Fitness Test - and a mini-achievement!

I went to see Florence and the Machine on the weekend - which was an amazing concert, and well worth braving the freezing cold!  I spent ages thinking about what I should wear, then settled on something a bit different for me - for the first time ever, I wore a t-shirt dress and leggings!

I have never been brave enough to wear leggings, I've always thought I looked too big and it was more suited to those with a waif-like figure.  But this time I thought "stuff it" and gave it a go.

T-shirt dress and leggings - also my first ever Sportsgirl purchases!

Today it was time to do my fitness test.  This was a bit of an obstacle for me last round - I was a bit silly and chose to do my 1km time trial at an athletics oval that involved some organisation to get to.  It meant that when it came time to repeat my fitness test, I couldn't be bothered going back - so I didn't do the tests.  I feel like that was a big part of why I didn't do as well as I could have - not having those results as motivation to keep going.

I've been a bit naughty the last few weeks, and haven't been to the gym.  It took a lot of self-talk to get myself there today to do my fitness test.  I wore my favourite gym clothes as a bit of a reward for getting off my bum, and I dragged myself in. 

My favourite gym clothes - they're the only ones I have from Lululemon, and they feel so nice - I've promised myself that when I reach my goal I can buy a new workout wardrobe from there.

I told myself that because I've committed to doing Couch to 5K this round, there's no time like the present - so said that after finishing my fitness test I was going to do week 1, day 1.  So, armed with my trusty iPod and my HRM, I smashed out my first session for round 2!

Not a bad effort!

So now I'm off to make kanga bangas with sweet potato mash from the Crunchtime Cookbook, to top off a pretty good day.  

Gratuitous wedding post

 When we first starting planning our wedding, people told me all these horror stories about how stressful it is, and how they spent months of their lives driving around looking at things, so that by the end they just wanted it over.  To be honest, it was terrifying.


We seem to have dodged a bullet so far, and have actually found the wedding planning process to be pretty fun.  I'm a very decisive person, so it doesn't take me very long to make my mind up about what I want - which I think has helped a lot. 


Firstly, I had to design my ring.  My fiance has proposed to me with a Promised Ring - it's from a wonderful company called Ethical Jewellry Australia.  They source their materials from locations that are ethically, morally and environmentally sound - it's a fantastic company.  The Promised Ring involves choosing gemstones and an ingot of your chosen metal, and then you get to design your own engagement ring (see http://www.ethicaljewels.com.au/products/the-promised-ring).

My Promised Ring box - recycled palladium ingot, Canadian marquise diamond,  and fair trade argyle diamonds and pink tourmalines

My engagement ring

Choosing our venue was easy - I wanted to be close to the University to have our photos done there, since that's where we met and it has a lot of meaning to us.  I had been to a function at Hillstone before, and thought that the old Queenslander feel on the golf course was absolutely beautiful.

Hillstone, St Lucia

I already had in mind having a vintage look for our wedding, and since my fiance was basically in over his head when it came to aesthetics (so had given me free reign), I had decided on a colour scheme of champagne/dusky pinks.  However, the only date that was available in October (which is apparently a very popular month for weddings, damn) was my birthday. So we are getting married on my birthday - should be easy for my future-husband to remember!  While initially upset about this, I've now come around to the idea and want to incorporate it into our wedding.  We have wedding cake and birthday cake, and I'm thinking that at least I know I'm going to have a pretty great birthday party this year!

Reception hall decorations - Hillstone

Bouquet inspiration - Green and Bloom flowers

Vintage limos - Princess Luxury Classics

More hairstyle ideas - The Powder Room

Bridal shoes - Pedro Garcia

Birthday cake!

Wedding cake!

My wedding photo inspiration - Chris Hall photography at Hillstone

Our engagement photos 

Engagement photos

Preseason tasks - there's one I've definitely nailed

I am a bit of a shopaholic.  My downfall is clothes shopping, and gym clothes are no exception.  When I graduated and starting working, I went through a phase of buying nice gym clothes (I figured it would help motivate me to go to the gym and lose weight).  And while it hasn't completely backfired - I do prefer going to the gym wearing my nicer clothes - I haven't lost the weight.


Which, while frustrating, has one positive side: I have got the "Gear Up!" preseason task in the bag.  If it was a competition, I would definitely be in the running for the lead.  I have my Polar Heart Rate monitor (though sadly not in the colour I wanted, since it had sold out at my local Rebel Sport and I didn't want to wait to order one online), I have an assortment of Lorna Jane headbands from when my hair was too short to pull back in a ponytail (before I decided to grow it for my wedding), and I have clothes.  Lots of clothes.


I have my go-to outfits depending on what class I'm doing - with enough of them to get me through the entire week without having to rewash anything.  I also have a few "extra" outfits for if I go for an evening jog with someone after work, or for it I'm too lazy to do my laundry in time.  I have three pairs of gym shoes - one pair purely for running, one pair for RPM (they were my old running shoes, but they were starting to fall apart a bit), and one pair of cross-trainers.

Gear Up!  ... sadly, I don't think I have an excuse to buy any more stuff...

So, sadly, I cannot justify buying new things for this round.  I have promised myself that if I reach my goal weight, then I can go to Lorna Jane and Lululemon to restock my gym clothes.  

Now I just have to work on actually waking up in time to go to the gym!

Usernames and honeymoons

My previous username on the 12WBT forums was "s4076612" - memorable, right?  It was my student number at university, and I figured there was no way I'd forget it.  

Well, I decided to change it to this round - so I now have the somewhat-self-motivational username "Trailblazer" - and I've chosen this for a reason.

My fiance and I have booked an apparently somewhat unorthodox honeymoon - instead of lying on a beach somewhere (which does have it's own appeal...), we have decided to go to South America.  We're a pair of nerds (after all, we met at university when I was doing my undergraduate science degree and he was studying engineering), so where better to go than on a cruise around the Galapagos.

Gosh, what an awful place to go... we'll be suffering...

When we decided this, we figured why would you fly all that way, and not check out some other sights?  I was feeling ambitious, and I agreed to hike the Inca Trail.  So now me, the girl who has previously posted about how she's never been able to run for longer than 8 minutes, has agreed to a four day hike at altitude in Peru.

It's a decent hike - but what a sight at the end!

So my goals for round 2 are not just weight loss - not only do I want to shed some kgs to look fabulous in my wedding dress, but I also want to increase my fitness so I don't die on the hike!  My username has been chosen to reflect my goal - I am going to blaze that trail, and I'm going to enjoy every minute of it because I'm doing the hard yards now.  

Time management...

This round I want to focus on time management.  The next task is the organise and diarise, and given that organisation was a bit of a downfall last round, a head start wouldn't go astray.


Why am I having so much trouble fitting in exercise and cooking all the meals?

This is why!

Studying for this exam has already become a tedious and painful undertaking - and I've barely covered anything!  I am dreading another 18 months of this...

So - time management.  I've come to the realisation that if I want to a) exercise, b) work my job and c) study for this exam, then there is only one solution.  I am going to have to become an early morning exerciser.

This is pretty much how I feel about it

Last round I went really gung-ho from the beginning of preseason - and then I burned out.  This round I've been making some gradual changes to try and trick myself into sticking with it.  I've been slowly dropping my daily calories and this week am aiming for the recommended 1200/day.  Next week I will be waking up earlier to start introducing my exercise, and I'll be moving my study to the evenings.

As much as I would like to be doing this...

... I guess I should do some of this...

Giving up on sleep is the biggest sacrifice for me... every morning I crave that extra hour, I'm struggling to wake up in time for work as it is.  Getting a gym session in before work is going to be a challenge.

Organisation

Having nice stationery has always made me more inclined to actually do some work.  I loved the start of university semesters, when I had the perfect excuse to wander around Officeworks and indulge. When I discovered "designer" stationery stores (and found a job with more financial rewards then my casual grocery store checkout gig), it was a match made in heaven.


My planning for the 12WBT would not have nearly as rewarding if it weren't for my "pretties"...

Every Thursday I write out my meal plan - mostly following the suggested plan (but with a few substitutions here and there)

Having made my meal plan, I write out my shopping list - I love that this is divided into categories,  it always saves me time at Coles

I have several of these beautiful display folders to keep the recipes from round 1 - thanks to these folders and Michelle Bridges' cookbooks, I am definitely not lacking in options for my menu plan!

I've always been a perfectionist, and having my matching stationery to plan my week helps me stay focused.  Even my gym clothes are pre-arranged into matching outfits and are set aside for particular activities.  If only I could be so organised when it came to studying!

Couch to 5K

This program has gotten a lot of good press - and the results are pretty impressive.  I've given it a go a few times, but have never gotten any further than about week 5.  So I can shamefully admit that in the time that I have paid attention (so not including when I was a child/teenager, since I have no idea what I could do back then), the longest amount of time that I've been able to jog for is... 8 minutes.  


That's right.  8 minutes.  About 1.5km.  And that's at my ridiculously slow pace - not to mention how painfully uncoordinated I am.  

This picture pretty much says all I need to say about me and running

My vow for round 2 is that I am going to start this damn C25K program again - and this time I'm going to finish it.  I'm going to run 5km, and I am going to be one of those smug people who can run in public wearing running shorts and a crop top.  It's on the internet now, so I'm going to look pretty silly if I don't follow through...

12WBT

I've been inspired by all the other 12WBT bloggers - so I've decided to blog my journey through the Michelle Bridges 12 Week Body Transformation program (or "12WBT").  


I had been trying to lose weight for a long time - I'd been semi-focused on dieting and exercising, half-heartedly counting calories and wondering why I wasn't getting anywhere for years.  Then came a beautiful proposal from my wonderful fiance, and suddenly I was faced with the prospect of Wedding Photos.  If anything was going to kick me into gear, the idea of standing in front of all our guests (armed with digital cameras) and seeing those photos was the motivation I needed!

A beautiful surprise proposal at Mt Fuji in Japan

A friend of mine convinced me that to give the Michelle Bridges program a chance.  I'd watched a few Biggest Loser Australia episodes, so I had a fair idea of what Mish was like, and I figured she could kick my butt into gear.  My goal was (and still is) to get to the same weight that I was when my fiance and I had first gotten together, 7 years ago.  At the start of round 1, I was aiming to lose a total of 16kg.


ROUND 1, 2012


In my typical fashion, I threw myself wholeheartedly into some aspects of the program, but was a little bit reluctant on others.  Buying cookbooks, a heart rate monitor and new gym clothes?  Hello Lorna Jane, have you met my friend Mastercard?  But when it came to the prospect of waking up at 5am to drag my sorry self to the gym before work every morning - well, it's still something that I'm working on!


Now, to be perfectly honest - I have never been a good cook.  I grew up in a household where "cooking a meal" consisted of basically boiled some pasta, frying some mince and adding a jar of pasta sauce.  Most nights that was more effort than anyone could muster up, so take-out was on the menu.  I hadn't cooked a proper meal for a very long time, and suddenly I was looking at a menu plan (that I had obsessively written out on a new menu planner that I just had to get from Kikki K) that involved *gasp* fresh vegetables.


Thankfully, Mish's recipes are fairly straightforward, and I quickly mastered the concept of basic cuisine.  I am definitely not the next Masterchef, but I mustered up some passably edible meals.

Char-grilled eggplant, capsicum and feta pizza with rocket

Moroccan spiced vegetables with cous cous 

Exercise was my major issue.  I didn't manage to get myself out of bed with reliable consistency to go before work, which wasn't a problem on my first term of the year because I finished at around 4:30pm fairly reliably.  I would go home, defrost some meat and go to the gym before cooking dinner, and everything worked well.  Unfortunately, being a junior doctor means frequent job changes (we work in jobs on rotation, for 5 or 10 weeks each, before moving on to another job).  My second term for the year was somewhat more demanding, and I have to confess that my exercise slipped off from around week 7 onwards.

I did accomplish a few of my exercise goals - I finished the International Women's Day Fun Run, and as a personal best I managed to run half of the course.  I had originally wanted to run the full 5km, but my exercise dedication let me down, and I had to walk for part of it.  I have a new goal to do that same fun run again next year, and to finish the 5km easily.

International Women's Day Fun Run

I finished round 1 having reached my mini-goal, and lost a total of 8kg.  I was proud of what I'd achieved, but also frustrating by what I might have achieved if I'd been able to maintain my focus.  So, I signed up for round 2 with the intentions of not repeating the same mistakes again!

The finale party for round 1 was held in Melbourne - coincidentally, the same place that the friend of mine who convinced me to sign up in the first place lives.  So, with much convincing from my fiance to spend the money, I flew down to Melbourne to attend the 12WBT Finale Party.

At the 12WBT Finale Party - "A Night to Sparkle"

So that brings me to now - we're two weeks into preseason for round 2, 2012.  I'm completing the preseason tasks with a focus on the obstacles that I stumbed over during round 1.  

Introductions

Starting a blog is an entirely unique experience, and I have to admit that I'm somewhat at a loss for words.  Writing introductions has never been my forte!

2012 promises to be a big year, and I hope that this blog will encapsulate it.

Happy reading!

xo Shannon