Nope!

I *will* be back blogging, but not until 2011 and until then my weight loss goal is very firmly on hold. In fact, due to the baby I’m busy growing in my belly I’m gaining weight rapidly!

That’s okay though, it’s all for a good cause. Cupcake (that’s what we’re calling the baby until she’s born) is due in mid-January 2011 and so it won’t be until probably March that I’m back trying to lose weight. Of course, this is going to push my weight loss goals way, way up.

Oh well, I don’t care… I’m going to be a mum!

In fact, up until yesterday I hadn’t even done so much as go for a walk (with an exercise focus) in weeks. I haven’t been to the gym in a month. Why? Simply a lack of time.

My life has completely taken over lately. While it’s a great feeling to have so many positive things happening at the moment and to be in a really good place, I’m finding that my health and fitness has taken a back seat. Something else I’ve also discovered is that my energy levels have plummeted despite the fact that I’m getting more (and better quality) sleep than I have in… well, a long time.

I think the biggest reason my energy levels are so low is that I haven’t been doing any exercise, nor have I been focussed on the quality of the food I’ve been putting into my mouth. The more tired I have been getting the less I have been wanting to exercise, and that attitude has done my waist line no favours at all!

I have to admit, I’m afraid to step on the scales, but as I don’t own any I guess I don’t have to worry too much.

All that said, I’ve recently discovered a fabulous website, run by a man called Jonathan Roche. His site at www.noexcusesworkouts.com (NEWO) provides excellent advice on fitness and weight loss, forums for support, healthy body fuelling recipes and free downloadable strength and cardio workouts.

So yesterday I took the plunge. I downloaded both of his workouts, downloaded an interval timer onto my ipod touch, programmed his interval cardio workout onto my new interval program and off I went. I can see how intervals would be so effective in weight loss. My session only lasted for 30 minutes and I was walking and jogging around a mostly flat park. At the end of the 30 minutes… boy oh boy was I sweating! It wasn’t that hot, and I know that when I go for a walk or even a jog I don’t sweat that much, so I’m guessing it was the effect of the interval training kicking in.

I won’t say it was easy – it wasn’t. I pushed myself. By my last run I was hanging out for my timer to beep at me so I could walk. But I did it. And I’ll do it again tomorrow.

The basic idea of Jonathan’s NEWO interval workout is based on perceieved exhertion levels (PE). You start with a gentle five minute warm up (a PE of 4 - 5). Then you step it up and do three minutes at a PE of 7, followed by one minute back at a 4-5. Then three minutes at 7.5 followed by a one minute recovery. Then its three minutes at 8, followed by a recovery of 1 minute and that is followed by three minutes at a PE of 8.5 and then a five minute cool down. Its a total of 30 minutes, and on paper it looks pretty easy, right?

The beauty of this kind of workout is that you can tailor it to your specific level of fitness. I started off with a gentle walk, and then did a brisk walk for my first interval and jogs for the rest. I noticed that the speed of my jogging didn’t necessarily increase because each time I ran it was harder to keep going than the last. I could have walked it, but then I know I wouldn’t have been reaching the PEs I was meant to. 

Intervals are a great way to work out for maximum weight loss.

Today I am going to do the NEWO six minute strength workout, which is a combination of exercises you can do in your own home that don’t require the use of any equipment at all.

I feel a bit (okay, a lot) guilty that my gym membership isn’t getting the workout it should, but in the meantime I’m hoping the NEWO workouts will have at least some effect.

Historically I have hit the gym – I struggle with weight loss without a gym membership. As much as I need to do I hate cardio with a passion. I’m pretty good at making myself do stuff that I don’t want to do – taking my formula for my PKU is a perfect example – but cardio isn’t one of those things.

In the past I have had pretty good results with sticking to weights based training. After all, increasing your muscle mass is absolutely essential in increasing your resting metabolic rate, which is exactly what you want to do if you are looking to burn fat. However, while I have always changed my body shape I have never had great success in reducing my scale weight. Now this is a huge problem for me, because my scale weight bothers me, even if my clothes size is decreasing. I think its from my doctor being difficult over scale weight for years when I was growing up – I’ve always been heavier than I look, even now. So my trend is basically that even when my physical size gets smaller my weight is either steady or creeps up, and I don’t want to be so heavy.

If I’m going to reduce my scale weight as well as change my body shape I really need to find some kind of exercise that I enjoy. I have never been a runner – I have always wanted to be able to run, and I have always wanted to enjoy running, but even with a mega supportive sports by the time I’ve run say 150 or 200m my boobs are killing me, I’m bright red in the face and I sound and look like I’m about to have a heart attack. I’ve been like that as long as I can remember when it comes to running. I can swim, dance… pretty much do anything reasonably consistently except running. So I decided it was high time I found something that I would actually stick with that would get my heart pumping a bit.

I am intending to do a lot of pilates – pilates is excellent for toning and sculpting the body to look long and lean and if you do it consistently it helps with back pain too. But this week I’ve been trying my hand at body balance. Body balance is a mixture of tai chi for relaxation, yoga for flexibility and pilates for strength. Now I freely admit that I walked in to my first body balance class a few days ago thinking that it was going to be a nice and relaxing walk in the park. How wrong I was! Within ten minutes I felt quite warm, my heart rate was well and truly up and was sweating.I felt very challenged even when I was only performing the basic movements. By the end of the hour long session I was literally dripping with sweat (even with the air conditioning!), my heart rate was still up and my limbs were shaking from the workout. I seriously think I got more out of an hour of body balance than I do out of smashing it out on the cross trainer or treadmill.

I did another class today, and having done a workout yesterday incorporating my favourite piece of gym equipment (a bosu – I love doing lunges, push ups and squats on it) I found it really tough, but super satisfying. Again. I was dripping with sweat and my heart rate was just as high as it would be doing a cardio workout. I’m going to keep up doing body balance a couple of times and week and its going to be very, very interesting to see how it, along with diet and weight training, affects my scale weight as well as my shape.

All I know is – I can certainly feel my workout! I’m so sore and damn it feels good

I’ve been a bit quiet for this last week because I’ve been really, really busy. I was lucky enough to pick up some freelance copywriting last week and I’m now visiting my parents interstate until Tuesday, so I haven’t had much time to get onto the computer to post on my blogs.

However, I’ve still made time to get some exercise in and watch my food intake, and it is paying off. When I started this blog a week ago I felt like losing any weight at all was a huge and insurmountable task that I just couldn’t conquer. I am very, very happy to report that I have lost 1kg since I started the New Year, New Me! project

Now I know a lot of you will be thinking that one measly kilo is nothing and that I’ve still got a hell of a long way to go, and you’re right. But that 1kg is a beacon of hope, reassurance and confidence for me. It proves that I CAN do it, and if I keep it up I will.

I haven’t done a whole lot of cardio exercise this week (unless dragging suitcases through cities on trams, trains and buses counts!) but I have made sure I am getting some kind of exercise most days. I’ve been doing a lot of walking by focussing on increasing my incidental exercise – walking home from the gym, walking to the shops etc – and I have been to the gym a few times too.

My back is really weak – I have terrible core strength – so in a bid to work on that I decided to brave a pilates class at my local gym. In the last five years (possibly longer) I have only done pilates once and it absolutely killed me. I never went back. Well, I really enjoyed this session (which much to my surprise was taken my one of my good friends!) and I’ll definitely go back.

My mum is a gym member in Rockhampton, so yesterday she and I made the trek from her house (she lives on top of a mountain on the city outskirts) to her gym and we both tried body balance for the first time. Body balance is a Les Mills class that combines yoga, tai chi and pilates and its an excellent class for relieving stress, gaining a longer, leaner body and for improving flexibility. When I worked at Fitness First I used that speil all the time, but I never actually tried a class until yesterday. It’s very true though – Body Balance is a fantastic workout. I went in with pretty low expectations if I’m honest about it, but within 10 minutes I had well and truly broken a sweat and my heart rate was up a bit. By the end of it my back and joints had loosened up significantly and I could put my hands flat on the floor! At the start I was so stiff through the back I could barely reach half way down my shins. I felt great – really energised but relaxed at the same time.

I’m very, very sore today, and so is mum. We definitely found muscles that we didn’t know we had, but we both feel fantastic too! Our sore muscle therapy was a bit of a bonus – we enjoyed a nice hot spa overlooking the mountains to the sea. Beautiful! I’m going to miss that spa when I go home…

Now today, I’ve gone to put on the dress I wore on Christmas Day. That was the first and last time I wore it because it felt a bit tight on my waist and it cut in under my arms. Being concious of what I’m eating and exercising most days is obviously paying off – I’m sure I don’t look any different, but suddenly this dress is so, so comfy.

On that note, I’m off to the gym…

Goal weight: 65kg
Current weight: 97.3kg
Weight left to lose: 32.3kg
Clothes size: On average, 18. The smallest clothing item I own is a 14 (plus size 14 though), largest is 20.

There IS a happy medium for me. I would be absolutely delighted if I got down to 70kg and stayed there, however a goal weight of 65kg has been set by my dietician (for a condition I suffer called Phenylketonuria – not for weight loss).

Aged 18 - at 70kg - strutting my stuff on the catwalk

Me on 3/1/10 - aged 26 and at 97kg. This is my starting point.

Me at 20 (or maybe 21), 80kg, but after completing a physique change challenge at the gym.

As you can see my body shape has changed dramatically over the years and now I have a long way to go. I do my best to dress in the most flattering way possible, and most of the time I don’t do as badly as I could. However, I’m fed up of hiding flabby bingo wing arms, a wobbly tummy, chubby back and thunder thighs. Its time to take action!

Something that has really struck me right now as I sit studying these pictures is that I’ve always had a huge body image issue. I remember back then – and at both points I hated my body. I thought I was horrible and humungous and flabby and fat and I was TERRIFIED of baring my body. I remember being so critical of that picture of me in the bikini. That morning was the judging of the body change challenge I was doing at the gym and I remember standing in front of the mirror in tears because I was so fat. And I HATED having that picture taken! I remember the night the picture of me on the catwalk was taken too. I think the only thing that stopped a body meltdown that night was the fact that I was terrified of falling flat on my face! But a huge chunk of my anxiety was because I thought I was so fat. My agency had told me two days earlier to lose 10kg if I wanted to get work (I refused) but I was extremely concious of my weight and being the biggest model on their books. Now I look back at those two pictures and go Damn! I was hot!

So this year I’m going to work on that. I have started by joining a gym. Two days I joined up at Fernwood in St Kilda and I love the fact that it’s an all women gym. I feel far more relaxed in a gym than I ever have done before – I love the relaxed, friendly and completely non-judgemental vibe there.

I have also gotten my old Weight Watchers books out and I have started meal planning for my husband and I. I’m really focussing on exercising every day, drinking plenty of water, cutting down on sugar and fat intakes and eating lots of fresh salads, fruits and vegetables.

So… here we go!

That’s why I started this blog. In 2010 I am going to turn my health (and my life around) and I plan to write about the whole thing – the embarrassments, the highs, the lows, the successes and struggles and, most importantly, how I do it. I will be sharing my tips on exercise, recipes and anything else I come across that helps or is interesting.

I’m a little late in getting started with this – Christmas and New Year was so busy that this is the first opportunity I have had to sit down and write.

I hope you will enjoy reading this blog and that you will find it useful in your own resolutions for 2010.