The New Year...A New Goal

So I have realised what many a blogger has probably realised when they start out. Blogging is HARD! It is hard to keep up with the timing and to keep continuously posting and keeping content up to date. For me I am only blogging to help keep myself accountable and hopefully for some of you to see the struggles and successes of just an ordinary bloke trying to change the way that he lives and feels. I do not aim to make this the world's best blog with the world's best writing and photography but rather just a little bit of sharing and caring for everybody's benefit.

Well it has been a fair few months since I posted last on here. A lot has happened and a lot has changed. I completed another year of university, I got married, I went on my honeymoon and I celebrated Christmas (See what I had to endure below). All of those things together with their stresses and celebrations have meant that I lost control of the whole weight loss thing yet again. But alas, there is still hope. With all the yummy food at weddings, in Fiji, Christams and what I like to call 'study food' (really its just lots of chocolate and chips and yummy stuff) comes consequences. Those consequences have meant not much weight loss and a touch of weight gain. The dream was to lose 10 kgs or so in time for my wedding. I mean, everyone says that you need a goal and some motivation. That was perfect..groom loses 10kilos for wedding was perfect. But, there was one problem. With uni, weddings and I guess life comes time constraints and stress. And so that did not really work out. But with a new year comes new challenges, ideas and understanding. And so we (My wife, myself and you) are going to try and make this year more successful. We will try and set ourselves up for more chance of success. A new year means a new me. I know it is cliche and all but it is a good time to start. For me, I need a line in the sand to commit to and being from so LET'S DO THIS!

Here is a picture of my wife's gloriouis Christmas Trifle...It was delcious!

If you are liking my take on life from an odd males perspective then please come back for more. The next post will be up in 2 days time!

And we are back!

So...after last weeks attempt to get back on the wagon we are still going alright after a few days! For those of you who care and are following the journey (probably nobody out there, that s alright not the point of the blog really it is more for my own sake) we are back into action.

After the weekend we had a few ups and downs consuming lollies and kebabs and beer but you get that. Back into action yesterday and we went pretty much the entire day with no carbs! Even turned down the best looking desserts ever at bible study last night. Brownies and apple crumble and choclate pudding and ice cream and orange and poppy seed cakes. You have come a long way when you can turn down all those home baked goods that smell so nice.

In better news, I am back to where I was a month ago. Back around the 114.5 kg mark. Only 14 to go now. But I am genuinely surprised how quickly I returned here as I was up around 116 a week and a half ago so thought it might take a few weeks to drop it again. So it is like being back at the start and we just progress from here. Trying to squeeze in the execise really helps. Last week I managed 5 days which is good and I am playing soccer which I enjoy so that makes it really fun as well. I do end up sore afterwards but it is fun!

Humans are weird...

So I got back on the proverbial horse this week and decided to try and get some exercise in. It was good I tried to get back into the c25k program on my phone. It is an app that supposedly can get you from the couch to running 5kms in 8 weeks or something like that. It had been a month since I had done any decent exercise or been to the gym so I was not looking forward to starting again but the sooner you start the easier it gets...yeah right thats what they tell you anyway. It is actually way easier to just not start and not do anything really lets be honest but points for persevering and getting back into it.
so the plan was eat healthy and exercise this week. That went ok. The eating healthy part not too great as coffee rules my life. I am trying to give up carbs but the odd sweet here and there and coffee just takes over me and I give in. Next week we are going to try a new tactic of not taking my wallet to uni so I cannot give into temptation. Only problem there is cardless cash with my phone is always an option so I will have to have some will power and self control. Really I need to tighten the old budget as I am low on the old savings due to purchasing a new washing machine so if there was ever a time to tighten the belt and save money and my waistline it is now so I will aim to start next week again and this time hopefully succeed. In two weeks I am yet to go a full day without carbs which is sad seeing as that is my aim but hey gotta start somewhere right?

But why are humans weird? Well it all comes down to this weeks exercise. My running routine is run for 1 and a half minutes and walk for two and repeat this 6 times. Sounds easy enough. Well I lasted 4 repetitions and nearly died which was alright considering I had not done anything. Tuesday I had soccer training which was death as well. Wednesday I went to do my running routine again and couldn't fully complete one repetition before I got shin splints and had to stop. Friday once again I went in there to do the running and was aiming to do at least 4 repetitions again but I managed to do all 6...only just but I did do it. So waht the flip? how does that even work? How can I barely do 1 rep then two days later do all 6? I am so confused. Next week I am going to do the same week of running again to make sure my body is used to it before going up to the next level.

Falling off the bandwagon

Somewhere out there somebody came up with a saying one time, falling off the bandwagon. Now honestly I have no idea what a bandwagon is but I do know a thing or two about falling off it! When it comes to weight loss and life changing well flip, that is one hard thing to do. My best advice is you will fall off at some stage and if you are like me you will fall off a few times but it is the struggle of getting back on that is important.

What happened to me? Well a few weeks ago it was Easter and I went home to my parents house, then my uni work got heavy, then we had a giant storm where trees were down everywhere and my power was out for a week and all of a sudden I was left with lots of excuses, not much healthy eating occurring and no desire to change it back  for good. But there is hope. Sure I went close to a month almost without caring and I put back on 1.5kgs of my hard work. But this is the week we get back on again and start. This week we try to give up carbs and sugar and push forward. This is the week that we need to cause there is only 4 weeks of uni left and once uni is on break I have no routine and I will struggle more.

For me the secret is to keep busy. I obsess over things in my mind so dieting sucks cause when I give up sugar all I can think about is sugar the entire time. Makes it hard but also makes it so much more rewarding when I achieve it as if you can give something up that you are constantly thinking about then you must have finally developed self control!

So keep going guys. Keep pushing on cause I am on struggle street to but we are in this together!

Update!

So...bad news everybody. Turns out I suck at sticking to the plan. I have been quite good a sticking to my kilojoules but I have skipped the gym everyday this week due to a couple of factors.

1. Laziness, well duh!
2. Uni work, it is the second last week of uni and I have been a bit busy with assessments but not over the top so not the best excuse really
3. Netflix, it launched in Australia this week and I watched it.

All of that coupled with a friends 21st (sarah) this week has not helped in the results department much at all. I am going to try and stick with it this week and go to soccer training and the gym at least twice as friday is good friday and I am away all weekend.

As far as weight loss goes this week, well let's not talk about it just quite yet! That should give you an indication of where we are at.

Weekly Weigh in!

So I have heard it is a good idea to weigh in and record your progress weekly so you can see how you are doing over a long period of time. Sounds fair enough I suppose and I have been doing this for a number of weeks now seeing my weight fluctuate up and down a fair bit. I started at 119 kgs and have since dropped down to today's figure which is...114.4kgs! Booya! Only has taken me 5 months to drop almost 5 kgs because of my lack of effort. But in good news in the last 2 week I have managed to drop a kilo and a half.

For those of you playing at home the theory behind weighing yourself once a week is to show your overall progress as weight loss takes flipping forever and there is no quick fix. There are ideas that you should weigh yourself at the same time every week which is a good one as weight fluctuates a fair bit. Some people will argue Wednesday is the best day just because if you have a big weekend it takes a while to wear off. I say who cares? Just pick a day and commit. The morning works best because you will be lighter ;) but beware because it can be a little inaccurate if you ate really late the night before it may effect your results a little bit that week (but then next weeks might look even better when you have lost heaps) but over time it balances itself anyway so who cares!

Tools of choice!

I have decided to implement a little something  I call the tools of choice section. What I am going to do is just write down a thing I have used to help me every now and then and talk about it. For our first one I want to talk about HIIT. (Also known as High Intensity Interval training)

HIIT is doing a lot of hard work for a short period of time followed by a break then doing it all again. It can be on a treadmill where you would sprint then walk then sprint then walk then sprint then walk maybe for like 2 minutes then 1 minute and repeat that 5 times. Or it can be in a circuit situation with movement like push ups, burpess, sit ups, box jumps each for 30 seconds then a rest for 2 minutes then go again 4 times. I tried doing a circuit this week because I was bored at the gym with running on the treadmill and doing cardio that way.

My circuit I just made up myself not knowing what to do or how it would go. Here is what it ended up looking like:

1. 10 box jumps
2. 20 mountain climbers
3. 10 lunges
4. 10 frog jumps
5. 10 push ups
6. 20 second plank
7. rest for 2 minutes and repeat 4 times

So honestly that's a little bit of a lie. That was the dream. In reality I am not fit at all and not that strong so I managed to finish all of those exercises in the circuit 4 times but the break might have been 3 minutes a couple of times and there may have been a couple of big deep breaths in between some of them but I still made it and let me tell you now it is currently the next day and I am sore for sure! And it was really tiring yet it only went for 20 minutes all up.

HIIT is a method that is good for getting the heart rate up and keeping it high. It is apparently supposed to be good at getting your fitness level up quicker as you are elevating your heart rate then letting it drop then elevating it again over and over. Fitness after all is the hearts ability to pump blood efficiently and provide oxygen to muscles to keep working. Hence someone who is fit has a lower heart rate. The faster your heart rate can decrease the fitter you generally are. (All these claims I just made I have done some reading on line a little bit but don't trust me or anything you read on line do your own research!!!!)