Entries from April 2009 ↓

There are a whole heap of ways to exercise. I have a friend who loves to swim. If it involves getting wet, that’s her exercise.  My sister teaches aerobics classes and loves to dance, my Dad takes mega long bike rides at every opportunity. I have another friend who plays netball, water polo, any team sport. Mum swears by long walks.

I chose to run. I decided that this would be my path to weight loss a long time before I actually started running.  Even though it really hurt, and even though I eventually had to have a minor surgery before I could do it effectively, I was still determined that running was my preferred exercise. I chose it for a few different reasons, I continued with it for entirely different reasons.

The reasons I chose running to start with were:

• I read somewhere that 70% of women in some study who maintained a significant weightloss had taken up running. I don’t know where I read this, I was in a bookshop flicking through weight loss books I think. And I’ve never found any mention of this study anywhere else, ever. But I still believe it!
• I like to travel, and go on holidays. But every time I started an exercise program, I’d go on some trip and it would get interrupted, and I’d lose my momentum.
• I wanted to future proof my weightloss. You can’t always afford a gym membership, and you may not always be near a gym or a pool, and you won’t always have a bike available. Life can interfere with team sports. But sneakers are relatively inexpensive and very portable, and the road is always there waiting. You can run on holidays, on work trips, anywhere.
• You know the Nike ads, and all the rest? The images of the runner in the dawn light? Hell, you know those super fit creatures you see jogging in every park and beack around the world? I like those images, and I wanted to be those creatures.  So yeah, advertising was abig reason too!

The reasons I kept running once I’d started:

• I’d invested in it so heavily - I mean, I had surgery for goodness sake! It would be silly to just give up after that!
• It works! I started getting results. I felt fitter and the weight was coming off.  That’s damn good motivation.
• It’s easy. You put on your sneakers, clip on your MP3 and head out the door. There’s not too many excuses you can make, really!
• The ENDORPHINS!! That high that you get after a run? Good God, there’s nothing quite like it. I haven’t gotten that from any other exercise.

So that’s why I run. The reasons I started are still valid, but they’re not the reasons I keep going. Now that I’ve finished C25k, I will choose another goal, and hit the road again.

The weightloss fairy came this week and took away 400g, taking me down to 70.4kgs.   I’m OK with that. It’s not great, but it will do. By next week i hope to be back in the 60’s.

Yesterday I had two occasions to make a public display of myself, in the first instance I startled several shoppers and one confused shop assistant by squealing (loudly) when I fit perfectly into a size 12 pants. I really wasn’t expecting that, I had picked them up cause they were cheap, and I thought if they were just a little tight I’d get them for when I’ve lost a little more.

The second occasion was after completing (for the first time ever) a 30 minute run on the pathway along the beach! Yes, i am now a C25K graduate! Although my total distance (worked out on mapmyrun.com) was more like 4.5kms, I still did the whole 30minutes without stopping.   I did a few air punches and some yeling and jumping up and down, much to the surprise of the old dears walking their old dogs at sunset. They didn’t seem to mind too much though

So yeah. Yay for me

Just lately I have been slipping back into some old and extremely destructive habits. These are:

1. The afternoon chocolate (attack of the fundraiser box)
2. The before dinner cooking snack
3. After dinner eating.

My real concern is the after dinner eating. I thought I had truly kicked it, that I didn’t need food to enjoy a relaxing evening at home, but perhaps not. I decided a while back to re-do my 30 day challenge but have once again fallen victim of the “find a good time to start” syndrome. This is the syndrome that kept me fat for years, and if  I’m not careful it may stall or even reverse my weightloss.

It begins on monday, come hell or high water. I’ll print out a star chart tonight. Why not start tonight? because it’s a long weekend and I’m tired. God that’s a bad excuse. Oh well.

I don’t expect a good loss this week due to some massive monthly water retention. But I have to admit even if it was a perfectly normal week I wouldn’t expect much based on this week’s performance.  My goal for this weekend? Write some clear mental startegies to deal with the three eating situations I’ve listed above.

I don’t know if this is reality or mild PMS talking, but I feel like I’ve stalled and this month I may even record my first month since I started this journey with no loss at all, or even a gain. Especially since this month started with a massive loss followed by a more massive gain. Better turn this around somehow fast!

Sometimes it’s hard trying to wrest a decent outfit out of a wardrobe designed for a figure 2 sizes bigger than what you are now. But you don’t want to go buy a heap of new stuff because you’ve still got more weight to lose. Here’s a few tips.

• Safety pins are good, but nappy pins are better. They have those safety catches so they don’t stick into your bum and they are stronger. Use them to create little pleats in the sides of your pants and skirts.
• A-line skirts are your friend, girls! Pencil skirts begin to look baggy very quickly, but tucking the side of an a-line with a nappy pin doesn’t affect the look at all.
• Tops that tie at the back will still look OK when they’re a bit too big for you.
•  Buy stretchy whenever you can. Knits can be bought a little (only a very little) tight and will still look OK a bit baggy.
• Know when to give in gracefully. If you’re pinning more than an an inch in at the side of your work pants, it’s time to buy new ones, before one of your colleagues politely points out that you look like a clown.
• A good pair of jeans that fit well can rescue a whole heap of your oversized tops that would look ridiculous with a bigger pair of pants. Don’t wear jeans that are too baggy, you’ll look silly. Where possible, try to wear things that are well fitted on your bottom half.
• Organise a swap party with some friends if you can. Take along all that stuff that’s too big now.
• When in doubt, just wear it anyway and brazen it out! say stuff like - “I’m finding it really difficult to find clothes in my wardrobe that fit these days!” people will congratulate you on your weightloss and forget about your clothes. Note that this will not work forever, eventually you will haveto buy clothes that fit.

Enjoy the feeling of big clothes that usedto be too tight - remember, hundreds of people would kill to have this problem!

The weightloss fairy came this week and took away 0.8kgs, taking me down to 70.8kgs total.

This is a little dissapointing after such a big gain last week, i guess I will have to face up to it that most of that gain was pure, good ol’ fashioned fat.
On the other hand, at least my graph is heading back downwards again, so I have to be happy with that
I had a lovely weekend this week, with an unexpected trip to beautiful Rottnest Island organised by a friend at the last minute on Friday morning. We swam, we sunbaked, we lazed and read books, we went to the pub and enjoyed the live band. We ate too much, cheese and crackers is a particular downfall of mine! And we drank a little too much too. Overall it was lots of fun and so great to get away for a change!

I didn’t come to my own method of weight loss fully-fledged, with an idea and a method all fleshed out and a path fully mapped.  I don’t believe anyone does. Regardless of what weight watchers, Jenny Craig or any of the other weight loss groups tell you, no one method works for everyone, and no one method works on it’s own for the whole length of your journey.

Imagine a cruise ship. (I’d like to imagine BEING on a cruise ship, but that may have to wait a few decades) Anyway, our cruise ship leaves port with a destination in mind. Let’s say Vanuatu. (My sister is taking a cruise to Vanuatu for her honeymoon. I’m terribly jealous )

Our ship sets sail with the bow pointing straight to it’s destination. After a day or so, the captain takes a reading. Currents, winds, and a plethora of other things have combined to push the ship slightly of course. The bow is pointing 1 degree to the left of Vanuatu. So the captain makes a correction, and the ship is back on course.

Every cruise ship and plane makes a hundred course corrections between the start and finish of their journey. They never go in a completely straight line. Neither does weight loss. Why should it? You start with a goal. You do what you need to do and you’re heading towards your goal quite happily. Then you notice you’re slightly off-course, so you make a correction. You add in a new behaviour, or you get rid of an old one.  You continuously research and try new things. It is unlikely that the behaviours which got you to your first mini goal will get you all the way to your destination on their own.

My first step in my journey was to cut out eating after dinner. I lost 2kgs almost without trying. Then my weight leveled out again - I needed to make a course correction. I took up running 3 times a week doing the C25K program. I began losing again, but SO slowly! So I began planning my meals in advance. That helped a lot, my weightloss picked up a bit. Then it leveled out again, so I stepped up my planning. I began counting my calories more precisely.

My next course correction occured when the PT at my gym tested me for my metabolic rate and recommended I drop down to 1300 calories. AND he started to weigh me in each week, so I became accountable to someone else for my eating. That was a big course correction - I was really powering straight towards port for a while there!

But slowly I wandered off course again. I lost some motivation and was finding it hard to resist little treats and snacks. So I began researching mental techniques to stave off cravings, emotional eating and binging. Putting them into place was yet another course correction.

A lot of this blog is about recognising when I am wandering off course and figuring out what actions will correct my course. Ultimately, it is about realising that to consistently lose weight, I need to consistently research, implement and refine new behaviours and techniques to provide course corrections when I need them.

So if you are beginning your weightloss journey, try not to focus on the entire journey as one big step. Concentrate of each little step and change your behaviours one at a time - you will build up momentum in the end.

Although I shouldn’t weigh myself in between my official Sunday weigh ins, I couldn’t resist jumping on this morning to see if my suspicions regarding water-weight were true. I was pleased to see the scales down almost a kilo from Sunday, which I assume means I was right, and just needed to get rid of that water retention.

 I gained 1.8kgs this week. That is huge. An absolute disaster. Needless to say, I will not be marking off my under 70 goal this week, or likely any week soon.

Reasons

1. On the sunday after my really good weigh in, I went nuts. I ate a whole heap of hot chips and wedges at the pub lunch I attended with friends. Then I went to Mum and Dad’s and continues to binge for the rest of the day.
2. During the rest of the week, I had no meal plan. This was because I had not had time to plan on the weekend, but after Monday I could have done it. Instead I chose to wing it for the week.
3. I gave in to after lunch chocolates almost every day at work. I convinced myself that one wouldn’t hurt, without considering that I had had ‘just one’ the day before, and the day before that.
4. I didn’t exercise except for Monday. I told myself that I needed the sleep in.
5. I ate Red Rooster on Thursday night. I decided that I ‘deserved’ it as it was the long weekend. That would have been OK, but I also decided that I deserved MacDonald’s on Friday night.
6. On Saturday I picked all afternoon at high fat, salty snacks. The salt probably added to my weight gain at my Sunday Morning weigh in through water retention.

So, there you have it. I gained weight, and it wasn’t a blip or just one of those things, it was 100% avoidable bad management. Not only did I gain weight, but I gave myself a three day food hangover. The fat and salt made me feel nasty and lethargic and sick. I kept eating it anyway.

So for this week I have a lot of ground to make up! I have done a food plan for the week, it does not involve any new recipes or anything difficult or time consuming to prepare. It is all tried and true easy stuff that I can do in my sleep, and it is carefully planned around my work and other activities. It also includes a few sensible small treats, and allows for the chocolate I got this weekend (being easter) Should be easy to follow. I am also comitted to exercising every day.

To avoid temptations (especially after lunch chocolate and after dinner snacks) my mantra for the week is

It will not make me happy, it will only make me heavy!!!

I wrote this down five times this morning, and I recited it in time to the music in my car about a hundred times on the way to lunch today. I sounded demented, but I think I will remember it when I need to! This saying also reminds me that cravings are not as desperate as they feel at the time, I will not be unhappy if I resist them.

Here’s to a much better week this week!

I don’t think I am going to meet my goal of remaining under 70kgs this week. So far the scales and my food chart indicate that I wil have a gain. Too many gym sessions skipped, too many little treats here and there.  I t happens sometimes after a super good week, not an excuse I know, but it does.

The problem started because my weekend held an unexpected event - my neighbours house burned down.  Seriously - right to the ground, it was horrible. One of those old fibro shacks, it might as well have been kindling after the long hot summer, and it was gone in minutes. I spent Saturday trying to do whatever I could for the family and making tea and coffee for firemen. Because of this, I didn’t do what I’d planned to do on Saturday, which was meal plan, shop, laundry and clean.

So, usually if these things don’t happen on the weekend, I do them Monday night. But monday after work I went to check out a problem at our (mine and my sister and her fiancee’s) investment property. So I didn’t get home until late. Tuesday I went dancing, wednesday I went to visit my Nana.  So, to date, meals have only been sketchily planned at best, and calories have not been counted. The gym has not been visited on two occasions because I’ve slept in (no excuses)  Preparing for work has taken more time each evening because lunches are not planned and clothes have not been selected.

I have however, made the best choices I could. I’ve bought salads and soups for lunch in place of packed meals and had dinners from the freezer instead of the fast food shop.

Things are not dire in any way, I’ve just given in to the chocolate box a few too many times this week, and I think it will nudge me just above the 70 mark. I was only just below it to start, and it was tenuous at best. It seemed to good to be true, a 1.6kg loss, maybe the score was skewed downwards by an unusual amount of dehydration? It certainly hasn’t shown up since.

I could, if I really wanted to, turn this around, do heaps of exercise and eat really well for the next two days and hit my goal. But it’s the easter long weekend and I don’t think that is realistic. So I will continue to eat and exercise normally and take whatever number pops up on the scale saturday morning as my just and proper due.

That’s all.

Every morning around nine, myself and a few colleagues gather together, and walk to the kitchen for a morning cup of  tea and a quick chat. We walk down a corridor past a row of framed photographs…. reflective photographs of dignitaries who have worked here in the past.

“Did you just check yourself out in that photo and do this?”  (Colleague demonstrates an affected hair flipping gesture)

Oops.  Sprung.  I could feel my face turning red and my ears starting to burn.  Might as well brazen it out now!!

I laughed and said “Yes! I spend a lot of time looking in mirrors these days! You know the reflective train windows when it’s dark? can’t keep me away from those!”

I guess I hit on exactly the right tone to take.  Instead of the barrage of teasing I was bracing myself for my colleagues all smiled and laughed with me. “Good for you!”  said one. Another commented that I deserved it, after all my hard work. Then we went to get our tea.

I did take extra care not to check myself out in the reflective photos on the way back though!