Rest day

This week's rest day is really needed. I've had a cold for a week but it picked up again over night. Really dark yellow/green mucus both in the nose and on the chest. Yuk! 

I even managed to have a well ended nap whilst Blake and Zach were sleeping. 

I've woken up feeling a little better but still not good. Hopefully by tomorrow I will have picked up a bit. It's only a cold not the flu so fine to keep training.

I have my first PT session at 8:30 tomorrow morning which I'm really excited about. I really hope they push me hard. I will assess what type if session it is and if I will do more after. It's only a 30min session so I might either do weights or cardio after depending on what the bulk of the session was. 

I've also been doing a bit more reading on training programs of fitness models/competitors. I doubt I would ever get to competing or anything but I'm looking to be toned to that degree. 

Training wise i am going to change to a 20min HIIT warm up of 1min sprint 1min walk 

Then I will do my weights 

Then do 30mins of low intensity cardio. 

They say to to the cardio am and weights PM but my life doesn't allow for that so I'm just modifying it and I will see how it goes. 

I'm going to start driving to the gym and doing the cardio there so I can increase my intensity. The jog I was doing to the gym just isn't pushing my body hard enough or for long enough. My running fitness has improved so much it was only taking about 7mins to jog there. 

Weights wise I'm going to change the weight and reps. We are always taught that it's 12reps etc but after my reading to really build muscle week 1-4 u should do heavy enough weights to do 8-12reps repeat 3 times. If u can do more than 12 the weight is too light if u can't do 8 then it's too heavy. Week 5-8 should be 6-8reps 3times and weeks 9-12 should be 4-6 reaps 3 times. I was doing weights heavy enough to reach muscle failure at 12reps and doing that 3 times so that was good but now I'm in week 5 I need to increase the weight to lower those reps. 

Diet wise I am going to drop to 1400cal. I'm not losing the weight I would like to. I want to push it to a definitely 1 kg a week. 

The other good thing was I went for a run on the Treadmil at the gym yesterday the big Treadmil at the gym felt like it was running for me a bit lol but after my 2min warm up I ran for 18mins 8-10km/hr.  Normally after a 10km/hr sprint i have to walk for a bit but not Saturday. It felt really good. I did 2.77km in 20mins. Getting so close to that 3km mark. 

I know rest days are so important but in definitely looking forward to gettig stuck into the week. 

End if week 4 and training

So today marks the end of week 4. 1/3 the way through this journey

Weigh in 83.0kg! 

That's a loss if 3.8kg

Cm losses 

2cm upper arms

4.5cm chest 

7cm waist 

5cm gluts

6.5cm thighs

1cm calves

7.5cm hips

So not too bad really :) I would have liked to see a little more off the gluts and thighsbut anyway.

So training.

I have been slowly increasing it every week to ensure no injuries etc seeing as it has been so long since I exercised. 

I have loved using my polar loop it really helps me monitor what I'm doing training wise as I can link it to a heart rate monitor but also just my general daily activity.

So this is the last month. I started the challenge on the 30/5. I got my loop a couple of days later but not the heart rate chest strap. I got that on the 5th. In the month I had 2 days of doing nothing as one Blake had surgery the other I had gotten no sleep and woke up feeling flu like.

The next 2 photos show my activity in more detail. So in general day to day I did 415439 steps and burnt 73120 calories! Training wise I trained for 1 whole day in the month 25 sessions and burnt 12034 calories! 

The next two outlines in detail one of my training sessions. So it was a day I ran to the gym did weights and walked/ran home. I love being able to analyse my sessions like this! 

So as we are starting a new week and new month this is my training plan

Monday : 30min PT session

Tuesday: run to gym lower body and abs strength session run/walk home

Wednesday: run to gym arms/chest/back strength session run/walk home

Thursday: run to gym lower body and abs strength session run/walk home

Friday: run to arms/chest/back strength session run/walk home

Saturday: run to gym lower body and abs strength session run/walk home

Sunday: stretching rest session

See how we go. I have purchased 10 PT sessions so in the last 3 weeks I will do 2 a week and I may also up the cardio. I will see what results I get out of this plan first. 

I would also like to alternate road riding to the gym but it's dark when I leave so I need to fit lights to my bike. Running everyday causes stress to the joints and could lead to injury. Monday coming when Tyler and Blake are in daycare I will sort my bike. It's a very long time since I did a road ride. 

I would also like to add swimming in but the pool at my gym is closing for renovations in a week and will close till mid aug. I will add in swimming when it reopens. Mainly so I can train for these think pink triathlons coming up at the end of the year! 

I know I'm doing well and I need to focus on that. For some reason I feel like I could have done better but how and where? 

It won't happen overnight but it will happen! 

Some photos

So I have always felt funny about posting photos on blogs but I am doing it because I am a real person and I am overweight and when I reach my goal I hope to inspire others. I will post my underwear 12week challange photos at the end of the challenge. 

So this photo is 7days post having my 3rd son Zach. 

This photo I really dislike I'm about 91kg here the same as the above photo but yuk! 

This is my dream dress at the start of this 12week challange. 86.8kg 

This is 4 weeks in at 83.4kg 

A nice piece of motivation

This just popped up on my FB feed and it's very fitting! This one requires printing out and putting up very noticeable 

Diet and macronutrients

So diet is something that I have been trying to improve over the last 4 weeks.

In the past I have fallen into the trap of eat less u will lose weight! 

I have been doing lots and lots of reading over the past 12months and as I want this to be a lifestyle change I needed to learn how best to fuel my body to get the optimum performance from it. 

I am following Amanda from over at http://dailydosefitness.com.au her macronutrients calculations to work out my requirements. After this I sat down wrote down a meal plan typed all ingredients into myfitnesspal to workout calories and macronutrients. 

So my total calorie intake is 1600 a day. Based off ths I did this calculation 

From here entering it into myfitnesspal 

So looking at these numbers I am hitting pretty close to the mark with them.

For protein aim was 133g I'm getting 128g

Carbs aim was 136.5g I'm getting 151g 

Fat aim 51.8g and I'm getting 46g

I was going to add an extra protein shake in the afternoons but it takes my daily protein up to 38% but nutritionists recommend staying 15-25%. As I'm doing heavy weights 5 times a week taking to muscle failure the extra protein should be being used up. I'm sitting it the correct margin for the macronutrients calculations so that's the main thing. If I find my recovery starts to slip I might add it in to help the muscles build and recover. Also hunger if I get hungry in the afternoon I might add in even 1/2 a serve.

Tomorrow i do my end 4 week measurements so it will be interesting to see how I am going. As I said in finding my muscle recovery great and so is my energy etc so I think I am doing pretty well with the diet thing. Will just depend if I do actually lose weight on this. I am building muscle so the scales aren't really moving at the moment! It's frustrating but I know muscle is denser than fat so I should be losing cm even though the scales say I'm not losing anything. 

Motivation is pretty good at the moment. 

I'm getting a little stressed thinking perhaps I'm not doing enough to reach where I would like to by the end of the 12weeks. With only 8weeks to go that seems like such a small amount of time. This being said tiredness is letting the negative thought in today. 

One of the biggest challenges i face is I have 3 little boys under 3 so when they are all sick like they are at the money they all wake multiple times at night. This meant last night I only got around 2 hours sleep. After 1am I got none. At 5:15am I climbed back into my warm bed only to have my alarm go off at 5:40am. :( it was freezing this morning so gettig out of bed was hard but I pushed myself to do it. It was absolutely freezing running to the gym as the breeze dropped the temp even more. 

This being so I ran faster and when I got there I put all my weights up! Looking in the mirror though all I saw was fat. All I could see was how far I had to go not how far I have come!  It's the tiredness speaking but days like today are hard those negative thoughts creep in.  

Just need to put my head down stick to the plan and tomorrow is a new day. 

The dreaded winter cold and diet outline

So the head/chest cold that has been trying to grab ahold of me for over a week finally has! :( 

Yesterday I managed to get myself to te gym and do a really good session but this morning just didn't happen. My nose is completely blocked and I have a really nice chesty cough! Agh! 

I am facing the whole should I go for a run/ride while Zach sleeps as Tyler and Blake are at day care or do I take a rest day? 

It's inly a cold not the flu so I know I can still exercise question is if that will just prolong it? Am I just talking myself out of it? 

I did see a really good phrase on FB yesterday 'don't talk urself out of it - talk urself into it!' Very fitting some times. 

I thought though this was a perfect time to catch up and do a run down of my current plan. It must be working as people I see who I haven't seen in a bit are shocked at how much weight I have lost already. 

So my diet consists of 

Breakfast: smoothy - protein powder, banana, tblsp chia seeds, tblsp quick oats, tblsp Fibreworks mix, tblsp colburn no fat Greek yogurt fill up with chilled filtered water 

Snack: 50g frozen berry mix (heated) 70g low fat cottage cheese. 

Black coffee no sugar

Lunch: 2 egg white omelette with 1 mushroom, 3 cherry tomatos, 20g diced capsicum, 1 shallot, 2 tblsp chick peas cooked in 1tsp organic coconut oil

Snack: protein shake on heavy training day or 1 diced green apple with 1 tsp home made cocoa and organic nut butter mix  

Dinner: 100g lightly fried in 1 tsp organic coconut oil with steamed carrot, broccoli, cabbage, zucchini with roasted pumpkin and sweet potato. 1/4 cup cooked brown rice 

Snack: protein shake just before bed if it's been a heavy training day and muscles are sore and 2nd lot of protein wasn't had for afternoon tea. 

Training wise. I have been training almost every day. In 4 weeks I have had 3 day off. On those day I had things on like Blake's surgery so it just wasn't possible. Even on rest days I do a really good stretching/yoga session. 

I am finding that my muscle recovery is actually really good. I had my program set by the gym on Monday and the aim is to take me to complete muscle failure by rep12. I do this and yesterday I even took my legs up a level only getting to rep6. I added heaps like smith machine squats and lunges and calf raises etc not even in my program. Today my body feels fine. I can feel some slightly tired muscles but not that whole have trouble walking etc like I was expecting. I think the protein I'm using is really helping. 

I have 2 weeks until I take my half way photos and I am looking forward to seeing my progress. I know I have come so far yet I know I have so far to go.

One day at a time. In saying that I think I need to go for the run/ride! 

Next post I will post my training log. I purchased a polar loop early on in this challange and it's been fantastic at logging my training. Certainly helps keep me motivated. Just have to log into my iPad as my phone is an old iPhone4 and the app needs iPhone4s or later! I will also post my diet breakdown in terms of macronutrients etc. to show how many calories I'm consuming with how many proteins, cabs as fat. As well as a comparison of my daily calorie burn and my exercise usage! 

The only way to lose weight is calories in must be less than calories expended and as the saying goes u can't out train a ba diet and diet is 70-90% of weight loss! :) diet is also cruitial in ensuring ur body as the adequate  nutrients to perform at its optimum. It might take a bit to fine tune diet but it's worth it. Not everyone can eat the same thing every day but when I have 3 kids under 3 and I see food as fuel it something that works very well for me. 

Anyway enough procrastinating Zach is sleeping so it's now or never :) 

Week4

So I'm on day 3 of week 4.

So far things are going really well. I've lost 3.4kg but the cm I have lost is the main thing. 

So far 6.5cm off my waist, 5cm off my bum and 6cm off my hips and thighs! 

I'm feeling slimmer. Don't get me wrong I still have a very long way to go but every day I get one step closer. 

So I joined a gym last week. I need to build the big muscles in my body, tone and sculpt. 

So I run to and from its a good warm up and warm down. I don't enjoy cardio at the gym. I have an assessment tomorrow to outline my program etc. looking forward to that. I've been doing my own weights but it will be good to set the program so I can head toward achieving my goal. 

I have no specific weightloss goal for this challange I'm just giving it all I can and then I know I've achieved the best I can. 

I'm upping the intensity every week. Don't want to go full throttle straight up or I will burn out. 

I had a rest day today my body did need it. I just did a really good stretch session. It's frustrating though as u feel like ur letting urself down etc but I just have to tell myself it's a good thing it's needed and it will make me able to train harder and stronger next week. 

Since having Zach I've lost 15.3kg and I have 18.4kg to go! Almost half way! 

It's been a while but the snail did win the race!

So it has been a while since I posted. Lots has been going on mainly my youngest Zach ende up in PICU at 6 weeks and now at 11 weeks still easily gets every upper respiratory infection around. The middle Blake is still getting recurrent ear infections even though grommets were placed in in January.

But being a mum o 3 under 3 I knew this journey to get fit and healthy would be a rough one at times. 

So I have decided to embark on a 12 week challenge to help motivate myself. I am only just fishing up day 3 but already this week I have lost 2.2kg! 

I am being strict and pushing myself with the exercise. In that I mean I am exercising every day but I am listening to my body. I only had a baby 11 weeks ago and I am not that fit so although I am pushing myself I do know when to stop before I cause myself injury.

I am now working out at 6am as that's the best time of day to fit around B's work and the kids demands. 

I went for my first road run about 2 weeks ago. Was fantastic. I did 5.5km all up jogging around 3km. I burnt 801cal and completed it in 1hour! 

I have a training schedual set out and a diet plan and I will outline both when I get a chance. 

I also brought a polar loop today. It's a fitness band u wear 24/7 to help see how u do physically through out the day and how u can improve :) looking forward to seeing what it says. 

I'm excited about this 12 week challenge. I have already had my fair share of u won't be able to do it. 

Just watch me!