What a difference a year makes.

Last September I weighed 98.5kg, and was an inactive unenthusiastic lump.
If you have been following my blog, you will know that a lot has changed since then.
Only 8 days into this September, and I have achieved a couple of amazing things this month alone. 

First of all, my hubby and I went on a 3 night 'Lifestyle' cruise, a cruise to nowhere out of Brisbane. My first cruise, something I had always wanted to do, and it's now ticked off my bucket list (I plan to go on a longer one now I know I can handle my sea legs). The best thing being, the cruise was free... a competition prize I won.  I prefer to think of it as the Universe rewarding me for making such positive changes in my life.

HERE'S TO MY NEW LIFE

SAILING AWAY

WATCHING BEAUTIFUL SUNSETS WITH MY MAN

Now today I ran in "The Stampede" I signed up months ago, as a challenge to myself, and all these months I was secretly packing myself... until today. Today it was truly excitement, not nerves. 

I decided that any obstacle I encountered I would tackle, and I did, every last one of them, from crawling through mud under barbed wire, jumping over burning logs, climbing over a bus, to running through live electrical wires (yes I willingly got zapped by 10,000 volts - and it hurt!) - and that is to name only a few.

No times, no medals... just downright dirty fun, and my goodness was it ever. I am exhausted now, my feet hurt, and I am still finding mud in my hair, ears, and other bodily crevices, and I can't wait to do it again. 

BEFORE

AFTER

The old me would never have had the courage to do this, would never have believed that I could. If I can make such huge changes in a year, I can only imagine what I can achieve in 2 years, or 5 years,
Anyway, September is here, the Sun has decided that our Spring should be more like a Summer, and we are definitely going to make the most of it.

Next big adventure?...I'm booked in to go abseiling on Sept 29th. 

Week 8 - Mini Milestone Park Run

Week 8 of 12... week 8 means -

• Redo the Fitness Test
• Retake the 'measurements'
• Do another mini milestone.

MINI MILESTONE
My second mini milestone was to do a 5km run..without stopping, and as you know I completed that last weekend....but once you start, you gotta keep going, right?

So, my friend Sandra and I tried out Park Run this morning, and I have decided that it is one of the coolest things on the coast.... and I'm going to try and do it every week in my build up to doing 10 kms in the Gold Coast marathon.

A 5km timed run, every Saturday at 7am, for free. Run by volunteers, assisted by the council, and the course is beautiful beach front, and paths through the dunes and trees.  Below is a video showing the course we ran this morning... Yep thats right RAN! When you watch the video it seems quite a distance.

It's worldwide, so there could be a location near you... if not, why not enquire about starting one?


By 1pm, I had an email with my time, and placing in the field, and considering that official 'fun runs' have a registration fee of between $30 - $45 each time, this free weekly community run is just awesome.  It happened to be ParkRun's first birthday, so there was an extra big turn out of 196 people.

FITNESS TEST 
Since the start of the 12WBT, my fitness has improved in the following ways:

• 1km time trial  -  Day 1 = 8 min 2 sec, Now = 6min 1 sec
• Push ups (on knees) - Day 1 = 31 in 1 minute, Now = 65 in 1 minute
• Push ups (on toes) - Day 1 = 0, Now = 12
• Abdominal strength* - Day 1 = level 2, Now = level 3
• Wall Sit - Day 1 = 38 seconds, Now = 1m 27 seconds
• Sit and Reach - Day 1 = -5cm, Now +2 cm.

MEASUREMENTS
I have lost a total of 32.5 cm off my body since 8 weeks ago! WOW.
7cm off the hips, and 6 cm off the waist... no wonder my old pants fall down now.

So with weigh-in in 4 days, I am super excited. I have my eyes on the prize (of being in the 70's) and a Super Saturday  Session today, burning at least 1050 calories (not counting doing my fitness test or walking the stairs in wet n wild) has got me set up to win.  Another exciting day tomorrow, and an Accelerator day planned for Tuesday... I AM going to nail this. 

Woman on a Mission!

Well,  #1 -  2 days late to tell you about weigh in.  Not that I really want to, because I remained the same. No weight lost... but on the plus side, no weight gained.  I know what I did, or did not do to cause this.  I ate a few things I shouldn't have, I didn't weigh or measure my food, and had too many excuses for exercise that I let get to me.... However, I think I now know how to maintain my weight when I do get to the ideal weight.

#2.. Easter, not being religious, really only means chocolate and public holidays to me. Easter is otherwise known as HELL WEEK for those of us on a diet (sorry healthy eating regime) and who love chocolate.

I had done very well and resisted all the aisles of chocolate bunnies, and eggs, and Hot Cross Buns for weeks, then on Thursday,... well my resolve... it dissolved. 

1 tiny little 10g egg... I told myself "one won't hurt", but I know better, I know that "one won't hurt" is a lie because it's like opening flood gates.. 1 egg, turned into 2, ... then two little bunnies, then 2 more eggs (50g this time)....Argghh.

Easter Bunny came to work

these little devils wore me down

Nutrition wise, the day went severely downhill from there, although enjoyment factor was great. What with Celebratory work lunches, and work meeting and farewell drinks at the pub, followed by a missed bus, which caused me to have to miss my kickboxing class and have to go back to the pub to wait for a ride home... 3 beers and a pub meal later, I felt like the day was a complete failure.

But... we are in Week 8 of 12. One bad day (or good day if you see it that way) does not undo all that great work.

I am determined not to weigh the same next Wednesday, I am determined to have a great loss on the scales this week.... and i'm gonna work my butt off to make it happen.

As luck would have it ... I have a 4 day weekend, so there is absolutely no excuse to not exercise. 

The Plan :

Today, Good Friday : 

- 1km run (time trial) Burned 88 Calories, took me 6mins 1 sec. 40 seconds faster than 4 weeks ago.

- Zumba Class, 603 calories burned.

- Ate clean - took the kids to the movies even, and didn't get popcorn or anything.

Tomorrow, Saturday:

- 5km run.  My mate Sandra and I are going to try Park Run

- followed by the remainder of my week 8 fitness test.

- Going shopping to buy 1 Easter egg each for my kids... thats all, and maybe try on some smaller clothes while I'm there.

- Coming home to pull weeds out of the garden, and if that doesn't burn mega calories, I don't know what will.

Easter Sunday:

- Gonna get up early and head down to Burleigh Headland and do the walk, followed by a dip in the sea.  Followed by the rest of garden, if necessary.

Easter Monday: 

- 9.30 am Zumba Class

- Wet n Wild... have you felt the burn in your ass, walking those stairs to the slide?

- 6.30 pm Kickboxing Class

I have new focus, and with time to plan and organise, I will eat super clean, and come weign in wednesday, I am hoping to see that number start with a 7.

I am a Woman on a Mission!

I did it!

I set of from home at 6.15 to go to my first ever Fun Run.  Well I had done the walking part of a Fun Run/Walk before, but I had never actually RUN in a Fun Run. Todays event was a 5km race for me.  The Runaway Bay Super Sports centre and a company called Corporate Challange put on this series of races as a build up to the Gold Coast Marathon 30June-1July.

Cass is doing the progressive series, meaning each race the distance is increasing, so she can build up to her Half Marathon.  Each progressive race is accompanied by a 5km race.  So today I entered the 5km, and Cass was in the 8km.

Taking a self portrait with the Start Line in the background.

So at 7am I started running, and I didn't stop until 38mins and 18 seconds later, when I crossed the finish line (official time yet to be released, but I will update when it is).  'Unhealthy Me' didn't even bother arguing with me this time. She knew I was serious, she knew I had run 4km before and really I felt ok until that last km, and by that time I knew the finish line was in sight and I just had to keep going.  My goal was to run it without stopping, without walking, and I did it. 

I was surrounded by ladies who were walking, then running, then walking, then running, and we were constantly overtaking each other.  I kept telling myself that it didn't matter what they were doing , that I was running my own race, keeping my nice constant pace.  By the 4km mark I realised I had left those ladies behind me.  I had one lady who was about 20 metres in front of me the whole way who was walking occasionally, and I would nearly catch her, and then she would run again and get away from me... she was my inspiration. I just wanted to catch her. 

When I got to the entrance of the track , with 400m to run, she stopped to walk, and by the 200m mark I had caught her!  

"C'mon", I said, "Lets finish this"... and we sprinted the last 150m... I gave it everything, getting my heart rate up to 200!  But she finished ahead of me by 2 seconds. 

Crossing that finish line was cool, they called out your name and time over the microphone... next time I will be taking a cheer squad to share it with.  This time it was me, doing it for me. 

So after an electrolyte drink, and a sit down to stop the legs from Shaking, I found a nice spot to wait for Cass to come in from her 8km run.  I really have her to thank for me achieving this today, she believed I could do this well before I even thought it might be possible.  I have been following her lead by doing the 12WBT, and now fun runs, so I absolutely had to get the 'after' photo with her.

Cass and I after our Races.

So what's next? 

29th April... either the Runaway Bay 5km fun run again (Cass will be doing the 10km), or the Gold Coast Bulletin Fun Run in Robina.  Haven't registered yet, just waiting to see if any of the family wants to join me.. if we join up at the family price, the kids are basically free.  Any one else want to join me?

Better late than never...

Well it's Saturday morning, and I haven't yet been accountable for the Weigh in on Wednesday.


My excuse is that I have been a bit to busy to sit down and type up a blog post, but I have now found the time so here it is.


Before I start, I would be irresponsible if I didn't reflect slightly before I revealed the stats... I mean my last post was all about how I had not coped, and ate bad things to help me get through a tough few days.  But I took Michelle's advice, and took all emotion out of it, and looked at the situation pragmatically, and realised that the 'blow out' that I was describing, while still not being ideal for the 12 week body transformation, was really nothing compared to what a 'Binge' or 'Pig out' would have been prior to starting this journey.  I simply can't eat the amount of or type of food that I used to eat.

There is a school of thought, that a small binge can actually help weight loss. Your body gets into a rhythm, with it's metabolism, and when you have a little binge, your body realises it needs to boost the metabolism to burn off that food.  I wasn't sure if I believed this, and I think it is dangerous to binge to try and make this happen, but it is ray of hope after you have overindulged.


Anyway, Wednesday morning scales read 81.6kg, a loss of 1kg!  
I was pretty damn happy with that, because I was scared I wouldn't lose anything, or worse still... gain!


That means that I have now officially lost:

•  20kgs from my heaviest ever weight of 102kg (20% of body weight)
• 18.3 kg since August 1st 2011 (18.32%)
• 11.4kg since starting 12WBT preseason.(12.26%)
• 6.5kg since Official day 1 of 12WBT (7.4% of body weight)

This also means that I am closer to reaching my goals.

• 1.7 kg to get into the 70's (will also be 20kg since August)
• 3.5 kg to 10kg lost on 12WBT
• 9.1 kg to a Healthy BMI  - Which was my original goal.

The most exciting news (or nervewracking) is that tomorrow, I will be RUNNING in my first ever 5km run.  On monday I ran 4km, and felt quite comfortable so i fully believe I can do this. My Goal is to run the whole thing, without stopping, don't care about time, or placing... last is fine! I just want to prove to myself that I can do this.


Look out for a post tomorrow, so you know how I got on.