Day 2 of 42.. 40 days ‘till my birthday!

Today has gone well.  I took my lasagne for lunch with some salad, cooked the satay chicken for dinner and went to Taekwon-do (and did it even!).

That means that todays goals are met.  It was an interesting start to the day as I lost my handbag this morning!  I had to go to the shopping centre and pick a few things up and then come back home to hunt for my bag.. which had the keys to my office in them!  My sister called and we chatted for a couple of hours, during which time I found my bag, so it was almost lunch when I got to uni.  Unfortunately, I had three cups of tea while on the phone, and a muffin too, but for being off schedule it could have been worse! 

I was really tired heading off to taekwon-do and was even a bit panicky at the start (I was fretting over the frozen coconut cream which had separated.. I was worried I would get food poisoning!).  But once I got into it I was fine.  I am learning the moves pretty easily, I just hope I don’t look like a dufus!  Looking forward to next week!

Food:

• cereal and milk
• 3 cups of tea
• 2 muffins (Ange’s breaky muffins – 120cals)
• Nat’s lasagne and salad
• satay chicken and vegies
• hot chocolate!

Exercise:   Taekwon-do class.

Plan for tomorrow. 

I will be using the leftover chicken to make a salad for lunch, and I might even try making the curry chicken cous cous in the magazine I read for dinner so I get that chicken used up before defrosting something else!  For my exercise, I will be doing a run in the evening after dinner (so I had better keep it early and light!).

My Mini Six Week Challenge

So I have done the numbers and it is 6 weeks today until my Birthday.  Six weeks until I go down for Nicky’s christening.  Six weeks until school holidays start!  So there is my target date.  I know it won’t take that long… it should only take 4 weeks max, but week 5 is the conference in Brisbane so I would rather keep that as a back-up week!

Goal:  Reduce body fat% and Get myself down to a ‘bikini ready’ 50kg or less.

How:  I will do taekwondo on Mondays with kids, Run on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and do Strength training at the gym on Wednesday and Fridays, and a long run on saturday afternoons.  I will swap around as needed, and reserve the right to play around with what I do!  Main thing.. 6 days of training a week.

I will keep my food to unprocessed, natural food as much as possible.  I will cook one meal per week that I can freeze portions of.  I will bake my own ‘snacks’ and I will do fruit and vegie shopping twice a week.  I will plan my meals – dinners and using leftovers for lunch.  And I will allow myself to fill up on vegies, salads and fruits.

My first goal is for Day 12: when I leave for the gold coast I would like to have reached 52.0kg.

Next goal is for Day 31: when I fly down to Brisbane for the conference I would like to have reached 49kg and be in maintenance mode!

Final goal is for Day 42: for my birthday, I would like to have a nicely defined stomach to show off to everyone in a bikini!

 

So Day 1.. How is it going?

Food

• Cereal w/ light milk
• Tammar valley yogurt (snack sized)
• 3 muffins (Ang’s breaky muffins recipe)
• Omelette (1egg, 2 egg whites, mushroom, 3 cherry toms, handful of spinach leaves and some cheese)
• nat’s lasagne for dinner
• salad

No exercise today as it is rest day!

I am struggling

Okay, so struggling may not be the right word as that implies I am putting in effort to overcome an obstacle.  In reality, I am just not putting in any effort to the health side of my life right now!  The obstacle: changes in my workload at university.

Life changes.  And the last few weeks I have made some big changes in my commitment to my PhD.  I have had a lot of lab work, and I have a presentation coming up soon to prepare for.  I am trying to put in a good amount of hours and balance family commitments as well.

My schedule at the moment (for a weekday) looks like this:

7am:  Wake up, get dressed, do housework, get kids ready for school, breakfast, shower etc

8.30am: drop of kids at school and head to uni

9am: uni work

2.30pm: leave uni to pick up kids, housework etc

3.30pm: do uni home work (sometimes head back to office)

5pm: cook dinner

6pm housework/ crash in front of tv/ gym or taekwondo.

 

The problem is that Dave isn’t getting home till as late as 6pm some nights so I am really feeling the pressure of being ‘on’ all day.  I am not used to it!  But I am adjusting and feeling better about my workload.. I should be able to introduce a good 1hr workout each night but I need to work out what I want to do!  I am missing my gym sessions and my running.. not enough to peel my arse off the seat, but enough to think about it!

In winter I had been heading to the gym around 4ish, before dinner, but with Dave getting home so late I haven’t been able to.  Heading to the gym around 6-7pm just feels a bit odd I guess, I am tired and don’t ‘feel’ like it.  But I had better get my head out of my ass and just do it.  The kids have Taekwondo on Monday nights too, at 6pm, so I need to work out what I am doing there.  Dave was meant to go and watch them while I go to the gym but he wants to stay home – so that means I am sitting on my ass for 2hrs.  The other option is to get up there with them.. which I have done once, but it is costly to join up! 

But aside from the gym, my main problem has been food.  Take-out and lots of it.  I am tired and not prepared so am taking the easy option. Dinner and lunches seem to be an issue, and I have started to skip breakfast too!  Not good.  And we wont’ mention late  night snacks on sweets and alcohol as well!  Yup, all the wicked sins are in there!

So now I have laid it all out there, I guess the next step is to ask “Where to from here?”.

1. Meal plan.  It really is the only way to start.  I need to know what I am eating and when, and make sure I have what I need without the last minute run around.  I have lots of nice, quick and easy meals thanks to 12wbt so I need to access those and use them!

2. Drink plan.. water water water.. no more coke zero!

Okay.. off I go on my plan.  I will try and update this blog at least once a week with a progress report!

Week 4: Friday

Well I just keep on keeping on this week!  Powering through my workouts and eating good healthy food!

I’ve woken today with the scales giving me a 53.5kg, another few 100g down.  I spent two hours at the gym in the morning – 325cals doing a bit of boxing with Nat and some weights (and a fair bit of time chatting and setting up with Nat!).  I also did the TaeKwon-do class with Jayden because Cam was a bit tired tonight.  That was hard work!  So exercise was pretty awesome!  Food wasn’t quite so great but my portions of crap were small and I was able to stop!

Food:

• healthwise cereal with no fat milk
• cup of tea x3
• Figure protein shake
• Jen’s lasagne
• Skinny cow icecream
• stirfry (no noodles)
• handful of salt and vinegar chips
• half a chocolate muffin
• hot chocolate
• vita-weat crackers (5)

Week Four: Tuesday

Today was a good day.  I posted earlier about my boxing class but there is so much more to today!

I not only did the boxing this morning, I also went back in to the gym this afternoon for my legs/shoulder workout!  I don’t know how many calories I burnt today, but I know I burnt some, and I increased my health and strength!

Food today:

• oats for breakfast
• cuppa tea
• turkey wrap with cranberry sauce for lunch (100g of turkey)
• bodywise bar
• wholegrain bread with 2 tablespoons of lentil bolognaise
• Cujan chicken (100g) with sweet potato
• hot chocolate!

It has been a good day!

I was 54.5kg this morning.

Standing my Ground!

There is no mystery here.. I love boxing!  I love the feeling of power and strength that comes when you punch something so hard your knuckles scream!  I now have a standing appointment with Nat on T day mornings to do the stand your ground workout! 

I feel powerful and strong today!

I have made good choices!

I have achieved my goals!

 

 

Started with some kicking

 

Shaping up to the bag!

Kickboxing.. my knees are killer sore!  I am positive I will have bruises!

I love to punch things!

..and I love that it pumps up my arms!

We have quite a few pictures so I am thinking of doing a slideshow to music for the day.  Stay tuned!

Just decide!

Make the decision and just do it!  You know you can do it, you know you want it, so just do it!

And today, that is what happened!

I don’t know how I went on the calories, but my night-time battle is looking good! The gym was great as well.. everything is looking positive!  So here is a quick log of what I have done today:

Food:

• weightwatchers oats
• 2 cups of tea
• bodywise bar
• rice, vegies and bbq pork (small container)
• milkyway and 1/2can of pepsi max
• Tammar valley snack yogurt
• lentil bolognaise with cous cous
• cup of hot chocolate
• tin baked beans

Exercise:

• 5min on cross trainer
• superset: 6kg dbs chest press/ 25kg lat pull down (3x12)
• superset: 20kg bb chest press/ 20kg bb bent over row (3x6/3x12)
• 30kg cable crossover (3x12)
• 18kg adjusted weight assisted chins (3x6)
• 30kg reverse mid-cable fly (3x12)
• AMRAP push-ups (4 toes/ 8knees x3)
• abs circuit 3x(10 sit-ups, 10 double crunches, 20 pulses)
• stretch

For my mind, I also watched the week 4 video.  Mish mentioned the will-power muscle though I think there is a more in-depth video coming.  I love thinking of will-power as a muscle that needs training.  I started working out my will-power muscle today and it felt good.  Amazing actually.  I chose to cook something for me rather then go get takeout.  I can make that choice again – it wasn’t too hard. 

I am meeting Nat for boxing in the morning.. my arms will not be happy but I will be!