End of Week 2 of 12WBT

Week 2 was a tough week. I was taken aback by how challenging it was and turned out to be and how unequipped I was to deal with it. I was low-vibe pretty much all week. Tired, crumpy (that's a mix of crabby and grumpy), fed-up - you name it, I felt it.

It was only on Sunday when I was trying to re-group that I realised that what I had been feeling should not have come as a surprise. I had thrown myself into the 12WBT 110% and nearly burnt myself out. Not surprising given that is pretty much what I do with everything.

What's my favourite saying again? The one about the definition of insanity being about doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome. Ta da! Did it again. There's a certain irony in that. So, I had exercised like a maniac, ate fresh and tasty but not enough, didn't drink enough water and didn't get enough sleep. You don't have to be Einstein (another of my favourite sayings) to know that I was charging head-first on collision course with fatigue.
Even though the weekly weigh-in is tomorrow, I have a doctor 's appointment this afternoon to go through the results of the pathology tests I had last week - all part of my 56-year road service that the doctor said would be a good idea. So I had a quick peek at the scales this morning. I don't usually do this - I am pretty disciplined about only getting on the scales on Wednesday weigh-in day because, frankly, I don't want to focus on weight because obsessing about my weight is what got me in this mess in the first place.

Anyway, I have lost 2.5kgs this week, making it a total of 6 kilos on the 12WBT (7 kilos if you count the 1kg I lost in the 12WBT Pre-season, and 16.5kgs all up since I started swimming on 17 September last year). I will do my proper Wednesday weigh-in tomorrow. Even though my primary aim from this program is to get fitter and manage stress, it is great to know that there has been some loss too. It is now 'odds on' that it may actually be fat not water that I have lost.

Week 2 - what a bla

It is Sunday, 24 February 2013, and I am nearly at the end of Week 2 of the 12WBT. And what a 'bla' week it was. Tied, cranky and hungry but worst of all, I don't feel like I have had any good sleep.

Last night was a write-off. I have arthritis in my neck, back and leg and when it is about to rain it gives me grief. So why don't I use my brain and use some anti-inflammatories to make things a little bit more bearable?
Who knows, it is probably like having your period take you by surprise each month. How many decades do we women have them for and yet, each month, it is the same response (well, from me at least) - "Oh, that is why I am feeling crappy". I can't use That Time Of The Month (TTOTM) anymore but I am still doing the same old, same old things with my pain management.

I will digress for a moment and just mention that when I first saw the acronym TTOTM on the 12WBT Capital Challenge Facebook page (it's for Canberra people doing the 12WBT) I was flummoxed. I ended up having to parade my ignorance and put up a post asking what it meant. And when I got told other members of the page also admitted they had also been wondering what it meant!That's what I love about getting older. It frees you of the fear of not asking something because you are too embarrassed. Anyway, back to my original topic - feeling bla this past week.

On the 12WBT we are being taught not to lose sight of our goals and to revisit them. And to remember what our 'commitment' was - or rather, what the commitment we made IS. So that is what I am going to do. And I am going to stop beating myself up that I didn't do all the exercise I had planned this week. But I am also acknowledging that although I didn't do all I had planned, I did do more than I would have done in the past (one BodyPump class, one Gym Circuit class, one Masters swim squad and one other swim) and I gave 100% to each activity).

So, my lesson from Week 2 is to learn from the experience but not dwell on the past, which I cannot change.

My one month goals ...

(due week starting Monday 4 March 2013) are to:

 

 

Lose 5kg (goal achieved 26 February 2013)

 

Swim 200 metres butterfly non-stop

 

 

Swim 1km freestyle non-stop in under 35 minutes

 

 So, I have now put them out into the universe so now I just have to keep calm and just f...ing do it!

 

 

The "Perfect Pair"

I have searched high and low on the internet and in shops for a swimsuit that is suitable for a big busted woman to do some serious laps in. I have so many unsuitable purchases hanging on the back of my bedroom door, tags still on, bought in a moment of desperation that I could just about open my own shop. The one pair of togs I found that I like are no longer available (isn't that always the case!). Their days are numbered and the race has been on to find their replacement.

I have lost count of the hours I have spent trawling the internet trying to hunt down that elusive 'Perfect Pair'. So often I have got really, only to have my heart drop when I see that they only go up to size 16.

My needs are simple. First and foremost they must fit. I need coverage but I don't need something like it is out of the 1920s.

I don't want matronly. Nor do I want heavy-duty fabric that practically drags you under the water. And I definitely don't want one with bra cups that stick up out of the water like something Madonna used to wear. In fact, no kind of padding - lord knows I don't need any bigger boobs.

I want light, fast material that makes it easier for me to swim. I also want legs that aren't cut so high at the back that my bum falls out or so high at the front that I need a full Brazilian wax. And a nice bright colour (I hate navy) would be nice.

Swimsuit manufacturers, it is time to get real, for goodness sake. In my Masters swim squad the majority of us haven't seen size 16 since our teen years. In my case that is 35 years ago!

But, be still my beating heart, I think I may have finally found a pair that suits me. And I had a choice of colours. How amazing is that! I have ordered and now the wait begins to see if I have my Perfect Match.

This may be the swimsuit of my dreams - my Perfect Pair

My inspiration

My Inspiration Board only needs one picture. My greatest inspiration is my Dad. On 21 August this year it will be 5 years since my dear Dad passed away.  He was 92. I was there with him at the end, holding his hand. I wasn't ready to let him go but I told him he could go to sleep - and he did.

After he passed away I shaved him and helped the nurses wash him and put him in clean clothes. Watching someone die of kidney failure is hideous. It was the most awful 10 days of my life and I learned a lot in that time - about loss and grieving and how each person approaches difficulties differently.

I miss him. We spent a lot of time together. I liked him. He was a good man. The pain is not raw any more but some things can still make tears come to my eyes.

I can remember how he taught me to dance by standing on his feet. How he spent hours driving me to swimming, ballet and netball. How he never missed a sporting match or a swimming carnival or a sports day. How he kept working and playing golf until he was in his mid-80s. How was still able to beat me playing squash when I was 18 and he was nearly 60. How people respected his opinion and common sense. How he was always there for me. How he listened to me and, only if asked, would offer me advice. How he let me make my own mistakes. How he knew I would learn from those mistakes. How he never said to me "I told you so!" How he was always there to pick up the pieces. How I trusted him absolutely. How he was always on my side.

When I was a young girl I used to sit on his lap and twirl his hair while he sang You Are My Sunshine to me. I still love that song. I have a copy of the words to the song in my lounge room. It makes me happy and sad at the same time.

It is not loose, it is lose!

One of my more memorable traits is being obsessive compulsive. It shows itself in many and varied ways. Over the years I have managed to control some of the compulsions. I no longer turn lights on and off and on and off, but I have been known to check that the stove is off multiple times. I make sure all my coat hangers are all turned the same way in the wardrobe. I fold my undies in a particular way. It can be exhausting, living in this head. But on the plus side, I am an ace when it comes to tidying cupboards. And if you want a bag packed perfectly then I am the person to see.

Because I have done a lot of editing and proof-reading over the years, I am obsessive about spelling - and the correct use of apostrophes. My friends have a lot of fun with me if I make a spelling mistake or put an apostrophe in the wrong place on my Facebook page.

Since being on the 12WBT I have been driven to distraction by two simple mistakes that appear again and again on the on-line forums (and yes, that should be 'fora' but I am not that obsessive). I have been tempted to say something on one of the on-line forums but I thought better of that and decided to put it down here. Then it done and I can let go of it!

The first is the use of 'lose' and 'loose'.

People lose weight; things become loose. An easy way to remember the correct usage is this sentence:

When you lose weight your clothes become loose

The second is the use of 'lie' and 'lay'. (Dare I say it, but Mish is guilty of this one.)

You lay things out. You lie down. You can remember the difference by this sentence:

I lay my clothes out at night before I lie down in bed.
 

Be kind to yourself

I am a big girl. I haven't always been that way. I was a very thin child, a slim teenager (though I thought I was fat - looking at all those photos from the 1970s has made me realise I was slim and healthy).



That's me in the front
- aged 6

At 11 years of age

I remember one of my older brothers commenting on the size of my tummy when I came home from ballet one evening. I was about 15. My body dysmorphia must have started then. I don't remember a time in my teenage years when a Monday didn't start without a new diet. And so it went on ... Bad choices in food extended to bad choices to men. I got married in my mid-20s to someone I adored. It wasn't reciprocated. I must have ignored any warning bells that rang in my head about him. I ignored my friends' warnings about him. And I certainly ignored my parents' warnings.

Aged 25

Aged 15 - with my parents

He managed to convince me I was stupid, fat and ugly. He hated my hair long but when I cut it off to make him happy his first comment on seeing me was that he preferred it long. Any money I wanted to spend was, according to him, wasteful. Any money he wanted to spend on himself was, of course, okay.

I became increasingly distanced from my friends, none of whom he liked. We had a child. I was in the labour ward and all my husband could do was whine about how hungry and how tired he was. To shut him up the nurses put him in a bed in another delivery room with a plate of sandwiches. He thought it was because he was so charming. He was as delusional as I was. I realised that I only wanted one baby in my life and it wasn't my husband. We limped along for another year and separated. I had 37 cents in my bank account. We had lived off my salary and saved his. I was 27, a breast-feeding mother of an 18-month-old boy trying to hold down a full-time job to support us.

With my Dad and my son
in 1988 (aged 31) 

I am not sure what triggered my weight getting out of control. I am not making excuses, but I think it was mainly because I was exhausted. I was working full-time, trying to run a house, care for a lovely boy, cope with the constant custody battles that my former husband kept up, and living with chronic arthritis from a netball injury I had sustained in my early 20s. Combined with a love of food it was destined to happen.
I would manage things quite well and then lapse. I think I was just tired of fighting it. I would gain a bit and then lose it and then gain it back plus a bit more. On occasion a well-meaning 'friend' would suggest that if I just lost a few more kilos I would be 'perfect'. Those comments usually resulted in another gain. Ever so steadily I got bigger and bigger.  That cycle went on for years. Last January I realised that things needed to change. I didn't do much. I just put a reminder in my phone diary to "Be  kind to yourself." Every morning I saw it and each day I tried to be kind to myself. I guess it worked a bit too well because I gained even more weight. By August I was at wit's end. My 56th birthday was coming up in September. I decided that the only solution was to have banding.

The day before my 56th birthday I had dinner with a dear friend. I was telling him how I needed to do something about my weight, but more than that I wanted to get fit and I realised that if I didn't do it now, in my 50s, it just wouldn't happen in my 60s. I had to do something NOW. So I told him about my plan to have gastric banding. How I had made an appointment and seen the doctor - and how even though I wasn't really keen it seemed the only way out. He was pretty horrified. He is fit and swims and goes to the gym or long walks most days. I hadn't really discussed my weight issues with him in the over 30-years we had been friends. He had seen me at all sizes and never said anything about my ever-expanding girth.

Over dessert he told me he had an idea. He would take me swimming. He knew I had been a good swimmer but the last time we had been to a pool together was in 1986! I made all the usual protests about being too fat and not wanting to be seen in public in a swimming costume. He would not listen to any of it. He said he would pick me up on Monday and we would go swimming. He also mentioned that he would ignore any message from me trying to give some reason not to go. He would pick me up at home at 9.45am and that was that. I knew he was serious so I thought I had better put some effort in too. I decided to cut out junk food from my diet. I haven't eaten chocolate, cake, biscuits or dessert since. And I started eating breakfast for the first time in decades.

On Monday, 17 September 2012, my friend picked me up at home and drove me to the pool. And my training began. For the next two months we swam for two hours up to 5 days a week. Under my friend's guidance and encouragement I did more than I thought possible.

Each morning in the car on the way to the pool he would suggest what I should do that day. He corrected me when I said "I will try" and I soon started to say that "Okay, I will do that". I realised that I often said that I would "try" something. There is a big difference between 'trying' and 'doing'.

I built up to being able to do 3 klms a session - 12 to 15 klms a week. At the end of two and a half months I achieved my goals of swimming 50 metres butterfly and doing a mile freestyle non-stop. I had lost 10 kilos. I knew I had lots more to lose but that that thanks to my dear friend, the basics had been put in place. My self-esteem, while not back entirely, had improved.

In January this year my friend had to move away to help care for his parents. In the weeks before he left he introduced me to some gym cross-training. And he convinced me to join the Masters swim club and start in their swim squad. I found the idea of swimming in a squad again to be very challenging. The old doubts re-surfaced - I was too unfit, I would be too embarrassed, they would all be better than me.

I knew in my heart of hearts that I could do more than I gave myself credit for. I knew that there was not going to be a perfect time and that the time to do it was now. Over the Christmas break I thought about this and decided that my New Year's resolution would be to join the Masters and do one squad training and see how I went. And I that is exactly what I did. Except I did go back the next week and the next week and the week after that. And I am still going to my Thursday squad session. And I am loving it. And each week I send an update to my friend on what I have achieved. And of course, he was the first person I told when I enrolled in the 12WBT.

I owe an eternal debt of gratitude to my friend who had enough faith in me to let me be kind to myself by taking care of myself.

End of Week 1 of 12WBT

The first week of Round 1 of 12WBT is done and dusted and what a week it has been! So much new stuff to learn and so much to organise. I may be an obsessive compulsive Virgo but I like to do my obsessing on my terms. But not any more - what I have been doing clearly hasn't been working. I have felt my life has been in chaos for some time. And it is no longer an endearing state to be in. So, I have made the commitment to see this through, to do my best and to change old habits. I just have to suck it up and enjoy. And dare I say it, but overall, this week has been fun. As well as challenging! I have been hungry (more about that below), tired and sore.

 I have started some different classes at gym including Body Balance to improve my flexibility. That first class was a killer but I figure it can only get better from now on. Body Pump I had done before (the last time 13 years ago) so that was quite fun. Seniors Gym I balked at as at 57 I don't see myself as a 'senior' but it was good as it was led by an instructor and I got to use a whole heap of machines I hadn't tried before (under the watchful eye of an 18-year-old gym instructor). 

What I am most proud of? Well, sticking to my exercise and nutrition plans must tie for first place, but doing a planned shop for a week's meals is right up there. I have now done three grocery shops using a list. And yes, it has made it so much easier to be able to prepare quick and easy (and tasty) meals and to not fall back on those yummy (but expensive) takeaways.

I am also proud of some of the things I met head-on that I hadn't been expecting this week. I didn't expect to try and come to terms with how to use Pinterest to make an Inspiration Board or to try to set up a Polar heart rate monitor and a new set of scales to weigh myself. Actually, I haven't quite managed to set up the scales yet but I have until Wednesday weigh-in to work that one out. (And while I am being honest, the Polar heart rate monitor is still a bit of a mystery.) I was already using the MyFitnessPal app so thank goodness for that. I think my brain would have exploded if there had been more. Oh yes, and I decided that while I am embracing these new things I thought as well keep a bit of a Blog. So here goes!

I have just done a summary of my first week on the 12WBT. The amount of time spent exercising is good but I have not eaten my snacks so I have eaten fewer than the 1200 calories a day we are allowed. I have also burnt fewer calories than I expected.

So, the lessons learned from Week 1 that I will take into Week 2 are for me to:

• Eat my snacks
• Up my exercise intensity by adding in extra cycling before my Seniors Gym class
• Keep up the Body Balance class.

It won't happen overnight but it will happen!

 

 

 

 

You are never too old ...

Days like today do my head in. But really, it is my head trying to do me in. Despite a good weekly loss today (-2.5kgs) I also lost a bit of focus - and today I nearly blew it. Things started well but started to go pear-shaped around lunchtime. A lovely bag of unsalted cashews that have sat happily unopened in the fridge for a fortnight called to me today. In fact, they bellowed: "Come eat me!" And I obeyed. I did manage to stop myself, but only after I had managed to scoff nearly my day's worth of calories.

So where does that leave me? Well, not as cocky (or rather, wise) as I felt this morning when I leapt out of bed all excited knowing, before I even stripped and stepped on the scales, that I would see a reward for my first week's faultless behaviour on 12WBT. So I am going to regroup, cook a nice 12WBT meal and end the day on a positive, albeit a somewhat chastened, note.