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.

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

The Happiness Challenge

As the days are counting down and I get closer and closer to my island getaway, I find myself more and more worried about how my depression will affect my holiday. I don’t want it to. I want to enjoy Fiji and all it has to offer, from the Sobeto Mud Baths to the Sleeping Giant and kayaking and everything else I would like to do. I’ve decided to take a proactive step in the right direction.

Just like all those ab/squat challenges floating around, this is my challenge for June. This is working on my mental health over my physical health. It’s gradually increasing, there’s time to reflect each week and I believe that by the end of June I’ll be feeling a lot better for it.

Who’s with me?

Here are some positive affirmations to get you started:

I love my body and I will feed it nutrition.

My skin glows because of how I nurture it.

I exercise because it makes me feel good.

Regardless of whether these are true right now, say them, repeat them, daily, frequently and you will start to believe them. I believe this is the key to your journey.

Make sure your compliments are honest, by this, I mean that you need to believe it. Find something positive in each of those around you to compliment them on. This will have a flow on effect. You will feel great at the end of it.

Are you game to do this with me? I’ve printed my copy out to go on the bathroom mirror.

Life is a Balancing Act

Blink. Blink. Blink. The cursor blinks steadily, almost taunting me as I sit here staring blankly at it, almost on the verge of a breakdown. I work hard. I work two jobs, and on most weeks that equates to roughly 60 hours , that’s on top of bootcamp (another 2 ¼ hours per week)…. Hmmm let’s set this out so it’s easier to read….

 

  

I get the same amount of hours as everyone else. I try to squeeze as much in as possible. The above table indicates a standard week. It doesn’t take into account my monthly plasma donations that take nearly 2-2.5 hours including travel depending on how busy the bloodbank is. This doesn’t take into account other appointments like chiro, doctor and so forth that I also do on a regular basis. The more I look at it, the more I see that I may have bitten off more than I can chew.

Perhaps this is why I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed. My ‘spare time’ isn’t spread nicely and evenly over all days, generally the majority of it falls on a Saturday and has to be squeezed in between waiting for the washing machine to finish or waiting for something to cook.

I’m a big fan of packing my life full as I am fully aware that I will only get one go at it. I want to maximise everything and to do that I need to find a way to make more time. I need to start simplifying my processes to ensure this all works smoothly and easily and so that I can actually enjoy my spare time. At the moment, the limited spare time I have I spend feeling flustered and overwhelmed. My nutrition is suffering, my sleep is suffering and I am sure this is part of what’s holding me back in my weight loss journey.

I haven’t prioritised any time for my friends because I simply don’t have it – that needs to change. I have friends that have been left on the outer for too long. I need to make amends.

Life is a balancing act – there is no question about it. You need to balance life, work and relationships to ensure you live a happy and fulfilled life. At the moment I’m not balancing so well. I don’t really know where to start so I’m blurting it all out on paper here hoping, praying that somebody out there may have a trick to fix it all.

Extremes

So we’re just over two weeks in to 2013 and I’m already hearing that people are giving up on their resolutions, promises and wishes to change. Is that you?

Is it me?

Nope, I may not be exactly where I want to be right now but I most certainly haven’t given up.

I have started taking some pretty extreme measures to ensure that I do achieve my goals this year though.  Being the tech geek I can be at times with my Samsung Galaxy III, I figured there’d be a way that this awesome phone would help me reach my expected goals. So late one night (last night) I started browsing all the apps available and I came across a habit creating app – yep, sounds weird but I thought I’d give it a go. What it does is it allows you to type in a habit you want to create, it will then remind you to do whatever it is you’ve decided for 21 consecutive days  - which is how long it takes to create a habit.

Not only did I download one of these apps, but I think I got two or three so I can test them and see which one I like best. I also had a look for an app that provided me with daily positive affirmations but was unable to find one – if anyone knows of one, please share.

Lastly, I somehow stumbled upon weightloss hypnosis apps. For those of you who know me will know that I’m a pretty big sceptic. As I’m giving everything a go this year with an open mind, I thought why the hell not. Let’s give it all a go. Surely it can’t be bad for me. Oh and did I mention 2 meditation apps?

This will be the year I’ll turn hippy at this rate!!

So with all these apps on my phone, I figure I’m pretty well armed.

I’ve also started sticking positive affirmations in love heart sticky notes on my mirror to repeat every morning and night.

I’ve also had some assistance from a very handy fella in setting my garden up properly. Fruit trees are in, my first square foot garden now has a watering system and I’m about to get some pretty awesome trellises built for my new grapes and passionfruit. I’ll take a photo on the weekend to share.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with a question. I’ve been thinking a lot about stepping outside the square this year but I wasn’t sure how. Then I was flicking through instagram and one of my very inspiring friends has photos of her bike, and constant pics of her successful rides and I thought “Could I?” – so do you think I could ride the 23km to and from work (with a decent 8-10km stretch of highway) on a regular basis? Obviously I’d have to drive on my two job days and I would have to look at whether I’d have the energy to ride on PT days, but can I do it? What are your tips for someone who hasn’t really ridden a bicycle in over 10 years?