October update

It's the tenth month of my 2017 journey and I think I've experienced every emotion, fallen off the wagon and gotten back on, lost weight and gained weight, exercised and not exercised. But I'm so proud of myself that I haven't given up. I'm still here and I'm still fighting for what I want.

1. I'm 872km into my 1000km challenge with 2.5 months to go - whoooohooo. That's totally worked as motivation to get me out of the house exercising.

2. I've been using a trainer at the gym and have a gym buddy which is helping me increase my strength and enjoy working out more. I feel so much stronger and I am starting to see little muscles under my skin (and body fat) now.

3. I discovered an app called Lose Weight which is a hypnosis app that I listen to every night before bed. I'm positive it's helping me have a better self image and stay on track better :-)

4. I've gotten much better with food. For me I've struggled big time with deprivation. So my new plan is 90% nutritious food, 10% fun food. Every thing I put in my mouth I ask 'is this nutritious' (is this taking me towards my goals or away), apart from 10% of fun foods which is usually when I'm out at a function or party and I let myself have something small of a food I really like (it's got to be a food I really like or it's not worth it). The rest of the time I eat nutritious food I actually like, not force myself to eat things I don't enjoy.

5. I have a new motto - "I'm stronger than my excuses". I wear this on a chain around my neck so I can remind myself daily that I can do this, that I am doing this and my goals are important to me.

How are you doing? What has helped you?
I have about 3-4kg to lose to get to my next goal then I'll be reassessing from there.

Catch ya next time
Zealous Girl :-)

End of term

Ouch... end of term is hard. Schools in New Zealand just wind up and up and up until all the staff CRASH into the holidays. I've been crashing all week in fact. Falling into bed for an hour after work, unable to function until I've closed my eyes for a good long while.

Exercise this week has also flown out the window (apart from a couple of walks and a hockey game), but you know what, I'm going to be kind to myself and not beat myself up about that. I'll be back into my regular exercise routine tomorrow.

Eating has also been rather lax. Normally I'd continue eating crap for another two weeks but I'm not going to do that. I'm going to get to the supermarket and buy the food I need. I don't want to go backwards again.

This holidays I'm getting my good headspace back and making a new plan for term 3. Summer bodies are made in winter! That's my term 3 motto :-)

Catch ya next time
Zealous Girl

Distance Goal

One of my goals for 2017 was to run/walk 1000km. It might not sound much to some, but last year I only managed 500km so it's double what I've done in the past.

I know that around winter I normally lose total motivation to exercise, so this was an attempt to keep exercising during the colder months.

As of today, I'm just over half way to my goal (547km) with more than 6 months to go.

As far as motivation goes, it has been a total winner. I use a free app called Endomondo to track my walking and running and every time I think up excuses not to exercise, I check my app to see how my kilometres are going and it drives me on to complete my goal. I also have friends set up on the app to compete against. Another win!

And you know what.... it makes me feel so good about myself to be striving for this goal and smashing it. And we all need to feel good about ourselves often. It's not something I thought about much in the past but it's so important to me now. There are so many things in life that pull us down and weigh us down, that anything that helps pull us back up is something we need to hold onto!

Sometime I'll post about my battle with anxiety over the past few years and how that changed me.

Til next time :-)
Zealous Girl

The secret

I've discovered the secret to weight loss, exercise and staying motivated. It's a really annoying little muscle that controls it all..... in fact I'm not sure there is much 'muscle'  in there, it's mostly fat. You've guessed what I'm talking about .... your brain.

When my mindset is good, I'm totally on target, I'm eating well, exercising etc....
BUT
When I'm tired or busy and when my mind is not focused on my goals, it all falls apart. I find I have the 'I don't care' attitude and basically start shovelling every bad food into my mouth and use every excuse not to exercise.

Sometimes it takes me a while to get my mindset back (it's hard to convince a 'not caring brain' to start caring again; especially when said brain was so excited to be eating all that sugar again.)

Something I've found that has been working for me is my vision board (I'll go into that more in another post), I try to read it daily, remind myself why I'm doing this.

Writing down why you want to be healthy and fit is HUGE. If you don't have a target, a goal, you're just aiming your arrows at nothing, which means you'll hit nothing. More about my goals in an upcoming post :-)

Have you set goals? Tell me one :-)
Zealous Girl

Fitbit motivation

For valentines day, my wonderful hubby gave me a Fitbit. We don't usually do gifts, so it was such a cool surprise.

I didn't put much stock in this type of device/watch before, but OMG it has motivated me so much to get 10,000 steps + daily and to do my exercise 5 days a week.

I love the way it reminds me to step at least 250 steps each hour (bonus it also displays text messages on the screen as they arrive). I love how it shows my heartbeat so I can see how it's tracking while I workout. It also shows the time; essential for my scheduled personality.

So if you're looking for a way to motivate yourself to be more active during the day, especially if you sit at a desk job, I highly recommend some type of fitness watch. In fact since I've been wearing it, over the past 3 months, I only didn't reach my target one week out of 12.

Til next time
Zealous Girl

To weigh or not to weigh

How often do you stand on the scales and wish you hadn't seen THAT number. The number that doesn't show how hard you worked last week or the pies and lollies that you didn't eat. 

Although I've tried really hard not to let the scales rule my life, when I see a low number, I'm happy and when I see a high number I'm down. Even though I know that the scales don't tell the whole story, it's the only measuring tool I've got to go on. 

So this month I'm attempting to NOT weigh myself. Let's see how long I last before I give in to temptation and step on the scales. 

What methods do you use to check your progress?

Zealous Girl 

I'm on a new journey and it isn't easy BUT it is worth it

At the start of 2017 I made a commitment to get heathy and fit again. I made a vision board, I printed out lots and lots of memes to help my journey and I created rewards for weight loss and milestones. I read lots and lots of books and blogs and websites. I was set. I had all the knowledge, this would be easy.

This has been hard.
Harder than hard.
So hard I've had to restart numerous times.

But restart I have done and will continue to do until I reach my goals and maintain them.

I'm blogging again because it has helped in the past and I hope it helps again, and perhaps encourages others.

I have realised that while I feed my children healthy food and limit their unhealthy food, I did not do the same for myself. I let myself eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I wasn't making good choices.

In January I started small with changing only a few things. Eating less gluten and less sugar. That lasted until my family went camping. I got hungry and ate everything in sight. Restart number 1.

During February I decided to record all my calories using 'myfitnesspal' - great free app/webpage by the way. That helped hugely. The weight very slowly came down. I don't lose weight as fast in my 40s as I did in my 20s and 30s.

In March I joined the gym and kept at my eating, although a few cheat foods started creeping in more and more.

April in the school holidays I struggled again. Easter came with too much chocolate and I ate too too much.

May, I struggled again. I felt deprived from some foods and snuck them into my mouth. Yes I have a unhealthy relationship with food, and I know this well, but am still hunting for the answer. Hunting for the solution for me and how I can eat well without binging. How I can include my favourite foods in moderation.

It's June now and I'm back on track. I lost some of the gains I had made. I am cross about that but I must look forward now and not give up.

What doesn't kill me is making me stronger. I can do this. I am doing this!
Til next time

Zealous Girl