Japanese style prawn noodles

Well, not much to write about at this point.  Less than 2 of the 12 weeks in the program left to go and it seems a bit strange that it’s nearly all over.  I know once I finish I need to keep eating right and keep exercising – and luckily my husband is 100% behind me in this.  In a lot of ways it will be a relief to have some of the time back, but I also know that I still need to find time for most of the activities I have been doing anyway.

My struggle at the moment is to stay focussed.  I stuck to my plan to do some exercise each day over the long weekend which was good, but I slacked off in the eating department a little.  Not a huge amount, but I had a couple of glasses of wine that I wouldn’t usually have and probably snacked a bit on the wrong things.  Nothing major, but it lets me know that I am really going to have to watch things once I’m off the plan to make sure I don’t get back into old habits.  The hardest part is that my husband needs to eat more than what we have been at times, so he will have dessert or extra yummy things in dinner and I have to talk myself out of having them too.  It really doesn’t seem fair sometimes.  But then he doesn’t need to lose as much weight as I do!

I just need to keep reminding myself that I’m getting really close to my original goal weight and once I get there I can ease up a little on the strict calorie control to maintain rather than lose weight.  It’s not really taking that long to lose it – if I look at the past 10 weeks, I’ve lost well over half a kilo a week, almost a full kilo a week if I take out the 2 weeks over christmas when I didn’t stick to the plan, and I’m still losing the weight well.  I haven’t really had a slow down in weight loss, it fluctuates from week to week, but overall I’m still losing a decent amount each week – I haven’t hit the “I’m restricting calories, exercising, but my weight doesn’t change” plateau yet.

I also need to remind myself why I’m doing this – to feel better about myself, fitter and healthier, to be able to keep up with my daughter and play with her as she grows, to be a happier, healthier wife to my husband and to give myself a focus and a plan for getting there.

Steak sandwich

Slow week for me.  I’ve been absolutely exhausted all week, mainly from not sleeping too well and from the baby not sleeping as well either.  As a result, I’ve been hungrier than usual and the 1200 calories just isn’t cutting it.  I’ve had a few “extras” to eat while still being mainly good about the choices I make so still managed to drop some weight but I haven’t had the energy (or time) to do any exercise.

Actually, today is probably the first day that I’ve felt up to it all week and I still didn’t do any exercise.  But you know what – I’m ok with that.  For now.  I spent the morning doing other useful stuff that I hadn’t been able to get on to in the rest of the week, so I already feel like I’ve accomplished something today.  Exercise picks up again tomorrow and with it being a long weekend I think I’m going to exercise every day to make up for being slack the rest of the week.

With only 2 weeks left on the program, I’m starting to feel a bit burnt out.  It’s been a lot more time consuming than I expected which has affected all of us.  While the exercise is only for an hour, it takes up most of the morning once you add in cool down and a shower – which usually doesn’t get to happen until the baby has been up for a couple of hours and goes back down to sleep again.  Then the food prep has taken a lot more time than I’ve expected some days as well.  I’m trying hard to stay focussed but it’s getting more and more difficult as we get closer to the end.

It’s not like I’m going to just stop everything once the program finishes either.  We plan on going through the recipes, pulling out some favourites and putting them on regular rotation for dinners.  My lunches have definitely changed too and I’m happy eating a mountain bread wrap or corn thins with some yummy toppings.  I’ll also keep doing regular exercise - I’m enjoying feeling fitter again and that as I’m losing the weight I’m also getting more toned.

So really, I’m not stopping, I made a commitment to see this through, I’m just feeling a bit run down and am looking forward to this weekend and getting things back in order again and seeing what I can achieve in these final two weeks!

Seafood marinara and couscous

I’m back!  Must be around 4 weeks since I’ve made a post, terribly slack of me.  I was away for a couple of weeks over Christmas and was almost totally off the program for that time.  No excuse, just terribly slack of me.  I did hardly any exercise at all and didn’t follow the meal plan.  I DID watch what I ate though and avoided snacking just because it was there, made sure I didn’t drink too much and only had a little chocolate – much less than I usually would!

As a result, for the 2 weeks I was away from my scales, I still managed to drop half a kilo which I was really pleased to see.  I was organised to kick back into things again, but seeing this loss really gave me the boost I needed to start up again.  Meal plan started up again this week and damn there are some tasty things on it – japanese style prawns with soba noodles to start the week was amazing!  Didn’t get a photo of it though so will need to make it again.

With exercise, I started up again last weekend with 1hr picked form a Super Saturday Session and was sore for 3 days after!  Oops, I shouldn’t have gone that long doing nothing!  I had been finding it difficult with various demands on my time to work on anything else I needed to do after using up most of the morning to fit in exercise, cool down and a shower while my bub is sleeping.  So I’m shuffling things around a bit.  I’ll now only be doing 4 (possibly 5) days of exercise a week.  Two of these will be on weekdays and two on the weekend.

With this all in place I was very excited to see over a kilo drop off the scales this week!  Slowly but surely getting towards my goal weight and very comfortably under my pre-pregnancy weight which is fantastic.

Rice paper rolls

Mmmm… rice paper rolls.  The photo really doesn’t do them justice, you can’t see all the yummy goodness that’s wrapped up inside them.  They are so good in fact, that I’m making them again this week!

So today was weigh in day and I’m down another 600g – same as last week.  To be honest I’m a little disappointed as I had hoped to be losing a little more rapidly than this, especially at the start of the program when the biggest changes are being made.  I stuck to the meal plan and although I missed a little of the exercise I had still hoped for better results.

Oh well, it’s still a loss so it’s all heading in the right direction.  I might take a couple of measurements later to see what’s happening there and if nothing else I am FEELING a lot better – fitter and healthier – so I must be doing something right!  After the last two hectic days, I was looking forward to some time today to catch up on a few things.  Haven’t done nearly as much as I hoped so far though – washing is still in the machine needing to be put out to dry and another load on, exercise not done yet, list hasn’t been put together to do a food shop before lunch.  I have printed out the recipes I still need for the week, written this post, had a good chat with Mum, tidied up the kitchen, sorted out washing and entertained the baby until she was ready for a nap.  So I guess I have achieved something, I keep forgetting how much longer it takes to get things done when there’s a baby in the house!  Looking forward to tonight’s dinner too, baked fish and sweet potato wedges sounds soooo good.

I love her to bits, but gees she makes things busy some times for such a little person!  No photo today – they’re still on the camera…

Cheese and baby spinach omelette

Well, I made it through the first week and am all ready for the start of Week 2!  Surprisingly, I am not feeling all that sore from last week.  I was pretty sore Monday through Friday, and the Saturday morning session definitely stirred it all up again, but by Saturday afternoon I was feeling pretty good.  I claimed my massage reward on Sunday from my husband and overall am feeling pretty damn good about how the first week has gone.

It looks like the exercise program this week is identical to last week, so I know I can do it and I can get stuck into things even harder.  I’m really looking forward to trying some of the recipes too – salmon stir fry tonight, yum!  The on frustrating part was doing my online shop on Saturday and I missed all the delivery windows for Sunday so I can’t get all my food in until Monday afternoon.  Luckily I have some substitutes available for Monday breakfast and lunch to make sure I don’t fall off the wagon, because the fridge is looking pretty damn empty right now.

After finally being game enough to take a look at my “before” photos (eek, the front and side views were pretty much what I expected, but the back view was horrible), I am even more determined to get back to my old weight.  I can’t blame pregnancy for ALL of the change in shape either!

Beef and vegetable kebabs

Only 1 week into the program and I can already see it starting to have an impact.  I’ve also become aware of a few things about myself, which is always a good thing especially when most of them are positive.  So this is what I’ve learnt so far:

• Doing exercise puts me in a good mood.  Duh!  I know, seems obvious, but I’ve never been so aware of it before.  Even my husband noticed!  I asked him if he had and he had to think about it, and then realised that I must be, because “I haven’t gotten in trouble as much this week”.  Oops, guess my post-pregnancy moods have been a bit off.
• I like red capsicum.  This is HUGE!  I have hated capsicum for as long as I can remember.  Green is still bad.  Red has been in a few of the meals this week and in some it wasn’t great, but in others it was actually quite nice. (My mum will get a laugh out of this one!)
• I prefer cardio to weights.  This surprised me as previously if I ever went to a gym, I always preferred the weights/machines over doing a class or treadmill.  This week I’m really enjoying running and walking on the treadmill.  There’s something satisfying about it.  I’m really looking forward to being able to jog/run for 20+ minutes straight which I had just worked up to last year before I was pregnant.
• I can survive on a smaller breakfast.  I used to have a healthy but BIG breakfast – natural muesli/oats, yoghurt and fruit, but adding it up now it would be around 500 calories.  Kept me going pretty much all day if I didn’t get a chance to have lunch until 2pm or later.  The smaller breakfast is plenty to keep me going as long as I make sure I have a snack mid-morning as well.
• Cutting out sugar was easy.  Really.  I’ve done it before and suffered from headaches for a few days as my body adjusted, this time because there is still some sweetness to few things and a piece of fruit every now and then I’m going great.  No cravings, no headaches and I haven’t even been tempted to have any chocolate.
• Pregnancy was hard on my body other than the obvious visible differences.  Really hard.  My legs have some strength back in them, probably from lifting the bub down onto and off the floor several times a day – like doing squats with a slowly increasing weight – although at first just going up the stairs was hard enough.  My core and my arms are really bad though and am finding all the exercise involving them a lot harder than I thought I would.

So that’s just a few things that I’ve noticed already.  Will be interesting to see what other things I stumble across over the 12 weeks.

Bacon and egg wrap

Can’t believe I made it!  It’s been one hell of a week – fitting in exercise, meal preparation, keeping up with some other mums on the program, looking after my 3 month old daughter, taking the photos and writing the posts for this blog, doing a 4 week photography course (silly timing on my part!).  I’m tired just thinking about it!  But, I know it will all be worth it and I’m loving the feeling of having some goals to work towards while being a stay at home mum.

The exercise was HARD!  Having done almost no exercise while pregnant, and certainly none since our baby arrived, this has been a huge shock to my whole body.  It doesn’t help that I’m heavier than I’ve ever been before, which also makes it a lot more effort than it has been before.  But on the other hand, I feel fantastic!  I feel like I’ve already achieved something and if I can get through this first week then I can definitely do the rest of them.  I know the exercises will get more intense, harder and faster, but just getting the body moving and knowing that I can do it is the hardest part I reckon.

Yes, that photo at the top was breakfast this morning – how good is that!  I love my eggs all mixed up with the yolk broken and messy.

I realise that exercise is supposed to hurt a bit, that means my muscles are actually doing something.  Providing of course that it’s just that “good” pain of muscle burn, not that “bad” pain of joints being asked to do things they don’t want to yet.  I’ve had a few clicks and things from knees, but it always seems to be when I get sloppy on the exercises and am not doing them properly, back to proper form and the clicking goes away – phew!  But really, knowing that it’s going to hurt, that it’s supposed to hurt, doesn’t really help when it IS hurting – like now.  Especially when I know that todays exercise includes squats in the first set…

So while the exercise is painful, I know it will get easier and I know I will like the results.  In the meantime though, there is NOTHING painful about eating meals like this:

Thai fishcakes and salad

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Berry Bruschetta Breakfast

Seriously?  We have a weigh in on the morning of the 3rd day – that’s only 2 days of calorie controled diet and exercise.  But you know what, I reckon I’ve lost a bit.  Wow!  My start weight for this program was 81.7kg, and 3 months ago, just before my little girl showed up I was somewhere around 93kg.  And now here I am at 80.6!  I’m very pleased with that, talk about quick results.

Oh, and the berry bruschetta above for breakfast – looks fabulous but unfortunately I wasn’t a fan, the ricotta is a bit too bitter for me.  Maybe I can mix in a smidge of honey or something to sweeten it up because otherwise this is one delicious looking and filling way to start the day.