Bits 'n' Pieces

Like my title says, I've been training in bits and pieces!  I have a good day then a non-day and it just keeps repeating itself.  A few good days here and there isn't going to help me achieve my goals.  

I need to be consistent, which is proving difficult at the moment, for example, today is my "day off".  Alan's at work, Hayden and Ava are at school, Holly and Christian are supposed to be at kindy, but Holly has a throat infection and Christian won't go to kindy without her so my gym session for today is gone.  

That might sound a little weird saying my gym session is gone, so I think I should explain that the membership I have allows me access to the pool at any time, but I am only allowed in the gym between 12 pm and 5 pm Monday to Friday and any time on the weekend.  I'm probably being el-cheapo but the way I have my membership set up saves me $40 a month which is going into an account for school books and uniforms for 2013 - I suppose that's the responsible mother and budgeter (I just made that word up) in me coming out.

Anyhoo, I have gone way off topic, what was I talking about - CONSISTENCY!!!  Where is mine?  I want it and I know I need it so this week I am going to focus on being more consistent.  If I can't get to the gym, I will just swap my days around.  Alan works the night shift tomorrow so he can watch the kids and I can do today's gym workout tomorrow instead - Voila, problem solved.  I must learn to become consistent because.......

*Weigh-in*

I am down 300 grams (10 oz) this week, which gives me a loss of 18.3 kg (40 lbs).  I am still a week or two away from the 20kg, but I am really looking forward to getting there.  Every time I go to eat something I repeat to myself 20 kilos, 20 kilos and then decide whether the food is really worth it.  It's not a bad strategy and it seems to be working for me.

*Weekly Give Ups*

Last week I gave up dessert and to my surprise I really didn't miss it.  The only night I had dessert was Sunday because it was mothers day and my husband went to the trouble of putting an apple pie in the oven for himself me.

Speaking of mothers day, I hope all the mums out there had a wonderful day and got lots of presents like me, well not exactly like me.  I got the usual mothers day stall gifts from school and kindy and then a heap of "presents" from fart face the hubster to open.  To my surprise all the "presents" were actually already mine, he had just wrapped up things he found in my handbag and general items from around the house as well.

I also got a huge box of Cadbury Favourites chocolates........

........and was promptly told "those aren't for you, the thought was for you".  I also got a beautiful bunch of freshly cut flowers from the neighbour's gardens flowers, which the cat chewed on.  So wishing all the mums a happy mothers day (better late than never).

I am way off topic again!  This week I will be giving up.....thinking.......any sort of takeaway.  If I feel the urge for delicious, freshly made pizza, I will kick it to the curb and make my own fresh homemade version.  I will also be sticking with the no dessert thing just to make sure I really get rid of the habit.

Nothing else to report, but if I did, I think I would probably digress again and end up writing another 10 pages or so.  Enjoy your day :)

 

Reality Check

This week I gave myself an exercise plan to follow and so far it has been so-so.  I completely skipped Saturdays schedule mainly because it was the first Saturday in months that my husband had the day off and we ended up going to the markets, out for lunch, took the kids to the park and then to the football that night so I really didn't even have time to do anything.  I know being busy isn't an excuse, but my husband having a Saturday off is a very rare occurrence and we took advantage of it.

Now, because I was such a slacko on Saturday and did nothing on the plan - NO! wait, I did do one thing on the list, I weighed myself.  I weighed in at 97.2 kg (214 lbs), which gives me a total loss of 18 kg (39 lbs).  I love how close I am to losing 20 kgs (44 lbs) cause I actually find it motivating.  

Anyway, because I was so slack on Saturday I made sure I didn't skimp on Sunday.  I got up early enough to have the kids fed and dressed so I could make it to the gym by 8am when they opened and I did my weight session, which also included a smidge of cardio.  I love mixing a bit of cardio (15 mins treadmill and 10 mins cross trainer) in between the weights as it really helps to get the old heart rate moving, which in turn, means I burn more calories.  I also made it back to the gym later in the day for a Zumba class!

Monday is my rest day so I have the choice of doing nothing or doing either my yoga or pilates DVD.  The physical intensity in both of the DVDs is very minimal so it's more for just stretching out the old body.  I chose not to do them yesterday cause I didn't feel sore like I thought I would, but I am sure that could easily change at any moment.

Today's events are a little behind.  I slept though my alarm this morning which resulted in me missing my early morning swim, but I did make it to the gym a little later for my weights session.  The day is not over yet so I still plan to get the rest of my scheduled exercise in :

• 30 min Treadmill workout
• 100 push-ups program
• 200 squats program

Now all I need to do is fine tune my eating - that is where my real problem lies.  I have no problem with exercising, in fact I love it cause it makes me feel so good, but then I tend to ruin a good workout with bad eating choices.  My food choices are definitely letting me down at the moment so I really need to focus on what goes into my mouth.  I also have to keep reminding myself that.......

In light of my new found food focus, I have decided to re-incorporate a strategy that worked well for me in the past.  Each week I would choose a favourite food to give up for the week.  This week I am giving up dessert.  I have started to get back into the habit of having dessert which I am sure isn't helping me along on my journey.  I rarely have it, but lately it's becoming more frequent so this week I am ditching it.  I'm glad that I now have the ability to recognise when an old habit is returning as it gives me the chance to stop it before it takes hold again.

Please tell me if you ruin a workout with bad food choices.......

• Do you follow a food plan each day / week?  
• Have you ever tried to out-exercise a bad food choice?
• What tips do you have for me to make better choices?

 

Weekly Give-ups

This week I have given up the hot chocolates. I was starting to get into this dangerous situation of every single time I left the house I had to buy a hot chocolate and even though I wouldn't get marshmallows and I would always order it with skim milk I did add a shot of caramel syrup so there is at least an extra 1 point every time (not to mention the cost on my wallet). Besides, how do we really know that they use skim milk?? I have never actually seen them make it so I don't really know if it is skim or not.

I used to work at the races on a Saturday and I was the coffee girl which meant getting coffee for everyone, usually around 5 - 6 people and my boss would always ask for skim milk. Now because it was one of those stands you could see what was being made and they used "Lite" milk. It was low fat, but not skim and that is the only milk they had so do we really know what we are getting???????? Anyway the main reason I have given up the hot chocolate is because I was falling into a dangerous pattern which I am sure would have become a bad habit. I think I will just give up the hot chocolate with my normal chocolate till Christmas time.

This week I am still off the soft drink as well as the bread. I am totally over the soft drink now and it doesn't even phase me when I see it where a few weeks ago, I would have knocked people out of the way at the supermarket to get one. 

 

My husband drinks soft drink every night at dinner and he would let my oldest have some as well, but I have actually stopped him from having it every night. He is restricted to Friday and Saturday nights only with any special occasions thrown in, like a birthday. As far as the bread is concerned, I don't really miss it that much which is surprising considering how much I love the stuff. One of the things about the bread is that I feel soooooo much better and am no where near as bloated as I was before. Maybe giving up the bread permanently might not be such a bad choice. Now all I have to do is decide what I will be avoiding next week - so much to choose from I don't know where to begin.