Wednesday, March 31, 2010

WI Week 30 – 25kg gone

I am doing the happy dance this week had a great loss of 1kg bringing my total losses tooo wait for it…..25.4.kg – I have broken through my goal of 25kg – I am very impressed with myself. I have now lost 17.91% of my body weight!! I have set my next goal to be 20% of my body weight which is another 3kg away.

Over the last fortnight I have had two good losses I have put this down to the reduction in sodium in my diet – that it really the only change I have made over the last two weeks – we are eating more whole foods or foods that contain one ingredient and I am really keeping my portion sizes in check.

At the WW meeting today we were talking about Easter and our plan for the food etc.. This was the first time that I had really through about the food side – my focus for the weekend was that I had two days off work and what activities I could do with my kids. I am seeing it as an opportunity to be more active. Sunday we are going bush walking (with my parents, brother and sister …should be interesting we are not exactly an outdoor type family…..) and then Monday we are going for a 20km bike ride. I am really not worried about the food as I feel very in control and am just viewing the days as any other days. The only food challenge I really have is Friday night when we have seafood at my parents house – Mum has a tendency to deep fry all the seafood but we have talked about the menu and incorporate a couple dishes that will be healthy that I will be eating. As the for chocolate well I can take or leave chocolate – my only request is for one Caramello egg (3.5pts) - my family can see how well I am doing and have asked what I would like instead. The catch maybe those hot cross buns which I loveee – I have had 1 so far this year (1 single one not 1 packet lol) – generally by now I would have eaten packets of them – anyway I may choose to have a couple more I will see how I go. Looking forward to the break and spending time with kids – that is my focus this Easter.

March Challenge completed

The March challenged is completed.  I missed my target by 900grams though I am still very happy with my results regardless - 3.8 in one month is still good going.



SW: 119.2
GWEM: 115.5
FINAL: 116.4

Total Losses 3.8kg
wk5: -1.0
wk4: -1.8
wk3: -0.4
wk2: - 1.2
wk1: +0.6

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Boot camp update

I though it was time for another boot camp update. I am still going every week and still loving it. Each week I push myself a bit further and I can feel the progress each week. The best thing that I did was purchase some really good sneakers – I was struggling before with some of the exercise as they were too hard on my knees i.e.: jumping – with my new sneakers I can now do a lot more and not suffered the consequences of my knees and ankles having to take the full force of my weight – they obviously still are but now the shoes are taking away the jarring that was occurring before.

My running is slowly improving as I push myself a bit further each week – at the start of the session we do a “jog” around a set route – each week I set my target my little a bit further – I can now jog about 1/3 of the way around – then I power walk the rest of the way. A couple of weeks ago she did this massive jog around Hillarie’s (as our warm up!!) – I clearly could not jog all the way – actually no one in the group jogged the entire route – so what I did was jogged as far as I could stopped got my breath back and then started again – I was probably jogging in 1-2min interval’s – each time I would just set a target to aim for and not stop until I got there – it was really hard but extremely rewarding when I got to the finish line. I didn’t worry about where everyone else was up to I just focused on where I was and just kept pushing ahead. Our trainer is really great – she kept on coming back to encourage me to keep moving and pushing me a bit further the entire time without making me feel like was really lagging behind (which I was….). Anyway that was just the warm up – we still had a full session to go…with more running…

Our trainer is big on circuit training – at my last session she setup several stations – the main station was a route around the entire circuit that consisted of us running and jumping over hurdles - the hurdles where only about 20cm high – which when you first look at them you think no problems I can do that – well after you have been running around and jumping over these things for close to 45mins they started to feel like they were about 6ft high!!! In the end most of us where doing a fast walk with a step over….The way it worked was we ran around until she said stop (probably about 2mins) then went to a station – we had the ladder, squats holding a bar, boxing, sit ups with medicine ball, plain setups, running around some markers, squats on a ball and something that I can’t recall (or maybe I have blocked it out lol) – which we did for a solid 1min then when she said stop we had to start running around the hurdles again and repeated this for probably 45-50mins– as I am writing this it does not really seem all that hard – 1mins here – 2 mins there but I tell you there was not one person by the end of that session that walked away looking like they could just collapse on the floor at any moment – normally there is a bit a chatter after – no after this session – most could barely muster up the stretch to wave good bye. It was a great session.

I am still loving it – have another session tomorrow morning – I would encourage anyone that is thinking about to give it ago – you could surprise yourself!!

Week 29 WI

A great result this week – lost a massive 1.8kg bringing my total to 24.4kg – only 600g off my next mini goal of 25kg. Last week I made a few small changes to my diet – I took at a look at my sodium content and cut out my daily coke zero, Sakata and cut right down on pre-package foods – I added a couple of supplements and started eating the Chia seeds. I have to say that the Chia seeds did make a difference to my hunger levels (or was it just in my head!!) I am adding them to my breakfast and normally I start get hungry about 10am but I am going through to lunch!!

I am feeling much better this week (I was feeling better before the loss….but even better now) which I contribute to just eating more foods that contain one ingredient – I am starting to realise that we eat and drink a lot of stuff that our bodies simply don’t need and really don’t like – though I still plan on drinking coke zero a couple of times a week I certainly do not need it on a daily basis. Food and drink like this need to go back into the sometimes basket and not the always baskets!!! There were and probably are still a few items where the line is a bit blurred…. I will keep reassessing each week to ensure that my diet is continuously improving. One thing I have learnt over the years is that if I make too many changes in one hit there is a large chance that I will hit the ground hard as it is simply too much too soon to adjust to (well this is what happens to me anyway) – I am trying to move away from the ALL or NOTHING approach that I have to most things especially weight loss.

Looking forward to another positive week – I have a couple of challenges about to come to an end – Easter and March and I currently have a short fall of 1.9kg (I may have been a little bit ambitious when I set these….) so if I going to nail these challenges then I will definitely need to step up my diet and exercise this week.
Have a great week.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Week 28 WI….still on the way down

My weight loss over the last few weeks has been a bit up and down but I am please to report that this week it was down by 400g – bringing my total to 22.6….edging closer to the 25kg mark!

I struggled a bit this week really not feeling great – felt quite bloated, energy levels where down just generally felt blahhh….my diet has become a bit boarding…I had defaulted to the good old tuna and salad for lunch every day, the same couple of breakfasts, same fruit, way to many packets of sakata’s – you get the picture. I decided that this week I need to look at my diet and make some changes.

I got out my Gillian McKeith books and did some reading on her recommendation for digesting food (as I don’t think I digest food very well) and at my WW meeting this week we were discussing Chia seeds (these are suppose to help with weight loss which is always a bonus!!) and I had also been talking with Rhonda (my WW leader) about watching my sodium contents. I decided that I would take a good look at the processed foods we are eating (we don’t have a lot but could cut down), cut out the daily diet coke (I am not ready to give up my 1 coffee a day yet) and no more sakata for while… Last night I went off to the health food shop and brought myself some digestive enzymes, probiotic, Chia seeds (black and white) – quinoa, pumpkin & sunflower seeds, almonds & LSA. The seeds and almond are mainly for snacks in place of my sakata. The quinoa is a new grain that I am going to try – I have found a few recipes in the Gillian books that I am keen to try. This week plan is to eat more foods that contain one ingredient – hopefully I feel better within myself and it will help move the weight loss again at a more consistent rate.

Overall I am happy with my progress and still feel 110% better than I did a few months ago – gotta be happy with that…

Saturday, March 13, 2010

People are starting to notice...

Over the last couple of weeks I have started to receive comments from people noticing that I am losing weight that don’t know that I am doing WW. Today it was hairdresser who at the end said that I was looking really good and asked what I was doing so I told her – she does not need to lose any weight but we did have a good conversation about the benefits of exercise regardless of if you need to lose weight or not. When I was out walking in the evening a neighbour few doors down that I normally just say hi too as I walk past stopped me and commented as well. And a couple of people at worked that I don’t have a great deal to do with at a personal level have made comment – one asked what is your secret – when I said just good healthily eating and exercise…..she was very disappoint…I think she hoping that I was holding “the secret”…..

Feels great to be recognised for my achievement – it has given me a real boost…

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Week 27 WI….in my teens!

This week result was much better than last week unexpected gain. I lost 1.2kg bringing my total to 22.2kg (all the two what the chance of that… lol) and bringing me under the 120kg that I have aiming for over the past few weeks…I am today very pleased with this result. I mentioned today I am pleased as yesterday (my WI day) I really was that not trilled with this loss – after my unexpected gain last week I really expected to lose at least 2 – 2.5kg this week, so when I only lost half that amount I was quite dark and very negative with my progress. My weight loss has slowed down and it has been a struggle to get under the 120kg, yesterday I did not even allow myself to recognise this achievement despite banging on about for the last few posts.

Well I am happy with my progress and very excited to be in the teens – it has been a few years. A turning point for me today was I out buying some new 1.5kg hand weights and there was some 5kg weight, I picked 4 of them and held them for a few moments and though wow this is really heavy and this pretty much what I have taken off my body over the past 6months. There is absolutely no way I can back regardless of how slow my weight loss is - the key is keep moving in a down ward direction. I am in this for the long haul….this is no 2 week vacation!!! I am committed to the end…I owe it myself, my kids and the people in my life that continue to support me year after year in this battle that I am winning.

I would like to thank everyone that leaves comments on my blog – I really really appreciate them - it tickles me every time I get one – I find them very motivating – thank you.

My next goal is to reach 25kg which is 2.8kg away...

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Week 26 WI

I am very late with posting my results from last week….I have to admit that there has been some avoidance behaviour going on as I really did not want to post my result. Firstly I need to provide some background information…I normally go to boot camp on a Friday morning but last week I was not able to do this so I went on Wednesday morning instead…When I do bootcamp I tend to bring a lot of water – I can drink up 2 litres during and within the hour after…On Wednesday I was conscious of this and I still drank about 1litre..so when I weight in I had a gain of 600g…..Bring my total losses back to 21kg – still not under the 120 mark!!!

I am feeling a bit down at the moment as my weight loss has slowed down since the start of Feb – I have lost only 1kg over the last 5 weeks. If the scales don’t move this week I will need to do some reassessing.