Monday, January 30, 2012

I did it!!!! In your face lard!!!

So motivation Monday is usually an image to inspire, but instead.....

I FLIPPEN DID IT! I walked 101.02 km in January. I am so proud of myself right now, you have no idea. I can't stop smiling! I actually took a goal and smashed it! It is possible!!!!!

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Chef Sunday (Brown rice salad with feta)


So I know I said I would add recipes to my blog and I have been incredibly slack and haven't - but look here's the first one! With a photo! And its super fast, easy and YUM. Plus you can tweak ingredients to suit.

I've made this tonight for a bbq I'm going to - it feeds about 4-6 as part of a main meal - I've guestimated 8 serves out of the giant bowl I made it in so around 136 calories - but of course this will depend on the feta as you may like to add a bit more depending on your taste. It's also good with aged cheddar (but maybe not for calories with that tweak). Anyway....

Brown rice salad with feta

2 packets of sunrise brown rice (90 second stuff)
1/2 block of feta cheese
1 punnet of cherry tomatoes, or a couple of large tomatoes if you have those around instead
1 cup or so of frozen green beans
1 red onion (I used half because I find it too strong) or you could use spring onions instead
some low fat french dressing

Blanch the beans (you know, when you pour boiling water over them and then chuck them in icy cold water - like when Christchurch people head to Hanmer hot pools in summer).

While that's going on and your beans are getting cold - cook the rice in the micrwave and start chopping up your feta, onions and tomatoes. How fine you do it all is up to you, but I like tiny bits of onion and feta and then big hunks of tomato.

Once the rice is cooked, chuck it in your serving bowl and pour over 2 tablespoons of your dressing. I use french as I like the tang, but you could experiement with others. Chuck in the veges and cheese and toss. Add two more tablespoons of dressing and mix up a bit more.

Pop it in the fridge and you're done! How easy is that! My husband likes to add a bit more dressing once it's on his plate.

I think I got this from an ad on TV for one of the supermarkets, like the food in a minute ones. And we tested it on one of our special needs (aka vegetarian) friends who said it was delish. I'll let you know how it goes down tonight and if I get to bring home an empty bowl :)


Weekend!

So Saturday I met up with an awesome group of people doing round one of 12wbt. We had a training session down at a local park. We played games, chucked some tires around, ran round the park, did pressups, it was great.

Today I got up and added another 5.8km to my January total., only 6km to go with two days left in the month.

I haven't been writing as much this week - with doing a few walks after work by the time I get home I have enough energy left to eat and then crash out.

This is a hard journey I have set myself. It was easy to put the weight on, easy to make bad choices, easy to just eat whatever I wanted, easy to say 'I'll do it later' and then not do it at all. The excuses I would make 'I had a hard day at work, I need comfort food, I'm too tired to exercise, I can't be bothered, I'll go twice as hard tomorrow (yeah SURE you will), I'm not that big, I'm not that fat, I'm too unfit, I have pcos so it doesn't matter anyway - I won't be able to lose the weight....'

Sometimes those voices are still there, and I have to argue with them and push myself out the door. You can see if you look at my January kms, Thursday I was exhausted so gave myself the day off, Friday I planned to go, and then managed to talk myself out of it but I promised myself I would clean the bathroom and vacuum instead, which, I didn't even do - Saturday I had training so didn't walk, today I made the effort and I hurt now, but I feel great. Plus I burnt 400 calories.I just have to remember that feeling. Or encourage myself to JFDI for ten minutes and then I can turn around and come back - because ten minutes in usually I have my stride on, the music pumping and feel compelled to keep going.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

YES!

There is nothing more disheartening then seeing your weight go up then down then up from week to week. But this morning I think I've cracked it. With a 1.6 kilos lost, that puts me under my last weigh in from the end of round three - and tracking at 12.5 kilos all up. YES! Now I feel amped for the rest of the week, as opposed to stabby (like last week). I am going to kick ass.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Motivational Monday


I fully agree with this statement. This might be one of the ones I need to print out and add to a motivational board. Day 2 of Shred completed this morning and a walk planned for after work. I have nearly 29km to churn out by next Tuesday. eek.

Sunday, January 22, 2012


I've just set myself up with a meal plan for the week. I've contacted a personal trainer to see if he would be interested in helping myself and some of the team doing the 12wbt. Waiting to hear back from him, but in the meantime I've grabbed my diary and planned some exercise sessions. I've taken on another challenge that starts tomorrow - 30 days of shred. My February challenge is ready to go (29 days x 29 minutes of exercise every day + 29km walking). I'm about to go check my recipe books to look for low calorie meals to eat until the season starts - I'm going to blog about them too, adding in photos and the actual recipe in case others want to try them.

Its worth the effort.

Get Real (Task 2)

So task two of preseason is to combat excuses.

My biggest one is that I feel embarrassed about exercising in large groups. I keep getting invited to Zumba classes - which nearly everyone at work go to; and I just can't do it. I love dancing, but I'd prefer to do it in the comfort of my own home thanks. Although is saying that - my zumba dvd's have only ever been played about 4 times. For some reason, as much as I love to dance, I find doing a weights workout with Jackie, or sweating it out with Billy Blanks much more rewarding.

Last round, one of my goals was to run 5k by the end of the programme. I didn't achieve it. And the reason why is because I felt like people were looking at me when I ran. Because clearly, I am the centre of EVERYONE'S WORLD. Really, people couldn't give a shit about me running. I have no idea what those people are thinking - and why the hell should I even care?

The mind is a tricky thing. I have to force myself to run parts of my walking schedule. The weird thing is I love running, I remember doing cross country at school when I was a kid. But something about running in daylight as an overweight adult (and trust me you don't want to run in the dark in my neighbourhood) really makes me panic. I've completed week one of the c25k. I need to make sure I keep going - its a good way to get my km's in for January, and out of my comfort zone. I have to remember no one actually cares. Mostly they're probably thinking 'Good on her'.


Thursday, January 19, 2012

Here we go again...

I've signed up for round one of the 12 week body transformation 2012. I have been dicking around about making a decision - mainly because with going to America it would be nice to have as much money as possible. But, I'm only in the US for three weeks, which means I still get 9 weeks of proper 12wbt; (plus preseason tasks) and three of me making the best of going to a place where food may be super super supersized and I may (ha) go a little out of control. However - every hotel we are booked into has a gym and in Vegas we are staying at one end of the strip in order to get a fair bit of walking in (fingers crossed).

While I know those three weeks are going to be tough, the posts I read tonight on the 12wbt messageboard made me enthusiastic about signing up again and getting ready to smash it. There are a lot of people (there are some men on the programme, but not as many as the women) who have had such great successes in the past and some who are so pumped about starting, that its catching and I'm sitting here super excited to get to week one!

So the first task is to introduce yourself. Most of the people that read my blog on purpose (other than stumbling over it from me linking to twitter, or pintrest (if you want an invite let me know)) are my friends and workmates. So you all know that we work in a stressful environment. What people from the 12wbt may not know (I link my blog there too) is that with the earthquakes chch has gone through, I work in a small space, in a residential area. I'm pretty sure the neighbours think we run some kind of phone sex operation, given that there are eight women and one bloke, and we make jokes about it all the time. Anyway, contributing to that is the fact that its easy to make bad food choices when you are hungry, haven't planned your food well enough for the day, and the closest food supply to you is the corner dairy. It's also hard to train from home given that our hills are no go zones - and some of our parks are a bit rough due to land damage - I'm not quite ready for a gym membership yet though - maybe closer to winter.

I also have PcOs. Which means that my body doesn't process food the same way someone who doesn't have it does. It can be harder for me to lose weight, easier for me to gain it, and some women with it suffer from acne and hair issues. (lucky I don't, even though my husband likes to take the piss and says that I do). It also causes me to have some fertility issues.

And I forgot the general stuff - Hi, my name is Mel, I'm 35, live in Christchurch, New Zealand with my husband (of not quite a year), our two boxer dogs (Reese and Dee) and our two cats (Molly and Fergus).

I'm looking forward to Round One 2012. I think its the push I need to make this year about me. My health, my fitness, my life.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

It burns...

I hate being woken up suddenly. And when a 5.0 quake hits its definitely a bit of a shock to the system. Lying in bed hearing all your glasses rattle and hearing things fall - having a 26 kilo boxer leap on the bed to get between me and Andrew because she's scared, while a 32 kilo boxer is trying to get out so she can bark at old Ma Nature - it doesn't make for the best nights sleep. It took ages to go out again - thinking 'is that it; is another one coming; is it going to be bigger; is the TV okay?'. Its exhausting.

It also means that instead of getting up at 7am like I planned, I end up getting up at 8am but still managed to knock out a nearly two hour trek - 8.41km. Burnt 679 calories and am now on the downward slope of under 50km to trek for the rest of January.

This challenge was a crazy idea but its encouraged me to get out and move my ass so that's a good thing.


Tuesday, January 10, 2012

JFDI - J(ust) F(riggen, or ucken) D(o) I(t)

I had a serious case of the tireds this morning. Not sure if its because I couldn't get to sleep last night, had crazy dreams, a 4.2 earthquake, a cat trying to sleep on my pillow and just one of those BLAH nights. Usually after a night like that I'd try and stay in bed an extra hour, and then by the time I trot off to work would of helped myself to a red bull (along with some chocolate) to try and get my energy up for the day.

This morning, while I was exhausted and didn't get up to walk, I did get up, ate a fairly sensible breakfast ( I had a sculpt protein shake, but that's still okay) got ready for work, get there on time, and didn't drink the red bull. After work I managed a 5.46km walk (took me an hour) and burnt 434 calories.

Today's motivation was:



30km in to the 100km challenge. I've started weaving streets - ie walk up mine, then go down the next, then back up the next cross street and so on - it ads on extra km's without being too far from home so if anything does happen (which when you live in the shakiest damn city in the world you do get a bit paranoid) makes me feel a bit better about being able to get back to the girls (dogs) asap - rather than being miles away.

Its awful though, walking the broken streets, with the holes in the roads, missing or slumping houses and sometimes a bit of paranoia creeps in when you're walking under one of the few remaining awnings... but this is my home - I love my city, and all the broken-ness of it; even though sometimes I find it tough going and I bitch and moan and make noise about leaving.

I keep thinking I should take photos of what I am seeing, but if it was my house I would feel violated so I don't. But maybe on an early morning walk I could take a few shots. And keep them. This is part of our history now, as horrible as it is. But I know Christchurch will come back stronger. 


Monday, January 09, 2012

Monday....

This made me giggle.



Cake is a liar. Even if it is tasty.

3.41km added this morning - 74.79km to go (eeeeek).

Sunday, January 08, 2012

Motivation

is a funny thing. So is self sabotage (which I am quite good at). This morning I got halfway through what I thought would be my walk feeling really over it and not in the mood and debating about cutting out a few streets earlier than usual - but then a song came on my ipod that made me step up the pace and the next thing I knew I'd walked 6.62km and burnt over 500 calories. One song motivated me to keep moving. And that song....



Weird I know. Maybe its the beat or the guitar solos...

Now I just have to stop myself from eating those calories.

So one week in I've walked 21.8km with 78.2km to go.

Damn thats a big number!

Wednesday, January 04, 2012

Wednesday Weigh In

Its going down! The 2 kilos I put on after the challenge finished/xmas/earthquakes is 300 grams away from being GONE FOR EVER. Seriously, losing this weight twice is flippen annoying, and the worse part is that this is probably the third or forth time I've lost that same kilo. But no more.

So technically, my current weight loss is at 11.9 kilos. Pretty happy with that right now.

The 100km challenge has bought out my competitive nature. I've walked just over 10km in the last three days. This morning I got up at 5.45 and did a 4km walk. I am thinking I might do another walk tonight, but I do have to cook mum's birthday cake so I might not have time.

I have so many places I have to be accountable that I shouldn't fail. I log my food and exercise and calorie burns with myfitnesspal (username is melsienz if you want to add me); then I use runkeeper; imapmyfitness (for walking) or Ease into 5K (for helping me to learn to run) to track my km's. I log my km's on the facebook 12wbt NZ group and check out everyone else's numbers; log in to the back end of blogger to update that box over there ------>  and then if I have something to say I type a blog post, and sometimes I tweet it too. Phew.

Now its time for breakfast. I think I deserve a good feed today :)

Monday, January 02, 2012

So now that I have to be accountable...

I just went on a wee run/walk and took 2.56km off that 100km total. boom!


January Challenge

So, one of the awesome ladies in the NZ group of 12wbt set herself a goal of covering 100k in January. I'm going to join in too. Yes I know it only equates to 3k a day, but there will be some days where I don't get up and run (aka today - mutiple overnight aftershocks make for a very restless sleep and no energy - although I am going to attempt to go later tonight) so its still an achievable and measurable goal.

I'll set up a little box over there ----->   to keep an eye on myself :)