Still alive!

It was definitely a fun weekend. London is always a wonderful place to visit for a long weekend, you never run out of things to do. We ate out a lot + alcohol wasn't exaclty banned, but I'm pretty happy how well I did. I did check my weight yesterday when we got home and I was quite pleasantly surprised that it was only a 900g gain from last week. I'm putting that entirely down to the alcohol and lots of sodium, it'll vanish soon enough. :) I didn't really even drink that much in all fairness, think I had about 2-3 drinks a night and after that I just had enough. Previous years I've gone absolutely mad with the booze, maybe I'm getting old?

I also had a job interview today! Went quite well, I was this splash of colour amongst all the black & white and dark colours haha.

 

And back to my normal workout routine tomorrow, hooray!

Long weekend away

The rest of the week is going to be very odd for me. I am going up to London tomorrow to meet up with a bunch of friends. This means alcohol, lots of eating out, no working out.. On the other hand we will most likely be walking a lot, shopping and sight seeing being something we've planned. I'm quite confident that I'll be able to stick to IF and eating healthy, just need to figure out what drinks I can have without feeling insanely guilty. Maybe vodka and diet lemonade. Or sugar free mojitos (one of my friends makes incredible mojitos, would be a crime to say no to him!). Oh we'll see.

As I'm only coming back home on Monday afternoon, I'm also skipping this week's weigh in. Even if I had a scale at the place I'm staying at, it'd give me an unreliable reading. I learned it such a long time ago that sticking to one scale is one of the most important things during weight loss. Using the same scale will give you the most reliable results, as the configuration and placement is the same week after week. We actually have two scales in the house and the readings can be incredibly different. I'll most likely have a look when I get home on Monday to see how much damage I've done, but the official weigh in will have to wait til next Sunday. :)

I also made a nice schedule for 30DS the other night but various things have just screwed it up completely. I haven't actually started the program this week, I've just gone for long walks (again). So yeah, going to start 30DS on Monday when I'm back home. I think a break from these programs will do my back good in all fairness.

Oh and I've gone pink! It's not a permanent colour, it says that it'll wash off in 6-8 washes. Just about perfect for this weekend haha! There's also a possibility of landing a job in the near future so I'll most likely have to cover it up anyways. Sad times.

Have a wonderful rest of the week everyone!

Progress pictures and rambling

I was so right yesterday when I said it was just sodium build up that caused the 300g gain. Made sure to stay away from salty food yesterday and drank a lot of water, which resulted in the scales giving me the magical number 78,6kg this morning. 800g loss from yesterday. :)

I'm also changing workout programs today. As much as I love Body Revolution and it's given me fantastic results, I need some change or I'm going to get bored. I think I'm going to go through 30 Day Shred, it is far more low impact than BR and it'll probably be a lot more suitable for my back as well. I might complete 30DS and then go back to BR to finish off Phase 3.

And the pictures! What I'm most happy about is that the stretchmarks on my sides and next to my bellybutton are starting to fade. Other than that I don't see that much change to a month ago, which annoys me slightly.

WI 16: +0.3kg + progress

Can only blame myself for that gain, yesterday's takeaway dinner most likely left some sodium build up in my system and that 300g is water weight. Awful self discipline, haha. We were dogsitting (five dogs running around the house all night!) and my other half's parents wanted to get us dinner as a thank you. Obviously not a huge gain and it'll vanish by next week, but still won't stop me from beating myself up about it. :D

And measurements! Numbers in brackets is the measurement taken on 17th March. Yeah, it's been five weeks instead of four, I had that rest week in there when I was feeling ill.

Weight: 79,2kg (80kg)
Arms: 33cm (32,5cm)
Bust: 102cm (102,5cm)
Waist: 76cm (77,5cm)
Belly: 96cm (98cm)
Thighs: 60,5cm (61,5cm)

My arms are bugging me so much! :D I know that's muscle growth but I also can't seem to get rid of the fat under my arm, making my arms feel bigger and bigger. My arm fat will probably be one of the last things to go, thighs being another slow one.

But despite my weight not going down as fast as I'd want, all the other measurements are definitely showing that I'm doing good progress. Very happy about it. Pictures to follow. :)

Pre progress check jitters and another spring hype

Ok let's start this post with positive things. This week has been absolutely fantastic weather wise, couldn't wish for better spring really. Clear skies, sun shining and it's warm! Out of all my workouts this week I think I've only done one indoors, I've just gone for long walks every day instead. Decided to take my camera with me and took quite a few pictures! Enjoy. :)

And to the negative part of this post. I'm honestly not looking forward to my progress check tomorrow. I don't quite know why, but I'm just being incredibly negative about it. Once again I don't see any change when I look in the mirror, but that's been the case every time so far. I'm just probably overthinking it and I'm sure I'll see awesome progress when I take the pictures, but I'm just nervous! Also keep thinking that I haven't exercised enough to lose weight this week. Argh.

Anonymity

A friend of mine linked this picture to me earlier today. And unfortunately it seems to be incredibly true. I read a lot of different fitness blogs and every single one keeps getting spammed by people who only want to upset the blogger. Every time I read about it, it just makes me wonder.

I'd quite like to know what makes people behave that way. I know that the internet makes people brave - you are safely behind a nickname and you don't really need to deal with the consequences after you've said something nasty to someone. I'm guessing that if the conversation would happen face to face, a lot of things would be left unsaid.

It usually seems to happen to people who are bettering themselves. I've seen all kinds of rude comments both in games and on forums / websites / blogs. Can it just be a simple case of jealousy? Is it easy to take your bad mood out on someone, who is obviously doing well?

And of course the biggest question of them all. What do these people think they are gaining out of being rude to others? Are they hoping that someone would just stop living a healthy life and just start stuffing their face with burgers and pizza? Or that they'd just suddenly stop trying to be better at a hobby they enjoy? To me it just gives even more determination to do well.

It's a bizarre world.

Food!

Ever since I was a kid I never liked cottage cheese. I just found the texture of it so disgusting that I could barely finish a spoonfull of it. I was like that with a lot of things, but over time most of these food dislikes have disappeared (tomatoes, cheese, gherkins, onions..). And as of today, so has the dislike for cottage cheese! :D

We had a tub of the stuff in the fridge and I just simply got curious. One tiny spoonfull later I was hooked to the stuff. It was absolutely nothing like I remembered. And it went so well with my lunch today as well.

There's one flaw in my meal - the processed fish. I would've preferred to have some fresh salmon with it all but couldn't find any so had to settle for the fish fingers. It was amazingly good though. :D Fish, couscous, garlic peppers, mixed salad and cottage cheese. On top of that I also used ketchup and sweet chilli sauce. According to MyFitnessPal it all added up to 584 calories, leaving me plenty for dinner. :)

Exercise wise my day consists of a long walk and a front of the body workout. I'm so addicted to walking lately, it's so sunny and warm outside that I just want to make the most of it while it lasts. Because you know, the English summer isn't that brilliant.

Pre-walk & being slightly bored in the evening, went a bit mad with my hair haha!

And to finish off this post, a picture of our two Schnauzer puppies Coco and Oakley enjoying the sun. :)

WI 15: -2.2kg

Well, what a nice surprise! :D If this is what intermittent fasting does to you, I'm very happy. I'm not looking to lose quite this much every week though, I prefer to do it slow as it's healthier. I've nearly hit the same number as I did my first weigh in (-2.6kg), when I lost all that water weight from my body. Good stuff.

I've been struggling with my back this week though, the back of the body workouts just seem to put too much stress on it for some reason. I never had an issue with them before, just this week. My front of the body workout + cardio is completely pain free as well. Might just skip the back workout on Tuesday to rest my back a bit more.

No longer a pufferfish!

Was browsing some old pictures today and one picture caught my eye. Puffy side profile of my face, looks quite horrifying. Guess I should take this as a progress picture in a way, it just shows how much I've actually lost so far. :D The first picture was taken 28th May 2012, second one today.

Dem calories!

So I was checking something in MyFitnessPal and it kinda made me chuckle. I tracked my lunch earlier and apparently half a pizza takes away 2 147 483 648 calories from my budget. :D Funny bug, the whole thing was just going spastic. Had to redo the entry for it to work properly again.

And yeah I'm aware of my screen being cracked, works fine so not going to spend over 100 pounds to fix it. :D

later edit: never noticed the minus there so changed the wording a bit haha!

Stereotypes and over the top people

I read a gaming forum daily, and the health & fitness forums over there never stop to amaze me with the amount of dribbling idiots post there. Now, I'm not saying I'm an expert with all this stuff but there's two things that constantly come up.

"Don't ask for advice here, go to a professional website."
I mean what? Just because it's a gaming forum, it doesn't mean that people don't know what they're talking about. This is just stereotyping, not every gamer in the world is an overweight nolife who lives in their mum's basement. You get as many idiots on any website you go to, posting on a bodybuilding forum doesn't make you an expert.

 Not every gamer is like this! :D

"It's all or nothing."
There was this thread about Coke Zero and if you should drink it or not. A lot of people seem to have the all or nothing mindset, where you must always drink water and eat salad and never have anything that's considered bad for you. Being healthy is a lifestyle, you are allowed to treat yourself every now and then. It's not about banning all the delicious foods you love and never even looking at them again. Unless you go absolutely mad and stuff your face with 5000 calories, you'll be absolutely fine. And seriously, out of all the sodas you could drink, Coke Zero has to be one of the best options out there...

You're allowed to eat more things than just leaves.

And just to ramble about my own issues for a bit! :D For the past few days I've really struggled to hit my calories. I want to stay above 1200 every day but I've cut down on so many calorie dense foods and drinks that I'm not hitting my targets anymore! I know how incredibly important it is to eat enough when working out so I'm just a bit annoyed. I just can't help it, I'm feeling constantly full so eating extras outside lunch and dinner are a real challenge at the moment.

Doctor's appointment, yay..

Going to see a back specialist today. It's my second visit to this same specialist, today it's time to decide if I want to go through with the back op or not. I'm quite torn about it in all honesty. I'd like to get rid of this problem to be able to live my life normally again, but I've read so many stories about people actually being in less pain before having spinal fusion surgery. Some people have actually said that they've been on pain meds ever since the surgery. Then again there's also the good stories about people being able to do whatever they like without having to worry about their spine.

I'm at least going ahead with getting all the scans and tests done. I'd like to know exactly how damaged my spine is.

Time to mix things up a bit!

In order to try and get rid of this silly plateau I've been stuck at for ages, I'm going to change things around a bit. Exercise wise I'm going to start doing other things on my cardio days, such as swimming, walking and cycling. I'm still a bit unsure about cycling as it could be quite painful, but I suppose I'll just have to see how it goes. I'm obviously gonna stick to the resistance workouts I've been doing so far, cardio is just a lot easier to replace with something else.

On top of that I'm going to try a different way of eating. A friend of mine used intermittent fasting during his weight loss process and has been talking very highly of it ever since I met him. IF is simply just about eating your calories in a 6-8 hour time frame and fasting for the rest of the day. This is pretty much what I do anyways with the exception of sometimes eating quite late in the evening, but it shouldn't be too big of an issue in all fairness. I've chosen my "let's stuff my face" period to be between 12 noon and 8pm, also going to be a bit more religious with counting my calories from now on.

I've also been tempted tonight! The in laws bought me a Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bar, I'm quite proud to say that I didn't even feel like eating it instantly! At 110 calories it's quite a heavy treat, but I'm sure I'll be able to budget it in tomorrow. :) Yum!

Talk about determination.. :p

WI 14: +0.8kg

I'm getting so fed up with this plateau. Need to mix things up for a few weeks, maybe swap my cardio to something else than the BR workout. Just annoys me that I dont see progress on the scales.

Spring!

The weather has been so awful over here for so long now that any bit of sunshine makes me incredibly happy. I wanted to take advantage of the fantastic weather and went for a long walk, I probably spent close to an hour out there. And can you blame me?

I also bought myself some earrings! I can't even remember when I've worn earrings as an all day thing, but I thought that I'd love to do that again. Most of my earrings are either incredibly uncomfortable or just too big to use all day (especially when gaming, most of my earrings start stabbing me when I wear my headset), so had to order new things! These are just incredibly simple circular barbells, don't want anything fancy. :) And as I haven't worn any earrings in my piercings, my earlobes are on fire now. :D

Inspirational things

I finally entered the magical world of Pinterest last night. I just opened the health & fitness boards and started browsing. The amount of wonderful exercise plans, recipes and motivational posters on that board is just amazing. I even started my own board after a while just to keep all those nice things in one place.

http://pinterest.com/mmmeeria/health-fitness/

I'll try to add as much on there as possible as I browse Pinterest, I should have a nice collection of useful links and images for people.

It's working!

It has taken me three months to start noticing very big differences in my body. Taking pictures frequently really helps me notice things, I don't think I'd see anything change if I didn't.

Arms. There's two pictures of me I absolutely hate because my arms look so massive in them. The second picture was also the picture that made me realise that I need to change my lifestyle and quickly. First one taken in April 2012, second Christmas 2011. Between the two I had probably lost 5-10 kilos but it just didn't show.

And this is what my arm looks today. You can also see all that loose skin on my neck, holy cow. :D

I wore this same top when I took the first pictures (at the start of BR) and I can just tell I've lost weight. This top is insanely loose. Can see it quite well in the arm picture as well but here's another one!

And just to compare my posture as well. I took the usual front and side progress pictures but I didn't really notice a big difference in the front one so not posting that one, but my posture is starting to be amazing. I'm standing more upright than I used to, it makes me feel so tall. :D Posting the first picture as comparison too.

The spring is finally starting to arrive to England! <3 I am absolutely loving the sun and these progress pictures have just made my day even better. :)