Level 3 30 Day Shred

Ugh, I just lost a post! How annoying.

I can’t be bothered to write it all out again so let’s do bullet points;

• Today I’m starting Level 3 of the shred
• I haven’t lost any weight since I started shredding
• My measurements have gone down a tiny amount on my legs
• I’ve increased my waist measurement by half an inch (is that because it’s muscly?)
• My clothes do fit better however
• And my legs have a nice shape to them
• And my stomach is always flattish these days (but I feel kinda thick instead of skinny)
• I need to get back on the horrible 1200 calorie diet

So that’s it really.

This week I’m back on the salads, fruit snacks and good proteins with few carbs.

I’m also going to try and get back into the routine of doing aerobics because I haven’t done that for a while since I was so tired after every time I did Level 2.

Wish me luck! (I really need it)

Not Quitting

Hello! Long time, no see. How have you been?

So you might have noticed my absence. When I set out on this 30 day shred journey I knew it wouldn’t be easy, some days I struggled to do the exercises, some days I struggled to eat well but I kept heading in the right direction.

Unfortunately last week I had quite a feeew personal problems to deal with and it took a toll on my stress levels.

When you’re stressed you really don’t feel like walking to three different supermarkets to see if they actually have decent fresh produce that day.

So I ate out/ordered in almost every day. Argh.

But, the problems have been dealt with now. And while not completely fixed, they are on the path to be worked out.

Rather than beat myself up for not sticking to a very difficult 1200 calorie diet I am praising myself for what I managed to accomplish during a very stressful two weeks.

Even though I ate out a lot more, I didn’t gorge myself. I didn’t go crazy with desserts. I still tried to make most of my homecooked meals healthy and I didn’t give up.

I also managed to at least exercise three times a week.

Anyway, now I’m trying my best to get back on track.

So let’s just talk about the 30 Day Shred a second.

I started the 30 Day Shred workout one month ago today!

I managed 16 days straight. The first 13 days I did Level 1. I loved it! It was hard, but by the end of the 13 days I could keep up with the more advanced moves and complete all the reps.

I then managed another two days doing Level 2. I hated it! I found the moves very difficult to do. I was convinced the oblique twists were going to kill me. I was also pretty sure my form in all of the plank moves was rubbish.

Then I hit a problem. My left foot started hurting. Constantly. It was tender to touch, it was a little swollen and it made exercising incredibly hard.

I took my first rest day to try and help the symptoms and got back on the horse the next day only to feel the pain even worse. The next day I took as another rest.

So, if you’re with me so far, in the first 19 days, I took 2 rest days.

I managed another two days at Level 2 and then gave up due to stress and pain.

This week I decided to try and start again. The diet and exercise was going well until the hangover from hell hit, ha! Drinking and diets don’t really mix. As soon as you get drunk you just want to munch the fattiest, greasiest, sugariest foods. And I did.

However, today is Friday and I exercised every day except Tuesday.

In the last two times I have managed to get my form correct, making the moves harder but increasing my calorie burn and strength.

Level 2 is actually a faster workout than Level 1. I feel like the workout goes quicker, maybe that’s because I do less reps, I don’t know.

Even with my slacking off and naughty diet I have seen a significant change to my body.

I have muscles where there were no muscles before! At the top sides of my thighs. I also have stronger calf muscles. My biceps are more toned and my stomach, although occasionally bloated, is less flabby. I have to say the biggest change has been in my legs though.

At the moment jeans and shorts which felt tight before feel like they fit better.

However I feel heavy. That’s not the goal I’m aiming for, I want to feel light and toned, not muscular and heavy so I think the only thing I can do is get back on track with my diet.

Hopefully that will be easier this week because I’ve just discovered Salads-In-a-Jar !

Anyway, in this weight loss journey there are some obstacles to overcome, but I’m proud of myself for keeping up with the exercise, even if it isn’t every day. And I’m proud of myself for at least being mindful about what I eat.

Onwards and upwards, I hope!

59kg Blues

Oh goodie, I’m right back where I started.

Well… not exactly. My tummy is flat, I have a lot more muscle. But I’m heavy again.

Last night I went out to eat Sushi to celebrate my husband’s promotion. Delicious, but all-you-can-eat sushi isn’t great for the needle on the scale.

To tell you the truth, I’m tired.

I had a stressful weekend for various reasons and I’m still stressed now.

My body aches. I have been limping because I’ve really hurt my left foot. I’m not in the mood to exercise.

This is the precipice. Taking care of yourself means giving yourself a day off when you need it. But it also means sticking to healthy routines. It’s difficult to know which path to take today.

I think I would be more inclined to exercise if my foot didn’t hurt so much. Yesterday I completed the 30DS but it did hurt. I then went on to my aerobics routine, as I always do, but I couldn’t get past the first ten minutes, I was in too much pain.

So where does that leave me today?

I really don’t know.

At least I can change what I can change.

Back to soy milk and cereal, healthy sandwiches for lunch and chicken and good carbs for dinner.

Aside from that, I really don’t know what to do about the exercise.

Or about the donut sitting in my fridge :s

Hangovers, Cheat Days & Getting Back Into The Groove

Hi everyone,

Hope you all had a nice weekend.

I’ve had a bit of a funny one diet wise!

On Friday I felt really terrible, very light headed, very weak, I had a huge blister on my right heel and the inside of my left foot was very bruised and tender. In the end I blew off my exercise, eek!  I ate around 1400 calories and I ate fairly decently that day except for having pasta for dinner, I won’t be doing that again, turns out I’ve never really liked pasta, I just like the cheese I eat with it! And since I had no cheese it was too boring to enjoy for the amount of calories it ‘costs’.

So on Saturday I woke up feeling much better, those extra calories obviously fueled me for the day! I had a large breakfast of cereal, then managed to churn out a very decent 30DS workout, followed by 40 minutes of non-stop aerobics! I was very pleased with myself. I had a small piece of bread with a spoonful of egg mayo for lunch and then I went out for dinner for my cheat meal!

Oooops.

So me and my husband ended up ordering fondue. Haha, hows that for dieting? It wasn’t a huge pot, it was just a starter portion. We ate it with some bread. Then our main course was a thin piece of filet mignon with fettuccine in a cheese sauce. It was delicious! And get this, I stopped eating half way through the meal and asked them to doggy bag it for me! Woohoo, learning how to eat until you’re satisfied and then stopping.

Then the diet got a further bashing as we went out to a bar and I had three small cocktail drinks. On the way home we drunkenly stopped to get snacks. I picked up a fried chicken thing and a piece of cake. But guess what! I didn’t eat it! I put them in the fridge when I got home and downed a litre of water instead.

So on Sunday morning I did weigh myself, but this was after drinking another three litres of water! So my weight came out at 58.6kg. I skipped exercise again (eeeeek) because I was so hungover. And I ate porridge and then the leftovers from the restaurant. Then I ate my cake. And later that night I had a hotdog and some sweet popcorn. Ugh. Terrible diet day. Terrible, terrible. It happened because we were both too lazy to go grocery shopping.

If you want to stick to a diet, you have to plan it and stay organized!

So all in all the weekend was a mixed bag of fails and successes. But the thing is, you have to live too, you can’t just diet diet diet yourself into misery. You can have everything you want… in moderation. It’s all about sticking to it in the long run and making healthy choices.

Today I’ve had two small pieces of toast with jam and a small cheese sandwich for lunch.

I’m off to go do my workout for the day.

Tomorrow when I weigh myself I hope the scale isn’t too mean!

30DS War Wounds

So today isn’t going very well. Yesterday I felt pretty fantastic but today I woke up really early, which is unlike me, and I felt completely out of sorts.

I decided to postpone exercise until I was feeling better, so I had nesfit cereal and soy for breakfast to see if that would buck me up. It didn’t. I still felt weak and lethargic. So I decided to have a piece of toast with strawberry jam.

That didn’t do much for me either.

Since it was early and a beautiful day I decided to walk 3km to the nearest beach. It took me about 30 minutes, so I was keeping a pretty brisk pace. I soaked up some sun (in moderation, sun is fantastic for you if you use sunscreen) for an hour and then started to walk the 3km home.

I felt like I could possibly collapse. It was pretty awful. Luckily I’d taken an apple with me, so I munched on that to help keep my blood sugar up.

Now, it’s worth saying here, that I have always had a problem with feeling light-headed if I skip a meal or if I get ravenously hungry. I am prone to pretty severe dizzy spells, so I am very used to carrying pieces of fruit or cereal bars around with me to eat in case I start to feel bad. I’ve had many medical tests, I’ve had my blood tested, and I’ve never been given a concrete reason for why I’m like this, I’ve just been told it’s probably due to my blood pressure being on the low end of the scale.

Anyway, my point is, that today I was not myself.

So the 30DS had been postponed until this evening, when I’ve got lots of calories in me and will be back at tip-top energy.

However I’m dreading it a little because I’ve somehow managed to hurt my foot! It’s very tender on one side, it feels like a bruise and it makes performing the double-jump-rope-jumps rather painful! I also have a huge blister on the base of my right foot, that’s my fault for walking home in shoes that were full of sand!

Oh well, today feels like a fail day. 

For lunch I had 1 and a half egg mayonnaise sandwiches and although they were supremely delicious they have left me feeling bloated.

Boo! Dieting is hard man.

57.7kg Maintains Feel Lame – Day 14 (16) – 30 Day Shred

Good Morning everyone!

It’s only been four days since I seriously starting sticking to a healthy eating plan and I’ve lost 2kg! Despite this, on day five, I’m sulking because I’ve maintained my weight.

Yesterday I went to bed hungry after a 1000 kcal day and I was hoping that discomfort would be worth it. But I’ve awoke to find it hasn’t been.

I need to keep reminding myself that I will lose weight eating at my recommended calorie intake of 1200. But when it comes to adding in that 5th extra little meal I get scared that it will undo all my hard work and I go hungry instead.

Yesterday I did actually add in a 4th extra meal, previous to this I’d been sticking to 3 meals and a snack. Yesterday I had a small bowl of porridge made with soy milk. If you’ve read some of my other posts you will remember that I said I avoid porridge because it bloats me up. Well there is no evidence of that today but there is also no evidence of it ‘filling me up’ and giving me ”sustainable energy’ either like so many dietitians claim. I think I’ll go back to avoiding it for the time being. And on a separate note, while I love soy milk on cereal it doesn’t quite have the same taste in porridge.

So anyway, I think the trick for me is going to be having slightly larger portions in the three meals I do have every day.

However, the weekend is coming up and I have no intention to sticking to this roughly 1000 calorie diet, in some ways I’ve created a big enough deficit so that I can have a nice meal out this weekend, I’ve eaten less than I should in order to do this. It probably isn’t healthy, some mornings I certainly feel like I could have done with the extra energy eating more food would have given me but my goal is to get to 55kg and then to increase my food, exercise and maintain.

Unfortunately I am one of those people who needs to see real results very quickly in order to stick to something. Hence the intensive calorie counting.

So, while I certainly don’t plan on bingeing this weekend, and while I will still avoid biscuits and other sugar-loaded carbs, I am going to make sure I enjoy a good hearty meal and not worry about how much fat it has in it. I’m thinking a juicy steak with some cheese-rice or maybe a gourmet burger. Gotta get that red meat! Of course, knowing my husband, sushi is always an option too.

I have another day of the 30 Day Shred ahead of me today too, I think I’m going to eat an extra portion of breakfast to give me the energy to really go at it today.

Like I said yesterday, food is fuel, you can’t expect to exercise unless you’re eating enough. You can’t expect to see real change in your body unless you exercise hard enough.

Hopefully the diet will go better today.

Food As Fuel & 30 Day Shred Blues

So in my last post I mentioned that food is fuel for your body. This couldn’t be more true!

I clocked in at around 900 calories yesterday and that was during a day with 55 minutes of exercise.

Today when I came to do my daily shred I noticed I was lacking strength. It’s obvious why. You can’t expect your body to lug weights around if you haven’t given it anything to use as fuel.

And it’s disappointing to do your workout at half-speed. It’s hard work, you want the results, and if it’s hard work and you can’t keep up then you’re not going to get the results that you want.

Today I did feel weak. I want my weight loss to come from exercising every day. I don’t want to be hungry during the day, I want to eat enough food to work out properly!

Weight loss + Exercise is a brilliant cycle of positivism because when you put the hard work in (exercise) you don’t want to cheat on your diet and when you start to see the results of your exercise you want more! You don’t just want to lose 5lbs you want to lose 5lbs and have abs!

And this is great, the better you eat, the harder you workout, the harder you workout the better you feel about eating healthily. It’s a never-ending circle of positive actions and reactions.

There is a famous expression which I love, and one which I repeat to myself anytime I want a piece of cake, that abs are made in the kitchen and not the gym.

And this is true. But muscle tone and strength and stamina those things are made in the gym and you can’t achieve those things unless you give your body enough fuel to function. 

It’s been quite an amazing experience this week sticking to a very strict diet and continuing daily exercise. I can literally feel the benefit that a good healthy protein filled meal gives me when I’m trying to workout. I always have more energy to workout if I have eaten chicken, I do more reps, I go for longer, I am energized. When I workout in the morning after only eating carbs/cereal I can certainly see a difference in my stamina.

It’s a hard balance to find but you definitely need to try and find it to not only get the results you want but to feel good about the journey towards getting those results.

I want my weight loss to come from exercise because I don’t want to have to live the rest of my life on 1200 calories a day. I would much rather have my piece of cake and do the extra cardio.

And I think that’s how it should be, when you’re ready to maintain your weight, you are allowed everything in moderation, a piece of cake is worth it. But so is that extra cardio.

Today I’m feeling positive! I hope you are too if you’re also on your own dieting adventure.

57.6kg & Day 3 of Level 2 of the 30 Day Shred

Oh yeeeaaaaaaaaaah. Weight loss. Throwing myself a party for one here, you’re all invited, I’ve got detox tea and pineapple slices, woohoo, party!

Okay, seriously now, yesterday was a bizarre diet day.

I didn’t have time to grab breakfast before my students arrived so I ended up eating a slice of pineapple so I wouldn’t pass out. After my first lesson finished I managed to have a quick and small bowl of cereal. What can I say, I can’t give breakfast up, it’s my favorite meal of the day.

Then I had another lesson and by the time it had finished it was after 2pm, so I made myself a single brown bread turkey breast sandwich. That was quickly followed by a large banana in strawberry yogurt and a spoonful of flax seed.

Then around 5pm I decided to get my ass into gear and exercise. I was surprisingly full of energy, it seems exercising after two light meals leaves me raring to go.

I muddled through level 2 of the 30 day shred and managed to keep up with the majority of the reps (but not all, those girls are hardcore) and then I stuck in my aerobics DVD to bounce it out and ended up working out for a further 35 minutes. I was very proud. And sweating like a pig. So disgusting and proud.

Then I showered, got dressed and nipped out to buy something for my husband and ended up bumping into one of his friends on the street who my husband had arranged to meet before he got tied up in work.

So I ended up missing dinner because I was entertaining a guest. And then my husband arrived and then another of his friends arrived.

And by 9pm I was STARVING.

So I snuck into the kitchen and made myself two pieces of toast and a litre of green tea.

That helped starve off the hunger a little but I was still STARVING. So I guzzled a couple of small slices of pineapple.

By about midnight everyone was still hanging out together and I decided it was far too late to eat. I really wanted to keep on top of my calorie goals for the day (1200 min) but I didn’t think it would be worth eating a full meal at midnight. Anyway, my husband asked me to make him an egg sandwich, and his friend wanted one too. So in the end I used the leftover egg, which was about a tablespoon and ate it with a chunky piece of brown bread.

Finally his friend left and my husband had the munchies. So I gave him what was supposed to be my dinner portion and made a small bowl of cereal for myself. I couldn’t help it. I was still hungry and it’s hard to say no when your other half is eating too.

However! He ended up eating one of the Kit Kats and asked me if I wanted a piece and I RESISTED.

So, it was a very random diet day, I don’t recommend it. Lesson learnt.

If you want to workout everyday you need to keep your body fueled.

But in happy news I’m finally in the 57s!

58.3kg & Day 2 of Level 2 30 Day Shred

Ugh. No change. Usually I’m okay with staying the same weight but after only eating 900kcals yesterday and doing 400kcals of exercise it would have been nice to see it represented on the scales.

I keep reading that it is incredibly important to eat AT LEAST your minimum calorie intake for the day. Myfitnesspal, a handly little food tracking website that I use, has told me I should be consuming 1277 calories a day. Maybe it’s really true that you need to eat to lose weight.

However, like I said yesterday, I felt very ‘full’ and based of that I didn’t expect to lose anything.

The trick is to keep to the diet and not give in to temptation, which was very difficult yesterday.

Let’s round up what went into my stomach then;

Breakfast – 40g Nesfit cereal and 100ml of soy milk (I’m cutting that back down to 50ml)

Lunch – A cooked lunch for a change, in my home country it’s more typical to eat your heaviest meal in your evening and a light lunch. Where I live now, the opposite is true, I decided to give it a try. I made a pan of 200g chicken breast, 100g brown rice, 30g pineapple, 200g carrot and three spoonfuls of chinese chicken sauce. I then served myself half of that portion for around 350kcals, which is a generous estimate of calories. I think I’m going to stick to heavy/cooked meals in the evening though.

Dinner – By 6pm I was craving something carby but I decided to eat sardines on toast, no butter. This was quickly followed by a banana in strawberry yogurt, mixed with flaxseed and a little handful of All Bran cereal.

So, to make sure I don’t plateau I’m going to cut out all the food that I find questionable, so goodbye to All Bran Cereal as a snack and the extra 50ml of soy milk I had in the morning (I love crunchy cereal, it’s no loss) .

I’m also torn over flaxseed, I’ve never seen good results with it, I thought now that I was upping my water intake it would start to show a difference. Hmm, we’ll see, I might try it for a few more days before I give it up.

Okay so that’s it! I’m off to teach my morning classes, I only got around 6 hours sleep last night and awoke from a very stressful although nonsensical dream, so I’m treating myself to a mug of coffee with soy milk! It feels like I’m cheating haha but it’s worth it.

Exercise will be slotted in later this afternoon.

See you all later!

Level 2 – The 30 Day Shred

Today was my first attempt at level 2 of the 30 Day Shred.

It is actually my 13th day working out with the DVD but considering I turned level 1 off half-way through on the first day I attempted it I decided to tack on an extra couple of days to make up for any laziness on my part.

Today I finally decided to start level 2.

Oh. Lord.

Level 2 was not fun at all! The cardio is… weird. I’m expected to move my waist and get my abs involved in it? Ugh. And why do high kicks take so much more energy than butt kicks?

Also the strength training is going to take some getting used to. I try to keep up with the reps but my brain keeps telling me that I should just stop because resting is more fun.

But the worst thing is any move that involves some type of plank or any position where my hands have to be on the floor and my butt in the air. I am not coordinated enough for this shit!

I gave up trying to keep up with the girls in this video and after trying to keep up with the ‘pro’ I decided to do all the modified movements. I’m not sure how much shredding I actually achieved but I can tell you right now I am as tired as hell and it is only 9pm.

In other news today has been a weird day. I’m feeling really ‘full’ even though I’ve had a 900kcal diet day. I had to wrestle myself from opening up the kitchen drawer and taking out the Kit Kat my husband brought home yesterday but somehow I managed to resist temptation. Mainly because I really really want the needle on the scale to go down tomorrow!

But today I have felt so sluggish and tired. My ribcage is hurting for some reason. At around 5pm I had zero energy and now I am super tired. I’m trying to work but I don’t have any concentration and I’ve had an intermittent headache for the past two hours.

I really wanted to eat something chocolately or carby to make myself feel better but instead I made some green tea.

I’m really trying to reverse bad habits. But it’s hard man, it’s hard.

Tomorrow I have an early morning class to teach so I don’t know if I can fit my workout in then. Hopefully I’ll be up for tackling it in the afternoon.

See you all tomorrow.