13 weeks from now I aim to be 15kg lighter. How am I going to do this? I’ve paid almost $800, well part of it is a birthday present, and I’ve joined the Configure Express 13 week “Break” programme. This includes meal plans, 2 personal trainer sessions a week and support. Mum is doing the same thing and we both had our first day today (another post on that coming)

Starting weight – 88.2kg (the gym scales weigh heavier than my ones at home )

Starting Measurements – these will be different to what my PT took today but I’ll do them tomorrow morning.

Before photos…Ugh these are so hideous! I was so shocked when I downloaded these from the camera. Especially on how fat my neck/chin area is! And my tummy well yes, part of that is from having a baby but I still had a biggish tummy before him anyway so I can’t use that as an excuse.

I’ve always hated my legs and one of my biggest goals is to lose enough off my calves and ankles so I can buy knee high boots that aren’t the slouchy kind.

So there we are at BEFORE and so begins the journey to AFTER.

I’ve been reading a blog on the weight watchers site tonight and I came across a comment someone left on this person’s blog. It was in response to this quote the the blogger used (which I think may be a WW quote?)

“Losing weight is hard… but being overweight is harder… choose your hard”

And this is the comment that was left;

“it is hard work .. and its so true .. I’ve been carrying this fat body around for WAY TOO LONG now and that has been even harder …. especially hard when you sit on the side line instead of running and playing with your kids … you have no photos of your self with your children and realise they are growing up and you have no photo memories with me in them … that’s hard !”

This is me. It wasn’t me, but it IS me. That could have been me talking about my life. I am in hardly any photos with my son and he is almost 1 year old! What do I have to show that I was even part of my son’s life this past year? Sweet F all that’s what. It’s not good, it’s far from it actually and it’s damn right sad and terribly terribly upsetting.

With photos such an important way of documenting a child growing up, where in that documentation am I? Hiding behind the camera because I’m too fat to be in front of it that’s where. And it’s not bloody good enough. I want to be like the other mothers that have lots of photos of them with their children.

I want to be someone my son can be proud of, I don’t want him to be embarrassed of his fat mum. I don’t want to be the fat mum, I want to be it and healthy mum who can run around and play soccer with him and his friends all afternoon. I want to be the mum on the field playing soccer myself while my son and husband cheer me on from the sideline.

I don’t want to be this person anymore. I don’t want to look in the mirror everyday and hate what I see, trying to find something that I like about myself. Trying to convince myself that I don’t look that bad. Because I do. I do look bad, I am overweight, obese for my height. I’m only 157cm tall for heaven’s sake, my body isn’t built to carry around this much weight. I need to do something about it and I need to do it soon.

DS is turning 1 in 22 days and I want to be able to look back on the photos of his birthday and know that I was on my way to becoming a mum he can be proud of.

This is it, this is my motivation. My son. This is who I am doing it for. To be fit and healthy, to be a good example for him and to ensure that I am around for as long as I can be.

I’ve been missing in action from here purely from a lack of motivation to do anything! I think I may be getting to the stage where the groundhog day-ish-ness (yes I know that’s not a word) is getting to me. I love being at home with DS don’t get me wrong but I feel like I can’t do anything because my attention should be on him instead of painting/gardening/tidying. When he’s asleep I should be fine but 1. I want to sit and enjoy the peace & quiet and 2. I don’t want to make too much noise in case I wake him up.

Anyway, the reason I’ve come back on is I’m starting weight loss attempt number 1 million, seven hundred thousand….you get the picture. I’ve been trying to work out why I don’t have the motivation to stick to my good eating plan, I know I need to lose the weight for health reasons not just to improve my appearance. I wanted to lose weight for DS’s first birthday so I wouldn’t look like a fat slob in the photos. Doesn’t look like that’s going to happen huh.

However, while I may not get to the weight i originally wanted to be at I am going to do my damnedest to lose as much as I can as that will still be an improvement on what I am today.

I can’t believe I originally got down to 82 point something and then went back up to 88! How and why did I let that happen? Is it because I’m at home all day so essentially I’m hiding from the world so it doesn’t matter what I look like? Maybe.

I should have taken more advantage of the good weather to get out there and do more walks.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda….

Check out my weight loss page for my current stats and stay tuned for updates which I plan to do on a Friday night for weigh in and Sunday night for reviewing the week of eating and exercising.

Wish me luck!

While my eating hasn’t been the greatest, the banana cake I baked yesterday has been calling my name, I have been on 2 walks both 2-3km long.

I should confess that I have indulged in some of the aforementioned cake, however when in a moment of weakness I reached for it to have for breakfast ( I know, shock horror), I am quite proud to say I resisted. Instead I had nothing, the better choice by a slim margin but by no means ideal. After all, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, isn’t it?

I think I need to go back to writing down everything I’m eating. I really need to start tracking my points again but I’ll start with keeping a food diary to start with to get back in the habit of writing everything down and then start working out the points.

Have you noticed it’s getting colder over night? Brrr, winter is definitely on its way which isn’t going to help the whole exercise thing so I’ve got to get as much as I can in while the sun is still shining.

Updates on my other missions;

Organised Home – I was doing so well with keeping on top of the washing and dishes daily and then we had a manic weekend which threw everything out of whack so I’m back to square one. I did manage to do a deep clean and de-clutter of a corner of the lounge, that made me feel like I had accomplished something I cleared out the bookshelf, dusted and re-arranged, putting a stack of books into my “To Donate” pile. I threw out some rattan decorative balls that were old, faded and dusty and just really needed to go. So they’ve gone Some other bits and pieces have been moved to more appropriate homes as well.

Vege Garden – I  weeded the garden, again! This time however I actually dug in some Tui Organic Compost and watered it in. It then sat like that for about a week before I got out there again but then I (finally) transplanted my lettuce seedlings along with a rhubarb plant that I had been given at Christmas.

That’s it from me for today.

Keep well

C xx

This is going to be a looooooong term goal for us

We’ve been talking more and more about it lately so it’s obviously something we are both keen to work towards. We already have debt coming out our ears so we must first get these out of the way.

Plan of attack

1. Pay off credit card bill (currently sitting at just under $5000!!!)
2. Pay off hubby’s car loan
3. Pay off our personal loan
4. SAVE, SAVE, SAVE!!

I haven’t put save at any earlier stage as everything I’ve read has said to pay off debt before starting to save (apart from putting aside a $1000 emergency fund).

Each time we finish paying one thing off the extra $ we have will be put towards paying off the next item on the list. We are starting with the lowest balance first, then working up to the BIG ONE. Apparently this is called the debt snowball method, it just so happens that the credit card is the highest interest anyway and I will feel much better once I get this waaaay down and then gone altogether of course.

There are no penalties on any of the loans for paying them off early so that’s a bonus.

One of the ways of achieving this debt reduction is looking at me going back to work before my year’s maternity leave is up in May. There are a few things I need to organise before this happens though and that includes childcare options (!). I want to at all costs keep from having to send DS to a daycare, I just don’t like the thought of them no matter what good experiences other people have had/are having. I’ll post more on the options for childcare we are looking at once I have some more information

So, please feel free to share your home buying tips and experiences and ways to cut costs around the home.

Meanwhile I’m off to check out some frugal living blogs.

Take care xx

Climb the Mountain

I tried to climb the mountain today. As I inched my way up the path, I felt out of breath and had to turn back.
I tried to climb the mountain today. But, It was so hot outside, I thought I had better stay in my nice air-conditioned house and rest up for tomorrow’s attempt.
I tried to climb the mountain today. On my journey, darkness started to fall and I was full of fear, so I had to return to a safe place.
I was ready to climb the mountain today. But I had so may other things to do, so instead of climbing the mountain I took care of the much more important tasks; I washed my car, mowed the grass and watched the big game. Today the mountain will have to wait.
I was going to climb the mountain today. But as I stared at the mountain in all it’s majestic beauty, I knew I had no chance of making it to the top, so I figured why even begin trying.
I had forgotten about climbing the mountain today, until an old friend came by and asked what I was up to lately. I told him about all my plans to climb that mountain someday. I went on and on about how I was going to accomplish the task.
He stopped me and said, “I just got back from climbing that mountain. for the longest time I told myself I was going to try to climb it but never made any progress.”
“I almost let the dream of making it to the top die. I came up with every excuse of why I could not make it up the mountain, but never once did I give myself a reason why I could. One day as I stared at the mountain and pondered, I realized that if I didn’t make an attempt at this dream all my dreams would eventually die.”
” The next morning, I started my climb. It was not easy, and at times I wanted to quit. But no matter what I faced, I placed one foot in front of the other, keeping a steady pace. When the wind tried to blow me over the edge, I kept walking. When the voices inside my head screamed, stop! I focused on my goal, never letting it out of sight. I kept moving forward. I could not quit because I knew I had come too far to stop now. Time and time again, I reassured myself that I was going to finish this journey. I struggled mightily to make it to the top, but I CLIMBED THE MOUNTAIN.”
“I have to be going,” my friend said. “Tomorrow is a new day to accomplish more dreams. By the way what are you going to do tomorrow?”
I looked at him, with intensity and confidence in my eyes, and said, “I HAVE A MOUNTAIN TO CLIMB.”

Author unknown

Apart from a few lettuce plants that I bought on special from Mitre 10 Mega about a month ago I haven’t done anything else towards this goal.

I started off creating my garden diary, dug out the few seed packets I had, saved some margarine and ice-cream containers to sow some seeds in and then my progress ground to a halt. Whenever I plan to weed the vege garden, when DH is home to watch DS, it rains.

What I plan on planting:

• Broccolli
• Capsicum
• Carrots
• Cauliflower
• Lettuce
• Pumpkin
• Sweetcorn

These are things I know we will eat, I’m especially looking forward to growing my own pumpkin. I have visions of pumpkin pies, roast pumpkin and I have a dark chocolate and pumpkin muffin recipe I’m dying to try out.

But none of that is going to happen if I don’t get my A into G and weed the garden, is it?

Auckland Anniversary day really threw me out so I ended up doing my weekly weigh in this morning instead.

Weight: 86kg

…so I went up 100grams from my sneaky weigh in on Friday morning. Serves me right really. Also shows that being out of a routine in the weekend really affects what and when I eat and that has a negative effect on my weight. Not good.

One of my goals for the year was to paint my nails more often. The reason behind this was that I feel so much more “together” when my nails are nicely painted. I’m not happy with my appearance at the moment so a little luxury like this will hopefully keep me from being too down about myself.

How can I be down when I have a bright and cheery colour like this on my nails….It’s a brand called L.A. Colors – Color Craze in a bright orangey-red called Moody Red and surprisingly it’s from The Warehouse. I can’t remember how much it is but I’m pretty sure it’s under $10. It went on really smoothly and has really good coverage. There are heaps of bright, funky colours as well as some softer shades and some metallics too. I’m looking forward to trying out some more colours from the range

Weight: 86.5kg

I can’t say I was very surprised I had a shocking week and weekend eating wise. Over the course of the week I had cocktail sausages and 6, yes 6 (!) cream doughnuts and then the weekend before weigh in…

Saturday Food Diary

B – Up n Go Energise and an Apricot Bumper Bar (from the petrol station as I needed petrol on the way to work)

L – Shrimp Cocktail and 6 pieces of deluxe Chicken Teriyaki sushi (not terribly bad but not good either the deluxe version has and extra shot of teriyaki sauce on the top. I didn’t really need both either, should have had one or the other)

D – Chinese takeaways. ( I went down the road to get them and I was starving, I also had to go to the supermarket and while there I bought a huge blueberry muffin with a tonne of icing on top. I only ended up eating half the muffin as I felt sick, the icing was THAT sweet. I also felt disgusted with myself.)

Sunday – Chinese leftovers for lunch, hot dogs for dinner.

I felt totally disgusted with myself. Especially with the muffin thing and the doughnuts. I’ve never been like this before! What is making me turn to this kind of eating?!?!?! I really need to get this under control before I balloon even further.

This week has been a better week and I sneaked a peak at the scales Friday morning and was 85.9kg so I was pretty pleased with that. Hopefully it will be a bit lower again!