Monthly Archives: March 2012

Why I’m Still At It

Posted on by Renée
12

In February I signed up with a personal trainer. To be honest I am not sure that I am a better person for it. But fine, I signed the contract, I’m in for 3 – 4 months.

Part of the deal is that I give a specific diet a try even though I said several times I did not want to diet because I was sick of it being such a focus in my life when nothing ever changed. And, only three days in I was pretty much Bitchy McBitcherson and convinced I would not give it any further time or energy. I spoke to my PT about it, he helped me figure out how to work it into my life and schedule and so I carried on.

It’s something like 6 weeks later and nothing has really changed that much. At least not on the scale. Well, wait, that’s not the truth because I have seen 81.5 KG recently, which is a whopping 700 grams less than when I started the diet :) So, just weight wise, I’m not super convinced. I have NOT been 100% and I’m just putting that out there because I am fully aware that I can not blame the diet, the trainer, the candy jar, or anyone or thing else for ANYTHING except for myself.

As we have had a fairly rough start (he’s been ill and cancelled many appointments) I also don’t see a huge change in my body shape or fitness level. On Monday I went to my appointment and basically said “I want to get fit. I want to work out. I don’t want to diet.” However, I promised I would give it another 30 days with the weekdays being full on and shooting for under 1500 calories and the weekends being a bit more free and having bread if I want it (and I don’t eat much bread but Hubs makes it fresh and damn if that is not hard to pass up!), for example.

I did notice that after 3 weeks of no pasta, one night I decided I was just going to have it, I totally felt a difference in my digestion! My stomach was working VERY hard to process it! This was even whole wheat pasta, you know the stuff that is supposed to be good for you! Now I’m not going to tell anyone to throw out their pasta and rice but honestly, had I not gone without it, I wouldn’t have known. I also had rice a couple of times and noticed a slight tinge, but not as bad. As for dairy, I still have a wee bit, but again I never really had much milk for example, and was limited on cheese. I tried coconut milk on my cereal (well muesli – and on this plan I have TWO carb meals a day and FOUR protein/veg/fat meals) and I LOVED it! So, score on replacing some dairy. Goat’s cheese is fine, cottage cheese is fine, kwark and greek yoghurt is fine too (as a protein though, so NO fruit or sugars with it, I’ll pass thanks). Yoghurt is fine but it’s a carb, so I have it with fruit (preferably berries, totally skipping my banana for the time being).

The change we’ve now made is to have only ONE carb meal a day and replace the other with or a little protein or just munching on veggies. That’s fine, I am prepping a load of veggies on the weekend and then just taking little baggies with me. I’m eating so many vegetables, it’s kind of insane. Like at least a kilo. I feel LESS hungry than before I was eating this way.

I am getting a little bit bored with what I have so I’ve actually bought a cook book called Well Fed and I’ve been listening to Robb Wolf‘s Podcasts of the Paleo Solution. I like the science behind the solution, but I do not think I could fully avoid grains, dairy, legumes and potatoes the rest of my life. I do think I could sustain quite a lot of the plan, simply because I feel pretty good at the moment.

I also feel good because Operation Get Enough Sleep is actually working out quite well and that has a lot to do with the supplements that my PT recommended – namely Magnesium Citrate and Melatonin. I am also going to be picking up some Vitamin D soon (even with sun you can be deficient) and I take Valerian from time to time when I feel my stress levels rising. So actually food, plus exercise, plus sleep, plus less stress actually is not a bad deal. It really shouldn’t be able the scale, even though I am still officially overweight. I’m going to say it again, I don’t want it to be my focus, it doesn’t create a good feeling for me.

More food on the paleo front:
Chicken jalfreezi with sauteed courgette

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Chicken sausage with mushrooms and spinach
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And look I’m still running, in fact hubs started running with me again!
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Oh happy day!

Posted on by Renée
3

What a month it’s been! In my quest to find balance one thing that’s fallen by the wayside is the trusty blog. It wasn’t my intention to not update but one has to have priorities, right?

As you know I have been seeing a personal trainer and been on a different duet than “normal” and honestly it’s going all right but sometimes I wish I had never made the decision to do so. I can do the diet and have adapted mostly to it but I don’t find it sustainable or practical for the rest of my life.  Suddenly I am the difficult one at home and in social situations and I’m just not a fan of that.

I have lost a bit of weight but am still not celebrating yet. Call me cautious but it honestly could be the exercise and not the food. Don’t worry though if for some reason I break through the  80kg mark you’ll be the first to know :-)

My PT has also cancelled on me several times, all for good reason I guess but I haven’t got that rhythm with him that I would have expected by now.

Anyway we shall see how the next 2 months work out!

I got a new phone and can now blog from the phone! So for your viewing pleasure,  here’s what a bit of paleo looks like:

Breakfast, after having tea and a hard boiled egg at the house; cottage cheese, cherry tomatoes, celery and a bit of olive oil

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Lunch; spinach tomatoes onions courgette and shrimps

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Spinach mushrooms leeks chicken and goat’s cheese

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Snack of cucumber and red and yellow peppers

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So nothing hugely different than before just no grains.

I’m going to talk a bit more about paleo and what I’m learning in the next post. It’s pretty interesting stuff!

Three Years

Posted on by Renée
3

Today is my wedding anniversary. Three years ago the hubs and I got married in Las Vegas with just a few people who were able to come and join us. We didn’t officially invite loads of people on purpose. We just wanted it to be small, intimate. In fact how it turned out is that a few people from high school were able to come (I am still friends with several, mostly all orchestra or girl scout friends), a few people I’d known for years from the internet that I’d never met before (Like NakedJen) and a couple of colleagues came. All in all we were about 15 people I think. Anyway, it was brilliant :)

We went to Phoenix, to Las Vegas and then drove over to Los Angeles and it was a really great trip for us both (with the exception of the fake daggers nails that I had put on before we left the Netherlands for our trip, the Nail Girl didn’t listen to me at all when I told her SHORTER). I mean, of course it was, we got married right? :)

Leading up to the event I think I attempted to lose weight about 23 times (this after the weight loss in 1999 – 2001 with the maintenance until around 2004- 2005), but I never really committed. I was going through a LOT of “stuff” (aka shit) and not coping very well with my life. And I was eating. And drinking. And definitely not exercising. I promised myself I would not be a 100KG bride, but unfortunately I walked down the aisle anyway hovering around 95KG (because I started AGAIN in January 2009). Well, no matter, I felt pretty good, my husband looked hot and well, more importantly we were making a pretty grand commitment to EACH OTHER and that out”weighed” my KG number on the scale.

And he has never had any issue with my weight. When we met I was around 68KG. So you can imagine from 68-100 in a short amount of time I was pretty out of control, but hubs has always said I am beautiful, sexy and gorgeous (he’s a keeper for sure – but we all agree it’s not necessarily what’s on the outside, the inside counts loads, right?). There’s always that moment that you have when you say enough is enough. I’m not sure I even had that moment in January of 2009 but I know AFTER we got married I had the big moment and that was when my 40 year old friend Michael suddenly died. Michael and I had been friends since 1997 and had both been on the weight loss – weight gain roller coaster. We got on health kicks together, went to the gym together, but we also partied together, traveled together, spent holidays together, you know that kind of stuff. I didn’t have a lot of contact with Micheal in the year prior to his death – we were both pretty busy and he was kind of a loner; loved to be by himself, he was a musician constantly creating his music at home coming up with newer and fresher songs than the last, tweaking and striving for perfection. I imagine he had “let himself go” again because he suddenly had a pulmonary embolism. I know you can just be genetically disposed to something like this, but it’s also fair to say that overweight and sedentary people ARE more susceptible to this that those of us who are more fit and healthy (and not overweight).

So Hubs and I got married, me not at an ideal weight but once we came back from the States we started the C25K program. Michael died about one month later. That was the moment that I said “this really has to be my last time.” And it is.

So here we are 3 years later and I know you all have heard me whinge on and on and on about it – since March of 2009 I have lost now officially 12 KG (and 5 prior to March). I am by no means anywhere near a number goal and let’s face it, I just can’t really have a number goal anymore. It makes no sense for me to have one and it only makes me feel unhappy. But in that time I’ve run more than 1,300 Kilometers, cycled more than 1,100 Kilometers, and participated in many races from 5KM to Half Marathon and I do it (almost) every single time thanking the Universe for how lucky I am that I am alive, that my body works the way it should and that I have a husband and two great stepchildren that came with the package for love and support. Back when I lost weight before on Weight Watchers and maintained it, I didn’t really have this kind of appreciation. I didn’t think about how lucky I was that I could walk, run, swim, I just thought about how many calories I needed to burn to work off the pizza and booze I stuffed down my gullet the night before.

Attempt 3,839 April of 2008. Again from about 100 KG down to 95:

September of 2009, looks like I finally stuck with it – 85KG:

So this time IS different. This relationship I have with my hubs is different, this relationship I have with myself is different, this relationship I have with my body is different. I am so, so lucky. I am so grateful.

One of these days I’m going to also reach a number goal, but hopefully you guys will stick with me, like my husband sticks with me, while I reach a few other goals instead.

I told you it was crazy right?

Posted on by Renée
1

sorry for the silence, especially after that huge rant!

after speaking to my PT, I did actually try the new diet again and was probably 90% successful from Saturday until Friday night when I had pizza. It wasn’t a breakdown it was actually just a choice that I made and enjoyed :)

It’s not super hard to eat this way, I think it’s mostly mental. Now that I know when and how I can eat it’s really fine.

I have to say though, I was away (well, away from the office, still in Amsterdam) for 3 days working at a huge leadership conference and it was fairly challenging to eat outside of your own realm of control so there were moments of carbs combined with protein. I did prepare by bringing loads of approved fruit and veggies and I even brought some coconut milk to replace the dairy. These three days were only at about a 70% success.

So I’m back at it again. Dinners are challenging, but maybe I’m going to pick up a cook book. I don’t like to be limited so I have to make the best of it to really give it a go and see if it works.

I did actually lose a kilo from the first time I weighed in at the gym, to the last time that I saw the PT. No idea if that was diet related or not. You know me, I don’t want to celebrate too quickly.

Tomorrow is another appointment. I’m exhausted otherwise I would share more with you.