Try a little yumminess!

Don't forget (if you're in the US or Canada) to hop on over to my other blog and enter my giveaway! You could win a brand new Hamilton Beach Food Processor OR some gorgeous Le Creuset casserole dishes!!

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As I was making dinner last night, I decided to use my fancy schmansy Weight Watchers scales to measure out everything and, in the process, work out how many points it all came to.

I was making one of my most favourite meals and I thought that if it worked out well, I could share it with all of you. Turns out, it came to far less points than I thought it would!

This is my mom's meatloaf recipe. I usually serve it with mashed potatoes and mixed veggies but it's also great with a salad. I hope you'll try it sometime. It's much meatier than the meatloafs I've had before (mostly in the UK and chock full of breadcrumbs. Blech!) and the glaze on top of it is delish! I totally forgot to take a picture. Sorry!

Yummy Scrummy Meatloaf

Ingredients:

500 grams (approx 1.5 lbs) LEAN minced beef/pork/lamb
2/3 cup oats
2/3 cup SKIM milk
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon poultry seasoning
2 eggs
1 teaspoon worcestershire sauce
1 small onion - finely chopped

Mix together and pat into a loaf pan.

Glaze:

1/4 cup ketchup (tomato sauce)
1 teaspoon mustard
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Mix together and pour over meatloaf, spreading as evenly as possible.

Bake your meatloaf at 350F (175C) for approximately 70 - 75 minutes. Cuts nicely into 5 slices.

For those of you on Weight Watchers, this works out to 4 points per slice. They're good size slices though!

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And now, I'm off to another Zumba class. I'm hoping to not look quite so much like a salad vegetable after this session but I won't be holding my breath. I might even take a picture of myself after, just for your amusement!

GIVEAWAY!

Hey peeps...just a quick one before I run out the door. I have another blog over at Mind of a Mad Woman. I'm running a giveaway there right now which might interest many of you out there in the weight loss world (and otherwise). It's in conjunction with CSN Stores and the prizes are cool.

GO HERE to check it out and enter!!

Did you study up?

POP QUIZ!

Which one of your global blog writers is blonde, has blue eyes, is Canadian and living in New Zealand and has been trying to lose weight?

Right. Me.

Which blogger spent the month of May going up and down on the scale?

Right again. Me. Ugh.

Last question.

Which blogger weighed in tonight and showed a loss of 800 grams (1.74 pounds)??

ME!!

Yes, folks, that brings my total loss (as you'll see in my updated sidebar) to 22.4 kgs (49.28 lbs).

What that ALSO means is that my weight in pounds no longer starts with a 3!!! I am officially UNDER 300 lbs. Woooooooooooo!!!

Current Weight: 136.2 kgs which is 299.64 lbs.

YAY!!!!

It's late so I'm off to bed. I'll have a more fleshed out post up tomorrow afternoon. Ciao, beautiful people.

And we're off!

Well weigh in went pretty much as expected the other night. I gained 100 grams (0.22 lbs) which, in the grand scheme of things, is not too bad considering how sick I'd been and how little exercise I did. I have moved on, and exercise is in full swing now.

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Mission: Cycle the Length of New Zealand is officially underway and I did my first 10 kms on the bike on Thursday. I also did 1 km walking because, well, you need to warm up right?

So we start our bike tour of NZ at Cape Reinga at the northern-most tip of the country. The name comes from the Maori word 'Reinga' for Underworld. The Maori people believe that the cape is the point where the spirits enter the underworld. It also happens to be pretty much where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean. There is a beautiful lighthouse there that was built in 1941 to replace one from a nearby location from 1879. There's been no lighthouse keepers there since 1987. Here's a couple pictures for your perusal. (Images from Google Images)

Next up on our tour will be Te Paki and Waitiki Landing. I hear there's some great sand dunes to surf on before we move on to Karatia (Thoms Landing). So stay tuned!

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I have completed Day 1 - Week 1 of the C25K program. Oh. My. Goodness. I've downloaded some podcasts to help me through and on the one hand I was dreading the guy's voice that was going to tell me to run and on the other hand I was begging him (out loud! You should have seen some of the looks I got) to just tell me to stop. But when I was done, I felt fantastic. I had a lot of exercise on Thursday between my biking and that run followed by a walk. Maybe it'll help me lose weight this week!

I hope everyone is having a great day! I'm heading out for a run soon before I go to work, which I'm looking forward to (I think Hell just froze over with me saying that!).

Leaving the comfort zone behind.

I have weigh in tonight. I'm not anticipating a loss because I seem to have used being sick as an excuse to slack a bit in the eating department. This would have been ok if I'd been getting my normal amount of exercise but that was the last thing on my mind when I was trying to breathe.

However, tomorrow we begin a new week and it's GAME ON!

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I have a couple new ..um.. projects (??) that I'd like to tell you about. I say projects because they really are going to be things that I have to work on regularly.

First up.....

There is a little girl here in town named Honor.

At 2 months old she was diagnosed with Infantile Spasms. The first medication she tried worked well for 3 months, it was thought all was well and Honor would develop and grow like any other child. Little did they know that the medication would stop working very soon and Honor would regress to newborn stage at 5months old.

Many different medications have been tried but nothing seems to work, they would get their hopes up with each new medication thinking maybe this will be the one to work, but each and every time they were let down.

Honor has been to Christchurch hospital and Auckland’s Starship Hospital many times over the last 2 years for different tests and medication changes. Honor has tried 10 different medications in her short life; she has had 2 MRI scans, numerous EEG scans, a lumber puncture & many blood & urine tests.

Honor will be 2 in August.

Honors Infantile spasms have almost depleted but have now changed to generalized/Myclonic a seizure which is what the Doctors always said will be likely to happen.

Honor also has global development delay; she can sit & move around the floor (not crawl) but can’t reach out to a toy which means she cannot feed herself or play. She very seldom smiles and is slowly starting to focus on people and objects.

Neurologists still don’t know what’s causing Honors seizures or how much she will develop in the future, we just take each day as it comes and treasure her good days.

This was brought to my attention on Facebook by my fearless leader, Tex. And so, on August 8th, 2010, a number of us will be taking part in a local race. There is a 21 km half marathon option, a 10 km fun run/walk and a 5 km fun run/walk. Everyone is doing what they feel most comfortable with.

Honestly, I know I can walk 21 kms but decided that this time I would go a bit smaller. Some of the ladies are doing the 10K but I am going to try for my very first 5K. And to achieve this, I will be following the Couch to 5K program.......because I would like to run as much of this as possible.

I am stepping outside of my very cushy comfort zone and doing this. And by doing this, I hope to raise some money for the beautiful little girl that is Honor. If you would like to sponsor me for this run/walk, to help raise money for this girl and her family, you'll find a little DONATE button over on my sidebar.

All funds raised will go to Honor and anything she may need, now or in the future.

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Secondly......

I've thinking recently about getting out and about on my bike. Except I don't have one. I could borrow my husband's but that then requires the effort of dealing with the height of the seat. Then I got to thinking about how cool it would be to see more of New Zealand. Except I don't have the money to do that. So what do you do when you don't have the money to travel or the bike to do it on?

You do it on an exercise bike at the gym! A virtual tour of New Zealand.

Starting tomorrow, every time I am at the gym, I will get on the stationary bike and pedal away. I will log my distance and plot it on a map much like this one:

Eventually, I hope to ride the entire length of the country. It's approximately 2000 kms or 1245 miles. As I make my way down the country, I will share with you the beauty of the country that I live in, through a few pictures. And of course, I hope to lose some more weight with this too.

This will take a while. There was a man who did it for real a couple of years ago. He made the entire distance in 4 days, 17 hours and 40 minutes. WOW!

This is, again, me stepping out of my comfort zone. But I'm looking forward to it.

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What will YOU do this week to step out of your comfort zone?

In Sickness and In Health

I have been sick. I have had a head cold of massive proportions and it managed to suck every ounce of extra energy out of my system for near on 4 whole days. This, of course, put the kybosh on my somewhat ambitious plans to work out this weekend while the sun was shining. I had walks and swimming and gym time planned out in my head but when I woke up Friday morning, I could see it all vanish before my eyes.

As the weekend went on, I felt progressively worse and was worried that it was going to impact my entire week. Some people lose their appetite when they're sick, but this is not the case for me. I may actually have eaten MORE than usual. *sigh*

By last night (Sunday), I was feeling a bit better so I was already making plans to get some exercise. This, of course, brought out the folks who know what they're talking about and each of them told me to take it easy. You'd think I'd listen..but no.

Today I took the kids to school. I parked the car at their school and headed into town on foot. It was bloody cold out there but I had my pedometer, my iPod and my mittens and I was determined to get some exercise. I walked all over the place before heading home. By 11 a.m. I had walked just under 6 kms and I was feeling good. The fresh air really helped to clear out my head.

At school pick up time, I walked back to get the kids and the car before heading to the store. I was a bit slower this time but still feeling good.

**Side note: Remember that fancy new pedometer I got from WW? I still love it but have discovered that I absolutely MUST pause it while I am in the car otherwise it shows me having walked almost twice as far as I actually have. I realised this the other day when I did hardly any walking at all in the morning and yet it showed about 8 kms, so now it goes on PAUSE whenever I'm in the car. Something for y'all to think about when it comes to your pedometers.**

It's now evening and I'm exhausted. It's only 7 pm. I'm glad I got out in the fresh air, but I do wish I'd listened a bit more to the folks who were telling me to take it easy. I think I might have over done it.

I think the key is to listen to your body. It needs to rest to get better.

Now that I'm a bit more healthy, I'm looking forward to getting back on track with working out. I'm not very optimistic about weigh in this week, but we'll see.

How do you know when your body is ready to exercise again? What do you do to make yourself feel better when you're sick?

Her name is Bertha and she's a lying cow

I am officially naming my Wii Fit platform. She will hereby be known as "Bertha". And just so you know, lest you think that she is a loving piece of fitness and gaming equipment, she is a lying cow.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, Bertha tried to squash my confidence when I stood on her yesterday. She lied through her tiny electronic teeth and told me I'd gained. This shook me to the core and I nearly shook her to the core. She's really pushing her luck.

Anyfatcow.....I went to my weigh in last night with a little more trepidation than usual. I was late getting there so I had to stand in line for much longer than usual which just let the butterflies go nuts in my stomach. I need not have worried. That stupid Bertha can shove it where the electrodes don't fire because I lost!!

600 g (1.32 lbs)

Total loss = 21.7 kgs (47.74 lbs)

I'd like to give you a glimpse as to what that kind of weight looks like. Are you ready for this?

This gorgeous boy in the picture to the left is Boy Spawn. My son. He'll be 6 in August.

He weighs 21.5 kgs (47.3 lbs).

I have now rid myself of more than he weighs.

Is that shocking to anyone else but me? It astounds me that I was carrying this around on a daily basis. And I still have more to go. So much more.

I have lost a 6 year old.

I don't want that 6 year old back. If you should happen to find the 21.7 kgs that make up that 6 year old, you are more than welcome to dispose of them as you see fit. I'll be happy if I never see them again.

I'm about 4 kgs shy of having lost what my 8 year old daughter weighs. I'm hoping that when I hit the 25.5 kg mark that I can take her with me to my WW meeting so I can have her stand up and show people.(Hey Tex, would that be ok?) It's a really amazing visual. It messes with your head.

I know there's some of you out there who are struggling lately. Personal issues, food issues, exercise, sleep and motivation issues......they're all getting in the way. PLEASE don't give up! You too can lose a 6 year old. And you'll feel so much better for it. Keep going!!

My Wii Fit platform is out to get me.

I have weigh in tonight.

I was feeling rather confident until about 2pm when I decided to step on the Wii Fit platform and it screamed "OH HOLY MOTHER OF PEARL...GET OFF!" at me.

Ok. Maybe it was more like "Maggie, you seem to have gained 1.5 kgs. Did you remember to exercise this week?"

I just about threw it through the window. We'll see how accurate it is after weigh in tonight but at this point in time it has me weighing (taking into account the 4.2 kgs difference between the Wii Fit and the WW scales) 139 kgs. Considering last week I weighed in at 137.5 kgs, that's a bit of a kick in the enormous gut.

*sigh*

Fingers crossed that my Wii Fit is just being a bitch and I've actually gone down. If that's the case, I'm gonna kick the cow's ass when I get home. If she's right (I've decided it's a woman because I've also decided she's just jealous of my descending poundage and has resorted to underhanded tricks), then I will kiss her and love her and tell her thank you for the reality check.

I'm really hoping it's not the latter.

Thoughts

Did y'all notice that Tex commented on my last post? I hope you'll all welcome my fearless leader and make her feel at home here. Everyone, meet Tex. Tex, meet...um...everyone?

Well folks, we're 4 days into my June Challenge and so far things are going well. Going well so far. Here's some things I've been thinking about this week:

* You know how people tell you that if you deprive yourself of something, you want it even more? It's totally true. Annoyingly so. This time around I decided not to say "No coke". I just said that I must consume the minimum 8 glasses of water a day. And you know what's funny? It's working! Since I lifted the embargo on Coke, I've wanted far less of it. In fact, the other night I poured myself a glass, took a sip and by bedtime I had to put it back in the fridge. It took me until the NEXT night to finish that ONE glass!! I know! I was shocked too. And I've been getting all the water.

* Water is my friend. No, really! Ok, well the fact that I have to go pee a million times a day is getting a little annoying but here's the thing, just in the last four days I've already noticed that my skin is better, I feel better (not so sluggish) and I'm sleeping better. With the exception of the three times I have to get up to pee. *sigh*

* I am becoming reacquainted with soup. I have a whole bunch of delicious soup recipes in my WW cookbooks which I am starting to try out and I'm really enjoying it. I've started having a bowl of soup with a sandwich at lunch time and it really fills me up and keeps me going until dinner time. I never thought I'd see the day when I enjoyed soup!

* It is amazing how much walking around we do in the course of a day. I got the new pedometer from WW and I'm LOVING it.

~ pause for the oohs and ahhs of admiration~

Turns out that just in the course of my day I rack up an average of about 13,500 steps. That's just from doing errands, going to work, dropping and picking up the kids from school....it doesn't even take into account any exercise I do.

Love it!! I think everyone should have a pedometer. They're fantastic!

I still have my old WW pedometer. Maybe I should give it away to one of you??

* I found myself getting upset the other day when I was reading through my new WW magazine. I got to the success stories and as I flicked through I noticed that most of them have lost about 10 to 15 kgs (22 to 33 lbs). The first thought that ran though my head was "Why are THESE people being showcased as a success story? They've ONLY lost......." and I clung to that for a couple days. Then in our meeting, we got to talking about the 2010 Healthy Life Awards that are coming up and how it doesn't matter how much you've lost, if you're at goal then you can enter. Something Tex said really stuck with me (and I'm paraphrasing here) "Sometimes losing a small amount can be just as hard ... OR HARDER ... than losing a large amount". And you know, she's right. It doesn't matter whether you have to lose 10 kgs or 100 kgs, it's a journey either way. So, I won't be thinking that anymore.

* I made this delicious stir fry the other day and I'd like to share the recipe with as many people as I can. It was published on the awesome Lose It Bitches! blog and you can find it by clicking below. If you don't like food with a bit of bite, you might want to halve the amount of ginger used, but other than that it's a recipe you can stick to it.

CLICK HERE FOR DELUMPTIOUS STIR FRY RECIPE

* It's amazing to me what a difference the sun can make to my mood. I've been out walking around, happily running errands, getting laundry done, and all with a bounce in my step and a smile on my face. Unfortunately we're meant to get rain for another few days but I'll live.

* I brought the Nordic Track skier machine over from my mom's house. It's going to take some getting used to but it looks like it'll be good for me. I can be on it while I'm watching tv or reading a book and it means that on those days I don't feel like going to the gym or out in the rain to walk, I have something I can do.

Thinking hurts sometimes but it's a good hurt!

"You must begin to think of yourself as becoming the person you want to be."
~ David Viscott

As we come to the end of the 2nd day of June here in NZ, I've been thinking a lot about the goals that I want to set up for June. I was reading something that Jody had written over at "Are you living your best life?" about coming to the end of her May challenge and it struck me that maybe I needed to take a leaf out of her book.

When I instigated my 7 Week Challenge, I honestly thought I'd succeed. If someone had asked me if I could predict any problems I would have truthfully answered, "No". And yet just a few short weeks into the challenge and I'd already bailed on most of it. I didn't sit there and consciously think to myself "hey, I don't feel like drinking water anymore"...I just let the Coke Zero back into my life. I didn't make a decision to not go to the gym as often or swim anymore, I just didn't make a point of scheduling the time in. I didn't choose to not track my food, I just didn't make the effort.

And where did all my not bothering & not making time get me? It got me to where I was losing and re-gaining the same 2.2 kgs for the entire month of May. I think we can call that a big fat FAIL.

Was the length of the challenge wrong? Perhaps. I think (ok fine, I KNOW) there was more to it than that, but we'll start with the length of the challenge. This is where Jody comes in. She does monthly challenges. I think that is far more realistic. She sets goals for every month and works hard to achieve them. So I will be doing monthly things from now on.

We'll get back to that....

Something else I read today hit me in the face like cold, wet fish. It was unpleasant but man did it ever make me sit up and take notice! I was over visiting *FiTCETERA* and she had a quote of her very own up there that said:

"If you're not willing to make sacrifices in order to reach your goals, then you better resign yourself to the fact that you'll stay right where you are. Suck it up! Be brave and be a little uncomfortable."

She went on to say this:

"I need to take my own advice........I haven't been willing to make sacrifices (not long term). I haven't been willing to do the hard work (not long term). I haven't been willing to be uncomfortable (not long term). And I have stayed right where I am (long term)."

People, I thought my head was going to fall off from nodding along in agreement so vigorously! At the beginning of this journey I was so good. I tracked everything that went into my mouth, I exercised regularly and I planned ahead. As the weeks and months have gone on, I've been more and more willing to let things slide...always with the confidence that I can fix it next week. The problem is, there is ALWAYS going to be a next week so I will always have that leeway. I can't take away that flexibility but I CAN do away with the mind set. There is NO MORE leeway.

I had to go back and look at WHY I even started this journey. Among so many other reasons, the main ones were:

To get healthy

To not be the fat mom.

To not be the fat wife.

To be able to watch my kids grow up.

To be comfortable in FRONT of the camera.

To be healthy.

To be healthy.

To be healthy.

Somewhere along the line, I have lost sight of that. I have lost my drive and determination to reach goal and that is not ok. Even if I no longer want to do this for my husband and children, I MUST do this for ME! If sacrifice, discomfort, hard work, grit and persistence is what I need to put out there, then so be it!

So here we go! One month at a time.

(In the middle of this post I had to run off to weigh in and found out I lost 1.1 kgs / 2.42 lbs...YAY!)

JUNE CHALLENGE
(June 2nd - June 30th)

"This one step - choosing a goal and sticking to it - changes everything"

~ Scott Reed

GOALS

Weight Loss: My starting weight for this month's challenge is 137.5 kgs (302.5 lbs).

My goal for June is to lose a minimum of 4 kgs (8.8 lbs). I am going to put one of those little ticker thingies in the sidebar to track this. Fingers crossed!

Exercise: Lately I've been using the weather as an excuse to not exercise. I've been using it a lot. Like, a lot. No more. I have a Wii Fit, I'm bringing my mom's Nordic Track Skier across the road to my house, I have a gym/pool membership and I have lots of streets I go walk on. No more excuses!!

My goal for June is to work out in some capacity for at least 45 minutes a day for a minimum of 4 days a week.

Water: I'm not sure why, but weaning myself off the Coke Zero didn't work any more than going cold turkey did. I swear there's something in it that I'm truly addicted to. I am, however, drinking far less of it which is a step in the right direction.

My goal for June is to drink that 8 glasses of water the powers that be always talk about. Every day.

Tracking & Food: I've really let the tracking slip lately. When I don't track, I don't lose. Tracking in my head doesn't work, it MUST be done on paper. I bought a new tracker at Weight Watchers tonight.

My goal for June is to track everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, that goes into my mouth. I will also plan ahead for as many meals and snacks as I can. I will also eat more fruit for snacks, eat less sugary items and eat more veggies at dinner time..even if it means having a salad every night to get that into me.

So. What are your goals for this month?