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

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