So...

Treading water is a funny old thing. You put in some effort to stay afloat, and that can be tiring, but it's not enough effort to actually get anywhere. 

Want to tread water a bit in life?
I'll tell you how, because over the past few months I have become something of an expert.

• Make excuses as to why you don't actually need to make progress
• Revert back to old habits because they are comfortable
• Forget what it feels like to be successful

Essentially, if I continue down the path I am on now I am going to wake up one day weighing 96.3kg and it is going to be very humbling. I feel as if I am clinging on to my weight loss for dear life but I am very close to losing my grip on the ledge and falling back into my old life. 

I can't be that person again! 

Last night I abandoned my plans of going to the gym and then having a salad and glass of wine at home and instead got very drunk, had fish and chips in a pub with my colleagues and now have a very, very sore stomach and feel totally fat. That behaviour isn't my life anymore, it's my old life peeking through.

I just feel so lonely in my new life sometimes though. My friends all go off drinking and I go for a run, or to the gym, or just straight home so I don't eat junkfood at the bar. 

I feel like I am the only person in the world who has to work this hard and give up so much to be in the healthy weight range. But there's that "oh poor me" voice again. This is my own doing, if I had stuck to my calorie intake throughout the week I would have had a bit up my sleeve for a glass of wine. If I could do what I used to do and stop at one glass of wine and no potato chips I could enjoy my Friday nights with friends rather than hiding myself away.

Once again I am finding myself at a point where I need to evaluate my decisions and actions and address the habits that aren't healthy. It's hard to do! But being obese is harder.

I want to get to 65kg, it's my ultimate goal and I need to finish this strong.

Want to stop treading water with me? Take stock of your life and pinpoint the habits that really aren't helping and figure out how you can modify them. Also, if you happen to live in Wellington, NZ and your idea of a good Friday night involves a gym session and a salad please, please be my bestie.

Lost

I'm lost.

Lost in my old habits, lost in how uncomfortable they make me, lost in the disgust of seeing 75kg on the scales again, lost in the fear that I'll never get this under control.

Yikes.

I'm trying to remember what got me started all that time ago back at Easter and kept me on track, and all I can remember is I wrote a blog post saying I have no idea, that success motivates success and you just have to put one foot in front of the other until you make it.

So that I shall.

Ignore the time of the year, ignore the madness going on around you, ignore the negative influences in your life, ignore having bronchitis and ignore the stress. Your emotional state should have no impact on what goes in your mouth.

The first day is the hardest. I'll check in again with progress. I promise.

Sad panda.

AWOL

I have been totally AWOL and I'm sorry!

• Update on paleo - good idea for some, but not for me. My IBS didn't like it too much and tended to get worse, my running performance deteriorated and overall it just wasn't for me. I believe life is too short to cut out entire food groups.
• Update on weight loss - I have not been doing well. I have gained a bit (my lowest is 72.3kg so far) and I am currently hovering around 74kg. Not too happy with this as Christmas is coming and my wedding dress is due to arrive in the next week or two and I need to get down to a weight I will be happy to maintain until March so I can get my dress altered.
• Update on life - stress! Work seems to be ignoring the whole holiday season and is busier than ever, my brother is in hospital and arrrggghh weddings are expensive!
• Update on running - the one part of my life under control. I ran 10km on Saturday! Amazing. I absolutely love it and can't wait to complete the half marathon, just two months to go!
• Update on tennis - I also love it, I want to practice a whole lot and get good enough to play some proper games... But really the only reason I play is to wear a cute skort!

Paleo Tip #1

This recipe is delicious converted to Paleo. Swap the flour for almond meal and skip the sweet chilli sauce if you are super strict. 

Nom!

I must say Peleo is the cheif killer of bloat. Yesterday morning I weighed in at 74.9kg massively bloated from a weekend of binging and booze (my first real off-track week since Easter - not proud). This morning? 73.3kg. Whoaaa.

Today I cheated and had a small scoop of gelato (no cone) at work... I was mega hungry which I think led to the gelato incident. I need to swap my dessert for an extra sack in the day. I'm never hungry after tea, but always ravenous after a no-carb lunch.

Recipe: Paleo Pork Larb

Serves 2.
Ingredients:

• Iceberg lettuce
• Red chilli, finely diced (as much as you like)
• 1 courgette, grated
• eggplant, finely diced (optional)
• brown onion, finely diced
• 300g pork mince
• juice of 1 lime
• ginger, finely diced
• dash of fish sauce
• fresh coriander leaves
• 12 almonds, roughly chopped
• capsicum and cucumber, cut into strips
• 2 tsp coconut oil

Method:

Prepare all ingredients to be cooked (everything except the lettuce, capsicum, cucumber and coriander)

Heat the oil in a pan, brown the mince slightly and add the chilli, courgette, eggplant, onion and ginger. Fry until all ingredients are cooked through (5-10mins). Add a dash of fish sauce and the lime juice (go easy on the fish sauce - that stuff is strong).

Cook for a further minute or two until the sauces have absorbed. Add the almonds and coriander and take off the heat.

Arrange the iceberg lettuce into cup shapes (imagine they are lettuce tacos!) and distribute the pork mixture among the lettuce leaves, add the capsicum and cucumber to complete the "tacos", roll up and eat, no cutlery needed!

Tasted amazing!

Day one of paleo done.

Highlights?

• I had loads of energy at the gym tonight despite being hungry, I ran 5km on the treadmill and then lifted all the things.
• I really enjoyed frozen blueberries microwaved with 1 1/2 TBSP of shredded coconut, the juice was absorbed by the coconut and it was yummers.
• I swapped the milk in my coffee with coconut milk (full fat) and it was actually pretty good.
• Logged my calories, came in around 1,400. Good stuff.

Low points?

• I was hungry at 4pm, like super hungry. Then I remembered fruit is a good option and a small banana took my hungry away.

Paleo?

Paleo is something I've considered for a long time. While I don't really believe in the "eat like a caveman" premise for good health (I have always felt grains are vital for health) but I really want to get my IBS under control and I think Paleo is going to be a good starting point to see what's really going on and it never hurts to be a little open-minded, right?

I'm a little nervous about the following:

• high fat content of what I'm eating
• getting carb deprived and crazy
• my body going keto and my breath becoming like death (although this shouldn't happen if I make sure to eat nuts, pumpkin and kumara I hope??)
• putting on weight
• the impact it might have on running

Things I'm curious about:

• Will it help my recently developed allergies which are driving me crazy?
• Will it mean my life isn't ruled by whether I have an upset stomach?

Tomorrow's food diary:

(I don't include vegetables which are neglible in calories because I'm lazy and because I never have and I've always lost weight regardless).

Menu:
Breakfast - Asparagus with poached egg and fried tomato, half a cup of frozen blueberries with shredded coconut.

MT - black coffee with a dash of coconut milk

Lunch - chicken salad with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, pumpkin, avocado, pumpkin seeds and an olive oil dressing 

Afternoon tea: Apple

Dinner: Pork mince cooked with ginger, chilli and spices served in lettuce leaf cups with chopped almonds and avocado. 

Dessert: Mixed nuts.

Announcements

So it's been a while since I've been in the mood to blog, my blogging motivation comes and goes, at the moment I'm not so fussed. But here's the highlights of my life recently

1. My health - I had a bit of a scare last week when I went to get something I thought was fairly routine checked out and got sent to see a surgeon. I got put on the waiting list to get another opinion and was given some extremely nasty antibiotics as a precaution. They were horrific, I spent 7 days very unwell and am just beginning to feel better now. My exercise was average during that time and so was my eating, I maintained my weight.
2. My weight - I made the healthy weight range!!!! WHOOAAA!!!!!! From obese to normal weight, I currently hover around the 73.6kg mark, and I've maintained there for a few weeks while I tried to figure out whether to stop or keep going. Tentatively I will keep going until I hit the 60s, but below 68kg isn't looking likely, I like my boobs too much and I'm happy they are still a solid D cup (TMI - I'm sorry).
3. Running - I signed up for my first ever half marathon!!!! WHOOOAAA AGAIN PEOPLE!!!!! I have been running quite a bit, in fact tonight after work rather than heading off for drinks I ran up a ridiculous hill to the Observatory and back (around 6km) before catching a bus home. I really love distance runs, this weekend I'm aiming for a 9k training run. Booyaaahhh.
4. Food - I have been experimenting with maintenance over the past few weeks and it has been surprisingly easy. My metabolism seems to be through the roof with all the running, tennis and walking I do so it seems I can get away with quite a lot. Example - We headed home to New Plymouth for labour weekend and I had mucho birthday cake and wine (it was boyfriend's birthday, happy birthday to my favourite!) and a fair bit of hangover food plus more cake, result? Maintained my weight that week. Granted, I did run twice in the three days we were there but still... So yeah, I kinda took a few weeks off tracking everything religiously and stressing about the scales and it's been really nice, last night we celebrated BF finishing his first ever Uni paper by having pizza and beer. I should point out though that my new lifestyle still looks significantly different from my old one even when I am indulging.

• Old pizza and beer night: Eat half a delivered pizza plus chips plus dessert and drink at least three beers, eat until stuffed and feel terrible the next day.
• New pizza and beer night: Share a few glasses of a craft beer we enjoy and eat small woodfired pizzas from our local italian place. Stop when satisfied, wake up feeling fine but a little thirsty.

Ok now I'm started I feel like there's a MILLION things I want to say, I shall try not to leave it so long next time!