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