12wbt update: W2D4

Food: Overate again. *sigh* Nobody put a gun to my head but I ate heaps of M&Ms at the movies, chose honey soy chicken instead of a healthier stirfry option for lunch, a small piece of dark chocolate (about 100 calories) during the late afternoon slump, and had low cal beer and wine with my very healthy dinner that D cooked on the bbq for me.

...Actually, it's not as bad as it could have been, is it? Next time I go to the movies with Zane I will just take some decent snack food with me to stave off the desire to 'treat myself' with a sugar and calorie overdose.

Exercise: non existent. Just plain ran out of time this afternoon, had more things to do with the kids than time to do it in. My planned 500 calorie burn has gone begging, and I didn't even walk Autumn to or from school! Planning to do a boxing class in the morning though. Will have to really bust my ass to make up for today.

Feeling flat and tired despite a really enjoyable trip to the movies followed by lunch with a good friend and her beautiful new baby son. Being awake far more than asleep between midnight and 6 am last night would be the culprit for today's mood. And now I'm up late again because my 'tired enough for bed' window opened and shut before either kid was unconscious. Time to go lie down anyway and put a little energy in the bank for tomorrow.

12wbt update: W2 D3

Weigh-in day - up 100g which is pretty encouraging for the future. If I can be a little cavalier about my eating habits and stay pretty much the same weight through exercising, that is a Good Thing. :)

Eating: Off plan. Made the effort to have a 12wbt breakfast, then undid that with a mini pizza lunch (yum, with Brie!), then made Sang Choy Bow with pork mince which would have been a bit over on the 300-ish calorie allowance for a dinner, but it was good and reasonably healthy. Apart from slicing into my finger while cutting up the onion. Man, I hate cooking.

Exercise: BLISTERING cardio today - after the fairly sedate rowing, jogging, and cross trainering, I did 12 minutes of 30 sec on/off sprints. Starting at 9kph and getting up to 14.5kph - a personal best by 1kph! Peaked early as I thought I was doing it for 8 mins then realised there were still 5 rounds to go at 7 mins in. But it felt really good to get that fast, even if just for a little while. At Christmas, 12kph was super fast for me. :) Burnt about 700 calories exercising today in total, including babywearing walks to and from Autumn's school.

Feeling very snacky. Want chocolate constantly. Probably hormonal and also a bit of a comfort eating thing. Duncan got desexed today so we definitely won't be having any more babies in this family. Although my body is not great at pregnancy or early motherhood, and I am (let's face it) often a cranky bee-yatch of a mum, I was really feeling ambivalent about not having any more babies. I love my kids so dearly, and damn, those little babies are just so gorgeous.

I just have to keep soaking up as much joy as I can out of these early months with Zane, and these early years with Autumn. And kissing Zane's baby-toes at every opportunity, before he starts getting his feet really dirty...

12wbt update W2 D2

Food: out of control. Small block of dark chocolate for dinner. And a meat pie for supper. A long day of childcare and over tired. Bad form...
Exercise: nonexistent today, spent the whole day and most of the evening caring for the kids, but burnt off over 500 calories yesterday running slowly. No exercise over the weekend, was just completely exhausted. Generally a bit physically out of sorts.

Wow, I've really had a tough week as far as 12wbt is concerned. I just haven't seemed to get into the groove of calorie counting and have missed 2 scheduled exercise sessions, 1 last week and 1 this week. And I've been missing making daily quick blog posts too.

Lately I have worked out so much and still had more 'tough' days than I feel the environment really deserves. The lack of continuous sleep is really breaking me down, though. More than 3 hours in a row would be really, really great. The fact that the exercise is not keeping me on the sunny side of the street consistently sometimes makes me feel like going "Oh, screw it! It's just not working. Why bother.". Which is silly as I *know* it is keeping me at a much better level of sanity than I'd otherwise be at, and it's also been having a great effect on my overall fitness and my figure.

Doing the daily status updates last round did help keep me on track and thinking about how things were going. I need to keep doing it regularly this round, too.

Time to get back into the game and JFDI (that's Just Freakin' Do It!, a Michelle Bridges catch-cry).

Tomorrow I will get a workout in and aim for 500+ calories again. I am committed to burning 3000 calories for the week so need to get a wriggle on...

In other news, my little boy turned 5 months old yesterday and is now eating baby rice cereal and avocado happily. He has also discovered a love of the Jolly Jumper. His sister has discovered a love of treating him like a bouncy puppet in the Jolly Jumper. :-)

12wbt update w1d5

Friday.
Food: gone crazy on the desserts this week. Off-plan eating most of the week too but falling back on old faithful recipes from last 12wbt round for most breakfasts and some lunches. Must resume calorie counting but not planning to before Sunday, at least.
Exercise: walking Autumn to school both days, daily sessions at the gym. Thursday, Pump class for strength training. Worked damn hard. Friday, boxing class. Really worked damn hard. Low calorie burns for both classes. Strength training, you expect that. Boxing, I expect a high calorie burn, at least 400-450. Not sure if it is a result of my fitness taking a noticeable jump in the past fortnight, or the last of the gastro bug in my system screwing up my perception of how hard I'm working. After 3 weeks of moderate gastro, I don't know whether I'm just overheating way too easily.

My persistent crankiness and sporadic but increasing impulsive/compulsive behavior lead me to think even this much exercise is not fixing my head, but is almost managing to keep me close to an even keel. That's not enough of a result for me right now. Doing some mood, sleep and activity tracking for a few weeks and then reconsidering whether it is time to medicate until I can have more sleep and hopefully get better. It is pretty frustrating to see such improvements in my mental health as a result of exercise but still not attain a good enough headspace to live with.

At least, with doing usually about 8-10 hours a week of exercise, I am getting really fit. That feels good.

Points to work on over the coming week:
* reduce reliance on sugar and caffeine, particularly when overtired
* eat within calorie allowance at least 4/7 days. Although I am not wild to lose weight at this point, I need to keep a handle on appropriate portion sizes or risk yoyoing because I want to eat like s teenage boy. Also, I feel better physically and mentally when I eat mostly clean.
* find opportunities for incidental and light, moderate exercise. Be prepared to rest my body from hard exercise more often before it burns out on me. Make a physio appointment about core, knees and plantar fascia (Abs, knees and feet, this is for you guys.)
* track this moods and environmental factors. A bit of a scientific approach to spotting triggeres, responses and other patterns can't hurt anything at this juncture.

12wbt update w1d3

Weigh-in day. Wasn't sure what to expect and was pleased with a further 500g reduction this week. Only just over 4 kg from goal weight now.

Eating: off-plan. Not too crazy, but probably 20% over target. Time to start reining in the extra eating again.

Exercise: completed 10K-training run plan for the day which only totalled about 4-5 kms, some in slow and steady jogging, some in slow sprints, and some in run-your-guts-out sprints. I can feel my body getting faster and more powerful in the sprints as I do them each week. What killed me a month ago I now float through. Nice. Burnt only 268 calories in the half-hour but put in a good solid effort on the sprints so got my endorphin hit for the day.

A busy day with gym, visiting, being visited, and going to Autumn's start-of-school-year bbq and fair. Great fun! And check out Autumn's fabulous face painting by Deborah Lane!

12wbt update w1d2

Eating: A very off-plan day. More sugary food than usual and a big dinner with a low calorie beer. Skipped breakfast, which usually leads to trouble. Made individual chocolate puddings for dessert, tried making mine a bit lower-calorie by using Splenda instead of regular sugar. It made my pudding a bit rubbery compared to D's appetisingly fluffy one. Served with lite icecream which actually seemed the same as the full fat one.
Exercise: 273 calories, a high energy strength workout. I went up to the Advanced Lean and Fit programme this round, last time I did intermediate. This is going to really boost my muscle power! I intend to make the cardio follow the 10 km run training plan where I can.

Today I kept very busy out of the house. Procrastinating a bit, really, about working on defining my goals for this 12wbt round. There are several already set from my 6-month outlook for last round:

3-month goals

• Run a sub-60 minute 10 km (this seemed very pie-in-the-sky 12 weeks ago, but my 1km speed trial has dropped from about 6.45 to 5.15 over 12 weeks, so maybe it really is achievable to do this in 12 weeks' time at the Mother's Day Classic!)
• Run 14 km in under 1 hr 45 (in readiness for the 2013 Sydney City to Surf on 11 August)
• Be successfully training for my first half marathon (22 September)
• Reach my goal weight of 65 kg
• Become comfortable with keeping my weight within 2 kilos of my goal weight (this is a life skill: my intention is to keep my body as fit and healthy as possible for the next 40 years or so, and keeping my weight within the healthy range is a key element of this)
• Be ready to celebrate my 40th birthday this July in the best physical condition I've ever been in!
• Inspire and help others to work toward their own health and fitness goals
• Attain a good, stable and positive mental state

1-month goals

• Improve my mental health to the extent that there are no longer strong swings or low periods lasting more than 1-2 days
• Complete a slow and steady 10 km run
• Be able to wear most size 12 clothes very comfortably
• Reduce my weight by a further 2+ kg
• Wear my sleeveless knit bridesmaid dress in mid March with pride, sporting strong, toned shoulders, arms and bum
• MINI MILESTONE: Complete a 5 km run with both kids in under 42 minutes

I'll have to do a bit more thinking yet about new 6 and 12 month goals and the steps I need to take to reach these goals, but I'm confident that the experience I've gained in the past 12 weeks will stand me in good stead.

12wbt update week 1 day 1 (Michelle Bridges 12 Week Body Transformation)

I do some stuff. Not lots of stuff, but some. And I keep pretty busy. This past 12 weeks, most of my 'busy' has been spent on kidwrangling my beautiful preschooler Autumn (4 this April) and my baby boy Zane (4.75 months old now), and participating in a round of the Michelle Bridges 12 Week Body Transformation program (12wbt).

The next 12 weeks will involve some serious work on my cake decorating in preparation for my best friend Mel's wedding, more kidwrangling, some sewing and embroidery (I hope!), writing, decluttering the house before I really do lose my mind in this mess, and another 12 weeks of body transformation work. If I have time I'll do something about the yard, but I don't think that's very likely. ;-/

I am starting a new round of the 12wbt today, and instead of spamming my Facebook friends with 84 more daily updates, I am going to use my blog. Right here.

I am behind on my preseason tasks - need to reset my goals for this round yet. I'll post about that tomorrow.

For now, here is today's *final* 12wbt update that I posted on FB.

12wbt update: Well, yesterday was the last day of my Michelle Bridges 12 Week Body Transformation challenge. I had to wait until today to complete my final fitness test but the results are in, and they are great! Having met most of my goals and exceeded my expectations for the 12 weeks, I can't recommend this programme highly enough to anyone who's looking for guidance in getting fit and getting rid of some excess weight.

Weight reduced by 7.3 kg (9.5% of body weight)
BMI reduced to 26.2 - from the top end of 'overweight' to the lower end of it
Total cms reduced: 37 - including 6cm from my hips and each thigh!

Although I've been a bit slack with the eating plan, I have eaten far less crap in the past 12 weeks than I used to. A huge reduction in my sugar intake has helped my body and mind feel better.

I have trained pretty consistently throughout the 12 weeks, I think I got my 6 workouts in for at least 9 of those 12 weeks. I've learnt a lot about how exercise and food intake affect my body and my moods. I have also discovered that no matter how hard and how often I train, I am still really struggling with postnatal depression. I'm much improved, but am still really not myself.

Thanks to my FB friends for the support and encouragement, I really do appreciate it very much. I'll stop spamming everyone with 12wbt updates now - I'm starting another 12 week round today, to start preparing for my first half marathon, which I'm planning to do with my sister Jo in September.