Confessions of this Diet Queen

 

I’m a diet queen. I have been on Jenny Craig, attempted counting WW points, lost a lot on 12WBT, I’ve applied to be a contestant on TBL, I’ve tried the Dukan diet, the Soho diet, the Soup diet, the Cabbage diet, the laxative diet. Yep, I’ve been on this journey for quite some time, striving for that elusive goal of happiness.

Did anyone else pick up on it?

I have been dieting to become happy. Do you see a problem with this? Since when does weight make you ‘happy’. I know plenty of ‘larger than life’ people who are very positive, and very happy and on the other end of the scale, I also know some slim, very negative people who exist to bring others down.

Weight doesn’t define happiness. It never has, it never will.

 For some of you, this revelation is not new. You’ve known this all along. As someone who struggles with having fat and being unhealthy, this is a new concept to me.

Each time I go through a ‘phase’ which is all it has been up until now, I’ve had my typical light bulb moment, where something has twigged inside and spurred me on. I generally put weight back on, but usually not to my starting weight.

This time, I think a rather large lightbulb has just come on.

 

Losing weight alone will not make me happy.

I am in charge of my happiness. I need to become happy with who I am, accept myself faults and all. Although I’m not 100% there, I now understand the concept. Understanding the concept has been a major step in regaining my ‘mojo’. As you would know from previous posts, my ‘mojo’ went MIA some time back and I’ve been trying to find it ever since. Well, it’s back.

My trainer at bootcamp gave a really inspirational little speech on Monday that rang very true for me – this was the second piece that really kicked me into gear. Tash mentioned that even though we were all getting fitter and better with our technique, we shouldn’t get lazy and let our workouts become easy. If you get better at something, you can still push yourself 110%. You should push yourself so that you feel like you did the very first week of bootcamp. I was one of those ‘lazy’ people who was still working at 90% because I thought it was that I was getting fitter – not that I’d found my comfort level. So since then I’ve been upping the ante and pushing really hard and I’m feeling it. I’ve had a drastic change in body shape this week, I’m very exhausted, my appetite is down but I’m feeling fantastic (well, if you ignore the being tired part).

On Saturday we have our 4 week weigh in and body fat percentage assessment and for once, I can’t wait. I am certain I’ll be happy with the results because I couldn’t train any harder than what I’ve done. I couldn’t have eaten any cleaner than what I’ve done. This is my week, and I own it.

Stay tuned on Saturday to find out how I went.

Binge

Binge n.  A period of excessive or uncontrolled indulgence in food or drink

www.thefreedictionary.com/binge

 I am a binge eater. I have been a binge eater for as long as I can remember. I binge eat when things don’t go well. I binge eat when I am upset. I am an emotional binge eater.

Before I started this journey to a healthier me, my binging used to involve intricate excuses and stories, like buying family size meals and lying to the cashier and saying that I had visitors at home. Having little to no emotional or psychological support, I often turned to food for comfort. In fact, if you asked around at most places that sold food, they would tell you that I had a husband and around four kids. That’s how much food I used to buy. I’d then sit and gorge myself on it, with no self control or self respect, and the minute it was all gone I’d get an attack of the guilts.

That was how I used to binge.

Yes, I still binge at times. I’m not perfect, I’ve never claimed to be. I still have the same weaknesses and unfortunately I still tend to use food as a crutch in extreme circumstances. On Sunday I binged. My binge this time didn’t include fast food, or sugary lollies, but it was a binge all the same. It’s like I lost control as I hoovered 10 rice cruskits with some delicious Lurpak Lightly Salted butter. I don’t even know why I reached for that out of all things available to me. I was tired and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast due to a midday nap and my head telling me I could ‘hold out’ until dinner. My binge occurred whilst dinner was on the stove. I was so disappointed. In fact I’m still disappointed in myself.

I spoke to my trainer who put things into perspective for me. Falling off the wagon and having a binge is not failure, how you react to it is what should concern you. If you get right back up and continue to eat healthy and exercise well, then you have the right mindset and you will be fine. I pointed out that my binge was at worst around 700 calories – she said not to worry about the calories, but the fact that I binged on processed foods. Next time, I would be better off having a protein shake or fruit if I felt like that. All of a sudden it felt like a little burden was lifted. I was human and that was okay. Since then I have eaten 100% and I have done 3 x 45-50 min bootcamp sessions since and another scheduled for this afternoon. My fitness is improving and I’m once again pushing myself to my limits.

Griffin PT 8 Week Challenge

Okay, so you’ve probably gathered by posts that I’m a bit over 12WBT. Yes, the program works, but since I’ve lost my mojo, I just haven’t been able to get it back. Frustrating much? Oh yes!

So my local PT who I’ve been doing bootcamp with, Tash from Griffin PT, is running an 8 Week Challenge. I figured I may as well give it a go, seeing as since I’ve been back from Fiji I’ve had the flu and eaten crap and put on a tonne. So I signed up not quite knowing what to expect.

Griffin PT has partnered with 7 Day Raw Detox to construct our mealplan. This means Week 1 consists of a 7 Day Raw Detox. I’ve never really done a detox, but how hard can it be? There’s a set plan that includes a lot of liquid, a lot of raw veggies, a few pieces of fruit, no meat, no coffee, no preservatives and nothing artificial. Sounds like it’d be good for my health, so I jumped in.

I had my first assessment with Tash and was nearly in tears after realising I’d put on a heap of weight since pre-Fiji – an unbelievable amount. It’s so bad I don’t even want to confess to you guys yet how much it is, but I’m sure I will in time. Tash is one of those genuine and rare people who have faith in me. There’s not a lot of those left around. So I left Tash’s place excited and nervous all at once.

I went shopping for my first week’s worth of groceries and oh my goodness there was a lot. I thought for sure I’d never get through it. I even bought the PharmaGreens (blech!!) and Raw Protein (not my fave either) to ensure I stuck to the program 100%.

Each day and night I had my raw foods, at first it wasn’t too bad. I quite enjoyed my breakkie smoothie and my salads were okay, but towards the end of the week I was over it. I didn’t want to see another sundried tomato. All I wanted was a hot meal – I didn’t really care what.

In the middle of all of this, whilst pushing my heart out at bootcamp, I managed to trip and have a minor fall. My ankle hurt a little, but the pain subsided and I kept going. By the time I’d showered and headed to work it was starting to ache. I went to get up to go and buy an ankle support when I realised I couldn’t put any weight on it. I was in agony.

Lucky for me, a colleague was nice enough to go and get her car and then drive me up to mine. I headed home and started the painful act of icing it for 20 mins and then resting it for 20 mins.

To cut a long story shorter, after ultrasounds and xrays it turns out I’ve just strained it. All the same, it hurt like hell, and there was no swelling. I’m back at bootcamp now, but there’s only limited running for me for the next week or so. Keep your fingers crossed!

Let’s fast forward to Saturday. Saturday is our weekly weigh in – I got there nice and early knowing I wouldn’t be working out to get weighed in. Well week 1 of raw detox was a marvellous success. I lost 5.4kg in one week and was feeling fantastic! I think my mojo is back and I can’t wait to complete this 8 week session block and see how I go. Hoping to be back in double figures easily before Christmas. Watch this space for now and see how I do.

Fiji

Yep. I did it again. I know I promised I wouldn’t. There are no excuses. Well, there are. I’ll go through it all in good time though.

 

First things first. Fiji.

 

I’ve now been and gone, and I loved it. We had an absolutely fantastic time enjoying everything from jet boat riding to shopping and we even experienced a 9 Course Degustation Menu.

 

We stayed at Sonaisali Island Resort and I guess I should have researched a bit more. Although the Fijians are friendly, this resort is owned by Aussies and you could tell. When we turned up to check in, our room had been booked out to someone else and wasn’t ready for us, with a delay of at least 90 minutes. This is not a good start after a midnight flight with little to no sleep. Breakfast was complimentary so that made our wait a little more comfortable. The burres are roomy with great views of the beach and water. I do need to note the beach is not white. The beach is more grey coloured with mud coloured water. This is due to no reefs being nearby to clean it up. Also, cleanliness isn’t high on the list. Dirty glasses can take up to a week to be replaced and/or removed and we frequently saw cockroaches. I expect this in a burre seeing as it’s pretty open, but I wasn’t expecting geckos on steroids. All in all, we enjoyed our time but will not be revisiting this resort. Trying to book our prepaid activities in was hard as they were ‘never’ available and any resort based activities were expensive for what they were. Oh and don’t forget that unless it’s a specified meal time you can’t buy snacks unless chocolate and chips are your thing. Couldn’t buy fresh fruit or even a sandwich to snack on if our tour came back a little late.

 

Apart from that Fiji was beautiful. We explored the Garden of the Sleeping Giant and the orchids on show were magnificent. We also accompanied a tour on the Sigatoka Jet Boat Safari to a village and this was fantastic. I would highly recommend it!

 

Food wise I’d have to recommend visiting Port Denaru and their little tourist area on the marina. It was fantastic and we felt comfortable enough walking around. When walking around in Nadi (pronounced Nandi) town, we were constantly being approached by people asking if we were tourists and trying to get us to buy things from them.

 

Overall we found Fiji to be relatively cheap. As long as we were away from the resort, the food and clothing was a lot cheaper than Australia. On the resort it was about the same price, if not slightly more expensive. It definitely pays to have a look around.

 

I tried to eat relatively healthy but it’s not easy in a country where the main source of cooking at the resort was in oil. I was glad to return home with no weight gain (and no loss either).

 Here are some of the photos from our trip:

Selfie @ Sunset