The proof is in the pictures

These are last winter's jeans. They fit perfectly as recently as December.


THESE are jeans I didn't even fit into last winter. They still fit ok with a belt, so I'm keeping them for now.

Today I got rid of a gigantic bag of too-big clothes. It felt good. Now I have space for new ones ;)

DITL 12WBT style

That's a day in the life, 12 Week Body Transformation style, if you can't decipher the acronyms.


I actually forgot to take a photo when the alarm first went off, had to go back and take it 7 minutes later!


Water and supplements to start the day.


The shoes are by the door, JFDI.


Other paraphernalia (iPhone armband, earphones, heart-rate monitor & HRM strap).


Ready to go. Long-sleeved running top because it's a little chilly, relatively speaking (it was about 8 degrees, but after the endless summer we've had here in Perth, it feels very cold).


This is what greeted me when I got out the front gate. After I literally ran into my neighbour walking his dogs. I had to laugh because my first thought was "what the heck is he doing up at this time??" when obviously I was just as crazy!


Back! Only time for 20 minutes of intervals today - luckily that fits nicely with a route around a few blocks, keeping to the main streets where it's well-lit.


Cooling down now.


Time to make brekky.


My best friend in the mornings.


Breakfast: porridge with berries, and COFFEE.


Time for a bit of computer catch-up while I eat.


Look over the to-do list.


Shower time.


And face, deodorant, teeth (you'll have to imagine my toothbrush & toothpaste).


Need a belt so my pants won't fall down (and these are jeans that didn't even fit last winter - the 12WBT works!!)


Interrupted by a sweet little girl, who gets carried to the big bed to snuggle daddy (note the artistic photography to keep daddy out of the picture, as he would not appreciate his sleeping self being broadcast to the blogosphere). Daddy will be getting her off to daycare and the bigger two off to my parents' house before he goes to work.


Evie's bag ready for daycare, and my morning tea ready for work.


Dressed - thank goodness we dress casual at work (I do back-office data processing for banks & government entities).


It's a bit cold.


Time to go!


The view out the front gate is a little nicer second time round.


Walking.


... and I'm here. Sorry, this is the carpark out front - I'm probably not really supposed to post photos of my workplace on the internet, so I won't!

Now imagine me inside for 3 hours because, yeh, no photos inside :)


Done! Walking home.


At my parents' house (next door to mine) to pick the big kids up.


We're home.


Washing on (that's a 10kg washing machine, LOVE it, means only one load most days now that Evie's out of day nappies).


Washing to fold.


And folded.


The organic fruit and veg delivery arrives (mostly fruit, I've still got quite a lot of vegies, and the kids go through that much fruit easily).


Don't forget to drink water!


Lunch time: leftover 12WBT-friendly kangaroo lasagne from last night, with mixed salad leaves.


Emma and Alastair waiting for the bus - we're heading to the shopping centre to watch Hop at the movies.


Here comes the bus!


I get a coffee so that I don't eat their popcorn!


On the bus home.


Running up the street to get Evie from daycare.


... and running back down the street with Evie in tow.


A quick stop at the playground (fully fenced so I can relax).




Home again!


Breakfast for dinner. Trimmed free-range bacon, scrambled organic eggs (no milk/cream/butter), organic baked beans, organic tomato, on a bed of organic rocket. Mmmmmmm, so good. The kids are happy too (except they don't eat rocket or tomato).

I stopped there, that was enough. You missed the excitement of the kids having a bath, their dad finally getting home, and getting them to bed, which at 9.20pm is still a work in progress!

Tomorrow

Thanks to a suggestion by Kath @ The Courage to Start, tomorrow I am going to do a 'Day in the 12WBT life'. Unfortunately, they'll just be camera phone pics because we've somehow lost our point-and-shoot camera.

I just know you're all sitting on the edges of your computer chairs in excitement and anticipation. ;)

New habits

Yesterday morning when I woke up for my run, I got an SMS that gave me a nasty shock. Don't worry, it's not bad health news for me or loved ones, it's a financial shock due to a completely idiotic mistake I made a few weeks ago. Ugh! I felt awful.

The old me would have gone back to bed and hidden under the covers, probably with as much chocolate or sweet stuff as I could scrounge up - and being the Easter weekend, that would have been a lot. It was tempting, so tempting. But I was already half-dressed.

So instead I finished getting ready, laced those shoes up, and JFDI. Took out my frustration with myself, on the pavement and the steps of Jacob's Ladder instead. 3.5km there, 6 laps down and up, 3.5km back. 1.5 hours, more than 1000 calories.

MUCH better way to deal with it, I was pretty much over it by the time I got home.

Still have the bill to pay, though, who wants to buy some Phoenix cards?!?! LOL.

Easter

I hope you are all having a great long weekend, whether or not you celebrate Easter as a Christian festival, a pagan one, a chocolate one, or just enjoy five days off work.

I went for a run on Sunday morning and it was bliss. The dual-use path that I often run on down by the river, is usually quite busy - it was deserted! Plus there was a light mist on the water and a few sprinkles of rain. This could have been cold but I have 2km to run before I get to the river, so I was nicely warmed up by then.

I've done okay with food. Personally I think if I couldn't eat chocolate at Easter I'd be very sad!! But I haven't eaten much, and I've kept active. We stayed at the in-laws last night and were there all of today; let me just say my in-laws are very fond of carbs, although slightly less so since my father-in-law was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes ... That said, I managed to politely refuse dessert, decline the bread basket at dinner, and not go for seconds. The hardest part was not having any protein at breakfast, only a slice of toast. I've become accustomed to 'proper' brekkies and I was starving by lunch time!

Oh, and I did find a dress on Saturday. I walked ALL around the city and found nothing satisfactory, ugh, things are expensive, I know I said I wasn't shopping solely on price but I couldn't come to terms with spending $300 on a dress. Plus a lot of the size twelves were a little big (yay! never thought I'd say that) and the size tens a little tight. That was frustrating. We dropped in to Hillarys Boat Harbour to get the kids some ice cream, and I took a quick peek in a little boutique there. 15 minutes, two very helpful sales assistants and $100 later, and I actually have TWO dresses to choose from. This is why I hate shopping.

Dress shopping & body image

Today I am going to go shopping for a dress to wear to the finale party.

This brings up a lot of issues for me. For about the last five years, every time I've had a special occasion to go to, I buy something that is:

1. Cheap. Not so much in quality, just price. So clearance racks, op-shopping for brand-name dresses in good condition, you get the idea.
2. Just okay. Fits me, doesn't gape or bulge, doesn't emphasise the areas I was most unhappy with (legs, tummy), but doesn't necessarily actually flatter me.

Part of this is because I don't really have the time for shopping, at least not child-free, and anyone with kids understands that clothes shopping for oneself with the kids in tow is not easy. Evie is pretty patient, but there's still the problem that nowhere posher than Target actually has room for a stroller or trolley in the changerooms, heck, many nicer shops I can't even really fit a stroller in the shop without feeling like Evie is probably putting vaguely sticky 2-year-old hands over everything.

But part of it is because I don't feel I DESERVE something really gorgeous. If I'm not going to look great, I shouldn't be spending much money. I've been a SAHM for five years so there's also the notion of my value tied up in that, i.e. I don't earn any money so I don't deserve to spend much on myself. (Please note that this idea doesn't come from my partner, it's self-sabotage.)

So today I am going to go shopping, by myself. I am going to look at the sale racks, sure, but I am not going to buy something simply because it's on sale. I'm not going to settle for 'okay'. I've still got two weekends to go, so if I don't find anything today, that's okay too.

(The cheapskate part of me is not happy because I will probably also need new shoes and a new bra - my boobs have shrunk along with the rest of me, and the only ones that fit properly at the moment are sports bras.)

Thoughts

I lost another 600g this week. It isn't much, but it means there are less than 4kg to my goal weight.

I don't regret for a minute signing up for this round of the 12WBT, but I've been thinking about it and I don't think I'll be back for Round 2. I justified the once-off cost, but now I am almost at goal, I *know* what I need to know, I just need to keep putting it into practice.

Michelle has a great Lean and Strong program for those who aren't wanting to lose more weight, but rather to tone up; however, I don't think this is for me. Weight and strength training are like pulling teeth to me, ugh, I don't do it enough and I don't enjoy it when I do it! Plus my major goal, which will feel much bigger to me than just losing the weight, is to be able to run a half-marathon in August. So I need that cardio in there. Plus, the L&S program is more suited to someone who can go to the gym regularly, and that's just not me.

Who knows, I might be ready for it by the time Round 3 starts, or I might feel I'm doing okay with what I've learned and with following Michelle's books. One thing is for sure, I am excited to be going to Melbourne for the final party of THIS round!

(And just a little nervous. Me + large social events = eeek! Breaking out of the comfort zone ...)

Less than four weeks to go

We're in Week 9 of the 12 Week Body Transformation already! Wow.

So far, I've lost 11.6kg since the start of pre-season, 6.6kg (8.67% of my body weight) since the 12 weeks actually started. So it has slowed down; I've certainly not been perfect. There are now less than four weeks until the end, my tickets to Melbourne for the final workout and party are booked, and I have 4.5kg to go until my goal. Time to refocus and kick butt!

I recently looked at some family photos we had done before Christmas. I didn't realise until now that I really was overweight. No wonder people have noticed a change! Best of all, I can move more easily, my digestive system isn't playing up as much, and today I fit into a pair of jeans I still had stashed away from more than five years ago, before my second pregnancy.

(Laziness paid off a bit here. Last winter I needed new jeans, so I went to my favourite op shop on a 50% off day. I didn't have time to try things on, so I grabbed four pairs that looked like they'd fit and were in a style I like. At $2.50/pair, I figured I couldn't go wrong. Two pairs fit me and saw me through last winter. Two were quite a bit too small and I kept meaning to sell them on eBay. I never got around to it, and today they fit me perfectly! So I now have two 'new' pairs of jeans - one pair are Levis! - and one old favourite for this winter.)

Today was a better run

I still didn't manage to get up and do it before work, instead I did it after work, and it felt ok. Not as good as running first thing, but much better than the late afternoon effort the other day.

Evie was at daycare for the morning, so I had to pick her up by 12.30pm, but I wanted to get her a little early. I finished work just before 11am, went home, got changed and had about half an hour to spare. Not enough for a long run, so I just went to the park across the road and did interval running (1min faster pace, 1min30sec slower pace). My heartrate stayed quite high and I burned nearly 400 calories in the 30 minutes, so I'm happy with that! It's a tactic I'm going to have to use more now that I'm more pushed for time, and also now that it is darker in the mornings.

Of course, when I got to daycare Evie was asleep, so I should probably have waited to pick her up!! But we went and had lunch together as a treat: my going back to work hasn't been easy for her, either.

I remember why I run in the mornings

Today I treated myself to a sleep-in and ran in the afternoon instead. I left it a good couple of hours after lunch, but I still felt awful, like my lunch was sitting right at the top of my stomach ready to come out at any minute. Ugh.

I gave up after 5km and walked the remaining 2km home. I suppose 5km is better than nothing. Note to self: next time, get up and run in the morning, and take a nanna nap in the afternoon!

This is what today looked like

0530: get up and go for a short run in the dark.
0600: get home, get ready for work, fill dishwasher 'cos it wasn't done last night.
0710: walk to work
0730-1045: work (my partner worked from home watching Miss 2.5 & took the older kids to school)
1100: get home, get changed, get on the bike with Evie up to swimming lessons
1130-1230: swimming & playground
1300: get home, make lunch, eat lunch, put swimming stuff in washing machine, make multiple phone calls, take swimming stuff out of machine & hang it up, put whites in washing machine.
1445: walk up to school
1515: get back from school pickup
1515-1700: empty washing machine again, hang up whites, feed children multiple times, drink COFFEE, answer email for other job.
1700: walk to soccer
1715-1830: soccer training for older kids, play with Miss 2.5 in the playground
1900: get home, having picked dinner up on the way
2030: finally time to put the kids to bed ... they are still wide awake though, and it's after 2130!!

I am tired, not used to this whole work-outside-the-home thing. BUT I did get my run in.

Life just got a bit more chaotic

I got a 'real' job (i.e not working from home - although I am still doing that one too). Add that to the kids starting soccer for the year: two afternoons of training each week plus games on Sunday, a 2.5 year old who is a little off-colour without being obviously sick, and a tired mama, and you have a LOT of chaos.

I'm on morning shifts for 3 weeks while I train, so I'm not too sure how I'm going to find time for the other kind of training. At least the office is 15 minutes walk from my house, so that's 30 minutes of walking each day, and I should be able to do some intervals or something while the older two are at soccer, if the littlest one will happily play in the playground. I will do my best!

A little bit of a good thing

When I was a child, we couldn't easily get Cadbury Creme Eggs here in Australia. Well, it was either that or we couldn't afford them. I'm not really sure which, but at any rate, they weren't absolutely everywhere like they are now. Every Easter, my grandparents would send us a six-pack over from England - let's not even get started on sending chocolate across the world via the postal service! They always got here in one piece. Six: one for each member of the family.

I treasured that Creme Egg. Some years I ate it before anything else, savouring every bite. Other years I carefully hoarded it and saved it until I'd eaten all my other chocolate; which, mind you, I ate very slowly.

At some point on my way to growing up - probably when I got my first job at 16 - I realised that they were all over the supermarket and convenience stores from the minute the Christmas stuff got cleared out. So I would buy one, not all the time, but enough so that they were no longer treasured and savoured.

I think this is one of my problems with food in general: I eat because it's there, and I don't think about it enough. I eat (or ate) chocolate far too frequently, and therefore didn't appreciate it.

This year, when the Creme Eggs started appearing in the shops, I thought, yum. Then I thought, "I don't really need one today. Maybe next week." I have been thinking that since January and it's now April and I haven't had one yet! I will treat myself to one on Easter, just one. I don't want to never eat chocolate or ice cream or fried food again. I just want to be able to say, this truly is a treat, something that I have occasionally and make allowances for.

I'm going to really enjoy that Creme Egg.

This week

I got a new MacBook Pro. It's very cool, but taking some getting used to! I've been using an HP Netbook that Evie broke half the keys off ages ago, heh, and the space bar finally gave up the ghost. The advantage of hubby working in high-level IT? Gadget allowance!

Tomorrow is a bit of a red flag day: a friend's wedding and reception. Plus the two-hour gap between the wedding and the reception when I would normally eat/or drink. I have a big group training session on Sunday morning - that'll be my 1000-calorie super session - but I am going to go for a run tomorrow morning too. Birthday party for the kids in the morning, so it needs to be a quick one. I might give intervals a go, squeeze as many calories as possible into 30 minutes.

I got up to the 10kg lost mark this week! My next mini-goal is to get under 70kg, and last Wednesday I was at 71kg.