Burn The Fat Challenge - DAY ONE!

Apologies for the week of silence but I'm here now and raring to go! Last week was a bit of a non-event due to struggling with injuries & exhaustion early on and then working 28 hours in 3 days over the weekend... But here I am having survived that (& realising I'm ready to rejoin the workforce after my 2 month hiatus!), smashed my first workout back & have weighed, pinched & photographed myself to the nth degree... even bought my goal jeans! By the way I will be posting weight/BF stats weekly but the photos & measurements will just be taken before & after the 49 days or it's just too much of a hassle.


Current:
Weight: 58.9kg (yes, I lost 3kg then put 2 back on...)
BF%: 21%
Lean body weight: 46.5kg
Body fat weight: 12.4kg
Size: 8-10


Goal:
Weight: 53.3kg
BF%: 13%
LBW: 46.5kg
BFW: 6.8kg
Size: 6-8
To lose: 5.6kg

Not loving the fact that potentially thousands of people will be seeing these due to the public challenge but what better accountability is there than that? I've never put myself out there in such an extreme way and don't plan on failing! (Welcome to any new BTF members reading this by the way!) Here's to day 1 of the last, LAST ditch attempt!

gaining momentum

I'm happy to report that I'm having a good week so far! I wasn't sure how difficult it would be to just starting "being good" again. Turns out cold turkey is the way to go. In the past I've tried to ease my way back into things but it never works. As long as there's an option to eat badly, I'll take it! So this time I woke up Monday morning and a dodgy diet was no longer an option. Clean eating is where it's at and despite ongoing stress & exhaustion, I've been smashing out some good gym sessions too. Tick.


Sooo, prep week. I was concerned that having a week to achieve more results would mean getting a head start on the competition and therefore disadvantage me... But when I weighed myself on Monday I realised I managed to put on 1.5kg during my couple of weeks of blatant bingeing and therefore this week will be just getting me back to my previous start point. Wow - shows just how quickly your hard work can be undone! Lesson learnt. Cheat MEAL not cheat MONTH.


So while we're on food, I'll take this opportunity to post my meal plan for the next 8 weeks. Keep in mind that it's only a guide - some things I'll definitely stick to every day but others I'll be trying to find a close equivalent. Interestingly enough, I've been reading lately that a lack of variety in food can be very helpful when it comes to losing weight. The more flavours & textures in front of you, the more you're going to want to eat and there's a much higher chance of going back for seconds! Same goes for snacking... If you have a cupboard full of every snack under the sun, you're never going to get bored and always find something else to eat. If you have a huge supply of just one or two foods however, you're more likely to get a snack based on hunger rather than boredom/cravings.


Breakfast Rolled oats w/ cinnamon & sugar, hot Milo, 1 kiwi fruit


Snack 1 banana


Lunch Sandwich w/ tinned salmon, light mayo & salad


Snack 1 orange, hot Milo


Dinner Lean meat w/ vege or salad & small serve of starchy carb


Snack 3 hard boiled egg whites


The breakdown: Approx 1350 calories total - I am aiming under what I should be eating in a day because I always end up eating more than I plan for. Anything up to 1600 a day is fine for the time being but I may drop lower towards the end of the competition. It's a fairly high carb diet to begin with (180-200g a day) but if I'm going to drop carbs I'll need to do it gradually or I know I'll crash. I definitely need to increase the protein intake (80g a day to start) but I've always struggled with protein so it'll have to be a work in progress.


Now let's get one thing straight. There are better diets out there with more protein, less carbs, yada yada. That's not what this is about. I am looking for a diet that can of course achieve results, but more importantly, keeps me satisfied & not feeling deprived and is therefore maintainable not just for the 7 weeks but for life. Of course if I'm a couple of weeks in and the results are happening too slowly, I'll make some tweaks but I would rather be realistic and eating food I enjoy than just turning into a robot who eats grass for 7 weeks then binges at the end and puts all the weight back on.


That's all from me for now. Still to come: gym plan, goals & affirmations. 5 days to go!!

the week that was

Instead of labelling last week as a failure, I'm going to call it "the week of trial and error". Hit the gym 5 days in a row which is definitely a record. Can't actually remember the last time I managed that, so yay for that. Diet... well... let's just say I got a little off track. Somehow my appetite saw the extra calories  as unlimited calories and I ate and ate and ate... Not good. Definitely seeing the damage in the mirror and on the scales but I'm back on track now. To be honest, the stress has been building again regarding money & lack of employment and it was basically a big ol' stress binge that lasted 7 days. Oops.


But here I am now... I've cleared my head and let go of the last week. I slept well and woke up feeling clearer and more positive (despite nothing having changed) and I'm ready to get back to my 100% commitment. Even better, there's a competition starting on www.burnthefatinnercircle.com and I am determined to enter, achieve my goals and WIN! I'm at a disadvantage having already achieved some good results and being a lot closer to my goals than others, but this has only motivated me to set my sights higher and reach for goals than I hadn't thought possible in the past.


The competition begins in a week - it's tempting to have another week long binge so I have more to lose when I start, but I already feel like crap after last week so no more sabotage. This week I will be doing everything within my power to prep my mind and body for an intense 49 day challenge (7 weeks) and come next Monday, I will be a force to be reckoned with.


The following posts will show all the preparation work I have been and will be doing... First up I'll post my goals and positive affirmations (a mandatory exercise in chapter one of Burn The Fat) - I'll put a blurb underneath those so you know how to come up with your own and how to use them. Then I'll post both my meal & diet plans and finally, the initial measurements & photos (which have to be updated weekly as part of the competition). 


Now let me get one thing straight - so far on this blog I've had many "fresh starts" and attempts (even some fantastic results) that didn't get me over the finish line. This time is different. I'm at a point in my life where if I don't finally get it together and ditch all the excuses, I may as well give up. I am so sick of trying and failing and self-sabotage and self-loathing. This is my time to put it all to rest. 


I know EXACTLY what I need to do to achieve this and there are no excuses left. I don't care if I have no money or I'm dealing with anxiety & depression about my work situation... This isn't about having the "perfect conditions" - I can achieve this whether I'm working 7 days a week or 0 days a week. It's about knowledge, discipline and consistency and none of those things have anything to do with outside circumstances. It's about me. I am the ONLY one to blame if I don't do it... And so this is me doing it.

the weekend of learning

Well the good news is I'm back and as hoped, I have some answers! The only problem is I have so many that I've been avoiding posting about them because I have too much to say. I'll keep this post short as I'm using the computer at the gym but I assure you there will be plenty more to come.

First things first: Why the meltdown? Few reasons. Firstly, I realised that even if I wasn't starving myself physically, I was psychologically. There's only so long someone can survive on 1200 calories and having to count everything that goes in your mouth. It was draining me in more ways than one.

Secondly, I've been looking at starting up work again soon due to money running out. The thought of starting work again after an extended break is scary enough as it is but I really thought I would have achieved my goals before I had to go back to work. The anxiety attack showed me that I'm not yet ready to return to work full-time. I need to know that my head is well and truly in the game before I do that (habits locked in, emotional eating a thing of the past, weight at a place where I can maintain rather than still be losing). This may sound extreme (and un-realistic), but the thing is, we moved to NZ to further our acting careers and a huge part of that for me is looking the part which will in turn help me with my self-confidence when it comes to auditions etc.

Anyway, the biggest discovery of the weekend was a book I stumbled across on the net called "Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle". I think I'd heard of it before, but with all the research I've been doing over the past week, the name kept coming up and I decided to look into it. Some health/fitness websites score it as the top diet/exercise plan in existence above all the books out there as well as Weight Watchers etc - high praise! The website for the book, www.burnthefat.com looked pretty cheesy and like a lot of other websites out there offering fad diets etc, but I decided to trust the reviews and buy the book. It's about $40AUD but I chose to buy the deluxe version with heaps of extras for $60AUD. Best $60 I've ever spent.

The author is a fitness trainer (25 years in the industry) and bodybuilder who has read every diet, exercise and motivational book around. He HATES fad diets and "quick fix" scams and is all about the science. He combined all his practical & "book" knowledge over the past 25 years to put together a book that covers EVERYTHING. Seriously - it was 340 pages of the hard facts and science (and no mean feat to read in one weekend) and he guarantees if you follow his plan (that is as "un-fad-like" as it gets) you can transform your body in 7 weeks. That said, this plan is for life - it is a maintainable food & exercise plan that you should do until you die. No major calorie cutting, no pills or supplements... Just clean food and a lot of exercise.

If you seriously want to change your body and I mean SERIOUSLY - as in it is the top of your priority list - PLEASE buy this book and read it from cover to cover. Yes, it's a big read and the plan does not claim to be easy (it isn't!) but it will, without doubt, change your body and your life. www.burnthefat.com - do it.

As for me, I've been crunching numbers and writing up food & exercise guides all weekend. I'm happy to say I'm on a higher calorie plan now (approx 1600 cal) and even get to have a higher day every 4 days (approx 2000 cal) which will keep my metabolism on fire. I am going to be working out like a maniac but you can do it at your own level... I personally want to reach my goals by Christmas (7 weeks from now) so that 2012 is a year of maintaining that and enjoying myself more. I will be doing a lot of things the same... The exercise plan I recently posted is basically what I'll be doing with some minor tweaks and my diet includes a lot of the same foods I was eating but I'm paying a lot more attention to what kind of macronutrients I'm taking in (carbs/proteins/fats) and instead of counting calories will just follow a pre-made plan instead.

As earlier stated, I'll do a weekly progress report (weight, body fat, measurements, photos) but the focus is really going to be on lean mass vs body fat. I'll post my specific goals later today when I put up my starting statistics. I won't lie... This plan scares me a little. But they say if your goals don't scare you then you're not aiming high enough.

hrmm...

What a weird week. I've been putting off writing because I was hoping for something positive to happen that I could write about but then I remembered that I promised you 100% honesty so I thought I'd better just give it to you straight.


The week started out fine - day one, smashed out the legs as planned (maybe too much too soon but what can you do??) and diet was on track. Got to sleep alright but once it hit the wee hours of the morning, the legs started to seize up and cramp and that led to bad dreams and a pretty awful sleep.


Day two, I somehow hobbled to the gym, feeling like crap and pushed through the workout. Come the afternoon however, and I have the mother of all meltdowns. The agony mixed with the exhaustion mixed with the stress of running out of money and therefore time... it just all became too much for me. As far as I can remember I stuck to my diet but it was still early days.


Day three and luckily it was cardio/recovery day because there was no way my legs OR arms had anything left to give. Had an awful morning and barely made it to the gym... My legs kept giving way on me, I had a migraine and joy of joys, I had my first anxiety attack in months which made trying to stay on the cross trainer mighty difficult (the first thing I lose is my balance and then there's the blurred vision, nausea and trouble breathing). Tried to pretend that the tears coming out of my eyes during the first few minutes of training were actually tears and thankfully 10 minutes in, the attack subsided and I started to feel better. That night I ate chocolate, slept badly again and the next day realised I needed a proper, guilt-free day off. Had amazing food, skipped the gym and was feeling a lot better... Until today.


Now here I am, on what should be a productive, busy day... re-motivated & energised... and yet sitting on the couch at 2.30pm in my pyjamas still feeling like a blob. Partially still exhausted (more from the stress than exercise I think) and partially frozen with panic that my rest day is going to evolve into a rest year and I'm going to end up right back where I started. Where's the line between needing more rest and needing to get on with it? I don't know any more!!!


Oh, other weird thing: Had been weighing myself this week and reached my all time low weight but somehow stopped seeing the results in the mirror. How is it that I was in worse shape the week before yet feeling amazing and now I'm in my best shape of my adult life and I feel like a blob?? Again - exhaustion affecting my head or am I just nuts? I hope to write again soon with some answers... Until then, this is crazy person signing out.