Back to Square one! Really?

Its end of 2019, I have not posted in more than 1.5 years and I am at my highest weight forever 82kgs, please keep in mind I am only 5feet 2 inches. So I am about 23-24kgs overweight. Entered obese BMI. Really?? How did I let myself go and so much and for how long? The funny thing is that in the last 2 years I have been going to the gym – but on and off, what I have been doing is eating crappy food a lot, almost everyday, there was even a time of 1 or 2 months where my dinners would be bags of chips. Why? I let myself use food as an escape, a way to feel better when actually physically it made me feel sick, to ignore my bad eating habits and act like I dont care.

And in my mind I keep saying, but I am going to gym almost 4-5 times a week. Yes but that is for 2 weeks and then there is a break for 2-3 weeks and then i go again. And all this while I keep eating like a crazy not normal person.

I guess realizing it is one of the first steps to start changing things.  I also keep questioning if I have it in me to change myself again and keep it. But that comes much later, after I reach where I am happy. The road to that point seems long and dready right now. But to be honest, I know if anyone can get it done, its me, I have it to make goals and achieve them. So why didnt I do it last 2 years. I guess no point to keep reliving what I am not proud of. This is the body I am in now, my body accepts all that I do or not do  & I need to accept that this body looks how it does as result of my negligence for past 2 years, so I need to start respecting it and not blaming it. I need to make a plan and start on it. Coz I know my body will accept my efforts and change to show me respect.

Now lets talk about what I need to do:

• Scrap out old goals from 2017 on this blog:

Old Goals 2017
☐ Consitent workout 12 weeks
☐ Build Healthy eating lifesyle
☐ Fit into my LBD – GET AN IPAD
☐ Midwaist =28inches
☐ Arm =10inches
☐ Lower waist =33inches
☐ Hips=38inches

• Make New Goals

GOALS-deadline:
Lose 4kg – 30 Dec 2019
<= 75kg – 28 Feb 2020
<= 70kg – 30 May 2020
<= 64kg – 1 Aug 2020

• Make plan how to be accountable to my goals

– Update blog once a week about how progress is going

– Make meal plan for week and do groceries for week accordingly

-Prepare lunch for all week on Sunday, so no chance to miss

-Keep food diary-mentioning hunger and cravings and see patterns and triggers and them correct them with healthy alternative

-Exercise 5 days a week. 1 day yoga. No excuse.

-Only 1 cheat meal allowed once a week

-Visualize how you want to look and feel like it is real- and then act like you are on that weight/shape and eat accordingly

-If you mess up, correct yourself from the next meal

-start running atleast 7-10km a week

I really want to do this and I know I can. I just need to focus and keep reminding myself of my goals and why I want them.

Wish me luck!

 

 

 

October 17 fitness update

I have not posted at all this year, except the 2 posts in January… this is crazy.  But I did post on my other site about life including fitness too, so why come back here again?because this is my fitness progress page and I need to detail what I did right or wrong.

So January 17 I was doing weight training with my friend, worked great, but after that I started moving away from him. It was a lot of work to travel out of way to reach his gym and then wait on him to be ther1e on his hours, and manage a relationship at same time. I was doing 12hr days to say least. It got to point where I wanted some relief. So is changed my gym in February to one closer to my house (7min bike ride). I started by myself doing all things I had learned from my friend, then hired a PT for few weeks and then got back by myself. It was ok at first but I started skipping to spend more time with J (my boyfriend) and I was using it as excuse to take days off.

Another thing that happened was J eats meat which I dont cook and so whenever he was at  mine, we ordered out, that really became a problem. It messed up my food. Also spending weekends with him was so nice, I slipped on grocery shopn and meal preps, leading to much bad influence on my diet.

A combination of all this got my focus off my goals. Then came June and my mom came to stay with me, after few weeks rest of family joined, and then there were holidays, touring, going out, lots of food goodies from back home. I lost complete focus and control. Ate everything I got and more. End of july, fam went back, August I went on holiday with J’s fam, another eating fest. Here i noticed I need to get back on track asap and started back in gym with a 12 week program i bought online. While I was getting used to it, september came with all sorts of relationship issues with J and I took to junk food to help me feel comfort. Not good idea, but its a bad bad habit that surfaced.

And now I am here. Yesterday I tried a dress I had on exactly 1 year ago – and it did not fit , didn even button up. So i am at worse than when i started the year, but but BUT I have another 3 months before year ends and I wana make a change, comeback to being healthy and doing weights and challenge myself even if things are not well in other aspects of life, to use fitness as relief and not punishment.

I am glad I came back to post and also noted what turns life has taken this year that lead me to loose my fitness goals focus. coz those are things I have to work on and make better decisions and choices if it ever happens again.

Life happens, but I need to remind myself over and over that fitness is my therapy and will only help me deal better with life. I will not give up on myself and will keep getting back up every time i fall down. Cheers to everyone trying to be fit and healthy!

P.S  also updated my Mini goals!

January2017 Goals – updated

Edit: I was aiming too high and unrealistic it seems. I tried to see if I can do bbg circuits with weight days, and I cannot. I am too tired and drained after 1.5hrs of weights. Need to figure something else out.  I am already thinking about it, but I want to make a realistic plan to follow, not just something I put down here and never do.

Monthly goals usually help to stay on track. Here are mine for this month:

Food :

Breakfast – eggs/oats

Lunch-salad+chicken

Snack-fruit

Dinner-eggs+chicken/soy/rice

 

Training Schedule to follow:

Mon-Upper body (back/shoulders/chest/arms) + abs

Tues – Legs +bbg2circuits

Wed – rest

Thurs -Upper body (back/shoulders/chest/arms)+ abs

Fri-Full body + bbg 2circuits

Sat-Rest

Sun -Run+bbg abs

 

Also very less alcohol maybe once in 2 weeks & lots of water.

How I found my fitness regime

So, I have been a fighter with my body weight and feeling fat and not happy with myself, it has been over a decade of this battle within myself, with myself. But like I said I am a fighter,  I never ever gave up on myself, I never took to harmful practices to get skinny, I always pushed myself to try harder to find a healthy way. Now I am 5’2” and my highest weight has been 73.5kg. Not obese but definitely on the outine of healthy. My issue was always feeling chubby and not really thin.

I did tend towards food restriction, limiting calories, over cardio, running marathon and then finally and lastly I came to find weight training.

Oh my! How joyful it is to find something that you love. I still go running every 2 weeks or so, but that is out of joy of running.

So in October I started training at the gym with one of my friends. He is a bulky body builder looking fellow, and does only weights all the time. He said he could help me loose fat and also teach me how to work with weights. He showed me his transformation pictures and it was amazing. He did it all by himself.Amazing.

So I started, keeping in mind that I will give it my all and learn everything from him. 3 months down the road, I nailed it. I have not lost all my body fat yet, nor do most of my old dresses fir with complete ease (they do fit ), but, but..I feel so strong and amazing. When I am there and lifting and squatting and pushing myself to not presume what I can and cannot do, I feel the potential in me can take me anywhere I wanna go. It strengthens my belief in myself, it flames my confidence, it makes me have hope.

I dont do crazy stuff btw, just normal machines in gym and some deadlifts and squats. My body is changing and I can feel it, I focused a lot on my food as well and that works too. I started taking amino and also some pre workout. I challenged myself to do a pull up and still am working on it. Its amazing.

When I change into those gym clothes, I become so confident and happy with myself.

You have to find something you enjoy to do. Believe me. It has to come from happiness to be part of your routine & not fear (like I did before). You need to try and try until you find that one thing. How you look and feel about it, is only up to you. And only your opinion matters. No one else. It is up to you to take responsibility and also do it for yourself.

I still have a long way to go, but I can do it and I know that. It might now be easy but I will challenge myself and if I give it everything that I have, I know I will get there and achieve what I work for.

Find your happiness today… find your way to fitness!!

What makes you happy

I saw a post on instagram and that said you cannot find happiness on the outside. Even when you think if I get that body or look like that then I will be happy, you wont. Happiness has to be worked on from Inside Out and not the other way.

It got me thinking.

I have been working on my body and happiness related to it always Outside In and may be that is why I was so scared of losing the progress and that is exactly what happened.

Now I am not able to fit into any clothes of my wardrobe from my running days, but when I think back and I was wearing those dresses I was always wishing to be more skinnier and have flatter stomach. I was not content and not confident.

My recent goal has been to fit into my dresses. But now I am thinking is that the goal I want to work on. Will that bring me happiness.

If I really think of being happy with my health and body, I imagine a person who has good food habits, who works out as part of routine, who inspires others to do better, who turned her life around and is strong mentally and physically.

That is my happiness goal. I want to be that confident person who got hold of her own fate and turned it to where she wanted. I want to look good yes, but I want to feel good.

So think about your goals. Are the defined by what will make you happy. Think about how it will make you feel first and later about how you look.

A new way of thinking.

Cheers!

Bad influences

I know I cant blame others for my wrong habits or not sticking ot my goals, but some people are just such a bad influence, like my sister. She is the most kind person I know but when it comes to health and food she is ridiculously bad, she does not care what she eats , she has put on weight and doesnt even believe she can change that and keeps on eating more and more.

I have been on track with food and gym for last 2 weeks, good 2 weeks, feeling nice, no junk food and then she comes to visit. I told her 100 times not to bring any junk food, does she listen, NO, she got a whole load of chips and treats and now they lie here in my room. Ofcourse I reach out and eat it up.

I hate for this. She thinks its showing love. Its not. There are other ways to show your love.

I am trying hard to be healthy and make it a habit and all that junk food does not help. I have weakness to run to food and consume myself with binging so I dont have to think anything, when I am feeling anxious or stressed. She does not get it.

And herself she is becoming huge, risking her health and well being and then has no sense of care or responsibility.

I dont like her being around for this specific reason. I try hard to keep her and myself on track for sometime and then I give in. She is such a bad influence on me when it comes to food. If I was making these mistakes on my own then I can be ok with it, coz I know it is my fault, but someone making it easier for me to fall into bad habits and unhealthy food, I dont like it.

I know I have to be strong and not rely on other conditions to determine my lifestyle, but it does, atleast unless I feel confident.

I would rather live myself and alone than have these bad influence people around me.

 

Monthly Goals

Looking at the large picture is difficult as changes will come but I need to keep my focus and keep going.

So monthly plans will help:

1. BBG 2.0 on track with all optional workouts included
2. Swimming 2 times in month.
3. Running 2 times a week.
4. Food – track intake daily
5. Cheats – 1 cheat meal  (not DAY) per week
6. Less bread in breakfast
7. Try 1 new healthy recipe
8. Max 2 coffee in day
9. Switch to unsweetened Almond milk
10. Food prep on Sunday – for atleast next 2 days

I think that is a lot of nice things to do and will help me with my big future goals.

About change

Do you make change a deadline or a part of your life?

I clearly mean in terms of fitness. I lay in bed yesterday with my sore legs (literally I could feel pain even while laying down) and was thinking about what is the goal for me. To loose weight yes, and to be lean yes, but the thing I always struggle with is ”how will I keep up when I achieve that goal?”. Not let me be honest, I have not reached my total goal ever (26″ waist and 55kg weight), I have come pretty close to it once. And then started fearing if I don’t put on weight again and then it all took me down.

But why do I worry about how will I keep it up? Do I worry I will have no goal or no method to continue challenging my body once I reach that goal?

Maybe yes.

I know it sounds silly, but trying to loose weight and get fit gives me a goal to work on, to focus on, and if that is over that what will I work towards.

Of course I know I can improve in hundreds of ways even after that, make new goals, but the only thing that comes to my mind is I will loose my achievements after I reach goal.

This clearly shows how pessimistic my approach or way of thinking is about the fitness way. And I do realize i have to change it.

Also, what is the goal I keep for myself, I need to remember that after that also I need to keep going, because fitness is a way of life, not just a waist size or dress size. Its not a diet for 3 months, but a healthy way of living and nourishing your body forever.

I don’t know how I have not learnt all this till now. I can blame so and so, but to be honest I am coming to face the truths after such a long time. I am thinking about these things after being in weight loss attempt journey for 9 years I would say.

It is nice that I can look at these aspects and come to realizations and make changes in my thoughts and actions. But also a little sad, why wasn’t a healthy way of living taught while I was growing up. Well, to be honest the place I come from, India, there are far more worries to take care of, a healthy way of life is the least of the concerns in daily life.

For now my focus is to get into my dresses and there are lots of them that don’t fit anymore. I keep looking at them and thinking how could I let myself get here and loose all that hard work, but I also know that it was because I made a goal for short term and did not incorporate healthy lifestyle.

This time will be different. I will keep striving to make myself better.

I am also so eager to see results, cant wait. Its only my 2nd week at being regular but I am so eager to see changes in my body. Will use this energy to keep going strong.

Think of changing your lifestyle!

 

 

10k race

I did a 10K race yesterday and it was fun. When I thought about it I haven’t done a race after my Full marathon which is way back in October 2014. I did run and  long distance too like 10 / 12 k but did not enter a race. Being there yesterday was a reminder of how fun it is. The butterflies before race, the excitement of all around you, the energy and the race itself. The thoughts I have during the race are so random, it such fun.

I have decided to register for more races now. 10 / 12 / 15 etc. And then in October I will be doing 21K.

A nice way to keep cardio in my routine and have fun as well.

Emotional eating

Trying to focus on myself and keeping myself accountable for what I eat.

Last evening I wanted to binge and realized it was an attempt to find comfort. I have been feeling quite low and also less energy, not sure if its interdependent. But would make sense if your state of mind and heart reflects on your energy level.

I wanted to eat something nice that would make me happy and then I realized eating would not do that. It cannot.

Food is not meant to bring comfort, it is only nutrition. But I cant eat my feelings out, it just doesn’t add up. Being sad about my past relationship and eating a bowl of icecream do not equal up.

So I did not binge. Ate my healthy oats with veggies dinner, prepared salad for today’s lunch and some overnight oats for breakfast. And went to sleep.

It felt ok. I knew I was feeling sad and low and I accepted it, and did not try to distract myself with food.

Most people forget all about food when they are low, but I run to it, like it will save me. It doesn’t. So no more of that.