Losing fast

The weight is falling off a bit faster than expected, possibly due to the amount of exercise I did this week. I spent my Australia Day weekend in the Snowy Mountains on a hut maintenance trip with SPAN, my outdoors club. We did about eight hours of mountain biking over the four days, over fairly rough fire trails that had lots of ups and downs. On top of that we spent a day and a half scrubbing and painting the interior walls of the hut. More about this later in the week...

I stuck to my meal plan for the first three days of the week, and then had to improvise a little when it came to camping. An advantage of going on a hut maintenance trip is that National Parks let you take in one vehicle to carry tools and supplies. This meant we were able to carry in real food, and we even had a little fridge!

I ate healthy meals of home-made muesli for breakfast with nuts and dried fruit in it, crackers or wraps with tuna and salad for lunch, and we had two nights of noodles with veges and Lup Cheong sausage (fatty sweet pork), and one night of couscous with chickpeas cooked in a tomato and zucchini sauce. Because of the level of activity, healthy meals were not enough, so I also had fruit, almonds and muesli bars as snacks.

My indulgence for the weekend was a bit of chocolate, and because it was a social weekend, there may have been a few drinks, chips, cheese and bikkies involved as well. I'm not sure if the treats are going to show up in my weight next week, or if they disappeared with the exercise - I'll have to wait and see. As long as I don't go overboard this week, I should be fine. I'm way ahead of my target weight so far, so I'm not going to panic just yet!



Weekly change in measurements

I think I need to explain two points here to explain my losses, especially around my waist. I may be dehydrated after the hot weekend, causing an artificial weight loss that will be reversed as soon as I rehydrate. For the women out there, (don't read this if you get squeamish), my waist measurement is significantly reduced this week because last week I may have been bloated due to my time of the month. It has to be said - it does affect your measurements. So some of the loss there may have happened in the first week, but didn't show up until this week.

Don't forget to recognise activities like cleaning and other jobs as exercise. It may not be vigorous, heart pumping work, but it still counts because you're moving. Come back later in the week to see some photos of mountain biking around Mt Jagungal in the Australian Snowy Mountains!

First week loss

So it's been a good week. You usually do well in your first week because you're motivated, you lose water, and your system gets a bit of a shock. Despite going to a wedding, I followed my meal plan and did most of the exercise I planned to do.

Some of the challenges of the week were:

• I didn't cycle to work on Monday because it was pouring rain
• I didn't get to kayak on Wednesday night because I wasn't able to borrow a kayak
• They served my favourite dessert at the wedding - pavlova
• I had less than seven hours sleep several nights, when I'm an 8.5 hour girl.

I was really proud of how I handled the wedding. Fortunately it was a daytime wedding, and we had cold cuts and salads for lunch, which meant I had no difficult decisions to make. We were given dessert, but I managed to just eat half the pavlova, and none of the cream, and gave the rest to my weightily blessed boyfriend. I only had two glasses of wine the whole day! Because I'd eaten so well all week, I knew that the wine and pavlova wouldn't have a huge impact. The secret is balance. If you know you're going to have a day where you might eat or drink more than your usual daily allowance, you just eat a little less on the other days. Of course you can't eat like you're not watching your weight, but you can allow yourself a few little treats.

I really need to make sure I sleep well. I know that when I'm tired I snack more. I managed to control it this week by drinking diet cokes but that's not particularly good for my teeth, so it's not a sustainable way to live. Just have to sleep more!

I made up for missing a couple of my normal exercise sessions by taking a long walk on Sunday. One thing I did notice with all this exercise was that I was a bit hungry. I haven't been allowing extra kilojoules for the exercise, and while this may mean I lose weight faster, it also increases the risk of me eating something I hadn't planned to eat. Next week I'm going to make sure I eat a bit more.

 

When you're losing weight, it's always a good idea to track your measurements, especially if you're starting to exercise more. Some people gain muscle weight quite quickly, which can disguise weight loss. Gaining muscle weight is a good thing - muscle burns off more kilojoules than fat! I'm happy with my small improvements this week, and already notice it in one or two pieces of clothing.

I'm going camping next weekend, with lots of physical activity planned - walking, caving, swimming etc. Hopefully I'll be able to stay on track...

Starting on the exercise

So I have my exercise program worked out. I've been making a gradual start to it, by starting kayaking in the first week of January, then adding indoor climbing and cycling to work last week. This week I introduced yoga. Kayaking is very new to me, but the others I've done quite a bit in the past.

I recently joined the Lane Cove River Kayakers, who specialise in river marathons. On Wednesday nights we get a lesson on technique, then compete in a time trial over 6 or 12km. I don't have my own kayak yet, but the club members are really supportive and let me try out theirs.

My cycle to and from work is about 30 minutes each way. It's a pretty easy ride with very few hills and a lovely scenic section through Bicentennial Park at Homebush. I really should improve on that time, as I'm taking it a bit easy at the moment. I'm planning to do that about three days a week.

Once a week I climb indoors with my outdoors club (ironic I know). I've only been a few times, but so far I've moved on to the blue courses and even managed an easy overhang just before Christmas. At the moment I'm trying to shimmy my way up a rope, after getting one metre off the ground last week.

Yoga will improve my flexibility and strength and force me to relax once a week. I'm a bit sore after this week's visit and I finally relaxed after an hour of checking the clock and thinking time was passing slowly.

I may start tennis in February, just because I love it.

This seems like a lot of exercise, but it doesn't feel like it. Going to a gym feels like exercise, but cycling just gets me to and from work - like a commute, and the climbing and kayaking I do with friends and have a great time. The best thing about living in the city is that I've got so many choices of where to do these activities, so I don't have conflicts. Only conflict will be with my willpower!

Weight loss

I've decided to start losing weight today. I decided a while ago, but then I spent a couple of months telling myself that this ice cream was a final treat, this McDonald's meal would be the last one, I'd finish this bag of lollies this weekend because I wouldn't have any next week, all of which led to me putting on more weight. Enough already!

I don't have to lose a lot, but I am on the verge of having to go up a clothing size and I'm officially overweight. I always say it's far easier to lose a little than waiting until I have a lot to lose. At 76.1kg I'm over the healthy weight range for my height, which is 59-74kg. I'm aiming for 68-70kg so that I'm not sitting right at the top of this range.

 

I want to lose about one tenth of my weight (about 0.7kg) a week, so I should reach my goal in about three months. I'll be ready for a bikini just in time for winter!
To ensure I stick to my program, I'm going to post my weight, measurements, and exercise done once a week. I'll also talk about my successes and challenges on the weight loss journey. I'll be using meal plans that I've based on old Weight Watchers recipes and others I've picked up along the way.

I welcome comments!



Starting measurements