Some big happenings today

Firstly the biggest thing.   Ready for it.   I lost that 800 grams that I talked about after last week's weigh in.

I have lost freaking 20 kilograms !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I still can't believe it.   Well actually I can, cause I've done it.  Still a long way to go, but I'm on the downward slide on my ticker.  I am OVER-THE-MOON !  I went racing into Mike still in bed after my weigh in this morning yelling "I've lost that big bag of dog food, yahoooooooooooooo".  Pretty elated.

The second huge thing that has happened to me today, is dress shopping.  After a few of the Warrni girls now telling me they've got their dresses for finale (some may have more than one dress, don't they??? hmmmmm wonder who I'm talking about Miss KC!! giggle) I thought I better start looking myself.    I've had a bit of a squiz online and everything seems so darn short and so dicey because I don't really know what I can fit into and what I can't.

So with a brave faced fixed on I walked into three of the lovely ritzy chi chi pooh pooh dress shops in town. I kept the whole "I'm just looking" face on as I flicked through the racks.   I felt like I had a sign on my back "I've just lost 20 kilograms and I'm clueless".   The saleslady at the second store started chatting to me and before I knew it I had blurted out my whole tale.

Yep, way to go Carol, reeeeeeeal smoooooth!

Anyway she was actually quite helpful, checked out my body type, found a dress that would suit and suggested I try it on.

Well I did.

And I took one look in the mirror and burst into tears.

Happy tears.

It was the size 16 and it was too big.

Probably didn't help that I was standing there in my black socks either, but I did a twirl and got all excited.  Tried on the size 14 and it fitted beautifully.

I got changed back into my work gear, thanked her very much, put the dress back on the rack and walked out of there.  I don't know why I just didn't lay my bucks down on the counter there and then.  I've tried to rationalise it in my head walking the whole way back to work.  I have come to the conclusion that I don't think I was worthy of such a gosh darn elegant dress.

I think I need to go back to the store tomorrow.  Right?

The Universe is great   :-)

Before I go I must tell you about this website I stumbled on and absolutely love.   Actually the website is TUT, but I particularly like Notes from the Universe.  I signed up and every week day I get a note from the Universe to me.  Mike just rolls his eyes when I tell him that the Universe has written to me.  Sometimes the notes really resonate.  Like the one I received today, which I want to share.

No truer words were spoken and I am going to really take this thought to heart.   Go check out the website and sign up for your own note from the universe.  It's a bit of fun, but hey, if it makes you think, then it's well worth it.  Remember I'm exercising here my mind, body AND soul.

Mammoth Sunday ... smashed it !

One thing about the 12wbt program and my own personal (shall I say) metamorphasis, is that I am trying things I never thought I would do.  Left to my own devices I probably wouldn't do.   But with great like minded and new friends by my side, we are pushing ourselves to our limits and it is just amazing the things I have been achieving.

Well I said in the last post that I would be making good use of my new walking boots yesterday, and that I did.   I met up early at 8am with Casey and Debbie and we set off down to the Otways with the plan of seeing 4 waterfalls in the day.  Well we didn't just see 4 waterfalls, we saw 4 and a bit (haha! you'll have to keep reading to see what I mean by that), covered about 20 KILOMETRES in walking for the whole day (yes you read that right!!), really firmed up new friendships, laughed like I have never laughed before, pushed my body to it's limits and then pushed some more, seen some magical sights and had a wonderfully exhilerating day, which ended with me walking back in the door here at home at about 10.15pm.   Wow!  What a day.

First Stop Melba Falls ...

Absolutely beautiful scenery that we were walking through, huge tree ferns, and the air was so clear, there was also a fair bit of laughing going on. 

Our walking also involved a lot of the dreaded steps.

But soon enough we were rewarded with the view of the falls.

And the obligatory selfie we took at each stop.  We were looking pretty keen, pretty eager to keep going, the day was young!! 

Next stop - Little Aire Falls...

Onward we went, a lot more traipsing to get to these falls, with a muddy trail that Casey soon found out about when she went slipping!   But the falls were beautiful.

The day was warming up and we were still eager.  Yet another selfie.

Onward to Triplet Falls ...

This was a neat loop of another 2.5 kilometres, and as the name implies there's three parts to these falls, these are my best captures. 

And of course the selfie at Triplet!

I was feeling pretty great at this stage, holy heck, I was walking kilometres!  Looking a little bit hot and flustered, but I was keeping up with the girls as fast as these old knees would let me.

On to Hopetoun Falls ...

After a picnic lunch, which I might say tasted better than anything!!  I was starving!  and with Beauchamp Falls out of action due to unsafe trees, landslide conditions, we headed on to Hopetoun Falls, I thought this was one of the prettiest falls we'd seen. 

And again the selfie, I'm wondering now looking at it, were our smiles just kind of only half there at this stage.  Our smiles are not quite reaching our eyes, if you know what I mean.  I know I was feeling quite stonkered but willing to keep up with the girls.

So that was four waterfalls in a day.  But surely we could fit something else in.  We decided on popping into Maits Rest, which was a beautiful walk amongst the lush green rainforest type conditions.  It was a great relaxing walk after our hard climbs.  Talk about replenishing the souls, this place was magic!

That was it, we'd done it!  But the niggling feeling that we could go one more kept at us.  After popping into Cape Otway Lighthouse and finding out the exhorbitant price just to go and check out the lighthouse, we spotted a sign ... Rainbow Falls ... 5.5 km.   Should we round off the day with a final 5.5 km walk?  It did sound exotic, we imagined a huge waterfall with the sun hitting it just so that a rainbow would be formed.  The itch had to be scratched.

Rainbow falls to finish up ...

So we set off walking ... and walking ... and still walking.   This was a different type of walk, it was beachy, it was sandy, there were scrubby wind blown plants.  The path took us up along the cliff face with a magnificent view, but heck!  Where were the falls???

We had been walking for about an hour and a half, and ended up down the dunes into the beach below.

Still walking, we had come this far, by hook or by crook we were going to find these jolly falls.  Until we came to this.  

W.T.F ????   

Were these Rainbow Falls?  Are you kidding me?  About a foot high?

By this stage we were delirious, we took the obligatory selfie.  We were hot, we were bothered.  And to be honest crazed laughter was taking place.

And quite frankly we were thinking about the traipse back, not to mention the sand dune we were going to have to climb back up.  It was then we realised the 5.5 km to the "supposed" (cough cough) falls was not a round trip number.  We had walked 5.5 km there and now we had to talk 5.5 km back!!!!!!

I swear on that way back, our legs were going by autopilot.  We weren't talking, we were just concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other.  The disappointment for our last so called waterfall was huge.  I was actually numb from walking by now.  I don't know how Debbie was able to operate the accelerator on the drive home!

Heading home we were driving back down the Cape Otway Lighthouse Road around 7pm and came across the most magical sight.  We saw koalas EVERYWHERE.  We looked up into the trees and they were like fruit, perched on all the branches, climbing from branch to branch, up and down trees, wandering everywhere.   We stopped and got out and were amazed and quite thrilled.  After the disappointment of Rainbow Falls, this was magic.  This was the PERFECT end to the day.

It was only when this bad assed angry koala came stomping down the road toward us, with the most impressive grunt and growl, did we realise we still had enough energy in our legs to run when it rounded us up we flew around the other side of the car and got out of its way !!  

 All in all a terrific day, I can't thank Casey and Debbie enough for pushing me out of my comfort zone, getting me out and about, enjoying the fresh air, enjoying pushing my body, enjoying the beautiful vista of the Otways.  We smashed Sunday for sure!

And dare I say, only after we turned to our friend Mr. Google today, we realised they weren't Rainbow Falls after all !!  Hysterical.   We had to walk perhaps another 500 metres up the beach, you can see a small colouring in the base of the cliff in this photograph, well THAT was Rainbow Falls!

Un - freaking - believable !

Support

The support I have been getting from my husband on my 12wbt journey is nothing short of wonderful.  It all stems back dare I say to the day I told him my weight (after being tight lipped about it for our 11 years together).   I think from that moment on I let him in, so to speak.  I included him.  And he has embraced and run with it.  He'll check calories for me.  He'll cook his own meal if he wants something knowing I am planning to eat one of my pre-planned meals.  He'll time me when I'm doing my fitness test and air punch and high five me when I do a "PB" (personal best).  He may not remember to replace the toilet roll, but he'll always remember it's Wednesday and ask me how I did on the scales, this week being no exception.

So I hit the scales on Wednesday marking 19.2 kg gone forever.  For my overseas friends, that is 42 pounds.

So Mike certainly has a way with words.  He was so excited to hear I was up to 19.2 kg, the first words that came out of his mouth were...

"That's FANTASTIC!!!  Only 800 more grams and you've lost a big bag of dog food."

Huh?

It was only then I realised, every time I told him what I'd lost he was equating it to something, a tub of margarine, a packet of flour, a bag of potatoes.  So he marched me into the laundry where yes indeed we have a new 20kg bag of dog biscuits sitting there and told me to lift it.

I couldn't lift it, without struggling and even then it only came a few feet off the ground.

And yet I'd been carrying almost that around.

Wow.

Not only that, another kind of milestone this week for me was my ticker.  You'll see it down the bottom of the page.  I had kind of set an end goal of 75kg to reach, whether I adjust that or not, I don't know.  But that's the number I kind of magically thought up as a good goal to get to.  Look at my ticker, it's over the half way point.  I'm on the downward slide.  I've now lost more weight, than I have to go.   I can't tell you just how happy I have been this week.

Here's to new friendships

One other thing I wanted to talk about in this blog post was an added bonus to the 12wbt program.  Yes we have the diet, yes we have the exercise, yes we have the mind set lessons and the forum and all that goes with it.   But the big bonus for me has been the friendships.  This past week I met up with the lovely Lynn and Jane for lunch and it was terrific, two girls I would probably never have met otherwise.  It was nice to meet up and just be able to talk and enjoy each others company face to face (without huffing and puffing).

And tomorrow I'm meeting up with Debbie and Casey and we're spending the day together.  You'll have to stay tuned to find out what we get up to!  :-)    But it involves these boots, my newest purchase...

Nice!

Lets get physical !!

Ha!  You'll be singing that all night now.  I just wanted to share something absolutely priceless that happened the other day.   It still makes me giggle just thinking about it.

Youngest stepson, now 18, has really been working out.  He's leaner and fitter and has broadened in the shoulders.   We were chatting recently and he mentioned he was going to a gym.

"Aaaahhhh T, I'm going to a gym too, which one are you going to???" (my enquiring mind wanted to know)

"Snap" (he said)

"Aaaaaahh" (clapping hands) "That's the gym I go to T, I'll look out for you next time."

(cue the absolute look of horror on his face)

I could almost see the video playing in his head, imagining me in leotard, tights, sweat bands and leg warmers, a la Olivia, prancing on the treadmill and waving to him from across the gym and calling out "Yooo hoooo"

 

When I then said "Don't worry mate, I'll pretend I don't see you, okay?" there was a look of relief on his face that still has me chuckling today.  

But just quietly, he may be buffing up at the gym, but I think I could outrun him on the treadmill given half the chance.   But we won't go there, right?  :-)

Shopper's High !

I went shopping today and I still can't wipe the grin off my face.

Back track for a moment ... on the weekend I'm heading up to Melbourne and I wanted something nice to wear.  I'm sick of looking saggy baggy which is what my clothes are looking like.  I've been able to resurrect some things from my wardrobe but darn it, I wanted something new this time!!   Every girl's right, huh?  I want to look smart and modern and feel totally wonderful this weekend.

And you know what was great.  When I went browsing and trying a few things on, I didn't have to just pick up the only thing on the rack that would fit me, whether I liked it or not.  I actually got to choose.  It was such a happy moment, and such an all encompassing and quite emotional moment to be honest.

Even better than that, the lovely dark blue soft material jeans I bought from Sussans were a size 16, wooo hoooo!  And they were marked down from $89.95 to $19.00 !!!!  I tell ya, if there was a shopping olympics, I'd be a gold medallist for sure.  Oh me oh my they fit so nice.  And even if they only last a couple of months and end up too big, hey, they were only $19.  I can cope with that.

Added to the list was a cute white linen look shirt, and I figure even when I lose more weight, it's the type of shirt that you would wear loose and feel totally wonderful in.  So score on that front too.

All I know is that I left that store with a skip in my step and a huge huge grin on my face.  It was a high of epic proportions I was feeling.  And if that's not motivation to keep on this journey, then nothing is.  

And I'm going to keep doing it over and over again !!!!   I'm going to become a Happiness Junkie!  :-)

Happy happy weigh in !

Weigh in today and I just could feel it in my waters that I was going to have a good one.   I jumped out of bed, nuddied up and onto the scales (after the obligatory pee though! ha)

1.1 gone!  Yahooooooooo.   I have really slowed down in this round and this has been my biggest loss to date in Round 3, I was so happy, I was jumping and hopping around the bathroom, air punching, completely fired up.   So that's a massive 18.5 kg gone now.  I'm walking with a spring in my step and it's in turn spurred me on even more.

Success begets success right?

Well when I say I am walking with a spring in my step, that's not quite true.  The last couple of days I've had a bit of back pain in my lower left side of my back, and that sciatica feeling down my left leg.  It's exacerbated by sitting, which is kinda hard not to do being that I have an office job.  I've been rubbing the deep heat on, oooooh how I love the smell of that stuff  :-)  and I must admit I feel better when I move.  After sitting I kind of need to crank myself up to standing position and that is when it plays up.

So today at lunchtime I went for a lovely long walk around town in the sunshine to keep moving.  What a gorgeous day it was in my part of the world.  And then decided to go to the gym after work and just wanted to move.  I spent an hour there, walking on the treadmill, I did a little bit of running, but mostly walking, worked out on the weight machines for my arms, and then the sit down bike for the rest of the session.  I don't know that that sit down bike burns many calories, but at least I was moving.  Felt great then driving home, but once I got home having to crank myself up and out of the car, ouch!  Lets hope this clears up soon.

Other than that, I'm feeling pretty darn good right now, it's a great feeling!  Wish I could bottle it.

And you know what ... I'm going to choose happiness again tomorrow too!!!!  :-)   Just cause I can!

Please meet my newest best friend ...

Where have you been all my life, you beautiful beautiful thing.  Truly, the most delicious lasagne I have EVER tasted, all courtesy of the 12wbt recipes.

It's no secret I'm not following the meal plans religiously, I'm doing a lot of mixing and matching with the meals, just because it's easier for me that way.  So I haven't actually made the lasagne yet until tonight.  We didn't end up eating till about 8pm because I fiddle faddled about with it and ended up making a double quantity so I had lots of servings to freeze.

I didn't tell Mike any of the ingredients that were in it either, I knew he'd turn his nose up at ricotta cheese, but one bite was enough to tell me this was a little ripper!  And to be quite frank I'd probably never make traditional lasagne with the bechamel sauce again.

So a big thumbs up from Mike, who incidentally had three servings and a huge smile on his face!

And an even bigger thumbs up from me.  Yum!  Whoever knew that healthy cooking could taste so darn good.