Where am I at after 7months working on my New Lifestyle?

After 7months I have lost 10kgs and 8% body fat!  My BMI is now 23.8 and I am feeling fantastic.  People are commenting and noticing all of the time and asking me "How did you do it!"  and the funny thing is the look on their face when I tell them that I changed my diet and I exercise a lot more.  They look mournful and disappointed - like Ohhhhh :-(  I guess they were hoping that I would tell them about some 7 day detox, or some as yet unheralded supplement ...  Na - ah

I am not as strict on my diet as I was at the beginning, but I still try to only eat white carbs at breakfast, no fruit after 2pm and plenty of meat as well as nuts and protein bars and have alcohol only on 'special occasions' and still in moderation.  For example, I went to see P!NK this week - what an unbelievable performer - and those Abs!  And I did have to have some champagne, G&T and Vodka and Soda.

Exercise-wise, at the moment I have locked in a 1.5hour tennis class on Monday, followed by swimming laps and then an hour with my PT in gym which includes 30mins weights and 30mins cardio.  Tuesday I play tennis with my boys for 30mins, Thursday I have another 1 hour session with my PT and otherwise I try to walk with friends or with my dog and generally keep active on each of the other days.

At the moment I am signed up to Steptember with three friends, where we are challenging ourselves to walk 70,000+ steps a week to raise money for Cerebral Palsy.

To assist with the step counting I have bought a new device (having washed my last Fitbit - twice), I decided for a Jawbone UP.  So far I am very impressed with its convenient wrist band desgin, and I find that its sleep tracking is very accurate and fascinating.  It does truly motivate me to get those extra steps in when I have had one of those days where I haven't had much opportunity to move.  I find myself walking to the shops instead of driving or walking the dog one additional time that day, or walking to school to collect the children.

The other side-effects of feeling fit and fabulous is that I have prepared my resume and applied for a couple of jobs, even though I don't really mind if I get them or not - I am pretty busy anyway ;-)  I am also reading Brene Brown's "Daring Greatly" which is very inspirational.  If you haven't heard of her yet you should at least check out her first TED talk here

Low Carb Lethargy

I have been laying off the blogging as I was tending to do it last thing at night and then finding myself to be really exhausted in the morning.  And what I have found is that it hasn't helped and that I am still exhausted and what should have been obvious earlier is that I am feeling exhausted because I am eating hardly any carbs, while exercising more and still looking after 3 kids etc.

Actually there is plenty of noise on the Internet about it.  I just hadn't looked before.  Distracted as I was my concerns about high protein diets and the effects on your liver and bones :-/.  Actually the stuff I have found on the net talks about 40% carbs, 40% protein and 30% fat.  What I am doing is 34% carbs, 51% protein and 15% fat.  No wonder I am exhausted!  I am going to have to have a word with my PT.

In other news I am still loving my newly found waist and my FitBit tells me that I have taken over 14,000 steps today (10.5kms).

I gave my motivation a kick along by treating my self to a little bit of a spree at Adidas - even buying running shorts - not previously an item that has ever been found in my wardrobe.  (What?  You should see the stuff that is turning up daily from my husband's online shopping for all of the 'stuff' he needs to compete in his 'little' triathlon next weekend.)

Here I sit with my aching feet on a nice warm wheat bag, having already been self-massaged with fabulous Elemis sp@ home muscle ease active Body Oil.  And with my loving DH outa town for the week, actually getting my post written quite early!

Bully for me.

Philosophy day

The highlight of today was the chance to meet with my fellow students of philosophy at the beautiful home of our tutor.  The discussion of devotion continued.  We discussed our own devoted behaviour, and the devotion that we see in others.  There are three ways of devotion the calm (satwa), the more active (Rajas) and the destructive type (tamas). Those unusual words are Sanskrit and are the 3 Guna.  It makes you think - which is the whole idea.  The devotion that I bring to the care of my children is sometimes that calm type and often the rajasic type - so work to be done. The takeaway is to watch out for devotion, your own and others and to take time for self - by meditating or finding stillness.

After a relaxing post philosophy lunch with my BFF I headed home for a run/walk with my dog.  My strategy was to run down hills and march energetically up hills.  I recorded my fastest km yet using my Nike Running App (example below) which maps your run in a colour coded way that shows when you were running and when you were walking - which is very satisfying.  I fit in a 3km trek in my local environs before my dog started to lose his enthusiasm - helped by the fact that I stepped on his gigantic paw when he ran in front of me in a curve.  But don't be too concerned - he seemed to make a rapid recovery the minute he got into the backyard and layer down in the cool of shade covered sandpit.

I have got over 10,000 steps today (7kms), but if my DH was home instead of being in NZ on business I would have been able to fit in more. My afternoon was hijacked by 3x swimming lesson for the kids.  With the Primary Swim Carnival next week the excitement/anxiety if high.

On the food front, I made a boo boo today.  I was running late and ran out of time to make myself breakfast, but didn't want to get caught out till 12 without having had breakfast ask did the other day. My 'healthy choice' bread had passed its used by date, so I found myself reaching for the kids 'Traditional Wholemeal', throwing a scrape of homous on it and a slice of super low fat cheese.  I only realised when I put it into my App later what a mistake that was.  Having blown the carbs early in the day it threw out my balanced food choices for the rest of the day.   Hear I am at the end of the day with 97% of my carbs but only 70% of my Protein and 60% of my fat.  I could have another hunk of meat, but I am not really hungry.

Tomorrow is another day.

Weigh in No. 2

Like always, I tried too hard to cram too much into my morning.  After School drop off (which I was running late for) I tried hard to nick over to Margaret's (Magic Hands) for a quick massage, before coming back to school to supervise my daughter's chess class.  That was not too successful, although I will not complain as Margaret did release my Hip Flexors, ITB and my TFL and I walked out of there with a good amount of new found wiggle in my walk.

Then a quick change and down to see Paul for my 1hr sesh of weight, cardio and food diary debrief.  I was feeling a bit tense - probably something to do with taking the strategic decision not to eat any carbs for breakfast but merely some fruit.  My cunning strategy may have worked better, had we not been out of coffee beans at home, grrrrr (thanks DH).  

Have you ever noticed how tense you can feel when you are hungry?  I was even trying not to drink too much water.  So crazy!  Anyhow, I lost another kg - so that makes 3 in a little over a 2 weeks - I am half way toward my goal in less than a third of the time we had budgetted for yippee!

I've got to say that my poor PT has not figured out yet what motivates me.  I am a glory hound and I mean it!  If he had carried on and on about how well I had done and how great I was looking (lie if you have to) I would have sailed out of there on a cloud of intense motivation!  Instead he was trying to get me to set some uninspiring goal on a card that at the end of the week might be drawn out for a free session - just doesn't do it for me.  Especially when he indelicately points out that my heart rate gets as high as it does during intense cardio because I am inherently unfit, and therefore need more steady cardio effort rather than the short burst tabata kind of action. THANKS - now that is motivating.  I'm going to show him!  So I walked/ran with the dog to school to pick up the kids and my glorious new FitBit One is showing nearly 15,000 steps for my day (10kms).

Having basically started eating around 1pm and being determined to meet my goals I am now feeling extremely full and not looking forward to going to bed in case my 'Protein Baby' presses on my Artery and I pass out!

Onwards and upwards - I mean downwards!

My Thursday Running Sheet

6.30am Wake up, feeling tired and in denial about needing to get up, should meditate but ...
7.00am Finally get up and join the throng of children in my kitchen
8.00am Kids in the car and off to school and catch up with some mums at the gate
8.40am Pick up a coffee with my friend and fellow Philosophy student Alex
9.10am Arrive at my Philosophy class (my island).  We discussed 'Devotion' - nice, included a story from the Upanishads about a man with two wives - one who thinks that wealth is 'stuff' and one who know it is so much more. Obviously in more poetic and meaningful terms.
11.30am Head home to get changed for the gym and check on my tree lopper - yes the tree from post no. 1 nearly 2 weeks ago.  The tree-lopper managed to freak me out before I left by casually asking "How much is your dog worth? $900?"

12.30pm Arrive at the gym for my 30 min Weights and 30min Cardio session (wondering the whole time if my dog will still be there when I get home).  The weights are getting heavier and the Cardio is getting more agonising.
2.00pm Arrive home, tree lopper gone, but dog still there (phewww).  Collect all the swimming gear for lessons for all three children. Do a bit housework.
3.00pm Collect the kids from school and dash to the swimming centre (without my purse).
3.30pm Both boys in the pool and the other one off playing or nagging me for snacks.
4.00pm Daughter in the pool, boys dried dressed and sitting with me at a table to do their homework
4.45pm Daughter out of the pool dried and dressed, everything packed up and stowed in the car.
5.00pm Home and checking the mail and then assisting my elderly neighbour across the road with her pool maintenance.

6.00pm Cook dinner for the kids, then for me - eat it, clean up the kitchen, put a load of washing on.  Good news - I have figured out how to meet my Macro Nutrient goals every day.
7.00pm Husband home with his new car.  Jump in and take it around the block. Talk about OTT.
7.30pm Kids in bed - courtesy of the husband, who will depart in the morning for a weekend with his friends (leaving me with the new car :-0)

8.00pm Plant my butt on the lounge to watch some mindless television in between bouts of laundry action.  Get a FitBit notification that I have reached my 10,000 step goal
9.00pm Pick up my iPad to write my Blog

There you have it - a semi typical day in my life.   I need to remember to wake Mstr 7 at 6.30am so he can go to his first Senior Chess Class (so proud) and then go over Mstr 10's spelling list with him.  Not looking forward to a weekend without my DH.  Still don't know how I am supposed to get all three kids to their Saturday morning activities, without him!

And I'm off and racing!

I had my PT session this morning with Paul (who has decided against an alias).  Despite my lamb dinner, my struggle to not exceed my daily fat goal (41 grams), a litre of water, some apple and a coffee, right before weigh-in, I lost nearly 2kgs. That is one third of my 9 week goal.  I am not expecting to lose that much every week, but I think I can do at least a kilogram a week. I hope I am not being over confident.  Besides being weighed I completed my weights and cardio session - woo hoo.  I go back again on Thursday. My husband says he thinks my bum looks smaller aleady - I think it is just the Lululemon working :-)

I am feeling better!  In discussion with my girl friends, we agreed that it was primarily because I was focusing on me! I certainly have not been focusing on the housework :-(

Today I have had no trouble meeting my macro nutrient goals (carbs, protein, fat) and tomorrow I am planning to swim. I am meeting my neighbours insurance assessor for them at 11.  Mine haven't even contacted me to make an appointment - referring to the large tree lying in my yard instead of standing in my neighbours, from post 1.

I think I need to focus on my sleep quality too.  I am definitely going to bed too late each night, and with 3 kids, 2 of whom still wake me up with nightmares sometimes and a dog who lets me know if he does not have a sufficiently cosy kennel, I often get woken at night.  See photo of dogs new bed bought today.  Add that to needing to get up to pee because I drink so much water all day long and I am wrecked.  I am waiting for my new FitBit One to arrive in the mail and when it does I will monitor sleep as well as steps (so far today over 13,000). They say that the hours slept before midnight are the ones that really count - and I don't get many of them ...

I wore a Nike T-Shirt today that read: 24/7 EVERY DAMN DAY!  My husband bought if for me on a trip to the States, and at bed-time my daughter was practicing her new found familiarity with letters and numbers by telling me what each character was, and then I had to explain how Damn is a bad word, but not a bad bad word, but not one that children should use.  Oooops (but I love that T-Shirt).

Sorry, totally rambling tonight - must be the lack of sleep ...

Cardio hours: Ouch!

On my program that I signed up to on Tuesday, I was given a weekly goal for Cardio hours.  I have to do about 6 hours a week. Which at first I thought was fine, an hour a day except Sundays off.  Even with the kids in school it is a bit difficult to achieve. I have a lot to catch up on on the home front.
Yesterday I only managed the half hour swimming, so today I was feeling like I really need to get a bit more done.  What I planned to be an hours walk with the dog turned into an hour and a half. And I'm not talking about a leisurely stroll.  I walked 6 kms and arrived home sweaty, thirsty and tired and the dog was not much better.

I have worn my FitBit Ultra all day, which is like a regular pedometer but on steroids and synchs wirelessly with your computer or iPhone. The normal step goal when wearing a pedometer is 10,000. Today so far I have done over 17000. Woo hoo! After my walk the fitbit recorded that I had walked up 42 flight of stairs!  Check it here: www.FitBit.com

In addition to that I turned on Runtastic, which is an app on your phone that tracks, distance travelled, speed, elevation and shows you a cute map of where you went, which is funny when you can see how my dog dragged me around and about as he followed his nose and I let him do a couple of laps around the off leash dog park.

Tomorrow (Friday) I have a one hour training session with some of the mum's from school and later in the morning I have a one hour session with my new PT at the gym. I fully expect to not be able to walk sometime afterward.

You know what will make me feel better about the coming pain? Some retail therapy! Ouch. But I really did need a mat and a mat strap, so while I was there (see photo).

And no, I still haven't had the fallen tree removed yet or even heard from one or both of the insurance assessors that the neighbour and I have been told to expect a call from.