Exercise as a REWARD

Wow its been two years since I published anything on this blog... That is a very long time,  Mind you there has been a lot of changes in that two years.

Today I was merrily running on my treadmill when the endorphines kicked in and I was feeling awesome having a great time.  Then it suddenly occurred to me that, we (people that is) spend way to much time using exercise as a punishment rather than the reward it should be.

How many times have we eaten that thing that we "weren't supposed to" or drank a bit to much or simply just fallen of the wagon and then dragged our perceived badness down to the nearest gym and proceeded to flay ourselves with exercise to atone for our sins?  Heaps, I'll bet.  I know I have. oh and then there is the dramatic dietary changes that usually accompany these efforts
The results of this are usually less that stellar and result in being in pain, tired, hungry, angry and not feeling too flash about ourselves.

Well what if we shifted our thinking to making our exercise a REWARD?  What are you on about, lady? I hear you say...
It works like this, instead of mentally and physically beating yourself up think of it like this; I love my body, I am proud of my body and I choose to honour myself by taking regular vigorous exercise.. which will make me feel good, and my body will love me for it in return. You can do the same thing with how you think about food,  I choose to honour myself by making better food choices whenever I can.

Remember its not always possible to get it all "just so" but it is always possible to make a better choice for ourselves.

Final word on this:  Reward yourself with exercise and healthier food choices and the pay offs are huge,  better health, better self esteem, looking better and heaps more energy. Why would you not want to give yourself that gift?

Absolving Responsibility...

Yep, Guilty, Look over here.. I absolve myself of responsibilty in lots of ways,  I blame the weather, my lack of will power, lack of energy, too higher body fat, lack of time, other people, my house not having enough storage.. the list goes on. I think we are all guilty of this to some degree. For me the time hascome to stop passing the buck and get on with living the life I want, starting with the house that doesnt have enough storage.. mmm is that really the problem OR is it that there's just too much crap in it???  I dare say if I wanted to be really honest about it (and really who does want to be honest about these things?) I live in a house with adequate storage and WAY TOO Much crap.. and I use that as an excuse for not really cleaning .. you know the old clean in between the crap thing.  Weelll having just read The Hero's Handbook,  I am going to under take being my own hero by throwing out a whole heap of shite that is literally gathering dust around here...unfortunately its going to have to wait until tomorrow (haahhaa procrastinators unite) as I have to be at work in 39 mins.. but I will chuck that bag of clothes thats been sitting in the bedroom in the car and take it to the sallies.

Its a start

Get your own copy ofThe Hero's Handbook ..its free and it might needle you into doing something about that thing thats been bothering you for a while :-)

No Comp for this Kid...

I've been back on he plan for a month no and not too much has changed.. although having said that I do feel a whole heap better.

The new programme is starting to show benefits..i think my shoulders are squaring off and my lats have definately gotten bigger.

All that said however it doesnt look like I'm gonna be competing in april as the weight loss is not coming away all that great and also it looks like we are Australia-bound WOOHOO!! So with the need for renewing passports and transporting hounds (as well as ourselves) spending a shed load of cash right now on new bikinis, tans, federation/entry fees, shoes, hair ... the list goes on, just doesnt seem like a feasable idea.. and if im going to be honest my heads not really into it right now.. sometimes I just wanna eat eggs on toast and drink wine (not at the same time usually tho...) and its really nice to have the choice to do so.  Well you always have a choice even when on a cutting diet BUT you really have to weight up the consequences of your dietary recklessness very carefully.  So right now I know that I will compete again this year so am sticking to the plan 90% of the time, keeping up my training and generally doing the right things.

Today is my "cheat" day so I have eaten some cheese busters (yum!) and am planning wine for later. Also I found a very low fat, low carb, high protein cheesecake recipe so am trying that out today .. its cooling in the oven even as I type.  will post photos when its done.

Back to the plan..

Finally got my balls outta my purse as it were and got back on the plan. Cos the fact is as much as I moan and whinge about the lack of cake and booze, cake and booze make me feel like crap, so stop bitching and suffer OR take action and feel better, nobody wants to listen to someone who goes on and on about how fat, sick, tired, lethargic etc, etc they are when they know damn well how to help themselves. So just get on and do it.

Saturday.. better!

Woke up way too early this morning.. bit seedy due to the bottle of wine I inhaled.. luckily the pub was closed when I got there, rottweiler in tow.

Today was better although I went back to bed and read for a while, made myself some breakfast (which I had in bed oooh the luxury!) and then went back to sleep till half past ten, very nice :0)

Went for a five k walk and now I have my nike sportsband calibrated i can tell you that I walk at a pce of between 6.6 and 7.3ks an hour, Phew! Its no wonder walking with other people seems painfully slow sometimes, So there went 300 cals (not quite the wine and bread but better than nothing)

Still undecided about the whole stage thing BUT am definate about the job. Better go check tea. Steak w Eggplant and vegetable chutney stack .. thanks NZ house and garden mag!

good bye wagon and job resignations

I just drank a whole bottle of red wine (and Im gonna go buy more!) and ate a mass of bread and quit my job.. cut me some slack. Ok so I dont see the stage any time soon but sometimes you've just got to get your day to day shit in order.
Sometimes fat mass and weight readings are just not important.. a lot like my spelling lol.

Sometimes you just have to get your shit together and get happy./. fuck the calipers

97 Days to go

And motivation wavers already .. although I had decided to do this last year .. that was so, well, last year! I didnt write last night because in lieu of work stress I decided to have a bourbon, a beer and a wine (very large) and well they say alchohol is not the way to solve problems it sure helped me relax, which was a good thing. The bad thing about it was that it lead to before bed corned beef sandwichs and a 300g weight gain...hmmmm

Today was an "off" day so no gym today, so spent the afternoon painting and for lunch I invented a tasty salad.

Ingredients:

100g of very lean good quality bacon
1/4 of a small avocado
100g potato (left overs from last nights dinner)
1 small carrot
1/2 c cucumber sliced or diced
1/2 c green beans sliced
sprinkle of whole kernal corn
mint sauce.

cook the beans and corn and then grate in the carrot and add to beans and corn. Cook the bacon in the microwave on paper towels.  Chop avocado and potaoto and add to salad. when the bacon is cooked chop it up and add it to the salad as well.  Sprinkle mint sauce over the top and eat.

It sound disgusting but its actually very tasty.

venison patties for tea with silverbeet, mushrooms and grated beetroot.