My Dog at the Beach This Morning!

I’ve been pretty slack with my exercise and always seem to have an excuse not to do it.  It really is just lack of motivation and I need to find something to get me motivated.

So this week I found my motivation!

My sister, who is 2 years older than me, has started a Facebook group called ‘Exercise or Excuse’.  In the group we go on each day and say what exercise we have done.  My sister is preparing for the City to Bay run which is in September so I’m thinking that perhaps I will train for it too and having this group to record our progress is something to keep me motivated.

I’m just starting out slowly and will work my way up.  Yesterday I did a 2.25km walk and today I took the dog for a walk to the beach and did a 2.25km walk with around 2/3 walking and 1/3 jogging.  I’m going to stick to around the 2km distance for a couple of weeks and then increase the distance to 3km, then to 4km and so on until hopefully I can do 6km at mostly jogging.

The City to Bay run is 6km so that is my goal.

I must remember to do some stretches before and after as  I do have a sore leg that plays up every time I walk or jog.

What exercise have you been doing this week?

The great thing about this diet is that I now eat so much healthier than I did before and I feel great.  The annoying part I guess was that I was following the diet myself, but still cooking normal meals for the rest of the family.

Just last week though I decided that I was going to change things for my family.  I have three kids and although they are not overweight, they certainly do eat too much sugar – way too much sugar.  So it’s time that the sugar got cut right back and they started eating a healthier diet before they do end up overweight.

So last week when I did the grocery shopping I bought very few sugary snacks and for snacks the kids now have similar options to what I’m eating – nuts and fruit.  Of course, I did buy some snacks as we haven’t cut sugar out completely and even with the Every Other Day Diet you have the days when you can eat your favorite foods, so we all still have some ‘real’ treats from time to time, but in general are eating much better.

Since November when I reached my goal weight I have managed to keep my weight down and am enjoying life so much more.  I will try and update the blog more often and will try to include meal ideas and recipes that I use myself.

Please feel free to leave a comment and if you are following a diet, please let us know how you are going.

I didn’t weigh in last week at all and this week I weighed in but didn’t lose as much as I’d hoped.  I was aiming to lose 1kg a week and I lost around 1.5kg in 2 weeks.  However……. I have been a bit slack with the diet and not sticking to it 100% so I am actually happy with the 1.5kg loss.

If you have trouble sticking to a diet and only half stick to them then I might be the right person to follow, because at the moment, I’m not doing very well.  It’s not that it’s a hard diet to stick to, it’s just that I haven’t really got my head in the right place to follow it 100%.  I also went away for the weekend last weekend and was a bit naughty with a few drinks and snacks.  The fact that I’m still losing weight while not following it completely is pretty good, so imagine if I was following it 100% I would easily lose the 1kg a week I wanted.  So how much do I now weigh?

My last weigh in I weighed 60.9kg and this week I am down to 59.4kg.

One thing that I am enjoying is that I’m basically eating much healthier than I was before and I’m really enjoying the foods.

But all is good – I don’t plan on anymore weekends away for a while so hopefully I’ll have a better chance of sticking to the diet and get down to my goal weight.

How is your diet going?

60.9kg

So I have lost 1kg which is actually a surprise.  My aim is to lose 1kg a week and I’ve met that goal this week but I really didn’t think that I would.  I have been sticking to the diet reasonably well but not quite as well as I should be, but the problem is the exercise.  This program does require exercise every day and I haven’t been doing that, so I really didn’t expect to lose any weight.  I was actually too scared to step on the scales this morning because I thought I’d have to come on here and tell you that I’d gained weight.

So a nice surprise to know that I actually lost 1kg.  Now to really get serious and start exercising and hopefully I will reach my goal weight soon.

Now for a little bit about the diet.

THE SHAKES

The other day I wrote a post about the morning shakes and how I was struggling with them.  Well I have managed to master the shakes and have made some delicious shakes that are very easy to drink.

The problem I had with the shakes was the texture, I just couldn’t swallow them because they weren’t smooth enough.  I have made two changes to fix this.  Firstly, I changed to using the food processor instead of the blender and the food processor tends to blend them better into a smoother texture.  Secondly, I was using egg whites as the protein for my shakes and egg whites do change texture when they are beaten so I’m thinking the egg texture was contributing to the awful texture that I didn’t like.  So I am now using some Protein Whey powder and it has made a big difference.

Now my shakes are reasonably smooth and taste delicious!

FRUIT & VEG

I’m not usually a big fruit eater but I am actually enjoying the added fruit to my diet and am now quite happily grabbing an apple out the fridge instead of grabbing a fattening snack.  I should be eating a little more vegies than I have been so will try to up my vegie intake this week.

So off to a reasonable start!  How are you doing with your diet?

If I’m going to record my journey using this diet I want to give you all the goods and the bads – I don’t want to make it sound perfect if it isn’t.  So, this is the first ‘bad’ that I’ve come across, although, having said that, this is not necessarily a bad thing for most people – only those people like me who can’t drink textured drinks.

It’s possible that my blender just isn’t blending the ingredients enough – perhaps I need an actual juicer.  I’m not sure, but at the moment I’m thinking that I might just eat the ingredients whole instead of blending them into a shake.

Other than the shake texture, the rest of the day went ok and I actually enjoyed eating a healthier selection of foods than I normally eat.  There’s one great thing about this diet and that is the selection of foods are incredibly healthy and nutritious.

I would love to hear from anyone else doing the Every Other Day Diet and especially anyone that has the same problem with the shakes.  Or if anyone has any advice to offer on the shakes would be great!

Good luck everyone with your weight loss journey and please feel free to leave a comment here and share your journey with us.

Sheryl

Click Here to go to the Official Every Other Day Diet website

Good luck everyone – I hope you have all started the diet and looking forward to shedding some pounds

I know for a start I won’t be able to do any shakes, but I can probably try to stick to the rest of the day’s foods and substitute some fruit perhaps for the shakes.

So this afternoon I am going grocery shopping and get what I need for the diet.  I have weighed myself and I am around 62kg, a little bit less than I thought I’d be actually.  My goal weight is 57kg so I have 5kg to lose (or around 10lb).  I know that’s not a huge amount but it is still always difficult to lose it.

Anyone else that’s doing the diet – good luck!  I would love to hear your progress so feel free to leave a comment and let us know how you are going.

The Dukan Diet is good, but it is restrictive and as such I just couldn’t continue with it long term.  So now it’s come time to lose the weight again and this time I’m doing the Every Other Day Diet.  I chose this diet because it is still a protein diet and I do believe the protein diets work well.

Last night I had a very quick read through the Every Other Day Diet ebook.  Being 118 pages long it takes a while to get through it so I only had a very quick read through.

My plan now is to start the diet on Thursday after I have gone grocery shopping on Wednesday and get everything I need for the diet.  I will sit down and have a more thorough read of the book before then.

The EODD diet sounds really good and I think it will work.  Of course, with any diet, you need to be motivated and stay motivated so that will be my biggest challenge, which I’m sure many of you will find that a big challenge too.

Jon has 3 conditions that you must agree to when doing the Every Other Day Diet.  They are explained in the book but basically are:

1. You must be dedicated.  You need to be dedicated not only to the plan but to the goal.  Dedication is vital to success on this, and on any diet.

2. You must be willing to do some form of exercise.  While diet does play a big part in losing weight, you do also need to exercise.  This was the case with the Dukan Diet also and this is something I know that I do need to do to lose my weight and keep it off and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

3. You must be reasonable.  Don’t expect to lose all your weight overnight and keep it off without making any major changes to your lifestyle.  It took a long time to put this weight on and it won’t come off overnight.  Be reasonable in your expectations of weight loss otherwise you might be disappointed if you expect too much too soon and don’t get those results.

This is not just a diet but a lifestyle change and I’m ready to make that change and start living a healthier life and hopefully reach my goal weight, maintain that weight and have more energy.

I will keep you updated on my progress

Click Here to go to the official Every Other Day Diet website

I am also still very unfit as I stopped running and I haven’t even been walking, which of course is part of the plan with the Dukan Diet to maintain your weight.

So I have a number of New Year’s Resolutions this year and I’m going to work hard to achieve them all.  They are:

• lose that 1kg
• get fit
• be more organized
• sort out my boy

I will seriously start watching what I’m eating again to lose that 1kg and keep it off.  To be honest, my kids eat too much junk food and my youngest boy has constipation problems and my middle boy has behavior problems, so I’m thinking about adopting a much healthier diet for the whole family and hopefully it might help with some of their problems too.

I’m going to start walking, I haven’t been running or walking since my dog passed away in July, but we have a new puppy so I have no excuse now, I need to at least be taking him out for walks.  I’m also going to join a class but I’m undecided yet whether to join a Yoga class or a Zumba class.  I was leaning toward yoga but my niece has been trying to convince me to do Zumba with her for a long time, so I’m thinking I might try a class at Zumba and see how I go, if I like it I will keep going.

I HAVE to get myself more organized for my personal life and business and in the hope that it will also have an effect on everything around me.

The last issue with my boy is something I’ve never talked about on this blog, but I do on my blog about it My Beautiful Boy.  My middle child has big behavior problems and he is 11 years old now and the same height as me, which is making him incredibly difficult to handle.  He is quite violent at times and the bigger he gets the harder it is becoming.  So this is high on my priorities this year to try and do something to change his behavior, I have no idea what yet but I do need to do something.

So there we have it – these are my New Years Resolutions for 2011.  Do you have any New Year’s Resolutions?

Take care
Sheryl

My exercise routine has completely been blown out the window, that stopped back in July when my doggy passed away and I haven’t been out running since and I am really struggling to get back into it.

My diet has also just been blown out the window when I reached Consolidation Phase on the Dukan Diet and thought I was really smart and could do it my own way without sticking to the diet.

Well, I was wrong!

I guess that is why they have the Consolidation Phase, so that you do have that extra time to adjust to new eating habits and a new lifestyle and not just go back to your old ways – like I have!

I haven’t weighed myself again since the other week when I had put on a kilo, I’m hoping I haven’t put on any more than that, I don’t really feel like I have but I’ve been putting off stepping back onto those scales.

So what I need to do is weigh myself and get my new starting weight.  Then I need to get my Dukan Diet book back out and get back onto the diet.  Not only to lose that extra bit of weight again, because I really still don’t have a lot to lose, but to keep myself on track and stop myself from putting it all back on again.  Also to keep myself healthy and fit, I really need to start exercising again.

Now I just need to get myself in the right mindset to do it – that is the difficult part.  When I first started out on the Dukan Diet I was in the right mindset and determined to lose weight and get fit – my head was where it needed to be, but unfortunately it isn’t anymore.

So maybe I need to get the book out and sit down and read it again and that might help me to start getting back into the swing of it and thinking right.

Wish me luck!