Gone but not out

Well l thought l was balancing my diet well. My weight has been consistent and l have kept up the exercise. However l have felt my energy levels slowly reducing since Halloween. Yesterday l went to bed at 7 pm and didn't wake up till 8 am. After that amount of sleep l finally feel better, but it begs the question what has caused me to feel so tired. The only link l have is the food l have been eating since Halloween, which has been more sugar based. So today l start to clean up my act all over again. Let's see if this energy slump is because of my diet or my schedule  l guess l will find out in five days time.

Although it is hard to do, l find myself automatically placing my hand in the lolly jar. I am currently craving a hot donut. Instead l am having a glass of water and a yogurt. So l will keep you up to date with my energy levels to see if their is a link between the lolly jar and this tired feeling.

on the path

Okay l am slowly accepting the a ugly, awful, terrible (l could use more adjectives however you get the gist) truth that l will always have to watch what l eat. It is very hard for me to accept that l can't just eat with out having to think about it. However when l make the comparison to other addicts it does make sense. A recovering alcoholic has to come to terms with the fact that they can't go to a party and just have one or two drinks, because they can't stop themselves. That is how l am with food, once l start to stop thinking about it l slip into bad habits. I am lucky though compared to the alcoholic who could probably never take another sip of alcohol, l can have food l just have to monitor how much l have.

So l am hoping now that monitoring food will become more automatic. When l first learnt to drive a manual car l bunny hopped down the road as l was busy concentrating, clutch in, shift gear, clutch out, accelerator,steer, etc etc. I can now drive my manual car with very little thought of gear changes and in a very smooth fashion (if l do say so myself). This is how l hope to be with food eventually, right now l am bunny hoping down the road, but while l am doing this l am learning. I am making mistakes but l am learning from them. I never thought that losing weight would be such a hard challenge that deals with so much more than food.

To date l am now back to 72kilos yay!!! only three more kilos to be back to where l was this time last year. I now l can do it, even if l have to hop the whole way there.

Rip the bandaid

If you haven't noticed, l have (gulp, rip the bandaid Gaby) gained weight. Yes, not just a little bit either l have gained 6 kilos. I had to laugh at the doctor yesterday, l went in for a routine check up and she asked me how long it took me to gain the weight back and she didn't believe me when l said three weeks. Yes, there is only black and white in my life when it comes to food. I can compare myself to any other addict who goes on a bender. The doctor asked me why l had gained the weight, what's changed. My response is nothing, l just go through moods and every so often l get feed up with having to monitor my food.

I told her when l was a child l never had to watch what l ate, why now do l have to spend the rest of my life doing this for. She asked me one question which has made me change my mind "Your boys, don't you monitor and control what they eat?", if so when you were a child you didn't have to monitor you food because someone else did it for you. Food is something you will have to monitor for the rest of your life, just like you have to monitor your health and exercise, you will have to do the same with food.

She is right, it is not easy being healthy. Not when there is so much temptation and devices that make life easy for you. But in the end of the day all the gadgets and other things which are designed to make your life easier actually make it harder, harder to shift the weight. We spend less time moving, l know my activity levels have dropped this last couple of weeks due to being under the weather. So today l started using my fitness pal again and now bringing myself back to the consciousnesses of what l am eating. The food l am eating is healthy but my portion sizes are huge.

So back on the band wagon again. And now l know the band wagon has to stay. I have to watch what l eat and how much otherwise when l bury my head in the sand when l pull it out l appear to have gained 6 kilos.

2 mins of fame

Well l got my 2 mins of fame last night on Chanel two news. They wanted to interview me about my view on the rising obesity epidemic. My view is that we need to stop focusing on body images and move towards looking at this as a health issue. I personally know that is why l wanted to lose weight in the first place. It wasn't because l wanted to be a skinny girl. It was because l hated feeling sick and l knew what l was eating and doing was making me feel this way. Being overweight is a form of illness. You do feel sick, if you are currently overweight l want you to really think hard about this questions and answer honestly.
1. At night do you have to wake up to go to the bathroom?
2. Do you have to change posititions during the night because your body aches?
3. Do you suffer from headaches?
4. Are you Lethargic?
5. After eating do you feel even more lethargic?
6. Are you bowel movements irregular?
7. Do you have body aches, such as sore lower back, sore knees, that cause you pain and discomfort?
8. Is your skin blotchy, dry, prone to eczema and psoriasis?
9. Do you sweat alot??
10. Do you suffer with depression?
11. Do you have mood swings?

All these questions above l could answer yes to when l was over 100kgs, l also know that if l gain a few kilos back l can begin to answer yes to these questions again. Once you begin to treat your body well you start to question why you were treating yourself like this in the first place.

The other amazing thing l noticed yesterday was that my husband's weight has also dropped along with me. Although my husband never gained a huge amount of weight he still was overweight. With me changing my lifestyle and eating habits he was forced to do the same. As in many households there is normally one person who is the main cook. As the head cook in my house l do control the other house members food without even realising it my health choices have made an impact on my entire family.

So if you are the head cook in your household remember your choices impacts your entire family. You are your children first teacher of life and you lead by example as a role model. Regardless if you give them the healthy food and you eat poorly you are still there role model. Do as l say not as l do, does not work with children. So as we currently sit at home in this very cold winter, remeber there is always a healthier better option and think about what you are putting into your mouth impacts your life span, your health. It won't be long till we will be seeing hard hitting ads about this on tv. Just like TAC and the quit smoking campaigns have ran hard hitting ad's soon the government will have to do the same about obesity.

Why is obesity on the rise?? why is it such an issue??? I have my theories. My biggest one is the fact that people are so disassociated with our food. I'll put on my old grandma voice here "back in the day" people grew some of their own food, and bought basic staple ingredients like, butter, milk, flour, sugar. So people weren't buying processed items. The biggest key to losing weight is going back to basics, get rid of the processed foods, eat natural foods and move more. It is cheaper and healthier and better for the environment. I am not going to get started on the carbon tax, however if you look at where our food comes from there should be a tax on those products. Do you know the milo cereal bars come from Singapore? Yes they are made there and then shipped to Australia? How does this make sense, when we have all the ingredients and production facilites to do this here however it gets sent all the way to Singapore. Not to mention the amount of food we waste and throw out. However a carbon tax makes sense?? Hmmm maybe there is a way of killing two birds with one stone, maybe we should be looking at a way of taxing processed products which are bad for the environment as well as for people instead, allowing essentials like heating, cooling and facilites for people to cook at home to be cheaper.

Well that is my rant for the day. I'll now step down from my soap box and resume back to normal blog posts. Until then try to spread the word.

Winter mojo

As the days get colder it becomes harder to stay motivated. When all you are wanting to do is snuggle up on the couch and eat some hot soup. So l have been forcing myself to keep the exercise up, but changing it a bit. I've been having fun getting onto you tube trying to find new and different work outs every day to keep me motivated. My favourite one so far is the ballroom dancing work out. This mixed with trying to finds other ways to incorporate fitness into my day while it is raining outside is becoming fun. My favourites so far is the cleaning Olympics. Me and the kids have been challenging one another to see who can clean up a certain room first, we put music on and go for it. It's amazing what a bit of competition does to get the boys and me cleaning. The other challenge l've given to myself and the boys is to pick a different fruit and vegetable each week from the green grocery we have never had before. This weeks selected items were a coconut, parsnip, kiwi fruit, okra and grapefruit. Fresh coconut is very different from dried. However it was nice to see one of my children really taking this experiment on putting all new and exciting items on his pizza this Friday night. He didn't eat them all but he at least tried them and that is all l can ask for.

Which comes back to me, l at least am trying to find new ways to do exercise during winter that don't cost money and take up to much time Not everything l do is a success, not everything l cook tastes great, not every work out l do l love. However l still keep on trying. Everyone can always come up with excuses to not do anything but if you give it a go you might enjoy what you get at the end. So why not try a different fruit or vegetable and try a different work out on you tube. You never know what you will find when you start looking.

monday morning oaths

I wonder how many of you, like me, have made the Monday morning oath. "i will start my diet today", "l will lose weight this time", "this time l know it will work". Come on everyone has done some Monday morning oath of one kind or another. What l now ask all of you is why do you need to take an oath? I like an oath, don't get me wrong, however most of my oaths just never stick.

Oath's have not worked for me in the past so why should they work for me now. It's almost like as soon as l make one l feel compelled to break it. I am a person who hates having restrictions placed upon me, many of us do, and as soon as l feel like something is forbidden it becomes even more desirable. So l have decided to change my style of oath, rather than restrictive to being a positive oath.

I was thinking the other day about incidental exercises. Remember before we had remote controls and you had to get up off the couch and change the channel, when you had to go to the post office, bank and numerous other places to pay your bills rather than press a few numbers into your phone or computer. My son asked me the other day what l use to do after school when l got home. I use to spend hours outside, regardless of the weather, playing, practising, exploring and moving. The only interesting program on the TV at night time for children was neighbours or home and away. So l would stay outside until it was time to eat, then watch neighbours, have a shower and read a book. Very different from our children's lives who find it hard to separate themselves from the devices that hold so much entertainment. It was hard work for my parents to get me inside to sit still, yet l have the opposite now of trying to get myself and my children outside and moving.

Today l decided to take the children and l on an adventure. Yes, l could of joined my husband to go into the tan (a running hunt in Melbourne) and do a lap but l worked out the km's for the cranbourne botanical gardens and found a walk l could do with the boys which was longer and would be fun for all of us. Some people are not aware that there is minimal calorie difference between walking a km and running a km. The only difference is how long it takes. So never feel guilty if you are only walking, just make sure you do your km's and you'll be fine. So off we went and it was a great day out, not a work out, not how many calories l burned. Instead is was like being that child again who use to run outside the minute l got home not because l had too but because l wanted to. The children and l jumped in muddy puddles, found a kola bear, (l pretended) the kids believed that we discovered dinosaur foot prints, climbed up trees and frames, and talked about different plants. My children learnt so much and it was a free, fun and easy event. It's days like this l know my children will remember, not sitting in the lounge playing plants vs zombies.  

So regardless of the weather, regardless of your pressures, think of finding ways that you can engage in exercise not because you have to but because you want to and try to remember that time when you where a child and you run as fast as you could because you liked feeling the wind. Most importantly let your children create those memories for themselves that they can hold dear like l do.

My Monday morning oath, to be more like a kid again in more ways than one, l think that is one that l can truly live up to.

Long time no speak

Long time no speak. Life has returned back to normal and l enjoy every part,but my diet. I now realise l could never work from home, unless my house didn't have a kitchen. I find myself using the kitchen as a distraction. Chocolate and cakes has crept back into my diet and so has pimples and lack of energy. A new cake shop has opened up across the road from me and they are yummy and cheap. Which makes it very hard for me to resist. The one thing l have noticed since starting my weight lose journey is realising how much your diet effects your body. It's not the weight gain l notice, it's something more important to me. It's the way l feel, when l am exercising and eating clean, words can not describe the way l feel in my skin. There is nothing l enjoy more than working up a huge sweat because l know the high feeling l will have afterwards. The feeling lastswith me all day, it keeps me in a good mood and helps me to see the bright side rather than the dark.

However after a few weeks of poor food choices and little exercise that feeling is gone. Once you've tasted that feeling of being healthy no cake can compare. So now l can recognise the signals and make changes sooner to help keep me on the straight and narrow. It is a constant challenge to make the right choices however the way l feel when l make the wrong ones makes it easier to correct myself.

So cheers to that good feeling, fingers crossed I'll have it back by the end of the week.