Project BTC on the go again!!

It has been a while…well two months since I’ve logged on and updated my profile on how its going and how I’ve been. To be honest I’ve been soooo busy with work, study and speending quality time with the hubby and hitting the gym that I really haven’t had much time to think obsess about my weight. And that means that yes I let Project BTC slide down to obscurity…but not forgotten. I needed something to motivate me and what better way than enter a group challenge!!

Stage left – enter Michelle Bridge’s 12 week body transformation challenge that begins tomorrow on the 21st of June.  So begins my 12 week challenge to lose 10kgs, run a half marathon in October and to fit back into my Sass and Bide size eight jeans. I know I’ve said this all before but that was just the stepping stone to getting me to where I needed to be mentally! The time to get serious is now!!

I will pop back in tomorrow to give a more detailed description of the plan so watch this space 🙂

Project BTC – Getting Fit in 2010

Hiya,

Wow, no excuses coming from me today. Here I write my all honest truth that I did let things get to a stage where I just didn’t care. Didn’t care to eat heathy, to exercise or take pride in my self and my appearance. I let it all spiral out of control and I have avoided writing about it (in turn being honest to myself). SO here I am today – I write to me, to you, that I am no longer going to ignore that fact that I have become fat and have ignored my health. True to form (a Capricorn girl here) I have set an action plan in place to get me to where I need to be to start living the healthy way I intend and love.

My action plan is a 12 week body transformation challenge – Project BTC. I am going to focus on eating right, exercising and losing weight. I’m sick and tired of being so critical of my body, of not fiting into my clothes and hating what I see in the mirror and photos. Only I can do anything about it so I’m bloody well doing something about it!

Where I’ve been…what’s been happening

Well since my last post I’ve been MIA.

Time has flown by; I’ve had happy days, sad days and blah days. Our honeymoon went by way to quickly and now I’m back at work (not really slogging away just drifting in and out…ha!). I have no idea what’s happened to my mojo but I do know what’s happened with my motivation.

Rewind a couple of months ago…I was so focused on losing weight so my beautiful size 10 wedding dress would fit me.  It did with the help of my wonderful dress maker who let the dress out an inch. Anyhow, I kept thinking about weight loss, scales, numbers, food, exercise. That on top of stressing about the wedding led me to the dark side, the dark side being stress eating, getting into a bit of despair and clinging on by a loose thread. After the wedding, I let go of that thread and feel deeper into the pit. I completely ignored what I was eating; exercising went out the window and just totally disregarded my self worth. This of course was hidden from my hubby, he saw the happy content me, not the inner me who is hiding from this inner turmoil (I’m very good at hiding this, so good in fact I hide these emotions from me too! go figure). I don’t even want to say eat out loud but here goes – I am struggling to find the balance I achieved. One part of me is so happy, content and in love but another part of me is disappointed with myself for letting go of all my good intentions, of failing me, failing my hubby (though he wouldn’t see it like this) and  in a sense hiding from the world…well not now, not anymore!

It’s time to be honest. I’ve kinda broached the topic with my hubby today and going to continue it tonight. I need his support and help in order to help myself heal. If I can keep my inner fears and failures hidden from him, it will be much more easier for me to ignore the fact that I am not happy in myself. I need to change my way of thinking and doing things and in order for that to occur I need to be honest with him, so I can be honest with myself and the world.

I need to be honest of the following facts:

1. I am struggling with emotional/binge eating (does eating a whole family size block of chocolate in secreate really fast count as binge eating);
2. I am eating more junk and processes food;
3. I am not treating my body with respect;
4. I am not exercising because I’m just too tired, depressed and lazy. The reason I give my hubby – my foot is still playing up so makes exercising hard, I don’t have my gym membership anymore etc etc…all excuses. I can exercise now  as soon I get better (have a bad chest cold).

All of the above have resulted in me being in a slump oh and the gaining of weight (yikes). All my clothes are tight on me and my bra size has gone up :(! Today I have decided enough is enough! If I don’t do something about this everything is going to spiral out of contol. I need to show my body respect, gratitude and love!!

I’ve started eating clean, I’ve signed up for a 10wk personal training program and I’m saying this out loud and proud that Jennifer’s got her groove back!

Another interesting fact about me – I love self help books, and in true form I have enlisted the help of two self help books to get me back on track:

1. The Gabriel Method by Job Gabriel; and
2. The Beck Diet Solution by Dr Judith Beck.

The Gabriel Method is an innovative approach to help you understand the influence of your mindset on your body’s internal logic rather than succumbing to conventional and often unhealthy attitudes towards weight loss 

I’m enthralled so far! The Gabriel Method talk about visualistation, turning off FAT signals and focusing on eating live food. Definite priciples I have heard off, followed and will gladly apply to my journey to health and happiness.

The Beck Diet Solution is a 6 week do it yourself course doing cognitive therapy techniques to:

think differently and overcome common dieting pitfalls and  sabotaging thoughts

eat favorite foods while steadily losing weight

feel in control in the most challenging situations

feel confident in their ability to follow a healthy diet and exercise plan

remain motivated to maintain weight loss for life

 So now that I am going to be honest with my hubby and talk about my inner feelings, hurts, fears and have taken the step at treating my body with respect; I will take each day and love myself enought to do whatever it takes to be the best i can be. I will take it one day, one meal at a time. And I acknowledge that no vice item will ever make me feel happy or whole or satisfied!!

Look out world I’m back!

I’m back

Hello peeps…I’m back!!! I’m now a married woman. After a beautiful wedding, though with some minor glitches i.e. RAIN…our wet weather back-up turned out just beautiful. The day went by so quickly and most of it is a blur I cannot wait for our photographer to get back with the pictures. I’m a bit disappointed that we didn’t get to do one location shot due to rain – the pictures would have been stunning but I’m confident the other shots at the beach, the Marriot and our reception venue will make great back drops and great shots.

For the moment here are some pickies friends took on the day:

Now that the stress of wedding planning is out of the way I’m going to get back into the swing of things. Tomorrow (Monday) I will re-start my ‘Get Fit and Healthy Challenge’. I’m also going to learn how to swim so I can do training laps with my hubby. My friend is going to teach me (a former instructor) woo hoo.

I’m off to bed…tomorrow morning I intend on getting up nice and early and putting my intentions into actions.

Okie over and out 🙂

Weight Loss – A stressful mate!

I read an interesting article this morning – “Is weight loss stressing you out”

My first response was hell yes – I’m doing everything right. However the good little angel sitting on my shoulder cynically questioned me “are you really?!?” and I had to be true to myself and honestly say no I wasn’t doing everything right – OK. It’s that time of the month, my wedding is coming up, I’m super busy at work and I’m waiting for someone so unreliable to finally come true to his word (long story…I know in my hearts of hearts it won’t happen but I’ve still got some hope that it will come through) all this combined with my raging hormones I have been binging on chocolate. My one weakness, I never truly enjoy it (as I devour it so quickly I never taste it or feel satisfied because it is sooo forbidden), I feel guilty, angry and self hatred for doing it. The scary thing is I do it in secrete so my other half can’t see. I eat the vending machine chocolate a work (twice this week) and I stop by a petrol station and buy a bar on the way home from work. This is my shameful eating in private secret. My other half has questioned it a few times; you eat so well you should be losing the weight…well no honey I don’t eat well at all!!!! I’m still battling with emotional eating. And the other night I made myself feel so guilty my old friendenemy came to visit me. When I was in high school I suffered from bulimia. I would go through periods of severe starvation to severe binging to severe purging. There were times I would purge everything I ate. I’ve worked bloody heard at overcoming this. And every now and then I revert back to my disordered eating. To this day I still binge but don’t go to the extent of purging so I think I’m getting better…hmm

I should star going back to counselling to finally put a stop to this, but years of useless counsellors has really put a black mark against it. My other half doesn’t know the extent of my battles; he doesn’t know that I still battle with it. He knows I suffered an ED just isn’t aware that I am still struggling with it. And if I’m being truly honest to myself here, my hiding the fact that I eat in secret is a tell tale sign that something isn’t quite right….hmm this thinking on screen has been insightful. At least I’m acknowledging to myself that something isn’t right.

So anyway after my long winded babble…back to the article I was reading this morning – Is weight loss stressing you out?

Here’s a little snippet “..there’s no doubt about it: trying to lose weight is a stressful thing!….The unfortunate part is that this constant stress can make losing weight more difficult. Research shows that chronic stress can affect your metabolism, promoting fat storage, and increasing cravings for sugar, high-fat ‘comfort foods’”.

A quiz was attached to the article (who doesn’t love quizzes)

1)      I have taken a careful look at my eating and exercise habits, and I have a good idea of what I need to change and how I want to do it – my response: Yes. I know exactly what it is that I need to change. I need to stop binging and emotionally eating, I need to reduce my man size dinner portions, I need to include exercise daily again and stop being lazy.

2)      I have accepted the idea that I need to make permanent changes in my lifestyle to lose weight and keep it off permanently – my response: Yes. Instead of focusing on losing numbers I need to concentrate on creating a healthy lifestyle in body and mind.

3)      I will feel successful only if I reach my weight loss goals – My response: yes – losing weight is one of my goals so of course I will feel successful.

4)      I know that it took time to gain weight, and I believe it is best to try and lose weight slowly – my response – No. A party of me wants to lose it quick. But the sensible part of me knows that this is unrealistic and losing weight slowly will keep it off and is healthier , maintainable and achievable.

5)      I am working on weight loss now because I really want to, not because someone else thinks I should – my response: Yes. It is only for me. My other half loves me for who I am. He doesn’t think I am overweight nor has he ever told me to lose weight. This is only for me, to be happy with me body.

6)      If I can manage to lose the weight, I think many other problems in my life will be solved. My response: NO. Those problems will still be there wether I stay at this weight (67kgs) or 58kg

7)      I am willing and able to do a significant amount of physical activity on a daily basis, including planned exercise. My Response: Yes. I want to get back into my old habit of exercising everyday. The gym junkie in me is still there being restraint by the lazy girl.

8)      I can lose weight successfully with no slip up – my response: Hell No. There are always slip ups. Just as long as I pick up  and continue with the good work, the good eating and exercising should outweigh the slip ups.

9)      I am ready, willing and able to spend enough time each day planning and tracking my food intake and exercise activity – my response: Yes. I’m going to start counting calories, my personality is the type were I need accountability (even if its accountability to myself) so counting calories will do that. At least I know if I’m eating enough calories and doing enough activities.

10)   If my weight loss slows down or stalls out, I usually lose my motivation and stop my program. Yes.

11)   When I’m having problems sticking to my plan, I usually reach out to others for help – my response: No. I keep it to myself. Why would I want others to know that I am struggling and not coping emotionally. I portray to the world that I’m coping and everything is great. After all an over achiever like me can’t have faults (why is it that I think others have this expectation of me?)

12)   I have many stressful situations in my life right now. But I’m determined to be successful at weight loss – my response: Yes. I should be able to control this one aspect of my life without it spiralling out of control.

So after analysing my responses this is the feed back attached with my score:

• You don’t talk to others when you have trouble sticking to your plan. This may indicate that you tend to keep problems to yourself – well hello that’s not news to me!! This can add more stress so I have to reach out when I need to.
• I have to modify my weight loss expectations when other aspects of my life become difficult. I can expect to lose weight during a difficult period so I should focus on maintaining the weight I’m currently at.

What have I learned from this article? That I have to put my weight loss into meaningful perspective. That I’ve still got issues to overcome and I must reach out for help and that I should talk to my other half about my problems. Because lying to myself is bad lying to my soon to be hubby is heart breaking. I share everything is him except this – ha! There’s always exceptions to rules and laws.

I believe in myself, my strength, my resolution and now that I can find that path to healthy living.

10 Tips For 2010

 

If there’s one thing you’ve all got to know about me, is that I love LOVE Lorna Jane clothes (http://www.lornajane.com.au)  I can spend so much money in a blink of an eye. Her clothes are so motivating, you feel great wearing them and hey if your a valued customer like yours truely you get great motivational emails! Last night when I opened my outlook there sitting in my inbox was an email  – 10 top tips for active living. Reading through these tips I got excited – they are things I needed to read and things I needed to realise!!

I love tip ten the best “never, never, never give up” – my mantra. Every step I take, takes me a little bit closer to my goals.

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Today’s eats –

Breakfast – I wasn’t feeling particularly hungry this morning. I knew I had to eat to nourish my body and fuel it for the day ahead, but I just didn’t feel like eating anything heavey. I pondered a protein drink but I chocoloate protein in the morning didn’t quite tig with me. Instead I had vegetable sticks with 1/2 a mashed avocado. OMG it was just what I was seeking and hit the spot!!

Veg Platter

 

Morning tea – 1 slice spelt bread, 1 tbsp organic PB & 1 medium banana

Lunch – mixed salad

Afternoon tea – tomato salad

Dinner – steak and steam veggies.

Feel the burn baby!!!

Holy! The one word that encapsulates all that was body pump this morning.

From my recollection the last time I did a body pump class was pre foot injury way back in August of 2009! Why oh why have I left it this long to get back into it? In my self induced recovery lazy phase I literally turned the switch off exercise and had a pity party for one. This morning an internal battle was fought with the lazy girl who has taken over me and the fitness freak who was well and truly hidden. Hooray the fitness freak won!!! I rummaged through my Lorna Jane collection for the perfect tank…out came the perfect one, the “Try and Stop Me” tank. Hehehe, silly I know but wearing motivational slogan shirts just empowers me ever so much.

My muscles are still burning now 3 hours after the fact. I love how doing weights just makes you feel so strong and powerful. So here’s a tick for my “Getting Fit and Healthy Challenge”. I’ve also schedule a run in my dairy for after work. I’ll tackle my old 5k route and will take my podiatrist instructions and do interval runs. I’m going to try out the C25k running program which was recommended to me by a work colleague. I’ll see how I go with it.

On a poo note, last night an ad for the biggest loser came on. It starts on the 31st of January – WHAT!!!! My wedding date!!!! I don’t want to miss it…. I’ll just have to record it hahaha how sad can I be! In theory I can’t stand the unhealthy approach they take to weight loss. Allowing morbidly obese people to live on 1200 calories and working out for more than 7 hours a day. They are literally starving them!!! On the flip side I like seeing the transformations! With that end formula they’ve got me hooked. I’ve even put in an expression of interest to participate in Michelle Bridges 12 week challenge. I’m not sure whether I’ll go ahead with it or not as I’ve got all the tools that I need to do it myself…we shall see.

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For Today’s Eats:

Breakfast – Egg & Vegie Wrap

Snack – Strawberries with no fat greek yoghurt & flaxseeds.

Lunch – tuna with stir fry veggies

Snack – Tomato salad:

Have a great day 🙂

Healthy Inspirations

That’s it!!! The crazy eating, the not exercising and the not caring for my body has stopped. I’ve set myself a challenge to get back to where I was with health and fitness. The “Get Healthy and Fit Challenge” encompasses my health, fitness, weight loss and well-being accomplishments I want to achieve for 2010. As I love working towards deadlines, my official start date was yesterday – Monday 18 January and my official end date is Sunday 24 April. Why the 24^th of April you ask? Well my other half has entered into a triathlon and he is competing on that date. So while he’s getting healthy and fit for his triathlon, I’ve taken the opportunity to use that as my goal date. I will work and train along side him and see my goals being achieved. Body transformations can be achieved within 12 weeks and what with this 16 week timeframe I am going to see some amazing results not just physically but mentally. I am set on achieving this. Sooooooo……The goals I am setting out to achieve in this challenge are:

Health

• Improve eating by limiting the amount of processed food I consume
• Change my diet to a gluten free diet
• Eat as many natural foods as possible (lots of fruit & vegetables)
• Improve my health by eating a cleaner diet.

Fitness

• Get back into running 10ks
• Exercise everyday
• Implement a fitness routine that I can stick to that isn’t over ambitious and I am able to complete
• Learn to swim
• Tone my body
• Learn to love exercise again (believe it or not once upon a time I was a gym junkie)

Weight Loss

• Lose between 7-10kgs
• Lose 10% (7kgs) of body fat.
• Fit back into my size 10 denim shorts
• Fit back into my size 10D strapless black bra

Well-being

• Work towards being less self critical
• Learn to love and accept my body
• Stop thinking negative thoughts about my body
• With every negative thought I have about myself change it to a positive one
• Work on achieving inner peace – relaxation and mediation
• Practice yoga
• Fulfil my dreams
• Don’t let people walk all over me.

 

I must remind myself when I have sabotaging thoughts that it is my subconscious mind acting out on the conscious’ minds thoughts. If I find it a battle I must change my though process and reprogram my subconscious minds to accept that this is the new path I will travel. The subconscious mind creates the path to the destination in my life. Everyday it goes out to create the situations, circumstances and opportunities that shape my life. My subconscious mind follows my beliefs and attitudes, and if I believe I am fat, lazy, ugly then my subconscious mind will ensure I stay fat, lazy and ugly. If I believe that I am slim, fit, healthy and beautiful then my subconscious mind will ensure it creates this, as it follows my beliefs and attitudes…they are it’s instructions! If I don’t like the way my life is…if there’s something I want to change…then I must change my attitudes and beliefs.

My challenge during my Get Fit and Healthy Challenge is to give my subconscious mind new instructions. To create new beliefs and new attitudes. I am the only one who can take control of my life! I am (my conscious mind) is in charge of my action, not my body (my subconscious mind) in charge of me.

I am the creator of my destiny and I choose to be a healthy inspiration to me, myself and I.

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Today’s Eats

Breakfast – An amazing protein punch porridge creation:

A deliscious blend of good fats, protein & complex carbs

Morning tea – strawberries with low fat greek yoghurt, flaxseed and LSA:

Oh soo good!!

Lunch – vegetable stir fry with lamb:

What more could you ask for in a lunch...mmm

Afternoon tea – Green, orange and yellow capsicum sticks with 1/2 mashed avocado dip

Dinner – lean pork and steamed vegetables

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I did a fantastic spin class this morning – I pushed myself that hard I felt ill afterwards but boy oh boy did it feel good to sweat!!

Have a good day everyone 🙂

Twenty Ten – The year to Succeed!!

Well, statistics say that only one third of people who make new year’s resolutions succeed at achieving their resolution. I want to be (and I will be) one of those (1/3rd people) who will succeed with my new years resolution. I guess the key to sticking with it is to make the goals achievable and realistic and to also break then up. Honestly, this is the one element I’ve failed to understand in previous years, how can I honestly expect to achieve any of my goals without having and defined objectives, breakdowns, timelines in place?

People – it’s time to get serious!! To kick some serious butt!!!

I have weight loss goals, fitness goals, cooking goals, photography goals, travel and financial goals (do you think I have to many goals? I don’t think so after all this is a whole year list of goals I want to tackle and achieve, like a list I need to work through and cross out once I achieve that goal)

My 2010 Goal List

Weight Loss Goals

1. Lose 10% body fat to bring me to my ideal body shape, weight.
2. Lose body fat, tone muscles 

Fitness Goals

1. Do exercise every morning for at least 60 minutes
2. Do the Jullian Micheals – 30 Day Shred exercise dvd for the month of January 2010
3. Get my right foot healed in order to be able to run 10ks again (working with a running specialist to achieve this)
4. Run in the In Training Twigh Light 10k running festival in march
5. Train towards  running a half marathon in
6. Build and tone my body
7. Join a boot camp
8. Join a hockey team
9. Enjoy exercising

Cooking Goals

1. Learn to cook lots of vegeterian and vegan healthy recipes
2. Learn to cook my favourite foods in a healthier way
3. Cook nutritious healthy foods with high protein, fiber value and good carbs and fats
4. Work on emotional and binge eating episodes (specially around times of stress)
5. Work on learning to eat only to fuel the body not for any other reason – i.e. boredom, stress, anger or because “it’s time to eat”
6. Learn proper portion sizes – don’t eat the same amount that Paul eat’s – after all you are not a man!! Eat for what you need only.

Photography Goals

1. Buy a good everywhere/everyday pocket camera (preferably in pink )
2. Buy a good SLR
3. Take a photography course
4. Take lots of pictures of my beauty and my fur baby, friends
5. Photograph and upload foods I eat on a daily basis
6. Take lots of progress pics

Financial Goals

1. After wedding is over in January  do a Spreadsheet with Paul to determine incomings and outgoings
2. Live of my pay for food and fun and Paul’s pay to pay for all bills
3. Save money for Bourdiour Shoot in April
4. Save money for a weekend get away to Cairns to celebrate achieving my ultimate weight loss goal
5. Pay off debts – make in grounds
6. Save money for a home deposite

Travel Goals

1.  Travel to New South Wales, Hunter Valley for a weekend getaway in March
2. In April travel to Cairns, Queensland Australia to celebrate my success at achieving my ultimate weight loss goal of 56kgs
3. Travel to USA in January 2011
4. During the year take road trips to rainforest, country towns, wineries and hiking trips (and take lots of photos)

10 Healthy Habits in Twenty Ten

What better way to kick start twenty ten with 10 healthy habits. Thanks to the guys at Cooking Lite, here are 10 healthy habits to incorporate into your daily lives for the forth coming year (and beyond too ). Let’s get these habits rolling:

Fuel up on whole grains:

Swap white rice, white bread and pasta to nutrient rich whole grains. Choose brown rice, whole grain bread and whole grain pasta will fill you up for longer, improve your hunger levels and yield health benefits.

Don’t be afraid of fats!

Not all fats are created equally. The human body actually requires fat to function, so don’t be afraid. Instead focus on eating healthy fats and eliminating unhealthy fats. Stick with unsaturated fats found in vegetable oils, avocados, nuts, seeds and fish.

Snack smarter in between meals

Eating healthy snacks in between meals helps to diminish hunger and satisfy cravings. It helps keep your energy and mood levels high. Eat a combination of complex carbs and lean protein which each snack to keep your blood sugar stable and achieve and maintain a healthy weight.

Don’t skip breakfast

Haven’t you heard? Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so don’t skip it. It is important to fuel your body  with a morning meal of fiber-rich carbs, lean proteins and healthy fats. By doing so this will give you energy to start your day, maintain focus and boost your metabolism .

Exercise, exercise, exercise

Keeping yourself active is important. Exercise has numerous health benefits like decreasing depression, keeping you fit and tone, giving you an abundance of energy and overall protein a better wellbeing.

Eat seasonally

Produce is most nutritionally beneficial at its prime. So seek out seasonally fresh fruit and vegetables.

Eat the right kind of protein

Add high-quality, lean protein to every meal to reap the health benefits. Lean proteins include fish, skinless chicken, lean meats, low fat dairy, eggs, nuts, legumes,. Protein will help keep your blood sugar stable, support healthy muscles and keep you feeling fuller for longer.

Drink your fluids

Drink up!! Water is a nutrient that can be obtained from a variety of sources, whether water enters your body as fluid or food, it still results in the same healthy benefits. Ensure you get up to 2L of water daily to reap the benefits. After all your body is made up of 70% water, so you need to replenish so your body keeps function at its peak performance.   

Eat healthy when eating out

When eating out choose wisely and avoid overeating. Pay attention to the 3P’s: portion size, preparation method and products used. Request sauces on the side  and steer clear of foods that have creamy sauces etc.

Limit Alcohol consumption

Here’s the thing, alcohol has recorded health benefits. But here’s the disclaimer: not all alcohols, only wine. A 250ml glass of wine can go a long way. Remember moderation is the key