Chapter Friday

So it’s Friday. My promise of regular blogging has gone to the wayside. My promise to heal myself has been somewhat slowed. With changing medication and still struggling with my sleep, my brain and body has been nothing but a jumbled mess.

I can finally start to see improvements during bootcamp. I can now jog like the others, I only need to improve my speed (well for bootcamp anyway – I’d love to be able to endure 21km non stop too).

My eating hasn’t been totally by the wayside, I’m generally pretty good up until about dinner time most days. I definitely wouldn’t be exceeding about 1800 calories a day, but that’s still 600 calories more than the recommended amount to lose weight.

So what other bring things have happened? Apart from the State of Origin, I also had a change on Wednesday night. I finally made time to get my hair cut and coloured by a very wonderful hairdresser. You can see my results below. We’ve gone with some burgundy, copper, chocolate and blonde streaks as well as emphasising the layers more and re-trimming my fringe.

Tomorrow I add to the beautifying process by heading to the beautician. A truly luxurious pamper moment.

Other than that you haven’t missed much. It’s doing the final preparation before the impending Fiji trip to ensure I’m completely organised and on top of things. Sorting out all my interior plants to ensure they survive and mulching the rose garden to keep them comfy.

What do you think of my new hairdo??

Go Maroons!!

I’ve been pretty quiet on the home front due to severe lack of organisation on my behalf. Fiji is now less than a fortnight away and I haven’t started organising anything. Between that and medical appointments, I’ve been flat chat.

I will come back to you before the end of the week and let you know what I’ve been up to – this is just to ensure you all know who I’m backing tonight…

Skirt. I’m wearing a skirt.

As a ‘larger than life’ kind of girl, I’ve always been drawn to pants, shorts, jeans, capris – pretty much anything that isn’t a dress or a skirt. I feel this is because I’m not a fan of skin rubbing together and whilst my thighs are sharing the same space, rubbing would have been inevitable.

So what made me buy a skirt in the first place? Firstly, I’ve always bought skirts and dresses. Well, moreso dresses than skirts, but they both exist in my wardrobe. I’ve been known to wear dresses from time to time if the situation calls for it but I don’t recall wearing a skirt since my first job at Roma Street where it was part of the uniform. Back then I also wasn’t carrying all this excess weight.

So during my last uniform order I thought I’d order a skirt as a goal. To be comfortable enough to wear a skirt to work. It’s been a cold week, and I honestly couldn’t be bothered washing last night (I made this decision yesterday morning) so I figured I could wear my skirt.

I spent lunch time yesterday purchasing tights that were opaque and ones with patterns, then whilst doing the groceries after work I also picked up some block coloured ones in red, blue and purple. Surely with tights I’d be able to get away with it? Normally I’m quite happy to show off my legs, but they’re currently in the same state as a rainforest – full of growth! I’ve been ‘saving’ to wax just before my trip to Fiji so nude legs was definitely not on the cards.

So this morning I got up and pulled on a pair of opaque tights. They just didn’t sit right. I felt weird, so I pulled them off and as I did I managed to snag a nail. Nice work Camilla – now you’re definitely going to be late to work. So I filed down my nails and grabbed the next pair of tights.

These were surprisingly more comfortable to wear. I’ve taken some pics to share below. What’s your goal outfit?

Are you the watermelon in a group of peas?

Sometimes that’s how I feel.  I know that’s not really the case and it’s a big exaggeration on the truth, but it’s the closest comparison I could think of.

I attend and participate in 45 gruelling minutes of bootcamp three times a week at 5am. To date I have always been the least fit person attending, but from what I can tell, I’ve also been the most consistent.

I’m very competitive. I don’t like coming last. It took many sessions for me to realise that I’m not ‘coming last’ although sometimes I still slide back in to that mentality. My journey is mine. There is no need to compare it to those who are fitter than me.

I attend each session and I put in more in each session than I did in the previous one. By the time I get home I feel nauseate, exhausted and I know I’ve worked my hardest. Today I realised that I am actually improving.

I can jog the entire block now instead of having to walk most of it. Although I still fall behind, I am nowhere near as far behind as I used to be. I can feel my strength and my agility and speed and endurance improving. This is a fantastic feeling.

I can also start to feel my clothes getting loose again. For so long I considered myself the slowest or fattest – from now on I will be the most consistent in attendance. I will win, I will win my own battle.

Make your battle your own and don’t compare your journey with others unless they are your clone.

Cheers for now xx

Breakdown anyone?

So my visit with my therapist shed some light on a very important topic on Friday. Breakdown.

As you’re all aware by now I’m pretty involved with everything in my life. I have two jobs, I go to the gym and to bootcamp, I am currently studying for a diploma as well as foundation exams and I’ve just applied for uni, I help out friends, I have a 2 acre mini property to care for and I have a relationship to nurture, oh and I review books for the local paper. To date I’ve always been a firm believer that I was in control. I could handle it. It was no problem.

Whenever someone asked me to do something, my immediate response was always ‘ofcourse I will’ – before the question had even registered in my head. Scary, hey?

Well Friday we discussed many things but one of them was fatigue and my newly found ability to want (need) to sleep at least ten hours a night. I don’t have time for ten hours a night just for sleep. What about my jobs, my studies etc.? When would they get the time they need?

Apparently my juggling act was a lot easier for my body to cope with in my twenties. Now that I’m ‘maturing’ my body doesn’t like to be pushed to the max so much.

So what do I need to do? I need to prioritise everything in my life and re-balance it. I have started this by reducing the hours I work in Job #2. I have delayed starting my official course at uni till next year and will be spreading the STEPs program over two terms. I will still focus on exercise but perhaps only 2 gym sessions on top of my bootcamp sessions. I am also going to stop setting my Saturday morning alarm to allow my body to sleep for as long as it needs.

I am going to be even more careful with my nutrition to ensure there are no deficiencies and so that my body can heal itself. Your body is a wonderful machine and with the right fuel it can do just about anything. I have faith that I will heal and that all it will take is time. I’m glad I’ve realised this now, instead of after the fact.

So without a bathtub to soak in, I need to go through and work out what relaxes me and how I can schedule that in. I’ve committed to spend more time reading and in my garden and I feel that’s going to have a huge impact.

I’ll keep you posted, but in the meantime, if you have any fantabulous suggestions, please comment and let me know – I’d love to hear how you relax and unwind.



Burning the Candle at Both Ends



Envisage your vision you visionary!

I was unwell Friday and spent the majority of the day in bed so I didn’t write a blog post. I didn’t think anyone would really want to read a blog that went something like” blech, ugh, uh tired, sleepy” and so forth, so I held off until today. I did buy myself a little 'get well' present:

It's the 'Live with No Excuses' sign

Saturday was my ‘Create a Kick Ass Vision Board’ with Connection Coaching session in Yeppon. After getting slightly lost, I found a room full of smiles and a lot of magazines and some white cardboard. This was the room to get the creative juices flowing. There was mood calming music, coffee and tea for everyone and most of all inspiration. I became so focussed on the task at hand that I barely noticed anything or anyone else for the entire session. I tried to keep to a board that would provide a vision of my short term (1-3 years) goals. With a table of Good Health and Women’s Fitness magazines it wasn’t hard to find the pictures and words I needed to motivate me. I have included pics of my vision board below:

  

My inspiration board

Sunday was pretty cruisey – just a standard Sunday at work. Good news is that my request to drop from 17 to 10 hours per week to commence post-Fiji has been approved! Yay! More “me time”!!

Oh and then to take away some of that “me time” I also found out today that I’ve been approved to participate in the CQU Steps program from workforce to uni. I can’t wait till I’m able to commence a ‘real’ course next year! Yay! So that’s me signing out!

PS I did have a breakthrough with my new therapist, but I’m not sure I’m ready to share that yet. When I am, this will be the first place I spill xx

Sleep.

It’s a short five letter word that can have so much effect on our lives.

When we’re first welcomed into this world we sleep most of the day, then we go through the cycle of very little sleep, then as a teen we act like a baby again.

I’m very fortunate. I am normally able to sleep anywhere, anytime without any great difficulty. I was able to until the beginning of this year. This year has been the year of troubled sleep for me.

I’ve either not been falling asleep at a reasonable hour, or it’s been the opposite, where I’ve gone to bed in a timely manner, but woken up tired. I’ve been through a turmoil for the first half of this year, as you all know but now it’s getting beyond a joke. This is frustrating the hell out of me.

Yesterday I was so tired after getting up and heading to work, that I ended up having to pull over on the way to work for a ten minute powernap – in the morning!! This never used to be me. I used to be able to cope on very minimal sleep. Now it seems I can barely cope at all.

I’m a control nut. I control nearly every aspect of my life and I do it well. My weight has never been on that list and now I can add my sleep to it. It’s driving me insane. As I’m on medication, I’m not sure what I can take for the sleeping, if anything. All I know is that warm milk doesn’t help, and the smell of lavender is not soothing to me.

So this is the reason I didn’t write yesterday and it’s the reason that today’s post is short and sweet. I’m tired. I’m beyond tired – I’m fatigued. If anyone has any tips, send them through, either by comment on here or email camillas12wbt@tpg.com.au – Thanks again!

Coffee Quotas and Matchsticks

Today is filled with mixed emotion. I am gracious and excited by the long weekend (4 day with 1 day work in the middle) and then saddened by being back at work and no longer at home today.

For the first time in a very long time I had a great time at home. I spent Friday doing not much in particular but still getting things done. There was a lot of napping on the couch and flicking through magazines. I still went through with bootcamp, so I felt my good deed had been done, so I was left to wrestle with my own thoughts.

Now I’m no angel. I’ve had my little binges and I’ve had my big binges. Overall, I still stick to roughly 1200-1300 calories per day. I’d safely say that 90% of the time I hit the target. I have worked out my BMR to be sitting at 1870. This means, by just ‘existing’ I use 1870 calories per day.  Then using the Harris Benedict Formula for existing a moderately active lifestyle brings my daily calorie expenditure to 2900 roughly. This means that for me to gain weight I have to ‘binge’ on average 1600 calories a day! Now I can be completely honest and say that I do not binge daily. It doesn’t happen. I can also honestly say that when I do binge, yes, it can be up to the 1000 calorie mark but not regularly. Mostly it’s 300-500 calories above my allowance.

So scientifically, I shouldn’t be gaining weight. Scientifically I should be losing weight, although not in great huge amounts, but it should still be a loss. It has been suggested to me that I should research Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. One of the main symptoms of PCOS is unexplained weight gain. Unfortunately this means a whole new series of visits to the GP to rule this out or try to get at least one step closer to the confusion that is my body.

There was my first thought pattern that occupied my weekend. The second was sleep. Or rather, lack of sleep. For about the last week now I’ve been suffering broken sleep, not getting more than an hour or two before waking up. Unfortunately this can be a side effect of the medication so for now I just need to suck it up and get on with life. This means that I need to invest in a lot of matchsticks as I will no longer be turning to food to keep me awake and I’ve already promised myself that I will not exceed my 1 daily coffee quote whilst at work.

Now we’ve traipsed through the negatives, let’s hit the positives.

We’ve got blueberries and a custard apple tree in the ground now – I can’t wait till everything starts producing fruit – I’m going to have a field day!! Still left to go in the ground pre-Fiji is the coffee and tea plants, but they’ll go in either this weekend or next.

Last but not least I stepped outside my comfort zone. On Monday I learnt to drive a bobcat. For my very first go I was impressed. It did take some time to convince me to give it a go, but once I was in there and in charge of the controls it was amazing!! I’ve even got some proof!

Fourteen Days and a lot of Green and White Pills

For the first time in a long time I’ve been consistent.

Today marked the fifteenth day on antidepressants. When I got up this morning and saw that my first sheet was gone and it was time for my second it made me think. I thought about how I used to feel, I thought about how I feel now and I wondered if I felt any different.

The mere fact that it took forty-five minutes to pull myself out of bed should have given me the answer. I still have sad days. I now also have angry days. I’ve had a few in the last week and for no reason at all. It’s amazing that this body that I’m enclosed is able to do so much, control so much without me consciously doing so.

This week I have also been hungry. I’m not sure if it’s boredom, or the fact I need a break, but it’s getting worse. A very wise person once said to me that antidepressants don’t hold calories to make me put on weight – how true is that! They don’t. Yet I thought of them as an excuse. The only reason for me to be eating is because I haven’t been consuming enough nutrients. There’s been junk or incomplete meals passing my lips. They’ve been momentarily satisfying, but not really nurturing my body.

The other major difference I’ve noticed is sleep. I crave a lot more of it these days. I get a lot more of it these days too. I’ve downloaded an app called SleepBot that tracks your sleep and sleep debt. I have found that this helps me immensely take a conscious step to be more aware of what my body needs. Especially now as I’m trying to heal and recuperate.

All of this was flurry-ing through my head this morning and I decided that no, I hadn’t really noticed a difference in the last fortnight. That’s okay though as the doctor had warned me to allow at least four weeks till it will start balancing out the chemical imbalances that exist within.

In another four weeks I will be flying to Fiji. It scares the hell out of me as I don’t know whether the medication will have fully kicked in by then. I get told it will, but I don’t know for certain. I’m not sure if it’s something I need to disclose or how to handle it. I’ve never had to worry about flying with medication before, this will be my first and that, to me, is strange.

So in fourteen days I took fourteen little green and white pills to help my body balance out what it can’t do itself. To date I see no change but I will persevere. I’m no quitter, I only quit the negativity in my life.

Oh and if Natasha reads this – my abs are so sore from Wednesday! I feel like I have a six pack trying to escape the protective layer of fat on my gut!

Rocky River Run Expectations Crash Down

Firstly I must apologise. I know it feels like forever the last time I wrote, but due to circumstances outside of my control, this is my first opportunity.

Don’t worry - I’ll share everything I can remember to make up for it.

So Sunday was the famous Rocky River Run. By late Saturday afternoon my nerves were already taking over my body and then a sleepless night ahead didn’t help either. I put all that out of mind when the alarm went off Sunday morning and begrudgingly I got out of bed and into the jelly moulds and racerback that would be my ‘costume’ for the day. I say costume because it just doesn’t look quite right on me J

 

I found a park easily enough, same place as last year, I walked over to where people were congregating when my bladder decided to take control. Apparently several visits to the loo that morning weren’t enough and I needed to go again! The line up was horrific, as it always is when it comes to ladies’ toilets. I could hear the MC calling for the runners to start getting ready, I checked my watch, I still had about seven minutes to go. I managed to get through and head over to the main group before the starting pistol was fired.

I took off slow and steady, keeping the story of the turtle and hare firm in my head. As we veered round the first corner, most of the group had overtaken me and I could see it wouldn’t be long till I was last. I kept pushing and fighting, I managed to run a lot further than I first thought before I commenced on my typical ‘interval running’ which consists of jogging and then power walking and repeat.

Feeling the cool air, I felt good. Even with less preparation and training than last year I felt confident that I would beat my time. Confident that this was my race – I owned it. As I approached the fields, which were all sloppy from the recent wet weather, I asked one of the marshalls if we were half way yet. He responded that he was over half way! I was elated!!

Two marshalls later (roughly) I was advised that only then was I half way. I looked at my watch. The time wasn’t good. My heart sunk. There and then I knew that I hadn’t trained enough. I knew that I was cutting it fine with wanting to beat my time, but I kept persevering.

The most motivating part of running a long race (it’s long for me) is the encouragement from those around you. Obviously my fellow ten km racers were all gone, but the 21 km racers were on their second lap. As they ‘lapped me’ they would call out words of encouragement:

“This is a run, not a walk darl, you can do this” and I’d jog a bit further after being lifted.

“You’re doing so well, on the home stretch now” and again, I’d jog a little bit further.

“Keep up the great work, you’re doing awesome” and once again, I’d jog.

With each encouragement, I’d keep going, keep pushing. Without these words of motivation from the experienced runners, I would have been even slower than I was.

As I ran the final two hundred meters, I could hear the odd applause from the sideline and encouraging commentary. I felt spurred on. I kept pushing, I nearly sprinted the last little bit.

I’d finished. I finished the run. Had I beat my time? Sadly, no. To say I was disappointed wouldn’t even start to touch the tip of the iceberg. I felt like I’d let myself down and you, all my readers down too.

The silver lining on this cloud? I was approached by one of the 21km runners who suggested I look into the beginner’s run club that was being started by the Rocky Road Runners on Monday 10^th June. Guess there’s no harm in looking around, hey?