Fat to Fantastic - Oxygen Covergirl here I come!

Well this will probably be the final post in my biosignature blog, its been a fascinating journey for me, not just to see the changes that I've made physically, but mentally and emotionally it has taught me a whole lot too. One particular aspect of my transformation that was completely unexpected and in some cases quite distressing was how other people have reacted to my physical change - I'm talking about people who've known me for a long time and even my family - it definitely hasn't all been positive, but it has taught me who is really there for me and who I can truly count on. It has taught me that I really am a very strong person and when I set my mind to achieving something I can do amazing things, it has taught me to only listen to those who know what they're talking about and to filter out noise from those who cannot deal with the mirror that I've held up to their own insecurities.

Most of all it has taught me that if you really want to achieve something, stay true to yourself and your vision and your goals, trust me, its worth it! :-)

so where to from here? Well I've got an amazing holiday to Ecuador lined up in Feb 2012 - I'll be ice climbing on some volcanoes! but before that, I've made the decision to go all the way and compete in a figure competition - the Victorian titles in September!
Oh my god - now I know I'm completely mad - stepping on stage in a sparkly bikini and stripper heels! This is soooo far out of my comfort zone it might as well be on another planet!

the way I look at it, is why not? I've come so far physically that a whole new world has opened up for me - even 2 months ago I wouldn't even have contemplated it - I was just aiming to do a photoshoot on my birthday to reward myself for all the good work I've put in. Now the door has opened to other opportunities, I'm going to explore everything that comes my way - its so exciting imagining what could happen from here!


lets just do a quick comparison of where I have come from to where I am now:

Before - Sept 2009

After - June 18 2011 - Even I'm amazed - hard to believe its the same person!!!

And here's my photoshoot pics ...I'll be entering the Oxygen Magazine Covergirl competition for sure! :-)

What a transformation!
If I can do it, anyone can - you just have to get started...

Wishing you all the best on your weight loss journeys!

Diamonds are a girls best friend...

When I started this whole journey with Biosignature, I had no idea what to expect, I guess it all sounded too good to be true - after all you can't spot reduce fat according to conventional medical wisdom, so if you've got a spare tyre that wont budge no matter how much weight you lose or saddle bags or those wobbly bat wings that us non teenagers are prone to...well sorry love just deal with it!

Well let me tell you it can be done and I'm walking proof - from 40, fat and frumpy to absolutely fabulous AND I HAVE ABS!! for the 1st time in my life...EVER!
I've been skinnier (according to the bathroom scales) than I am now - but I didn't have abs back then, I still had that annoying spare tyre.
I have biosignature to thank for getting rid of the spare tyre and the bat wings and the saddle bags - brilliant!

I'll be honest, its been hard work and at times the eating restrictions have been frustrating and there's lots of supplements, but that is exactly what it is that causes it to work, it is a systematic process targeting one issue at a time.
You'll probably have to really change your whole relationship and beliefs about food, and it'll feel very strange to start with, and yes exercise is also a very important element, but once you've got to grips with the clean eating lifestyle you'll never want to go back.

Trust me on this - you'll feel so much healthier, you'll just feel leaner and lighter and have a ton more energy than you ever imagined was possible, you'll look younger brighter and just a whole lot more alive.

so whats that got to do with diamonds?

Over on page 1 in my intro, I compared myself to a diamond that had been shaped and was just awaiting its final polish to bring out its true brilliance. As you know I have a photo shoot in 4 weeks time so I've been busting my (now) cute little bubble butt in the gym 6 days a week. However, last week I was in a total stress that I wasn't going to lean down in time to have enough definition to come through in the photos - I was even pushing my trainer to push me harder!
But yesterday that all changed. Now, I'm ready.
How do I know?
well I was just ex-foliating for my trial run fake tan (!I know, what a princess!) and I just happened to glance in the mirror...
and all of a sudden, there it was - right in the middle of my back...

a perfect diamond of muscle.

I've done it.

Baggy to Buff
Fat to Fabulous

see, its never too late - you just have to get started.

Assessment 11 - Tue 3rd May 2011: Totally Shredded!

Well its been a fantastic few weeks since my last assessment and I'm totally amazed at the results I've got this time round - I didn't think it was possible! we'll get to that in a sec.


so what else is new? Well at the last minute I decided to pop up to Sydney for the Australian Fitness Expo on 17th April - I had several aims in mind, 1stly to meet the Jamie Eason one of the top fitness models for Oxygen Magazine - she's gorgeous! I also wanted to chat to the Oxygen models to get some tips for a photo shoot - yes I'm going to reward myself with a professional photo shoot for all my good work :-)
I also wanted to find out about what is involved with competing as a figure model, whether I've got the right type of physique and proportions - I've now had 8 personal trainers ask me what competition I'm working towards, so I must be doing something right, and finally I wanted to talk to Michelle and Shannon from The Biggest Loser and get their advice on how to deal with negative reactions from unexpected sources.
watch out! Woman on a mission! 


The whole trip panned out better than I could have imagined! It was excellent. On the plane up to Sydney on sat night, the guy who sat next to me was HUGE obviously a VERY serious body builder - so I got chatting to him, which is not normally something I do on a plane - usually I just bury my head in a book, but I figured I could probably get some tips re figure modelling - any way this guy only turns out to be the current victorian bodybuilding champ and runner up in Mr Australia last year!  so I hung out with him, we went and got sushi and then I caught up with him for brekky the next day - very cool.
So I get to the expo 1st in line - when the doors open, I'm off! 1st stop ASICS stand, talk to Shannon - but he was not doing sunday, bugger.
Next stop, Australian Institute of Fitness stand - Michelle Bridges - she's not there! bugger.
OK off to the Oxygen Mag stand - hooray! 1st success - Jamie Eason is there looking fabulous. I showed her my fat photos and asked her if she thought I should have a go at entering the Oxy mag cover girl comp - HUGE compliment she said to me that I almost looked like one of them so to absolutely give it a go! well knock me down with a feather!

Photo shoot is booked for 18th June! yay!


Ok, back to the AIF stand - still no Michelle, bugger.


back to oxy stand and I got talking to Nicky Jankovic - thank you Nicky for spending so much time with me being so generous with your knowledge and advice about competing, training, photo shoot tips and negative people - Elisabetta Rogiani outfit in blue on its way... (god I'm being a label queen!)


back to AIF stand again - yay! finally Michelle is there, she's signing her book and there's a massive queue. I really want to find out what she tells her contestants about handling not just the physical change they go through but the mental and emotional aspects of their transformation - because getting the contestants head in the right space is what they have to get right so they can survive on the outside.
So I join the queue and when I get to the front, I showed Michelle my fat photos and photo of me at the top of Kilimanjaro. She was very encouraging and then horror of horrors - I started asking her about negative people and I burst into tears!!! oh shit!! how embarrassing! Michelle bless her, took it in her stride and told me to surround myself with positive influences - cool.
Time to go - very quickly!


So now I had about 1 1/2 hours before Michelle was doing a talk so I went round all the outfit stands and tried on stuff, but nothing really grabbed me. Time for a cup of tea and sit down at the stage where Michelle was doing her talk. 
I grabbed a seat and got chatting to some people in the audience when all of a sudden to everyones amazement, there was Michelle Bridges squeezing along my row and she came to stand in front of me and said 'I felt that I just had to give you a hug' - well I was completely blown away and gave her a big hug - wow! what a very sweet thing for her to do - I could feel the envy emanating from everybody in the audience! 
you could have knocked me down with a feather....again :-)
After that I was all a bit emotionally worn out so I headed off to the airport early so I could relax and process the whole day - and what a lot to process!


I had training the next day and I must have still been on a high - Aiden asked what I'd been up to because I was glowing!


very very cool.


ok so after all the positive feedback I got from Sydney, training has been a piece of cake - I can't wait to get to the gym every day. 
Trouble is training is about the only thing that seems to be going well at the moment - I so totally hate my job its such a depressing place to be and I'm so bored I've not been doing so well on my diet - I've been emotionally eating - ok so I haven't been eating cakes and bread or stuff like that, but I'll just have a few almonds or a few grapes or I'll just have an apple or another cup of tea - anything to distract myself from my job.
Easter was also a bit of a blow out - I actually bought a loaf of bread and 2 packets of biscuits!!! I can't even remember the last time I bought a loaf of bread! and there was the chocolate bunny that my trainer gave me - Aiden are you trying to make me fat??!!!


So I my goal all along has been to get to 12.5% body fat and given the last few weeks of not such good eating I wasn't terribly confident that I would have made much progress since my last assessment - especially since for some reason the last few days my stomach has been puffed up like a football. I'm not sure if its the new oestrogen supplements I'm on combined with the training supplements Aiden has got me on, but something is not quite right. 
Kat also wasn't impressed when she went through my food diary - waay too much fruit and apparently I'm the most all over the place client she's got!! and I thought I was actually very good...oh well. 
so to the measurements - fat pinches in the usual spots and....did I get to 12.5%??
Kat asked me what I was hoping the result would be, so I said 12.5%. Then she told me that I didn't make 12.5%... (bugger. I was so disappointed) - I made 11% instead !!!! 


11%!!!


WOW!! thats 2.5% body fat lost in 5 weeks - thats absolutely amazing - I thought it was supposed to get harder as you get leaner! and I've still got 6 weeks before my photo shoot - I could get down to 10% or even 9% which is not far off competition levels - check out my back - I'm completely ripped up!!

now for the balancing act - I don't want to get to much leaner than this on my upper body, but I do want my legs to lean down because they're lagging behind the rest of me, although there definitely has been progress in the last 2 months.


Next assessment is in 3 weeks - who knows what that could turn up as I'm about to double my training load - at the moment I'm only doing about 35 - 45mins weights/day 6 days a week, not much considering the results i've just got so if I up it to about 90mins /day I hoping that will really bring out the finishing touches - remember the picture of the polished diamond on the previous page? 
am sooo close!


:-)


till next time!

beer wenches, baggy trousers and a brilliant back!

it seems like ages since I last wrote anything and it also seems like lots has been happening!

where to start? lets go to Adelaide 1st - the rugby 7's was a great fun weekend, a group of 8 of us went and the 6 girls were all dressed as german beer wenches! the idea was to try and win the best dressed group prize of $1000 - we lost out to a chess set, but what a laugh the whole weekend was - everyone wanted their photo taken with the beer wenches :-)

here's me - how cute is the outfit!

I have to say I'm loving my new legs, thats what I think they are - new legs. I usually live in jeans and don't show them off, but I'm so thrilled with the results I've got working with Aiden - I'm really starting to get some shape and definition into them and my muscles are rock hard - even better than just after I got back from climbing Mt Kilimanjaro! 

heres all of the beer wenches (yes I did get the skirt shortened to show off more leg!)

 

this is why we like the rugby.... :-)

Naked Haka!! Woohoo!

ok so its not really relevant to biosignature and fat loss, but what the hell, I thought I'd throw it in for something different! :-)
so that was about 3 weeks ago, then the following weekend I was having another (!!!) wardrobe clear out of stuff that doesn't fit and I came across a pair of work pants that I bought only 9 months ago, probably about July last year. So I was well into my mountain training and had probably lost about 14kg at that point - out of curiosity I tried them on....

Wow! I'm totally tiny now - those are size 10! and I really do have abs! 

There's been plenty happening physically as well, in total, since Sept 2009 I have now lost 23 kg and weigh in at 53.6kg - I'm really looking forward to my next assessment in 2 weeks, as I'm hoping to crack the 12.5% body fat - that is my ultimate goal. 
Why 12.5%? I don't know, it just seemed like a good number to get to! :-)
At my last assessment the readings indicated that we really need to focus on the oestrogen issue which has been holding back fat loss on my triceps, hamstrings and to an extent my calves, trouble is my supplements haven't come through so I don't know if I'll get the result I want.

Having said that, what I will be able to get is a really clear idea of how much progress I've made purely from training. 
You see, back last year it took me 5 months to get from 14.8% body fat to 13.6% and 57.7kg to 54.2kg just before Christmas. Then Christmas caused havoc, I piled on 3kg and 2%BF virtually overnight!
Once I started training with Aiden and working smarter rather than harder (although what he puts me through is definitely not a walk in the park!) we achieved a better result - 15.5% BF to 13.5%BF in just 8 weeks - I'm so stoked about the progress I've made. Every week something changes, some new muscles emerge or a extra level of definition comes through, its really exciting to see where this could end up. 

I'm certainly putting in the hard yards - training 6 days a week with weights (hard and heavy), 1 session which is with my trainer (Ouch! usually takes 2 days for the pain to go away!) and I try and throw in a pilates or yoga session and maybe a run once a week as well.

That might sound like a lot of training, but Aiden has made it so easy and so much fun (having to be picked up off the floor cos my legs don't work...fun??? suck it up princess!!) that even getting up at 5:30 in the morning to get to the gym has become a no brainer! 

and when I'm getting results like this its all worth it - backtastic!

I can't wait to see what happens next!

Assessment 10 - Tue 22nd March 2011

Woohoo!!! Finally back to where I was before Christmas!! I can't believe its taken nearly 3 MONTHS to shift that bizarre fat gain from going home to England for 10 days.
3 MONTHS of busting my butt in the gym...or having it being busted for me (thanks Aiden!) and being (mostly) very strict with my diet


so I'm now sitting at a very tidy 54.2kg and 13.5% body fat - I lost the 1% I said I wanted to lose 4 weeks ago. 
I'm getting some really great definition through my back and abs (ABS!!! ) but I definitely don't look scrawny or brawny which is really cool and best of all its finally shifting from my hammies - 28mm down to 22mm - bring on Adelaide - my legs are going to look fantastic in the white stockings that go with my bavarian beer wench outfit for the rugby 7's trip :-)


next stop - cover girl for oxygen magazine!


well, why the hell not? I need a big goal to keep me motivated and my next mountain climb is at least 2 years away....


I'm going to have a beer
 :-)

Assessment 9 - Tue 15th Feb 2011

Good result - have lost 1.1% BF so back down to 14.5% and best of all its come off my stomach, very happy with that and also very handy as I'm going to be pouring myself into a very tight (even for me!) frock tomorrow for the Weary Dunlop lunch - breathing may be optional tomorrow!
I haven't lost any weight on the scales so it looks like I'm building up lean muscle which is pretty cool, I'm getting my definition back and not really surprising after the 'smashing' Aiden gave me last week!
Smashing is a technical term, Aiden my new personal trainer likes using it to describe just how hard he's going to make me work and boy did he! Oh my god, we did legs last week and 2 days later I couldn't walk...wonder if 3 sets of squatting with 40kg on the bar would have anything to do with it? hmm...

:-)

So far I've only had 2 sessions with Aiden, and I'm really enjoying it - its good to be pushed. Thats the trouble I find when I don't have particular goal to work towards, its so easy to slip into 'lazy' training doing the sane routine day in day out - well Aiden is the man to shake things up a bit.

Ok so 4 weeks before my next assessment, would be really cool if I can lose another 1% BF. I'm really focusing on getting some results on my legs as this is the one area that hasn't been responding very well to the diet, so will keep it really clean for the next few weeks.

till then
:-)

new favourite curry!

tried out a great curry last week from my excellent curry book - 'Curry: Fragrant dishes from India, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia'


its a fish curry that has battered deep fried chunks of fish in a wonderfully tangy yoghurt sauce - yum! could have eaten vats of it!
am posting it onto my recipe page - I modified it a bit from the actual book as I didn't have ingredients like chickpea flour and catfish - its supposed to be made with catfish but I substituted a nice basso fillet instead.


am making it again this week! yum!

Flying makes you fat....

well who knew?


Ok whatever leads me to this bizarre statement? 


Christmas? No instead of catching up with family I went on my own little holiday for 3 days up to Hamilton Island - that also meant I could totally stick to my eating plan - sure I had a few beers with a few people but nothing like I would have done had I been with family - so by the time I flew out to England on 27th I was still looking fab in my slinky white figure hugging Karen Millen lace tunic dress.


So in England, I stuck as much as possible to the eating plan - a couple of days I had organic natural yoghurt with blueberries and boiled eggs for brekky instead of chicken, and I think I ate potatoes twice and rice twice - my mother always like to stock up on gluten free stuff for me - cakes, biscuits, bread, cheese crackers that sort of thing, but I'd told her not to get anything so there was no issues there.
New Year was a big night but then isn't it always? My parents thought I was a bit odd eating chicken for brekky and not eating potatoes but they're fairly traditional like that :-)
I got a temporary gym membership to the local gym and did a couple of 5 km runs - so I didn't entirely stop exercising, even though I decided I'd give my body a rest.
So on the whole not much changed over Christmas and New Year except my location....


So why did I feel completely bloated? By the time I got back to Australia, the slinky Karen Millen had a definate pot belly and my beautiful size 6 jeans that I'd needed a belt on before I went to England were now exhibiting evidence of a muffin top!!!


Imagine my horror when I had my Bio Sig assessment on Jan 17 to find I'd piled on 3kg and 2% body fat!! And that was after 2 weeks being really strict with my eating, back in the gym and not having the horrible bloated feeling anymore


How is it possible that just 10 days in England has obliterated 5 months of blood, sweat and tears - and I do mean blood, sweat and tears - I'm completely devastated, not to mention very demoralized by the whole thing - and whats worse is that even another 2 weeks later after going to the gym every day and sticking entirely to my eating plan I still haven't lost the fat - unbelievable! after all the effort I've gone to its incredibly demotivating, I'm almost at the point of wondering why I bothered. 
It also doesn't help that my shoulders are so messed up that I can't train my upper body properly.


in a pretty bad space right now.


so what was it?
The Flying! I think most people notice that when they fly their feet and ankles swell up - me too, and my calves and I have been noticing for the last few years that my abdomen also swells - quite uncomfortable really.  So after flying up and back to Hamilton Island (6 hours) followed by 48 hours of flying for just 6 days on the ground messes up the body a treat so it goes into survival mode and stores as much fat as it can...


bugger.


so what am I going to do about it? 


well I've always been very good at motivating myself and having always exercised my whole life I know a fair bit about getting and staying fit, and when I have something to aim for like climbing a mountain I get so focussed that I push myself to do whatever it takes - training 2,3 even 5 hours a day, but right now I have no major goal and I'm feeling a bit lost as to how to get back to where I was just 5 weeks ago, how to get back the beautiful definition and shape I had...
so for the 1st time in my life I've hired myself a personal trainer.
I met Aiden on Friday, he works at Fitness 1st in Richmond and comes highly recommended by a friend of mine who owns her own sports company.
We sat down and chatted about what I've been doing up till now, where I want to get to, long term goals etc, and then he checked out my technique (very good), my posture (excellent) - then he got me to a selection of upper body exercises so he could get a gauge on the extent of the shoulder issue, he asked lots of questions, made suggestions and just observed - he came across as very calm, competent and knowledgeable - I'm really looking forward to working with him, this could be very good...


So, Aiden is going to put together a program for me do to every day and I'll catch up with him for a 1 on 1, once a week starting next Tuesday - can't wait! 
who knows I might just be entering comps soon...

Assessment 7 - Tue 14th Dec 2010

So whats news since last time?

well the Weary lunch was excellent and despite Melbournes weather doing its best to ruin things, I have to say I that I did look really good - the snow white form fitting Karen Millen was awesome - and very attention grabbing :-) Even got compliments from some of the rugby players themselves saying how fit I looked and what was my routine!

How cool is that - being asked by elite sports people what I was doing to be so fit...can't wait for the next lunch in Feb...

Amer, the guy who is fixing my shoulders even suggested I should try entering a body sculpting competition...interesting, not sure about that though - I'd have to be even more strict about my diet and exercise to lose another 5% body fat and its fairly dull as it is! Besides not only would I disappear, I don't like the body builder look - and fake tan orange is just sooo not my colour.. :-)

I also haven't been going so well on the exercise bit recently, having only managed 2 weight sessions and 1 cardio session a week for the last 3 weeks - not really sure why, a couple of times I've been out on a night and not felt like training the next day, 1 day my gym didn't even open (!) but I'm waking up really tired.

Sleep isn't the problem anymore - in fact, I can't get enough of it! but the last week or so I've been really lethargic and not recovering after a training session, which is a bit odd. I never normally have that issue - even when doing the ridiculous amount of training for Kilimanjaro I wasn't getting as tired as I am now.

It could be a combination of things, but Kat says its probably my body is still on adrenaline overload from pre climb - think it would be a really good idea to do absolutely nothing over Christmas...except eat of course! :-)

just as well I'm taking myself off for a relaxing mini break on christmas eve to 27th, then watching the ahses on 27th dec then will have 2 days enforced inactivity while flying home to England for New Year. That should give my weary body a nice little break. So just one more week of training to go - I can do that!

so whats my assessment telling me since last time 4 weeks ago - am doing extremely well! Body fat down to 13.6%!!! crikey thats 1.4% in 4 weeks and am weighing in at 54kg nearly another kg. Really good results - and to me thats surprising given how little I've been training. 

My back is so lean now I'm getting really good definition, and my tummy has virtually no fat on it at all - unfortunately I don't have the 6 pack abs showing cos I've got a lot of loose skin, but we're working on that - come on Gotu Kola.

My legs are still not losing fat in the same proportion as the rest of me, which is odd - I'm eating spinach, broccoli, brussels sprouts or cauliflower or all 4 every day and lots of the stuff too - apparently this shows I still have an oestrogen imbalance, so we're really going to work on that after Christmas. Good - lets have nice thin hammies and calves in 2011! :-)

The food bit is all good news - my brother is soo going to hate me when I tell him that not only do I get to eat meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, but I can now cook using BUTTER!!! 

yep thats right - got to eat fat to lose fat... so can also eat more avocados (about 4/5 a week - yum!!)  and can start adding in CARBS...

good carbs of course - brown or wild rice, sweet potato, pumpkin, quinoa or gluten free pancakes - PANCAKES!! haven't had pancakes for MONTHS - and my pancakes are always gluten free cos I'm coeliac, so no worries there

oh did I mention the FULL FAT CREAM?? mmmm...strawberries and cream....

right I'm off to fry up some turkey breast in butter, lemon juice, garlic and thyme with spinach, peas, cauliflower and sweet potato, followed by blueberries and strawberries with cream and cinnamon - yum!

:-)

Happy Christmas!

Assessment 6 - Wed 17th Nov photos

Assessment - photos! back, shoulders and arms really looking good...and my butt! very happy about that :-)
bring on shorts weather....

Assessment 6 - Wed 17th Nov

Good result today - lost 0.3% BF so bang on 15% and down to 54.9kg - how exciting have broken 55kg! can't wait to see my photos - my back, arms and shoulders are looking really fab - very buff!
Biggest area of improvement since the last assessment (at last!) is my calves - probably because the last 2 weeks or so I've been sleeping like a baby, and after 3 weeks of no fruit I can have berries again - woohoo! love my fruit


Its very cool when you bump into someone you haven't seen for literally years and they compliment on how fantastic you're looking - even better have got the Weary Dunlop lunch next week at Crown - not many people can carry off a skin tight white dress - watch out boys! :-p

Assessment 5 - Tue 26th Oct

Not such a good result this time, although my weight is down to 55.6kg a loss of about 1kg, my BF % has gone up by 0.5% so that puts me at 15.3% BF. 

I guess its not too surprising really as I've been off the diet for 4 weeks whilst climbing Kili and then being sick and I've only been back in the gym for 2 weeks. I also haven't managed to get into a good sleeping routine like I thought I would - been stressing about getting a new job! 

So now I've got a new job its time to focus properly on sticking to the correct diet and getting into a maintenance training routine - having got this lean I want to stay lean.

I've got to cut out fruit, I've been eating too much, generally about 4 pieces a day and I need to go heavy on the dark green veggies mind you I'm not really sure how I can increase how much I eat, I'm pretty good with the greens and have a big green salad for lunch most days as well as a combination of broccoli, cauliflower and brussels sprouts for tea. Trying to think what I could have to snack on thats green. 

The maintenance training routine is going to focus on doing weights and I need to do 3 days on 2 days off. Each session needs to be about 1 hour - 45 - 50 mins of weights split into legs 1 day, back, biceps,abs 1 day and chest, shoulders, triceps 1 day  + 4 mins tabatas on the rower (that means go very very hard for 20s, rest for 10s) - I tried it and 4 mins is plenty long enough!

I've got 3 weeks before my next assessment, so I'm aiming to be back to where I was pre - climb

Haven't got any photos from my assessment so I thought I'd just throw this one in cos I reckon I look pretty good! Lets go Racing!

and this one - cos I climbed a big mountain!

I'm back!

well its been 6 weeks since I last posted anything - seems like longer than that - so much has happened!

ok so lets do a quick catch up 

I CLIMBED MT KILIMANJARO!!!! 

Woohoo!

its was the hardest thing I've EVER done - mentally and physically - not for the faint hearted thats for sure! trouble was I got sick with a severe chest cough, fever and flu the day I left for Africa....could hardly get out of bed to drag myself to the airport...and it didn't get better the whole time I was away. I climbed the mountain stopping every 2nd or 3rd step to cough up my lungs and green goo - twice I broke down in tears cos it was so bloody hard - I nearly quit...

but I didn't....and I made it...and its was amazing once I got to the top, check out the photos!

I did say I probably wouldn't go to the gym for 3 weeks after Kilimanjaro  because I was sick of exercise - well I haven't, not because I didn't want to, but because I have just been sick - mind you the upside of this has been - lots of sleep!! 

I did say that once I got back I'd be getting a lot more sleep, well I think I've finally caught up on the last 3 months! :-)

so where am I at?

well I'm sooo glad to be back on my low/no carbs diet

CARBS ARE EVIL!

I've been eating anything and everything the last few weeks to try and get better, but I've felt like a total fat blob - now that is certainly not true (pick up my new size 6 tailored suit today....very excited! and the spray tan lady complimented me on my beautifully toned legs....bring on short shorts this summer!), but my body just doesn't like carbs anymore - and I'm talking about multigrain bread and brown rice here - so not even crappy carbs like white rice, white bread, sugar or pasta.

lean is the way to go - curry for breakfast again - yay!

I've also got back to the gym this week for the 1st time in 4 weeks - phew! how nice is it to be back training again - albeit not to the same extent as before - definately no more office block stairs for me!

well....until the next mountain... :-)

so now I've got at least another 2 weeks before my next assessment which  I'm looking forward to  - it will be very interesting to see whats changed.

I'm going to really focus on eating lots of broccoli, cauliflower and brussels sprouts and getting lots of sleep - lets see if I can make some progress on my calves and hammies!

Assessment 4

Wed 25th Aug

Its been 3 weeks since my last assessment  - seems like even longer! Its been a very busy few weeks work wise, training wise and social wise!

Writing my food diary has been like pointing an accusing finger at myself - it seems like every other night I've been out drinking and even though in most cases I've limited myself to 1 or 2 glasses of wine, and my eating has been exceptionally good in applying all the rules, it really feels like I've totally undone all my good work. 

The trouble is, being so tiny now, even 1 glass of wine a night is enough to completely upset my sleep, so I'm usually tired when I get up and as a result probably haven't been training as effectively as I should be, so of course I've been stressing about that a bit.

Work is also pretty busy right now in the lead up to Spring racing carnival, and I feel that my training time is starting to impinge upon work time so I'm not getting stuff done as well as I usually do - and I'm a bit stressed about that!
hmm...I've got a nice little -ve feedback loop going on with myself at the moment.

In 2 weeks it will change - when I head off to climb Mt Kilimanjaro - once I've done that I will have way more down time - and I'm going to be using it..all of it...I probably won't even venture to the gym for about 3 weeks afterwards! :-)

Ok so whats the result of all this craziness? well I have lost more weight - down to 57kg on the scales at fitness 1st and amazingly enough I've lost nearly 1% more body fat! I'm down to 14.8 % - wow! 

Even though when I started the modulation I was already at a low BF of 17.5%, in the last 7 weeks I've managed to lose nearly another 3%. This is really cool.

 

 As can be expected there are some areas not doing so well in light of the last few weeks - I have put a bit of weight of my stomach (due to stress!) and I'm not losing fat on my calves (due to sleep issues) and hammies (oestrogen) - so no surprises about that at all really.

 

So here's me now:

                                                

                                                

                                                          

                                             

                                                             

                                                             

                                                         

                                                         

                                                      

                                                          

                                                        

 Again I think, once I get back from my holiday, I'll be able to totally scale back the training to a maintenance level which will be much more relaxing and I think the sleep will fix itself as I won't be worrying about whether if I've done enough training to get up the mountain!

I'll switch to bikram yoga instead of dragging half a beach up and down an office building!

Other changes I've noticed - I am getting much better definition in my arms (yay!) and my shoulders are so lean that after training I notice theres a little wriggly vein visible on my left shoulder (I think thats quite cool) 

I bought a pair of pants for work just 3 weeks ago - size 6 (!!! I've NEVER been size 6!!) and they fitted 'snugly' shall we say.... and now? not quite falling off me, but definitely too big - I'm even contemplating getting them re-tailored to fit!

Even better, is that with the butt exercises that Nicola (at Teamfit gym) has shown me, my bum is not so flat and is beginning to round out a wee bit - watch out Kylie!

Bring on summer....I'm going to be looking amazing!

so whats new on the diet front? This is where it gets even better - I can eat bananas again!!! yay - I love bananas, and have really missed not eating them, and I can have a glass of red wine every day - have probably been averaging that the last few weeks anyway - (oops!) but now its official :-)

The things, now I'm officially supposed to be drinking red wine, I'm not really sure I want to anymore - because it upsets my sleep so much! I'll have to find a happy medium.

otherwise, not much change - keep up the protein intake, keep up the cruciferous veggies

I won't be having another assessment for about 7 weeks - Kat is on holiday, so it will give me time to get settled into a post mountain routine, where hopefully sleep is a much more prominent feature! :-)