…there was cheesecake.

Kidding!

Whenever I have started something new in the past, I have always gone ‘whole hog’. Be it a new diet, a new exercise regime or even a new job. Little stops just weren’t for me. Five minutes of walking? Start with five minutes? Pfft. Why start there when I can start with an hour (and end up hurting ankles, knees, hips, whatever). Cut bread out of the dinner meal? Nah. I’ll cut it out of every meal.

Even in my writing, I’ve never been one to sit down and write give minutes here and there. If I can’t settle in for a good amount of writing time, I don’t want to do it.

Life isn’t like that, though. Even when we do plan out large chunks of time to do certain things, other things come up. Other things get in the way. Plans change.

So instead of jumping into things with lists and schedules, tables and time slots, I am taking things calmly and slowly.

At the moment, I am focusing on the Buddhist staple that everything changes. The idea is that if you learn to accept that everything changes – even within a moment – then you will learn to let go. It is through holding onto things – like people, negative emotions, bad situations – that we bring fear and pain into our lives. If we can step back and let go enough to observe the changes, we will start to find peace.

Right now I am at the very beginning in that I am trying to be mindful of everything that changes. It has helped me to tune into my body and what stresses me. For instance, I went into my emails this morning to start work and my breathing became faster like I was starting to panic.

How many mornings has this happened without me noticing and thus working through the morning in a panic state?

So what’s the saying… ‘Keep calm and carry on’?

For me, setting a base line when getting started in anything is like setting up a good foundation for a house. I’m not sure how the house will turn out without it, but I need that foundation so I can look back to see where it all started and compare it to how far I’ve come.

Okay, so that’s not the best metaphor, but be kind; I’m tired.

I’ve decided to take part in the Plus Size Bloggers contest (that is a clickable link, byt the way) because not only does it inspire me to keep with it at a particularly stressful time (health problems coupled with my husband losing his job) but it also coincides with some ‘base line’ testing. It’s not so much that I think I can lose 15 pounds in 12 weeks (maybe I can, maybe I can’t), but now more than ever I need to have the health focus in my life.

Today I went for the always fun blood tests that will tell me my cholesterol, how close or far I am from diabetes, so on and so forth. Frankly, they took blood for tests I had never heard of before. But, at least I can say my doctor is being thorough.

Also, next Tuesday, I will be hooked up to a heart monitor for 24 hours to make sure that the palpitations I have been having aren’t anything serious to worry about. After that (on the same day) I get my blood test results.

Health and wellness is certainly on my mind. I have lost eight pounds over the last few weeks, and I’m very happy about that. But I am still worried that my venture to 285 pounds may have seen me damage more than I can imagine right now.

My doctor said I am right to be scared, and I suppose I am. Fear is a great motivator for a lot of people, so why shouldn’t it be for me.

All up, I’m nervous about Tuesday but happy I’m getting it done. I’m also happy for this contest coming in such a timely matter. So let’s hope for good results all around, shall we?

Around November or December of last year, I began losing motivation with my dieting and exercise and needed to get my head back on track. I took the holidays off with the vow that the new year would bring a new me. I started off the year not with exercise but with a week of drinking more water.

I lost four pounds by drinking more water.

Anyone who has dieted, is dieting, or has anything to do with weight loss will tell you water is very important.

Did you know that a good amount of the time you think you are hungry, you are really thirsty? Talk about making a difference in how much you eat if you drank when you were truly thirsty.

The question is how much you are supposed to drink. Drinking too little or too much water can have bad consequences, so how do you know what’s safe?

The longstanding advice of eight to twelve ten ounce glasses OF WATER day won’t steer you wrong. If you’re like most of the world, you’re probably not getting this much, so the increase will be an improvement. You might have to urinate a bit more often, but that doesn’t last forever, I promise.

You might hear, however, that to calculate how much water you need, you have to divide your weight in pounds. The number you get is the number of ounces you should drink a day.

That sounds great in theory, but I for one cannot drink five 750ml bottles of water a day. It makes me feel ill.
So I take the middle of the road stance. Three 750ml bottles, which is more than the eight to twelve bottles and less than the weight in half calculation.

A good way to keep track of whether or not you’re drinking enough water is to keep an eye on the colour of your urine. Yep, check the potty. Lighter is better. The darker your urine, the more likely you are dehydrated.

According to The Bloke, there are three kinds of people in life: starters, runners and finishers.

I think The Bloke is a runner, to be honest, but I fall quite squarely into the starter category. I can be a runner and a finisher when I need to be (as can we all) but starting is what gets me excited. I like to get the ball rolling, start seeing results and then go on my merry weigh.

Naturally, I’m a yo-yo dieter.

Because I’ve realized the ‘starter’ quality of my personality, I focus on the little accomplishments I have been making every day. I know I’m in this for the long haul, but I keep that fact pushed to the back of my mind so I can keep the starting excitement going.

But, along with being a starter, I’m also impatient.

For healthy weight loss, impatience isn’t all that great. Being sick of being fat doesn’t mean the pounds melt off. Heck, if I woke up tomorrow at my ideal weight, I think I might panic and eat chocolate cake or something.

Impatience is doubly bad because I have PCOS. Normal, healthy weight loss is about one to two pounds per week. For women with PCOS half a pound to one pound lost per week is pretty damn good. My body is a great starter – I’ve lost up to six pounds in one week before. But then it slows down. It hates the running stage.

And so, I must wait, work out, be patient and be proud of what I have accomplished so far.

I’m wondering, though – do you get impatient?

I hate calorie counting. Absolutely hate it. Not only do I not want to spend hours doing research for how many calories what sevings equal (not to mention serving sizes), food journaling hasn’t exactly been my strong point either. (I loathe keeping a food diary, though the visual food diary went a lot better.)

So, given how much I don’t like logging thing and don’t like counting calories (in respect to the figuring out what the numbers are, not the acutal numbers), I don’t know what I was thinking when Hanlie mentioned she uses a little thing called Nutridiary and I decided to give it a go.

Now, I’ve tried SparkPeople before, and that turned me off because it’s so busy on the site. I felt a little overwhelmed, to be honest. But not with this one. Nutridiary is so simple and focused – it’s a food diary and that’s it! Sure, there is a forum attached, but you might just as easily miss it.

That’s not to say that what Nutridiary does is simple. Not by any means. Nutridiary is complex in what it offers you on feedback.

The numbers! Oh, the numbers! (Have I mentioned I love numbers?)

This is just one of the ways you can break down where your strengths, weaknesses and overall path are. As you can see, today has been a great day for vitamin C. (I supplement more than most because it helps combat my chronic fatigue.)

They make it so easy to not only find food but to list your own if it’s not on there. It’s also so easy to track everything, but they don’t let it get too complicated. You ate x amount of x at x time. You exercised x amount of minutes doing x at x time.

Too easy.

I still find the whole tracking thing a bit annoying, but with all the feedback I’m getting here, I like to check in to see what I’m getting out of certain foods or see how I’m going if I’m having a day where I feel like I might be eating too much.

Given that I can also track my weight, measurements, water, exercise, etc, I’m thinking I may have finally found my one stop shop.

Thanks, Hanlie!

The Bloke had to leave last night to head back to Melbourne for a few days before he actually starts his new job. A day and some of training down there, and then he gets going up here on Wednesday.

I promised myself that, while I had started to take care of myself in general ways, Valentine’s Day would be the day I got back on the scale and started a more structured health plan.

Strangely enough, I wasn’t scared getting on the scale (the Wii Fit scale, that is). I knew what I felt like at my top weight and I wasn’t feeling that way. Sure, a few more items of clothing wouldn’t fit and I looked a little heavier in the mirror, but I didn’t feel the bloated yuck I always felt in the past when my weight shot up.

So much for knowing.

I’ve reached a new top weight. Sigh. And while it isn’t heaps above the old top weight, it’s still a new top that I never thought I would see.

Usually this would have me crying and telling myself how disgusting/lazy/etc I am for letting myself get this far, but I’m not. I’m not happy I’m here, but I’m not letting it influence my mood, either.

I’m reminded of the borrowed post and thinking, “Today I can cry about reaching a new top weight or I can think about how it will be even more amazing when I reach a healthy weight.”

Who would have thought I would get to this point?

I’m already prepared for healthier eating with plenty of green things – love spinach leaf salads! – and there’s a new reason I’m getting more exercise than usual…

Eleven week old Brin is a big handful already and has been adding to my activity levels! I’m looking forward to when we can go on walks together. (At the moment, he hates the lead with a passion.)

So things are on the up and up again. Bendigo is such a better environment than Ringwood, we actually have a house to live in instead of a flat or unit, we have a new puppy… I’m ready for the next stage of life.

Today I got up about two hours earlier than I am used to – which, in and of itself is pretty huge because I am not a morning person – so my husband could drop me off on his way to work. With my sunnies on, my hair pulled back and my audiobook of The Fry Chronicles by Stephen Fry in my mp3 player, I set off.

I didn’t miss the irony of the universe when – completely unknown to me – Fry started his biography talking about his addiction to sugar and what it did to him. He swiftly went from an intelligent man I like to listen to, to a comrade in arms who has struggled as I do with this sweet-laden society.

Unlike music, which – after years of marching band – forces me to walk the tempo of whatever song is on, having an audiobook on engages my mind in a way that let’s me walk at a truly beginner’s pace while engaging my mind to the point I can mostly ignore breathlessness, soreness and sweat.

In one hour and two minutes I walked somewhere between 3.5 and 4 kilometres (somewhere between just over 2 and 2.5 miles) nonstop. I’m feeling quite chuffed about both the distance and the amount of time it took. An hour seems to perfectly… perfect and the distance challenges me without leaving me feeling like a worn out bicycle tire.

I know this is the first day of many, but taking that first step is so incredibly important that it is worth celebrating.

I already have my first goal, too. The Bloke has promised me that if I keep up with my walking routine with no exceptions for a month, I get to go in and have shoes fitted to me (something we’ve seen advertised on tele for athletes).

Overall, this is a very happy start. I hope to have my replacement camera with me soon so I can take pictures of the walk.

So, I’m back to the very beginning, so I decided to try a different kind of post…

When I told The Bloke that I’d hit the “I refuse to let myself gain anymore weight back” point, he told me that I needed to sit down for some reflection. I needed to figure out what worked in the past and what didn’t. He wasn’t just talking about diets, either; he meant which bits and pieces worked for me.

After much thought, I know these things work for me:

*Cutting out 99% of bread, potatoes and rice (I am a former carbaholic)
*Going raw (calms down my mind)
*Meal replacements (helps me create a sense of control that helps me to not binge)

With those things in mind, I have created a balance that, I think, will work well for the rest of my life. The meal replacements won’t be a part of my life forever, but they’ll help me maintain control while I take the steps in creating the framework for a healthy life. Right now I use meal replacements for breakfast (to get me used to eating then in the first place) and to help me have a sensible lunch. When I’ve been at this for a while, I’ll be switching to lunch salads and healthy breakfasts (smoothies! oatmeal!). Otherwise, I’ll be going mostly raw with my eating.

But, after all that thought, I also realize that the big ol’ elephant in the room has a “Hi, my name is EXERCISE” on his chest and is looking at me with little patience in his expression.

I work from home. I’m a bit shy, so I don’t get out socially a lot. The gym is too expensive. I have Wii Fit, which has been working, but I have a hard time sticking to an exercise program. I have yet to figure out what works for me for exercise.

I’m open to ideas.

What works for you for exercise – especially when you just start? Is walking your thing? How about rewards? Are you a morning exerciser or night? Spread it out in doable chunks through the day? Do you do anything creative to get yourself to do it or do you not need to?

I’m an emotional eater if there ever was one, and a binge eater as well. The last thing I ever want to do is let people in to every little thing I’m eating.

But then I read Foodie’s blog.

First Foodie asked if you (general public ‘you’) would ever be willing to put what you eat on display. Keep a photo diary of your eats and show them to the world. Not feeling so great about everything I had been eating lately, I found the idea intriguing. Could I really let people in?

One of Foodie’s friends remarked that what you eat is private, and Foodie wondered if exposing what you eat is like exposing your privates (hence the title of this post).

Personally, I think what you eat is as private as you make it. Hanlie mentioned in the comments on the blog that she has been a sneaky eater in the past – so have I. I’ve felt the need to hide much of my eating, thus my eating has always been private. And usually unhealthy.

Foodie has stuck by her word and created What Foodie Eats, full of lovely fotos of food. (Was that clever letter stuff or just silly?)

I’ve decided to follow the lead and expose myself to the world for a while. I think it will help me, though in what ways I don’t yet know. Will it stop me from making bad choices? Will it help me with portion control? Will I get some oysters and disgust some people who don’t appreciate oysters’ deliciousness?

Who knows. No matter what, I knew this wouldn’t feel real to me unless I made a promise right here on the blog to myself and to you, the readers. Here goes…

I solemnly swear to you and myself that, from 12.01am Monday July 12th (+10 Time Zone) to 11.59pm Friday July 16th, I will take photographs of everything I put in my mouth. (The pictures will be taken before I put the stuff in my mouth, I promise.) Every food I consume will be captured on my digital camera.

I promise to try to put up the pictures of the day’s food intake every night before I go to bed. If I am unable to do so, I will put up the pictures as soon as I am able.

There will be no sneaking, cheating or otherwise tricking the camera. I acknowledge that to do so would be lying and would take away any benefits I hope to achieve from this project.

The challenge is a short one because not only will it be easier for me to stick to, it encompasses the times when I have the most problems (when I’m alone during the day). While I realize that just taking the photos will be enough to show some benefit, I want to put them up here as well. It’s an added layer of accountability that will give me more benefit, I think.

You’ll have to excuse all the photos that go up this week. If they start slowing down the loading time for the site, let me know and I’ll put them after the ‘read more’ tags. I’ll still have my usual posts up, so there will be more content than usual this week.

Here goes nothing…