Okay, so that they're down in print, here are my new training/weight related goals
1. Lose 10 kilos of fat by Christmas 2007
2. Tone up thighs and stomach (shed fat and gain more tone)
3. Build bigger bum muscles (I'd like to have a bigger bum)
4. Continue the great work that I've achieved with my shoulders, arms, back and chest (I'm actually really happy with them)
5. Continue to improve my cardio fitness. I already have an excellent level of fitness for my age so I'd like to get into the "superior" category.
Friday, 17 August 2007
I'm Back in the Saddle Again - Week 1
Okay, so a lot of my postings have had a bit of "seriousness" about them that I believe takes away from the enjoyability of reading a blog. So I'm going to try to inject more humour into my postings, after all, as Oscar Wilde once said "Life is too important to be taken seriously."
I've started back with the Personal Trainer, Gary. I'm sure some of you were unaware that we'd stopped our sessions, but I reached the end of the 12 weeks and decided to have a month off to re-think my training. You see, I picked up one of those "Over 40 and gritting our teeth and loving it" magazines that the Americans are so fond of writing. The articles have the best titles such as "Learning to Love Your Sagging Boobies", "Finding Jeans to Fit and Flatter the Over Forty Body" and many, secrety sponsored I supsect, articles about Botox.
Oh, and BTW, I know there are several of you gals out there who are having Botox and aren't admitting to it. Don't think I haven't noticed that you can't frown anymore. That's okay, you can do whatever you want to your faces, just don't get on your hobby horse about my other friends who are openly talking about their procedures. It's just naughty to feign indignation when you're office having "Bessie's Botulism" injected into your "Who knew tanning in the 80s without sunscreen was such a bad idea?" lines.
Anyway, back to Gary and the training sessions. This article for over 40s (I just typed over 50s by mistake, it's a sign!!!) and here's their proposed training schedule for us 40+ gals
Weights - 2-3 x 30 minute sessions a week, with a gap of up to 72 hours between sessions to recover
Cardio - 3-4 sessions a week of 35 minutes (well, I do an hour a day 7 days a week because I am trying to shift my vegan cheesecake spare tyre)
Core Strength - Pilates 2-3 times a week
Stretching - Yoga, Body Balance, Tai Chi - 3 to 4 sessions a week, OR 10 minutes a day.
Seems like an awful lot of work to me, but if you include your 10 minutes stretching immediately after your weights and cardio it makes it a bit easier.
So anyway, here is my new revised schedule
Weights - 2 a week with Gary
Cardio - 6-7 times a week for 1 hour
Stretching - 3-4 yoga classes a week
On other news, my weight started plummeting with the new Vegan diet, but then I discovered Vegan wine and this week I gained 2 kilos. I'm hoping it's fluid retention that's causing my Miss Sixtys to look like Miss Eightys at the moment.
My goal this time around to keep a better record of my achievements for the 14 weeks and give you a posting of how I'm progressing.
If I slip a week, please send me a reminder to pull my fucking finger out.
Love to you all
Kate
I've started back with the Personal Trainer, Gary. I'm sure some of you were unaware that we'd stopped our sessions, but I reached the end of the 12 weeks and decided to have a month off to re-think my training. You see, I picked up one of those "Over 40 and gritting our teeth and loving it" magazines that the Americans are so fond of writing. The articles have the best titles such as "Learning to Love Your Sagging Boobies", "Finding Jeans to Fit and Flatter the Over Forty Body" and many, secrety sponsored I supsect, articles about Botox.
Oh, and BTW, I know there are several of you gals out there who are having Botox and aren't admitting to it. Don't think I haven't noticed that you can't frown anymore. That's okay, you can do whatever you want to your faces, just don't get on your hobby horse about my other friends who are openly talking about their procedures. It's just naughty to feign indignation when you're office having "Bessie's Botulism" injected into your "Who knew tanning in the 80s without sunscreen was such a bad idea?" lines.
Anyway, back to Gary and the training sessions. This article for over 40s (I just typed over 50s by mistake, it's a sign!!!) and here's their proposed training schedule for us 40+ gals
Weights - 2-3 x 30 minute sessions a week, with a gap of up to 72 hours between sessions to recover
Cardio - 3-4 sessions a week of 35 minutes (well, I do an hour a day 7 days a week because I am trying to shift my vegan cheesecake spare tyre)
Core Strength - Pilates 2-3 times a week
Stretching - Yoga, Body Balance, Tai Chi - 3 to 4 sessions a week, OR 10 minutes a day.
Seems like an awful lot of work to me, but if you include your 10 minutes stretching immediately after your weights and cardio it makes it a bit easier.
So anyway, here is my new revised schedule
Weights - 2 a week with Gary
Cardio - 6-7 times a week for 1 hour
Stretching - 3-4 yoga classes a week
On other news, my weight started plummeting with the new Vegan diet, but then I discovered Vegan wine and this week I gained 2 kilos. I'm hoping it's fluid retention that's causing my Miss Sixtys to look like Miss Eightys at the moment.
My goal this time around to keep a better record of my achievements for the 14 weeks and give you a posting of how I'm progressing.
If I slip a week, please send me a reminder to pull my fucking finger out.
Love to you all
Kate
Sunday, 22 July 2007
Korean Bath House
My darling friend Louise (Arty Lou) introduced me to a Korean Bath House in South Brisbane and now I'm hooked.
If you feel the need to unwind for the bargain price of $19 ($16 concession) then get yourself over to Hotel Diana (across the road from the Mater Hospital) .
The set up includes a massive hot spa bath (and a nipple tweaking Arctic counterpart beside it). I cannot remember the last time I soaked in hot water up to my chin. Divine!
There is also a dry sauna that totally soothes the chilled out bones from this current cold snap.
You can also book a massage or any other sort of treatment to compliment your day of relaxation.
If you feel the need to unwind for the bargain price of $19 ($16 concession) then get yourself over to Hotel Diana (across the road from the Mater Hospital) .
The set up includes a massive hot spa bath (and a nipple tweaking Arctic counterpart beside it). I cannot remember the last time I soaked in hot water up to my chin. Divine!
There is also a dry sauna that totally soothes the chilled out bones from this current cold snap.
You can also book a massage or any other sort of treatment to compliment your day of relaxation.
Progress Report - Well, at least I'm fitter
Okay, so this hasn't been the easiest of years for me, and getting a dose of PVS right in the middle of my 12-week body overhaul program, NOT A GOOD THING.
The long and short of it is this ... I weigh more than when I started the program (1 1/2 kilos) and I'm slightly fatter (D'oh !!!). The good thing is that my health has returned to where it was when I started and I can now run 1 hour on a treadmill, so technically, I'm very fit.
I think that I'm less-flexible (joints-wise) than when I started as I have been doing little to no Yoga, despite my best efforts to get to classes I rarely manage more than 1 a week.
However, I have fairly consistently managed to work out three times a week and run on the treadmill for four to five times a week, and now I am achieving seven days a week, for an hour at a time.
Now that I have taken an early retirement from work (for at least twelve months) I have more time to put into my exercise program, which is what I have been doing for the last couple of weeks.
From next week I will be attending every Pilates, Yoga, or Body Balance (a mixture of Pilates, Yoga and Tai-Chi) that the gym offers (about 6 or 7 a week) in an effort to stretch and strengthen my exhausted and very tight muscles.
I'm taking a brief break from my PT sessions to re-assess my goals and will be back into training in about a fortnight.
I have re-hung the bikini and am I re-focusing on my goal
The long and short of it is this ... I weigh more than when I started the program (1 1/2 kilos) and I'm slightly fatter (D'oh !!!). The good thing is that my health has returned to where it was when I started and I can now run 1 hour on a treadmill, so technically, I'm very fit.
I think that I'm less-flexible (joints-wise) than when I started as I have been doing little to no Yoga, despite my best efforts to get to classes I rarely manage more than 1 a week.
However, I have fairly consistently managed to work out three times a week and run on the treadmill for four to five times a week, and now I am achieving seven days a week, for an hour at a time.
Now that I have taken an early retirement from work (for at least twelve months) I have more time to put into my exercise program, which is what I have been doing for the last couple of weeks.
From next week I will be attending every Pilates, Yoga, or Body Balance (a mixture of Pilates, Yoga and Tai-Chi) that the gym offers (about 6 or 7 a week) in an effort to stretch and strengthen my exhausted and very tight muscles.
I'm taking a brief break from my PT sessions to re-assess my goals and will be back into training in about a fortnight.
I have re-hung the bikini and am I re-focusing on my goal
BIKINI BY XMAS 2007
Monday, 16 July 2007
Veganism - Is it the new black?
I have decided to try Veganism as a lifestyle choice for a while.
I guess that's fairly confronting to a lot of you, it doesn't seem to be a particularly healthy life-style choice based on some of your personal experiences with food-related diseases, so I can understand if you think it's something dangerous for me to try.
It's not a decision that I've come to overnight, I've actually been thinking about it for a few years, I just haven't been able to see a way that I could work it into my life - perhaps I just wasn't ready to take the leap as it seemed so intimidating and I felt that I lacked the resources to do it in a tasty and successful way.
My health has been, I think we can all agree with this, fairly appalling over the last few of years. On my reckoning I have had 3 potentially life-threatening medical emergencies in the last 36 months, plus assorted other non life-threatening, but terribly annoying medical conditions.
I really don't understand why I have been so plagued by these conditions, but a part of me thinks that they could be stress-related. Stress is different for everyone, and the things that may stress you out might have no effect on me (such as mis-matched clothing pegs, and messy desks), whereas customers who insist on telling you every last detail of their computer problems long after you have solved their problems may not effect you but it sure as hell makes me want to scream at them "Put your computer in a box and send it back to the manufacturer! You're too stupid to own a computer!"
The other factor influencing my health is food. I think I still eat too much of the bad stuff (coffee, wine, processed foods, and until recently, meat). So I have decided to undertake a vegan detox for a while, ensuring that I intake two pieces of fruit, five serves of vegetables and all that I hit all the other nutritionally-related benchmarks.
I have bought a libraries worth of vegan cookbooks, all American unfortunately. Americans love the idea of convenience ... FAST FOOD. Everything in these books comes out of cans or is dried or pre-packaged in someways, and when you cook it up, it tastes like it's pre-packaged.
I have trawled Amazon's for some more interesting vegan cookbooks and will be purchasing a few more in the next couple of months.
Meanwhile, I dine two or three times a week at "The Forest" (Boundary Street, West End) which creates the most divine Vegan food that I have ever eaten, including a dairy-free chocolate cheese cake - which simply was the most amazing, delicious, and wicked thing that I have ever consumed. I ate it and then drove to the gym and ran on the treadmill until I had burned off 880 calories (that's calories, not kilojoules) which I figured should have covered the cheese cake.
I will do a separate post about my progress so far, it's a mixed bag.
Love
Kate
I guess that's fairly confronting to a lot of you, it doesn't seem to be a particularly healthy life-style choice based on some of your personal experiences with food-related diseases, so I can understand if you think it's something dangerous for me to try.
It's not a decision that I've come to overnight, I've actually been thinking about it for a few years, I just haven't been able to see a way that I could work it into my life - perhaps I just wasn't ready to take the leap as it seemed so intimidating and I felt that I lacked the resources to do it in a tasty and successful way.
My health has been, I think we can all agree with this, fairly appalling over the last few of years. On my reckoning I have had 3 potentially life-threatening medical emergencies in the last 36 months, plus assorted other non life-threatening, but terribly annoying medical conditions.
I really don't understand why I have been so plagued by these conditions, but a part of me thinks that they could be stress-related. Stress is different for everyone, and the things that may stress you out might have no effect on me (such as mis-matched clothing pegs, and messy desks), whereas customers who insist on telling you every last detail of their computer problems long after you have solved their problems may not effect you but it sure as hell makes me want to scream at them "Put your computer in a box and send it back to the manufacturer! You're too stupid to own a computer!"
The other factor influencing my health is food. I think I still eat too much of the bad stuff (coffee, wine, processed foods, and until recently, meat). So I have decided to undertake a vegan detox for a while, ensuring that I intake two pieces of fruit, five serves of vegetables and all that I hit all the other nutritionally-related benchmarks.
I have bought a libraries worth of vegan cookbooks, all American unfortunately. Americans love the idea of convenience ... FAST FOOD. Everything in these books comes out of cans or is dried or pre-packaged in someways, and when you cook it up, it tastes like it's pre-packaged.
I have trawled Amazon's for some more interesting vegan cookbooks and will be purchasing a few more in the next couple of months.
Meanwhile, I dine two or three times a week at "The Forest" (Boundary Street, West End) which creates the most divine Vegan food that I have ever eaten, including a dairy-free chocolate cheese cake - which simply was the most amazing, delicious, and wicked thing that I have ever consumed. I ate it and then drove to the gym and ran on the treadmill until I had burned off 880 calories (that's calories, not kilojoules) which I figured should have covered the cheese cake.
I will do a separate post about my progress so far, it's a mixed bag.
Love
Kate
Tuesday, 12 June 2007
Progress Report
Okay, so I probably didn't explain about the appetite suppressants too clearly in my last posting, but just to re-iterate, they're herbal and they contain no gurana, caffeine or any "speed" like product. They're simply an extract from some wild exotic fruit rind, and about as useful.
After spending a small fortune on a month's supply of this product I can report (albeit, not "cheerfully") that I might have had better results if I'd used actual speed. I am at the same weight as when I started.
I have decided that the only way I'm going to shift this weight is start by making every meal vegetable-based and add some protein (rather than the other way around). This should also go someway to ensuring that I have my 5 vegetable serves a day.
Having spend so many years starving myself, and living with anorexia and bulimia, I have developed the ability to ignore hunger and have a much reduced ability to understand when I have had enough to eat (due to my body compensating for the starvation buy storing away fat supplies for the next round of self-induced famine).
I have been extraordinarily stressed-out over the last 4 months and I suspect that it has something to do with all the emotional issues I have with my weight - I could go into it all, but mostly, it's personal and as such really only relevant to me. I will say that having had a Father who made me very aware all of his life that being even slightly over-weight made me "less good" in his eyes has played a lot on my sense of self-worth and body hatred.
I also realise after much therapy/discussion/cups of tea with a fellow recovering bulimic that it's very likely that my Father also suffered from an eating disorder. I know that he certainly jumped on every weird food craze that was going around in the 80s and followed me into the Herbalife shake & pills weight loss program. He was obsessed with watching what I ate, even when he was dying he was still lecturing me about eating too much (I was breastfeeding at the time and I dared to have 1 1/2 toasted sandwiches in front of him).
Whilst I can intellectualise that on some level my Father thought he was doing the right thing for me I also know that he must have known the damage his words were having on me. To this day I still think that skinny girls have happier lives than normal-weight or over-weight girls do (which is clearly wrong - When was the last time that you saw Posh Spice smile? The woman is miserable!).
I have set myself a mini-goal to lose 6 kilos by August. I'm hoping that this smaller more achievable goal will re-focus my efforts and provide a moral boost.
Exercise wise- I'm trying to get to the gym first thing in the morning, before breakfast, to kick-start the metabolism and make it strip off fat stores to get the energy from there first. It's a fucking nightmare getting up at 4:30am (I have to walk the dog first!) but I have decided that it's all about balancing my "wants" i.e.:
After spending a small fortune on a month's supply of this product I can report (albeit, not "cheerfully") that I might have had better results if I'd used actual speed. I am at the same weight as when I started.
I have decided that the only way I'm going to shift this weight is start by making every meal vegetable-based and add some protein (rather than the other way around). This should also go someway to ensuring that I have my 5 vegetable serves a day.
Having spend so many years starving myself, and living with anorexia and bulimia, I have developed the ability to ignore hunger and have a much reduced ability to understand when I have had enough to eat (due to my body compensating for the starvation buy storing away fat supplies for the next round of self-induced famine).
I have been extraordinarily stressed-out over the last 4 months and I suspect that it has something to do with all the emotional issues I have with my weight - I could go into it all, but mostly, it's personal and as such really only relevant to me. I will say that having had a Father who made me very aware all of his life that being even slightly over-weight made me "less good" in his eyes has played a lot on my sense of self-worth and body hatred.
I also realise after much therapy/discussion/cups of tea with a fellow recovering bulimic that it's very likely that my Father also suffered from an eating disorder. I know that he certainly jumped on every weird food craze that was going around in the 80s and followed me into the Herbalife shake & pills weight loss program. He was obsessed with watching what I ate, even when he was dying he was still lecturing me about eating too much (I was breastfeeding at the time and I dared to have 1 1/2 toasted sandwiches in front of him).
Whilst I can intellectualise that on some level my Father thought he was doing the right thing for me I also know that he must have known the damage his words were having on me. To this day I still think that skinny girls have happier lives than normal-weight or over-weight girls do (which is clearly wrong - When was the last time that you saw Posh Spice smile? The woman is miserable!).
I have set myself a mini-goal to lose 6 kilos by August. I'm hoping that this smaller more achievable goal will re-focus my efforts and provide a moral boost.
Exercise wise- I'm trying to get to the gym first thing in the morning, before breakfast, to kick-start the metabolism and make it strip off fat stores to get the energy from there first. It's a fucking nightmare getting up at 4:30am (I have to walk the dog first!) but I have decided that it's all about balancing my "wants" i.e.:
- I have to want to be slim, toned, and fit more than I want to sleep-in
- I have to want to be slim more than I want to snack on chocolate
- I have to want to be a happy slim person more than wanting to stay in my current situation
Tomorrow morning I'm going to try a RPM spin class at 5:25am, if that doesn't strip some fat off I don't know what will.
Wish me luck.
Kate
Wednesday, 6 June 2007
Well, Fuck Me !!!
Pardon the French, but frankly, I'm pissed off. I've managed to gain back the 1 1/2 kilos that I recently lost after much strenuous gym effort.
So what happened?
*I didn't weight myself for 3 days (I normally weigh myself every day)
*I ate bread & butter pudding (but made on skim milk, no butter and gluten free bread)
*I didn't do any cardio workouts for 3 days (due to total and utter exhaustion from an earlier boxing workout where I over did it)
* I left my appetite suppressants at home on those 3 days
Fuck Fuck Fuck !!!
This is so unbelievably boring. I have been dieting and exercising for 18 months and frankly, I'm so totally over it. Of course, I won't be quitting because the alternative is more depressing than diet and exercise, but Gods, I would do anything to be someone who doesn't have to worry about this sort of crap.
The exhaustion brought about by the PVS affects my abilities to exercise - I can do about 1/2 an hour of cardio and 1/2 an hour of gym work in a day and that is it, otherwise I wind up trying to recover for 3 days afterwards.
I know some of you must wonder why on earth I do it to myself. Well, I'll tell you why - I simply cannot go back to being that miserable fat girl that I was in 2005. I couldn't shop in regular clothing shops, going out was a nightmare - trying to make myself look attractive, and I was sick to death of the snide fat jokes at my expense. I am glad that there are fat-campaigners out there, doing what they can to make life easier for overweight individuals, but frankly, I'm rather battle on to be in the 10 percent of people that lose weight and keep it off for more than 5 years.
It just doesn't seem to be getting any easier at the moment.
I have taken up knitting as a distraction and hopefully I will create lots of masterpieces and distract myself from my obsession with wintery puddings. Mmmm, pudding.
Until next time,
Kate
So what happened?
*I didn't weight myself for 3 days (I normally weigh myself every day)
*I ate bread & butter pudding (but made on skim milk, no butter and gluten free bread)
*I didn't do any cardio workouts for 3 days (due to total and utter exhaustion from an earlier boxing workout where I over did it)
* I left my appetite suppressants at home on those 3 days
Fuck Fuck Fuck !!!
This is so unbelievably boring. I have been dieting and exercising for 18 months and frankly, I'm so totally over it. Of course, I won't be quitting because the alternative is more depressing than diet and exercise, but Gods, I would do anything to be someone who doesn't have to worry about this sort of crap.
The exhaustion brought about by the PVS affects my abilities to exercise - I can do about 1/2 an hour of cardio and 1/2 an hour of gym work in a day and that is it, otherwise I wind up trying to recover for 3 days afterwards.
I know some of you must wonder why on earth I do it to myself. Well, I'll tell you why - I simply cannot go back to being that miserable fat girl that I was in 2005. I couldn't shop in regular clothing shops, going out was a nightmare - trying to make myself look attractive, and I was sick to death of the snide fat jokes at my expense. I am glad that there are fat-campaigners out there, doing what they can to make life easier for overweight individuals, but frankly, I'm rather battle on to be in the 10 percent of people that lose weight and keep it off for more than 5 years.
It just doesn't seem to be getting any easier at the moment.
I have taken up knitting as a distraction and hopefully I will create lots of masterpieces and distract myself from my obsession with wintery puddings. Mmmm, pudding.
Until next time,
Kate
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