The perfect 10 - Week 4

This week went by so fast I havent even had a chance to read anyone elses update 3's. Also it seems I have a new hobbie, which I will try give up very quickly. This what you do: Go to gym, do about 20 minutes of exercise, have a mild medical emergency and then rush to the doctor for an injection. Last week it was lungs closing up = double cortisone injection. This week it was cramps in my hips so bad I though I had appendicitis = volataren injection. My muscles have been cramping up all week. I spoke to my Doc again and she reckons the body is fighting off some sort of infection (she offered to prescribe something and I said no thanks) so the muscles are a little week. In lieu of what she wanted to give me I have upped the veg and fruit intake, put some goji berries as snacks in my bag and continues to exercise.

So how are my goals for this challenge?
1) Get to 110kg (242lb) by the wedding: I lost the extra 600g (1.3lb) but no more then that. I think its pretty good all things considered. Also I have discovered something else, I have let something back into my diet that really shouldnt be there in those quantitites and that is salt. I was so good about it in the begining and I didnt miss it but I guess when I ate some one elses cooking for a week I got used to that salt content and forgot. So I am now using very little salt in my own cooking and not adding any salt to any food that already contains it. I am now 114.4kg (252.2lb) again.

2) Track every single day and stay under my points: I tracked every day and only went over my points once (by 1 point)

3) Train for at least 5 hours a week: Last week I didnt make it to 5 hours, not too worried as I was off by like 30min. This week I am currently sitting on 4h10m50s and I still have my saturday workout left. The 17 minute monday workout really threw me out and having my muscles cramp as I get into an exercise is really pissing me off. Also I have to fire my trainer as he has missed way too many appointments, in fact after I have finished this entry I am writing the email

This week was definitely an improvement, at least I able to finish my 5 hours

And now for the Little known fact about me:
I am terrified of heights which makes bridge jumping, rock climbing, abseiling etc loads more fun and ads an exciting adrenaline rush to mundane things like walking along bridges. I try my best to walk as close to the edge as possible as it petrifies me and sends that lovely adrenaline rushing through me. Weird, I know. When we went to Disney and we went to teh waterpark thats supposed to be a ski resort that's melting, my favourite part was the "ski lift" that takes you to the slides

The perfect 10 - Week 3

Friday went by so fast it didnt even make a woosh sound! Sorry *blush* I was barely on the PC yesterday as I had a bazillion errands to run, including waiting at my Mom's for her garden service to arrive.

So how are my goals for this challenge?
1) Get to 110kg (242lb) by the wedding: I guess not every week will be perfect. This week I put on 600g (1.3lb) according to the scale on thursday (will check again today at gym and update with an edit) The reasons for this are simple. On monday I made a wrong move and hurt my knee so wasnt able to train hard this week and on tuesday I had an athma attack in response to a cat allergy and was given a double dose of cortisone, so that also slowed my training and made me retaint water. I am now 115kg (253.5lb).

2) Track every single day and stay under my points: I tracked every day and only went over my points (by 1.5) on 1 day

3) Train for at least 5 hours a week: I dont know if I will make it this week. The athma attack on tuesday happened 20min into my training time and so cut that short and I have been unable to train well the whole week. I am going to gym as soon as I finish this entry and train for as long as possible.



I guess not every week will be perfect and I need to accept that.

Now for my weekly secret:
After last weeks really serious one I thought this should be a fun one. When I turned 4 my mom made me throw away my pacifier(we call it a dummy). She made a big show of it and took photos and made me feel sooo proud that I dont ever recall having "withdrawl symptoms" Since then when ever I quit something I try make a big show of it.

The Perfect 10 - Week 2 ( a little late)

I must apologies for the lateness but my excuse is good I promise. I am going to put it in my secret section as I guess it counts as something you dont know about me (well except for Marcelle)

So how are my goals for this challenge?
1) Get to 110kg (242lb) by the wedding: Very well still . I am now 114.4kg (252.2lb) which is 1.14kg (2.5lb) down from last week's update and 10.2kg (22.5lb) down from when I started my journey in July.

2) Track every single day and stay under my points: As I was away and not in a great place I couldnt compelte this one. I managed to do 4/7 so not a complete failure.

3) Train for at least 5 hours a week: This I did. It wasnt at gym for the most part but in the great outdoors and it was wonderful and helped a lot. I got back late on saturday and I was 20 minutes away from my goal and I thought, aw to hell with it I wont do it this week and then kicked my own ass and managed tog et to gym before it closed and did 30min of cardio. It felt really good.


Now for my weekly secret:
I suffer from bouts of emotional depression. Triggered normally by my own view of my self worth and if I dont catch them in time I tend to dig myself into a hole of indifference and tears. This week was sort of a retreat. I had gotten to a point where my whole life revolved around my weightloss because I didnt have the courage or the energy to deal with the rest of my life. Being retrenched sent me into the spiral and not being able to find a replacement job has just hastened it with rejection letters acting as catalyst. This week I went to a beautiful place on the South African East coast called Betty's Bay. Better then any mental clinic or drugs I am now back on the road to mental recovery.

An interesting article on Drinking Water

Because of a discussion on a group I am on I wanted to find out how much fluid I need to add to my diet when I exercise. I found the following article and thought it might be useful to a few more people


http://www.catalogs.com/info/health/how-much-water-to-drink.html


When it comes to exercise I tend to just listen to my body and drink when I am thirsty, small amounts at a time so as not to get a cramp. I have know for a while that drinking too much water was not good for you but what I didnt know was that men were supposed to drink more water then women. Interesting read.

The perfect 10 - First Entry

So how are my goals for this challenge?
1) Get to 110kg (242lb) by the wedding: Very well. I am now 115.54kg (254.7lb) which is 860g (1.9lb)   down from when I set my goals on wed.

2) Track every single day and stay under my points: oing great on the tracking but not using all my daily points which is not great. I managed to get my hands on the fitday PC program which is working very nicely. Havent missed one day of tracking

3) Train for at least 5 hours a week: This week I clocked in total (since Sunday) 04:22:29. That leaves me one 40 minute work out for tomorrow which I can do quite easily


Now for my weekly secret:
When I was a teenager I was a HUGE backstreet boys fan. My room was floor to ceiling posters and I even bought a video box set (which I bought at virgin records in NYC with all my pocket money when we were on holiday in the USA). Then it was just over and I gave EVERYTHING away.

A little motivation

So its the New Year but appart from The Perfect 10 challenge I am not going to change anything else. I personally think we get too caught up in the change of the calendar. Everyone waits for it to happen so they can start making changes and you know what, some extra time before hand cant hurt. Lets take for example something a little shorter, working out. Let say you have a class that lasts an hour, so you go to gym and wait for the class to start, then you do the class and you are done. While you were waiting, those 15 minutes, why not wait on the treadmill or the bike? Dont push yourself, make it a nice easy pace but get your HR elevated, thats 15 EXTRA minutes and a few extra calories burned.

So what I am saying is, dont wait for monday (statistically the worst day to start something new), start on sunday, thats an EXTRA day. I look at the people who go to my gym. I can time it on my calendar. This month the gym will be full, then it will wane near the end till people realise it's valentines soon and they want to look hot to catch someone, then V.day is over and the days start getting shorter and people start disappearing. The winter months are very quiet and the minute the advertising for spring starts, BANG! they are back. Why do they wait for their to be a crisis to do anything about how they look.

I am done waiting. I started this journey in earnest in July and I will continue this Journey for the rest of my life. The pace will change and even once the main desitination has been reached I wont stop because then there will be new adventures. I decided to look at reaching my goal weight as the begining to a new adventure. Its somewhere I have never been, something I have never done. I am starting to look forward to the confused feeling of "I have achieved what I have tried to achieve since I was a teenager, what now?"

Up until July last year I was sure I was doing enough and that I was just doomed to be big. The kick start I got from the Sports Science institute and now with WW, my trainer and the fitbloggers group I have learned that just training hard is not enough, I need to watch what I eat. Just eating right is not enough, I need to be active and move my body. I learned about platoes and what I need to get over them, I have learned to read labels, pay attention to carbs and that "healthy" doesnt mean its low-fat (in most cases not at all)

I have been how I am for so long and I am bored with it, I am bored with how If eel, how people look at me. Having to watch what I wear to hide the wobbly bits, to try not offend passers by with the way I look. I am tired of hiding from the camera or trying tricks to hide 3rd chins and the like. I guess this is why I am here, why I am walking this path to a new me and why I wont give up! Even when I am tired or bloated or sick or depressed because I know that with every step on the this path I become less tired, less bloated, healthier and more able to handle my depression

so this is not a "here's to 2010" blog this is a "here's to continuing on the path to a new me" blog no matter what the year is

The Perfect 10 Challenge.

Right so it's time to get my but into serious gear with the wedding being less then 3 months away and my need to be a lot smaller then I am now. So to help me with this I have joined WeightWatchers, acquired a personal trainer and now (thanks to Lori-Ann at Amazon Runner I am joining The Perfect 10 challenge! (which conveniently ends just before the wedding)

So what are my goals for this challenge?
1) Get to 110kg (242lb) by the wedding: Originally I wanted to be under 100kg but to this point I havent worked hard enough and therefore had to recalibrate to a realistic attainable goal. That being said if I reach 110kg before the wedding I wont leave it there, I will keep going. I am currently 116.4kg (256.1lb) at the last weigh-in. I will post my weekly weigh in here too.

2) Track every single day and stay under my points: Where ever possible I will NOT use my activity points. They are a saftey net if things go bad and like a trapeze artist I dont want to ever have to fall into that net. For the tracking I will use the WW page they give me at meetings and start up my FitDay account again.

3) Train for at least 5 hours a week: I have 3 hours a week covered with my trainer and since starting with him I havent done more then that since he has pushed me further then I have ever gone, however, the "break" is over and its time to up the hours spent moving and 2 more hours shouldn't be impossible. 5 hours a week is the absolute minimum.

Those are my goals for the challenge. Here's to a new year and a new me. My friend Annie said it best "I love that superhuman feeling that accompanies the beginning of each year, like you've shed your skin and the person you were only a few days ago is now just some sort of you-shaped husk left discarded on the linear highway to bigger, better things."