What a difference a couple of days makes

I had mentioned the other day that Miss Kellie from our Warrnie group issued us a challenge last Monday.  We had to own up to the food item or habit formed or whatever it was that was holding us back from success, share that vice, resist it and then report back at the end of the week.

So the habit I reported on was the snacking after dinner, which had become a complete habit over the past few weeks ... or dare I even say months ... when I completely didn't need it.

Talk about a turn around in attitude.  It's like I'm back to day one on 12wbt again, I'm pumped.  Amazing that when you string a couple of really successful days together, it's like success breeds success.  Since Monday I have not eaten a thing after dinner.  I have had my one hot water coffee that I have said I would have.  But not a morsel of food has passed these lips.  I feel like Rocky Balboa at the moment, pumping my fists in the air.  I actually feel quite strong and in control ... at this very moment in time.  But like anything, I know that can turn on the spin of a ten cent piece.  But while the momentum is going, I'm going with it.

Oh and I would like to say thank you for the comments of support in the last couple of days, it meant a lot.  I am usually such a cup's half full kind of girl, can't keep me down, but it threw me for a loop it did.  So I appreciate the time you spent to boost me up again.

I have the day off tomorrow and I am heading to Geelong to hit the sales baby!  Really looking forward to doing a decent clothes shop for once, and then I will ditch the saggy baggy that my 'in between' clothes have started to become.

I do find it hard though, I get so emotionally attached to clothes, I find it hard to cull.  But I need to be ruthless.  The only dress I should be emotionally attached to is my wedding dress right?

So roll on the sales.

And I must report that I might be just a little bit back in love with Runkeeper.  I now have a shiny new iPhone (now that's a love affair in itself), and the run I did the other day with Runkeeper, well the GPS found me straight away and I hadn't even left the house yet.  So maybe all my angst with the program in recent times was more to do with a dying phone than the actual program.

I still want a Garmin, but I'm not as much in a hurry for one now.  That can wait till my birthday (hint hint Mike).  ;-)

Eeek!! When things go wrong

Well Kit Kats aside, and despite keeping up the exercise, I obviously have slackened off in the food arena, dropped my bundle, increased portion sizes, snacked after dinner, stopped calorie counting, and basically stuffed right up this past week.

Which saw a ... 1.3kg gain.

O--M--F--G !!!

I've had a couple of little gains amongst all my losses over the past 12 months, but nothing like 1.3kg in a week.  And how easy it was to put on.  Flip.  I was half expecting it I guess.  So strangely when I got on the scales I wasn't devastated.  Oh it's shocking of course, disappointed of course, hated owning up to it to Mike, hated putting it out there to our Warrnie crew, but to own it has given me the shake up I needed.  I've reversed my sad little head, I slapped myself stupid, and I have stood back up with a renewed steely determination to turn it back around again.

A little blimp on my journey, that's what I'm going to call it.

I guess it's not realistic to think I'm not going to stuff up royally at times, and I guess that makes me human.  The main thing is to pick myself back up, dust myself off, and get back on that proverbial horse.

Yee ha!

Still no snacking after dinner this week, so at least I've turned that around.

Although I did feel like a fraudster with Mish's email that came tonight.

I just want to say… KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

You are weighing in regularly, and I can see you are losing weight. You made a pledge to me that you wanted to be healthy and exercise more, and you are proving that you stick to your word! Oh Mish, you have the wrong Carol there for sure!  That email is DEFINITELY not for me.

A Run along Struggle Street

So my head was in another place yesterday and I'm still having a little struggle with myself.  Let me explain.

After a brilliant day at Mt. Leura with the girls on Saturday, I let my guard down.  See, Mike was away for the weekend off camping up in the goldfields (his passion is being out in the bush chasing the yellow stuff).  In days gone by this was my key to stock up on the yummy things and have myself a feast, visit the roadhouse for hot chippies, the bakery for a cake, all the good stuff.  I'd have myself a regular party when he was gone.

That was the OLD me.

Now he's been off camping many many times over the past 12 months and I've had no problems.  I've eaten clean, I've exercised, I've busied myself with sewing or scrapbooking or visiting friends.  And always when he came home there'd be a nice 12wbt approved meal waiting, all has been good.

Not this time.

Yesterday I had a bit of a chocolate blowout and didn't see it coming.  I went down to the supermarket at one stage on Sunday to get some milk and came home with two big kit kats and ate them one after another, barely drawing breath.  I then followed it with a big bowl of muesli dolloped with yoghurt and honey, one of my favourite things.  I wasn't hungry, I didn't need it, and I felt like absolute crap after it.

Worse than crap.   I started to question (and doubt) everything that I had learnt over the past 12 months.  Not only that, but I doubted my resolve on this path that I have chosen and made for myself, particularly if it was so easy to fall back into bad habits.  Is that dark place always going to be lurking there around the corner?  Am I forever to be one weak moment away from a binge?  And of course I know two kit kats and a bowl of muesli does not a binge make, but the feelings I had at the time were exactly like the old days, when I would eat until I felt sick.  It's freaking scary.

So this morning on my day off I wanted to punish myself.  And I took to the road and ran all the way out of town to the farms on the outskirts and did a big loop of the area.  As I ran up one of the back roads I was running into the wind and I felt so heavy and my legs were like logs (perhaps psychological) and I was hurting, oh man was I hurting.  I had to wipe away tears thinking I was using running this morning as a form of punishment.

That screwed with my head even more.  Running is meant to be my "me" time, my enjoyment, my moments of glory and satisfaction, but this morning I used it against me and that was just not right.  I know that.  But it's the way my upside down head was thinking.

I know that a moment's delight of chocolate is just not worth the inner turmoil, angst and frustration I have felt over the past two days.  I am going to have to always be on my guard for the rest of my life.  Lesson learnt (hopefully).

One thing I did do though was I owned up to the girls in our Warrnie group.  I realised I wasn't alone.  So much so that Miss Kellie has issued the Kit Kat challenge to the girls, that our challenge this week is to resist our food downfall that is potentially holding us back from success.  We needed to own up to a food item that we keep going back to, maybe a habit we've gradually formed and it's become the norm, anything that is potentially holding us back from success.  We had to share that vice, resist it and then report back at the end of the week.

So my habit I've reported on (apart from the double Kit Kat shame) is that I've gotten into the habit of having a snack after dinner, perhaps around supper time.  Completely not needed.  I'm nice and satisfied by my dinner.  But it has become a habit, a hot drink and a snack.

This week dinner is the last food that will be eaten by me of an evening.  No further food consumed of a night.  I'm allowing myself a hot water drink, maybe a coffee or a tea, but that's it.  Lets see how I go and if I can last a week doing so, maybe a new (better) habit is then formed.

And if you've made it this far, you deserve a medal reading the ramblings of my sad and sorry head.

Week 4 mini milestone - aka Mt Leura or bust !!

How quickly is this round going, eeek!  That's one thing I notice, now I'm up to my fifth round, they just keep getting faster and faster.

So here we are at the Week 4 mini milestone challenge.  I have been slack in some of the rounds in doing the mini challenges, but not this time.  I thought I might like to pop over to Camperdown and spend a couple of hours at Mount. Leura.  Now for those that don't know, south-west Victoria is spotted with dormant volcanos.   Mount. Leura is not overly large by mountainous standards, but it would provide a great morning's work out.  Right next to Mount Leura is Mount Sugarloaf, which is quite cone shaped.  The whole area is so well looked after, great walking tracks all round it.

I put the call out to our wonderful Warrnambool & Surrounds 12wbt crew and I had a couple of takers who were free this morning and would join me on my quest.   I think the plan originally was to see how many times we could run up and down it, but with all the tracks available we ran, walked and laughed our way up, around, over, down, across and every which way.  Hooray to Floss, Debbie and Janelle.  Oh and the two K9's there who met for the first time and fell in love.  Ahhhhh.

The view from somewhere up Mount Leura looking across to Mount Sugarloaf.

Made it to the top!  Pretty pleased with myself.

No sooner at the top of Leura, then we headed over to Sugarloaf.

Hmmm cool how I look thin in my shadow!

A bit of discussion, which way should we go.  Debbie says "straight up" !! 

I'm not kidding you.  The sugarloaf walk loops round and round the cone a number of times, much like how sheep go up a mountain, you can see it in the map above.  Eh!  That's for amateurs.  Debbie ran in a direct line straight up, so that she could do a great "THE HILLS ARE ALIVE!!" Julie Andrews impersonation.  Janelle and I were not going anywhere near that long grass, no way, it may have been crisp but it was sunny and we were betting snakes.

So after looping around and over Sugarloaf we headed down, just to come back up again.

It doesn't look steep but it was, and slippery.  Here Floss and Debbie are pelting down the 

side of Leura.  

More finger pointing.  "I reckon we should go down and then come back up again"

Floss (la la la) I can't hear you!!

I'm in hysterics, or was it exhaustion taking over.

Lordy Lord I must work on my core!!

Coming back down for the last time, Janelle and I took the road down.

Our feet were frozen by this stage, my runners were wet through from all the damp grass.

But it was a great feeling knowing we'd just about gone two hours of activity.

Great view on the way down.

Met up again with Floss coming back up the other way, so a quick selfie.

We still had big smiles happening.

It was a really great morning, and it made me wonder why I hadn't driven over there before, I mean it's not that far away from where I live.  I know I've been up there twice, many many years ago, by car.  I had no idea of all the walking tracks up there, and so well kept also, they obviously have a great management team looking after the reserve.  

So Week 4 mini milestone - completed !!  :-)

Prancing ... that's me !!

So have you seen the newest exercise craze, pffffft.  It's been doing the rounds, I even saw it on the morning show today.  Honestly I thought it was a joke when I first saw it, I mean come on, who wears white leggings firstly, and prancing?? really?  I'll probably go straight to hell for dissing it like this.  But I dare you to watch the video and not smirk and wonder if it's for real.

Click here if you dare, but shield your eyes first.

Okay okay, I'll grant you it's probably good for the oldies, getting anyone to move, but if I pranced around my town like that, I'd be laughed out of town for sure.

Fast forward to this arvo after work.  I went to the gym and was on the treadmill into my first kilometre, and ouch!  Something went a bit cranky pants in my knee, a twinge, I don't know what it was, but as I was running I went all wobbly, arms flailing, almost into a gallop favouring one leg and trying as hard as I could not to fall off the back of the jolly treadmill.  And a fleeting thought flashed across my mind.

I'VE TURNED INTO THE PRANCERCISE WOMAN !!!!!!!!!!! (sans the white leggings of course, a woman must have her standards yanno!).

I quickly slowed the tready down to a walk and gathered myself.  Ouch my knee had gotten twingy (how do you spell twingy anyway???).  So I walked another couple of kilometres before I moved onto the weights.

All is okay now, but oh the embarrassment at my funky chicken type running tonight.

Literally!

Couldn't resist this imaginary conversation

I went up to Ararat today to watch filming for The Biggest Loser again.  This time Hayley and Mish were there.  OMG, it was the COLDEST DAY EVER !!!!!!!   Even now, back home, log fire going, warm soup in my stomach, and I'm still cold.  

Initially I was going to meet up with a couple of friends from the Warrnambool & Surrounds crew.  Except they piked.  Well Lynn is suffering an injury and Michelle had family things on.   Although it didn't help in the midst of me shivering up there, the wind had gotten up, the cold was seeping right through my coat and I sms'ed the girls and found out Michelle was still in bed !!!!  C-c-c-cold, my teeth were chattering by that stage.

So I couldn't resist putting this little skit together.  You may need to click on the pic to see the conversation!

Or the "alleged" conversation, I should say.

Rain rain go away

I woke up during the night a couple of times last night hearing the rain on the roof.  There's nothing more luxurious than nestling down further under a lovely warm doona and listening to the rain.  But as I drifted off to sleep each time I was thinking about my planned run this morning.  Eeeek, there's one thing in being caught in the rain, there's something completely insane about going out in the pouring rain.  And yet when I woke up it had stopped.  Just like that.  Fantastic.

So out I went.  It was cold, I love my new long sleeved running top.  I decided to run 5 kilometres out of town and then turn around and run back again.  All well and good, I was running on one of the roads out of town, usually a quiet road, apart from a farmer who moves his cows down it.  But for some reason this morning there were a few cars.  I was running facing the oncoming traffic, and each time a car appeared I went well over to the grass verge, slippery and wet, urrrgh.

My friend on the Runkeeper told me I had hit 5 kilometres, fantastic, I was almost to the salt flats so I did a u-ey and then she went into stutter mode.  Every time she spoke to me after that she kept telling me I was still at 5 kilometres.

"NOOOOOOOOOOO" I screamed at her.  "I'm still running.  I can't be at 5 kilometres you silly woman!!!"

And yet on and on she kept telling me that I was at 5 kilometres.  So apart from the clock which seemed to be ticking along correctly, I had no idea how far I had run.  Until I dug my phone out of my bra in the home straight, yes yes, well I didn't have a pocket and so it nestles in there quite nicely, and then it started working again.  I had to retrace my map on Runkeeper when I got home to see just how far I'd run, because it had me going home as the crow flies.

9.4 kilometres.  :-)

Gaaaaaaaah.  I'm almost ready to break up my love affair with Runkeeper.  I just wish the woman would sound a bit more excited for me as well.

Instead of:  "Time 5 minutes, distance zero point seven one kilometres, average pace blah blah blah"

Why can't she say:  "Time 5 minutes, oh my goodness have you been running that long, good on you, distance zero point seven one kilometres, you go girl, you are doing great, just keep it up, average pace blah blah blah, I'm so proud of you."

Just a thought for any app makers out there.  :-)

Oh, and because it's of world importance, I would like to announce NO BLISTERS!!!!!!   I swear I almost need to bathe in that Body Glide, it's done the trick completely.

So anyway I've been checking out the Garmins, any tips on which one??   I'd probably still carry my phone for safety sake, or in case I break down and need for Mike to come pick me up but I like the thought of the convenience of a watch.  And of course I live for a map at the end, so Garmins have that covered with Garmin Connect.  I'm all ears for recommendations.