I've been very slack. Honestly I think I've just been busy & any computer time I get I've been using to scan the forums and check 12wbt facebook groups! Plus whenever I get on the computer there's a certain very cute little boy who demands to share the keyboard with me!

I've had a couple of 'light bulb' moments the last few days & I wanted to write them down somewhere I could reflect on them.

Firstly, I need to make a better commitment to track my calories. I do a pretty good ob at sticking to the main meal calories but sometimes I swap the main meals on the plan for ones which are a bit more family friendly, sometimes those swapped meals are alternatives from the recipe index but sometimes they're just stirfrys or protein and salad etc ... and for example, today - I didn't track my calories but I skipped breakfast because we slept in, I exercised & by the time I showered and wrangled a few kids it was 11am. I decided to wait until lunch and save my calories for dessert tonight as we were having my sister over for her birthday. Now, I had a light lunch of pumpkin soup & didn't snack during the day, a dinner of stir fry with very little rice and then chocolate pudding with a little bit of ice cream.

I have NO IDEA how many calories that was!!! I think I prefer not knowing!! I'll just smash out some calories tomorrow and hope for the best on the scales on Wednesday!

AND I also think by not tracking I get a bit of food amnesia and forget what snacks I've eaten and an extra 100-200 calories here and there isn't going to help.

see what I mean??

So I think I need to make a commitment to really track my calories ... EXACTLY, no excuses.

My second light bulb moment ...

I've been reading on the forums and on facebook all these amazing inspirational stories & people setting and smashing goals to do things like Kokoda track, tough Mudders, stampede, triathlons, marathons, half marathons etc ... And I think it started to overwhelm me a bit. I kept thinking "I should be setting a goal to do xyz" or "I should be wanting to run a half marathon, or do a tough mudder". And at the moment, to tel you the truth, I don't want those things. To me those kind of goals just seem too far out of my reach at the moment. At the moment I want to just lose weight and be healthy! Just!! ha!

Does that make sense? so I'm really going to try and re-focus on the goals I set during pre-season. THOSE are the ones that are important to me right now. So what were they??

Pre-Season Goals:
1. Be under 90k by the time round 1 starts (to do this I had to lose 5.5kg) - DONE!!
2. Run 1 km without stopping - DONE!!

1st month goals:
1. Lose 6kg and be under 84kg - I think if I get my tracking down, I CAN do this!
2. Run 2km without stopping and be under 15 minutes - pretty confident of smashing this.

3 month Goals:
1. Fit into a size 12 - that will be a HAPPY HAPPY day!!!
2. Run 5km with no stopping

So these are my main focus at the moment and I really believe that the key will be to track my calories.

First full week weigh in is on Wednesday. I want to see at least a kilo down (maybe I'll pay for my pudding sins tonight?!) It's going to be a close call I think.

Exercise is chugging along nicely. Hitting my 500 calories each session (sometimes have to add extra cardio on toning days) and hit 1175 on Thursday for my SSS so this week I'm going to really try and focus on the food...and I'm going to try and blog more!

So much to say ...

But I don't know where to start!

I think I'm going to have to do another post to back track a bit - it's late and I really should be in bed so I feel motivated to go to my cycle class in the morning ...

But I just wanted to say - I'm down to 91.2kg and my goal is to get under 90kg by the start of the round, which is in 18 days time - totally smashable.

And I wanted to say, I am LOVING having set meals - 2 weeks ago I made the goal that between then and the start of the round I would use meals from the Michelle Bridges No Excuses & Crunchtime cookbooks. It has been such a load off my mind not to wonder each day "what are we going to have for dinner"??? Once a week I sit down for a few moments, look at what's on our calendar and choose some meals for dinners from the cookbooks. The kids have eaten most nights with us, I just modify their meals by adding pasta or rice. Most of the meals have been absolutely delicious and super easy to prepare - who doesn't like that???!!

Tonight we had Mediterranean Lamb shanks with pumpkin and mint - I slow cooked them and they were melt-in-your-mouth supper yummy!!

I am just loving being prepared and knowing what I have to cook each night - it's awesome. I still shop every couple of days because I like to have fresh veggies etc, but I go with a list - Yes!! A List!! who would have thought?!!! Makes it so much easier!

Anyway - it's awesome - did I mention that already?!!

Gotta go to bed. Next post - catch up on pre season tasks 2, 3 & 4 ...

Oh, p.s - been doing boot camp the last 2 weeks on a thursday morning - that's awesome too!! ;)

Pre-season Task 1

So it begins ...

I've come down with a cold/flu over the weekend so I haven't been exercising - it's all I can manage to keep on top of the day to day house stuff without feeling totally zapped of every bit of energy in my body. So I've been taking it easy. The upside is I can't really be bothered getting up to snack either!!

so the first pre-season task is to list your excuses ... & boy do I have excuses.

I have to say my major roadblocks/excuses are "I'm too tired", "I'm too busy", "I don't have the willpower" and probably too a bit of fear about not being able to achieve what I really want to, proving those who doubt me right and not being sure about who I will be when I lose weight.

I've never been smaller than 70kg in my entire adult life. I was thinking about this last night and trying to recall what I weighed when I got married (13 years ago!). All I know is that I hated my dress, it wasn't what I dreamed of wearing & I didn't feel beautiful. Funnily though, I was much lighter than I am now and RIGHT NOW I would give anything to be that size!!

So I know being a 'magic' number weight wise isn't going to make me happy, I guess I'm afraid that even at a 'magic' weight I'm still going to be unhappy, I'm afraid I won't be able to keep this up for life and the weight will creep back on. I'm afraid of not being able to enjoy the foods I love occasionally, & I'm afraid of forever having to count calories for the rest of my life.

But I have to remember that I'm also afraid of feeling fat & uncomfortable for the rest of my life!

My worst, worst downfall is eating things I know I shouldn't, even when I know I shouldn't eat them, even when I know I will later regret it.

So here are some of my solutions:

I'm going to go to bed earlier - 9:30 at the latest. No more staying up for hours watching tv
I'm not even going to go down the confectionery isle at the supermarket - ever. If I don't buy chocolate I can't eat it can I??
I'm going to schedule my exercise in & make time for meal planning & shopping lists (I know we get this with the 12wbt, but I want to start NOW) & those times will be non negotiable.
I've bought the crunch time dvd for times when kids are sick and I can't get to the gym
I signed up to Thursday morning Boot camp at the park across the road when I don't normally work out on a Thursday - it's no longer a 'day off'

It's been an enlightening task and I'm sure I'll be adding to my list of 'excuses' over the next few weeks.

I like this :

Sh'bam!

Let me start by saying this ... I am NOT a dancer!! I can't dance to save my life! And I feel sooo self conscious when I'm in a situation where any kind of dancing is required - I'd honestly rather die.

So yesterday my sister called me and said she was going to my gym with a friend of hers to do a sh'bam class & would I like to come? My brain was saying "ummm, hell, NO!" But for some reason I found my mouth saying "yeah ok" ... What the?!!!

All day I was nervous about it!!

We got to the gym early so I decided to do some time on the treadmill. I thought I'd do a 1k run and see how long it took me as I knew this would be one of our pre-season tasks. I started the run but got interrupted by someone who came for a chat so started again. 7min 44 seconds. part walking, mostly running. Lots of room for improvement, which is exciting.

Then into the class! The instructor was fun & the class was actually a lot of fun. I still felt pretty self conscious but I really enjoyed it. I managed (by total fluke) to stand in a position where the box containing the AV equipment blocked my view of myself in the mirror - which was great! I was so happy I didn't have to look at myself!! ;)

I wasn't sure how much of a workout the class would be, and in many places it didn't seem as much effort as required in step or cycle, but overall, including the run at the start, I burnt 734 calories. So I was happy about that.

So that's the good news...

The bad news is I stayed up past my bedtime after getting home from the gym and then couldn't get to sleep - as a result I was totally wasted this morning and decided not to go to my step class this morning. argh. I should have gone, I know I should have, but I had all the excuses ... i'm tired, I'm sore, I haven't started the 12wbt yet, I need to have a break, blah blah blah.

Went and did the grocery shopping and somehow a block of cadbury chocolate made it into my trolley along with a boost bar (last supper y'know ...) I had planned to come home and polish off a good portion of it for morning tea - as you do. When I came home I jumped on Facebook and all the 12wbt participants from round 1 are posting their end of round "I did it" stuff ... this one in particular really got to me :

http://youtu.be/uIBaxPC87Sg

So I hid the chocolates at the back of the top shelf in the pantry. I'm feeling pretty inspired by Cathy's video and I'm going to ignore those chocolates.

I do relate to so much of what she said. This last week in particular has been a constant mental battle for me. My brain tells me "you can't do this, you've tried to lose weight before and failed or put it all & then some, back on again. Why should this be any different". I can't even talk to my husband about it because I know he doesn't believe I can do it, it's just another phase. Why should he believe me?? I've been here, done this before (not 12wbt specifically) and it hasn't worked.

The email we got from Mish this morning about warm up challenge #5 was very timely and apt for me. She says:

"Making sure you have a handle on your mindset is KEY to your success on the 12WBT. To get you started, think about whether or not any of these apply to you:

You are afraid of change: Are you afraid of not being able to eat your favourite foods, afraid of having to get out of bed early to exercise, afraid of what you may look like at the end of the 12 weeks?
You are scared you will fail: Are you scared to fail yourself, or disappoint someone who has put faith in you, or prove someone right who has told you that you won't succeed..?
You have destructive habits: Do you make poor food choices even though you know better, do you skip exercise just because you don't like it, do you let others make you feel bad about the choices you make?"

Ummm, afraid of change - check
afraid of failure - check
destructive habits - check.

I have a long way to go. But I HAVE to do this.

1 week to go

I have had a terrible week.
It's like the week was 1 big "Last Supper".

I did somehow manage to lose 300g though. Which I think is actually a bad thing because then I get this mind set of "I can still lose weight and eat crap" going on.

As well as eating shit all week I also managed to not go to the gym ... at all. gah!

Dragged my sorry butt there today to do cycle class. Honestly I used to love cycle, but it's starting to lose some of it's appeal when I see the calorie burn on my HRM. step for me is a much better calorie burner. I think the calorie burned per minute works out to about the same, but step is a longer class, so I end up burning more. Of course I could stay for another 15 minutes and do some time on the treadmill or something, but I couldn't be fagged today to tell you the truth.S Something to aim for?

Anyway, I'm actually really really glad it's only 1 more week until pre-season for the 12wbt starts. I'm looking forward to getting stuck into pre-season tasks (let's not talk about my miserable failure with challenge 4 of the warm up!)

I'm contemplating taking an Attack class. The Les Mills promo for it looks totally intimidating. I think I might die after the warm up track! There's one on Friday morning at my gym if I can make it in time after school & kindy drop offs.

Fish and salad for dinner tonight - yum. Gotta go feed the ferals and put them to bed.

A new beginning

I feel a bit sad coming back to this blog - because I'm 1000 miles away from where I want to be and so much further away from the progress I made over the time I kept this blog and started running. But here's to new beginnings ...

It's been an awfully tough 18/24 mths. I'm not going to go into all the details, but suffice to say we've dealt with some major life changes, including but not limited to the surprise addition of #4, buying a bigger (more expensive, bigger mortgage) house, moving and all that goes along with it and some other personal stuff. I'm ashamed to say I'm heavier than I've ever been - even when 9 months pregnant with my last baby - and more unfit that I ever was.

A couple of months ago I joined back at the gym. I was too embarrassed to go back to Goodlife at Graceville, so I joined at Holland Park. How terrible is that?!! Anyway, it was a bit of a lifesaver getting back to the gym, and I've been enjoying going for 2 or 3 times a week. You know, the usual kid stuff seems to always get in the way - sickness, school commitments, sickness, other appointments, sickness ... get the picture.

I stumbled across the Michelle Bridges 12WBT via a friend's FB 'like' and ummed and ahhed about joining the next round (I'd just missed the first round) - I signed up to indicate my interest and when the reminder email came I thought, 'stuff it, why not'. So here I am, waiting for the 'pre-season' to start in 13 days. I'm actually looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to the structure and not having to think about it. I'm ready to give myself over to the process and whatever is asked of me, put my heart and soul into and desperate to change my life.

I don't want to be fat and unhappy anymore. I've been working on the unhappy part, and I'm getting there, slowly. I'm eager to get started on the fat part ;) Of course, there's nothing stopping me from starting now ... except all the excuses and negative self talk ... in the world! And of course the 'freak, I'm not going to have chocolate for, like, forever. I better eat a block of it, right NOW!'. Old habits die hard. *sigh*

Anyway, I decided to resurrect the blog and write about my journey and progress and in 12 weeks time I'm gonna have some kick butt before/after photos to show! :)

pain!

I guess it's what I deserve after taking such a long break from regular exercise.

I've been pretty sore this week.

Tuesday after my first PT I could barely walk! Wednesday was another PT (assisted dips and chin ups - blergh!) and then today I went and did a class called 'fight club' - basically a boxing circuit.

Wednesday I was feeling a little better, but back to being pretty sore and stiff today. I have to say I was disappointed with the boxing class. I enjoyed the one at my old gym much better.

So far I'm happy with my decision about the gym & training. That said, I am realising that my previous trainer was really good. I'm not saying the current one isn't, I think it will work out well.

Friday's I plan to normally go and do a spin class, but it's Max's birthday party in the afternoon and I have cakes to make & ice, food to prepare, balloons to blow up, house to clean ... etc etc ... He's 6, which I'm finding hard to come to terms with.

Weigh in tonight for Fat Club! Hoping to smash my 5% loss target ... I've worked pretty hard this week, so I'll be disappointed if I don't.