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50% Done

One of my goals for the year is to read/listen to 30 books.

Last year I read 26. So I figured that 30 would be totally doable.

Well it looks like I’m going to have to reassess this goal because well it’s only March, and I’ve already achieved 50% of this goal.

The books I have read so far are as follows:

1. The Host
2. The little white horse
3. Parvana’s journey
4. Albert of Adelaide
5. The smarter science of slim
6. The débutante
7. Ten things we did
8. The 5 love languages of children
9. Something Blue
10. Even Now
11. The eczema diet
Audio Books
1. The Gift
2. Unbearable Lightness
3. Knitting

 

Meet Lucy

This is Lucy.  She is my new bike (Mongoose Crossway 300).

I’ve been saving up for Lucy for about a year.  I had a 2nd hand bike prior to that.  It was ok, but nothing like Lucy.

Lucy is a hybrid.  She’s designed as a commuter bike.  I was tossing and turning as to what to get, between her and the mountain bike.  Then I thought about it, and I realised that I would not be mountain biking any times soon.  Not while the kids are so little.  When they are older yes, so in the mean time, this commuter bike does the trick.

She’s worth every penny I spent on her.

You can also see the bike trailer that I got last year as well.  The trailer I bought on ebay.  It also has the option of being a stroller as well (has a front wheel you can attach).

So Lucy is apart of the family, cause we all love going for bike rides, and although I’m only going at the speed that my kids can go, we still have a great time.

To Read or Not To Read

I enjoy reading now more than I did years ago.

My family (my dad and sister) are big readers.  They read all the time.  It’s rare for them not to be reading something.

One of my books this year is to read 30 books.  With my ears and eyes.

I’m doing really well so far.  I’ve read 7 books so far. 6 with my eyes, and 1 audio book.

But I also have another mission.  I want to read more non fiction books.  So I’ve decided for each 2 fiction book I read I need to read at least 1 non fiction book.

It’s also really handy to have my ereader back working normally (it’s brand new and was being a spaz), this makes reading a lot easier, and it fits perfectly into my handbag.

The other advantage of reading is that encourages the kids to read too.  I caught my son asleep with a book on his chest, too cute to say the least.

A Year of Fine Tuning

So last year (2012) was a year of just getting fit, and pushing myself.

This year I plan on just maintaining my fitness.  Yes I still have fitness goals, but my fitness goals are different to what they were.

For example in June I set these goals:

1. Get to 62kg
2. Run a sub 55min 10km
3. Run a sub 25 5km
4. Finish a half marathon
5. Run a half marathon

But now those goals are:

1. read/listen to 30 books
2. run 7 fun runs
3. run 3 half marathons
4. be a pace runner for a run
5. run a fun run in another state

I should mention that these are in no particular order.

The other thing that I’m fine tuning is what I’m eating.

Notice I didn’t say diet.

That’s right, I’m not on a diet.  I’m just eating way better. I’m eating way more veggies and whole foods.  I’ve cut down my carbohydrate intake and increased my protein intake.

My protein intake use to be anywhere from 10-20% of my total food intake.  Which is really low.  I was eating anywhere from 40-80 grams of protein a day.  Which in the grand scheme of things is not a lot.  My carbohydrate intake was insane! It was anywhere from 180 grams to 300 grams a day!

Protein is important as it helps to build and sustain muscle.  I also found out recently that our body will naturally convert protein to carbohydrates if it’s needed (how cool is that).

So my percentages for my carb/protein/fat intake was as follows:  55% Carbohydrate / 15% Protein / 30% Fat.

I’ve now changed it to the following: 40% Carbohydrate / 30% Protein / 30% Fat.

It’s taken me a month to get use to the changes, but let me tell you, eating more protein has done many things.

1. It’s filling me up faster.
2. I’m not feeling as tired
3. I’m not craving sugar as much

And those are the things I have noticed.  I still have to fine tune it, but I’ll get the hang of it.

The other thing I’m doing is I’m trying out a lot more new recipes.  Especially paleo recipes.

Why Paleo? Because that’s what our ancestors ate.  And no I’m not talking cave people (although they would have been paleo eaters), I’m talking our ancestors of just 100-200 years ago.  In the sense of if they didn’t grow it, kill it, or make it themselves they wouldn’t eat it.

I don’t know if I will ever go full paleo because I know carbohydrates have a place in a runners diet. And well I’m a runner (and I do like my carbs), but I will try to make better choices.

2012 A Year in Review

2012 has been one very interesting year.

It has been a year of self discovery, of hard work, sweat and tears.

One thing is for sure.

I have definitely gone outside my comfort zone.

There have been things that I have done that I never thought would be possible. Setting goals has helped, but regularly re:evaluating those goals has also greatly helped.

At the start of the year some of my goals looked like this:

1. Get to 65kg
2. Run 5km race in 27 minutes
3. Swim a 1km ocean swim in 25 minutes
4. Read 24 books in 2012 with my eyes
5. Have weekly family fun time

So how did I go?

Well I totally SMASHED them.

So let me break them down for you.

1. Get to 65kg

When I started goal setting back in October 2011.

I put down a goal of getting to 65kg.  Why 65kg?  Well It seemed like a nice solid round number that happened to be in the healthy BMI.  

I did however thought that goal would be a lot of hard work, and to be honest I wasn’t sure I would get there.  I thought that if I could just get to 68kg then I would be happy.

You see I was 78kg at the time and 10kg seemed like a lot to lose.  But as the weight slowly came off, I believed in myself more, and realised that 65kg was totally possible.  

On the 24th July 2012 I weighed in at 64kg.  I not only reached 65kg, I went one further and got to 64kg.

Not only that.  I ended up changing that goal to 62kg in May.  And I achieved that goal of reaching 62kg on 20th November 2012.

2. Run 5km race in 27 minutes

When I put down this goal, it was initally run 5km.  However a goal is not a goal if it is not SPECIFIC.   When you really are specific about goals, you really push yourself, and you will be amazed at what you can achieve.

The race that I had in mind to achieve this goal was Run For The Kids .

I knew I could run 5km in 30 minutes.  Wiping off 3 minutes is a lot when it comes down to running (I did not know this at the time, I do now).

Run For the Kids wasn’t 5km.  It was 5.2km.  I ran that race in 28mins14secs.  Not bad considering I had only started up running in October 2011 (and not even regularly running at that).

After running that race, I pushed myself even further.  I put myself down for an 11km race, and then I went on to run a half marathon!

I should also note that on the 24th August 2012 I ran my fastest 5km, at 23m42s. You can read about that here.

3. Swim a 1km ocean swim in 25 minutes

I put this on my list of goals, because at the time I was thinking that I could do a triathlon sometime in the future.  I mean I could swim, I could run, I could ride a bike.  Even doing a mini triathlon could totally be possible.  So I broke down that goal.  I knew that if doing a triathlon would be something I wanted to do then I needed to get into open swimming.

So I started training in the swimming pool to build up my swimming endurance.  I based this goal on swimming laps in a pool.  Let me tell you now, swimming in a pool is COMPLETELY different to swimming in the ocean. You have a lot more variables swimming in the ocean than you do in a pool.

So this particular goal I still achieved, because when you take into consideration I based my time in a pool, and not in open water, and also taking into consideration I swam breaststroke 80% of the time, and also currents to deal with, and a mass of people and so on, I’m crossing it off the list.

I swam the 1km race in 28mins. If you wanna read about it, you can see it here .

4. Read 24 books in 2012 with my eyes

Now you might think this is a weird goal.  Read 24 books with my eyes?  I mean wha?

Why eyes?  Why eyes specifically, well you see I also listen to audio books while I do housework, but it doesn’t seem fair to add them to the list.  So that’s why I was specific about this goal.

I ended up reading read 26 books in 2012 (I’m currently on my 27th book for the year).  You can see my list of books on Good Reads.

5. Have weekly family fun time

Family time has always been important to me.  I have so many fantastic memories growing up, and all those memories are ones that I created with my family. I want my kids to have those types of memories too. So I have been making more family fun events and it has been great bonding with my kids.

We have gone bush walking in the Grampians.  There are so many different tracks, and being in nature is fantastic.  The kids love seeing the wild animals, and love to explore.

I’ve also taken them to different playgrounds.  I tend to do this more so when we go to visit my parents in Melbourne. to different playgrounds, to the zoo, the movies, and play board games.  Some take up a lot of time, some a little, some a lot of money, some free.  Either way we have all had fun.

So what are my goals now?

Well here are a list of some of my current goals

1. Read/listen 30 books
2. Run 3 half marathons
3. Be a pace runner for a half marathon
4. run 7 fun runs
5. have a veggie patch
6. Do 5 chin ups in a row
7. Have a chicken coop

I look forward to crossing them off and replacing them with new ones.

I’m already booked into 3 fun runs too.  One of those being a half marathon.  I’m super excited!

I also look forward to discovery more about myself, and enjoying quality time with my family.

Ipad Alternative

Something totally not fitness related, but I thought I would add. 

I love Apple products.

I fell in love with Apple when I got an iTouch a few years ago.  When that got sad, I replaced it with an iPod nano (which I still have and still use), and then a refurbished iPhone 3 (which is great, but it’s a bit of a dinosaur now, and is very slow, can’t wait to upgrade).

Well I would totally love an iPad, but can’t afford it right now.  Also the kids would fight over it because they would want to use it all the time, and well I can’t afford one let alone two.

When we are on long trips, I do let my kids play with my phone (yes there are kid friendly apps on there, I’m a mum, I need to keep my sanity).

Well a few weeks ago Australia had a “Click Frenzy” Sale.  (Think America’s Black Friday Sales, but all online.)  They ended up calling it Click Fail because a lot of people couldn’t get to the relevant websites to get their deals.

Me however.  I got my deal 🙂

I found this

A 7″ Android powered tablet.  I got it for $99.  So natural I got 2.  😀

Now some of you may think, that’s a bit of an indulgent.  But let me tell you this.  A few weeks ago our dvd player for the car died. One TV screen was working and the other wasn’t.  To get a new one it was going to cost $80 just for 1.  $150 for dual ones.  I figured, why not get this instead.  I can put games, education apps, put movies on it, as well as music and books.  So I was sold, and it has been one of the best investments.  We do a lot of travelling up and down the highway, and if we want to do ‘decent’ shopping it’s a 45min drive one way or 1h20 the other way.  So this keeps the kids entertained.  It was well worth it.

So if you can’t afford and iPad, go the Dxtreme.  I’m really happy with mine, and you know what, the kids don’t know the difference.

Wastage

Aside

I grew up with my mum instilling in me not to waste stuff.

I’m teaching my kids to do the same.

We really are a wasteful society.  Everything is throw away.  No one seems to care about the environment or how the next generation will live. Which is sad really.

Tonight for me is bin night, for both normal waste, and recyclables.  Although the recyclable bin is only 3/4 full it only gets collected once a fortnight.  This is the only bin I put out.  The other ‘normal’ bin only had 3 small bags of rubbish in it.
Yep, only 3 small bags, hardly worth me putting it out to get collected.  So that’s how much waste the 3 of us produced in this house that could not be composted or recycled.

I totally love my compost now.  I have a bigger bucket, as previously I was using an icecream container and it wasn’t big enough.  Usually once a day sometimes every second day I will dump all the organic material onto the compost.  The worms must be loving it.
But the best part, the soil that is coming out of the compost, just amazing.  Worms are wonderful things!

I know that there are others out there like me who don’t produce a lot of waste for landfill, which is a great thing.  It’s just a shame that others don’t do the same. I hate see rubbish littered on the roads, on the streets, and in our parks. People just don’t care, they put it in the too hard basket.

So I may only be one person, but I’m one person making a difference, and I hope you do the same too.

A calorie is a calorie is a calorie

Or is it?

So I have been Listening to the podcast “The Smarter Science of Slim”. And well the subject of this particular podcast was CALORIES. Yes I’m putting that in capitals, cause well I think it’s important.

When I first started out on my weight loss journey it was all about calories. Calories in vs calories out. But now that I have progressed in my journey I now know that a calorie is not JUST a calorie.

For example take a look at the following:

 

 

vs

 

So why did I pick these 2 particular foods?

Well 1 because I have both of them in my house, and 2 they are extremely different.

Now let me tell you I ate 50g of jelly beans the other day (about 24 jelly beans, yes I weighed and counted them), and I felt really gross afterwards.  I was mindless eating, just putting things in my mouth cause it was there.

So is a calorie a calorie?  Well yes a calorie is a calorie, BUT it all comes down to the quality of the calorie. I mean just look at the difference in macro’s between the 2 foods.

In the broccoli we have 7g of carbs, and 2g of sugars.  Compared to 98g of carbs and 80g of sugar in the jelly beans.
The broccoli also has dietry fibre, sodium and potassium, vitamins a & c, and calcium and iron, while the jelly beans have none of that.

One thing for sure, I’d rather eat 100g of broccoli than eat 100g of jelly beans.

Ok so yeah I might eat 100g of jelly beans in one session, but I wont feel good afterwards.  But if I eat the 100g of broccoli, I will feel full and satisfied. And I rather feel satisfied that meh/blah.

So like anything it comes down to quality. They weren’t joking when they say “you are what you eat”.  So don’t be fast, cheap and easy, and majority of the time fake.  Go with the quality foods.

I’m not in that 4% group

A few days ago I came across a website “Smarter Science of Slim”

I found it via a forum post on MFP. Well I bookmarked it to look at it later, but I also notice that they had a podcast. So I downloaded the podcast so I could listen to it while doing house work.

Well this morning I had the opportunity to listen to it while the kids were still sleeping. About 15 minutes into the podcast something that was said really stood out to me.  I have heard it before from other fitness professionals, but for what ever reason it was screaming out to me in this podcast.
What was it I hear you say?  Well first of all let me give you my experience.

I started my health and fitness journey 1 year ago.  I just was not happy with my life, and how I was feeling.  So rather than complain about it I decided to make a change. It was a step by step progress but I kept at it.  Well fast forward a year and how has my life changed.  All for the better.  Sure I have had hurdles (some health related, some fitness related, and then just general life hurdles), but who hasn’t.  What doesn’t challenge you doesn’t change you.
One thing I found was that when I started out MyFitnessPal set my calorie goal as 1200.  I thought that was just way too low.  I tired it for a while, but I found it just was not working for me, and I was binging.  I should also not at in my early stages I was not eating my exercise calories back, so really I was only netting anywhere from 800-900 calories a day.

The binging I hated, but I just felt so hungry.  So I decided to up my calorie allowance from 1200 to 1500.  Once I did that I felt so much better.  Again I was not eating my exercise calories back.  My weight loss was going very slow.  It took about 6 weeks for me to loose 2kg. Was I dishearten about it, well I little, but I also had in my mind, that it’s better to loose it slowly than too quickly. So I kept at it, and I kept up reading various blogs, websites, articles about weightloss, health and fitness in general, and also listening to podcasts, and Chalene’s car smart series on healthy living.

Slowly things started really coming together and making sense to me.  Sure weight loss is all about knowing your numbers, but it’s not just about eating less and exercising more.
And that is what this podcast was getting out.  Did you know that only 4% of the population will lose weight by eating less and exercising more.

FOUR FLIPPING PERCENT!!!!!

When I heard that I was like “omg are you serious, well I’m not in that 4% then”. I’m clearly in that other percentage group, with the rest of the population (96%), where by eating more (of the right types of food), and exercising smarter the weight comes off.

At the end of the day you do what works for you.  I tired that 4% group and it did not work for me.  I’m not saying that it might not work for you, only you will know that.  But what ever you do give it 100%.