Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Boxing, boobies & new cravings

Day 3 of restricted calories and I feel like I am doing great! Another loss this morning, 700 grams today but considering how much I have lost over all this week already I am still very happy with that! I went to boxing last night and still punched it out. It was only a 45min class yesterday so a little less running than I am used to and I handled it perfectly. I was worried that eating so few calories would result in a loss of energy and I wouldn’t be able to handle such a full on work out. I punched just as hard as I normally would and although the run was shorter I was just as fast as normal. I have noticed the difference in my tummy and the tops of my legs. They seem to be the areas that I am losing from first for a change which is GREAT!!!!!! My boobs however don’t seem to have lost anything so I am beginning to look rather out of proportion again which I hate. I think once I am down to my goal weight of 69kgs I am going to seriously look into a breast reduction and lift. The girls are being taken by the effects of gravity and I am afraid that they have seen better days. I think a reduction and lift would be a great present to myself. It would be like the final piece of the body confidence puzzle!
I am appreciating the taste of naked food more and more. We had lean lamb fillets for dinner last night. I cooked them on baking paper in the pan with all visible fat removed and no additional oil or non stick spray. They still got a lovely seared surface and with just salt and pepper you could really appreciate the flavour of the meat. I have been bordering on vegetarian for around 3-4 months now so the appreciation of the flavour should not be taken lightly! Vegetables appear so sweet to me now. Carrots are like little lollies that you get to eat with your dinner. Leigh and I were talking about what meal we are looking forward to once we come off plan. Leigh’s answer was that he couldn’t think about it otherwise he would struggle to get through the next 2 and a half weeks. I already know what my first off plan meal is going to be. Roasted potato, pumpkin, sweet potato and peas with gravy! All veggies that are banned during the first 3 weeks. I used to crave fatty sugary foods so it is a strange revelation to me that the thing that I crave most at the moment is roast vegies!

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Day 2

Well onto day 2 of the reduced calories portion of the diet and so far so good. I lost a whopping 1.1kgs over night so I am extremely happy with that! I am hoping that the weight loss will continue over the next week and not stall like it normally does! I struggled trying to eat the egg white omelette this morning. I was gagging on my plate. I am going to have to try and get past it though. I ended up abandoning my attempt and eating an orange instead. I hope I will have the energy that I need for boxing tonight! I do get to have some dairy protein through the day today in the form of natural low fat Greek style yoghurt so I am hoping that will be enough. Knowing how much weight I lost over night I know that I can repeat yesterday. Yes the mid morning was tough but I am prepared with an extra snack today so that I can balance out my food a bit better. I am excited to see results already. The naturopath did say that is what would drive us to keep going. I am so excited for our future healthy bodies! Oh the pretty dresses that I will be able to wear, the bikinis, the skinny jeans. I can’t wait to have the body that I have always imagined myself having. During the tough times I need to remember what I want. What I want to look like and the relationship that I want to have with food. A healthy one! Not one where you are embarrassed to eat in front of others. Not one where you secretly purge the binge that you have consumed. Understanding the way that certain foods make my body react, a big one for me so far has been MSG. We used to eat Indian or Chinese once a fortnight sometimes even more often than that! I never used to have a reaction to it at all. The past few times that we have had it my poor belly has swollen out so large that I look like I am 6 month pregnant. I get gassy and so ill that I spend the hours following either on the toilet or hugging it as the offending food is eliminated from my body. We maybe have it once every 3-6 months now. Usually just long enough for me to forget how truly bad I react to it. I imagine that after this 3 week body cleanse that even too much oil will have a similar effect on me.

Wishing everyone the strength to do the very best that they can today

<3

Monday, June 4, 2012

Clean Diet

With a diet plan and some special drops from our naturopath we are embarking on a clean eating regime. The first 2 days were ‘loading’ days were we were encouraged to eat high fat foods in preparation for our low calorie diet for the next 3 weeks. I know I will be okay during the week while I am at work as my day is very structured however I am NOT looking forward to the weekend! So the first 3 weeks calories are quite low. You cannot do this plan without the drops or you will put your body into starvation mode so please do not copy the following food plan!
Non exercise days sample plan
B- 1 x orange, green tea
L- 100g chicken breast braised with garlic, ginger, chilli and mixed herbs, 2 cups of baby spinach, ¼ cup of the drained broth from the cooking process
D- 100g chicken breast, 2 cups of vegetables including carrot, broccoli and cauliflower
S- 1 x apple, unlimited green tea, at least 2 litres of water, natural low fat Greek yoghurt with a homemade strawberry sauce sweetened with stevia if desired

Exercise days sample plan
B- 6 egg white omelette with 1 x cup baby spinach, 1 x sliced tomato, mixed herbs
L- 100g Chicken breast, 2 cups of salad vegetables including lettuce, tomato, cucumber
D- 100g chicken breast, 2 cups of vegetables including carrot, broccoli and cauliflower
S- 1 x apple, unlimited green tea, at least 2 litres of water, 6 mini melba toast with diced tomato, onion and basil, natural low fat Greek yoghurt with a homemade strawberry sauce sweetened with stevia if desired

We are to carry out this strict regime for 3 weeks. At the end of the 3 weeks we are to stop the drops and slowly start introducing oily, startchy and carb foods back into our diet. We are to continue this for 3 weeks. If at the end of the 3 weeks we feel we still have weight to lose we repeat the 1st 3 weeks program. As you can see it is almost worth it to exercise just because of the extra food I get to eat! Being a non boxing day today I really missed my breakfast although I am satisfied at the moment. The process is meant to teach you to enjoy clean food and to eat smaller portions. When you get to the reintroducing stage you should be able to see the effect that these foods have on your body and the way they make you feel. You will naturally reject high calorie, high fat foods in favour of fresh clean foods.
I am excited!

Thursday, May 31, 2012

A new way of eating

Thursday’s Plan includes
B- 2 egg omelette with spinach & rocket mix, cherry tomatoes, a sprinkling of parmesan cheese & a little chilli bbq sauce
L- Fish bites with salad & a bread roll
D- Chicken breast with steamed veggies
S- 5 x almonds, apple, banana, yoghurt
E- Boxercise with Darren Obah
Today’s menu comes in at 1193 calories. It amazes me how much actual food I eat now. I used to practically starve myself all day thinking I was doing the right thing by having a plain salad for lunch. But because I was hungry starving by the time I would get home I then would eat everything in sight. Yes some healthy stuff but usually the kids home cooking or bread, laden with butter & vegemite. Then I would eat a big man portion of food for dinner. Sometimes I would also top it off with dessert!. I am trying a new technique to eat 3 meals of approx 300 calories & then total snacks of 300 calories throughout the day. This is one of the skinny chick secrets. Eating balanced calorie meals throughout the day helps your body process them consistently. I guess it is kinda comes back to food being fuel. If you are giving your body the fuel it needs all in one meal at the end of the day it is not using it when it needs it. It is storing it knowing that it will need the fuel to get through the next day. So this week & going forward from here I am trying this new way of eating. I know that for a lot of people this may seem like common sense but for this skinny girl trapped in a fat body it is something new I need to learn.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Survival of a weekend away

I had a semi controlled weekend away, I made good choices most of the time… except for maybe that vegetarian nachos for Ozy Mex in Byron Bay. But hey everyone knows that it is the best and yummiest Mexican outside of Mexico. How could I go there and not have it? Actually now that I am thinking about it, actually it was a GREAT idea because it inspired me to make a yummy low calorie burrito that we can make at home and did have at home Monday night. It had chicken breast tossed in burrito seasoning, extra light sour cream, avocado, iceberg lettuce, cabbage and coriander salad, a sprinkling of cheese and hot chilli sauce. It was so delicious and fresh tasting. I managed to get it down to 397 calories per burrito not bad considering restaurant burritos can get up around 800 calories per burrito! If you were not fussed with the sour cream and cheese you could omit these and save yourself around 80 calories, but there are just some things I am not willing to give up and cheese and sour cream on my Mexican are a couple of them!
I know I am going to have to really pull in my calories and up my exercise to regain control after the weekend. There were other deliciously naughty food and some alcohol consumed over the 2 nights so I know that the scales will be up a little. I know a week or 2 of strict calorie intake and some exercise each day will make all of the difference. I have signed up for the Ashy Bines tips to be emailed out to me every day. Her first tip for me is to go for a fat blasting walk every morning. So that is what I did. I set my alarm for 6am and got up bright and early to go for my fat blasting walk. I plan to do these daily on top of my boxing. These are just for me. No hubby, no dogs, no kids, just me and nature.
Yesterday was a great come back day. I stuck well within my calories and went to boxercise on top of it. Today is going to be another great well planned day. Today’s menu is 1220 calories.
B- Porridge made on low fat milk with ½ a banana and 1 tsp of brown sugar
L- Left over stir-fry from last night’s dinner
D- BBQ at the in-laws. 1 x chicken kebab, 1 x cup of veggie bake, 1 x cup of green salad, 1 x mini bread roll
S- 5 x almonds, apple, yoghurt
E- Fat blasting walk

Friday, May 25, 2012

Girls Night!

I am all set to spend a few hours with some of my favourite girls tonight, slippers- check, wine- check, delicious food- check. It should be a great night! I am holding it at my house so it has been quite easy to control what food will be available. A couple of cheeky little tricks that I am doing tonight are;
·         Filling my wine glass with ice so that it waters it down a little & makes my glass appear fuller than it really is
·         Keeping my water bottle right beside me while I am drinking so that I can continue to drink water through the night
·         Cutting chicken kebab’s in half to make mini chicken kebabs
·         Cooking some vegetarian spring rolls & curry puffs in the oven
·         Serving McCain’s ultra thin spinach & mozzarella pizza
·         Serving low fat dip with rice crackers & veggie sticks
I really don’t want to drink too much, I plan on going boxing in the morning & then travelling around 4hrs to go away for the weekend. I am not a good traveller at the best of time so I really don’t need to be feeling under the weather for that!

Friday’s Plan
B- Baked beans with 1 slice of 12 grain cereal loaf
L- ‘Fried’ Rice
D- 1 serve of pizza, 2 mini kabab’s
S- 5 x almonds, apple, green tea, wine
E- 30min walk

Thursday, May 24, 2012

An Important Lesson

Today I learnt a pretty big lesson on calories and nutrition.
Just because 2 things have the same calorie count does not mean that they are equal.
My carefully planned afternoon was put to the test when my well meaning boss bought a 1kg bag of red frogs into the office (knowing that they are my FAVORITE lollies in the whole wide world) as a reward for our work. The will power side of my brain straight away said hell no I am not eating any of those! The weak part of my brain that likes lollies straight away went to my fitness pal tracker to see what I could juggle to have a few of those delicious little froggies. Now in the past I have been known to inhale a whole bag of red frogs within a 10minute period. I LOVE lollies. I USED to love lollies. Did you know that each little red frog is worth 34 calories? 34 calories I hear you say, Big Deal? I was honest with myself and estimated that I would realistically eat 10 frogs if I started. That is 340 calories worth.... a whole meals worth of red frogs! Even if I tried to fool myself into thinking I would only eat 5 it was still over 150 calories worth. I looked at what I had tracked and planned and sitting in the fridge waiting for me for my afternoon tea. 100g vaalia yoghurt and 125g of peaches slices in juice for a grand total of 163 calories.
I started to think about the delicious creamy yoghurt and the sweet juicy peaches. The weirdest thing happened. I actually started to crave my planned afternoon tea. I actually wanted it over the frogs. I knew the frogs would leave me hungry and probably give me a sugar rush that I would come crashing down from. They were empty calories offering nothing in the way of nutrition. I would get calcium & protein from the yoghurt not to mention the healthy bacteria to keep my tummy happy. The peaches will provide me with vitamins A & C as well as fibre. They also provided a sugar hit although much closer to its natural form that red frogs! I started to think about the way I would feel after I ate my planned afternoon tea & I knew I would feel happy, energised and satisfied. I made the right choice & I am so happy that I am at that point in my weight loss where I can remove myself from the temptation enough to evaluate if I really want it & how it will make me feel. I hope that this lesson is one that will stay with me in times of weakness.