Dodging raindrops - Xmas challenge week 1

The weather here is pants. Windy and rainy and windy and rainy...you get the picture. I spend much of my pre walk time checking the rain radar to see how safe it is to venture out. Because of course I'll melt if I get wet :).

I've set myself an informal 'Xmas challenge'. The challenge is to stay 'on plan' between now and Christmas - I seem to be more successful with small time based goals to work to. Sometime's it's going on holiday or having visitors. This time it's Christmas. 9 weeks. And a few Christmas parties but I can do it.

This weeks wrap up:

• Weight: 84.3 (down 2.3kg) ☺
• Exercise: 4 / 7 days ☺
• Overall thoughts: Shit, I made it through a whole week and managed to exercise to make up for muffins and even lost weight.Yep, 3 years on and the fuel in / energy out equation still amazes me. No ☹'s this week.

A victory with portion sizes

Had a wonderful (unexpected) loss of a whole kg this week. Given I'm not doing any much exercise, and haven't been a tracking saint, I was a little surprised but not going to over think it too much :-).

I have noticed that my appetite seems to have finally matched what my portion sizes should be. It's only taken 3 years of measuring everything! I must say it's a slightly crazy feeling to polish off a small sandwich and not be consciously thinking about what else I can have or how hungry I am. Viva la revolution!

Toes are mostly healed (looking presentable anyway) and I'm ready to start the evening walks again at the end of the week. Am having an Epsom salts foot soak tonight while typing this and it feels good. Thoroughly recommend it - turns out Mum and my podiatrist might be on to something! Hope you and your feet are having a great week, toodles!

A successful weekend

Ambrosia courtesy of the
Healthy Food Guide

Just a super short check in to note a 400gram loss after a weekend with lunch out on Saturday and a BBQ with friends last night. Didn't make stellar choices at the BBQ (still had a cheesy sausage!) but I stayed off the alcohol and we had been for a 6km walk earlier in the day. Phew. We were asked to take desert - eek! Was very thankful for the inspiration of the Healthy Food Guide - went for the retro option and took (relatively) safe Ambrosia which was a mega hit all around.

Hope everyone had a good weekend whereever you are.

Year 3 Day 1 Over

Yep, I can't believe I've been trying at this for 3 years now. Sweet jebuzz. Anyway - this week may see daily posts in an effort to strengthen my own resolve while I get 'back on the horse' so to speak.

Yesterday's achievements: Weighed in (ugh), tracked everything, went for a bike ride that made my lungs burn.
Today's goal: Resist muffin, reach my required water intake, walk after work.

So far so good!

Walking is working

Scales showed a 900gram loss this week (to make up for last weeks gain). I ate a little off plan here and there but tracked everything and exercised extra to compensate. Seems to be working!

Back in July I set myself the goal of hitting 400mins of exercise but mid August. I can't say it's been consistent but I've done it 2 weeks out of the last 6 - a reasonable ratio.

Week 1: 1,247 calories in 215 minutes
Week 2: 3,746 calories in 675 minutes
Week 3: 1,575 calories in 235 minutes (um...yea...not so great!)
Week 4: 1,433 calories in 240 minutes (not much better!)
Week 5: 1,607 calories in 248 minutes
Week 6: 2,620 calories in 475 minutes

Time for a new goal?

The week where I wore a purple shirt

Made up for last weeks status quo with with a loss of 1.5kg! (3.3pounds). The most I've lost in a week ever. Fitness wise, not so great. Lots of late nights at work and lunchtime meetings meant no laps around the campus during the day.

Week 1: 1,247 calories in 215 minutes
Week 2: 3,746 calories in 675 minutes
Week 3: 1,575 calories in 235 minutes (um...yea...not so great!)
Week 4: 1,433 calories in 240 minutes (not much better!)
Week 5: 1,607 calories in 248 minutes

Had 2 NSVs in the past week. Firstly I was able to fit a T I bought 2 years ago while on holiday that I swore 'I would never fit' but it was my favourite colour and from a concert where my favourite band played. So awesome to put it on and still have circulation in my arms! Secondly, D and I went for brunch on Sunday and I skipped the eggs benedict and ordered poached eggs on 5 grain toast, no butter with peppermint tea. Didn't even get a coffee! And I left half a slice of toast behind. I think I'm going mad...but in a totally awesome way. Hope you all have a great week!

It's freezing!

New Zealand is in the middle of a cold snap and if you've ever been here you'll know that we're not really set up for cold weather. Not central heating. No double glazing. Just flimsy, draughty wooden houses! Never mind. I've been keeping up the walking as much as hailstorms allow. Fitness stats for this week:

Week 1: 1,247 calories in 215 minutes
Week 2: 3,746 calories in 675 minutes
Week 3: 1,575 calories in 235 minutes (um...yea...not so great!)

Hold the phone - lost another kilo! Needless to stay I'm amped and this just proves that tracking works :).

Shifting focus and weight!

I said last week that I was shifting focus to exercise and it seems to have paid off. A whole 1 kg (2.2 pound) loss this week. I feel like the Biggest Loser - awesome.

Fitness stats:
Week 1: 1,247 calories in 215 minutes
Week 2: 3,746 calories in 675 minutes (blow it out of the water baby!)

I also made a wee breakthrough on the food addiction side of things. D has been in control of my cash for some time now as I know I can't be trusted to not buy crap food. I 'needed' the credit card to buy veges and I thought I was going to get a massage on Saturday so begged it off D while he was at work. However my internal dialog started before I even got in the car. Just get a small packet of chippies. Just a small peanut slab. Just one bagel instead of a bag...

I ended up not going at all. I knew I'd blow my plan and be even more angry with myself than usual. And I'm so glad I did - a whole kg loss is SO worth it! Have a great week everyone :)

No more flashing B A T T

I've had a week of yummy (read: rich) conference food, a weekend of Easter bunnies and ok lets face it - 2 months of general binging. The battery in my scales went flat which was a great excuse to take my eye off the ball.I  know it's bad because it's got to the point where suggesting a healthy dinner or saying no to junk food generates a 'poor me' face from D. Just when he was getting good at being my moral food compass.

Never mind - onwards and upwards downwards. Day 4 of tracking (I need it!). Weigh in this morning on the freshly charged scales revealed 88.8kg. My pre Christmas weight and a lucky number in some countries. A gain of 2kg (5lbs) since my last weigh in. It could have been a lot worse. The aforementioned conference was in Sydney - I bought a pair of jeans there that I don't fit so that's the current motivation. I can do it!

Get lost

Happy to say I'm back to my 10% off point - lost the 1.3 pounds I gained in Christmas week. How did I do it? I got lost. Yep, was killing time by going for a bush walk on Friday which was only meant to be a short loop track and ended up having to call D for directions and ultimately rescue. I was gone for 5.5 hours - 18km in the end. Ouch. My toes hurt! Learnt the very valuable lession about having a proper map for walks in areas I'm not familiar with. What an idiot.

Anyhoo - back to internet access and tracking my food. Also lifted my first crop of potatoes from the vege garden yesterday. We're now eating courgettes, peas, beetroot and strawberries out of our little garden. Loving it!

Lack of H2O + sleep = no movement on the scales

I wasn't surprised when I jumped on the scales this morning and saw the same number as last week. Have been super busy every night after work so haven't managed as much planned activity as I would like, but have managed quite a lot 'incidental' activity along the way. We went to see U2 in concert on Friday night which meant a hefty walk to and from the stadium (bonus!) but I stopped drinking water at about 4pm so I didn't have to pee all night (booo!). I'm not a U2 fan but their 360 set up was amazing and they did a nice tribute to the 27 miners who were lost in the Pike River Mining disaster last week (such a sad week for New Zealand).

Courtesy of u2.com

The weather turned into a scorcher over the weekend and I worked a lot in the garden on Saturday and wandered around the zoo on Sunday (bonus!) but once again, didn't keep my fluids up and had a major headache last night. That time of the month now but I'm still aiming to get below 89kg this week! Have a good one :)

So good I want to slap myself

Holy cow I’ve become one of those people that seems to have developed self control. D and I had a ‘date day’ yesterday. It started with brunch at the café where we had our first meal together.  I ordered poached eggs on 5 grain toast, no butter please. Would you like bacon or hollandaise with that? Yes please No thanks. I started to feel full and didn’t even eat all my toast. Then we had Turkish for dinner. Medium Chicken and salad on rice please. What sauces would you like? Sweet chilli and garlic mayo. Just the hummus thankyou. And I left about a third of it behind (including some chicken).

This is a completely foreign concept to me. I wasn’t hungry and I didn’t have food envy. It was all about spending time with D and not what I was ordering. Amazing. I can’t even call it an NSV as the scales rewarded me with a 1.7 pound loss this morning. Not bad baby puppy, not bad.

300 grams and 3 sleeps to go

Weighed in this morning at 90.3kg. 90 bloody point 3! So close to my goal of 90 but more importantly under 200 pounds. Yay for me and yay for my car as it gets a clean courtesy of D.

I think I handled Sunday quite well - I popped out into the garden for a few hours before and after lunch and managed to resist shoving my face into the bowl of onion dip. It helped that I had / have a throbbing tooth ache. Going to the murder house this afternoon to see if anything can be done before we go on holiday.

Only 3 sleeps to go until we fly out. Am really looking forward to it and am even looking forward to doing a bit of clothes shopping in Vegas (which I normally hate). The range is far greater in the States compared to here in New Zealand and the exchange rate is pretty good at the moment so I'm planning to make the effort to try stuff on that I wouldn't normally think would suit me...just in case it does!

Winning weekend

Looks like water was the thing holding me back on weekends!  I chugged down glasses of the stuff at every opportunity I had and this mornings weigh in showed a (drum roll please) 3.5 pound loss. Wohoo! We’ve had a storm here so not much exercise over the past week – only physical activity has been cleaning up fallen branches and mulching trees for the garden.

Dying to get out on the bike again - pic of my purple baby below. I need to keep desensitising my butt so I can ride along Santa Monica beach during our holiday next month.

Been thinking about the holiday a lot (I'm an anally retentive planner / researcher when it comes to vacations) - dreamt about food 2 nights in a row. Although last nights dream about a cheesecake made from plain flour and dried potato flakes was more like a nightmare...hope everyone has a great week!

Post from the shaky isles

Photo courtesy of Andrew Drake on Flickr

We had a pretty big earthquake down here in little old New Zealand on Saturday morning and while it wasn’t near where I live, one of our main offices is located there and it’s been chaos trying to get things up and running ever since. Hence a late post…but it sure puts things in perspective!

I spent some time last night catching up on the blogging world, in particular Melting Candy (thanks for the follow!). One thing that struck me about this blog (and why I kept reading, and reading, and reading) was the photos. I haven’t loaded photos of either myself or my food (mainly because I only recently got a home laptop) but that is about to change. This weeks personal challenge is to get a ‘before’ photo of me up…and maybe one of my bike.

200gram loss this week – that time of the month so AOK by me :).

Yes we can!

This morning the scales showed 92.9kg – 204.8 pounds. Which is still too much but what is cool about that number is that it means I’ve lost 5% and met my initial October holiday goal. Freakin’ awesome!

So let’s up the stakes a bit – October holiday goal now set to 90kg - 198.4 pounds. 7 weeks to do it. Can we do it? YES WE CAN!

Whatever I'm doing is working

Super quick post before I host an all day workshop for out of towners today…another 1.5 pounds down this week – yay! Had an awesome walk around the waterfront yesterday while there was a break in the weather. Really feeling strong in my legs now.

Bit the bullet and bought a laptop yesterday so won’t have to start work early / stay late to keep up with the online world…good stuff, hope everyone had a great weekend like me!

Support of a partner

This week was a great one. I got 3 walks in and a long session in the garden (man my hamstrings are sore today!), and while it may not be burning calories at a high rate it sure stops me from eating the junk food. Why the hell would I want to have to walk even further to burn it off? I also realised that I should have taken some measurements – jeans are feeling loose and I’d like to know what the changes are.

I need to give a shout out to D – he’s kicked the fizzy habit over the past 6 weeks, is trying to eat breakfast and has already lost 5.5kg (12 pounds). Not mention he's coming for walks with me and generally continuing his habit of being super encouraging and affirming. I have never had someone tell me I'm beautiful in my life. He rocks.

I’ve caught up on blog reading and feel totally humbled by the stories of determination and ultimate success. It’s reassuring that there are others out there having the same dumb feelings and thoughts as me. Nearly 2 pounds down this week – wohoo!

mmm....lemon cake

I kicked myself in the arse last week and cut my calories a notch and it's worked! I also went nuts with the coffee and water one day and solved my *ahem* constipation issue. So the scales showed a 1.5kg (3 pound loss) this week. Although I'm mentally averaging that over a two period due to the aforementioned situation.

Fell off the wagon in terms of a formal food diary over the weekend but was adding stuff up in my head. Said a big fat NO to nibbles on Saturday night and then a resounding YES to the lemon cake that our guest bought over for desert. It was delicious. And I'm becoming really good at piling up the veges on the plate to make it look like I'm eating as much as everyone else (and enjoying it)...sneaky sneaky! Finding it much easier to cope when I pre plan meals for a couple of days in advance. Suits my anally retentive, obsessive compulsive personality quite nicely. Enjoy your respective summers....can't wait for mine!

Taking it on the chin

Scales showed a 300 gram (just over half a pound) gain this morning. Not happy. But at the risk of overshare, I’m constipated and feeling pretty yuck in general so I’m not planning a revenge binge just yet. Who the hell would I be getting back at anyway? The scales? Like they care! D is also trying to drop some weight before our holiday and also gained this week – sympathy pounds?

On the positive side, I did a crap load of gardening over the weekend – cut 2 trees down that had been bothering me since we moved in and started pruning the feijoa tree. Arms are hella sore this morning! Have also been super vigilant at tracking my calories and the snacking seems to be under control. Back to the water bottle!