Indigestion. Indecision. What plagues you?

I never meant to take my journey public. My blog was my way to 'release my demons' to allow me to conquer the war on obesity within my skin. Once I started getting feedback, it was like a drug. The more I wrote, the more comments I received, the more it spurred me on.
Initially this was my main form of support. This is still a very big part of my support network.
How many of you know what support actually means? What's your interpretation?
Is it eating an entire packet of chips but leaving the chip bag in the rubbish bin? You ate it all so it's no like it'll be a temptation, right?
Do you see support as punishment? I have to support you but that means punishing myself? Do you throw around comments like "I can't eat potato bake because I support you"?
Do you struggle to look outside the box and only ever draw the first conclusion that comes to your mind?
A lot of questions.
I'm sure there are more and I'm sure that if we asked 20 people these exact questions we'd get 20 different answers.
The addiction to food is not to be taken lightly. It's not illegal and is readily available no matter what your age, sex or gender may be.
Do you think eating disorders only cover anorexia and bulimia? Have you ever though that there are other eating disorders? Can you name them? Do you know someone who might be suffering from one?
I read an interesting story the other day. It was written by a young female and I can't remember whether it was in a magazine or in an online blog, but neither bulimia nor anorexia inhibited her body. Her coping mechanism was laxatives. The mentality went along the lines of "if I eat bad, I'll just take a laxative or three to pass it through". I never would have thought of that as a disorder.
I guess it all comes down to the context.
I have a very big event in just under 3 weeks. I see no change in the mirror. I feel no change within.
When I first started this journey, I found losing weight came easy. Well easy isn't the best word, but I knew what to do, I did it and I saw results.
Now that's not the case. I do what I've done all along but I see no results. When I see no results, I turn to food. I know, I know, wrong answer Camilla. What the hell are you doing?!
I haven't gained weight since last round. I haven't lost it either. I have become stronger, I am losing cm, I am improving fitness but the scales aren't changing.
A question that has crossed my mind is whether or not emotional baggage is holding me back - is it adding unwanted kilograms to the scales each week. How can I let go? How can I move on?
I'm still on this rollercoaster and I still struggle now and then. Sometimes I want to talk about it but mostly I don't. Mostly I want to ignore it and pretend everything is okay and that I'm slim and happy. Do you ever feel like this?

A Midsummer’s Milestone

Dress: Summer Cocktail

Ever had one of those invites where just reading the words makes you more nervous than excited? That’s how I feel whenever I open the email that states the 12wbt finale tickets are now available for purchase.

As an obese person simply existing, fashion was not important, nor was learning what styles ‘suit’ me or how to interpret dress codes.

I’ve learnt 4 languages, and fashion is not one of them.

To me, pears, apples and oranges are fruits – I have no idea how they became body types. Am I elongated? Am I top or bottom heavy? I thought my weight was pretty evenly proportioned. It’s like walking in to a minefield.

I love travelling away to catch up with all the girls, I love the group workout, and I looove getting ready for the big event. The big event in itself still terrifies me. I’m not comfortable there.

In the past I’ve booked my tickets and had buyer’s remorse in the weeks leading up to it. This time I’m contemplating not buying my ticket immediately and if they sell out, then I guess that’s a sign that I wasn’t meant to go. Hmmmm doesn’t sound quite right but it’s what I’m ‘flowing’ with at the moment. I don’t have the money to buy the ticket till payday anyway, so I guess that’s the way it’s going to have to be. I’ll reassess the situation again next Wednesday.

In the meantime, if anyone has any thoughts on a dress that would suit me that matches the theme, please, pretty please post the link here so I can check it out.

If anyone reading this is a stylist - please leave me a comment if you can help me work out what suits me.

Thanks all – have a great weekend and smash up some calories!!

Enter Sandman. Please?

I am so tired.

I know that to lose weight there are some ingredients which are critical for the recipe of success.

These ingredients include water, nutritious food, minerals and vitamins (commonly found it your nutritious food) and SLEEP.

I’ve drunk over 2L of water already, a teapot of green tea and I’ve munched down breakfast, morning tea and afternoon tea (yep, it’s not even lunchtime) and I’m still feeling hungry.

I know the underlying reason will be my tiredness.

Oh, I forgot to mention – one big take-away cup of long black coffee.

My eyelids are heavy. I’m doing some mundane, repetitive tasks at work which isn’t helping.

If there were pretzels in the vending machine I’d be a ‘goner’, but there isn’t so I’m safe. For now. The temptation to get something else is still there – ideally matchsticks to hold my eyes open but they don’t sell them.

I hate having so much coffee in one day but looks like I’ve left myself no option. Only other option is to walk/drive to the shop but I’m not sure how strong my willpower is there.

Time to suck it up and JFDI. Keep working, drink water and forget food. Better planning required for tomorrow.

Oh and yes, I was weak – lol- but did you know Burgermen only have 606kj, that’s 144 calories, less than 1g sugar per serve. Yep there are a lot of artificial flavours/colours but I’m desperate.

It’s All About Attitude

What a strong starting point. How we travel on each of our individual journeys depends greatly on our attitude.

Is the glass half empty? Half full?

Do you always look on the bright side?

Does every cloud have a silver lining?

Pessimism sucks the life right out of me these days. Negative people with victim mentalities frustrate me.

Don’t complain about results you didn’t get by work you didn’t do.

We all have a choice. Our attitude is a choice. Choose your attitude and you can achieve almost anything.

Did you know that when talking to animals, it’s not as much what you say, but rather how you say it. It’s like talking to people who don’t understand your language. If you keep calm, speak slowly in a nice voice, most people will make a positive interpretation. If you raise your voice, wave your finger around in the air, most will assume you are aggressive and the words are irrelevant.

What message do you put across when you talk to people? Does this change depending on who you’re talking to?

I’ve had some rather ‘heated discussions’ of late because I’m not used to the raising of the voice or pointing of fingers and it irks me. I don’t really care what the words are, but those actions alone get me angry, and then I respond accordingly. Looking back, I believe nearly all the discussions could have been handled better by all parties involved. I don’t believe in making things personal unless  there is absolutely no other way to do it. I also believe in putting all cards on the table.

I’m naturally a negotiator. This means that if an outcome or situation is not to my liking, I will more than likely negotiate a more suitable outcome or I will negotiate myself out of it all together. This applies to both my personal and professional life.

This means at times, people might think what I’m doing makes me a door mat. In fact some people interpret it as being a doormat and they then start to treat me like that.

I’m not a doormat. I am not void of feeling.

Just because words hurt me and I don’t automatically react flailing my arms around hysterically, doesn’t mean it’s okay.

I choose my attitude. Lately I’ve forgotten to choose and I’ve just taken on whatever attitude has been floating around. This hasn’t proved to be the best way for me to manage things. I choose to get up in the morning smiling and looking forward to the day regardless of whether it’s Monday or Saturday. I choose to make the most out of my day. I choose to communicate with those I care about. I choose not to get angry when someone cuts me off, because what does that prove? Does it change what happened?

The old adage – There’s no point in crying over spilt milk.

So, so true. Don’t get upset by things you can’t control. Yes, death and illness will always upset us, but don’t let anything else do it. Control your emotions, control your feelings and choose your attitude. Try it for a few days and see how you go – my world is definitely better for it.

If you get up and don’t feel like smiling, do it anyway, even just for the first hour. You’ll find that once you do, you’ll be smiling all day. Fake it till you make it. It’s amazing the power a single smile can have.

‘Cause that’s how I roll!

I feel I’m in a similar frame of mind that first led me to sign up for 12wbt towards the end of last year.

I don’t know exactly how I brought this on or if it has something to do with the major release of emotion I’ve had through my last couple of blog posts but finally the penny has dropped or the ball is rolling or whatever you’d like to call it.

I’ve slipped back to my ‘scale addict’ habits and I’ve been tapping the scales every day since my “cider realisation” and every day the numbers have dropped. I’m still consuming 1200 calories per day and I’m trying to get out and move about most days.

It’s like a snowball effect. You see a small change, so you try harder to make the change bigger and then when it happens, you’re super motivated to push that little bit further.

That’s how I roll at the moment.

I’m stoked. Actually, ecstatic is a more appropriate word. I wish I knew how I got here, but once again I’m as clueless as I was last year. I’m not going to fight it to work out how or why, because I’m too scared I’ll lose it.

With that in mind, I applied for leave for Sydney finale and a trip to Brisbane – it’s like the stars are all aligned – within 20 minutes it was all approved. Accommodation has already been reserved, so now it’s time to book flights and ensure I still have the $$ to pay for the room once I get there.

I haven’t even started thinking about a dress yet as I’m not sure how that will fit into the budget. Another downside to cramming so many 12wbt rounds into a year.

Now that I’m back on a roll I’m not sure whether it’ll be a slow and steady loss or whether my body will do a bit of a purge to begin with, so I’m not sure what size I’ll be by Sydney. It’s 6 weeks away. I’m assuming that will be at least a size if not two.

I Don’t Give You Permission

If you have an issue – I don’t give you permission to make it mine.

If you have preconceived ideas – I don’t give you permission to make them mine.

If you don’t like who I am, what I do and how I do it, then the solution is simple.

Leave.

I haven’t chained you to my life. I haven’t enslaved you to be part of my life. It is your choice to be there or not. I welcome your presence, your being, your input and your thoughts.

I don’t welcome your pessimism, your negativity or your victim mentality. If you have nothing better to do then push me down and suck the energy out of me, then I don’t have time for you.

Someone can only bring you down if you let them. If you don’t let their actions or words penetrate your personal space, then they hold no power over you.

This covers all aspects of your life. I am worth it. You are worth it.

I’m not saying that you need to scrap people in your life as soon as they have a bad day, but if they are always negative and every time you speak to them you leave the interaction feeling exhausted, then maybe it’s time that you check and see whether it’s a healthy person to have around.

There’s an old saying, I’m not quite sure how it goes, but it’s along the lines of ‘you need to surround yourself with those who you would like to be more like’. This means that if you want to be healthy, you need to hang around healthy people. Being the only healthy one in a group of couch potatoes is draining and is using up your positive energy which could be so better focussed elsewhere.

This goes the same for all aspects of your life. It is YOUR life. It is MY life. People will come and go in your lives and they will all have a purpose or reason for touching on your life. Some of the reasons will be positive, some negative and some will leave you wondering why.

Don’t let anyone take you down or tell you what you are or aren’t if it’s not nice. Don’t grant them permission to have a negative effect on your life. Don’t allow yourself to be a victim of others’ issues.

Now before you all start doing self-audits, this post is not aimed at anyone. This is how I feel and it’s taken me a long time to realise that I actually have to give someone permission to bring me down. If I don’t let their words or actions affect me then I am in control.

This topic may have been sparked from a certain television episode last night ;)

Be careful with whom you grant your permissions to…

xx

Eating clean, working out and the scales aren't budging?

This has been my dilemma for a little while. Yes, I have snuck in some treats here and there, but I’ve done that before and still managed to lose weight.

This morning I jumped on the scales so gain a better understanding of what I could expect at weigh in tomorrow. A gain? Why do I even bother? This is a joke! What the hell is going on??

This morning I had my beans on multigrain toast, standard 255 calorie serve. I had my multivitamins and every other supplement under the sun – scanned them all in, only an additional 10 calories. I was determined to work out what on earth was going on.

I arrive at work, and obviously my morning coffee has started to kick in as I’m starting to think logically again. What has been different for the last 6-8 weeks, what’s changed? It didn’t take me long before the light bulb went on.

In the last 6-8 weeks I’d changed from drinking Skinny Girl Cosmos at half strength with soda water to drinking Rekorderlig Strawberry & Lime Cider. Now I still say the cider is my favourite drink by far, and yes, I’ve enjoyed every single bottle. As the cider is imported from Sweden it doesn’t have a nutritional label on it. Each time I had one I thought about how many could be in there but because it wasn’t written, and at the times I never looked it up, I kept drinking them.

Let’s have a look at the calorie comparison…

1 Glass Skinny Girl Cosmo (50ml) + Soda                 = 37 calories

1 Bottle Strawberry & Lime Cider                           = 315 calories

Whoa! What a difference! I’m not dumb, so why hasn’t this crossed my mind? Yesterday was project day – I wanted my veggie garden in and had to get some sort of order to my veranda, I spent all day moving about doing stuff, but I undid all that work with 3 cider stubbies at the end of the day! What a complete waste!!

As I think back over the last 6-8 weeks I would have consumed somewhere around 20 stubbies I think. So that equates to 6300 of extra calories whereas if I had stuck with my original drink, I’d be looking somewhere in the vicinity of 740-750 calories. That is roughly the equivalent of just two cider stubbies. Hello weight gain!

Now that I’ve made this discovery – which I shouldn’t have been surprised at and I should have known – I can go about making the changes I need to really finish this round on a high. No more cider till Christmas. Back to Skinny Girl Cosmos and even then, limiting them.

Punishment. The one word everyone tells me to stay clear of. Own it, work it through and move on is the general mantra. I believe in punishment. I’ve done the wrong thing, therefore if I want my great results in shorter time I have to be punished. Well it’s not really punishment as I’m heading towards my own goals.

I have 6 weeks to remove 12kg from my body or I will not be attending Sydney finale. I am not going to pay money  for a dress and accommodation etc to go down there without any changes. I felt bad enough in Perth, not doing it again. Time to be more vigilant and keep on top of this. I will check in tomorrow but it will be with a heavy heart as the disappointment was self-sabotage caused by me.