What am I really fighting for…

The last few weeks have been very challenging for me. Stresses have mounted, the schedule is getting busy, and quite frankly even though I feel like I’m eating well and have started going for walks/jogs the weight isn’t shifting (and some weeks has even gone up). I find myself becoming disheartened as I see other mums on a support page that I’m apart of having wonderful successes. What am I doing wrong? What have they got that I don’t have? These thoughts plague my mind as I keep trying to say no to unhealthy eating and work towards dropping the weight.

But is that the real reason I’m doing this? Is that the reason I’m embarking on this journey? Do I want it to just be about the numbers on the scales going down and fitting into a smaller size? When I took a moment to contemplate this my answer was a definite NO! This journey isn’t just about me! This isn’t just about losing weight and exercising, although that is a very big and real part of it. For me this journey is about four little people. These four little people are the reason I do anything. They are the reason that I’m working so hard at uni, as I want them to see through my example that if they work hard they can achieve their dreams. They are the reason that I want to live a healthier life.

Children learn their behaviours by example. They more often do what they see and seldom do what they are told. I know that with every decision I make about my health I have four pairs of adoring eyes looking on, watching how their Mummy will do things. I know that if I want to see my children living healthy lives then that is what I need to show them. With each healthy choice I make I know that I am equipping my kids to hopefully have the skills to make healthier choices as they grow. As I watch my kids chose healthy options I know in those moments that what I’m doing is worth it.

So while I’m not seeing the results I want right now, there have been some glimmers of hope that what I’m doing is worth it. When my children ask for the healthy options, or ask me if what they are eating is healthy, or chose to ‘exercise’ I know that this journey is worth every minute. #fitandhealthy2016 isn’t just about me, it’s about my entire family and the lessons we are all learning in the process. I know every days isn’t going to be easy but sometimes it’s good to just be reminded of the reasons I’m doing this. That gives me strength to get through another day.

This journey is for them… for my children. If I can raise them with not only fit and healthy bodies, but also minds and spirits then its worth it! It’s all that matters.

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Looking for the quick and easy fix.

Well week 2 done and dusted. I’ve dropped another kilo this past week taking the total to 3.4kg lost so far! This week was tricky as we had quite a few functions which saw us eating out and while the foods I chose at those places probably weren’t the best I tried to ensure that they didn’t derail my entire week. I’m really pleased that this reflected on the scales with a loss. This loss has also seen me break through my first goal (hopefully for the last time) and sees me back in the double digits once again.

The last few days however have been a struggle. Even with the victories that I have already been seeing I have still wanted to throw in the towel and slide back into old habits. I have been battling sickness and dealing with sick and teething children and my first instinct is to reach for the sugary fatty treats and swap my feelings of sickness for momentary pleasure. I let myself indulge the other night. I scooped out a bowl of ice cream as big as my left over calories would allow and as I savoured every spoonful, I instantly felt better. But just as quickly, those feelings faded not more than two minutes after I had finished. It actually made me want more and I began to crave that feeling even more intensely. But to give into those feelings again would have unravelled all the work I had done that previous week.

Too often we look for a quick fix. A way to achieve their goal faster without as much effort, a way to cut corners. Most people will opt for the quick fix as it requires less time and energy. For me I wanted a quick fix to make me feel better as I was feeling sick and horrible. But quick fixes are very rarely sustainable. I wanted so badly to feel better, lets face it who doesn’t when they are sick. But those feeling were just momentary. They were gone as quickly as they came and I was left still feeling horrid. I don’t want to live my life only feeling momentarily better. I don’t want to be constantly back where I started because they quick fix I had opted for didn’t work long term. I want change in my life to be sustainable and long term. So since my brief brush with the ice cream I have been trying to make sure I keep my fluids up, rest and to fuel my body with with healthy and nutritious foods to help it fight whatever this nasty bug is.

As I reflected on this I know that it can also apply to my entire #fit&healthy2016 journey. I know in the last two weeks I have been trying to think of quicker ways to drop the weight. I sometimes have the thought that I put in the effort back in 2012 and lost all the weight surely I can cut corners this time round. But I know that isn’t possible. This is a lifestyle change. I want this change to not only help me shed the extra kilos but to also set up habits for my children.

So for now my focus is on getting better, surviving this sickness and moving forward to see sustainable change for my family. I want this year to be about changing habits and learning new things and saying goodbye to the quick fixes!

 

 

What victory are you celebrating?

Its been a week since I started my #fit&healthy2016 ! Like the last time I concentrated on my health it has been fraught with emotional and mental ups and downs. But I’m pleased to say I feel like I’ve come out the other end celebrating.

I didn’t stick to the 28 Day Challenge plan to the letter as we had a few nights out and also our grocery day is Wednesday so I didn’t get to buy supplies for all the meals until then, but with a 2.4kg loss this week I’m feeling pumped. Now to be honest my exercise was non existent this last week and I’m working on that but still I’m celebrating that win! When we did start the meals for the challenge my children actually ate them! That was actually one of the things I was worried the most about. So another great win for week one! But these are not the things that I’m celebrating the most this week. This weeks victory for me was the return of my will power!

Willpower is something I have always battled with and I feel like I won the fight this last week. In previous health kicks my willpower has looked like me not eating anything that wasn’t on my plan. I never had treat meals, I never strayed from clean eating, which was fine for past Kandy, but I’m a different person to what I was back then. I found myself this week getting upset as I was buying dessert for others to have thinking that I couldn’t have any because I’m being healthy, which was silly. I allowed myself to indulge and had dessert and do you know what? I didn’t gain all the weight I had lost even though thats what my mind was telling me! I also found that purposefully allowing myself to have a treat meant that the next day when I was faced with a table with chips and chocolate I didn’t actually want any. I had satisfied that need to have something sweet and was able to be happy with my carrots and hummus that I made.

For some people it may seem like such a trivial thing, but for someone who has battled with food all their life this is a big one. I have always been the type of person to belittle my efforts, to downplay things that I have done well and run myself into the ground with my negative self talk. Like many, I’m my own worst critic and I’m so hard on myself that it takes a toll on my self confidence and self worth. I have a bad habit of bringing myself down at every possible opportunity which has taken it toll on my emotional wellbeing. #fit&healthy2016 for me isn’t just about my physical fitness and health, it’s also about working on my mental and emotional health as well. This year is about becoming a better and kinder version of myself by taking care of my mind and body. While I know there are a few wins for me this week (even if my mind is trying it’s hardest to tell me other wise), finding something to celebrate that isn’t just about the scales going down has meant that I have walked into week two a little more mentally stronger even though I know the road ahead is still going to be a mental and emotional battle. By celebrating this victory I feel like I have accomplished something and that I can handle to weeks to come!

I think it’s important to celebrate a win no matter how small or trivial you might think it to be. Find something! I am finding that it gives me the courage and strength to get through another week knowing that I did something right the week before. Celebrating one thing is helping me to approach each day positively even when I know I haven’t got it 100% together.

What will you choose to celebrate this week?

Brushing the cobwebs off again!

Well the blog has come back out which can only mean 1 thing! I’m hopping back onto the health and fitness band wagon. This journey seems to be a never ending carousel where I gallop off and then find myself right back where I started. But I’m determined for that to not be the case this time.

This last 12 months has been the most challenging year to date and has seen us stretched to our limits and then stretched us some more. We welcomed our fourth baby to our family and struggled through about 4 months of about 20 mins of sleep a night, I started studying my Bachelor of Midwifery, I under went two surgeries in the year and we transitioned to my husband going into a new job. All the while I put looking after myself on hold and sank back into the far too familiar habits that has seen my weight spiral out of control.

But in the last few weeks I have been challenged to not let that be the end of my story. My eldest two children have started asking randomly if what we are eating is healthy. Sometimes it is; sometimes it isn’t. We have always made a point of talking to them about putting healthy foods into our bodies to fuel it and exercising to keep ourselves fit and strong so I wasn’t surprised at their question. But in that moment I began to feel ashamed. How could I as a mother be preaching to my children about looking after their bodies and keeping fit and healthy when I am doing the exact opposite of that? What authority or what right do I have to tell them how to look after their health when I haven’t looked after myself? Anybody that has been a parent for five minutes will also know that you can talk to them until you are blue in the face, but if they see you doing the opposite they are sure to follow you actions and not your words. I was hit with the harsh realisation that if I want to see my kids being the healthiest, fittest, strongest versions of themselves then that’s exactly what I need to be.

So I have enlisted the help of the Lose Baby Weight 28 Day Challenge. I’m hoping this works out to be easy – to make budget friendly meals, that I can actually get my kids to eat! Today marks the first day of that challenge. While I haven’t been able to fully embrace the food due to shopping day being Wednesday, I have been prepping for the following days to come. Measurements have been taken, weight been recorded and before shots taken. I also exercised for the first time in a very long time and while I almost died in the process, I felt like I had accomplished something!

I don’t yet know what this year is going to bring or how far it’s going to stretch us again, but I know that this is something that I need to do. I need to regain my health and fitness not only to set a good example for my kids but to also be the best version of myself again. To regain back the confidence I held for a brief period and to truly feel good about myself again.

Sometimes your focus shouldn’t be your focus.

Well another week and another weigh in. The weekly ritual always stirs a mass of emotions for me. Some good! and some not so good. This week for me was was a not so good week. My food wasn’t up to scratch and I knew that would reflect on the scales. I still lost weight thankfully but for me the number wasn’t anywhere near where I had aimed. I was disappointed and in true me form spent the entire day fighting my desire to emotionally eat to cover the feelings rather than accept them. I let myself get so worked up by my tiny loss that most people would probably over the moon to lose rather than just accepting it an moving on.

But after a day of battling with my brain I didn’t want to let the feelings of disappointment and anger stop me. After my 3 beautiful children went to bed last night I put on my extremely pretty new running shoes (I secretly think I’m just exercising lots cause I love my new runners) and with my darling husband by my side went down to our new home gym and I got on the treadmill and started running (well it was probably jogging by most peoples standards, but hey! This is my blog so I can stretch the truth :p ). So I ran! I put the speed up to 8km an hour which has been my goal for running. I only do 15 minutes but I have never been able to run the full 15 minutes at 8km/h. But something in my brain just kept me running. I zoned out and thought about what had happened in the week to make me lose such a small number. Than I started to think if I could see any other changes because I know that the scales aren’t the only tell tale sign. All of a sudden I started to think, I’ve noticed my collar bones sticking out a bit more, my tummy seems a lot flatter and I actually think my thighs are getting smaller. When I finally came back to reality I realised that there were other signs showing me that what I was doing was working… AND my 15 minutes was up! I had hit a mini goal I had set for myself. 15 minutes straight running at 8km/h!

I think sometimes you can get so caught up in the number on the scales. Anybody will tell you that it shouldn’t be you focus but until you have your own revaluation you can’t help but set you sights on those numbers. They become so important to you that you forget there are other things that are impacted when you are losing weight. I’d honestly forgotten that one of my goals this year was to get back into running and my first little milestone was to run that fast and it was a fantastic feeling when I realised that I had achieved it. I felt like a million dollars. I know that my fitness is improving day by day and I’m getting excited for the day that I can blog that I ran longer and faster than I achieved today! My weight unfortunately will probably always be a big focus of mine but it’s not going to be the only focus. From now I think that on the weeks that I have the smaller losses I’m going to be able to look at something else within my journey and realise that there is another positive that I can focus on!

Here we go again!

Well as the title suggests I’m getting myself back into the fitness and weight loss game! Being the start of the new year I figure its a good time to regain control over my eating and strive for a healthy 2014. I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting over the last few days and seriously can’t believe that it was 2 years ago almost to the day that I started my first round of the Michelle Bridges 12WBT and absolutely transformed my life and lost 30kg and gained so much! But last year life got in the way and while the best thing from last year was the birth of our 3rd child I once again forgot about looking after me and went back to the old habits that I had tried so hard to leave behind. Now in all fairness I am no where near where I was when I started 2 years ago but the feelings are about the same.

I’m trying desperately to remember that I’ve had a baby in the time between when I reached my goal weight and now but I can’t help but feel angry! Not at anyone other than myself for letting things go once again and forgetting that I need to look after myself for the sake of my children. Angry at the fact that even with all the skills I learnt and the tools I had equipped myself with over my 8 month journey I let them all slip or threw them out the window and went back to my old ways of doing things. And now I’m angry because I see where it has left me. Unhappy and emotionally eating because I’m not at my goal weight anymore.

But I think that acknowledging this is going to help me move forward into an amazing year. While I would love to commit to another round of the 12WBT unfortunately that isn’t possible at the moment, so I’m going it “alone” so to speak. With a group of mummy friends that I have met as well as the support from friends and family and of course all the tools and skills that I have reimplemented  into my life. I know I’m going to struggle the most with the fact that this time round the journey is going to be different but I’m hoping that I can work to push through that! I’m aiming over the course of the next little while to lose the last of the baby weight and get back down to my previous weight and maybe even a little more. So heres to a healthy 2014!

Forgive me body for I have binged…

Yep yesterday was a disaster as far as clean eating is concerned. The culprit… the absence of any form of willpower and a birthday party. I could sit here sulking about it but I’m choosing not too. My ever loving husband dragged me out of bed this morning against my will and got me exercising and I’ve committed to a day of clean eating. I realised that one of the things that made my first 2 rounds so successful was that I was only concerned if I had done well that day! Going into a situation where I was surrounded by temptation I would set myself a limit and stick to it depending on what food I had already consumed. I need to remember to take this journey one day at a time. Hopefully my indulgent day doesn’t cause too much damage come weigh in day!