Back on track!

Posted on by
Reply
Chicken, pumpkin and chickpea curry

Chicken, pumpkin and chickpea curry

Yep, I ended up having 3 days in a row of no exercise.  It was just too busy with appointments and the bub and I was getting stressed about how I was going to find time to fit it all in.  So I told myself it was ok to just let it go for a couple of days, as long as a couple of days didn’t end up stretching out to the entire week!  I stuck to the food plan and started up the exercise again today.  Since there are only 3 exercise days left this week, I decided to make today a cardio day, then back on the program tomorrow with core and the Super Session on Saturday is toning, so at least I still get a bit of everything this week.

I have to say, I am really enjoying the cardio.  I thought I would prefer the toning days as in the past I have really liked those type of exercises and found cardio exercise really boring.  Generally unless I am actually doing something – bushwalk, playing a game, etc, I don’t see the point to cardio.  Especially gym machines – treadmill, cross-trainer, bike – sooooo boring.  Rowing machine I didn’t mind so much.  But a few months before I found out I was pregnant (about this time last year) I had started jogging on a treadmill at home.  I was starting to really enjoy it as I could see improvements every single time I used it!  I was either going further in the same time, jogging faster, jogging for longer stretches, until after a few months I was able to jog for nearly 30 minutes straight!  Then I got pregnant, exhausted, body temperature rose and heart rate shot sky-high as soon as I attempted any exercise and it all stopped – until now.  I’m back on the treadmill again for the cardio days and stepping up the pace and the intervals a bit faster than the program dictates.  And I’m feeling great!

What do you enjoy most - do you like the cardio? toning? or the core workout?

Rice paper rolls

Posted on by
Reply
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.

Exercise is all over the place

Posted on by
Reply
Beef and Broccolini stir fry

Beef and Broccolini stir fry

After an exhausting week last week, I gave myself Friday off for exercise, then did the core workout Saturday and the Super Session on Sunday.  Unfortunately I then hit a bit of scheduling overload – my husband is away for the week and I have my mum here to help out with the bub, so I scheduled all those appointments I’ve been putting off for too long.  You know the sort of thing - tax, doctor, physio…  Well, with one thing and another, I wasn’t home for more than an hour at a time (and I still have to eat!), so no exercise was done.  I stuck to the food though, so hopefully everything is still on track.

My physio visit was very interesting.  I went through some of the exercises for the next week with her to check my form and ensure my pelvic floor is remaining strong (4 months post-baby I still need to be really careful here!).  She’s recommended some modifications to some of the exercises, that some I do the “simple” version of to ensure proper form and not to do them to the point of fatigue as I will get sloppy if I do.  Then there are one or two that she thinks I shouldn’t do for a few more months – don’t want to do some damage now and end up with a dodgy pelvic floor later on!  So I found that really interesting and it has given me confidence to keep going with the exercises I am doing and to not feel guilty about substituting one or two where my body isn’t ready for it yet.  Man there’s a lot to take in with this baby business!

So, with 2 days exercise not done – I’m going to be back on the horse, so to speak, tomorrow.  Cardio day, here I come!

Any other 12wbt’ers with exercises they’ve been advised to avoid?

Exhausted

Posted on by
Reply
Salmon stir fry

Salmon stir fry

No post yesterday because I was absolutely exhausted.  3 days straight waking up at 4:30am to a baby that needed attention but didn’t want to feed yet, by the time she decided to feed it was time to get up anyway.  So not enough sleep, way too early a morning, daily exercise and smaller meals than I’m used to all built up to me starting the day absolutely exhausted…

I thought I would give myself a day off from exercise to let my body catch up with itself.  Then I talked myself into just putting on my exercise gear in case I felt like it.  Then I talked myself into starting to exercise, but saying I could stop after doing half of it.  Of course, once I started I just kept going and managed to complete the lot and I’m glad I did.  The rest of the day was a bit of a write off, but I stuck to the food although I didn’t get to have my snacks.  My meals were slightly bigger than usual, so still hit my calories.  All followed up with an early night and a baby that let me sleep until 6am this morning leading to feeling much, much better today.

Chaos reigns (but I still won!)

Posted on by
Reply

So today was the day I expected to have sooner or later, at least it waited until after the first week to happen.  My little girl, Emily, decided that today she did not want to have much of a sleep.  She went down for her morning nap and I started the workout, got about half way through it before she woke up.  Brought her downstairs and sat her in the pram and kept going, that lasted about 15 minutes.  Moved her to the playmat and managed to finish exercising before she got too impatient and needed another feed.  Nearly 2 hours later she went down for another nap, I managed to hop online and order a heart rate monitor, have a shower and start getting lunch ready.  I didn’t get to make the rice paper rolls yesterday so had to make them from scratch today, including cooking the chicken.  Got everything weighed out and started prepping when she woke up again.  Managed to cook the chicken and prep all the veg before the screamathon started again so I fed her again, played with her, etc and she went down again around 2:30.  So I finally put all the rice paper rolls together (including for tomorrows lunch) and got to eat a little before 3pm…  No snacks eaten either… Should have one of those now since she has finally been down for over an hour.

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…

Week 2 begins!

Posted on by
Reply
Cheese and baby spinach omelette

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!

What I’ve learnt so far…

Posted on by
Reply
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.

One week of exercise completed!

Posted on by
Reply
Bacon and egg wrap

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.

Rewards

Posted on by
2
vegetarian pizza

Vegetarian pizza

The fun stuff!  Although I haven’t actually planned any final goal rewards or even mini-goal rewards yet, really need to get on to that.  I do, however, have a great reward lined up for this weekend.  The requirement is to do all my exercises every day – not allowed to miss a day or do a half-arsed effort.  And my reward is a lovely massage from my husband – yay!

This sort of short term reward works really well for me.  It makes me accountable to someone who can check up on me each day (and he will know if I fib!) and all I have to do is get to the end of the week.  That is SO achievable!

I really need to think up some good longer term goals and will put them up as I decide what they should be.

And can I just add, I was so pleased yesterday that I managed to do all the squats and lunges.  I really thought my legs would give out on me as they were so sore, but they must be adjusting and strengthening because they were fine.  Push ups however were another matter entirely…