Taking Charge: The Challenges

Moving towards a healthier lifestyle has its challenges: there are days when I don’t feel like exercising, eating healthily, where I’m feeling demotivated… I can deal with these but I have found that my biggest challenge is eating enough protein.

I know, right? I can just see your looks of puzzlement and surprise. How can I, a self-confessed carnivore, have a problem eating enough protein? Well, it’s harder than you think. With my new eating plan I’ve had no problems reducing my carb intake, but eating protein has proven a challenge especially as I have high cholesterol. It has been out with fatty meats - not that I ever ate much because I prefer lean meat but I do miss bacon! Red meat is a rarity as I only like the good cuts (read pricey and out of my budget) and I’ve therefore been eating a lot of chicken and fish. And then I went of chicken (it just tastes weird).

So what options am I left with? Not much it turns out. Beans and pulses are not an option for me because they are very starchy. Tofu is revolting and belongs in the same category as brussel sprouts and beetroot. I don’t eat eggs and there is only so much cottage cheese or ricotta anyone can eat. When my dietician told me how much cottage cheese I should eat in a sitting I thought she must be mad: a quarter to half a tub!

I’m starting to think that my disinterest in meat may be due to the fact that I am tired of cooking. There is nothing more demotivating than cooking for one person. No wonder single people live off ready-made meals. Woolworths knows what it’s doing.

On a positive note though: I’ve reached an incredible achievement in that I do not actually beat myself up or feel guilty if I don’t stick 100% to my eating plan, or if I decide to not go to gym on a gym day. I think that not feeling guilty is not only good for the soul but it can help me achieve more because I do not view the slippages as failures any more. For someone with ingrain guilt complex, that’s major.

Now to get my taste buds back into gear.

Taking Charge: The Wellness Journey

Last month one of my decisions was to find a health and fitness buddy. Lucky for me, my friend Kerri told me that she also wanted to improve her health and fitness. We therefore decided to go on a Wellness Journey together. Part of this journey is to motivate each other on a daily basis and help each other through the tough cravings and the lack of motivation. We decided to call it a wellness journey because that’s the ultimate goal to be healthy and fit and to feel good in our own skins, physically as well as emotionally.

In order to not lose focus we’ve set ourselves a bunch of targets which we would like to achieve.   My aim is to become fit, have automatic healthy eating habits, reach my 70kg goal weight and drop from a 36 top to a 34 and from a 40 bottom to a 36. I will achieve this by:

·         Sticking to my eating plan. This means:

o   Preparing meals in advance.

o   Drinking 2 litres water / day.

o   Eating out as little as possible and then only having healthiest options on the menu.

o   Not exceeding my 2 cheats a week.

o   Logging everything I eat.

·         Hitting the gym 3 x week:

o   When running I will gradually increase running time intervals. Currently two 5 minute intervals in a 20 min treadmill session.

o   Get a strength training workout from the gym.

o   Alternate between classes and strength training.

·         Walking for at least 1 hour once a week to train towards the 702 Walk the Talk.

·         NO CALORIE COUNTING BECAUSE THAT’S GOING TO MESS WITH MY MIND.

So far I’m not doing too badly. I’m going more regularly to gym and one of the trainers has been very generous to show me exercise sets that I can do. Full body workouts that just kill me but I actually am starting to enjoy them and the feeling of accomplishment that comes with it.

 

This is me lifting 15kg (The trainer only told me afterwards how much it was.  Sneaky!)

Last night Kerri sent me an email asking if I would be keen to do the Tougher than Dirt Run in November. My first reaction was “You have got to be kidding! Are you mad?” and then I thought about it. This is the year where I’m setting myself new challenges. After all, I decided to do the 15km 702 Walk the Talk. I’ve even started to attempt running, and I’m not coughing my lungs out when I do. So I said yes. It hasn’t quite sunk in, but crickey, yes, I’m going to do this and finish it.

See you at the finish line!



Taking Charge : Part 2

My friend Kerri sent me a link to a very interesting website: coachcalorie. It’s full of good advice on healthy eating and exercise.  Here’s a list of things from one of their posts that should help me on my weight loss journey.

Control Portion Sizes

In our super-sized food culture, portion sizes have gotten out of control. Eating portions the size of your fist is a good start towards controlling your food intake. Also, don’t feel like you always need to finish off all the food on your plate. Leaving a couple bites will teach you self-control.

Be Consistent

No one is perfect. We are all going to make mistakes. However, successful people are consistently living a healthy lifestyle. Over a period of time, they are eating healthy 90% of the time, and they are exercising several times a week.  Make exercise and healthy eating part of your everyday routine and soon it will be as second nature as brushing your teeth.

Plan

A healthy lifestyle takes planning. Most mistakes occur from a lack of a plan. Plan your meals in advance so you know what to buy every week at the grocery store. Only buy what you plan on eating, and try to cook your meals ahead of time. The simple nature of reheat and eat makes it much more likely that you’ll stay on track.

Get Active

Nearly everyone who lost over 50 pounds added in some form of physical activity. Even if it was just a little bit, the fact that they were more active helped them lose the weight. The trick is to find an activity you enjoy. Not everyone likes the same exercise. Find an activity you love to do, and then push yourself out of your comfort zone. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Don’t Beat Yourself Up

You’re going to mess up. We all do. Successful people don’t beat themselves up over it. They get right back on track. They don’t wait until tomorrow to do so either. Their healthy lifestyle and weight loss continues to move forward and make progress because they allow themselves to make mistakes, learn from them, and then end up stronger as a result.

Surround Yourself With Positive People

We are highly influenced by the people close to us. Many successful people had to move forward with their lives and leave old friends and lifestyles behind. It was a hard decision to make, but they understood how important it was to surround themselves with people who believed in their dreams.

Stop Making Excuses

Successful people made the shift and realized that the reasons for why they weren’t reaching their weight loss goals were actually just excuses. It was a hard idea to accept, but once they were honest with themselves, they spent less time making excuses, and more time finding ways to accomplish their goals.

Stay Positive

Negative thoughts lead to negative results. You are the result of what you think. Keeping a positive outtake on your weight loss journey increases the odds of your success. You will learn a lot about yourself during your lifestyle transition. There will be many challenges and difficulties, but it’s important to understand that even though it might not be easy, it will be worth it.

Don’t Try to Be Perfect

If your goal is to be perfect, you’re already setting yourself up for failure. No one is perfect. Even the people who seem to have the most perfect bodies didn’t get there by being perfect. Perfection is something many strive for, but ultimately something they will never achieve. Do your best!

Never Give Up

Weight loss happens the moment you don’t give up. Many people don’t realize how close they were to achieving success. There comes a time when things just click, but that doesn’t happen until you’re ready to throw in the towel and call it quits. The longer you stick with it, the higher your odds of success. Keep moving forward, and don’t ever give up!

Hanging on to the Bandwagon

I trust and respect myself and deserve to satisfy my inner needs!

(Thank you to Clemma for this cute pic that made my day)

The last couple of weeks have been interesting, between going to the DRC for work, getting ill and eating big doses of antibiotics (dear Augmentin manufacturer, please make your pills smaller so that they are easier to swallow), and starting my first project managing role.

I have managed to lose some more weight and cms since my last weigh in 3 weeks ago, so I’m definitely getting my carb / protein ratio right. I will not pretend that it has been easy. Being ill made it even harder to be disciplined. The last thing I’ve wanted to do is cook. I did manage to make myself some soup for lunches last week, but suppers have been opportunistic and far from being a healthy choice at the best of times. I’ve also not been to gym for 2 weeks and I’m craving it! My lungs are finally clearing up so I should be able to slowly get going again.

I realise that I need to make a bigger effort to have home-cooked supper meals readily available. As my housemate is only home 2 or 3 nights a week, cooking for one is rather tricky. And I’m utterly not in the mood for cooking these days. There are some unidentified frozen dishes lurking in the freezer. I think it’s time to investigate them. Toss out what shouldn’t even be in the fridge. The sad thing is that there seems to me more condiments in that fridge than anything else (mostly my housemate’s. Do we really need that many? There are many variations on the chilli theme. I think she forgets she has that stuff and I don’t go near it, I like my taste buds). Once I’ve done that I need to be really prepared and disciplined.

It’s very hard to do this solo. Last year I did a challenge with Sean and it worked well until he bailed out on me. I need to find someone who is determined to get healthy, who will not sabotage the process, and who will rise to the challenge.

On the positive side of things, I am making more time for me. I have stopped accepting every invite that is being sent out. I am getting back in contact with my dear friends with whom I feel I have not been communicating enough. I’ve realised how much I miss them. I’m watching less TV, reading more and spending time in my garden. I’m also trying to look after my skin better: no more skipping on cleansing my face at night; I make sure that I treat my nails and cuticles every night; applying hand cream after every time I wash my hands; moisturising! This is all part of the Looking After Gerlinde Plan: pampering (without breaking the bank) and giving me some much needed love.

So here is the plan for the coming weeks:

1.       Find a health and fitness buddy who will not bail out on me.

2.       Make more time to see close friends.

3.       Sort out the fridge and toss anything unhealthy / old and manky / mysterious.

4.       BE DISCIPLINED AND PREPARED!

5.       Plan weekly meals.

6.       Get back to gym (at least 3 times a week) and start training for the 15km 702 Walk the Talk.

7.       Eat out not more than once a week, preferably not more than twice a month (my finances will be grateful too).

8.       No take-outs or convenience meals (happy waist and wallet).

9.       NEVER GIVE UP! NEVER SURRENDER!

Taking Charge

This year I’ve been struggling to loose weight. Even though I've been following the weigh-less eating plan, which workined so well last year, this year not a gram came off. I therefore decided to see a dietician to determine where I was going wrong.

It turns out that most of my eating was correct but I was eating too many hidden carbs i.e. milk and yogurt. That came as a surprise as I’d always considered those to be proteins. The dietician has put me on a plan where my breakfast and snacks are very different. I need to eat a protein at breakfast and preferably some in the afternoon too. It’s been quite the adjustment to give up my cereals for rye with cottage cheese.

At my first weigh-in I had l lost some weight and cms. I was elated. Then I went on holiday and the weight popped back on because it was harder to make good eating choices, and with easter eggs and hot cros bun temptation... Need I say more. Things went pear-shaped from there. I was trying to keep the amount of fat down while increasing protein intake in my meals. I found myself reaching for chocolates and crisps even though I knew I shouldn’t and that I would feel ill afterwards. I kept finding excuses for not going to gym. I kept finding excuses for everything.

It got to the stage where I felt desperate and weepy all the time (I shouldn’t feel that way as I’m on anti-depressants). I took myself to the shrink and had a big fat chat about everything that had been happening in my life. A light went on when I realise that I was emotionally running on empty. I’ve been giving a lot of my time and energy to my mom and some of my friends who were in dire need of it (you just don’t abandon friends and families in crisises). So much so that my reserves got depleted and I did what I always did: reach for food to fill that gaping hole in my soul, even though it didn’t satisfy the need.

I also spoke to the dietician who forbade me to count calories in any shape way or form. She said I could continue logging what I ate but that I must not even look at the nutritional information (unless I was buying ready-made meals). The good thing of that visit though was the fact that I had lost weight and cm, which has motivated me.

I now need to do the following :

1.       I need to write a daily affirmation. If I can write 3 affirmations in a row then I must treat myself to something. I realise that is going to have to be something not money based as I’ve been doing the same thing with money as with food: buying things to fill the gaping hole. This will be tricky but I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

2.       I need to stop and analyse how I feel every time I reach for comfort food. This should help me identify if it’s boredom, emotional, hormonal related, as well as help step out of the vicious circle of using food as means of comfort.

3.       I mustn’t beat myself up over bad food choices.  This feeds into the analysis of why I reached for the bad foods. I should strive to do better every time I lapse. Starting the moment after the slip-up (not “tomorrow I will do better”).

4.       I should decide what my 2 cheats for the week are going to be at the start of the week.  That way I can look forward to them and hopefully be less likely to slip-up.

5.       I need to make time for me, to allow myself to re-eneregise. This means I have to be a bit more selfish. This doesn’t mean that I stop giving the support, but rather give it out in controlled quantities.

I AM MY NUMBER ONE PRIORITY! I AM IN CHARGE OF MY LIFE!