Bits and Pieces

About 5-6 years ago I really started getting into nail polish - I have a huge hoard of colours - and I found that once I started doing my nails once to twice a week I started to lose weight. Back then someone asked my what I was doing differently, my reply was 'giving myself a manicure',,, I got a funny look!  I really need to get back into doing it - I actually have another blogger blog about my polishes that I haven't updated in ages :(

I'm thinking about doing this,,, when I eat at home. Wouldn't it be hilarious to do 30 squats before I ate lunch in front of everyone?  I'm cracking up.

I got these both from healthyisclassier tumblr - I would like them in poster size please.

I did some yoga today using 'Element Hatha and Flow Yoga for Beginners' 
It was great!!!

Proud of myself

I'm feeling pretty proud of myself, as evident in my title.  Last night I did Zumba - this week was 'real' Zumba using latin dance etc and of course those stupid steps that I can't get right from the DVDs I still can't get in real life :P But it was a hard workout.

I got up this morning, dragged my husband out of bed and we walked a mile.

I saw the instructor this afternoon and she asked me how I went, and I told her that I got up and walked a mile this morning. I think she was a little taken aback.  Yes I'm fat. Yes I exercise. No this isn't a 'health kick'...

New plan for a week coming up soon - LOL - I didn't even follow the last one - Opps!

Measurements - I haven't done it for a fortnight, I'm hoping I see some changes.

P'd off an it's only just 7am

This morning I got up and thought I would try one of my new DVDs - 10 Minute Solution Rapid Results Fat Burner. I thought that if I did only 10 minutes this morning I should be right to go to Zumba tonight.  We now have Zumba on Tuesday and Thursday nights.

Try here is an understatment.  The instruction giving was poor, new steps were added straight after competing the latest step twice, each set included too many moves.  People's short term memory can on average cope with 7 things, for it to 'make it' into working memory it should be rehearsed/repeated.  The two workouts I tried did not allow for this at all. The other thing I don't get is that the routines were not symetrical, as in you would do a grape vine set and at one end of the grape vine have to do star jumps, but not at the other - why do instructors do this? Will I be trying this DVD again soon? NO.

Great start to the day.

Pants!

I love the word pants! It's probably my best go-to non-swearword, that and holy snapping ducks - my husband adds shit on the end of that one.

Today I realised that I didn't need to undo my button or zipper to pull down my 3/4 jeans, which I had bought over the Christmas holidays. It's a sign!!! There is a lot of extra room around my thighs aswell. These pants originially were slim fit.

While I was away I had to ditch my plan - I went for a walk/hike with my dad for an hour. I also did the brisk walk away with the Sparkpeople music twice. I didn't do anything today as I woke up at 4am (holy snapping duck shit!) to catch my first flight. I got home after lunch and prompty tried to nap - didn't work because of the constant ringing of my phone - so I'm tired and cranky and not really upto an hour of social Zumba.

I did however purchase a heap of exercise DVDs from BigW - woot! More variety.  However I will finish off this week following the plan - pilates tomorrow :(

My unitard and jazz pants arrived today. To be honest I'm disappointed - not of the quality or the service - just because they would be so easy to make.  I'll have to take the jazz hems up - and they aren't particulary flattering although comfortable. The unitards are a little short for my body but should be good to go if I lose just a tiny fraction more, but I could wear them tomorrow if I wanted.

Okay - I'm off to find my pillow.

Week 10 & 11

Half way through this week I'll be heading off home for my cousin's wedding.  I'm only going to take carry-on baggage so I can't take a lot of things with me, no weights.

What's Motivating Me This Week?

Great music to work out to.
I bought SparkPeople's 132-BPM 60-minute continuous cardio remix. I really find the music in the Walk Away the Pounds workout annoying, so today I experimented by turning up the remix and turning down the workout.  It was a faster pace, so it meant I was doing more that the workout asked but it felt good.  The workout I'm doing now has resistant bands in it, which I don't have, so I used my weights instead.

What's Puzzling Me This Week?
Taking measurements - I've youtubed how and it looks like I'm doing it okay - not too tightly or loosely.  What's going on with my figures?

What's Bugging Me This Week?
My 3/4 exercise (sweat wicking) leggings that I bought at the start of the year are getting too big, they are starting to sneak down while I workout.  I keep having to yank them up.

What's Encouraging Me This Week? 

My 3/4 exercise (sweat wicking) leggings that I bought at the start of the year are getting too big, they are starting to sneak down while I workout.  I keep having to yank them up.

What's the Plan?
Giving the pilates thing a whirl again - see if there is an improvement.

I walked down to the shop again last night... although the store owner looked dubious as I came in again with my back pack. No one walks here, it's too hot. She must think I'm a little crazy - heat sickness has set in.

I made it

through a whole 40 odd minutes of Zumba Cardio Party.  I was about to die at one stage and checked to see how much longer I had to go - I was half way   (~_~;)

I now remember why I didn't get into Zumba very much, the music is annoying.  I can't ever seem to work out the random beats that I'm meant to clap to for example, or when the next change in step should be because the chorus seems to come randomly.  I'm a pretty musical person but Zumba music makes me fail.

I also find a few steps really complicated - in this one there are two steps that I just cannot get (and they aren't explained very well in the beginner DVD) but they happen to be used for the majority of a song - I end up making it up and getting it wrong.


I think I might just stick to doing dance cardio off youtube so I don't get angry with myself for being such a clutz.

Change of topic:

My fabrics for my workout clothing arrived yesterday - they are in the wash right now. The colours and patterns ended up being pretty nice - I bought them from Fabric Frenzy.

I ended up wearing a new t-shirt of my husbands to Zumba during the week.  He was given it for Christmas, and hadn't worn it yet so I figured he wouln't miss it.  But look at the cute t-shirts I found:

Zebracorn

Unicorn

White cats

Black cats

I'm not going to buy any - I was just looking.

ZZzzz...

It's been a long hard week, today has been a bit of a downer. Tomorrow I might Zumba instead of walking. I missed Thursday's morning workout simply because I was exhausted and needed the extra sleep. In fact, might go to sleep now.

Pushing myself

This morning when I woke up I thought 'what the hell, let's do both the 1 mile walk and the Booty Shaking Waist workout'. Wasn't too bad. Tomorrow is Zumba in the evening.

I really want to see some improvement in my measurements this week.

My daily meals

I thought I would post about what I usually eat:

Breakfast

Up and Go popper

AND

Piece of homemade wholemeal banana and almond bread thawed from frozen

OR

2 homemade wholemeal pikelets thawed from frozen

OR

Nut bar

I should have fruit here!!!

I'm also too lazy to eat breakfast cereal!!!

Lunch (@ work - I usually only have 20 or so minutes to eat lunch before I’m on playground duty)

Cold cut meat on a tortilla

OR

Can of tuna on 6 Vitawheats

OR

Leftovers

OR

Chicken salad burger on Thursdays from tuckshop

Afternoon Tea (@ work - usually eaten on the go or at my desk and is rarely finished)

¼ cup of mixed nuts and dried fruit – almonds, cashews, goji berries, cherries, pineapple, pawpaw

OR

Homemade oat and dark chop chip wholemeal brownie thawed from frozen

Afternoon Snack

4 squares of dark chocolate

AND

Popcorn

OR

Apple with peanut butter

OR

3-4 rice/corn cakes with a little margarine – before you go and rant – Australian marg has the lowest level of trans fats in the world plus I use a cholesterol lowering one (Flora Pro-Active Lite)

OR

Cheese on 6 Vitawheats with a little margarine

OR

Yoghurt (with chia seeds if I remember)

Dinner

Depends on who is cooking –

Tonight I’m making poached eggs and smoked salmon on a toasted whole meal bun with a little margarine.

Tomorrow night I’m making spinach ravioli in tomato pasta sauce.

The day after that I will probably have stir fry.

Liquid

I usually drink 600ml-1 litre of water at work. I probably drink a cup in the morning and after workouts.  I also drink a cup when I get home from work and some at night before bed. I drink straight from a big bottle. I also have been allowing myself 600ml of Pepsi Max a day - maximum! I don't drink tea or coffee - it's crazy to want to drink boiling water when it's easily 35C - I don't understand how people do it. I will also drink 200ml of UHT milk every now and then.

Analysis

As you can see I’m not a big fruit and veg eater – I’m so bad. I should add a fruit for breakfast and add carrot sticks for an afternoon snack. For most of my baking I use Spenda or just reduce the sugar amount. On the weekends I'm a little looser with what I will eat, for instance C might buy me a pie, have a handful of chips, and every Friday we go out for dinner at the pub - were I will have 1-2 drinks.

On a side note - I went for my walk to the shops. The owner thought I was a little crazy walking in the heat. The straps on my backpack killed my sunburn.

waist 2 hip wasted

I realised a while ago that I would have to redo my waist to hip ratio because of that fluctuations in my measurements.

I'm still sitting at .86. I'm so close to that .80 but it is still dissapointing.

I'm going for a walk to the shops later this afternoon - not right now while it's 37.5C. Hopefully it will continue to cool down.

Week 9

What's Motivating Me This Week?

Sewing exercise clothing - I've ordered some Supptex Lycra in royal blue. Plus I've been working on a pattern for an exercise 'tunic' like a t-shirt but longer to cover any possible camel toes and VPLs. Working with lyrcra can be a little annoying though.

What's Puzzling Me This Week?
What shoes should I wear? I did Zumba this morning but my shoes were too grippy - even thought I had rolled up the rug.  I took them off half way and kept my socks on. Should I try a pair of old Dunlops?

What's Bugging Me This Week?
I got sunburnt on Friday at the swimming carnival - even though I kept reapplying throughout the day.  Harsh sun.

What's Encouraging Me This Week? 

If I trust my measurements - my thigh reduced a 1cm! I have noticed that some of my pants are a little looser there, but I won't fully believe it until it stays the same measurement next week.  I'm hopeful though - one step closer to less thigh rub.

What's the Plan?
In preperation for Zumba classes - I've taken out Walk Away the Pounds and replaced it with ZUMBA!  I need to try her 2 mile walks soon though... I'm getting bored of that 1 mile walk - the people in it are really starting to annoy me - especially that one in the back that makes faces.

Signed up!

Yesterday was the sign up day for Zumba.

Yesterday was also our school's swimming carnival, so after the day at the pool a few of us (teachers) were sitting downstairs in the cool, relaxing and having a chat.  I reminded everyone that it was sign up day - as we are all pretty keen to do it - then we started talking about how she might do an actual jazz class if we asked her.

Sunny and I went down straight after that, we asked Em (the dance instructor) if she was thinking about doing an adult's dance class. She hadn't really thought of doing it because of past experiences, but we put our name down for it. Bec and Eb also went down later and put their name on the list as well.

So, I'm pretty keen to exercise with friends instead of in my lounge!  But then I started thinking about what I would wear.  What you see in the photos I take is what I wear to workout - probably not good enough for a gathering.

I have also been looking into moisture wicking fabrics to make some more exercise gear - but for today I'm going to sit down and sew another pair of 3/4s and may be a top using the lyrca blends I have here.

Plus I have been thinking about getting myself a short sleeved leotard to wear with my maxi skirts - so I ended up finding this on line shop which seemed like the only place to buy them in my size - I also grabbed a pair of jazz/yoga pants.  The postage killed!!! Purhaps I should try and get some patterns for these in future.

Dumps

Man am I sore today. Glad today is a rest day!

I was feeling a little in the dumps today because my measurements are all over the place (even though I check them a few times before I write it down) and it doesn't look like I have lost much on paper.

Should I buy a set of scales?

Week 8

What's Motivating Me This Week?

A proper dance instructor has moved to town and will be started up real Zumba classes!  I'm kind of excited about this!

What's Puzzling Me This Week?
Reading through blogilates and finding out about Gaiam TV. I'm kind of keen to find out if I can join up being from Australia and all that. Sometimes these things don't work because of copyright etc.

What's Bugging Me This Week?
That I really want to drink Pepsi Max. It tastes so good.

What's Encouraging Me This Week? 

That other people are noticing.


My husband C, joined me for exercise for the first time this year.  I hope I can keep him going.

What's the Plan?
I know that I said that I would probably keep that routine for a few weeks but I found that doing 'Get Strong' just wasn't cutting it for me - I think I do better when I have someone telling me what to do (on video) then having to use a peice of paper.

Today I did the 'Booty Shaking Waist Workout' video and it killed me. I think that it will be great to do this plan for a few weeks and see how much I can improve.

Plugging Away

Yesterday, my friend Maria said, 'You have lost a lot of weight!'

The back story to this is last week I went into work while everyone else bar the office staff were on holidays, just to say hello and move furniture. Maria, our office mum,  who always makes nice comments about my clothes especially when I'm wearing flattering things said 'those pants are very slimming'. I laughed and said, 'No, I'm the one who's slimming.' I don't think she believed me.

What makes losing weight harder is all the negative comments people make about their own weight or their diet. Today someone bought in a caramel pie to share. I had a peice - no second thoughts - no regrets. That pie was made with love, and I loved eating it. But some people made comments like 'I'm on a diet' or they cut themselves the tineist peice. Why can't we enjoy things, knowing that it's in moderation?

Week 7 - revision

What the Plan?

Increasing strength.


Keeping up with the mile walk - one mile is 1.6 km - this week I've added weights. I did it this morning and it almost killed me. I'm still trying to kill this cold, and also shark week! Stupid bloating.

A little while ago Discovery Channel was featuring Shark Week! Documentaries about sharks. It made me giggle every time.

Week 7 - or something

What's Motivating Me This Week?
Picking myself up again and getting myself back into routine before school starts.

What's Puzzling Me This Week?
Food still - looking for snacks to take to school.

What's Bugging Me This Week?
Stupid virus. I also have a doctor's appointment tomorrow about my meds.

What's Encouraging Me This Week?

http://fleurmeetsfitness.tumblr.com/

Wearing sleeveless tops. 

About 8 years ago I wasn't half as paranoid about my arms as I am now. It really started when I was at the local pool just floating around after the heat of the day - and when I say heat I mean 40-odd degree C is pretty average at this time of the year - when the manager of the pool swam up to me and told me 'To get rid of those flabby teacher arms you need to do this,' and flapped her arms around in the water. No joke, this biotch came right up to me out of the blue and gave me a complex about my 'flabby teacher arms'.  Well, I'm trying not to care anymore and have been wearing sleeveless tops - I bought 2 over the holidays and am wearing one right now.

What's the Plan?
I did such a shoddy job of last week's that I'm going to repeat it.  I probably will for next week too, but I'm thinking I might add this in:

But, I really think I need to add more strength training.

Things

That I have been looking at lately:

Dukan Cheesecake Recipe

I have the ingredeints but haven't felt like making it yet - I'll explain later

 From Thick to Thin

At the moment, I'm wondering if I should open this blog up to readers. I wonder if I can NOT have comments though, I don't think I could handle the haters.


This week I have been sick as a uni student after a Thursday 1 dollar shot night. I've caught such a nasty bug, with a sore throat, coughing with phlem, runny nose, vomiting at times, lost voice - really death warmed up.  I did struggle to work out for three days, but not the last three. Why don't things work out?

Week 6

What's Motivating Me This Week?
Losing the Christmas podgey fat feeling

What's Puzzling Me This Week?
How to set up a healthy eating plan

What's Bugging Me This Week?
Not much actually – going pretty smoothly at the moment

What's Encouraging Me This Week? 
Check out this:

Looks like I can celebrate my first short term goal!

What's the Plan?
Increasing the length of my exercise in the mornings.

What was the Plan for the Previous Weeks I was Away? 

Woes of Holidays and Protein

I found it really hard in the last two weeks of my holiday to maintain my work out plans and eating habits.  This was partly because my time and meals weren’t really my own as we were staying with family – everything that I ate and did was based upon their own needs and that’s just the way it should be. So not complaining because what we ate was YUM! We also spent a week in a rainforest cabin for our anniversary, where they made your meals for you and the food just kept coming.  We left with a lot of food in the fridge uneaten.

So I feel like all the work I did before Christmas was kind of wasted on one hand, basically I put on everything I lost – although I haven’t checked.  However, I know what I was doing was working and although I feel fat again I also feel healthier. When we were at the cabin we went for a hike up into the rainforest and it felt really good. A few months ago I wouldn’t have done it. I also know that I’ll be able to pick it up again pretty quickly. So now that I’m back at home I’ll start again.

Before Christmas my sister-in-law did a few days of the Dukan diet.  If you don’t know the Dukan diet, it is basically for a little while (called the attack phase) you eat protein foods and not much else.

This works in the short term because your body takes longer and works harder to convert protein into usable energy thus you end up with less of the energy stored away as fat because it is being used up instead. That is why many texts suggest you eat a protein rich food as a snack – it will help fill you up and take a while to convert.

However long term, some obvious side effects are constipation (no fibre), lack of vitamins and minerals (no fruit or veg) and kidney issues (as it tries to deal with all that extra protein).

The Australian Guide to Healthy Eating shows that lean meat, fish, poultry, eggs, nut and legumes (all give you protein) should take up about an 1/8 of your food intake – or between 1-1½ serves a day for an adult woman – up to 2 if you are male. 

Example of a serve:

2 small eggs

½ cup lean mince

½ cup cooked chick peas etc

1/3 cup peanuts/almonds

65-100g cooked meat

One of the things I’m taking away from the Dukan diet is the Galette.  My sister-in-law made them for breakfast, although I got her to add a little bit of parmesan cheese to add some more flavour, it wasn’t too bad. Making it into a pancake- which is apparently what a galette is – seems like a bit of time waster to me – plus you have all that washing up to do just for one pancake – so I’m thinking it could be microwaved in a bowl much like I do scrambled eggs, but I haven't tried it yet.

Galette

2 tablespoons oat bran

1 tablespoon of cottage cheese – we don’t have fromage frais of quark here

50g of cottage cheese – we don’t have fromage frais of quark here

1 egg

150g of thinly sliced ham

Sprinkle of parmesan cheese (not from the Dukan diet ha ha!)

Mix all ingredients together. Pour into pan and make a pancake or microwave in short 20 sec bursts with stirring until cooked.