Getting up and going ...

Well I had a minor set back last week as I had a gain on weigh in day.
I did the usual 'why, why,why, thing even though I suspected I might have a gain.

My suspicions were not because I'd had a bad week, on the contrary I had an awesome work out and food week.
But what I knew was that I'd upped my weights and done 3 pump classes, I was premenstrual and the day before weigh in I was out and about all day so I didn't workout and I didn't drink my water leaving me a bit bloated, retaining some fluid.

My gain was .5 which in the grand scale of things wasn't huge, but a plus is always scary.
It's funny because when I entered my weight into the online food diary I'm using on calorie king.com it always gives you a little summary of your week and mine said 'don't be disheartened by small gains, ask yourself have you upped your weights, where are you in your menstrual cycle and have you been drinking your water?'

 Image and Calorie King site: click here

All the questions I knew the answers to. A nice reminder though, that despite all our hard work sometimes a gain will creep in on the scales.

Once upon a time, reason or no reason, a gain would be enough to make me say to myself that it was not working and it was time to quit. But my resolve is stronger now and a minor setback tells me that i just need to persevere and continue doing all the great things I have put in place for the success of my long terms goals.

I have no doubt that this Fridays weigh in will have me right back on track and to make sure I haven't skipped a beat with my workouts. Saturday was cycle, Sunday was my rest day and today was my 6am start.

Getting up and going in the mornings is so bloody hard, especially during winter. It's pitch black and this morning we were at 5 degrees. Brrr.
But I have set a permanent alarm on my phone to wake me 5.30 every Monday and I tell myself that Monday is the only day I do such an early workout so just get up and get on with it.
I always have to push myself to get up and out that door, but once there I'm warmed up within 5 mins and an hour later I'm walking home feeling so alive and ready for the day, before my hubby and kids have even woken up for the day.

Today and every Monday really, I have burnt a huge 700 calories before the street lights have even switched off and the day has begun.
Such an awesome way to start the day and the whole week for that matter.

Looking forward to weigh in this Friday.
Hope you have an awesome week,
Jay x

Figuring out what's working ...

Weigh in day today and I'm down to 104.7 woohoo. 

 Image via: here.

That's almost 10kg gone, and so much closer to my goal of getting under 100kg ... hoobloodyray!
I had a huge loss this week of 1.7kg. Well huge for me, as I'm usually a .5kg loser.

So of course I have had to sit back and analyze a little, as I do, to see what it was that may have done the trick this week. In retrospect I think it's not one thing I did or didn't do, more-so a combination of a few things.

Firstly, I have upped my workouts.
After my little rant on the last blog post about how doing the 80/20 thing of being good 5 days of the week and having the weekends off just doesn't work for me. I decided to test the theory of working out 6 days and having one day rest.
What I was doing before was actually having Thursdays off gym (so I could be a good mummy and do reading at school) as well as making the weekends gym free.
I was telling myself that I'm walking my preppy to and from school everyday ...collectively 80 minutes of walking a day for me, so that should allow me Thursdays off.

 Me walking in my spiffy, new runners.

Reality is, that all that walking is 10,000 steps a day for me, which is what is classed as a NORMAL amount of activity. You know ... normal for all those peeps who work outside of home etc ... so really that just puts me at healthy, doesn't rank me as someone going above the minimum daily movement requirement to actually be loosing weight. So yeah, maybe i was lying to myself a bit about how hard I was working!
Anyways, I picked up a cardio workout on Thursday and also added a pump class on Sunday. Giving me 6 days of working out. I also changed things up a bit to make sure I was getting 3 cardio sessions, 3 weights sessions and my yoga class. Which means some days I stay longer to fit weights in as well as cardio.

 Image via here

O.k so what else. I have still continued with eating extra protein.
I'm trying to have protein at every meal.
Nuts, yogurt, eggs, meat, fish, legumes, protein bars or shakes. Sorta dropped off on the shakes and protein bars only because they are a bit expensive but really there are plenty of readily available good sources of protein that I don't need to depend on them.
I have also maintained having breakfast and morning and afternoon snacks. So I'm seemingly getting more food in. Better quality food though, so it seems to be working.

Lastly ...sleep.
I ran out the Valerian tea and was hesitant to get more as it was really hard to have drink such a foul smelling tea every night. So I went 4 nights without and fell back into my restless sleep, tired day mantra aughhh...
I gave up on that pretty quick and decided I need to head back to the health food store. This time I was going to try the Valerian tablets. I saw Blackmores and Natures Own had sleep remedies too so I took them all up to the counter for assistance. The lady recommended the Natures Own saying one of her reps who is also a naturopath swore by them. So who am I to disagree.

 

Image via here

 Supposedly it has something in it to make you not only get to sleep quicker and sleep deeper but also to make you wake feeling refreshed. Imagine that, waking up ready to face the world well rested. That would be awesome.
 I have been taking it for 3 days now and each day I am feeling progressively better. Not waking up with a headache and feeling less like I have a constant cloud hanging over my head.
The girl at the gym desk even said gosh you're perky today... woohoo, must be working.

So yeah, I think they are the few big things of note.
Sleeping better, eating regularly, having protein at every meal and working out 6 days a week.

Oh and ... I totally forgot. Stressing less.
How could I forget that one. Something one of the trainers said during the week was stress less. As it has such a hold on you and really holds you back from accepting your new life and the changes you are making.

 

Image via here

Now as you can imagine telling a stress head to stress less is just dumb.
If I could I would for sure, but it's somewhat inbuilt. A safety mechanism of sorts. I can't say it always serves me well, but it is so ingrained I wouldn't know where to begin.
So... I downloaded a meditation app and have done that twice this week.
I have also changed my inner dialogue from 'why aren't I losing weight faster' to 'I'm doing the best I can for my body and even if I only lose .5 a week that will still add up to a substantial amount in 6 months or a year so its all good' and if I reached for chocolate or cake I did a count of my calories for the day to see if I had room for it then ate it and thought, 'yum just what I was in the mood for' ...instead of my usual immediate guilt and thoughts of 'well you've blown it again'

So they were biggies I think in helping my head stress less so that my body could make some progress. Letting go a little, I guess, of the berating negative comments, cause they sure as hell weren't serving me.

Well considering it has all worked in the last 2 weeks, I shall maintain status quo and keep on keeping on and you never know I might just get to 99.9kg before end of July after all...and if not I WILL get there real soon.

Jay xx

Sleeping and relaxing ...

I've mentioned before that I am not a good sleeper my head just runs a million miles an hour and I have real trouble switching off. A lot of the time I think this is why I spend my days so tired reaching for sticky buns and chocolate bars to give me some false hope that I can make it through the day.

 Image via: here

So over the process of this journey I have tried a few things to get better sleep.
Namely, cutting off eating at 8pm, which honestly I manage about 80% of the time. The other 20% a cookie or two slips in with a cuppa tea or a hot chocolate. It's a lifetime of habits here I tells yah. It's not gunna just happen overnight.
Anyways I digress ... I have also tired going to bed earlier, switching off t.v computer etc, reading before bed and lastly relaxing oils. Some lavender and bergamot to rub on the neck before bed.
Still, unfortunately no luck. I lie awake staring at the wall listening to hubby snore!

So this week I took myself off to the health food store and got some Valerian root tea.

Image via: here

I'd heard of it's properties before and when I read the packet it said helps stop that internal chatter to promote a healthful night sleep. Bingo. Just what I needed.
So firstly I have to say it smells foul, it taste like a combination of green tea and dirt but beyond that I do believe it's helping. The first three nights of taking it I had some pretty mad dreams. Really lucid, loud, strange dreams and not just one...many. It was like my body hadn't entered a deep sleep for months and was trying to catch up on all that deep dream processing that we do.
Madness. So I was waking up somewhat bewildered trying to catch up with my dreams that seemed to be in fast forward.

As the week has progress the dreams have slowed down to real time and I am definitely sleeping better. Only waking once maybe to go to the toilet, instead of my usual waking 5 to 8 times for no reason. So yeah ... onto a  winner I think.

Now the other point I wanted to discuss was relaxing.

 Image via: here

Not the put your feet up and have a massage type, sorry.

I did a little experiment this week to see what effect it had on my weight loss, that I totally take the foot off the pedals and relax my eating and exercise every weekend. I don't go to gym, I eat what I want.

My weigh in day is on a Friday and on Friday I weighed 106.8 woohoo, new territory seeing that 6 in there.
Then as per usual the weekend progressed as normal and Monday I thought, I might just weigh myself and see if I change at all over the weekend. Sure enough I had gained.
I had gained the entire .8 that I had lost the week before. I was a bit shattered as I'm learning my body will put weight on just from thinking about cake...unfair!

So i let the week progress as it would. Gym every day, eating well and on Fri I had only lost .2.
What I'm seeing is that I work so hard Mon to Fri, lose .5kg ...slack off on the weekend gain .5 then work all week again to lose the .5 I put on over the weekend and hopefully some more.
I know some people can do the whole 80/20 thing and have it work for them but the proof is in the pudding that this does not work for me.
Actually I've come to realize a plan like that is what I would do for maintenance. To stay the same weight once I reach goal. But it won't work as a weight loss plan.

It was even more confirmed this morning when during our Pump class our trainer was giving us a pep talk. The song that plays during stretches is 'Forever' and she was saying 'it is guys'.

 Want to listen to the song, click : here

If you want to look great, feel fit and be healthy, it is forever. Exercise forever...eat well forever.. it's not a fad or a get fit quick thing, it's a commitment to change your life for the better, forever.

Gosh it probably sounds all a bit extreme, for newbies, myself included. But what I'm seeing is yes you can have carbs, yes you can eat chocolate, but balance it in with a healthy day, and yes you can skip your 30mins exercise today but go harder tomorrow.

If you stop, so does your body.

Gosh you know, none of this is rocket science. None of it and we/I trivialize it so much looking for loopholes and quick fixes and each and every fat girl knows exactly how to lose weight.
Eat less, move more.
It's just applying it and convincing our brains that it wants to do it, that's the struggle.
Man oh man, I tell you what little ol' brain. we'll do it.
Damn it, we'll do it and we'll do it Forever ....
Jay xx

Looking for Energy ...

So we are now up to date. I did a few backdated posts to cover my journey so far and bring you up to speed and now we are at today. Yay.

I started this journey Feb 4th 2013, at 114.5kg and I'm currently 106.9 kg.
My first goal is to get under 100kg. My over all goal is to get healthy. By that I mean, you know those charts that tell you what you are when taking into account your height and weight. Well for the most part of my adult life I have been morbidly obese. Such a yucky term.
But it is what it is!
My aim is to get into the healthy range.

O.k so here is a snazzy table I found.
There I am at clinically obese. aughhh...
and where I want to be is o.k. How funny that they categorized it like that, but there you go.
All I want to be is o.k
So to be o.k at my 5foot6 height means achieving a weight between 58 and 70kg.

I have never been below the 89kg i achieved for a brief stint as an adult, so for some obvious reasons I feel that going for the bottom of the o.k range is very unrealistic. So lets aim for the top of that o.k range and say my ideal goal weight is 70kg.

Sheesh, imagine getting into the 70's
Wouldn't know what it would be like. I remember getting weighed in grade 6 at Primary school during health week and being told I was 69kg.
I was like woohoo, I'm the winner, biggest number there.
My happiness soon faded when the teacher pulled me aside and said Jaylene, I weigh 58kg and I'm grown up. Being heavy is not a good thing.
So I guess I wasn't really winning after all.

But onward and upward ...

This post is about looking for energy.
I have tackled the exercise, the calories and learnt about the maths behind losing weight and even though I am watching my calories, I was still putting the wrong things in to have this engine of mine running with any gusto.
Just barely getting by really.

So after hitting a wall, yet again ... rather then give up I had a chat to one of the trainers at the gym. I didn't pay for her advice so I was very humbled that she took me under her wing and could see the utter desperation in my eyes. Her advice was ... you'll never guess?
Jay, you gotta eat breakfast.
You just gotta and even if it feels unnatural and your not hungry, tell your body that it is an appointment or meeting that even though it may not want to go to it, you have to. It can't be missed. So schedule it in and force yourself to do it.

 

Image via: here

The ideal run down of food for a day is:
In your break fast at 7-8am, include protein and carbs.
In your first snack at 10am have protein and fruit
Lunch at 12 have carbs and protein and veg
Snack at 3 have protein
Dinner have protein and veg

Don't have dessert.

Load the beginning of your day up with protein and carbs and ease off in calories as your day progresses. We do not need a big calorie dense dinner, just so we can sit on the couch and go to bed.
As of course... what happens is your body works overtime trying to process it all, you don't sleep well, you wake up tired, rush around skip breakfast and the whole vicious cycle starts again.

So I have been changing the way I eat, big time.

Brekky is porridge, or eggs and spinach or peanut butter on toast.
Morning snack is natural yogurt w' blueberries and seeds.
Lunch is ham or turkey or fish with salad
Afternoon snack is a choc protein bar, or tuna and crackers
dinner is meat and three veg.

well ideally that's what it is. Sometimes we have eaten out or I've made the old favourites like enchiladas or lasagne so the carbs are still creeping in at night, but for the most part and my big aim is to make sure I'm eating breakfast and a morning snack and trying really hard to have protein at every meal.

I lost .8 this week which has been my biggest loss for one week and I don't wake up so groggy with an instant headache.
so fingers crossed I can make it stick.
Jay x

Dealing with food...

So I have hit hump day/week/month recently and overcome it, Yay me.
What's hump day?
Well it's that magic 3 month mark, round about the time I would usually give up.
The time I would usually say that I am working too damn hard and getting too small a result, so I quit.

But I didn't quit, I have kept pushing myself to stick to this plan.
I Gotta see the year out even if it kills me!

Image via: here

What my focus has been on this month is food.
I know I have been 100% with my exercise. Mixing cardio, resistance and even meditation and Yoga. So that side of things is spot on. As per usual I seem to have trouble coordinating the two. The whole eating well AND exercising.

So I googled away to figure out my BMR. What it is that I consume in calories on a daily basis just to be me, present status.
It would seem fat me at current activity level eats 2200 calories a day. Which seems a lot considering I skip breakfast, don't eat snacks and essentially just have lunch and dinner.
What I myself know about my food choices for lunch and dinner are that they are stodgy. I love my breads and pastas. So even though I'm only eating twice a day ... it's calorie dense food all at the back end of the day.
A period of time when my activity has stopped and life is about cooking dinner, hanging with the kids and sitting on the couch.

So as I'm backtracking here to tell you what I did for the month I can say I thought what I was doing was good ... but it hasn't entirely been working!

Firstly, I've been counting my calories.
For the first week I just ate as normal as I wanted to see what I was doing wrong.
Now I am not the typical biggest loser contestant who has a table full of golden brown fat laden food as my before shot. I eat relatively nutritionally well, mainly as a result of having irritable bowl syndrome.
This means if I was to have nachos for dinner, washed down with some cider I'd make myself very ill for the next two days.
So my problem is not fat. I have a low fat diet ...
My problem is sugar. Sugar and refined carbs. Is that what they're called?
Not the good carbs you get from whole grains and vegetables. The bad carbs you get from white pasta, foccacias and such.

Image via: here

They supposedly turn to sugar in your system and are calorie dense. So even though I think I eat like a bird...guess what it still adds up to 2200 a day.

So after week 1, I could see 2200 was my daily average which is what one would eat if they want to stay 114.5kg. As I was working out so much I was earning 500+ calories per day to act as a deficit to my 2200, bringing me down to 1800 calories a day.
Which meant a 2500 to 3500 deficit over a week, which da da da equals a .5 weightloss.

Any wonder I'm not losing big numbers? I learnt...that 1 pound/.5kilo equals 3500 calories.
So if you want to lose 1 kilo a week you need to eliminate 7000 calories a week either through eating less or moving more.

Now I don't know about you, but for me, losing 500 calories in one day takes about an hour and a half at the gym.
This has been my tactic this month. To work out mon to fri and eliminate 500 cals a day so I can continue to lose .5 per week.

It has been working as I'm down another 2kg ... but ... I'm so bloody tired all the time. Waiting for this mystery boost in daily energy that all these weight loss programmes promise.

So at the end of this month, I hit another wall and decided that next month my focus needs to be on building up my metabolism, to have more energy and so I can start to manage more then just exercise and eating.

We all know how to do this:
Sleep well. 7.5 hours plus.
Drink plenty of water
eat 3 square meals, and 2 snacks
exercise
build muscle

I'm only doing the last two!
Go figure why I have no energy Hey!
So onward and upward, next month is all about energy building.
Jay xx

Upping the cardio ...

For the last month I have made some big changes to my exercise work outs. Adding three cardio sessions to my regime of walking 5 days, resistance on two days and yoga 1 day.

I wear a heart rate monitor when I exercise, so I know to be working above 125 and preferably 140 to 160 to be in the fat burning zone. I'm just doing the treadmill, cross trainer and bike for my cardio workouts and making sure I have my little mini iPod for music to keep me focused.

 

Image via: here

If i forget my music it's such a deterrent to here myself heavy breathing and struggling, so gotta make sure the music is pumping.

 For this month so far I have only lost another 2kg. I hear myself say ONLY 2kg and think to myself I'm being unkind and not celebrating my achievements and it's true I'm not.
I'm still knocking myself for thinking this is still not good enough. I'm working so darn hard and I look at myself in the mirror and feel as though I'm looking fitter and thinner, but the scales are barely budging.

In honesty I have not been calorie counting or counting points or monitoring my food at all. So i sorta feel I must be failing there for all my hard work to be reaping such a small reward. So for next month my focus will shift to food, to see if I can't start making some major improvements.

At this rate my goal of getting to double digits wont happen till after July....aughhh...
I have zero patience!

Jay x

Heart pumpin' ...

So after 6 weeks of walking and resistance I'm finding I have clear skin, shiny hair and a head that is not so foggy.
But I still don't sleep well and in effect still find my energy flagging during the day.

I have lost about 3kg so far, which by biggest loser standards should be the result after one week, but knowing my body and how it works, this is average for 6 weeks effort. About .5 per week.

Sorta sucky really as I feel like I'm so restrained with my food  and so committed with my activity. Rain, hail or shine I'm out there walking and we have had some spaz weather of late too. A heat wave where it was over 30 for 10 days straight.
Lovely old Melbourne usually has heat waves in summer for sure, but we have 3 or 4 days followed by an awesome storm to wash it all away. So to have this constant heat has meant sleepless nights and me getting home from gym purely exhausted.
I'm not getting much work done in the wee hours between school drop off and pick up, but I'm hoping once I get fitter I'll have more energy during the day to help me get into the right head space for creating again.

I have started yoga in the last 2 weeks. I did a short course a decade ago and loved it, so when I saw it as a class at gym, I finally worked up the courage to go.

 Image via: here

I tell you what, I sweat more in there then I do on my walks. I know it helps clear out toxins and open up all sorts of spaces in your body to allow energy to flow etc ... But that first lesson was a killer. Who'd have thunk a bit of stretching would be so hard.

I actually came home, threw up, then slept.

Makes me think there is a whole lot of bad chemistry in my body at the moment. Heading into my second class a week later, I was so scared. So anxious that I would feel unwell again, but I didn't.
I walked away feeling so clear headed and free, so I'll be keeping it up for sure.

So at 6 weeks in I think I'm ready to up the exercise and get the heart pumpin'. See if I can't get some better results with more cardio happening. I have done gym on and off, often enough to know my way around treadmills, elliptical trainers and bikes, so I'll give them a go and push on to stage two.

Wish me luck, Jay x