Quarterly Challenge - 1st Quarter ends 31/03/09

[Fireball]

BTW Grilled chicken and rice sounds ok to me.Why dont you think it's ok? Unless you're omitting to mention that it is special fried rice from your local take-away. The only thing I guess is that you colud have added vegetables, hmm maybe brown rice - but I think you need to look at the picture of what you've eaten over the whole day/week to see if it is balanced.

[mumnbub]

Hi Fireball- good on you for getting up and going for that walk around the carpark when you felt stressed, i bet you felt better afterwards right?
When you lead a busy lifestyle it can be hard to get some exercise in but you dont HAVE to exercise for 1 hour continuesly every day, break it up if need be, wake up 10 min earlier and do some sit-ups or push-ups, when you get home do some star jumps just before having a shower, do some lunges as your waiting for the kettle to boil for your morning coffee/tea.... there are plenty of chances to get small amounts in and something is better then nothing at all.

But the good news is you can still lose weight without exercise- I have been doing it for about a month now, only just got back into exercising. If you know your not going to be doing any exercise then you wont need to eat as many caleries as you would if you were exercising so maybe reduce your portion sizes- but remember to up it again when you do get exercise in! I am having a piece of toast now when i get back from my morning walks to regain some of the energy i used up during the walk.

Keep up the fantastic effort and continue walking around the carpark when stressed- will do you good

[Fireball]

114.5 Yippee I lost 1kg. Now I'm back to where I was 2 weeks ago before I put 1kg on.

Thanks. I will look at where I can squeeze in chunks of exercise. You do need at least one 15 minute chunk to improve cardiovascular fitness but for now any that I do is better than none.

I asked my doctor for advice about weightloss for my daughter who had physical issues and couldn't exercise - my doctor said, "Losing weight is mainly about your diet". I thought about it and it's true. If your not exercising you need to eat less. If you exercise you need to allow for it, so it really is about balancing your diet to match energy used.
This week aims
* Increase my exercise - try to fit in my walk program
* increase sleep towards 8 hrs
* deal with stressors

[mumnbub]

Hi Fireball- it is true that you can lose without exercise, I can lose 1kg a week with just a good diet. But it is good to hear your trying to get more exercise in. Getting more sleep will help with stress as well, I dont cope without min 6 hours

[Fireball]

I felt stressed today and headed out to the car park. It does work. I am so pleased. I did dwell the thought of buying some treats from the charity boxes this afternoon. Self-torture. I'm pleased I resisted bt it is such a slim thread of differnec betwenn compulsively buying and resisting.

[Fireball]

Had a good a day and feeling really motivated.
One issue I have is keeping this up. I've decided I should come up with a special reward at the end of 4 weeks as I usualy do well for a few weeks then slide. I need to develop the habit.

[Fireball]

I've been really strict on my diet + started my 30 minute walks + little chunks of exercise - like parking my car at the furtherest end of the car park instead of near the building, and going for a walk when I feel stressed.
I feel light so I weighed this morning and you could have knocked me down with a feather
I'm 113.5kg - lost 1 kg since Thursday! OMD I'm in shock. I will up my Kj a bit as I dont want to lose weight too fast and look like a SharPei.

[mumnbub]

Hi Fireball- I would hold off with the kj increase, your body does fluctuate badly some weeks so it might not all be fat loss. I would see over 2 weigh ins first and if your starting to see your consistantly losing to much then adjust. you dont want to up it and find it was just extra fluid loss and then gain weight.

Great to hear your upping your exercise, it all sounds fantastic for someone who is a very busy person. Your doing more than me at the moment lol, i dont work, just look afte a toddler so i should be getting a good workout in every day. Now that my son is feeling better will try for one today.

[Fireball]

my weight is dropping off - down to 113 today.
Why? I figure it is because I dont usually fully stick to what I should be doing and now I am strictly following what I should do it works. I am:
* sticking to my diet
* exercising more
* drinking low fat milk. This may be very important for me as I drink lots of coffees. I am trying a low fat high calcium milk. I usually don't like the low fat ones finding them too watery. I don't know if having the extra calcium gives it more body, but I have found the Boost one is good. It isn't the same as high fat but I feel content on it.

The big joke is that I had decided to try using the hospital soup diet, not too strcitly ie have more food, but to try the soup. Then 2 funny things happened 1. my weight started dropping rapidly 2. it is going to be 41 degrees for 3 days then 39. I have bought all the veg so I still made it. My freezer is already full so I had better like cold soup.

MumnBub - you may not have a job but I wouldnt say you dont "work". Raising a baby is one of the most demanding things you can do. And if you dont have the support of a partner, even more so. Everything you do takes extra planning, time and having to make extra allowances for things. So good on you; keep up the good work.

BTW When my children were little we used to put the music on and dance around the lounge for ages. They loved it and it helped keep me fit.

[mumnbub]

It sounds like your doing really well, making small changes can be enough to get things moving again. I usually hate drinking no fat milk but in coffee i dont care too much, its if i have cerial that i must have full cream milk or i cant stand it.

Some days I do get up and do funny dances with my son- he tries to copy me which is so cute lol, have been trying to teach him to jump so i jump enough times to work up a sweat just trying to demonstate, caught him trying to copy my lunges one day so now i use it as fun time for him and exercise time for me, it might only be 5 min but we both have fun doing it.

[mumnbub]

Ok, doing well today. Had my smoothy this morning and even rememberd to take my pro biotic and omega 3. I have not long finished my fat burner dvd and am so happy that i did it, after 30 min i was trying to convince myself it would be ok to stop after all 30 min is still a good workout, in the end my desire to be healthy won and i did the whole 45 min
I had a really nice salad sandwhich for lunch without cheese or mayo so am happy with my choice. Dinner will be grilled pork butterfly steak with steamed veggies.

So back into the swing of things and WILL lose 1+ kg this week

[Fireball]

Good on you for following your plan and pushing yourself with the exercise! Developing that discipline will all help in the long run. And eveyr little bit helps.

One of the guys at work had a great idea. His New Year's resolution was to have 1 resolution each month - either to take away or to add. He choses something and then has to stick to it for the month. By then it's a habit. At the end of the month he can chose to keep doing it or not but then starts a new resolution, eg. January he gave up drinking Ice Coffee as he usually has 3 a day. Next month probaly somethin to do with exercise. It makes sense just to tackle 1 thing at a time and work on it until it is a habit. By the end of the yaer he will have 12 things he does different than at the start of the year. Brilliant.

[mumnbub]

Been a great day for exercise! My son was in day care today so once I dropped him off I headed to the park for a run- yep! a run. I did 2 laps of gogging which in total was about 10 min so am very proud of that!

Later in the day I did my fat burner dvd as well and felt great. I will be sore in the morning though lol- thankfully its the sort of pain i enjoy.

Food has not been perfect, had 2 coffee's, my shake for breakfast, early lunch had 2 sushi rolls, a few hours later had a banana sandwhich then dinner i grilled a meat pattie and had on toast with grilled onion, tomato, avo, lettuce, cucumber, cheese and bbq sauce. - actually i guess its not all that bad, could have done without the grilled pattie (was a fair bit of oil in the pan afterwards) but other than that there was nothing that stands out as being really unhealthy.

So I guess its been a good day I also treated myself to an eyebrow wax seeing as i did not have my son and then did a home hair dye this afternoon as i have not done anything since July last year when i got foils put in- needless to say my regrowth was half my head lol.

Am planning on going for a walk in the morning as long as its not raining- been getting a few morning storms lately.

Hope everyone else is doing well- is getting quiet here and its still early days.

[mumnbub]

Managed to get a workout in today- did not go for a walk as was feeling lazy but then felt guilty so when bubs went for a nap I got stuck into my workout dvd. It was a great workout- I seemed to be able to push myself a bit more than i usually do so felt great.

After such a great workout i did not want to spoil it so had some rice paper rolls for lunch- normally i have some salmon in them but decided to use up a bit of chicken that was in the fridge, chicken works well!

So its been a good day so far, not snacking at all and great workout. only downside as usual is the coffee which i just cant give up and even now sitting here complaining about how i cant give up i am thinking of putting the kettle on! Its not about the cafine- i know that as i cope fine having decaf but prefer the taste of normal coffee.

But at the end of the day if its just cofee thats my issue then i am doing well i think. Would like to give it up eventually but maybe that can happen later down the track- while i can still lose weight i will still drink it.

[Fireball]

MumnBub. It sounds like you're going great. I wouldn't worry too much about the coffee unless it is a particular problem. We all have to have 1 vice. LOL I swapped to decaf because caffiene affects me - it leaves me feeling physcially stressed. Mind you I'm not wrapped in having decaf, I gather the processes they use to remove the caffeine mean it is quite unhealthy to drink. Some research is now suggesting a small number of coffees a day may actually be good for you!?

112.5kg Thursday weigh in. YES!!! a 1/2 kg loss I can't believe how well I am sticking to my plans. My challenge is going to be keeping it up. It is really hot here so I'm not doing much exercise but I'm still doing some. Even though it's been 42+ degrees I still park my car at the back of the car park.