Fit Date 011.12/149.4

'Allo! It's that time of the week again where I donned my weigh in clothes, trekked down to the centre and sacrificed myself on the digital scale altar. I have to admit that my stomach doesn't churn in quite the same way as it used to, which is a nice change. Now I just heave a sigh, say a little prayer for success and step on the platform.

This week wasn't nearly as active as I had hoped it would be, but it wasn't too bad. I would have been happy to break even or lose just a small amount. As long as the number wasn't going UP, I was fine. And I was rewarded for my efforts with a LOSS!

Start Weight (Dec 28, 2011): 152.3 kg (335.06 lb)

 Weight Last Week (Jan 4, 2012): 150.6 kg (331.32 lb)

 

Current Weight (Jan 11, 2012): 149.4 kg (328.68 lb)

Loss this week: 1.2 kg (2.64 lb)

TOTAL Loss: 2.9 kg (6.38 lb)

 

Just 1.4 kg left to lose before I hit my mini goal of wanting to be at 148 kg by February 1st. YAY for mini goals!

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Now, I was recently tagged by Leigh over at Poonapalooza in a little "getting to know you" exercise. I'm supposed to provide 11 random facts about myself and then answer some questions that Leigh has laid out. Afterwards, I am meant to tag 11 other people. I'm going to skip that part, but I'll play along with the questions and the random facts. Feel free to click away now, but you never know...you might learn something!

11 Random Facts

1. Some women collect shoes or handbags and go all gaga when they see them in stores or pictures of them online. For me, it's books. Books, books, books. My favourite inanimate thing. Ever.

2. I have often thought that I was a twin and that she is out there somewhere in the world being hidden from me. Preposterous? Perhaps. 

3. I always thought that spiders would be the most annoying pest to have in my house. Now, after a year of living in a house that seems to be a safe haven for wood cockroaches, I actually permit and enable the spiders to take up residence in my home. I have only one rule for them...they are not allowed to hang down from the ceiling in the middle of the room. Should they be caught doing this, they shall be evicted. To date, only one rebel arachnid has tested the boundaries. I made an example of him. 

4. While I have always been fond of movies, of just about any genre, I have recently started re-watching all the 80s movies which I now realise were not fully appreciated in my more youthful years. As I re-live my youth through the classics like Labyrinth, The Goonies, Princess Bride and anything that the amazing John Hughes touched, I am once again reminded that I have been considerably slack in the parenting department when it comes to these things. Thus, I am relishing subjecting them to hours upon hours of movie goodness. Age appropriate of course. Mostly.

5. I have a horrible talent for dreaming up the "next best thing". Horrible because the ideas usually come to me in the middle of the night, interrupting my sleep and occasionally that of my tolerant husband and also because by the time I look into it online in the morning, I discover some brainiac already came up with it. Two years ago. 

6. I have a dream that one day I will wake up and have all the talent and awesomeness of a CSI or Criminal Minds agent. Being that amazing without having to do years of study would certainly fit in with my life right about now. It could happen!

7. As a teen I had a friend who could stick her tongue behind her teeth and make it ripple, like waves. Despite many hours in front of a mirror trying to figure out how to do that and wiggle my ears, all I managed was figuring out how to flare my nostrils. Much to the delight of my children, I'm now a pro at that. 

8. I can also stick my fist in my mouth. This was also courtesy of the same friend in my teen years. She had a rather wider mouth than I did and could do it much more easily but the two of us and our friend Kelly took great pleasure in doing it in front of my mother. That one simple act was enough to provoke my mother's gag reflex which in turn made us giggle and do it some more. 

9. I consider sarcasm to be another language. I happen to be fluent in it, which is fantastic considering I spent years of schooling learning French, and a bit of German and the only thing that has remained in my brain is the sarcasm. I also do sexual innuendos and snide remarks with flair. 

10. I've never been allowed to donate blood because I lived in the UK for too long during that whole "my cow thinks it's a chicken" phase of the 90s. I'm seriously considering fighting that ruling. First of all, I've never thought I was a chicken, I'm a cow through and through. Secondly? Quack.

11. I can't sing. Or rather, I can sing...but not well. Does that stop me from doing it? NOPE! Full volume, singing away in the shower, the kitchen, the car....I have a diva living inside me and she thinks she's Beyonce. I haven't got the heart to tell her that she's more like the bad auditions on American Idol. 

So that's the 11 random facts, now for the questions:

1. What was your favourite food when you were a child?

I can't honestly remember. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it probably wasn't vegetables. Or stew (gag). Maybe mac 'n' cheese.

2. What is one of your favourite quotes?

"Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life, and when it comes, hold your head high, look it squarely in the eye and say, 'I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me.' " ~ Ann Landers

3. What is your favourite body part?

I can't say that I really have one right now because I struggle with my body image so much at the moment. I like the length of my legs, the broadness of my shoulders and my hair, but I'm working on loving the rest!

4. If you could stay a certain age forever, what age would it be and why?

Um. I'm going to say none. I'm actually enjoying getting older and moving forward with my life. 

5. If you could choose anyone, who would you pick as your mentor?

For fitness/healthy living/weight loss? Jillian Michaels. She scares the shit out of me but I think she'd get me to where I need to be. For general life purposes? Dr. Phil. Say what you will about the big bald fella but he's awesome!

6. If you could meet anyone, living or dead, who would it be?

Shemar Moore. One night only. Me, him, beach, cabana, oil, strawberries, whipped cream, awesome music. Obviously in this scenario neither of us is married or otherwise attached, which also means that in this scenario, after one night he would love me so much that he wanted to be with me forever. It's meant to be! He's just in denial. 

7. What celebrity do you get mistaken for?

Erm, not so much mistaken for, but I've been told I bear an ever so slight resemblance to the girl who plays Penelope Garcia on Criminal Minds. The fact that I would love to have the confidence to dress the way she does is just gravy. 

8. What would you name the autobiography of your life?

2 Steps Forward, 6 Steps Back. I'll let you draw your own conclusions from that.

9. What was the first thing you bought with your own money?

I don't know! Probably a CD. I would have been a teenager and earning my money by babysitting. So it would have been a CD or some such thing that I didn't need. 

10. What was the last experience that made you a better person?

Gosh, I don't know! Not bitch slapping the last waitress that completely ignored me, the fat woman, in a restaurant in favour of concentrating on my rather good looking husband? Yeah, I'll go with that!

11. What was the last movie, tv show or book that made you cry or tear up?

"Soul Surfer". I haven't read the book but I watched the movie the other night and it was amazing. The courage of that girl to keep going despite all that happened to her...it really spoke to me. It showed me that I can DO this. I can do anything I put my mind to.

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So there ya have it folks! My facts, my answers, my weigh in. Have a great day, and come on over and visit me on Facebook won't ya?

Please don't feed her that!

I watched her that morning. I've always liked watching her dance and twirl, the smile on her face stretching from one ear to the other. So I stood and watched as she paraded around the room, first in circles and then back and forth across the floor space.

That morning was different though. That morning, the smile wasn't as big, the parade not as flamboyant, the eyes not as sparkly.

I wanted so badly to march in, scoop her up and ask what might be wrong. But I stood and watched some more.

I watched as she walked from the bed to the dresser and stood in front of the mirror. I watched as she sucked her stomach in, pushed it out, sucked it in again.

Then I heard, in the faintest whisper: "I don't think I'm fat".

And my heart broke into a million pieces.

You see, she is my daughter and she's only 9. Since the day she was born, she's only ever known her mother to be overweight, but she has always been a healthy weight. A tall, slim 9 year old built of solid muscle, there isn't anything remotely fat about her but somehow, some way, it has crept into her consciousness that she might be.

And that breaks my heart.

When I hear that some little boy at school has told her she has a fat bum, I want to wash his mouth out with soap. When I see her and her friends flicking through magazines and looking at the celebs with their personal trainer bodies and perfectly tailored clothes, I want to rip them out of their hands and scream "they aren't REAL!!".

You see, I've always tried to foster a healthy body image in my daughter. I haven't been the best role model as far as eating and exercising but I'm trying to remedy that. I have always attempted to make sure she knows that being healthy and strong is important, not the size of your body. We've talked about beauty vs brains (she happens to have both), healthy eating, everything in moderation, blah blah blah.

So WHY was she standing in her room, in front her mirror and talking about being fat?

Because already society's ideals have started to permeate that little brain of hers. She watches tv and hears the girls on shows going on about being skinny. She sees the pictures in magazines. She hears the older girls at school obsess about their appearances and their bodies.

It needs to STOP!

I can't shelter her from everything, nor would I want to. All I can do is offer a different perspective on it all and hope it sinks in.

I don't want my daughter to be like me. I want her to make smarter, better choices. I want her to grow up to be smart and beautiful (inside and out). But mostly I want her to be healthy; I want her to be strong. I want her to be what she has always been......

.....AMAZING!

We need to stop feeding our girls the same old bullshit! The magazines and the celebrities and the fashion industry need to stop promoting the "you must skinny" ideal and start promoting the "you must be healthy" ideal.

Whether that means you're a size 2 or a size 16, I really don't give a crap.

Be healthy. Be amazing. Be fit. Be strong. Be true to yourself and your body.

But whatever you do, stop feeding that bullshit to my daughter because this little girl? She's awesome and she doesn't need to worry about being fat....she needs to worry about having fun and when her next sleepover is gonna be!

WINNING! But not like Charlie Sheen!

One of the bad things about getting older is that sometimes the memory starts to have, well, let's call them lapses shall we? Now, I'm only in my early 30s, but already I have trouble remembering things. My boss calls this "Some-zheimers". My mother has "All-the-damn-time-zheimers" but we try not to tease her too much about it. You know what I'm talking about right? Get up from the couch, walk the 15 feet to the kitchen and proceed to stand there with a dumbass look on your face while you consider the options for WHY you are there?

Happens to me multiple times a day.

*sigh*

So, needless to say, I forgot that I was meant to be doing the draw for that book, "The End of Overeating". Yesterday. More than 24 hours ago. Can I use being blonde as an excuse? It works for Paris Hilton!

I finally remember 20 minutes ago. At 9 p.m. New Zealand time. I can't even honestly remember why I remembered. HA! See? "Some-zheimers"!

I took all the entries (10 of them, including my more-forgetful-than-me mother) and wrote them down on ugly yellow pieces of paper. Yeah, I like to kick it old school once in awhile. And then? Then I remembered that I had no impartial person here to pull out a name for me because my husband left to go back to work today. 

So I did what any good mother would do. I went and woke up my daughter.

WHAT?!? After all those months of screaming, pooing, screaming some more and keeping me up half the night, I figured it was about time I was given the chance to wake HER up for once. So I did.

She wasn't nearly as UNimpressed as I'd thought she would be. It was kind of a let down actually. Maybe next time.

I think it might be a reflection of how used to my kind of crazy she is, when she doesn't even question WHY her mother has woken her up and handed her a bowl of paper. She just blindly goes along with it.

"Ok, now pick out a piece of paper for me and hold it up for the camera once you've unfolded it."

She started to giggle right about then, as I'm sure the ridiculousness of it all was hitting her. Or maybe she was just tired. Either way, I'm not sure whose hands were shaking more as I zoomed in to take a picture of the piece of paper so y'all could see who actually won.

Congratulations to Lorne from Ladybug Beauty! If you email me, I'll get that book out to you ASAP.

As for the rest of you, bring your friends along to this here party, and the fun over at my Facebook Page and pretty soon I'll be having another giveaway. FUN right?!

Fit Date 004.12/150.6

Hello my lovelies! This has been a sensational week! What a way to start off 2012; just fantastic!

As I said in my previous post, I have signed up for the "Go The Distance 2012" challenge. A year long challenge where we all set a goal and do our damnedest to achieve it. And, as also previously mentioned, I set myself a goal of completing 2400 km on foot. This will be done by walking, running or on the elliptical. I'm off to a good start so far, logging just over 25 kms in the last 4 days.

Which is why, when the wonderful Tex (my WW leader & friend) reminded us this evening of the S.M.A.R.T way to set goals, I was able to sit comfortably in the knowledge that although the challenge is a year long thing, it is broken down into smaller, more achievable targets.

Do you know what the S.M.A.R.T way to set goals is? I had pretty much forgotten until Tex reminded us this evening.

S pecific     

M easurable 

A chievable 

R ealistic     

T  ime        

In the past, I have been guilty (multiple times)  of setting goals so lofty that while they may be specific & measurable, they are certainly not achievable or realistic. Or I try and squeeze a goal that would be realistic in six months into two.

I know I'm not the only one. I've seen others do it. "I'm going to lose 10 kilos in the next month". Yeah ok, you might...if you're on The Biggest Loser or if you spend 5 hours a day working out every day for the next month. Or if you're lucky. But for most people, it just isn't a realistic goal. And all too often we find ourselves overextending. 

It's good to have dreams. It's good to have goals. But as Tex so nicely reminded us tonight, it is important to stay grounded and make sure that when you set those goals, you have a shot of meeting them. Shoot for the stars, but make sure those stars are a little closer to Earth than Pluto.

* * * * * * * * * *

I had weigh in tonight. After my week of walking, swimming, drinking water and tracking what I eat, I am happy to say that I am now 1.7 kgs lighter than I was last week. 

Start Weight (Dec 28, 2011): 152.3 kg (335.06 lb)

Current Weight (Jan 4, 2012): 150.6 kg (331.32 lb)

Loss this week: 1.7 kg (3.74 lb)

TOTAL Loss: 1.7 kg (3.74 lb)

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Have you seen this picture making the rounds on Facebook and Pinterest? I forget who first posted it, but it spoke volumes to me and everyone else who has seen it so far. 

Certainly thought provoking isn't it?

Here's to another great week folks!!

I Had a Dream

I had a dream. It was awesome.

There I was, walking through a field and I heard music. The next thing I know, I see Fred Durst standing in front of me with a microphone and he starts to sing. To me. Yup. I dreamed that Fred Durst from Limp Bizkit stood in front of me in a field full of cucumbers (yes, cucumbers) and sang "Behind Blue Eyes". Oddest dream I've had in awhile and I have yet to figure out what significance it has.

Hm. Yes. Well. 

Anyway. I've been having the oddest dreams lately and that was just the tip of the iceberg. Last night was a good one though. I woke up with a new determination and a huge smile on my face.

You see, in my dream I was crossing the finish line of a 10K. I'm not sure where, I'm not sure when. But I was running, I was crossing the finish line and there were still people behind me. I wasn't yet at my goal weight (can't have everything be awesome in your dreams, eh?) but there I was. Running.

In reality, this is a long way off. Not impossible, but in the relatively distant future. I am currently too heavy and have knees that belong on an 80 year old. If I tried to run very far now, I would seriously hurt myself. Not to mention the black eyes that would come from my boobs bouncing around. But I'm happy to think that at some point in the future, I could be running a 10K.

The thing is, I know it is possible. I know I could do it if I put my mind to it. And now it's a goal that I'm going to set for myself to achieve before I'm 40. That's 7 1/2 years. Plenty of time.

Not all our goals need to be immediate. Not all our goals need to be achievable in the next year. Remember that movie "The Bucket List"? Well, I've now added "Run a 10K" to my own bucket list. Even if it takes me til the year I turn 40 to get there, I will do it.

* * * * * * * * * * 

Yesterday saw the beginning of a new challenge for me. In the past, I halfheartedly signed up for Robby's "Go The Distance" challenge. It was a monthly thing and I don't think I made it past the first couple weeks. I always let something else get in the way. No more. 

Yesterday I signed up for "Go The Distance 2012". It's the same basic premise but will go for the whole year.

I have challenged myself to complete 2400 KM in 2012. I will do this walking, running (eventually) or on the elliptical. I'm very, very excited about this and can't wait to see where this year takes me and the transformations I will see in my body. 

Come along and join us all won't you? There are some awesome people doing this. You can too!