Weigh in

I'm back....!!!

Weight Watchers

So yesterday I bit the bullet and joined weight watchers. I weighed in at 82.1kg and I think my leader must have seen the look in my eyes of humiliation as she kindly says to me "that's the highest weight you'll be here" and it's true. By taking this step while it was hard and hurt my pride a whole lot it was the best thing I could do to stop the downward spiral back to old habits. I had really put a negative box around the program in my mind by telling myself it is disordered to get weighed in each week and weak to need that. That's really not true. When I was sitting in my meeting I realized how much support I have been missing out on and how silly I've been... If I'm really honest it's because I failed at weight watchers and instead of picking myself up and learning I got angry and blamed the program because that's easier than blaming me. Sigh.

At the end of the day the last time I was losing weight successfully was November 2012. So while it feels fresh it really isn't and no wonder my habits have slipped.

So now I'm trucking along and it is a struggle dealing with the hunger that goes with changing from eating like a horse to eating to lose weight but I know my body will adjust after a week or so. Brunch out this morning meant this afternoon was a breakfast for lunch kind of day.

Today

Changes are coming!

Hello

It sure has been a while.

I might come back.

Maybe.. 

I'm not sure if I'm all that great at this blogging thing, but I do remember it motivated me a heck of a lot and helped me get some positive thoughts into a world where people understand what it's like to struggle towards a healthy lifestyle.

I feel like a whole lot has changed in a year, let me give a quick rundown.

• I've been married a year! 
• I still work at the same great company, but my role has changed and there is a bit more responsibility/freedom but lots of hard work. I love it.
• My brother spent 3 months late last year in hospital, which really had a big impact on me. It was very serious so he was at Wellington hospital which is close to me, which meant I spent a lot of time with him. For months my life consisted of work, hospital, sleep, worry. I think that three months was one of the hardest times of my life, many sleepless nights and many many tears. He is ok now, and next Friday we are planning to celebrate his back brace coming off (fingers crossed!). The positives from that time were the closeness it gave us, spending hours together each day in a hospital room will do that. It was also a big test for my marriage and I think we got through it just fine and it made us stronger. It was comforting to have a shoulder to cry on, someone to cook for me, look after me, pick me up late at night from the hospital and also to visit my brother and provide boy time for him as well. 
• I recently ran my first 10k, I did no training and had not run for months, was quite worried about it and finished in 1.05. I was quite pleased!
• We headed to Melbourne for my birthday in January and watched the Australian open tennis finals, it was a great week and wow what an amazing city!

Hmmm.... A quiet year really!

Balance

I gained 5kg after my wedding. I went full crazy and fell back into my old habits of binge eating.

Rather than dusting myself off and getting stuck back into my healthy routine which would have put me back on track I panicked.

I panicked, freaked out, and then tried to change a million things in my life because I had lost faith in my ability to take care of myself. The further I slipped back into bad habits the more I despaired and the more I despaired the more I binged to cover up the stress. A very nasty cycle!!

Basically my head went a bit like this:

• Omg another kilo on!
• Omg, nothing I do will work, I can't stop eating!
• There's something really wrong with me, I'm going to be back to my starting weight within months!
• I'm so stressed, I need to eat!
• Ugh, I feel so disgusting, I need to make a plan. I know, I'll exercise 3 times a day, eat 1400 cals a day and be hard on myself, I'll start tommorrow.
• I've been eating healthy for two days and I still weigh 5kg more than before my 2 months of binge eating, wtf!?
• This isn't working, omg, so fat, must comfort eat.
• I'll hire a personal trainer.
• She says to eat 1900cals per day. Can't do that.
• If I'm going to eat more I'll make it all protein, that's what weight training is about, right?
• Her workouts are too easy, I don't feel like I'm working off these calories,  I feel a bit abandoned by her.
• This high protein diet is boring, don't want the food I packed for lunch, so I'll go buy something.
• Didn't lose a kilo this week, must comfot eat.
• Carb binge ensues...

And so it has gone on and on. I sit down, make a plan, expect to be skinny within days, get disappointed and then have a binge.

This isn't me, I'm not thinking rationally, I'm just in a huge panic. It really does need to stop. I'm playing games with the scales, I won't weigh myself for weeks then I'll weigh daily and get mad if I'm still over 78kg. 

So, two problems I can fix right this minute:

• Set my daily calories to 1600 in myfitnesspal and not get anxious about this, I exercise daily so this is reasonable.
• Email my personal trainer and outline how I feel. I was so excited to start working with her, but so far things aren't working out as I'd hoped.

That last one is a tricky one, but it's my money and I don't feel I'm getting value, even though I think she's fantastic as a person and an athlete.

Three goals I will work on this week:

• Getting back into walking to work and try out doing weights in a lunch break. 
• Finding time to fit in at least two runs, even if they are just 20-25 minutes.
• Eating within my calorie goal each day, taking one day at a time and bearing in mind that one meal in a restaurant that may push me over my calorie limit is not going to make me gain weight. 

I really want to get back on track, my goal is still 68kg and I want to get there! My work midwinter party is in 5 weeks, and I think in that time I can get back under 75kg.

The person I want to be

I want to be that strong, independent businesswoman everyone secretly admires. 
I want to have quiet confidence and grace, to be sharp when I need to, but understanding. 
I want to have a body that says as well as working on my career, I make working on my body a priority.
I want to be that person who always brings a salad, who never gets busy and just grabs lunch from over the road at McDonalds.
I want people to see me in gym gear or at special events and think "Wow".

I may be a complete perfectionist, but I want it all. I don't want to cover up who I am now, that won't work because what you eat in secret you carry in public. I want to CHANGE who I am now.

Just got an email back from a very cool personal trainer who I want to draw me up a programme to get me started on some proper lifting. #Excited!

Some overdue changes

There comes to a point in every weight loss journey where you lose a comfortable amount of weight and then the going gets tough. I have completely come unstuck, I'm back to bad habits and I feel awful. I haven't been for a run since weeks before my wedding and I really feel sluggish and unfit and I hate it! 

I have become really dependent on sugar to make me feel good since I don't have a lot of exercise going on, which worries me. The way I've been eating recently makes me wonder if I have a food addiction.

Anyways. I have decided that for now, I lack the ability to stop at "just one". Be it just one drink, just one lolly or just one sprite zero. My solution to that is to cut it from my life and eat a bit cleaner for the next few weeks. I've also done some thinking about the amount of food I'm using to fuel my body and I think I may need to be a bit more realistic.

Here's some facts:
- I no longer have a wedding deadline looming which means I can take things a bit slower
- I walk to work most days, which burns around 150 calories. I don't count it.
- I aim to eat 1350 calories most days. Sometimes I get quite hungry but fight it.
- Prior to the wedding I was running 20km per week, walking to work, playing netball once a week, playing tennis twice a week and trying to hit the gym a few times as well. All on 1350 calories per day.
- My net calories some days would often be 500. That's 1350 eaten, and 850 burned through exercise alone, without taking into account the calories my body needs just to function!!!

Not eating enough makes your body ask for more. Craving more food can lead to binge eating and making poor choices. 

Eating a more reasonable number of calories = better satisfaction = no cravings and binge eating. Reasonable assumption?

So, as an experiment I have decided to up my calories to 1600 per day. I was initially going to try 1800 but I got a bit scared! The compromise on upping my calories so far is to get a lot more protein into my body and to make sure I am doing some high intensity exercise 6 times per week!

This week's plan:

So, my BMR is: 1572 which I multiply by 1.2 (sedentary) to give my daily calorie needs of 1900cals/day. I subtract 300cals per day to get my my goal of 1,600 calories which gives a weekly deficit of 2,100 calories and I add my weekly burn of 3,000 calories to that which is a total deficit of 5,100 calories which equals a weight loss of 1.4 pounds. 

Whew, got all that???

So, starting point. Will weigh myself tomorrow but here is the lowdown right now:

I'm tired, I have a constant headache, my mouth tastes and feels horrible, I'm dehydrated and my skin feels greasy. My muscles are killing me from netball yesterday and I just feel really out of shape and I'm super irritable.

After 21 days on this plan I hope to:

- Have lost 3kg, feel bright and alert, not be craving unhealthy food, have my skin back to normal and not feel bloated and lethargic. I'd like my fitness levels to be on their way up to a more comfortable level and I'd like not to be so cranky all the time. 

I'm keen to give this a decent shot, so I might post up my daily eats since I have fixed the camera on my phone (yay!).