It has been a few days my friends!
As a general catch up, I forgot my tablet yesterday (oops!), water intake has been fine all week and today I had two meals instead of one to shake things up a bit (and ironically, could not be bothered going to the shops to get more shakes).
I wanted to touch on something important today. On Thursday, I had a family luncheon up the mountains. To give you an idea of what this consists of, it typically starts off with some savoury snacks like pretzels, chips, crackers and cheese followed by either a barbeque or roast including red meat, some kind of mixed green salad and potato. By avoiding potato (unless you're on a carb cycle day - more on that later) it's generally a well balanced meal with plenty of greens and protein. Then comes the round of coffees and assorted nibbles.
On this particular occasion, it was my grandfather's 91st birthday (go Grandfather!). So, after the meal cake was served and I did indulge in a small piece, knowing full well that I had eaten nothing remotely bad all week. It was of course delicious, despite the fact it tasted extra sugary compared to all the non-sugary foods I had been eating recently. I made a conscious decision that that was it for me and I would have no more of anything to be put onto the table.
Which of course, was when my childhood favourites, Clinkers and my obsessive chocolate of choice, Rolos (which I have been known to consume an entire block of in dire times of needing comfort food) comes out in many bowls and placed on the table right in front of me. This was not easy. Sitting next to my cousin whom I always enjoyed playing guess the colour of the Clinker games with was definitely challenging. Not to mention the other plate of perfectly broken off pieces of Rolo chocolate, delicately piled on top of one another ready for me to carelessly devour one by guilty one.
With these two bowls of cocoa scented droplets from the gods parked right under my nose I had to put in some serious coping mechanisms in order to prevent myself from chowing down. It's a strategy that I've only put into place recently myself and, whilst difficult, has been quite successful for me. Tell me if this situation sounds familiar...
"I walked into the cafe to get a flat white, on skim of course. Waiting for my coffee I perused the cake display. So many sparkling, colourful, sweet looking, sweet smelling cakes. My eyes locked onto one piece in particular. I began to focus on its features, it's perfectly spread icing, it's soft, bouncy texture, it's perfect cut with a decadent, fresh slither of cream between it's layers.. Should I have this cake? I am on a diet... But just look at it, how perfect it looks, how delicious I know it will be. Look at that frosting, I'm going to have it. I am having a skim coffee and I will work out later to compensate... It will be fine. I'm definitely going to have that awesome bit of cake."
Of course it does.
Are you going to workout later to compensate for that cake? No. (let alone the two hours on a cross-trainer that would require to undo)
Does the skim milk mean you can splash out on other things? Of course not.
Do you realise what just happened in this scenario? Maybe, maybe not. Do you know and just don't want to admit what you just put yourself through?
Think back to a time when you incidentally saw something forbidden and became slightly fixated until you had it. Your mind will think of all kinds of excuses, "but I-" "I'll just-". You'll also try to justify it to yourself. "It's okay because I've worked hard", "It's been a bad day, I deserve to enjoy this!". Not only does this happen, but this happens because you just keep staring at it.
Staring or fixating on a bad food is what triggers all of these justifications and excuses to eat whatever it is you have just spotted. It is a lot harder to say no to yourself when you keep staring at it, pondering all the ways you can make it okay. It also gives you a longer period of time to try and bargain with yourself about it, longer to um and ah.
The easiest thing to do when you see a huge cake display window is to just walk away. It's that simple. Sure, these things do catch your eye with their bright lights and polished name plates, moist cakes and smooth icings, but don't look at it long enough to notice that. If you see it, have that quick glance and walk away. Busy yourself looking at something else like merchandise, business cards (in the coffee shop scenario), engage in a conversation with your friend with your back turned to the cakes, whatever you have to do to not have it in your field of vision. Even in the background, cake cases and similar display objects find a way to bury into your mind and plant the seeds of destruction.
This is easier than it sounds, I promise you. "How can I just look away from something that is right there? How do you tear yourself away from that?" you might ask. You just do. Distract yourself with something else, physically turn your back on it (yeah, metaphors!) or simply walk away until your coffee is done. Do not try to busy yourself by looking at the healthier options in the cake display, your eyes will wander and you'll be right back to square one. It might not seem like it, but it is a conscious choice to walk away from something like that. If you think it is too hard to do, then you are letting yourself or even wanting yourself to give in. Just divert your attention to something else entirely. If you stare at something in there for more than just one second, you could be in trouble.
This is how I managed to sit in front of not one, not two, but three plates full of some of my favourite chocolate and not touch one bit. Any time I did find myself scanning the table and they popped into my line of sight, I'd look elsewhere. I'd start a conversation. I'd physically turn a different direction so I could not "accidentally" see them. It is just that simple.
There is a part two to self control in these kinds of scenarios. I am by no means saying you should never ever eat something remotely bad for you or indulge in anything decadent once in a while. Every now and then there is nothing wrong with that. Here is the trick to it..
Never plan on the spot when you're going to indulge in a forbidden food, always plan ahead.
Whilst food planning is always important to do ahead of time, this is equally true for little treats or naughty foods. For example, at the beginning of the week I knew that I would be attending my grandfather's birthday lunch. Being a birthday, I knew there would be cake. I examined the rest of my week, there were no other situations where I could be around a sweet food and made a conscious decision ahead of time that I will have a small piece of cake on the day.
This works well in two ways. Firstly, it takes out all of the pressure umm-ing and ahh-ing about whether or not to eat something bad spontaneously. You have no inner struggle so you do not feel pressured or even as guilty for eating it. It was a well thought out, rational decision. The second way this works is that it is also a huge motivator for the rest of the week. If you do find yourself tempted, you can remind yourself "I won't have this because I know later in the week I am having cake". It satisfies that urgency by knowing that in the near future, you will get to have something just as good. It also makes it easier to walk away from.
"Sorry toots, my forbidden food quota is full for the week, perhaps another time cheesecake, perhaps another time."
-MM
Saturday, 28 January 2012
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
Hello hello!
It has been a few days, but they have been good ones! I had a bit of a weigh in and found that my waist had come up slightly, although to be fair, I put that down to bloating from my period (sorry for the TMI, gents). I did however lose 2kg exactly which is great!!
For some reason I have found myself getting more hungry throughout the day which, whilst I'm on this particular diet, is quite annoying. I'm not up to the stage where I need to start incorporating my snacks etc yet, although perhaps I should be listening to my body. I did have a small bowl full of cut up vegetables (cucumber, carrot and capsicum, YUM!) and am just having my lunch shake now.
On Monday I drank 3L of water which was certainly an achievement. By always having my water bottle directly next to me, I can just power through those litres. It's funny how even where my laptop normally sits, I do have to lean over to grab my water bottle. Sitting in the loungeroom with it right next to my hand makes such a difference. It's funny how lazy our subconscious can be! It's similar how when you have a cup of coffee/hot chocolate/tea, it's usually right by your hand and before you know it, it's gone. If you have it even a metre away from you, you easily forget it's even there. Same story with the bottle of water!
In a week or so my waist measurements will be a frustrating thing to go off as I plan on doing some waist training for this competition so it won't be a reliable source of assessing weight loss, it'll be all about the kilos then. Therefore, exercise still needs to be fairly light so I don't change my muscle mass where weight would be a good thing.
One thing I have been very slack on is my vitamins. I have multivitamins and fish oil tablets I really need to start taking but I just keep forgetting. I'm going to try and make that a habit as of tomorrow!
-MM
It has been a few days, but they have been good ones! I had a bit of a weigh in and found that my waist had come up slightly, although to be fair, I put that down to bloating from my period (sorry for the TMI, gents). I did however lose 2kg exactly which is great!!
For some reason I have found myself getting more hungry throughout the day which, whilst I'm on this particular diet, is quite annoying. I'm not up to the stage where I need to start incorporating my snacks etc yet, although perhaps I should be listening to my body. I did have a small bowl full of cut up vegetables (cucumber, carrot and capsicum, YUM!) and am just having my lunch shake now.
On Monday I drank 3L of water which was certainly an achievement. By always having my water bottle directly next to me, I can just power through those litres. It's funny how even where my laptop normally sits, I do have to lean over to grab my water bottle. Sitting in the loungeroom with it right next to my hand makes such a difference. It's funny how lazy our subconscious can be! It's similar how when you have a cup of coffee/hot chocolate/tea, it's usually right by your hand and before you know it, it's gone. If you have it even a metre away from you, you easily forget it's even there. Same story with the bottle of water!
In a week or so my waist measurements will be a frustrating thing to go off as I plan on doing some waist training for this competition so it won't be a reliable source of assessing weight loss, it'll be all about the kilos then. Therefore, exercise still needs to be fairly light so I don't change my muscle mass where weight would be a good thing.
One thing I have been very slack on is my vitamins. I have multivitamins and fish oil tablets I really need to start taking but I just keep forgetting. I'm going to try and make that a habit as of tomorrow!
-MM
Sunday, 22 January 2012
Today wasn't great.
As per usual I woke up late in the morning and had my breakfast shake that happened to be my last, then munched on a few blueberries. I went to go out and catch up with a friend and as per usual, one thing lead to another and I didn't end up getting home until 7:30pm. Being Sunday, I had to throw on a pair of shorts and run to pole. Pole was okay, nothing new achieved and I felt fairly tired for some reason.
Due to getting carried away having fun, I managed to miss almost all of my water and my lunch shake (that I had go and buy anyway), let alone buy some for the next week. As such, at the moment I feel thirsty as hell and bloated!
Dinner was a small plate of roast beef (that was AMAZING!) with spinach and peas, so good to eat and had to resist every urge I had to eat more! Changing lifestyle habits is hard, no doubt about that.
Just trying to catch up on my water for the day. On the plus side, I did exercise (pole) so that's good.
I guess the best way to avoid these kinds of things happening is carrying either snacks (good ones, obviously) and a bottle of water. I tend to get carried away and go to places unplanned so perhaps I should swallow my pride and finally get a bigger bag. Despite loving my tiny handbag so much.
Time to get more organised!
As per usual I woke up late in the morning and had my breakfast shake that happened to be my last, then munched on a few blueberries. I went to go out and catch up with a friend and as per usual, one thing lead to another and I didn't end up getting home until 7:30pm. Being Sunday, I had to throw on a pair of shorts and run to pole. Pole was okay, nothing new achieved and I felt fairly tired for some reason.
Due to getting carried away having fun, I managed to miss almost all of my water and my lunch shake (that I had go and buy anyway), let alone buy some for the next week. As such, at the moment I feel thirsty as hell and bloated!
Dinner was a small plate of roast beef (that was AMAZING!) with spinach and peas, so good to eat and had to resist every urge I had to eat more! Changing lifestyle habits is hard, no doubt about that.
Just trying to catch up on my water for the day. On the plus side, I did exercise (pole) so that's good.
I guess the best way to avoid these kinds of things happening is carrying either snacks (good ones, obviously) and a bottle of water. I tend to get carried away and go to places unplanned so perhaps I should swallow my pride and finally get a bigger bag. Despite loving my tiny handbag so much.
Time to get more organised!
Saturday, 21 January 2012
What are "short term fixes" and do they really work?
So I've jumped all over the place, where do I actually stand on these quick fixes I keep mentioning?
They are just that, short term fixes. Sure, some of them are complete rubbish and just won't work at all, but oddly enough some of them do! Some of them are amazing!! ... While you're on them. Then when you come off, you generally return to old eating habits with nothing blocking you and bam, Fat-city again. Then the cycle begins again, etc. Alternatively, you can just stay on them for the rest of your life. But this will end up with you being malnourished, irritable for forever giving away your favourite foods and let's face it, you'll cheat all the time with food and not stick to it. Not to mention your body will adapt and it'll just stop working eventually anyway.
Diet shakes, etc are fine if you have a short term and a long term plan. If you are trying to lose weight for a wedding or some other kind of event then sure, diet shake it up. Just make sure you have a long term plan to integrate into it and progress to after you come off of them.
Duromine is the absolute last resort that anyone should ever try. Going straight to it can do some damage as you're essentially just pumping your body with amphetamines. I would only recommend Duromine (or similar) if you have tried healthy eating, supplements (both vitamins and pre-workout) and various kinds of exercise. If you aren't used to pre-workout supplements or high amounts of caffeine regularly through your blood, Duromine is the LAST thing you should be taking.
Some of these are also fads that haven't been properly tested. For example, take the Latin Seed! This was huge, globally for weight loss. You'd chop up a small portion of this seed and eat it, gradually increasing it and it would "flush away toxins" and whatever else that made you fat. It wasn't a Latin seed at all, but some poisonous doodad with no long term studies to verify it. After some pretty serious injuries of the liver and all kinds of organs, the product was recently pulled from the shelves. This was something stocked in a lot of spas and healthfood stores. Concerning, yes?
If you have to use a short term weight loss option, use something that has had thorough testing and is fairly well known. Obscure products can get you into that kind of trouble.
Remember, always have a long term plan and a way to progress between them! Otherwise you're right back where you started.
-MM
They are just that, short term fixes. Sure, some of them are complete rubbish and just won't work at all, but oddly enough some of them do! Some of them are amazing!! ... While you're on them. Then when you come off, you generally return to old eating habits with nothing blocking you and bam, Fat-city again. Then the cycle begins again, etc. Alternatively, you can just stay on them for the rest of your life. But this will end up with you being malnourished, irritable for forever giving away your favourite foods and let's face it, you'll cheat all the time with food and not stick to it. Not to mention your body will adapt and it'll just stop working eventually anyway.
Diet shakes, etc are fine if you have a short term and a long term plan. If you are trying to lose weight for a wedding or some other kind of event then sure, diet shake it up. Just make sure you have a long term plan to integrate into it and progress to after you come off of them.
Duromine is the absolute last resort that anyone should ever try. Going straight to it can do some damage as you're essentially just pumping your body with amphetamines. I would only recommend Duromine (or similar) if you have tried healthy eating, supplements (both vitamins and pre-workout) and various kinds of exercise. If you aren't used to pre-workout supplements or high amounts of caffeine regularly through your blood, Duromine is the LAST thing you should be taking.
Some of these are also fads that haven't been properly tested. For example, take the Latin Seed! This was huge, globally for weight loss. You'd chop up a small portion of this seed and eat it, gradually increasing it and it would "flush away toxins" and whatever else that made you fat. It wasn't a Latin seed at all, but some poisonous doodad with no long term studies to verify it. After some pretty serious injuries of the liver and all kinds of organs, the product was recently pulled from the shelves. This was something stocked in a lot of spas and healthfood stores. Concerning, yes?
If you have to use a short term weight loss option, use something that has had thorough testing and is fairly well known. Obscure products can get you into that kind of trouble.
Remember, always have a long term plan and a way to progress between them! Otherwise you're right back where you started.
-MM
So, what now?
So now that you have my truly extended weight loss history, let's see where I am now.
Yes, I am in the health and fitness industry.
No, that does not mean I follow all the rules.
So where we last left, I had tried a plethora of things to lose weight. Most were good, some were quite bad for me. I am a firm believer in that if you want to do something about your weight, there is no quick fix or short term solution, it is a lifestyle change. If you want lifetime results.
What I am about to say is a little controversial, but it's also honest, which is what this blog is all about.
At the moment I am on a magnitude of quick fixes.
BUT YOU SAID-
Yeah yeah, I know, I was there. Let's just get back to where I am now and then I'll explain my hypocrisy.
In approximately 5 weeks, I have a huge competition. Obviously not a fitness competition (wow is that a damn long way off!), nor a competition in which my body is directly judged but it is a dance competition. Miss Burlesque Australia in fact! (P.S. it's going to be an awesome show, you should watch). So naturally, I want to look and feel my best for the big event.
As you will have read previously, a protein and greens only diet whilst smashing it at the gym gets me nowhere in terms of the results it theoretically should show. Generally speaking, this should shed at least 4cm off the waist and 3-6kg minimum as an estimate. Not to mention overall better looking tone and skin (if you're on vitamin supplements as well). For me, I'd be lucky to see 1cm change or 2kg. Admitedly, if there has been an absence of exercise for some time and you go and smash it, results happen very quickly for a short period of time as your metabolism and body are woken up and kickstarted, but for whatever reason my results don't really reflect this like a typical person would.
So what am I doing?
Everything I shouldn't, basically. I have reverted to old habits and guess who is back on the diet shakes? Yours truly. And what's this, a script for Duromine, again?! Surely you gest!
Here is my stupid, body destroying plan:
In theory, each method shaves off approximately 2-5kg in the first week and 1kg every week after that (not including plateaus, more on that later). By combining the two, hopefully I can speed up the process. It has been 12 months since taking Duromine, so that is in a safe situation it has been about 20 months since I last tried the diet shakes, so I'm hoping my body has forgotten about them and maybe it'll start working again. The only exercise I am doing is dance rehearsal and my usual pole class. I am trying to get as much incidental exercise as possible though.
In theory.
So I have been doing this for nearly 3 weeks, how is progress?
I started with these measurements:
Waist = 92 cm
Hips = 109.2 cm
Height = 159cm (something tells me I won't lose any here)
Weight = 78.8kg
Approximate clothing size = 14 (just!)
Eww.
I would like to point out that because of pole, I do have a bit more muscle mass than the average bear, I'm not 78kg of pure lard.
Anyway, after 2 weeks the usual initial shake up began! My favourite part. It's usually nothing but disappointment from there on in. One thing I do like about these diet shakes is that it's a good place to go in and get measured and have it all written down on a card, great for reference and seeing progress/set backs.
15/1/11 shows:
Waist = 86cm
Weight = 76.6kg
Overall, pretty damn good. Given the huge loss on my waist, it seems that I was carrying quite a bit of water weight (the 2L of water a day flushes a lot of this out).
Measuring hips is quite tricky, which is a shame as that is where all my weight seems to go. How do I know this? Besides my obvious pear shape, it's all in my history.
Looking back through my measurement/progress card, in February, 2010 I got back down to 66.7kg with whaaat?! An 84cm waist. That is only 2cm difference than what I am now despite the fact that I am 10kg heavier. So evidently, that's where that's going. Losing weight off the hips is also a pain as it has limited bloodflow, but that's a whole other story we will get to later.
Most of my meals have been salads or a blob of chicken with broccoli or spinnich, yum! Also get's a bit old, but there's ways to jazz it up (that's right, I can make broccoli interesting).
Obviously, this is just my short term plan.
My long term/progress plan isn't quite ready, but I don't have to start integrating it for another 2-3 weeks yet. More on that when it comes to hand!
-MM
Yes, I am in the health and fitness industry.
No, that does not mean I follow all the rules.
So where we last left, I had tried a plethora of things to lose weight. Most were good, some were quite bad for me. I am a firm believer in that if you want to do something about your weight, there is no quick fix or short term solution, it is a lifestyle change. If you want lifetime results.
What I am about to say is a little controversial, but it's also honest, which is what this blog is all about.
At the moment I am on a magnitude of quick fixes.
BUT YOU SAID-
Yeah yeah, I know, I was there. Let's just get back to where I am now and then I'll explain my hypocrisy.
In approximately 5 weeks, I have a huge competition. Obviously not a fitness competition (wow is that a damn long way off!), nor a competition in which my body is directly judged but it is a dance competition. Miss Burlesque Australia in fact! (P.S. it's going to be an awesome show, you should watch). So naturally, I want to look and feel my best for the big event.
As you will have read previously, a protein and greens only diet whilst smashing it at the gym gets me nowhere in terms of the results it theoretically should show. Generally speaking, this should shed at least 4cm off the waist and 3-6kg minimum as an estimate. Not to mention overall better looking tone and skin (if you're on vitamin supplements as well). For me, I'd be lucky to see 1cm change or 2kg. Admitedly, if there has been an absence of exercise for some time and you go and smash it, results happen very quickly for a short period of time as your metabolism and body are woken up and kickstarted, but for whatever reason my results don't really reflect this like a typical person would.
So what am I doing?
Everything I shouldn't, basically. I have reverted to old habits and guess who is back on the diet shakes? Yours truly. And what's this, a script for Duromine, again?! Surely you gest!
Here is my stupid, body destroying plan:
In theory, each method shaves off approximately 2-5kg in the first week and 1kg every week after that (not including plateaus, more on that later). By combining the two, hopefully I can speed up the process. It has been 12 months since taking Duromine, so that is in a safe situation it has been about 20 months since I last tried the diet shakes, so I'm hoping my body has forgotten about them and maybe it'll start working again. The only exercise I am doing is dance rehearsal and my usual pole class. I am trying to get as much incidental exercise as possible though.
In theory.
So I have been doing this for nearly 3 weeks, how is progress?
I started with these measurements:
Waist = 92 cm
Hips = 109.2 cm
Height = 159cm (something tells me I won't lose any here)
Weight = 78.8kg
Approximate clothing size = 14 (just!)
Eww.
I would like to point out that because of pole, I do have a bit more muscle mass than the average bear, I'm not 78kg of pure lard.
Anyway, after 2 weeks the usual initial shake up began! My favourite part. It's usually nothing but disappointment from there on in. One thing I do like about these diet shakes is that it's a good place to go in and get measured and have it all written down on a card, great for reference and seeing progress/set backs.
15/1/11 shows:
Waist = 86cm
Weight = 76.6kg
Overall, pretty damn good. Given the huge loss on my waist, it seems that I was carrying quite a bit of water weight (the 2L of water a day flushes a lot of this out).
Measuring hips is quite tricky, which is a shame as that is where all my weight seems to go. How do I know this? Besides my obvious pear shape, it's all in my history.
Looking back through my measurement/progress card, in February, 2010 I got back down to 66.7kg with whaaat?! An 84cm waist. That is only 2cm difference than what I am now despite the fact that I am 10kg heavier. So evidently, that's where that's going. Losing weight off the hips is also a pain as it has limited bloodflow, but that's a whole other story we will get to later.
Most of my meals have been salads or a blob of chicken with broccoli or spinnich, yum! Also get's a bit old, but there's ways to jazz it up (that's right, I can make broccoli interesting).
Obviously, this is just my short term plan.
My long term/progress plan isn't quite ready, but I don't have to start integrating it for another 2-3 weeks yet. More on that when it comes to hand!
-MM
Who is this fat chick telling me about health and fitness?
Woah man, take it easy.
So I'm a little overweight, but who isn't? It's not like it's going to hurt me in the long run.
WRONG.
People always underestimate how important health is and often overestimate their own health. I know I do sometimes. This blog has two purposes; to help you guys with some nutrition, fitness and general health tips and also as a diary of some of my health and fitness problems, progress and achievements.
Let me give you some background information about me so I don't come across as a crazy fat chick eating burger after burger screaming "WHY AM I SO FAT?!"
Now this will all sounds bad to start with, but read this until the end. I have always struggled with my weight, even when I was a mere 54kg when I was 18. I never ate what I considered to be too badly, I didn't drink much. My belly was a little flabby although I didn't do any exercise other than incidental exercise (walking around campus, climbing stairs, etc). When I was 19, I decided to change this after my boyfriend told me I was carrying a little extra. So I started those weight loss shakes.
They worked! I lost a good, few kilos and got down to about 50kg. Looking back, I was tiny, but still felt fat (again, the jiggleness of my itty bitty belly from lack of abdominal muscle).
When he and I parted ways, I decided to take up exercise as my vice. I joined a gym for 3 months and got a little buff! I was doing an hour and a half every day - 40 minutes of cardio and an hour and 20 minutes using every weights machine. I felt great! I had more energy, was looking a bit better, felt a bit stronger... Until I couldn't afford a gym membership anymore, so I had to stop going. I had put on quite a bit of muscle mass, so I had gone up to 60kg. Despite not going to the gym anymore, my weight stayed at 60 and didn't budge.
To be honest, I have forgotten how I ended up getting to 65, but I did. Just age perhaps? It might have slowly started to creep back on over the period of 12 months or so after I stopped the gym. Either way, no matter what I ate, I just stayed at 65kg, fluctuating occasionally to 68kg. That was what I call my "weight threshold", a point you get to where no amount of quarter pounders and sundaes will budge it up further, it's the highest it'll ever get.
When I was 22, I decided to take up pole dancing for fitness and a bit of fun. I fell in love with the sport! It is all kinds of amazing but more on that later. I increased my strength a little from it but no major changes.
I also went overseas for the first time to Croatia. Beautiful place and amazing food! Too amazing. I had somehow put on 5kg in the 10 days that I was there. 5kg above my weight threshold. How can this happen?!
When I came back and saw the pictures from my holiday I nearly died, I looked terrible. There were jiggly parts that shouldn't be jiggling. One friend even said "you look like you just had a baby but haven't lost the fat from it yet." Harsh perhaps, but true!
Being that I "had no time for exercise", back on the diet shakes I went. I started downing the diet shakes again. Same old story, two shakes a day, 2L of water, protein and veggies for dinner, fruit. Mix it up by having the meal at lunch sometimes after a plateau, blah blah blah. I also started doing 30 situps (10x 3 different types) and 20 pushups every morning.
After 6 months I got down to about 60, 61kg and was looking pretty good! I was practicing pole at least once a week, taking up burlesque classes and eating, well, not a whole lot. I occasionally would even have chips and the shakes just kept doing their thing. I came off the shakes and just began eating relatively well.
Then I got a horrible flu. My body goes into shut down/starvation mode and I start to store fat. All I eat is toast and soup. I can't move much so I stop doing my situps and push ups and fall out of that routine. So I put on a few kilos. Kinda stayed around the 68kg, again, give or take a few with fluctuation.
Then I met a lovely boy who was very keen on taking me out to dates. To avoid being at "the parents'" places, we would go out and eat just about every night. This took a toll on both our wallets and my health. My partner also had quite a sweet tooth, something I wasn't overly used to myself. Suddenly I also became a bit hooked on refined sugary things like ice cream, apple pies, lollies, etc.
Most of my clothes weren't fitting, my face looked chubby in photos - I now weighed 75kg.
I nearly fainted when I read the scales and tried another. Same result. Back to the diet shakes!
They didn't work.
My body had seemed to develop an almost immunity to them. I shed 2kg in the first week and then nothing, no matter how much I switched up my one meal of the day.
Back to the gym!
We both signed up and started to go every day at 5am. Once I got into the routine, it was fantastic. I had a real routine going with doing 40 minutes of steady state cardio and about 15 minutes on weights. I also began to take some post work out protein and prework out drinks. Whilst I rekindled my love for fitness (a habit I truly love, but can fall out of the routine very easily), I wasn't getting any results.
I began reading up about fitness and also realised that I'd like to become a PDHPE teacher. So I took the plunge and left work and began full time study doing my Bachelor of Health and Movement (Sport) that has since, also taught me a lot.
I had switched to the cross trainer as my cardio weapon of choice as I found that my legs built muscle rather quickly and weren't just retaining post work out type fluids after a bike session. I had noticed an improvement on my VO2 max (basically, my oxygen intake - how quickly you run out of breath) but nothing else after my steadystate training on the cross trainer on level 5 with a heart rate of 165bpm for an hour. My belly got less jiggly, but still no where near where I wanted to be, no weight change.
I had pondered that I perhaps had a hormone problem, like my thyroid. I had a blood test but all of my hormones and blood sugar levels were normal. So I began some PT lessons. Whilst I lost a bit of centimeters around the waist, my weight wasn't budging and my muscle mass wasn't going up either. We switched some things around, I began free weights instead and did more HIT cardio which I could only do for 7 minutes or so. With my weights, I would do 3 sets of no more than 12 reps - if it was more, I'd up the weight. I was also on a diet that consisted more or less of eggwhite (and one whole egg) for breakfast, protein shake, usually a chicken salad for lunch, protein shake, a few nuts and protein (chicken, turkey, occasionally steak or more egg) with spinach for dinner, 4-6L of water a day. Again, maybe 1cm a fortnight on and off and no change in weight or strength (besides my ever building legs).
This diet didn't seem to be working, so I consulted the nutritionist who assessed my body fat, water percentage and my food diary. My body fat was a whopping 40% and I was told I should be at 20%. Overall, I wasn't eating bad foods. She switched me to a low GI diet which I tried for 4 weeks, no change.
I had read a few interesting articles about cortisol which I had never heard of. Cortisol is a stress hormone that can be stimulated by either too much stress and overexercise. As I was going 6-7 days a week, I thought this was it, the reason why I wasn't losing weight!
Cortisol tests showed negative, it was perfectly functioning. How annoying.
After 6 months of this with all the switching and little working, I gave up. I wanted a quick fix. So I went to the doctors who of course calculated me as obese because the BMI is a ridiculous system for individual assessment and was only designed for population use. But in this instance, it worked in my favour. I began to take duromine. I started on the lowest dosage and tried to still keep my food intake the same to keep my metabolism rolling. I finally started to lose a bit of weight. I would get dizzy during intense workouts, so I had to turn it down a notch. A few more cm and kg came off and I got down to about 69kg. After 3 months (max limit for duromine a year) I stopped the duromine and continued my exercise. I didn't really lose anymore, it was as low as my body could go. I was looking fairly firm (for my size) and generally pretty happy with myself. I was a good size 12 again instead of 14's. Along with the duromine, I also got 4 visits to see an exercise physiologist who gave me some exercises.
For another view, I saw a natropath. My iridology report reflected some interesting things about my liver (probably the duromine affecting it), stress, some pain in my right shoulder (from pole dancing) and something about my stomach (I had previously had an endoscopy showing that I had a hiatus hernia, not any kind of gluten intolerance, etc). She gave me some alternative diet plans which I tried to follow and also suggested some teas for my belly pain. She also mentioned that my difficulties in weight loss might be a lack of enzymes, a supplement I'm yet to try.
Uni went back and the gym just stopped. My partner was working odd hours so he wasn't going either which didn't help. Despite doing a PDHPE degree that involved at least 3 hours of fitness a week and my 3, hour long dance classes a week I began putting on weight again. This disheartened me, my diet worsened. The weather got colder, I wanted more hot chocolate and apple pies. Fat again. Clothes began to no longer fit once more, the fatface returned in photos. I began my exercise physiology which was really enjoyable. I learnt even more about fitness and tried these circuits that had been designed for me, 3-4 times a week.
I'm not going to lie, I didn't do exactly how much I was told to do, perhaps about 70%. In saying that, I definitely did enough that should have reflected some results. My body fat had come down by 1% which was good news. In the time that I was seeing my exercise physiologist I had tried three different kinds of circuits with no success. He was absolutely puzzled. My weight had gone up by 1kg every month I had seen him, now standing at a glorious 76kg once more. He mentioned that he had only seen results like this is PCOS (Poly-cystic Ovary Syndrome) clients. After a day or two of solid research, I immediately rushed to the doctors, this would HAVE to be it. I had many of the symptoms; fatigue, restlessness, forgetfulness, depression and anxiety, weight loss difficulties, absent periods (although this was probably attributed to my implanon contraceptive) and mood swings.
All tests show negative. Blood sugar, testosterone, androgens, cholestrol - all fine. As you could imagine, I was at wits end right now.
This more or less brings me to the here and now. And I somehow put on a bit more weight over Christmas (but who doesn't?), up to 78kg.
--
This blog is to kickstart me again. I have a few measures in place (more on that later) and I figure the more I vent and write, the more I have to stick to things, they become real. Also if anyone starts reading this I'll feel bad letting people down.
So stay tuned! Follow me on this (magical?) journey through discovering even more health, fitness and nutrition information, sharing my knowledge and (hopefully!) my successes with you!
-MM
So I'm a little overweight, but who isn't? It's not like it's going to hurt me in the long run.
WRONG.
People always underestimate how important health is and often overestimate their own health. I know I do sometimes. This blog has two purposes; to help you guys with some nutrition, fitness and general health tips and also as a diary of some of my health and fitness problems, progress and achievements.
Let me give you some background information about me so I don't come across as a crazy fat chick eating burger after burger screaming "WHY AM I SO FAT?!"
Now this will all sounds bad to start with, but read this until the end. I have always struggled with my weight, even when I was a mere 54kg when I was 18. I never ate what I considered to be too badly, I didn't drink much. My belly was a little flabby although I didn't do any exercise other than incidental exercise (walking around campus, climbing stairs, etc). When I was 19, I decided to change this after my boyfriend told me I was carrying a little extra. So I started those weight loss shakes.
They worked! I lost a good, few kilos and got down to about 50kg. Looking back, I was tiny, but still felt fat (again, the jiggleness of my itty bitty belly from lack of abdominal muscle).
When he and I parted ways, I decided to take up exercise as my vice. I joined a gym for 3 months and got a little buff! I was doing an hour and a half every day - 40 minutes of cardio and an hour and 20 minutes using every weights machine. I felt great! I had more energy, was looking a bit better, felt a bit stronger... Until I couldn't afford a gym membership anymore, so I had to stop going. I had put on quite a bit of muscle mass, so I had gone up to 60kg. Despite not going to the gym anymore, my weight stayed at 60 and didn't budge.
To be honest, I have forgotten how I ended up getting to 65, but I did. Just age perhaps? It might have slowly started to creep back on over the period of 12 months or so after I stopped the gym. Either way, no matter what I ate, I just stayed at 65kg, fluctuating occasionally to 68kg. That was what I call my "weight threshold", a point you get to where no amount of quarter pounders and sundaes will budge it up further, it's the highest it'll ever get.
When I was 22, I decided to take up pole dancing for fitness and a bit of fun. I fell in love with the sport! It is all kinds of amazing but more on that later. I increased my strength a little from it but no major changes.
I also went overseas for the first time to Croatia. Beautiful place and amazing food! Too amazing. I had somehow put on 5kg in the 10 days that I was there. 5kg above my weight threshold. How can this happen?!
When I came back and saw the pictures from my holiday I nearly died, I looked terrible. There were jiggly parts that shouldn't be jiggling. One friend even said "you look like you just had a baby but haven't lost the fat from it yet." Harsh perhaps, but true!
Being that I "had no time for exercise", back on the diet shakes I went. I started downing the diet shakes again. Same old story, two shakes a day, 2L of water, protein and veggies for dinner, fruit. Mix it up by having the meal at lunch sometimes after a plateau, blah blah blah. I also started doing 30 situps (10x 3 different types) and 20 pushups every morning.
After 6 months I got down to about 60, 61kg and was looking pretty good! I was practicing pole at least once a week, taking up burlesque classes and eating, well, not a whole lot. I occasionally would even have chips and the shakes just kept doing their thing. I came off the shakes and just began eating relatively well.
Then I got a horrible flu. My body goes into shut down/starvation mode and I start to store fat. All I eat is toast and soup. I can't move much so I stop doing my situps and push ups and fall out of that routine. So I put on a few kilos. Kinda stayed around the 68kg, again, give or take a few with fluctuation.
Then I met a lovely boy who was very keen on taking me out to dates. To avoid being at "the parents'" places, we would go out and eat just about every night. This took a toll on both our wallets and my health. My partner also had quite a sweet tooth, something I wasn't overly used to myself. Suddenly I also became a bit hooked on refined sugary things like ice cream, apple pies, lollies, etc.
Most of my clothes weren't fitting, my face looked chubby in photos - I now weighed 75kg.
I nearly fainted when I read the scales and tried another. Same result. Back to the diet shakes!
They didn't work.
My body had seemed to develop an almost immunity to them. I shed 2kg in the first week and then nothing, no matter how much I switched up my one meal of the day.
Back to the gym!
We both signed up and started to go every day at 5am. Once I got into the routine, it was fantastic. I had a real routine going with doing 40 minutes of steady state cardio and about 15 minutes on weights. I also began to take some post work out protein and prework out drinks. Whilst I rekindled my love for fitness (a habit I truly love, but can fall out of the routine very easily), I wasn't getting any results.
I began reading up about fitness and also realised that I'd like to become a PDHPE teacher. So I took the plunge and left work and began full time study doing my Bachelor of Health and Movement (Sport) that has since, also taught me a lot.
I had switched to the cross trainer as my cardio weapon of choice as I found that my legs built muscle rather quickly and weren't just retaining post work out type fluids after a bike session. I had noticed an improvement on my VO2 max (basically, my oxygen intake - how quickly you run out of breath) but nothing else after my steadystate training on the cross trainer on level 5 with a heart rate of 165bpm for an hour. My belly got less jiggly, but still no where near where I wanted to be, no weight change.
I had pondered that I perhaps had a hormone problem, like my thyroid. I had a blood test but all of my hormones and blood sugar levels were normal. So I began some PT lessons. Whilst I lost a bit of centimeters around the waist, my weight wasn't budging and my muscle mass wasn't going up either. We switched some things around, I began free weights instead and did more HIT cardio which I could only do for 7 minutes or so. With my weights, I would do 3 sets of no more than 12 reps - if it was more, I'd up the weight. I was also on a diet that consisted more or less of eggwhite (and one whole egg) for breakfast, protein shake, usually a chicken salad for lunch, protein shake, a few nuts and protein (chicken, turkey, occasionally steak or more egg) with spinach for dinner, 4-6L of water a day. Again, maybe 1cm a fortnight on and off and no change in weight or strength (besides my ever building legs).
This diet didn't seem to be working, so I consulted the nutritionist who assessed my body fat, water percentage and my food diary. My body fat was a whopping 40% and I was told I should be at 20%. Overall, I wasn't eating bad foods. She switched me to a low GI diet which I tried for 4 weeks, no change.
I had read a few interesting articles about cortisol which I had never heard of. Cortisol is a stress hormone that can be stimulated by either too much stress and overexercise. As I was going 6-7 days a week, I thought this was it, the reason why I wasn't losing weight!
Cortisol tests showed negative, it was perfectly functioning. How annoying.
After 6 months of this with all the switching and little working, I gave up. I wanted a quick fix. So I went to the doctors who of course calculated me as obese because the BMI is a ridiculous system for individual assessment and was only designed for population use. But in this instance, it worked in my favour. I began to take duromine. I started on the lowest dosage and tried to still keep my food intake the same to keep my metabolism rolling. I finally started to lose a bit of weight. I would get dizzy during intense workouts, so I had to turn it down a notch. A few more cm and kg came off and I got down to about 69kg. After 3 months (max limit for duromine a year) I stopped the duromine and continued my exercise. I didn't really lose anymore, it was as low as my body could go. I was looking fairly firm (for my size) and generally pretty happy with myself. I was a good size 12 again instead of 14's. Along with the duromine, I also got 4 visits to see an exercise physiologist who gave me some exercises.
For another view, I saw a natropath. My iridology report reflected some interesting things about my liver (probably the duromine affecting it), stress, some pain in my right shoulder (from pole dancing) and something about my stomach (I had previously had an endoscopy showing that I had a hiatus hernia, not any kind of gluten intolerance, etc). She gave me some alternative diet plans which I tried to follow and also suggested some teas for my belly pain. She also mentioned that my difficulties in weight loss might be a lack of enzymes, a supplement I'm yet to try.
Uni went back and the gym just stopped. My partner was working odd hours so he wasn't going either which didn't help. Despite doing a PDHPE degree that involved at least 3 hours of fitness a week and my 3, hour long dance classes a week I began putting on weight again. This disheartened me, my diet worsened. The weather got colder, I wanted more hot chocolate and apple pies. Fat again. Clothes began to no longer fit once more, the fatface returned in photos. I began my exercise physiology which was really enjoyable. I learnt even more about fitness and tried these circuits that had been designed for me, 3-4 times a week.
I'm not going to lie, I didn't do exactly how much I was told to do, perhaps about 70%. In saying that, I definitely did enough that should have reflected some results. My body fat had come down by 1% which was good news. In the time that I was seeing my exercise physiologist I had tried three different kinds of circuits with no success. He was absolutely puzzled. My weight had gone up by 1kg every month I had seen him, now standing at a glorious 76kg once more. He mentioned that he had only seen results like this is PCOS (Poly-cystic Ovary Syndrome) clients. After a day or two of solid research, I immediately rushed to the doctors, this would HAVE to be it. I had many of the symptoms; fatigue, restlessness, forgetfulness, depression and anxiety, weight loss difficulties, absent periods (although this was probably attributed to my implanon contraceptive) and mood swings.
All tests show negative. Blood sugar, testosterone, androgens, cholestrol - all fine. As you could imagine, I was at wits end right now.
This more or less brings me to the here and now. And I somehow put on a bit more weight over Christmas (but who doesn't?), up to 78kg.
--
This blog is to kickstart me again. I have a few measures in place (more on that later) and I figure the more I vent and write, the more I have to stick to things, they become real. Also if anyone starts reading this I'll feel bad letting people down.
So stay tuned! Follow me on this (magical?) journey through discovering even more health, fitness and nutrition information, sharing my knowledge and (hopefully!) my successes with you!
-MM
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