Week 6
Wow, halfway! In a few ways it feels like I have been doing this forever and in others it feels like I only started 2 days ago. The exercise is still really hard, but I know I am doing it for longer periods and my recovery is much quicker. They no longer look at me anxiously and start to make noises about getting extra oxygen when I come out of RPM or Pump. The biggest thing I notice in myself is that I am enjoying going to the gym and working out (sick, I know). I get a real sense of satisfaction when I can push myself just that little bit further – even an extra 5 minutes of running or cycling feels like an incredible achievement. Lynn has really helped me this week. Her mix of not taking any of my crap when I whinge in a training session with a sympathetic shoulder is what has made a huge psychological difference. She pointed out to me that the mind often gives out before the body, especially someone like me who has got into the habit of thinking that I can’t do things. Instead of “can” and “can’t” she is getting me to focus on “will” and “won’t”. Then whatever I do is MY choice – I “won’t” run 3km non stop sounds a lot worse than “can’t”. Can’t almost sounds like you may have a legitimate reason not to do something. Won’t means just that – you are choosing not to. I have chosen not to do things relating to diet and exercise for the last 12 years. Now I choose to change. I “will” have to remind myself of this as the lactic acid builds up so much in my legs that they feel like someone is rubbing them down with brillo pads and I am so out of breath that I start making the noise that sounds a lot like “huaergh” when I breathe in. And cry when I exhale. And I won’t even get started on the uncontrollable spitty dribble thing that starts happening. On a more positive note, my halfway stats are : 11.9kg lost, 15cm down in body measurements.
Week 7
It’s funny, but in the last few weeks, something has switched over in my head and I can just focus on what I need to do. I also have to admit I never would have been able to do this without my incredible support crew – my husband, Tim, who has encouraged me every step of the way, my family, who have been cheering loudly and waving pom poms when I needed it and my friends have been incredible. Also, the girls at the gym are just amazing. My trainer, Lynn, just knows how to push me just that little bit further each session, and every staff member seems to know all of the challenge participants by name. The second set of teams has just started and they are throwing themselves into the challenge too.
We had the training session from hell this week – Sophie and Olivia pushed us for over an hour and I think most of us either felt like crying, puking or both. I reached the stage where I was looking at the doors out on to the balcony outside the training room where I thought I could throw up in relative privacy. Fortunately I remembered at the last minute that this may not be such a good idea as an alfresco restaurant had just opened up downstairs and I had the feeling that even if they couldn’t see me, the sound effects alone would probably put most people off their dinners. I reverted to plan B, which was crying as I tried to do the beep test. I believe this test was invented by some kind of masochistic evil person (otherwise known as a personal trainer) to make you get all twitchy whenever you are waiting to use a pedestrian crossing and then gallop at high speed across the road when the little green man appears. This is taking incidental exercise just that one step too far.
Week 8
We are rapidly coming up on Easter and a lot of people are getting very obsessed with the upcoming orgy of chocolate consumption. To be honest, chocolate will not be such a problem for me as avoiding emptying a tub of butter onto hot cross buns just out of the oven. YUM!!!!! In our group slim talk, Amanda talked about chocolate for 15 straight minutes, until someone pointed out that this was starting to feel like a torture session. We all cracked up and talked about salad for at least 2 minutes before we got back on to the chocolate quandary. Butter was not so much addressed as forbidden (bugger) and we were limited to 1 hot cross bun per day. She has got to be kidding me. There is only so much a person can give up. I thought this was the biggest loser challenge, not the cry over a bag of forbidden hot cross buns challenge. I better check the fine print.
On the exercise front, I am trying something new at the gym – bellydancing. It is run here once a week as a class and it is FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are all in tracksuit pants and t shirts and giving it a good old wiggle. What is wonderful is to have an instructor finally say “you are meant to wobble here”. After so many classes where nothing is allowed to wiggle (and let’s face it, when you are as overweight as I am, not much bloody doesn’t), this is a lot of fun. Also, much harder work than I thought. You have to isolate lower body and upper body movements from each other and use your core to control movements, so by the end your obliques have really had a workout. It also feels sexy, no matter how big you are. I have also started running again, which is great. In my late teens and early 20s I did a lot of running and I loved i
t. I ran the City to Surf twice and I would love to do it again. My first short term thing to do is to run the Mother’s Day Classic, which is a 4km run to raise money for breast cancer research. My mum is a breast cancer survivor (diagnosed in 2005) and an incredible inspiration to me. If she can go through surgery, chemo and radiotherapy, I can run 4km.
Wow, halfway! In a few ways it feels like I have been doing this forever and in others it feels like I only started 2 days ago. The exercise is still really hard, but I know I am doing it for longer periods and my recovery is much quicker. They no longer look at me anxiously and start to make noises about getting extra oxygen when I come out of RPM or Pump. The biggest thing I notice in myself is that I am enjoying going to the gym and working out (sick, I know). I get a real sense of satisfaction when I can push myself just that little bit further – even an extra 5 minutes of running or cycling feels like an incredible achievement. Lynn has really helped me this week. Her mix of not taking any of my crap when I whinge in a training session with a sympathetic shoulder is what has made a huge psychological difference. She pointed out to me that the mind often gives out before the body, especially someone like me who has got into the habit of thinking that I can’t do things. Instead of “can” and “can’t” she is getting me to focus on “will” and “won’t”. Then whatever I do is MY choice – I “won’t” run 3km non stop sounds a lot worse than “can’t”. Can’t almost sounds like you may have a legitimate reason not to do something. Won’t means just that – you are choosing not to. I have chosen not to do things relating to diet and exercise for the last 12 years. Now I choose to change. I “will” have to remind myself of this as the lactic acid builds up so much in my legs that they feel like someone is rubbing them down with brillo pads and I am so out of breath that I start making the noise that sounds a lot like “huaergh” when I breathe in. And cry when I exhale. And I won’t even get started on the uncontrollable spitty dribble thing that starts happening. On a more positive note, my halfway stats are : 11.9kg lost, 15cm down in body measurements.
Week 7
It’s funny, but in the last few weeks, something has switched over in my head and I can just focus on what I need to do. I also have to admit I never would have been able to do this without my incredible support crew – my husband, Tim, who has encouraged me every step of the way, my family, who have been cheering loudly and waving pom poms when I needed it and my friends have been incredible. Also, the girls at the gym are just amazing. My trainer, Lynn, just knows how to push me just that little bit further each session, and every staff member seems to know all of the challenge participants by name. The second set of teams has just started and they are throwing themselves into the challenge too.
We had the training session from hell this week – Sophie and Olivia pushed us for over an hour and I think most of us either felt like crying, puking or both. I reached the stage where I was looking at the doors out on to the balcony outside the training room where I thought I could throw up in relative privacy. Fortunately I remembered at the last minute that this may not be such a good idea as an alfresco restaurant had just opened up downstairs and I had the feeling that even if they couldn’t see me, the sound effects alone would probably put most people off their dinners. I reverted to plan B, which was crying as I tried to do the beep test. I believe this test was invented by some kind of masochistic evil person (otherwise known as a personal trainer) to make you get all twitchy whenever you are waiting to use a pedestrian crossing and then gallop at high speed across the road when the little green man appears. This is taking incidental exercise just that one step too far.
Week 8
We are rapidly coming up on Easter and a lot of people are getting very obsessed with the upcoming orgy of chocolate consumption. To be honest, chocolate will not be such a problem for me as avoiding emptying a tub of butter onto hot cross buns just out of the oven. YUM!!!!! In our group slim talk, Amanda talked about chocolate for 15 straight minutes, until someone pointed out that this was starting to feel like a torture session. We all cracked up and talked about salad for at least 2 minutes before we got back on to the chocolate quandary. Butter was not so much addressed as forbidden (bugger) and we were limited to 1 hot cross bun per day. She has got to be kidding me. There is only so much a person can give up. I thought this was the biggest loser challenge, not the cry over a bag of forbidden hot cross buns challenge. I better check the fine print.
On the exercise front, I am trying something new at the gym – bellydancing. It is run here once a week as a class and it is FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are all in tracksuit pants and t shirts and giving it a good old wiggle. What is wonderful is to have an instructor finally say “you are meant to wobble here”. After so many classes where nothing is allowed to wiggle (and let’s face it, when you are as overweight as I am, not much bloody doesn’t), this is a lot of fun. Also, much harder work than I thought. You have to isolate lower body and upper body movements from each other and use your core to control movements, so by the end your obliques have really had a workout. It also feels sexy, no matter how big you are. I have also started running again, which is great. In my late teens and early 20s I did a lot of running and I loved i
t. I ran the City to Surf twice and I would love to do it again. My first short term thing to do is to run the Mother’s Day Classic, which is a 4km run to raise money for breast cancer research. My mum is a breast cancer survivor (diagnosed in 2005) and an incredible inspiration to me. If she can go through surgery, chemo and radiotherapy, I can run 4km.We finished! This is my daughter Grace, my sister Kate, me and my mum at the finsh! The grown ups loook happy because we had all had coffee and a free massage.
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