Tag Archives: fitness

Rice paper rolls

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Rice paper rolls

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.

What I’ve learnt so far…

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Beef and vegetable kebabs

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.

Pre-Season

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ham and salad wrap

Monday lunch

So apparently you can sign up to the challenge weeks and weeks before it starts.  Then each week in the lead up to the event, a new task is released to get you in the right frame of mind and all sorted out so that you give yourself the best opportunity to succeed.

Unfortunately I’m a bit of a spur of the moment, last minute kinda gal, so I only signed up last week!  There’s a group of new mums I’m friends with online and several of them had signed up to get themselves into gear post-baby and in the end I decided, what the hell, this is the motivation and support I need to get my eating and exercise back on track.  I had just started to get the exercise together a year ago, but once I was pregnant that all went out the window as I found myself too exhausted to do anything other than lay on the lounge and eat, just going to work was a major struggle.  So needless to say, there are a few extra kilos there that I can’t just blame on baby weight!

So, I got myself all signed up and plowed through the pre-season tasks.  I thought the videos would be a bit hokey, but this program is nothing of the sort.  I’m impressed right from the start, which is definitely making it easier to get motivated.  I have to admit I did skip through some of the pre-season activities I was supposed to do - I’m not emptying the cupboard of all its goodies, but I’m also very, very rarely tempted to help myself to things I shouldn’t have.  If it becomes a problem, then I will deal with it then.

The interesting part for me was the fitness test – oh boy!  I was definitely scared here – 12 months since I’d done pretty much anything…  I’m happy to say though, that I was pleasantly surprised with my results.  Technically, I should probably put myself in Intermediate (what the?), however I’m starting off firmly in the beginner camp.  My abs are shot - pregnancy and a c-section will do that to you.  And with ligaments still a bit lax from pregnancy, I want to really ease into the jogging/running side of things.  My results put me as 100% beginner for the abs – no surprises there.  I was 1 second off being intermediate on the walk/jog and would have made it if I had any idea of what my time was.  My husband was timing me and since I thought I had no chance of making it I didn’t push quite as hard as I could have in the final stretch.  Was still knackered at the end of it though!  All my other results put me in Intermediate, but, as I said, I’m happy starting in beginner and easing into things a little more than I am guessing the higher level would let me.  I can always swap up in a few weeks if everything starts getting stronger.

The other side of things – food!  Once the meal plan was released to us, I did a HUGE shop on the weekend – I’ve never bought so many veges.  There are a lot of salads in this plan, which I’m generally not a fan of, but you know what, I’m going to give it a go.  If I really don’t like something, then I won’t have it again, but these meals look really, really tasty and if I want to make a change, this is a damn good place to start.

Oh, and my quads nearly died on the fitness test.  They’re still giving me grief 3 days later…