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

Back from two weeks skiing in New Zealand

What a great holiday, or as it could be alternatively known as:  "Boot Camp" or at least "Adventure Holiday"  Despite the Eggs Benedict in the morning and the Pinot in the evening, managed to put on just 1kg!

My PT and I had worked together to try to prepare me for this trip.  I knew I would be in better shape than the year before, but I also planned to ski more and was concerned that my legs in particular would let me down.  So we lunged, we stepped, we pushed all with challenging weight involvement and I was very happy with the results.

In fact it was my arms I had to be wary of, but once I figured out that I should not try to ski uphill but just pop my skis off and carry them I was fine (I know I know).

The year before - 10kgs heavier and out of condition, I even found it hard to walk around the cafes and Base with my ski boots on.  This year - no worries!

It was fabulous to watch my kids all improve so rapidly - especially my middle child - who ended the holiday at level 5/6 and doing black runs!

I had some moments during the holiday where concern would creep in that I had been too long away from the gym - just proving what we already know - that exercising and doing weights can be addictive.  I would get worried that my newly defined muscles might fade away during the break and then find myself relieved to get a glimpse of a chest or arm muscle in the mirror etc.


So back to the grind and the real world now ...

Tired but trim

I sit here at the computer, allegedly waiting till it has been two hours since breakfast, to go exercise and burn off some fat.  Heaven forbid I would burn the carbs I had at breakfast by mistake.  I am tired but trim ... My clothes fit better but I feel like I have been hit by a bus after a chiropractic adjustment yesterday, then a massage then half an hour cardio with my PT.  I guess that until my body gets strong I just need to push through.

I lashed out on Friday, out to dinner with a girlfriend in Canberra and had a delicious Degustation Menu with matching wines.  The food itself was not outside what I am encouraged to eat - the star was protein with veges being the support and no white carbs in evidence, and we skipped the optional Cheese course It is the wine that apparently I should be regretting.

I can highly recommend http://www.sagerestaurant.net.au if you are ever in Canberra

Actually after over a month with no alcohol I thought that I would enjoy it more - savour it more, appreciate what I have been missing, but I was underwhelmed actually, even though they were nice wines.  I actually think I would have enjoyed and savoured the delicious food more so if I hadn't have been drinking with it.  All good stuff to have discovered.

Anyway I shall get off my butt and go walk 5kms up hill and down dale in hopefully around the 40min mark.  Afterall - I am dressed for it!

Great weekend... Yoga and Swimming

Continuing on my journey of fitness, and trying to ensure that I can justify basically paying for two gym memberships at once, I went with a friend to a wonderful Yoga class on Saturday afternoon (that is not me in the photo, but I did do that pose), at my swish gym that is large and has lots of facilities and is quite new and funky.  The class is called Vinyasa Flow and went for an hour and a quarter.  The instructor was very authentic and had a lovely Chilean accent.  Afterwards I felt very fresh, like I'd just woken up from a long nap.  Now I have a new mantra to use when appropriate. And I am probably spelling it incorrectly but it is a silent mantra to go with your  breathing.  On the way in you say 'So' and on the exhale 'Hum'. Very handy to know.  Actually I've just checked and and I have spelt it correctly and you can find out more about it here: www.swamij.com/sohum-mantra-108.htm

And on Sunday I met the same friend, went back to the same gym and swam. I found myself totally out of my comfort zone, dependant as I have become on my swimming aids (flippers and finger paddles), and in my dash out the door I had forgotten them and my goggles.  If I had gone on my own I would probably have decided to do some other kind of exercise, but it is amazing what a little peer pressure can do for your daring.  So I searched out a pair of goggles in the lost and found (probably not very hygienic) and swam like a 'normal' person.  The surprise being that I can swim quite well without the extras, somewhat slower but still with a nice stroke and without drowning or getting too out of breath.  Of course there is nothing wrong with swimming with all the gear, it actually just provides extra resistance into the exercise, but if more cardio if what you are after than less is probably more.  So I will be going at least sans aids at least some of the time in future.

The good times continued through my Monday - woo hoo.  I did a photo shoot for the GF I spent so much time with over the weekend for her to use in her PR for her company.  Gorgeous black and white portraits taken by a local lake.  And later in the day when I met up with my PT Paul, I find out that I am his 'Client of the Week'.

I've got "the bug" and other surprises

For 10+ years now I have been a Mum.  And in all those years, by the time I have got the child/children in bed I have felt I deserved to sit on the lounge and enter a vegetative state in front of the television till bed time. Tonight, in response to realising that I consumed too many carbs this morning, I got the kids in bed and headed out the door with my dog for a walk/run, arriving home 40mins later hot and sweaty and heading straight for the shower.  This is seriously the turning of a corner.  My kids are still exhausting, but they are more independent than ever before and it is time to accept that I can change these post kids habits.  Hence: "I've got the bug."

Another discovery today, was that my charming PT is 20 years younger than me. I had suspected as much, but I really didn't have any interest in having my suspicions confirmed. How did it come out you ask?  A music video came on at the gym while I was on the bike doing a Tabata, and it was Big Audio Dynamite (I saw them live in the late 80's), apparently a band that Paul, was unfamiliar with, but I was certain that he would have heard of The Clash - nope.  He was born after Mick Jones was kicked out of The Clash in 1983. Punk is dead :-(



And in other new discoveries, I heard in my Philosophy group today, about a Christian mystic woman who was writing in the 13 and 1400's.  Julian of Norwich was ahead of her time.  She was very positive by traditional Christian standards and in hindsight quite the feminist and Universalist.  I am looking forward to learning more about her as we continue to study Devotion.

Personal Trainers - my thoughts

I have had a few Personal Trainers over the years.

I had one that used to come to my apartment at 6am and collect me and take me downstairs and to the beach across the road (gotta love Sydney) and train me on the sand as the sun was gathering strength for the day.  (This was in a pre wedding panic phase in 1999) Ouch for ankles!  Once I was nearly ruined then she would take me into the gym of our building and finish the workout there.  She would have been 50 and fit as hell, and after a while my husband-to-be joined in too.

Later, after the marriage but before the kids we went through a very fit phase where we woud get up at 5am and head to a gym that hung out over the ocean and work out 3 mornings a week, sometimes with PT's and these positive experiences will stay with me always as having probably been instrumental in me finally falling pregnant with my first child.  In fact my current PT is doing a core exercise with me that I first learnt in these times.

When I joined a new fancy gym that opened just a few years ago, they let you pick your PT from a 'menu' and what I wanted at the time was:

1. A woman
2. Preferably over 30
3. Preferably who had children

I felt that they would be able to understand where I was coming from better, and that I would generally be more comfortable with them.  It actually proved to be quite difficult.  The first one fit the bill but the PT's at this gym turned over quite rapidly and I went through 3 before settling in with Carlita and was just grateful for a 'young woman' that I seemed to be able to talk to OK.  The realtionship never really bore too many results given that I basically only turned up at the Gym for the one PT session a week.  On top of the Gym fees I also found it quite difficult to justify and eventually settled into going to regular classes each week.

Then I had this brain wave to learn to swim (see earlier post re Plantar Fascitiis and Swimming) and asked about some stroke correction lessons at the gym.  Brandon, did not fit my above criteria at all and there was a certain level of discomfit involved in meeting him in the pool (I would try to make sure that I was already in the water when he appeared ...) but it was a great experience and I got the results that I was looking for and information that I will always carry with me in regard of swimming.

The PT's where I am at now are a very tight knit bunch who I know are getting great results with their clients - many of whom I know from my neighbourhood one way or the other.  The difference is the holistic approach to the program - not just the exercise but the food, and feeling accountable and having tools like online food and training diaries to keep you on the straight and narrow.  I decided to go with my husband's trainer for consistencies sake and because I felt that in knowing my husband he at least knew a bit about my home life that might prove useful.  I later learned that he has had quite the journey to arrive at his chosen career having dropped about 30kg's himself, which gives him a lot of credibility with me.  It is a relationship that is still in its infancy but is looking very promising.