DOMS

Hay didn’t even know what they were, for the uninitiated DOMS = delayed onset muscle soreness., got it today.  After yesterdays work out I have it.  You know it feels ok, kind of cool really.  I know that a my body recovers I am getting stronger and my metabolism speeded up and I lost a bit of weight because of it, 2.1kg loss this week.  Cool, and the truth is it really isn’t that hard, you have to be in the right head space and it really doen’t hurt to name and shame the issue that have held you back, like for me my addictions and perfectionism and pain of my past which I hang on to the guilt of.

Seriously we have to get past that stuff to succeed, but first you have to admit it is there.  Like Mish says, listen to the inner voice, hear it but then ignore it but dont deny that it is there or that it ever was.  My inner voice is a bloody enormous lazy labrador with a hint of bitchy teenager, shame the labrador doesn’t care about getting fat and the bitchy teenager couldnt give a rat arse about her long term health and fitness.  Thats the thing about teenagers, it is never going to happen to them, they are invincible.

Now I must get some more of these DOMS, they make me feel good, ridiculous, muscle pain is great and self inflicted.  But I love it.  I must lay those clothes out ready to get going in the morning.  If I dont PREPARE it aint happening.  Do you have that problem?

 

 

And here is the rest of what I want to say today……..

Look I just want to say that I may have done five rounds and lost heaps of weight but I still have “isssues” which is pretty obvious by the stuff I write.  One minute I am worrying about my addictive personality and then saying I am the picture of health.  I will tell you I get sick of motivational hoohaa designed to make me see the light.  Sometimes I am just bloody tired and i dont want to know I can do it or that I should do it or that I will feel better when I do do it.  What is it?  It is eating clean and training mean (or just training really) and there is no doubt that Michelle Bridges twelve week body transformation works, it does, I have seen amazing results and I have felt those results in myself but to say it stopped being a struggle.

But I am just ordinary person, nothing special about me, been doing this body transforming for a while but I still struggle.  I am ordinary.  But, what makes me a little different is that I keep perservering.  I have a lot of perservance.  I fall and I get up again.

There is a lot of getting up for me, a lot of starting new, each day can be a struggle, I can be tired, not feel like it and completely not feeling the JFDI thing, not at all, in fact I can resent it.  But while I may screw up sometimes I always get up again and keep going.  Always, I do not give up, not on myself, not on my fitness, not on health, not on family.  If it is important and it knocks you down, please get up again.  You can infact make a change this very moment.  You can do some ab work as you lie on the couch watching tv, or try some step ups, or squats or lunges, whatever it is in your heart to do.  Seriously if you have not exercised today you can do some now, right this minute.  If you ate more than your calorie limit today, get a grip, track it tomorrow and have a cup of tea tonight, brush your teeth, drink some water, whatever but you dont make it worse right now.

Seriously I dont do motivational, I do real.  This is real.  Do not give up, perservere, get up again.

Here are some interesting lyrics:

We’ll be singing, when we’re winning, we’ll be singing)

I get knocked down, but I get up again
You nay ever gonna keep me down
I get knocked down, but I get up again
You nay ever gonna keep me down

Not suggesting anyone pisses the night away but whatever!  So all I am wanting to say really today is go for it, it isn’t too late, you are not too old, you are not too fat, you are not too unfit, you are an ordinary person and all you need is to gt up again and perservere.  Set backs, break downs, break throughs, they are life and it isn’t going to stop while you learn to be the best version of you but it all does get easier.

My hubby bought me a punching bag yesterday, today he hung it and I hit it, a lot, and it made me want to skip and then squat and then push up and before you know it I was doing an SSS from last weeks training program and, why yes I do have time, to run two kilometres.  I did it, hardcore, not really, had to take pain killers and use my hot pack.  I felt like smiling, I may hurt but I did something.  I got up again.  Now heres to the next ten weeks!

What is MY picture of health (a shrinkingkath blogging challenge)

I have so much I want to talk about tonight but I will stick to the topic of what this picture of health means to me.  The answer is not that hard really, when you have come from morbidly obese to fit and healthy says it all.  And how do I know I am healthy?  Because after two years and a new set of medical tests the doctor told me I was one of the healthiest people he treats.   Lower risk of diabetes, perfect collestrol levels and a blood pressure an elite athlete would be proud of.  A picture of health generally has a big smile on it.  I usually have a smile, I find myself smiling when I am running, usually just after my head told me to just walk and I didn’t, I was like, what the ???? why would I want to stop now.  That is healthy.  Fitting in the seats, doing up the buckles, being comfortable are all signs of good health.  Keeping up with the kids, passing them even, is a sign of good health.

I am 46 years old, I can lift 7kg dumbells (so far), I can run 10k (so far), my body responds with healthy heart, healthy bloods, healthy looks like me!  Healthy feels like me (not permission to feel me peoples).  It is just that knowing where I have come from and where i am now I know what healthy looks and feels like.

Upbeat, happy, fit, fearless (read happy to try new exercise not crazy fearless happy to put my life on the line cause that aint happening), ready……………

I have no idea what I am ready for but I am sure something is coming.

Perfectionism

Perfectionism is, in psychology, is a belief that perfection can and should be attained. In its pathological form, perfectionism is a belief that work or output that is anything less than perfect is unacceptable.  Perfectionism might sound like an admirable trait, but it’s often a cause of anxiety, depression and ruptured relationships.  I can tell you it is really stressful to be a perfectionist and tiring.

I have to say it, I have an issue with perfectionism.  I avoid failure by avoiding doing, sadly my husband does too.  Ouch.

As I was mucking around with my friend Diet Schmiet dietschmiet.wordpress.com talking about getting control back and racing her to loose 1kg by Wednesday weigh in I was struck by the fact that that is two days away AND if I loose I will feel dreadful and want to drown my pain and if I win I will want to celebrate (more than likely with liquorice).  So if I cant do it properly, with injury and all, why bother at all.  And that is the cry of the perfectionist.  If I cant do it right why bother.  Things become unbearably overwhelming.  Loosing weight at this point is overwhelming as I have lost so much the last five kilos are so freaking hard I have gained weight so I do not sit in my last five kilos, should be easier.  What the fuck am I thinking.  Where the hell does that head space come from.

Now if you want to see a true procrastinating perfectionist come on over, the house is in CHAOS (as flylady says that is Cant Have Anyone Over Syndrome).   If you are having this problem due to your perfectionism go visit this clever lady at http://www.flylady.net/  She has helped me to realise, and here is a biggy, JUST JUMP IN WHERE YOU ARE, which is not exactly what we are supposed to do with weight loss but with both weight loss and perfectionism you do need to set up routines.  Exercise has to be part of the daily routine or it gets left out AND if you are truly to be organised you do need to plan those meals.  So, here is the thing perfectionism gets in the way, you stop giving things a go, you stop trying, you are too worried about what others will say or think and everything seems so hard.

Tips for the perfectionist:

1) Define a goal

2) Break it down to managable parts

3) Plan plan plan your day/week to complete each part.  Never take on more than you can chew (little bits at a time is better than nothing at all)

4) Give yourself permission to fail and recognise that sometimes there is no right or wrong.

5) Reflect on failure and success (at work I call this reflective practice and I help others go through the process because I see the value – for others!)

6) And if it is possible try to recognise the beauty in inperfection.  So many of us are not perfect but we are beautiful, some from the inside out.

Now you can put this strategy into any part of your life, weight loss, fitness levels, housecleaning, parenting, anything. 

OMG I love what I have come up with, I wonder if I can do it too?

Week two blogging challenge … My greatest strengths

I WANT to know about your physical strengths.  What can my physical body do now, well just about anything my mind tells it to.  It is true that it is 10% body and the other 90% is all in the head, whether it is lifting a weight for the twelth time in succession when the muscles are screaming to stop or if it is sprinting to the end of the 10k run, somewhere deep inside I can do what I want to do now.  Sometimes motivating myself to do it can be tough but seriously with the right training this 46 year old can do anything.

I WANT to know about your mental strengths.  I am working on controlling my addictions.  This is taking true mental strength.  I fight with myself a lot.  Just one, just one more, oh go on have another.  Now I can hear the sound of my fighting me though which is a mental strength and now I can make informed choice.  And then there is the 90% mind in my training that gets me to do extraordinary things.
I WANT to know about the habits you have that make you strong.  this is a funny one because I often look at the habits that make me weak not strong.  I think, even after this long, I need to form a habit of exercising, it doens’t come easy to me but it will come back, it has to.  At least I am in the habit of recognising the calories I am about to eat and make an informed choice.  it is not always the healthy choice but it is my choice which makes me strong.
I WANT to know what it is about you that makes you the fighter that is inside.  I could write about this for a year, so much struggling I have had in my life, so many set backs, so much shit to wade through.  An abused childhood, being put down for my intelligence by my parents who thought I should ‘do a trade’ (blue collar workers for you, nothing wrong with it unless of course you want to do something else and they have no idea why), a crap first marriage, a wayward child, bullying, miscarriages etc.  All the bad shit got me in my whole.  Why fight my way out?  Because I have a husband and three little kids who need me and want me in their lives and I am not about to end my life through my hatred of myself.  Cause that is what it came down to.  No respect and no love for me made this chocoholic one very very large girl.  I have found respect for me, I have begun to care about me and love me and I have a whole lot to live for.

the question then is do you love yourself, enough to make a change and become the best version of you?  I did with Michelle’s help at www.12wbt.com.au

Addictions

I have a relatively addictive personality, ie I am not addictive but I surely get addicted to things.  Growing up I had an alcoholic father and a perfectionist mother.  I craved attention which I often didn’t get being ignored everytime I was naughty often for hours at a time and usually having no idea why I was being ignored hence rendering this form of punishment useless.  Nonetheless my craving to be heard, to be accepted, to be liked seems to have been forged from this type of childhood, ignored and sometimes forgotten.  The older siblings were taught to be older while I was left to be the youngest, I wasn’t taught life skills and when I got things wrong I got disapproving looks, smacks and IGNORED.  I have an addictive personality perhaps from genetics perhaps from this type of childhood.  Or maybe there are some who just have addictive personalities and it just happens.  Who knows?  It sure as hell affect a lot of your life.  In my lifetime I have found the following things to be addictive:

nicotine (having had puffs of dads ciggys from about 4 years of age it is no wonder I was smoking by 12 and had to give up four times finally making the big break about nine years ago and I aint never going back because I am addicted)

alcohol (struggling to stop at one I spent most of my young adult life drunk, from about 16 -21 I drank a lot, getting pregnant at 17 and continuing to drink, lives little struggles were drowned in the bottom of a bottle, who had time for glasses.  Not so bad these days, I can pretty much stop before drinking to oblivion but when I have one I do want another and another.  And it still helps to drown the pain)

caffiene (while not tragic it could be worse and I have experienced the odd headache when I have gone without.  Now drinking black coffee once or twice a day is sufficent to get me through but I have to say they do say caffiene is bad for depression, whoops)

sugar (it is in bread at MacDonalds for a good reason, it is addictive.  Today my girls made ‘sweet bread’ and I fucking could not stop eating it, not in the calorie count, not part of the plan but I couldn’t stop and now I am bloated and it is stuck in my throat because every part of me has given up trying to digest it.  I cant stop at one lolly, one icecream, one liquorice.  OK well I could but seriously it is a compelling addiction which is best left as a complete NO rather than a sometimes as I lack control)

chocolate (yes I am unreformed and like all my other addictions once started I cannot stop, I want to stop and sometimes I eat until I feel like throwing up but I continue.  Chocolate is one of those things that  contains sugar and caffiene making it a double whammy and the brain really does produce endorphines, a relaxing biochemical but no, it does not help with depression, the lack of self control associated with chocolate makes depression worse but there is a moment there when none of that matters)

I really really really want to say exercise but while I enjoy it and I love to run I am not addicted.  Once I start I know there is an end and I am grateful, it is not a feeling I never want to end like the others, I need it to end.  The feeling at the end seems to be the bit that is addictive, you feel invincible, strong, healthy.  I like that feeling but I am not addicted.  I wish I was.  Some people are.

I have given up chocolate for this 12 week challenge, finishing up week 2 with 10 more to go.  BUT I know this will end, the days will count down and what I am scared of is that this chocoholic will gorge to vomiting when this 12 weeks is over.  It is like smoking, I will cough a bit but keep going anyway.  To give up altogether?  Good Lord I do not believe I have that kind of willpower.  I handle the other addictions (not sugar) but this one, I dont even know I want to.

And it is the truth.  I am addicted, I like the sensation, it doens’t last and I go looking for it again.  A psychological addiction or a physiological one, probably both since it does affect biochemicals.  And that is tough, if it alters the way you feel and you like it, that is tough.  Still I sit here with a bloated stomach feeling like shit because of the sweet breads and want to vomit to get it out of me.  I have got to give up bread.

Dilemma – my beautiful daugthers just learnt how to make bread at a cooking class with Chef John.  They want to experiment on gluten free breads for their dad and he wants to do that too.  the smell of baking bread as I type is killing me.  I am starting to live in a bakery (yes I have seen flour on Ms 10s nose which was so darn cute).

Addiction, go tell a drug addict to get it under control and use willpower!  You know it wont work and what is really bad is that I fight these addictions every single day, silently with no ‘programs’ to help me, no one to help me go ‘cold turkey’ and no place to hide from this type of food.  I do the shopping, I can almost pass the lolly aisle.  One day I hope to just by the stuff you can eat raw, off the shelf or out of the fridge – vegies, fruit, meat, yoghurt, one day, some day.  Real food like my grandmother used to eat.

So now you have the stark honest truth about one of my other struggles, addictions.  And I am not sure putting it out there has helped me but maybe one of you will understand and know you are no longer alone.

And just in case you are saying oh Ruth that is a habit not an addiction go look at this http://www.womenofspirit.com/index.php?id=32 and I can promise you these are addictive behaviours, habits that have taken on a life of their own.

Weight Loss, Depression, Anxiety ~ traversing the seemingly untraversable!

I am yet again on a journey of self descovery.  Having been depressed on and off for years this is the first time I am sticking to the treatment, medication and no it is not addictive, maybe if it was I would have kept taking it in the first place.  So as I wade through the things stopping me from sticking to the program I also have to reexamine depression and anxiety and how it affects me.  Just recently my husband was made redundant and shortly afterwards my work decided to make my job redundant also.  Eeecckkkkk, I was left fighting for a job I wasn’t even sure I wanted in a company I wans’t sure I wanted to work for………………and roll in anxiety to add to my chronic depression and we will say no more.  It was time to start thinking about what I was thinking about.  Oh there are so many moments wben it will be evident what colour my hair is!

So I realised that:

1) I cannot change the way YOU think

2) I may or may not be able to teach you but it is up to you to want to change not me

3) You can only live within your own understanding of the world, not mine (and I am probably right)

4) I do not have to compromise my integrity to fit in with your understanding of the world, what you think the world should look like or any other thing you thing should happen for you to get ahead.

5) if I dont feel good about something it doesn’t mean there is something wrong with me or you but I will need time to process it and talk to someone who isn’t depressed to get perspective.

6) if adversity in life is helping us to fulfill God’s plan I have to be open to that.

7) if we genuinely seek God in faith then He will make His will clear to us (not sure how I am going to know I am on the right path but I am going to keep giving it a go)

8) I have a choice to learn and grow or be resentful of change and adversity.

Just as a little aside I have found a new website for more info on this stuff  www.moodgym.anu.edu.au which could be worth a look.

So I keep thinking (or yes that simple and I had quite a bit of time for this today as the family was playing on the slides at Wet and Wild, I was sitting in the shade contemplating life).  And I am thinking, if I need a fitness goal, a weight loss goal and a plan to get where I want to go then maybe I need ‘anti depressing’ goals and a plan to get to the end of my ‘journeys’ both weight and depression.  My plan to get out of depression may need to be as much about my consistency of excercise as anything else.  I mean everywhere you read how exercise can help you with mood, it will not ‘cure’ severe depression but it does help with mild depression.  It needs to form part of my plan to be depression free!   Oh why oh why do I find out the obvious so slowly.  There are other things I need to do, like plan my days to do the things that make me happy, that makes me feel success, that takes away my stress.  I have planning to do, a lot of it but mostly I need to rest up and get my training gear ready for my morning training.  Oh yes, research says morning exercise is best due to lack of sleeping patterns etc.

So much research, so much logic, BUT how does all this make me feel.  Is it really ok to put the feelings aside and go with logical thought.  Logic, OMG, it is like this negative self talk of ‘how does the depressed chick think logically?”

None the less I cannot think with food, so that fucking pizza I just ate because we were home late, for God’s sake have I learnt nothing.  I wish, oh I really wish, that I liked cooking and had what I needed to fill the freezer with 12wbt meals.  Where do you get the family sized freezing containers from anyway?  Another excuse, another day, something else to solve and stress over.  I think this weekend I need to make a massive change to this whole cooking thing.  Would help if the stove worked, I reckon I could do a lot with that stove.  And how many soups can one make.  Seriously what meals do you make to freeze?  And without a stove.

Paralysis by bloody Analysis ~ how you stay fat and how you get depressed.

New Blog Today

Starting a new blog today because I am at a new place in my journey to becoming the me I always wanted. I am kind of at the end but am I? So confused about my journey now, not as focused, not as consistent, do not know where my head is at……………

So here we go, the journey so far, roll back the clock to two years ago, sitting in a doctors surgery getting the results of my medical, hearing how I needed to do something now because if I didn’t I was going to die. I was at high risk of heart desease and diabetes and depression (already know what that is like because depression is something I fight daily). I was over 120kg (125kg but who was worried at that point) and a size 24. I didn’t think I was big, my husband loved me, my kids loved me, I thought life was ok even if I couldn’t do what I used to. But I didn’t know I couldn’t do what I couldn’t do or what I might have the potential for. Still the idea of not seeing my kids grow up was a massive wake up call. So I took the drugs and ate right and walked (best i could do). The tablets were Reductil, perscription for six months with a set diet plan. And for six months I stayed faithful and I went down to to 95kg and felt great. Then my doctor saw me and she said she was leaving. I cried, who was going to help me??? She left and I put on 12kg! Back to 107kg and realising I had learnt nothing, without the tablets (some sort of placebo may have done by then, who knows) I was lost and depressed (untreated at that time) and had no idea what to do.

It was about then that my friend ‘liked’ (facebook is an odd beast) Michelle Bridges 12wbt and she showed me the way there so I ‘liked’ it too. It was untested, untried, new but I had little to loose except $200 and a mass of weight and, if I failed like before, well I hadn’t really lost that much. Still I fought my decision and it wasn’t to the very last day of sign on that I signed on.

God I hated that first round. I was intimidated by the forums (and they weren’t as big as they are now), I was intimidated by Michelle who was horrified that someone was eating lollies and she was asking ‘what are you a child’???? And I had eaten lollies and I felt like a child. Michelle is an amazing woman but I am not sure I liked her that first round. My mum died, I was scared, I was struggling and I lost about 7kg in 12 weeks. Now if you haven’t done the program you would be going, thats great Ruth, well done. But I saw the results of those who stuck with it and they were loosing between 12-20kg each and they were no bigger than me, some were smaller. Hoffy and AlbertR became my inspiration. They talked consistency, they lived the 12wbt way, they stayed true and trusted Michelle every step of the way and they were winners.

To sign up again??? Would I do it? Would I be more consistent? Again with little to loose except the weight and sitting on the 100kg mark I went for it again but this time I began to run and work out and smash it up. I didn’t have a training buddy, there were no groups in Brisbane at the beginning of the round. We were all just going for it. I lost 13.5kg in 12 weeks and I was beginning to love me. At 87kg I had nothing to loose but more weight. And I ran my first fun run 3km Jetty to Jetty.

We had done some get togethers after round 1 and 2 in 2010 and it was me that organised the round 2 finale. I had finally met my forever and lifelong 12wbt friends, Kimberley and Susie who inspired me to finish a 5km Bridge to Brisbane.

Round 3 2010, two new friends and more in the making with Miss Angela being one of the loveliest women and Karen G showing me a new passion for bike riding. (hurt my bum though). I had nothing to loose but the weight and everything to gain like my life, new friends and a passion for running and exercise. I found Andrew, a local trainer who was willing to run bootcamps for us at New Farm Park. While we never actually struggled to get the needed six to go with it, we rarely went above 10 regular participants. Round three and another 7 kg down and I was a beautiful 80kg. Who the hell was this woman in the mirror.

Kimberley and Susie convinced me to fly to Sydney and got the end of round three party. Angela won, I felt so proud of her, she looked great. Everyone looked great, I was even beginning to think I looked ok. But seriously I still felt like a fat lady, I needed bigger seat space, I worried about the clothes, I was not confident in the way I looked but I was bloody confident in everything else.

Christmas, no 12wbt, no rules, no one to tell me what to do, when to do it, or what to eat. I ran on Christmas day, my gift to me and the lunch was all the lovely salads from the 12wbt program. I counted my calories, I was under 1200cals that day and I was full and happy.

Round 1 2011 – to go again or to leave it alone. I went again. The fire to loose weight had gone a bit but I still lost another 7kg and was down to 73kg by the end of the round. I was a fricken size 12. Good Lord, the clothes I had gone through, the second hand shops I had scoured to get clothes to fit. I needed a whole new winter wardrobe by the end as I pulled out my winter clothes only to find things in the size 20 – 24 range. What a round, bootcamps, bike rides, a 10k run. I was on fire.

Round 2 2011 and I stayed around the 73k mark finishing at 72kg because seriously I wanted a bit of a break and I felt great. I was smashing the hikes, the runs (10k Bridge to Brisbane with Kimberley and Susie – one year on from that first time I met them, very cool). Zenergy with Mase, Bootcamps with Andrew, Cardio Boxing with Mark………..I was finding things my body could do I never imagined. It was not really about the numbers any more. A healthy BMI may have been 68kg but I was so darn happy I didn’t really worry about getting there. Round 2 was extraordinary and the end of round party was in Brisbane and it was awesome. I helped a trainer with the beginner group and she said I should consider becoming a trainer, how bloody cool is that. I dont really want to be a trainer but that I could inspire and help beginners, oh man, that is amazing.

On another day I will tell you of my Emazon Chronicles experience which was equally important in the me becoming me.

And so we start round 3 2011 and where is my head at? I have gained weight, I am not consistent, I am eating liquorice (a lot of it) and I am falling of the rails and so my story, the end of the road begins…………..