They Never Said It Would Be Easy, They Said It Would Be Worth It

My sister and trainer, Mel (check her out here) has been reading my blog and suggested I do a post on motivation. You should know that there's no quick fix, you need to work at it and it's going to be really hard sometimes.Even though I was not battling with alot of weight to lose, I was battling with some inner demons which I needed to overcome to have control of my weight.
I know so many others who have succeeded to change their minds and bodies and their journey's have definitely not been easy, infact it's been pretty damn tough at times but as the title of the post says, it's been worth it!
I know like so many others I've tried so many times to commit to healthy eating or an exercise plan, I have been 10kg's heavier than I am now, I lost those 10kg's doing a crash diet and slogging it out on the treadmill 5 times a week. I then went to put 9kg's on again in 6-12 months. There's a few reasons why I think failed, my diet was not maintainable, I was tired and run down from overdoing it cardio-wise but the main reason was because I lost motivation, plain and simple.

So I thought I'd share some of the things which kept and still keep me motivated:


Setting goals
This was something I'd never really done before. I always wanted to be smaller, weigh less, have a flatter stomach etc etc but had an ultimate goal that I wanted to acheive, something I could focus on. So this time I had my longterm goal, which was to be in best shape I could on our wedding day. Mel asked me to write it down as well as some short-term goals - daily, weekly and monthly goals.
Some of my short term goals included
- Getting through the day without eating chocolate/anything processed/insert any bad eating habit here
- Getting through a month without drinking alcohol
- Being able to lift a particular weight
- Running 3 km's without stopping (before I knew it I could run 8, 10 and just recently 14km's without stopping!)
The sense of acheivement I felt on just acheiving these smaller goals was a big boost to my motivation and kept me wanting more!


Having something or someone to be accountable to
Having a personal trainer is by far the best favour you can do for yourself. You can talk to them about your struggles and they will always be there as a source of motivation and encouragement and tough love when you need it most (well, the good ones anyway!).
Having a trainer also helped in other ways too, if I know I've paid X amount of dollars for that session, I'm damn well going to get out of bed and get my money's worth! And knowing said trainer is going to kick my butt twice as hard if I back out or don't turn up, well I'm going to turn up and do what she says!
It doesn't have to be a trainer though, could be a friend or work colleague that you turn to when things get hard, needs to be someone who's going to give you tough love though!

Something that costs nothing is keeping a food diary where I write down EVERYTHING I put into my mouth so I'm accountable for the cheats. I have lapsed abit at this lately so will take my own advice and start again today!

Starting this blog less than a week ago is also helping me stay accountable - I gotta practice what I preach! And it's working!

Surrounding yourself with positive influences
I joined Mel's running crew where I was able to meet other like-minded people to share and swap stories with, huge motivation booster when you're around others with similar goals. Have made some great friends out of it also.
I ditched the negative, jealous people in my life who were bringing me down.
I read magazines, articles, blogs and watched TV shows on health and fitness - heaps of inspiration and motivation here.
Treat myself to some new workout gear - amazing how much more exciting a workout can be with a some cute new gear!
 

So abit about how I'm feeling at the moment...after 2 weeks around the wedding where I was far too busy to fit all my sessions in and hurting my ankle last week which resulted in 3 rest days, I've finally managed to get back to a full week of training this week. And feeling good!
It's also been a very stressful and busy week at work and have found myself craving chocolate almost every afternoon! I caved on Thursday and Friday, it was only a small amount but enough to leave me feeling crappy :-( So I'm making myself accountable by writing it down here!


Finally, thought I'd share some of the delicious clean meals I've munched on this past week:

Post workout oats with berries

Cajun chicken kebabs (from Michelle Bridges' Crunch Time Cookbook)

Lunch! Spinach, baby beets, chickpeas & goat's cheese salad

Anzac Day breaky - egg white omlette with spinach, mushrooms & feta

Thai beef salad

YUM!!!!!!!!!

Eating Clean

Just want to start off by saying a huge thankyou to everyone who read my first post and for all your amazing feedback. And I'm so glad you've come back for more!!


So onto something very dear to my heart....FOOD!
I love food! I love eating it, I love cooking it, did I mention I love eating it?
Thoughts of food have always consumed me, I'm always thinking about my next meal, planning what's for dinner on Saturday night, looking forward to what I'd be eating at a particular event - yep I'm a crazy person! Any diet I'd ever done in the past was not maintainable cos those thoughts of food would finally get the better of me - I needed to eat! Not to mention they were all unhealthy and left me feeling lethargic and grumpy with no energy to exercise.
Mel introduced me to Metabolic Precision which is a complete body transformation system(see http://www.metabolicprecision.com/) and alot of what the diet is based on is clean eating. I did some more research on clean eating myself, started to follow it more and more and have never looked back!


So for all those who haven't heard of it, what exactly is clean eating?
There's varying degrees to eating clean but for me it's about consuming food as close to it's natural state as possible, therefore trying to eliminate as much pre-packaged, processed and fast foods as possible. All these foods are generally full of sugar, nasty additives and preservatives and high in saturated fat.
Occasionally it can be difficult but the majority of the time I try to eat a diet with plenty of fresh fruit & vegies (fruit in moderation but plenty of veg), wholegrains (brown rice, oats, quinoa), lean protein (chicken, fish, lean red meat, eggs) and healthy fats in moderation (avocado, nuts, flaxseeds). I also eat smaller portions every 2-3 hours (5-6 smaller meals a day instead of 3 big meals) and rarely do I get hungry (WIN!)


I felt the impact clean eating had on my energy levels and mental health almost within a week. The weight loss benefits were evident in about 3-4 weeks as I actually had energy to exercise properly, my blood sugar was stable (meaning I'm less likely to binge) and metabolism was on fire due to eating every 2-3 hours. AWESOME!
I try to give myself 1-2 cheat meals a week (cheat meals, not whole cheat days or weekends) where I eat whatever I feel like and I find this helps me maintain this way of eating. I can usually feel the negative impact of the cheat meal on my body straight away and it definitely makes me want to stay away from this particular meal day-to-day. I still have a sweet tooth and get cravings but have found so many 'clean' recipes to satisfy those times when I want a cake or dessert so I hope to share some of them in future posts.

Eating clean is not just for people who want to lose weight:

'Whether a person is at a healthy weight, underweight or overweight, the body will react appropriately when on the eat clean diet. Those who are at a healthy weight will stay at a healthy weight. Those who are underweight will gain weight, while those who are overweight will loose weight. The reason for this, is that the foods a person eats on a clean eating diet are natural foods that the human body is designed to eat.'
Source http://www.livestrong.com/article/284722-what-are-the-benefits-of-eating-clean/

 FOODS I CHOOSE TO STAY AWAY FROM AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE
- Soft drink, fruit juice, cordial, energy drinks
- Anything high in sugar - lollies, chocolate, cakes, cookies etc.
- Any 'white' grains - pasta, white bread, white rice etc.
- Anything labelled 'diet' - yogurts, desserts, softdrinks etc (usually have high levels of sugar to add flavour or horrible artificial sweetners which leaving me feeling hungry and blegh)
- If I'm eating anything packaged I try to look at the ingredient list and if there's words I don't understand or have never heard of, I try and stay away


FOODS I LOVE TO EAT
- VEGIES! Pumpkin, spinach, capsicum, peas, broccoli, carrots, sweet potato etc (I try to stay away from normal white potatoes)
- Fruit - fresh and frozen berries, apples, pears, bananas etc.
- Eggs - so versatile, love them!
- Chicken, tuna, lean cuts of lamb & beef
- Greek or natural yogurt (my fave is Jalna Biodynamic Organic Natural yogurt)
- Flaxseeds and flax oil
- 70-85% dark chocolate (in moderation!! The one from Aldi is my fave and in safe portion sizes so I don't eat the whole block!)
- Walnuts, almonds, natural peanut butter (again in moderation)


As I mentioned in my first post, I'm not an expert and definitely not a nutrtionist so would recommend you do your own research before following what I do but you could definitely try swapping out some of those processed, 'white' foods for some of the foods I've listed above.

And remember....

Source: fashionhealthy.tumblr.com/

First Awesome Post & Background Story

So I've decided to start a blog about my life - mostly about my passion to live the best life I can, what I have jokingly called 'the awesome life' - but it's actually true! To me, the awesome life is about feeling happy, fit, healthy and full of energy so I'm ready to take on whatever life throws at me.

So abit of background on me - less than 12 months ago I thought the best life I could lead was to plod unhappily through the working week, treat myself with alot of yummy food (I love food, always have, always will) just for getting through each day and finally making it to the end of the week and celebrating with a few too many drinks and spending Sunday in bed eating plenty of greasy hangover food. The highlight of my week was definitely getting drunk with friends on a Saturday night!
Regardless of all the food I was consuming, I have never been 'overweight'. I had some extra lumps and bumps that I wanted to get rid of but mainly I was seriously lacking energy, general wellbeing and while I was never diagnosed with depression, I definitely had a depressed outlook on life.

It was the beginning of September 2011 when my life started to change. Knowing that I wanted to tone up abit for my wedding in April 2012, my sister Mel, who is a personal trainer, challenged me to take on a 12 week body transformation challenge through the gym she worked at. I have no idea why I agreed, I'd always hated exercise, I only did it because I loved food and didn't want to get 'fat'.
The challenge opened my eyes to so many things - that the best way to lose weight was not to starve myself but to fuel my body with nutrious and delicous whole foods and PLENTY of them (shock horror!). That the number on the scale doesn't matter, it's about how you feel and look. That slogging it out for hours and hours of cardio would not change my body shape. She taught me so much about food and exercise, I'll be forever grateful to her!

At the end of the 12 weeks, I did acheive some physical changes which I was stoked about.
- I lost 4kg on the scales
- I dropped 6.71% in body fat
- I lost 64.5cm around my body (which I found insane! I honestly didn't think had that much to lose!!??)
- I ran my first 10km fun run in 55 mins (from someone who could not run for more than 3 mins at a time)

I've had trouble deciding whether I was going to post my before and after pic in the fear that I'm going to be judged but here goes nothing! Before pic was taken in August 2011, after pic in December 2011.
                                       

However, the BIGGEST changes I found after the 12 weeks were completely internal.
I have SO much energy - I am bouncing out of bed to train 6am before work whereas previously I'd struggle to peel myself out of bed at 7.30am. I feel AMAZING! There's no way to properly explain how it feels to be fit and healthy but let me tell you it's the best feeling in the world! I am no longer feel depressed and am so much more positive than I have ever been (just ask those closest to me like my sister and husband!). I can actually say for the first time in my almost 27 years that I feel completely happy and comfortable in my own skin. And I completely changed my mindset about what makes life AWESOME. From being someone who NEEDED to drink every weekend, I went almost 2 months without a drop of alcohol and felt amazing for it.

There's a couple of reasons why I've chosen to blog about my experiences -

1. To keep myself accountable. Before our wedding I had a goal to work towards and while it wasn't the only reason why I have continued to live my life better, it was something that kept me going. Over the last 2 weeks since the wedding, I can feel myself giving in to foods and some of my old lifestyle choices and can already feel the impact it's having on my mind and body. So this blog is going to help me stick to my goals - which are not to be stick thin, but to be fit, healthy and happy - for life!

2. Is to educate others. Not sure if there is anyone out there reading this - but hello if you are! I'm hoping to use my posts as ways to pass on what I have learnt about food, exercise, weight loss and general well being. I may not be an ex-overwieght person who's lost a huge amount of weight and I'm by no means an expert and but if I can pass on something to someone out there that helps them change their mindset like I have mine, and in turn their life, than that's a good thing!

So that's it - first post done! If anyone is reading out there, hope you enjoy :-)