Mental barriers

I've wanted to lose weight since I was 13-14 years old. I had always been very concious of the fact that I wasn't thin, and a big part of the boys in my class sure did remind me about it on a regular basis. That kind of comments really hit you hard at that age and it did destroy me mentally.

Anyways. I've always wondered that why I didn't actually do it back then. Why didn't I just go up to my mum and tell her that I wan't to lose some weight and ask for her help. Instead I put up with the nasty comments from people at school for all those years.

I had done so much research about it all, I had such a good base for losing weight. But I just never got started. And it really kept bugging me because I just couldn't place it - why didn't I just start?! Then it hit me last night when I was watching Biggest Loser. One of their nutritionists said this:

"This is what you will eat for the rest of your life."

I realised how scary that sounds to someone who's only starting to drop weight and trying to live a bit healthier. I realised how that thought held me back all those years. Then I started thinking back to all those internet articles I read through as a kid and that same phrase keeps popping up. You must do this for the rest of your life, you must live like this for the rest of your life, this and that for the rest of your life. For a teenager that really sounds very frightening - and it still does now. You can't really grasp the concept of something that long term. You feel like you don't want to plan that far ahead because it restricts you in so many ways. 

When I help people with all this, I just ask them to change their lifestyle. It doesn't sound quite as permanent but it does give the feeling of stability. No point trying to scare people really.

And just to finish off my post, some progress pics, yay! Quite a short comparison time though, the pics on the left are from July and pics on the right from yesterday. I am quite happy though, my arms are way more toned and you can tell that my legs are getting rid of more fat as well (not that there was much of it left down there..).

WI 36: +0.4kg

I just can't seem to have two good weeks in a row and it's really starting to piss me off. I've started being very religious about calories again and have stuck to my budget. The only day I've gone above my budget was Thursday when we had a takeaway dinner (and I only went over by about 200 calories). Maybe I should start hitting the exact amount of calories instead of being slightly under. I don't know. Guess it's just about trying and finding out if it works.

And of course the female body being awful hasn't helped with retaining water this week.

About happiness

I had a conversation about being happy with my friend the other night. He's going through a lot of stuff in his life and despite all the amazing things happening to him lately, he still thinks his life is a bit meh. I told him that he should be happy about the things that are good in his life, and then this phrase came out of him.

"You've got more things to be happy about than me."

And I've thought about that ever since. To me happiness isn't a measurable unit. Just because someone has a bit more going on in their life than you do, it doesn't mean that you can't be happy. Even the smallest things make me smile - just seeing a baby duck might make me incredibly happy for the rest of the day. I mean, who doesn't like a fluffy baby duck plodding on?

There's several things in my life that I dislike and that make me unhappy, but I refuse to let all those things drag me down. Instead I really cherish the good things in my life and let that give me the strength to do all the things I do. :) Just knowing that I've got my other half and a very wonderful friend in my life is enough for me.

And even when you feel like the world is falling apart because you get a setback after another (because that's always the way things seem to go), just keep thinking back to the positive things! Maybe sit down with a pen and paper and think - what is good in your life, what makes you happy on a daily basis?

Smile people, life is wonderful!

Back to routines

This is going to be a long one. I've had a few days where I've had something happen I want to talk about but on it's own it's been a bit too lame so I've just delayed posting it.

I've spent a lot of time watching Biggest Loser for the past week. Some of the seasons are up on Youtube so it's been a very convenient way of watching it all. While I don't necessarily agree with the insanely quick pace of weight loss the contestants have to pull out, the show itself is highly motivating. Especially with this season, one of the contestants said "Pain is temporary, quitting is forever.". And you know, it's so true.

I keep seeing articles about old Biggest Loser contestants, who have gained the weight back after the show. They are made to sound like the scum of the earth because they have "failed", but this show doesn't really address the mental issues people might have in relation to food and exercise. The show itself is filmed in three months, that's not a very long time to actually adjust to the new lifestyle and stick to it. And you are away from all the temptations you face in the real world, you don't have Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper staring you down and screaming at you when you feel like quitting and you are back with the people who allow you to eat the way you used to.

I mean, some people might just simply be addicted to food, eat because of boredom, comfort eat... The mental cycle is very hard to break sometimes. I think it's just so easy for everyone to judge these people when they do gain the weight back.

My knee hasn't been brilliant either. I go through little moments where I just twist my knee slightly and the pain shoots right back, but after a while it feels perfectly fine and I can use it like normal. I even jogged a bit the other night, it was so very satisfying to be able to jog half the way of my usual beach route and not feel like I'm going to die. And it's the best feeling in the world to realise that your back can handle the jogging! Only a few months ago I would stop after a few minutes because the impact would just shatter my back, but not this time. My head was in charge of the speed, not my back.

You really can tell we are coming to the end of the summer. It gets fairly dark by 8pm now so I need to reschedule my walks so I don't get caught by the darkness every night. I just like to be a bit careful if I'm out on my own, especially since Bognor isn't exactly a crime free place to live in. The area I live in is really quiet and nice, but I do walk through the more dodgy areas and I'd rather not go there when it's dark.

It was the first day of uni yesterday! Very excited to get started with everything. My course is very tiny, it's only eight people in total - and I'm the only girl! That doesn't really bother me in all fairness, I've always preferred the company of guys and even in college I just spent my time with the guys (+ one girl out of probably ten).

I quite like it that there's not that many of us, you get a lot more personal with your tutors and you get more face to face time with them, which in my eyes will only improve your work. It'll also feel a lot more relaxed in general. Our first day was very far from productive and mature, though! :D One of our big themes is going to be homelessness, and our tutor got us to build houses out of cardboard. While the other two groups went for the more modest options, my group went all out with it! It was so much fun and we got to destroy our houses at the end of it all. I decided to hold back a bit because I didn't think jumping on the house with my back would be the best idea in the world, but the guys went all out with it haha!

I'm going to spend most of today finishing up all my summer tasks, our tutor was kind enough to give us an extra day for it all. I'm going to redo all my filming as I hated what I filmed last week and hopefully get it all edited and ready to go by Thursday. Also going to sort out my work hours today, yay!

They're just numbers

As I am so close to hitting the magical barrier of 73.2kg, I had a look at pictures that were taken a few weeks before I hit my back. It was a bit of an "oh my god" moment for me. It really sank in that the reading on the scale really is just numbers.

The pictures on the left are from July 2012. I was roughly 73kg.
The pictures on the right are from today. I currently am 74kg.

Last year I didn't do exercise, all the exercise I did was at work, lugging a hoover around, carrying heavy bin bags or moving furniture around. No proper cardio, no gym. This time round, I've really dedicated a lot of time to working out. Ever since January I've been doing all these workout DVDs at home and been going to the gym for the past month. I feel and look better and thinner than I did a year ago. I can quite honestly say that I'm in the best shape of my life and I'm only getting started.

Just by looking at these pictures I can really tell that building muscle has done wonders to my posture. My shoulders are back and not hunched forward. It's a very good feeling to see this kind of change in yourself.

This top has always been quite tight for me around the chest. But then again, I'm not getting any less chesty in the near future I don't think, that fat is holding onto my body like it's the end of the world!

WI 35: -1kg, -10kg benchmark reached!

I wanted to do a little dance on the scales!! :D 10kg I never want to see again. Considering that I've done next to no exercise this week because of my knee and a day out yesterday (water weight could've built up + some alcohol), this is incredible.

If my memory serves me correctly, I'm 800g away from being the same weight I was last July before hitting my back. :)

Another injury

I've been so preoccupied talking about bigger things on my blog that my actual day to day stuff has been pushed aside a bit. But now, time for a bit of rambling again.

Another injury, yay. Just because my ankles playing up in May wasn't enough to screw up my progress, now my knee has done itself in! It actually happened on Tuesday, I just simply knelt down on the floor to wrestle with out dogs and I just felt something pop in my left knee. Ever since it's been a real task to straighten my leg, I keep getting nasty little stings when I walk and I've just ended up chair bound most of the time. Really not what I want to be doing right now!! I feel like I'm slacking and like I'm just using a small injury as an excuse to not exercise. I know that's not the case, I need to rest my knee or I'll just damage it even further, but it's really annoying me. I'm so into my workouts right now that having to skip gym is just awful.

I will probably end up doing a small arm workout to compensate, though. I want to do SOMETHING! Just sitting down, doing some simple stuff like bicep curls and shoulder presses, just to get the calorie burn going.

With my potentially low calorie in mind I kept lunch pretty light. I cubed some baby potatoes and green peppers, sliced carrots and threw it all on the pan to fry in a little olive oil. Once that was done I threw in two salmon fillets, seasoned and added some sweet chilli sauce. I called it a very posh pytt i panna (a Swedish potato & sausage dish) as it did quite look like it but with a more fancy meat on the side.

And being all proud and happy about a light lunch, we then ended up having a bad dinner. Naughty us! We had to pop out for something and on the way back we started talking about what to have for dinner, I had a "bright" idea of going for KFC as it was on the way. I originally just wanted a Krushem but we thought that might as well have dinner so I don't need to stand in the kitchen and cook with my knee being what it is. While the sodium load was quite massive (just with that meal I've eaten nearly 90% of my sodium intake for the day), I've still kept my calories on target - currently I'm at 1100 (with my total calorie burn for today being at 1280 right now). I'm still going to eat something small during the evening just to get over 1200.

Time to start thinking what kind of a workout to do then!

My lifestyle

I started thinking about a possible interview situation last night. I've applied for a part time job at this big health food & supplement store and I just created a small scenario in my head - what could they ask me, how I would respond and so on.

And it really got me thinking about my reasons behind applying for such a job. Ever since starting my own weight loss journey back in January, I've started valuing the healthy lifestyle a lot more. I think it's incredible that we have a store we can just walk into and ask for advice and find products to support the lifestyle we have picked for ourselves. It's great that the high street acknowledges the fact that people are getting more and more unfit and tries to prevent it going any further.

More and more I find myself writing essays to people who are asking for weight loss / exercise advice. I'm just so happy to share my knowledge with people who don't quite know what to do or just want to improve the way they are doing things. I mean I'm not an expert with all this stuff, but I've got the drive to read up on all this kind of stuff and increase my own "database". I've been gathering all this information for years, ever since I was about 14 years old. That's how long I've struggled with my self image, that's how long I've wanted to change my life around. Why didn't I do it when I was 14? Well, plenty of reasons but some of them are so personal that I'd rather not get into all of that. I also lacked the determination to do it back then.

Even though I'm still about 10-15kg off my target weight, the healthy lifestyle has definitely come to stay. And if I can be an example to people at the start of their journey, literally anyone can do the same. I'm not in the best health with my back condition and I've managed to lose a lot of weight with sensible eating choices and regular exercise. If I can, anyone can.

I just find it so satisfying to be able to help people with this kind of stuff. And if I can actually do it for a living, even better! I have considered studying nutrition and/or sports science for a while (and even becoming a PT), but only time will tell what happens. It's still such a "new" passion for me that I don't just want to dive right into it, give it a year or two to mature up a bit. I do also want to focus on what I have set my mind on, and that is the graphics design course I've signed up for (eek, it starts next week!). Maybe one day I'll combine the two somehow? Who knows. :)

I'm also a big supporter of medical research. You can't always be in control of your own health, and I have watched it happen to someone in the family. For the first time ever I've donated money to biomedial research and I feel fantastic about it. Myalgic encephalomyelitis or in common terms, chronic fatigue syndrome is still quite an unknown condition and if my contribution to their research means that scientists are able to figure out what causes it and how to treat it, fantastic! It has been very heart breaking to watch a close family member suffer with the condition on a daily basis and I really do hope they figure out a treatment very soon.

Anyways, time for me to stop procrastinating and dig into my uni tasks. ;) Nearly done, proud of myself for sticking to my schedule! Have a wonderful day everyone, go enjoy the sun while it lasts!

"Diet foods" - how they'll ruin your weight loss

Weight loss is probably a multi billion pounds business nowadays. All the different products advertised on TV - low fat this, low calorie that. But how many people actually have a look at the nutritional information before buying the product thinking, that they've picked a really good product that will not harm their weight loss?

Sugar.

Yes, sugar. It's not good for you, but still all these products advertised as low fat or low calorie are loaded in that stuff. Sugar is empty calories, it's bad for your liver (as your liver is the poor thing that has to process all the sugar people consume nowadays), it damages your teeth and it will make your blood sugar spike (which in turn will make your levels crash after a while, making you crave more sugar). I could go on for ages but all the info is out there for everyone to read.

I try to avoid as much sugar as I can, for the above mentioned reasons AND because of my high risk of diabetes. But it is incredibly hard, even the healthy options have way too much sugar in them. As a rule of thumb, less than 5g of sugar per 100g is considered low in sugar, over 15g of sugar in 100g is high in sugar. I always try to aim for anything close to the 5g mark, I tend to leave the product on the shelves if the amount passes 10g.

And also the fat content of all these products can be absolutely mind blowing (especially if the product is advertised as low sugar). 5g of saturated fat per 100g is too much, 1.5g per 100g is good. You really don't need much of this stuff for it to be bad for you.

The bad stuff

All you really need to do at the supermarket is to just look at the fat and sugar contents of the stuff you think is good for you. I've pulled a few examples from Tesco's website for the purpose of just demonstrating how things we associate as healthy are really not.

Advertised as low in fat - 15.1g of sugar in 100g

Advertised as 0% fat - 12.5g of sugar in 100g

"Lighter cereal bar" - 22.8g of sugar in 100g

12g of sugar in 100g

The good stuff

Thankfully there is some decent options around, too! Obviously only a drop in the ocean, they are really getting better at giving us the real healthy stuff.

7.8g of sugar and 0.2g of saturated fat in 100g

4.4g of sugar and 0.6g of saturated fat in 100g - avoid the chocolate version!!

Be mindful of what you buy, don't let the sugar and saturated fat surprise you! Even things like Cheerios have insane amounts of sugar in them. I'd highly advise parents to read into this stuff too, it's not good to feed your children so much sugar!

And it's not just about the products that are advertised as healthy - have a look at your bottle of ketchup. You'd be surprised how much sugar you find in those.

WI 34: +0.5kg

Argh. It's like taking two steps forward and one step back. I have a brilliant week and then the next I gain. I know I've stuck to my calories really well, I've exercised a lot all week and apart from the other half treating me to Domino's on Monday, I haven't even eaten anything sodium heavy that might tie water in (because I know that pizza has been flushed out days ago :p).

I was so hoping to have a 500g loss this week. That would've brought me down to -10kg loss, meh.

Still here!

Apologies for the long gap between posts. Real life has it's ways of interfering with things. :)

I've really been able to find some kind of serenity by the sea in the middle of everything that's been going on. I've just automatically gone to the beach instead of somewhere else when I've gone for a walk. It's just so beautiful and quiet over there.

 

Gym wise it's been a very normal week, I've still had the drive to go and work out like usual, to blow off some steam and such. Upper body workout on Wednesday, legs today (more about that later). It's wonderful to just zone out, listen to your favourite music and focus on beating the living crap out of yourself with exercise. Funnily it also gives a lot of room to think about what's going on in your life.

But less about that, thankfully it's all been resolved and I can carry on being my usual happy self. :) Today has been incredibly productive exercise wise. I walked over to my friend's flat in the morning, spent a while there to catch up and we then headed over to town for some lunch. There's this wonderful little cafe in town, I've never actually been to it before but my friend fancied a full English so we decided to pop in (they do all day full English). Very cheap, you get a lot of food for what you pay for and it was delicious! I didn't quite feel like eating something as heavy as my friend so I went for a cajun chicken wrap. I honestly assumed it would just be the wrap and maybe a tiny bit of salad on the side, but the plate was huge! All that for £5.20, honestly not bad at all! I didn't actually touch the salad, it was very rubbery. Also only had about half of my chips, that wrap was so filling.

We also bumped into a funfair on the seafront today! I wanted to just go and chill on the beach after lunch as I knew I'd be walking home, didn't want to walk with a full stomach so figured that the beach would be the best option. But what we ended up getting was loud (and awful) music and all these rides scattered along the promenade. It was kinda cute though, if I had some spare change on me I probably would've gone for a spin on a ride or two. :D

My friend was planning on staying in town but ended up walking back with me. It's amazing to spend a day with someone you really care about, we never have a dull moment together and he really makes me laugh, nearly to the point of me wetting myself (ok maybe don't take that so literally)! All this walking added up to 12,000 by the time I got home!! I was so chuffed with myself, I bet my legs won't agree in the morning though...

I've had a bit of a hair crisis for a while now. The colour just didn't turn out to be as even as I wanted it when I coloured last time (a month ago?), my fringe ended up being two shades darker than the rest and I had this layer of red mixed in with the brunette. So I had a master plan of buying hair colour stripper and a hair colour a few shades lighter than what I have currently. The stripper worked wonders like it always has before, but unfortunately I didn't have time to add the new colour (and I also ran out of hot water...) before going to the gym. So I went to the gym looking like a carrot!! Was a bit embarrassed, but had no other option than to suck it up and focus on my workout instead of worrying about my hair. :p

But yeah, gym! The usual leg set really: warmup on the treadmill for ten minutes, then straight off to the leg press. I was very pleased with myself, I upped the weight and managed to clear 50kg - 50kg - 60kg today! Before I've gone for 40kg - 40kg - 50kg and I'm very happy about my progress. We've only been going to the gym for 3-4 weeks so more than pleased. Also did sumo squats with a 8kg kettlebell, side lunges with 4kg dumbbells, bridges (two sets with one leg down, then last set with both legs down but with very long holds during reps), bicycle crunches and 15 minutes on the stepper to squeeze out any remaining juices out of my legs. Really happy with my workout today, more of this please!

We did a late workout again so only got back home around 8pm, dinner roughly half an hour later. I was absolutely starving by the time we left the gym so I really just wanted something quick and easy. Ended up going for chicken pasta with orange peppers, peas and sweetcorn. A bit of creaminess with sour cream and of course a ton of seasoning. And just to get some extra protein, a handful of walnuts again.

I also did my hair after coming home. The box I bought was named something along the lines of dark blonde, but I ended up washing the colour off after 10 minutes because it simply looked like it was going ridiculously dark. I'm glad I didn't let it sit in my hair for the full duration, I'd probably have black hair.. It is very similar to what my hair was before, only a more ashy tone. A bit gutted that I spent all that money and put so much time into it all again only to have nearly identical outcome. Meh!

Oh and just because I'm happy about these readings, a bit of UP data: 16,395 steps, active calorie burn 841kcal, total burn 2,109 kcal. :)

Dog shaped alarm clocks

Our younger dogs just love charging up to the bed in the mornings. They're just so incredibly happy when you wake up (or well, when they decide you should wake up) and go absolutely insane. One of them will just run around the bed, lick your face like there's no tomorrow and if you try to hide under a blanket, she will start digging furiously. The other one just literally flops on your face and starts rubbing his face against your cheeks and forehead. It is honestly quite a bizarre way of waking up. But then again, I wouldn't have it any other way. :)

I really wanted to take a few pictures with the dogs, but from the dozens of pictures I took they all were either blurry with the dogs moving around like whirlwinds or just out of focus. :D So the only picture I approved was with Oakley looking like he wants nothing to do with me!

"Help, this crazy woman is trying to eat me!"

Anyways! Progress pic time! Very pleased, huge difference to a month ago. :)

WI 33: -1.5kg + progress check

So happy! Only 500g away from the 10kg benchmark now!  Other than that it seems to have been a slow month progress wise, but then again any positive progress is good enough for me. :) I'm hoping that going to the gym is the thing that's been speeding the weight loss, because that'll surely motivate me to go and work out every single week.

And change to last month:

Arms: 31cm (32,5cm)
Bust: 99m (99,5cm)
Waist: 74cm (74,5cm)
Belly: 95cm (95,5cm)
Thighs: 59cm (58cm)
Weight: 74,5kg (75,8kg)

Pics tomorrow. :)

Defying the elements!

It's been a good day today! Got up relatively early and headed out pretty much first thing this morning. We actually had an appointment with a mortgage advisor, just talking through our options and so on. :)

The other half also decided to treat me to lunch after our appointment so we went to Subway. I really fell in love with their mango chicken a while ago so went for that again on honey oat bread and a bunch of veg. While it's probably one of the "best" takeaways you could have, I did feel a small guilty sting after.

And that kinda brings us to the post title. I didn't want to end up just sitting indoors all day despite the weather being miserable outside, so I decided to defy the elements and go for a walk in the rain! I really want tomorrow's weigh in to be good and this walk definitely made me feel a bit better about myself. I know I've lost weight this week, I just want to make sure any possible water weight doesn't creep up because of lunch (yes, I'm getting that paranoid about it!!).

And it's handy to know that my waterproof makeup really is waterproof! No smears, no panda eyes, yay!

Oh and to add up to the happiness, I got a job interview! Perfect location, perfect hours. Fingers crossed.

Another non-scale victory! ;)

I bought these shorts back in late April. I ordered them online so obviously had no idea if they'd fit me or not. And well, at the time they didn't. They'd go all the way up but I couldn't button them and the zip would stop about half way. However I didn't want to send them back because I really loved them and just kept thinking that "I'm losing weight. They'll fit me soon enough.". Well, I remembered them today and decided to try if they'd fit me now. And they did! They're still just a tiny bit tight around the waist, but they fit! I'm so chuffed, it's these little things that keep me going. :) I think the main reason I bought these was so I can show off my calves, hah! It was actually a bit of a struggle to take these off!

Now all I need is an excuse to go out so I can wear these with heels and some nice top! ;D

Want to buy inspiration - lots of it

A very uni filled day again. Been fighting with one of the tasks pretty much all day and I am finally getting somewhere! This task was about a person in either film, graphics of typography who has had a big influence on the medium. We were assigned to design a "hero page" for them and write a little something about the person. I've seriously struggled with inspiration, I'm still not exactly happy with what I've done but at least I've still got three weeks to perfect everything. I chose Angelina Jolie for this task for various reasons - she has had an incredibly succesful career in film (she has proved that you don't need to be an Arnie to be good at action films), she is an U.N. Goodwill Ambassador and she has raised breast cancer awareness by having double masectomy done earlier this year. She is an absolute inspiration.

I am very self critical, as you can see from the rubbish pile and all the markings in the current version of the design... :)

As I was so busy with my design task, I kept lunch very simple again. Spaghetti, tomatoes, basil, a bit of olive oil, salt & pepper, a heaped teaspoon of creme fraiche and an egg mixed in with the spaghetti for a bit of protein (what I do is I pour the water out of the pan, crack the egg in there and mix until the spaghetti is kinda evenly coated with the egg and the egg has cooked). It was so filling that I didn't actually feel hungry at dinner time!

Everything was a bit delayed tonight. We only went to the gym at seven and had dinner around 8.30pm. Didn't really bother me as I honestly wasn't hungry in the slightest, but I thought that it's better to eat something.. ;)

Anyways, arm and shoulder day at gym tonight. Just ended up pottering around on a few machines, a bit of ab work with a single dumbbell (side bend 10x3 with 5kg for both sides) and bicep curls (15x1 and 10x1 with 3kg and 5x1 with 5kg for both arms) to finish off the weight side of the workout. Also did ten minutes on the stepper to finish off the workout + stretching at the end.

Was rather busy at the gym tonight so you'll just have to settle for the usual outfit / progressish pics.

Dinner! My other half requested for something "big" for dinner and then mentioned pasta to me. As I wasn't hungry and already had pasta for lunch, I just made myself a delicious chicken salad. The other half had pasta with chicken and bacon + peas & sweetcorn mix. My plate consisted of lettuce, beetroot, cucumber, red peppers, a teaspoon of pesto on the lettuce as a dressing, chicken and peas & sweetcorn mix. I ended up eating quite a bit despite thinking that I wasn't hungry! Oh well.

Also for extra protein, a handful of walnuts for "dessert". I don't know what it is with walnuts, but I just love the taste of them! The initial taste you get when you put them in your mouth is kinda cardboardy, but after a while you just get this amazing creamy taste. I could probably eat an entire bag of walnuts in one go.. At least I'm thinking like that about walnuts instead of chocolate or sweets!