way I might have a few months ago.
4. When I got home on Sunday, I was tired so I had Red Rooster for lunch before I crashed in front of the telly for the evening.

So why a whole kilo? i think some of it may be bloating from the salt and alcohol, and it might go away in a couple of days. But to be honest, only a few little efforts at restraint, and a bit of exercise last week, would have headed off this disaster.

I am going to allow myself to be annoyed and cross with myself about this, and remember how crappy that upward line on my graph looks so that next time i am tempted to let go so completely I will remember it and hopefully think twice.

I am sitting here at my desk and I have just consumed around 10 premium crisbreads. The first one seemed like a good idea, then I just went into eating mode and finished the pack that was in my drawer. So, in the interests of learning from failure, I guess I need to think about a few things.

How was I feeling?

Bored, but relaxed because it’s friday afternoonm and I’m looking forward to a really fun weekend. I’m also expecting to not stick to my diet this weekend, I’m giving myself a free pass within reason. I’m also very tired, I need a good sleep in.

What was I thinking?

I was surfing the net when I should have been working and I thought that one would taste nice and feel good in my tummy. More to the point, I imained the nice salty tase and the solid, comforty feel in my tummy and the crisp texture. I think tthis was purely about instant gratification that I had the first one.

Why did I keep going?

It’s so silly. I threw in the towel and went, what the hell, I’ve stuffed it now might as well keep going. I also felt if I didn’t finish them they would sit there in the drawer tormenting me.

What can I do to stop it next time?

Ummm, well, I’ll need to catch myself first I guess and then think about how the ‘torment’ of having them there isn’t so bad, it’s only till hometime, and it doesn’t actually hurt, and do some breathing exercises. But I think maybe it’s still too early to have them around, so I might just plan not to have them here for a few more weeks until I can handle these things better. I hope that day comes!!

I’ll tell you what, this is a painful exercise! i might be less tempted to binge if I have to go through all this self-examination every time afterwards!

Before I get started talking about mindless eating - a quick progress update. I weighed in with the PT this morning, and I was down by 1.2kgs from last tuesday!!! This is a fantastic result and I am very pleased. I am over the dehydration of food poisoning now so this loss is all mine!

I went home from work early on Monday, and had yesterday (tuesday) off, as I was still very tired after the weekend.  This was great, I had a good rest and completed some tasks that had been on my list for ages, like making up the last of my C25K MP3s.

The thing is, when I’m at home alone is a real danger time for habit eating for me. It’s not really emotional eating, or bordom eating, it’s just mindless nibbling for the sake of it.

Now, this hasn’t been a problem for me for a few months now, simply because I haven’t been keeping snack foods in the house. The only snacks I’ve been having are those that are fruit, or those that require preperation such as eggs on toast. if it’s not there, I can’t eat it.

But this week while meal planning, I decided that my morning work snacks would be a brand of crispbread that I am really fond of and can eat whole packets of in one sitting (Kraft Premiums). So there was a whole packet of them in the house.

What this resulted in yesterday and Monday was about 200cals excess for each day. It’s not too bad, but it IS a bit disheartening. All my work on developing the right attitude to food crumbled at the first test. Does this mean that I can’t have them in the house EVER? What happens if I meet someone and have a family? I won’t be able to impose my diet habits on them. I really need to find a way to be able to keep certain foods in the house without deviating from my plan.

I’m not sure how I will do this yet, but it is something I will be thinking about a lot in the near future. I need to develop strategies to deal with this NOW, while my motivation is high.

In the meantime, the Premiums have been moved to a drawer in my deskat work, and when I plan to have them for morning snacks I will just bring in the toppings to have with them.

Last night I had food poisoning. It sucked. BIG TIME. I threw up so much I thought I was going to die. My eyes swelled up and the nausea was unrelenting. It didn’t go away in between bouts of throwing up. My parents, bless them, drove the 45 minute trip to my house in 30 minutes to take me to the Emergency Department. Today I slept most of the day, so my weekend is shot.

This morning I did my usual sunday morning weigh in and I had lost 1.8kgs!! That is HUGE!! Of course, some of it is due to the vomiting and dehydration of the night before, but I’m sure that at least 1.2 is just because I was so good last week after two weeks of more relaxed eating over the holidays. I’m sure because that is how much I had lost when I weighed myself on thursday morning.

I’m going back to bed now. What really sucks is that now I feel well enough to go to work tomorrow, but not well enough to go to the gym.