Too.......too........

tired to blog.  I am totally exhaustipated.  Be back as soon as my energy levels are up.  Hope you are all doing brilliantly on the 12WBT journey.

Miracles and muscle malady

I had lunch with a friend today at the cafe at the bottom of our building.  Decided to go with a lamb wrap for lunch.  To my dismay, it came with chips.  Really nice crispy chips.

Old me would have scoffed the wrap and all the chips.

I did eat the whole wrap.  And I wanted to try the chips.  So I tried one.  And I thought to myself, I can eat all of them.  There is nothing stopping me.  But I couldn't.  I did eat three in the end.

But I couldn't eat any more because I was TOO FULL!!!

Why is this a miracle you ask?

Because I have never ever felt too full or so full that I stopped eating.  I could eat piles of food and still eat more.  And there is no way I would have left all those tasty crispy chippies on the plate. But I felt so full that I didn't even feel like dinner tonight (which is good given that I worked out that wrap and three chips must have been around 600 calories at least, even if it was mainly salad [but I did forgo all my snacks today to have enough calories to cover it]). So I'm going to have a nice no fat strained yoghurt with passionfruit.  And go to bed not feeling all bloated, but fresh and not hungry and happy.

I have never ever had a feel full point - and this wasn't even a milestone, but something I've achieved incidentally on the program.  And I say woo hoo to that!!

Then tonight I started with my lovely new PT.  As it was our first session, she did a long assessment of what I can do and how I take up information.  And here was the conclusion, very much the same as the running coach, I have very lazy non working glute muscles on my right side.  Who would have thought that you could have muscles that just don't work.  So I'm not sure how, but I have to get those muscles firing again, or just firing (maybe they've never worked).  And it really is time to go to the osteopath again.  I was lying on my back and she got me to shift my butt over a bit and my feet and I felt all twisted up and she told me that I was actually straight! 

Had a disaster on the cooking front this week.  Cooked 4 lots of the chicken noodle soup so I could freeze up the 16 serves for after training or Bikram or getting home from work late.  Don't know quite how it happened but I ended up using mung bean vermicelli instead of rice vermicelli and twice as much of it.  Calculated up the calories. Uh-oh - each serve would be 70% higher in calories than it was supposed to be.  Luckily the family down the road with the seven kids (6 at home and four boys) were happy to take it off my hands.  To balance that out, I made the Cajun Fish Stew last night and love it!!  Those 12WBT recipes are mighty mighty good!  And they taste fresh and clean and not fatty.  Really rev you up with energy.

From the mouths of babes....

Who would ever imagine that the words of a 9 year old boy could make you feel so much better.  Thanks to my little mate Daniel, for looking straight at me over the restaurant table tonight and saying angelically and extremely thoughtfully, "You've lost weight".  How totally nice is that!!!

Puts all the moaning in my last post into perspective really.  Want to be noticed?  Stick with the program!

I have to be honest, there have been a couple of days of slip slop sliding.  Even after a great weigh in where I reached a weight I haven't been for four years.  Must be the leftovers of the flu and being busy at work and plain old tired.

Last night I was going to make the Cajun fish stew.  But my brain was saying "I NEED rice".  I am craving ordinary things I haven't eaten for three weeks.  So I ended up having garlic rice (at least I kept it to a one cup serve cooked) with 500g of fish, steamed all together for dinner. I haven't felt so uncomfortably full for weeks!  But the rice was SO nice and the fish was so soft and tasty.

And today, I ended up going out and having a hamburger at Grill'd with Daniel and his brothers and his lovely mum.  I have been craving red meat so badly.  I have had to start back on constipation inducing iron tablets as I am so tired I know my iron stores are becoming depleted.

Then, lo! Michelle's message about the Week 4 Wobblies (my description, not hers), where all you want to do is give in and give up.  And how good it is to know that I am pretty much normal.  Always good to be normal I reckon.  And to know that tomorrow is a fresh day to start over again on the good track.

And yesterday was a bit of a watershed too. I went and had a chat to a new PT, given my former PT has given up training folk to take up a full time job.  And she was fantastic.  She has a great set up.  She is only one suburb or 7 minutes drive away.  I can have a 7pm session so don't have to worry about having to rush over from work.  She was really responsive to my goals and needs and interests.  She is really well qualified and highly professional.  I am really really looking forward to working with her. And she is so totally going to help me keep accountable in my exercise program.  I am going to stick with learn to run, but I am going to forgo the toning and stretching days for Bikram sessions, swimming and cycling with plenty of walking thrown in as well as an hour of PT.  And those pesky challenges which I am still catching up with as they are SO challenging for me.

And today I was reminded about how extraordinarily fortunate we are to live in this beautiful country Australia.  At work, we had a meeting today where we heard some pretty shocking things some of our near neighbours have to go through to access basic health care, like walking for four hours over bush tracks.  And then going through the forums, I had some eye opening provided by some 12WBT members in other countries who described how difficult it is to find food we take for granted in most of Australia, for example, fresh fruit and veggies.  I have told myself that next time I am in Woollies complaining about the quality of the fruit and veg, I will count myself grealy privileged to live in a place where fruit and vegetables are plentiful and at prices most people can readily afford.

And thanks go out to all the folk in the forums and on this blog who have been so encouraging in my dip this week.  What a great community of friends you are becoming.

Something's gotta give....

I am getting to the point where something has got to give.

I am sick as a dog with the flu. Last time I had the flu was when swine flu was rampant about years ago. I'm not as sick as that, but I am sicker than I have been for a while. Haven't felt so queasy and muddle headed since I went through chemo three years ago.

I think I have been trying too hard to do everything I am being encouraged to do and want to do. My whole life can't be about eating and exercise. I've started a new job which I love and it is going to take me a while to learn all the ins and outs of it and get to know my 24 staff. I'm not there just to do a job, but to do a really good job. That means putting time and effort into it. And I can't do that while I'm sick and while I'm trying to work out how to get to a training session at 6.30pm when it's already after 5pm and people still want to see me and I have a heap of stuff in my in-tray to deal with and I need to get across to the other side of town to get to training.

And I'm not fitting in the things that I love like knitting and card making and just being with friends.

It's taken me a year to fall in love with exercise working with a personal trainer. And I'm losing that love because it is becoming more a chore, or a guilt inducing thing if I miss out on a session. And my personal trainer can't train folk any more for very good family reasons. So my main source of accountability has gone, but also has one of my key sources of energy for loving exercise.

And my running is all over the place because my hip is the problem and not my knee as I thought and it's going to take a lot of retrainin of my muscles and some visits to the ostepath to get that right again.

And I like the food. It's tasty and easy to prepare and is saving me a lot of money. But it is another thing that I now HAVE to do instead of want to do.

And so, I am slipping on the food (but sticking in the main to the 1200 calories) and slipping on the exercise.

I had already lost 12kg before I even though about starting the 12 WBT program. I've lost 6.3kg since. I can't complain it doen't work because clearly it does and all the great stories from people attest to that. But all I really wanted was to lose weight so I could be a good and safer runner and lear to run properly and for a distance so I could realise all my dreams.

But all I feel is guilt. And depressed. And sick. And considerable bone and muscle pain.

I think it's fine if all you want in your life is exercise and cooking but what about all the other things that balance life out and make it so much more enjoyable?

I need to work out what I can do to help me balance my life a lot more, or even a bit really, to regain my love of exercise, to organise myself much better so that I can cook food and freeze so it doesn't become an issue. I am going to find a new PT and have found someone who I think will be terrific and lives only one suburb away so am going to see her.

I am going to try and feel less guilty and more passionate about my life in all its myriad of component parts. And I am going to reconnect with some of my friends who make me feel positive and happy and loved.

Let's hope that's sufficient to restart my will to get through these 12 weeks in a transformational and positive way.

Good week? Bad week? In between week.

Not a great week, nor a total failure.

A 500 calorie blowout yesterday thanks to a lovely Indian lunch.

But all the rest has been well within my 1200 calorie limit or just a smidgin over (once).  And not feeling hungry or cranky.

Exercise is not happening other than Bikram which has captured me totally, and that only once so far this week.

But I'm a little excited.  My knee is feeling way way better!!  Tomorrow I am going to go and see a man at an oval about getting my running technique right so that I can start my learn to run program next week and NOT hurt myself again.  And then I might do a bit of a walk to test the leg properly.  And then Bikram tomorrow afternoon.  So that might do me for super Saturday.

And in between I am going to a clothing party.  I really like these clothes but they don't usually have much there in my size.  Now I've dropped one size, I'm hoping that I might have more of a choice!

And then grape picking at a social pick on Sunday.  Saving my Saturday treat meal for Sunday as they are putting on a spit roast.  The social pick is quite an event.  Lots of lovely folk and so nice to be in amongst the vines and doing something that people have been doing for thousands of years.  And to know that it will have such a lovely outcome and go towards making an award winning wine - well hopefully anyway, all the other times we've picked at this vineyard the wine has ended up winning multiple awards.  Wonder how many calories grape picking burns?

So tired.........................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz................................

Very late night/early morning before I got to bed.  Got up early and rushed to work for meetings nearly all day.  Then rushed off to Bikram.

What is it about Bikram that has sucked me right in?  It is hot (OK I really really like the heat).  It is absolutely exhausting!!!  Like bone tired exhausting.  I am still too fat to be able to twist myself around in the various positions.  I still can only just stand on one leg, with the other folded up on the other side and there's no way I can then let my bended leg go and lean forward.  Tonight I could barely talk or think by the end of it.  And my arms and thighs are so SO sore.

But I can't stop going back.  It's not just because I've bought all those sessions.  It is because it such a HUGE HUGE challenge.  I am so not going to let this beat me.  Or at least not before I give it my utmost to conquer it.  And I can finally finally just hold one leg behind me now.  The left one.  Not the right one, but that will come.  And I am starting to get into the rythm and repetition of it.  And 90 minutes goes by so quickly. And I am starting to feel taller.

Bikram - you are my challenge.  But little by little, I am getting better, and will continue to get even better!

Changes I didn't expect

Have had an interesting weekend.

It was my birthday yesterday and I had a kind of twilight zone day.  I woke up sick and aching.  I had a physio session on Friday and my hip and knee were hurting.  But then, so was every other bone and muscle in my body.  Had to miss my walk up Mt Ainslie and everything else I had planned for the day.  I got up, got Panadol, and went back to bed for four hours with the leccie blankie on in a coccoon of heat.  Felt marginally better when I got up.

My great friend Mrs A came and picked me up and whisked me off to dinner at a friend's.  Such a lovely meal.  Given I'd only eaten toast and 3 mandarins all day, I thought it might be OK to go a little chocolate and cake as well as the very nice, carb load, OK super delicious potatoes and meat and beans and pears and meat and smoky bacon dinner.

Got up this morning and went to Bikram.  To my surprise, I wasn't totally exhausted at the end.  Just exhausted.  And I actually managed to grip onto the right bits of me occasionally.  How can 90 minutes go that fast?  I might actually, just maybe, sort of be starting to get it.  And it makes me feel taller.

But it does make me drink and drink and drink water afterwards which makes me feel quite sick.  So I've learned that a glass of skim milk with a little chocolate Quick makes me feel better faster.  I decided to give myself a day off the 12WBT for my birthday present to myself.  I picked up a large watermelon juice on the way to the craft markets where they were having their annual celebration of wool day.  I love watermelon juice.  It is one of my favourite, comforting, soothing things of all time.  When I was on chemo, despite the burning in my mouth and throat when I drank cold things, I craved and HAD to have watermelon juice.  But today, I had my first sip and though, 'oh, this is SO sweet' and I didn't enjoy it at all.  And I had to have water to get rid of the sweetness out of my mouth.

Think I would have learned my lesson, but no.  Got to the markets and was starving of course.  A glass of milk and a glass of watermelon juice does not breakfast make.  So I had another one of my favourites, a dish of lentil stew and coconut chicken with njera.  Love my Ethiopian food.  I thought I'd go a large size as I was so hungry.  And I ate it and it was way tasty, but it was WAY too much.  I haven't been able to eat anything else all day although I am contemplating some fruit toast and ricotta for supper.

Who on earth is this person who does not think much of watermelon juice and can't polish off a plate of food and then have a cake and coffee on top of that?  Who is this woman who gets up at 7am on a Sunday to go to stretch herself into a pretzel at 8am right on the other side of town?  And who who WHO is this Andriana that goes to the Bus Depot Markets and has absolutely NO, zero, zip, NO desire to go and snack through all the yummy things out for tasting that people are selling.  I do not know this person. She thinks in a totally different way and wants totally different things.  Now, let's see if she sticks around.