Havey the Wonder Cat

Last night Harvey decided to sit on top of the TV and hang over the edge pawing at the screen... very amusing! Here's my darling boy...

Time for a photo update....

Here's me ready for a gym session! Getting smaller... just not quite small enough yet!

And me in my new jeans...



And me in my old jeans which are way too big and saggy in the bum! I only got them in February and they were super tight so am quite happy to send them off to the Salvos (they do quite well out of me!)

It's all good

Have had a fabulous weekend. I weighed myself Saturday morning at the gym - 80.7kg. So close to the 70s!!! Official weigh in on Tuesday night so hoping for a number beginning with 7. Probably shouldn't have just eaten that muffin :) If it is not this week, it will definitely be next week.

Also sold my car - yay!! That is a huge relief, because I can start saving how.

And then the big news - I ran 16km!!!! I walked a little bit of the last 4km, but I did it alot easier than I thought I would. I actually have some confidence that I can run the whole City 2 Surf now. 2 weeks to go.

Are your friends making you fat?

BE CAREFUL whom you hang out with - your friends can make you fat. Researchers have found that the company you keep has a huge influence on the size of your waistline.

The study, by the Harvard Medical School and the University of California, found that if a person becomes obese, those closely connected to him or her have a greater chance of becoming obese themselves - even if they live far apart.

The study, which involved more than 12,000 people over 32 years and was published in The New England Journal of Medicine, suggests that obesity is "socially contagious", spreading from person to person, but does not affect neighbours and colleagues who are not friends.

If your friend becomes obese, the researchers found, your chances of becoming obese go up 57 per cent.

Individuals in same-sex friendships experience a 71 per cent increased risk if one becomes obese. Between two brothers, the risk rises 44 per cent; between sisters, 67 per cent.

If one spouse becomes obese, the likelihood for the other increases 37 per cent.

But blaming friends and family for your burgeoning stomach is a cop-out, says Dr Louise Hardy, of the NSW Centre for Overweight and Obesity at the University of Sydney. "I would hate to see these findings used by people to say, 'I don't want a fat friend or I might catch obesity,"' she said yesterday.

"Obesity is complex and has many partners. Rather than just looking at social networks, we need a collaborative approach which looks at urban planning, public transport, housing and the food industry. We don't want obese people stigmatised further by these findings."

But Professor Ian Caterson, of the University of Sydney, said the findings could be used to encourage people to seek social networks where being overweight was unacceptable.

"We've already seen this with smoking and if we get to the point where obesity is socially unacceptable and people find alternative friends who encourage them to maintain a healthy weight, this kind of study could become a new way of combating the problem."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/health/why-fat-is-a-friendship-issue/2007/07/26/1185339116365.html

I agree with this to an extent - you can be easily led into the habits of your friends. For me, moving to Sydney, AWAY from my friends was a bit help in losing weight. I have established a whole new network of friends who either are or have been on the same mission as me. We are a bunch of gym junkies! It makes all the difference being surrounded by people who 90% of the time make a real effort to eat healthily and exercise regularly. Even if I am out for a few drinks, my choices have changed. I now drink white wine, champas or vodka lime and soda. No more bourbon which was the drink of choice of most of my mates in Melbourne.

Flying along

Having a good week. Only lost 0.3kg - but I did eat a big Thai dinner the night before weigh in, so that may have had an effect! Feeling good though. I need to do measurements again cause I feel like I have shrunk somewhat over the past month or so.

Had running group this morning. I was the only one who turned up - so I got one-on-one training for group rates. Gotta love that! We ran on the treadys so Rusty could train with me - he found it tough. I told him he was a tough trainer! LOL! Those sessions are always hard.

I'm up for a 16km run this weekend. I have broken it up into 3 runs that I have done before, so I know I can do it. I am going to concentrate on one part at a time. This running stuff is all a head game. Physically I can do it. I just think I can't. Having a rest day Saturday to prepare myself... no more weights training!

Disappointments

I was so disappointed in myself yesterday. I was all set to do my 14km training run. I was planning on using it to set a time goal for City 2 Surf. But I woke up really really really sore from my resistance session on Saturday! Arms, legs, everything. It hurt to walk, I struggled to dress myself (that was kind of funny!), and it really hurt to run. I think in total, I ran about 7km and hobbled the rest. It wasn't even what I would call walking!

I was really upset with myself. I wanted to do so much better, and I knew that I could. But my body decided it had had enough.

Thinking about it today, I'm over it now. It was just a little "moment" I had. No more Saturday weight sessions until after C2S - running needs to be my priority for the next 3 weeks if I am going to make it! I have to realise that I can't do everything. 4 PT sessions and a long run in one week is probably a little excessive!

Stuff that is in my head

It is only 3 weeks til City to Surf. Arrrgghhhh! I realised that yesterday and got butterflies in my tummy. There have been so many early mornings, so many kms, so many hills and so many moments when I wanted to give up (followed by those where I wanted to vomit!). I think that moment when I cross the finish line will be emotional. I think there will be tears.

We did hill training again this morning. There are some very steep hills around North Sydney and Kirribilli let me tell you. I used to think running all the way up Walker St was tough - that's the easy bit! Doing those hills got me thinking. I used to run from my old place in Crows Nest to the gym in North Sydney. It was mostly downhill, with a little bit of up. I used to find that hard, and the first time I ran all the way I was very excited. Now that's my warm up!

I am still the slowest of the running group. But that doesn't matter. I thought it would - even though I am always last! But I have come to a realisation in my quest for fitness. I used to think that "fit people" would look at me, see me struggle up a hill and think "gee, she's unfit - or overweight" - *insert any other negative thought here* But it is not like that at all. You see people who are not as fit as you (I see them, even if they're not in my running group) and you admire them for getting out and giving it a go. They have set themselves goals and they are working hard to achieve them. Just like everybody else getting out there and doing it.

I used to have similar thoughts about the type of people I was friends with. Most of my Sydney friends are personal trainers or fellow gym junkies. If you had told me twelve months ago that I would be spending my time with spunky, fit, hot PT boys I would have thought you were crazy. Why would they want to be friends with someone like me? Well the answer is, because we have things in common. They are normal people just like everybody else. They have big nights out, they eat the odd takeaway or chocolate, they have days where they don't feel like training, they get bored on the treadmill too. People think that there is a level of discrimintation against fat people. But I think us *former* fatties have the same discrimination - well at least I did. I used to be judgemental about fit people.

The answer in bridging the gap between fit people and fat people is just giving it a go. I sometimes run on a treadmill with one of my friends who is a PT - not as a training session, just because we both work harder when there is someone else there. I might run on level 8 or 9 - he'll be running on 14 or 15 (or up to 18!). But it doesn't matter because I am working just as hard as he is. The level of effort is the same. And that's what counts.

Motivational Jeans

Just over a month ago I bought a pair of size 12 Levis (1 size too small) - and they fit!! Not particularly comfortable - I won't be wearing them for another week or two, but I got them done up so I am happy!

Buying a piece of motivational clothing really works for me - especially seeing that my favourite jeans are too big :)

Nutrition

I read so much about nutrition - most of which is crap (in my opinion!)... but here's something that makes sense to me. It is pretty much what I go by these days - and reading it I thought "couldn't have put it better myself", so I thought I'd share.

It's from http://www.ausrun.com.au/runners_world/training/healthtipslosingweight.html

The Grape diet, the Watercress soup diet, the low carb/high fat protein diet, the Eat-what-you-like-but-only-after1pm-diet. If they worked we wouldn’t have an obesity problem, says Alison Walsh, Runner's World dietician..

There’s an array of diet books, celebrity diets in magazines and on television, meal replacements, milkshakes and magic pills that claim to burn fat off while you sleep. We should have nations of healthy, fit, slim Aussies and Kiwis. Yet statistics on overweight and obesity have never looked so grim, with half of women and two thirds of men fitting into these categories. Some experts predict that if the current trend continues, by 2020, 75 per cent of the Australian population will be overweight or obese.

1 DON’T START ANYTHING YOU CAN’T DO FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE In other words, don’t diet. Diets involve restrictive, anti-social meal plans. They can leave you mentally and physically drained. When you go on a diet, you ultimately have to come off it. But when you resolve to alter your eating patterns gradually to a healthier way of eating, you should be able to maintain this for life.

Initially, despite symptoms such as hunger, headaches, lightheadedness, and nausea, dieting can produce feelings of euphoria as your weight rapidly decreases. This encourages you to continue dieting – and creating metabolic havoc. Rapid weight loss (greater than half to a kilo a week) is usually just loss of water and carbohydrate stores, and then muscle tissue through protein stores. When you go back to your usual way of eating, you have less muscle and your metabolic rate is lower. You’re burning less energy because you now have less muscle. Your body is in starvation mode – it’s expecting to be starved again, so it will store more of what you eat. And so you put the weight back on and feel like a failure. But it’s the diet that has failed. Your only failure is not realising that to lose weight permanently, you need to change your lifestyle. And yo-yo dieting can be more dangerous to your health than consistently staying at a slightly higher body weight.

2 DON’T LET THE SCALES RULE YOU When you start changing your lifestyle your aim is probably to lose some body fat, become a more comfortable shape and clothing size, and feel more energetic. All of these things you can measure yourself, without a scale. The scale merely tells you how much of you there is, not how much body fat you have lost. So ignore it. The figure it gives you is not as important as how you feel, your state of health and general well being. If you need a number, use your weight along with other measures of health, including blood pressure, cholesterol levels, blood glucose levels, and levels of stress.

3 EXERCISE REGULARLY As a runner or walker you probably do this already, and feel the benefits. Like a way of eating that can be followed long term, an exercise program is similar. You may need to adjust your program at different life stages (during illness or pregnancy, or cutting back a little as you get older), but keeping active in some way is essential to attain and maintain a healthy weight.
Exercise not only burns up energy (kilojoules) as we train, but also increases the metabolic rate up to about 10 per cent for up to 24 hours after exercise. So as a regular exercise, you are using more energy just sitting still than people who don’t exercise.
Besides cardiovascular exercise, resistance training is important to maintain muscle and strength. More muscle means a higher metabolism, which in turn burns more energy.

4 DON’T SPARE THE WATER Dehydration is common in many people, particularly in those who exercise regularly. We lose fluid through sweat, urine, and breathing. A good rule of thumb is to drink two litres each day, plus the fluid lost in exercise – so, if you sweat out a litre of fluid in your daily training session, you would need to have roughly three litres of fluids a day. Some water is gained through food, but the rest we need to drink.
Water is a great choice because it contains no kilojoules, no chemical additives, and is usually freely available. That makes it perfect for those wanting to lose weight. Worried about water retention? Unless you have a medical condition, don’t be. Your body is very efficient at expelling what it doesn’t need.
You also should include some low-fat mil in our daily fluid intake. (See rule number 5). Sports drink can be a useful supplement to a healthy diet, when used to hydrate in particular exercise conditions.
Other fluids such as juice, cordial, soft drink, alcohol, tea and coffee should be kept to a minimum.

5 DON’T BE AFRAID OF DAIRY Calcium-rich foods are essential for healthy bones, and dairy foods have plenty. Not only are they naturally rich in calcium, but the lactose (milk sugar) in them enhances absorption of calcium. From a weight-loss perspective, low-fat dairy foods can also be of benefit. A diet high in dairy calcium has been found to decrease fat stores and dairy foods are far more effective at facilitating this than calcium-fortified non-dairy foods.
If you’re lactose intolerant, calcium-fortified soy foods are still going to help keep bones strong. Whether you get calcium from dairy or soy sources, aim for three serves of low-fat calcium-rich foods daily. One serve is two slices of low-fat cheese, or 250ml reduced-fat milk, or 200g yoghurt.

6 EAT PLENTY OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLES They’re low in kilojoules, easily digested and have plenty of vitamins and minerals.

The current recommendations are two pieces of fruit and five vegetables daily, and very few of us are getting that much. A serving of fruit is defined as one medium piece of fruit (eg apple, orange), cup of fresh or tinned fruit (go for varieties in natural juice), ¼ cup dried fruit, or ½ cup of fruit juice (beware, as this does not have the same “filling” value as actual fruit). A serving of vegetables is seen as cup of salad vegetables, 1 medium potato, or ½ cup of cooked vegetables. Eat a wide variety, as this ensures you consume plenty of different vitamins, all needed for energy and vitality. A good guide is to include at least three different vegetables every day, of different colours.

When your body is getting the nutrients it needs to function well, you are less likely to be hungry. Fruit and vegetables can be quite filling, and because they are high in nutrients may help stop you overeating higher kilojoule foods. They are a great source of fibre, and can assist bowel problems and high cholesterol levels.

In winter, you may need to rely more on tinned and dried fruit, and that’s fine in limited quantities. But summer brings a delicious array of berries, stone fruit and melons. Start the day with a fresh fruit salad and you’re halfway to your daily requirement.

7 EAT SMALL PORTIONS OF FOOD REGULARLY THROUGHOUT THE DAY Dieters sometimes make the mistake of skipping between-meal snacks. Some even believe that skipping breakfast will help them burn fat faster. Nothing could be further from the truth! A healthy breakfast is essential to kick-start your metabolism after a prolonged fast overnight. Every time we eat the body must use energy to break down incoming nutrients. Small frequent meals help to keep the fire burning for longer, rather than one large meal flooding the system every six hours or so.

Eating smaller meals more often can also stop you developing a ravenous appetite, and eating everything in sight. The key to success is ensuring our regular small meals are healthy ones. A chocolate bar for morning tea and chips mid-afternoon will stimulate your metabolic rate but will also add a sizeable amount of kilojoules and fat to your food intake. Try having a piece of fruit or two for a mid-morning snack; boost your calcium intake and satisfy your sweet cravings with a low-fat yoghurt when the munchies hit mid-afternoon.

Keep an eye on serving sizes. Think of whether you really need to eat until you are full. It’s okay to leave food on a plate, and certainly not a waste. The waste is when you eat the food because you feel guilty for throwing it out. You become a human garbage bin and your waistline and health may well pay the price. If it’s a nutritious meal, keep leftovers for the next day. Feel free to bump up the quantity of vegetables you eat at a main meal, but keep your protein and carbohydrates serves moderate.

8 SAVOUR YOUR MEAL Eat slowly, and chew well. When’s the last time you sat at the tale for an entire meal? Too often, we tend to rush through a meal to get n with whatever else we need to get done. Get the family to eat together at the table, turn the television off, and have some good old fashioned conversation. You’ll be surprised at what this can do for your relationships as well as your waistline!

When you eat food quickly, our body does not have adequate time to send a message to your brain to say you’re full. So you often end up with that stuffed full feeling and wishing you hadn’t eaten those last few mouthfuls. Eating like this ever day means you are likely taking in more kilojoules at each meal than you need to. Eating too quickly can bring on indigestion and flatulence. Make an effort to really try to taste the food and feel the textures in your mouth. Train yourself to chew each mouthful eight to 0 times before swallowing, or put your knife and fork down in between each mouthful. Try to use meal times as a chance to switch off from everything else.

9 VEG OUT WEEKLY Besides adding variety to your evening meals, choosing a vegetarian meal once or twice a week can decrease fat intake without you even noticing it. Vegetarians tend to have a lower body mass index than those who eat meat. With lean meat cuts available, there’s no need to go completely vegetarian to maintain a trim and healthy physique, but a well planned vegetarian meals will do you good. They tend to be high in fibre and therefore quite filling and seeking out vegetarian options may introduce you to a new cuisine.

Experiment with lentils, legume (such as borlotti beans, four bean mix, chick peas, kidney beans), firm tofu (cook before eating), or low fat veggie burgers (aim for 97 per cent fat-free ones). There are also many other great vegetarian protein alternatives. To get you started, browse the recipes on www.sanitarium.com.au.

10 ENJOY A TOAST OCCASIONALLY While it’s fine to enjoy a glass or two of red now and then, if you want to lose body fat, keep our alcohol intake down. Alcohol is loaded with kilojoules and they’re not the nutritional kind. One standard drink contains 300 to 450kJ and most drinks served are not on standard drink – from 1.5 to two standard drinks is the common measure. When alcohol is in the bloodstream, it is used as energy before fat, protein and carbohydrate are. It can prevent fat from being burnt up as energy, so fat consumed in the diet is more likely to be stored.

According to the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHM-RC), males should consume no more than fur standard drinks a day, and for women, no more than two. Everyone should include two alcohol-free days every week. This recommendation covers the detrimental and harmful effects of excess alcohol consumption, but not the amount that can be consumed before you gain weight. The approach we are suggesting does not ban any food or drink, but is about balance. So if weight loss is your aim, cut back on the alcohol.

11 GET GOOD SLEEP Three things that suffer when life gets hectic: nutrition, exercise, and sleep. Sleep is crucial to your body’s capacity to recover. It is particularly important if you are unwell, or have been exercising, as your body needs time to repair damaged muscles and cells, and make them stronger for the next run or walk.

It is tempting to go to bed later, or get up earlier, to get a little more done in a busy life, but this will soon catch up with you. Your concentration will suffer, your energy you’ll be more susceptible to illness floating around. Your running will also suffer. Being tired can also lead to bingeing on high-fat, high-kilojoule foods, especially in the late afternoon or after dinner. So see sleep as a great investment for keeping healthy and trim.

-0.7kg

I lost 0.7 this week. Yay me! Pretty happy with that. Did weights last night and running group this morning. I want to go back to bed...

Progress Report

Forgot to update you on my progress (was too busy whinging about the weather it seems!). Have had a good week of tracking and planning. I did have a bit of 'unplanned' chocolate on Saturday, but apart from that all good.

I have broken my banana bread addiction, and instead of having it every day as I was, I had it only twice last week. It has been replaced with a much healthier strawberry addiction. 1 punnet a day at the moment! Does anyone else find something they love and eat it all the time for weeks on end?

On my scales I weighed in at 81.8kg - my lowest ever. Will see what I am on the gym scales tonight, as that is now my official weigh in. I was 82.5 last Tuesday (with clothes).

77kg is my next goal, and the reward is some new pretty underwear.

How cold is it??!!!

I feel like I am back in Melbourne. Sydney is bitterly cold in the mornings at the moment... and I don't have enough warm clothes that fit me! It is time for another wardrobe cleanout. I tried on so many things this morning and it is all too big! Not that I should be complaining about that, but I only have ONE long sleeve warm top suitable for work.

I have to confess that I didn't finish my run on Sunday cause I was way too cold. Usually I run in a singlet or t-shirt with a long sleeve top over it, that I take off about half way through my run. On Sunday I had 2 singlets under my long sleeve top, and I was freezing - even when I was warm from running. So I was a sook and went home for a hot shower after 10km. I can't handle being cold.

And the best bit... I am running at 6am tomorrow. Hopefully we can run inside on the treadys. Otherwise it will be thermals and beanie for me :)

16km

My training program has a big '16km' written on Sunday. That is a hell of a long way to run. I'm scared!!!

I've missed my blog :(

For some reason, I haven't been able to log in on my new work computer. But today it worked, so here I am!

Feeling sooooo much better now. Have been back in full swing at the gym. Running group Friday and Wednesday, plus a run on the weekend and another PT session with Dan. I feel fantastic and the scales are moving in my favour again (finally!) After a weekend of eating lots of very bad food (and enjoying every minute of it!) I put on 1.3kg. I have now lost that and a bit more so am highly motivated again. I'm back to planning my meals every day, walking at least 45 minutes a day plus 3 x PT sessions and a long run on the weekends. Before I got sick I was doing 4 PT sessions a week (2 x running and 2 x weights or boxing) but have cut back on that so that I don't get sick again. 5 weeks to City 2 Surf, and I might just make it.

Since starting running group about 6 weeks ago, I have doubled the distance that I can run. How cool is that! I'm up to 10km which I NEVER thought possible. I might even be able to run the whole City 2 Surf which was not even part of my goal. There is talk of continuing the running group once a week after C2S which would be really cool. I would love to be able to run 10km comfortably a couple of times a week (it is certainly not comfortable at the moment).

New job is fantastic. I love the people and am getting to work on a variety of projects. And not just print - we do TV and all sorts of other marketing as well. It is a whole new world. Everybody is open to ideas and involves the whole team in projects - which makes sense, but it just didn't happen in my old job.

Enough rambling from me today.
xxx

Feeling a Bit Better :)

Starting to feel a bit better - finally! I'm starting back training tomorrow morning so we'll see how that goes. This weekend I am supposed to be up to doing a 14km run - but there is no way I will make that after being sick for a week, so I am going back to the 10km run. I'm not even sure if I can make that at this point :) However I shall give it a good go.

I'm Back!!!

Sorry for the lack of posting peoples. Last week I started a brand new job, the week before that I moved house and went to Melbourne for a few days, before that... who knows! Life has been very busy and chaotic lately. Needless to say I now have a head cold, and have been sick for nearly a week :(

I have been banned from the gym (I did do a yoga class on Saturday, but I don't think that counts!) and have only done some gentle walking. I feel crap! I really miss my training. I had built up my running to do 10km, but now I am worried I will be so far behind where I was. Hopefully it won't take too long to get back there. I haven't done weights in a week either. Crap crap crap.

The only good side to all of this is that I have no appetite whatsoever. I am trying to eat regularly, even if only in small amounts, so that my body doesn't decide to go into starvation mode and hang on to all this fat I am so desperately trying to get rid of.

Speaking of that, I did fitness tests at the gym a couple of weeks ago. My cardio and strength were excellent (yay, I am FIT!!!), flexibility not so good, and body fat - lets not even go there. But as my trainer says, that doesn't matter because it is going. My flexibility used to be really good, but since I started running it has decreased significantly. That's why I am doing yoga and stuff - I want it back!!!

My new job is great - I am really enjoying it. I just wish I wasn't sick.