Went for another run today! This time is was intervals: walk 2 powerpoles, run 2 powerpoles. Doing it this way I managed to shave a whopping 4 minutes off my run time. Which leads me to believe that I will actually be able to do the 1.5km next run, which will be either tomorrow or Wednesday, depending on how I feel.

Here’s a picture of me after my run, with my afternoon snack:

I’m a bit pink in the face but it’s winter, so I cooled down quickly and am not nearly as red as I was when I first got in. The jumper is one that my Mum knitted for my Dad years and years ago.

Other awesome news is that I’m currently on track! Had a big bowl of cereal for breakfast, for lunch had vegemite and cheese on burgen bread, and dinner will be vegies and San Chow Boy (or is it San Choy Bow? I always get confused…). While I’ve been studying I’ve been snacking on fruit and sunflower seeds, and my drinks have included green tea, water and I’ll probably have a Berocca. And of course, at the same time I’m monitoring my fibre intake, which is also going well.

It’s funny how accountability really does change your mindset. My leader wants to see my tracker this week, so I am determined to do well. I want to loose weight, but I was praise, dammit! Apparently it’s to do with a ’social contract’ and we consider it a social obligation and don’t want to lose face.  But it works, doesn’t it?

Posted at 6:52 am | 1 Comment »

I am in the zone. Yep, right there. I’m making the right choices and, more than that, it’s easy to make the right choices. I sat down last Saturday, after recovering from the hellish ’submissions week’ in order to do a meal plan. It’s no mean feat — I have to work out meals so that there’s no leftovers, I come in under points, I get all my fruit and vegies, etc. etc. etc. Then as I go I order online so that I make sure I have everything (and x chocolate doesn’t slip into my basket).

And today is the 3rd day in a row that I’ve stuck to my meal plan! There’s been a few replacements (sausages instead of steak, as it wasn’t thawed), and some last-minute substitutes (low-fat youghurt instead of my daily chocolate), but overall it’s basically exactly what I planned. And each day I actually look foward to what I’m going to eat. I make sure lunch is always something that I actually like, since that’s when I’m most likely to get off track.

I’m focusing on food at the moment because I think it’s incredibly important that I get it under my belt. It’s the first in a long line of baby-steps. I’d like to go for a run tomorrow but if I don’t, then I’m okay with that as long as my food remains as it should. I can always add in exercise once it becomes more natural.

But yes, I am zoning. I can’t believe how easy it is.

I think this has been sparked off by the fact that I am officially a dress size smaller Australian standard. In January I went shopping for new jeans and I bought 2 pairs in a size 18, and one pair that was just a bit too small but on sale and comfy so I thought “…Why not?”. I brought them all with me, the idea being that if I managed to lose enough weight, I could just swap over. Well I did and I have. My non-stretch 18 jeans have been falling down for weeks, but I’ve been using a belt to keep them up. I tried on the size 16 jeans about a month ago but they still weren’t quite right. And then while I was cleaning up my room, I tried them on and hey presto! perfect fit.

After all the difficulty last year, I just can’t believe how much easier it is. And it comes down to having the power to make your own decisions — something I completely lacked last year.

The other amazing thing about this is that the average woman is now a size 14 -16. I am now average. When I walk into a room, I may not necessarily be the largest person there! I may just fit into a crowd!

I’m so excited. Since I’ve been here I’ve lost the use of 1 (almost 2) pairs of jeans and a skirt. Next stop, size 14, and then onward and downward (as they say!).

Posted at 11:20 pm | No Comments »

Three, in fact!

1. I had a weigh in on Saturday and I am now 86.8kg! Which means that instead of gaining weight when I had the flu, I lost. About 2.3kg, actually. I think this is because, as the flu got worse, I had no food in the house and not enough strength to actually go and get some from outside the house. We’re pretty close to amenities on all sides — but not that close. So at one point I was subsisiting on 9 points a day less than I should — what I could make, I couldn’t really eat (pasta), or wasn’t very point-filled (vegemite on toast). But once I’d gotten food in, I deliberately had a high-point/calorie day, in order to try to jump start my metabolism again. Then I tracked religiously for the next week. And I guess it paid off.

2. My body is one! I’ve always, even at my heaviest, had some sort of hourglass, partly due to my grandfather-inherited ribs which stick out a mile, and partly due to the very wide hips I inherited from my grandmother. So I’ve always had a waist because it falls in between these two features. But it was only really a waist when it was underneath some well-chosen clothing. Because in reality it was made up of three to four spare tyres around the stomach which just happened to fit into a waist-shape if I wore cross-over type clothes. Now it’s just one big curve! I’ve lost the extra rolls somewhere! That’s not to say there’s no fat, just that my waist truely is a waist. Am incredibly excited by this prospect.

3. I am a size 16! In the pants, I mean. My jeans (which I bought just before Christmas, I might add), have been quite baggy lately, so when I went into a store I saw some jeans and went “Ahhh…why not?” I also grabbed a size 14 top and hey presto, they fit! Perfectly, too. Not too snug or anything. They just sort of sat firmly — properly — on my skin. But I’m cheap, so I didn’t buy them. I did, however, stand looking at myself in the mirror for a good 10 minutes.

So for me, this last week has been about encouragement while I’m unable to do much because of illness. It’s about finding that motivation again in order to take the next step foward. And I’m pretty excited about it.

Posted at 1:26 am | No Comments »

I am officially an 80’s girl! Officially! I’ve been hovering around it for a while now, particularly with my starting off each morning in the 80’s and weighing in in the very low nineties. (90.1 is just cruel.) But today at my weigh in, I hit 89.4, which puts me very squarely in the 80’s bracket! Hurruh! My next goal is to get to 86.5, which will put my BMI at 29.9, or “Overweight” rather than Obese.

Current Stats
Current Weight: 89.4
Loss/Gain This Week: -.8
Total Loss: 10.9

Christmas Challenge
Weeks To Christmas: 2
Amount To Lose: 9.5 (Somehow doubt that’s going to happen, don’t you?)

Posted at 10:34 am | No Comments »

So, this site is almost finished! I’ve got the progress and about pages up, and am a little impressed with myself, if I do say so. There are definately things I still need to iron out, and I’ll be adding progress information in a while — the numbers, that is. And I’ll add some more to the about pages — information about the site and the freeware I’m using (e.g. for the photos, for the fonts, the stock photos…the list goes on.)

But I’m pretty happy because I tend to use this site at night and work on it instead of snack. Which makes me feel like I’m doing something productive, instead of buggering around. Not quite as productive as, say, doing study, though.

Posted at 12:01 am | No Comments »

Weigh In was today, and as expected, I gained weight. Granted, it was .2 of a kilogram, nothing severe, but it also wasn’t a loss. I ate lots of crap this week, so I’m really not surprised. I was disappointed in myself, but more for my lack of control during the week.

It did have the good side-effect of shocking me into getting more disciplined. I walked back from my meeting, had breakfast (Weetbix and Pura No Fat Milk), sorted out my weekly food plan with Mum, and then went to the gym.

I was very proud of myself at the gym because I made myself run for 4 minutes. While it isn’t much, it’s a significantly larger achievement than my previous record: 1 minute 30 seconds. It was so odd, because when I got on the treadmill, I just <em>felt</em> like running, like I could do it. So I waited until I got to a song I love, then I turned it up to a higher speed and just got lost in the music. While the speed wasn’t as high as normal and the incline non-existant, it felt much better because my throat didn’t close over and I didn’t feel like I was about to have an asthma attack (which, when it happens, is frustrating because I don’t have asthma.) I did 30 minutes on the treadmill, ran/jogged a couple more times after that, then did 10 minutes on the stair climber, and 10 minutes on the rowing machine. I was very tired on the rowing machine, and ready to give up at 5 minutes, but I said to myself, “No, this is like losing weight, you need to focus on the smaller goals. Get to seven minutes.” Then when I got to seven minutes I said, “Get to nine minutes. Nine minutes is only one minute from ten.” So I got to ten and then pushed myself to get to 100 calories before I stopped. It felt so good to know that I can push myself.

Mum and I will take the dog for a walk this afternoon, too, so I decided not to bother with the cross-trainer, I was just so tired and Mum wanted me home. But I feel like I’ve done a reasonable amount of exercise today, so I’m happy.

I know my day started off badly, what with the Weigh In, but even though I felt bad then, I feel like I’ve turned around and taken control, and I love that.

Current Stats
Current Weight: 94.5
Loss/Gain This Week: +.2
Total Loss: 5.8

Posted at 10:47 pm | No Comments »

So after the successes yesterday morning I went a little overboard. Mum made biscuits and I had about five, which was a little silly, and then we had steak and chips for dinner. It means that I’ll spend this week making up for it, although with the exercise I’d already done I was up 12 ‘points’, and now I need to have 3.5 to take me back to zero. I regret that I ate so many biscuits, because mostly it was because they were there, but I don’t regret the chips. I just don’t want to be one of those people who become so obsessive about it and decide that they can’t do anything when they have a little blowout — and then they drop the entire program. I like eating what I want, and I’m not going to apologise if I eat Red Rooster or McDonalds or fast food every so often. Because I enjoy it. That said, I do want to curb my impulses and stick to just one treat. So I suppose I’ll have to work on that.

Other news today; I went to Amart All Sports for their ‘Mega 30% Off Sale’ (imagine over-excited voice over here), mostly because my exercise pants are becoming a little too a) big and b) worn out. So I went and bought two tops and two pairs of pants, which should work very nicely. I guess they’re a bit of a treat for getting to 5kg, a sort of non-food reward. I’m also excited because I’m officially a size 16. I have gone down an entire size from when I started. I can’t wait until I hit size 14 — I don’t remember being that small in my life. At least not during or after high school.

I guess that’s one of the reasons I find it so hard to ‘visualise’ my end goal…because I’ve never been there. Lots of people have a dress they want to fit back into, or a picture from when they were younger and so on. I have none of that. None that’s realistic, anyway. It gets hard sometimes to motivate myself because of that, but one of the ways I’m overcoming that is by focusing on the numbers, and how novel it will be to get to that point. I don’t remember being under 90kgs. I just don’t. And I’m so focused on getting to the 89.9 mark, to the point where it is an 8 in front, it’s a motivator in itself. And I’m so close — I’m only 4.4 kilograms away. And once I get there, I’m only 5 kilograms away from being 85.9, and then only five kilograms away from being 79.9, and then not far from 60kg, my ultimate goal.

But for now, I have to concentrate on getting under 90. Because that’s important to me, and if I can do that I’ll inspire myself to do the rest. At the moment, the rest just seems so hard, so far away. So I’ll concentrate on 89.9kg, because I can do that. I know I can do that.

Posted at 3:22 am | No Comments »

Weigh in today! I really love my ‘leader’ in Brisbane; she’s perky, fun, and very forthright. She’s quick to congratulate, and quick to tell you what you need to do differently when you’re having a bad week. I am currently weighing in at 94.3, which means that I have lost 6 kilograms thus far, and lost 1.1 this week. I am aiming to have lost another 1.5 kilograms next week, although it will take a lot of work. I will need to cut down on the chocolate and the cordial, and make sure that I do actually do the exercise I intend to. But I would love to be able to get to my 10% goal before I get back to Sydney, and unfortunately that’s only a few meetings away.

Still, I am optimistic and enthusiastic. Must go now and get ready for the gym. Will report back soon.

Posted at 8:10 pm | No Comments »

Consider this the inaugrual post of Weighty Issues. I wanted to use Word Press for this, however apparently college objects to my using FTP to upload anything, so that is unlikely to happen for a while at least.

So welcome to my website. I hope you follow my journey. I hope my journey is a successful one. I know that it’s going to take a lot of effort, but I’m positive and I’m certain that this is what I’m going to do.

Posted at 7:50 am | No Comments »