Busy weekend!

Last two day weekend we will have in a while with H, so we tried to make the most of it.
On Saturday there was a grand opening of a refurbished Supercheap Auto at Lawnton (or something like that) so H and the car club were invited to show off their cars. Here they are lined up.
Then we went to the shops for a bit, and now since I am finally feeling better I did the crosstrainer last night which felt so awesome. Been suffering a cold for weeks, but now much better yay.
Today we went to swim school (by the way, soccer was cancelled on Saturday because of rain) and then drove up to Grandmas place for lunch. That was lovely too.
Now getting ready for the week ahead. Big sigh!

Perfect end to a pretty good day

Six laps around the oval tonight, walked two and ran four.
Had pretty special company, about 20-30 corellas screeching and flying all around me. It was wonderful.
Now, baking a Ninja cake!

Around the oval

The exercise thing is going pretty good. I have lost one kilo so far, not much perhaps but it boosts the motivation for sure.
A week ago I went out to run on the oval for the first time and it was dreadful. Sure, I have been using my crosstrainer quite a bit but running is just a very different beast and one I wasn't very good at dealing with. Well, this afternoon I ran 4 laps and walked 3, huge improvement in such a short period of time. Yay for me.
Also really enjoying the healthy food too, I haven't eaten chocolate in over a week! The idea is to allow myself some chocolate once on a Saturday.

Running legs

H and I are trying to get healthy (you know, New Year and all that crap) and apart from watching our diets a lot (me more than H, he loves his ice-cream too much) we have given ourselves three dedicated Exercise Days. I have Monday, Wednesday and Friday and H got Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday whilst Sunday is our day of rest.
This means there are no excuses to miss Exercise Day and we will help each other achieve it and respect the other persons time to themselves. We started this on Monday and I began with cross-trainer. Then the other two days I have gone for a run on the school oval behind our house.
Feeling great of course, todays run was heaps stronger than the one on Wednesday. I don't have a huge target; about 3-4 kilos. I have no desire to starve myself or try to go down lots of clothes sizes. Just feel more comfy in the clothes I already have.

Weird but so effing wonderful

I stood on my scales 2 days ago and thought I was dreaming when I saw it showing me at my goal weight. Actually I thought; there's something wrong with the stupid thing. So I tried to bounce on it (sometimes it changes after a bounce) and then I tried to reposition my feet (sometimes it changes then too) but nothing happened and then I realised I most likely was a tad dehydrated from having a couple of wines the night before and that was probably why.

Didn't think more of it.

Stood on the scales again yesterday, same thing. Thinking "stupid scales".

Stood on them this morning, same thing. Decided to try on my jeans.

THEY FIT!

Oh my goodness. I have no idea what just happened, I haven't done the crosstrainer in a couple of weeks and the eating has been a bit all over the place. My body doesn't feel like it did pre-pregnancy but it most likely never will again so that's fine.

I celebrated by getting new tracky-dacks :-) Fancy ha ha!

Barley & Vegetable Soup

It does not get more healthy than this! First time I cooked with pearl barley and it was a very successful meal. With carrots, onions and canned tomatoes. Yum!

Both H and M loved it too. From my "fancy" low GI cookbook :-)

430 cal

I just hopped off the cross trainer. As always, I feel utterly pleased with myself and also very relieved it's over and I won't have to do it again for a couple of days, ha. I try to do it 1-2 per week. If I do it more than that it becomes too much of a chore.
Today has been an average kind of day. Nothing to report really. Yesterday was wonderful catching up with Auntie L and Uncle P at Red Cedar. Such a great day.
Tomorrow H has the day off so he can go with M's class on their first ever excursion and I am going to visit CL with little J. Can't wait. Yay!

3 to go

Well, the calorie counting seems to be doing the trick.
It's great to finally see some movement. Now I have 3 left until pre-pregnancy weight. I feel good too, healthy and strong. The hardest bit is during the day when I'm at home with little J and not doing anything in particular and I can't stop thinking about the biscuits in the pantry.
Anyways, those biscuits won't be there for much longer. Why?
Because apparently the school dentist found 3 cavities in M's mouth! Oh my goodness. I got so upset about it, which made H laugh thinking I was over-reacting. I had a talk to M about it and we are cutting a few different foods out of his diet (like Nutella on his breakfast toast and those biscuits in the pantry).
On Monday I'll have to call work to see if CL can fix these cavities. Blah.

Calories

I have been counting calories over the past two days. It's a first for me, but I just had to do it because I wasn't getting anywhere with this weight loss. So I googled stuff and put my details into some random calculator thing (about my height and weight and amount of exercise) and it came up with the magic number 1509. That's how many calories I should restrict myself to in order to lose 0.5 kg per week. I figured 0.5 kg per week was a fairly healthy weight loss goal?
So 1509 calories per day is not too bad. It allows me some muesli with no-fat milk for breakfast, a couple of pieces of fruit, a wholegrain sandwich with salad for lunch and for dinner I have lentil soup or fish and veggies or just a little bit of enchilada with a whole lot of salad, and depending on how I go a muesli bar or 3 plain biscuits. I also usually consume a certain amount of caffeine, ha!
I do alright through the day, but come around 7pm (about two hours after dinner) the hunger kicks in. I don't know if that's a habit thing or plain hunger, I guess time will tell. I go to bed a little bit hungry, maybe it's because I'm breastfeeding as well? It's supposed to take up between 250-500 calories per day.
We'll see how we go...

Cucumber, ham, avo and light cheese

Trying to eat well but nothing's happening!

Oh well, that's not actually totally true. I am slowly beginning to fit into my old clothes but there just doesn't seem to be much movement on the scales. Not sure how that works... anyways!

I am obviously needing to watch what I eat even more carefully.

This is lunch. I decided to grab these particular new Ryvita crackers because had less calories but they taste really salty so I don't like them. And I should skip the cheese next time, but I already knew that but I have a cheese addiction unfortunately.

Hoping to have energy to do x-trainer tonight, at least 20 minutes and 300+ calories. Dinner isn't ideal (left-over enchilada) but I'll just have a small serving followed by fruit or veg sticks or something like that. Got a whole bunch of cut-up celery in fridge (I love celery, thankfully)

I guess it is true; these things get harder as you get older! Meh.

Goal dress

M and little J's Grandma gave me a gift voucher for my birthday so this morning after dropping off M at school I took little J and went out to look for some clothes.

Tried on about 6-7 dresses at JeansWest and really liked this one. It was a bit dearer than the voucher which meant I had to add on a little bit but that's all good.

I think this is what I will wear at J&L's wedding! It fits on me pretty good at the moment but every kilo I lose it will look better (it's quite tight fitting but with elastic back) so it's a very good encouragement to keep on target!

Yesterday I went to the pool in the afternoon to burn some calories but it was so stupidly busy there was no room to move. Very annoying. Tonight I might do x-trainer.

Down Down Up Up

Yesterday afternoon M and I went to the pool. It was the first time since little J's birth and we had so much fun; M&mummy time like back in the day! Wonderful.
New month so today I will begin seriously to try to lose weight. My goal is to be at my pre-pregnancy weight in time for J&L's wedding in April; that's 5 kilos in almost 4 months. Hopefully that'll be okay.
I will try to do at least 30 minutes of physical activity every day (go for a walk, swim or x-trainer or whatever) and start eating a bit better. Really; the quantity of food I eat is fine (as in I don't particularly eat too much) but the quality has to change. Less sugar and less bread and lots of fruit and veggies instead. Lots of water of course and make certain I have at least half an hour of peace and quiet all to myself at some point every day.
Looking forward to it; I can't wait to feel nice again. Also on Saturday I'm finally going to the hairdresser! It'll be nice to not look like a dag anymore.