Tuesday, February 15, 2011

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Rightio. I’m back. 

The Writer Within has just made an impulse decision – continuing this blog to keep tabs on myself as I ‘fly solo’ with ‘walking the walk and talking the talk’.  And running the run, swimming the swim, etc! And keeping the faith with the new 12 Week Body Transformed Me.  (I still think it should be called ‘Life Transformation’!)

It has been a bit of a difficult decision to maintain my decision not to sign up again for 12WBT Round 1 2011. I am still in contact on a daily basis with my 12WBT Twitter buddies, and as most of them are gearing up for blast off with Week 1 just around the corner, I’m feeling a bit wistful, and concerned  that I might start feeling left out.  But I have to make a sensible decision about what I spend our money on, and given that I adapted a lot of the meals and exercise programs from Round 3 to work for me and my family, I just can’t justify the money on it, when I can spend it on classes, or gear, that all fall within a 12WBT inspired life.  (Got a new awesome canyoning pack the other week! – and I’m going to have to buy myself new bike nix before my old ones fall off me!)

With Round 3 I bought the ‘upgrade’, – the newer version, if you will - and installed a far superior operating system. Yup. The old me was working, and had a few good programs - like the bike riding, the swimming, the annual canyoning – but they were getting sluggish. (All that crap in the system!)

Now? I’m working like a bought one!

I’ve also bought Mish’s new book “Losing the Last 5 kilos”, and so really, I have no excuse.

I know what to do. All I have to do is JFDI !

So, Christmas and New Year were a bit of a challenge, as I think most of us would have found.  I was pretty good over Christmas Day, but when we had friends around on NYE, I did let my hair down a bit. But I pretty much maintained that end of Rnd 3 weight of 66.5 until we got back from a week away at the end of January. On that week away it was a bit hard to stick hard and fast to the eating plan, but we had one full day of canyoning, plus another full day of bike riding (a mere 60km on the front of the tandem with Ms 15 as stoker), plus I got out and did a couple of runs on the other days.

Does it sound like I’m leading up to an excuse? Well I’m not! I came back a bit lighter! And since then I’ve dropped to 64.5, which pretty much blows my mind!  I was about 78 kg the day I made that impulse purchase – to sign up to 12WBT. (And if I hadn’t done that then, I’ve no doubt I would have crept up into the 80s before long.)

During the school holidays I was looking for something to replace my swim squads, and so I started going to Girlfit – a local fitness enterprise for women. It’s turned out to be just right for me. It’s not a gym, it’s outdoors – near the beach! The sessions vary, but  they do a fair bit of boxing, which is something pretty new for me, but I’m really enjoying it! What’s more, it is since I did a few of those sessions that the compliments have really started rolling in.  It must be kick arse stuff for upper body toning is all I can say. So that’s definitely something new I’ve added to my repertoire! Even if it’s at Stupid O’Clock… which currently involves getting up in the dark.. which really challenges my natural circadian rhythms and night owl instincts! This week I’m upping it from one to two sessions, on the same days as my swim squads, no less – and I’m aiming for the early morning Saturday bike ride too.

I am pretty damn happy with how I am at the moment, though a few more kilos off would definitely put me in the ‘safe zone’ of my healthy BMI range, and I can definitely still do with toning up more flab from the abs, and the ‘bingo wings’ (or ‘Fadoobidas’ I believe they are also called! – that’s one Kath & Kim expression I never picked up on!) But I’m still taking that all cautiously. Slower than most PTs – including Mish – would probably like, but I don’t care. I’ve had to deal with the lower back pain and the joint pain, and I don’t like it. Firing up my back or joints by overdoing it is definitely not conducive to being able to maintain consistent exercise; so I’m taking the path of caution, even if it’s the long way round. (Very scenic route it is too – and I have definitely made progress along the route!)

Right now, everything is hanging together quite nicely! *Touch Wood!*

So, those last few kilos may take a little while to dispense with, but that’s ok.

I still have some food issues to completely control, so I’m still on this journey, albeit with the tools – or, more appropriately, to fit in with my earlier analogy, the  “apps” – to totally kick arse.

In the meantime, these before/after photo collages I threw together say it all.

canyoningbeforeafter

 

cyclingbeforeafter