On Your Mark! Get Set! Go!

Today is the start of the weight loss competion between my wife Annette, my sister Kylie and myself. All current and goal weights have been submitted :o)

For this competition our starting weights are:
Annette:- 91.7kg
Kylie:- 75kg
Myself:- 85.4kg

Our goal weights are:
Annette:- 60kg
Kylie:- 65kg
Myself:- 70kg

This is the first graph and it will be updated next Sunday (or Monday depending on how much time I have.)

It is also the 2nd week of the competition between my wife and myself lol so the weights listed here do not count towards that competition, our competition is based on monthly weight loss numbers.

I have been to the gym everyday since I joined last Sunday, it does seem like an eternity ago that I joined! I hope that the weight that I have lost in this past week isn't just dumb beginners luck lol.

Competition Take Two

As you know my wife and I have a weight loss competition running at the moment. Well we now have another competition running with my sister Kylie, the rules of the new competition are:-

1)Weigh ins are on Sunday

2 )Weigh ins will be documented on this blog, so that everyone can see where the other competitors are at with their weight loss.

3) A goal weight needs to be submitted and the first of us to reach their goal weight receives a small gift ($30) from those still trying to reach their goal weight ie the losers lol

I will be tracking our weight loss in a graph and posting it on this blog on either Sunday or Monday depending on how much time I have. :o)

As for my own weight loss this week, it has been coming along well, yesterday I bounced back out of the fog I was swimming in the day before and today is also fog free :o)

Here is my Wordle for the day.... It speaks for itself :o) I have continued to use the Calorie King software and I have to admit that I am hooked on it, and it has definitely gotten easier to use. My kitchen scales now live on the bench top instead of hidden in the cupboard, and as I chop food I weigh it and write it down. Then after dinner I put all the numbers into the software. I guess it's like anything, the more you use it, the easier it gets.

Tired

I slept through my alarm this morning..... I have these days, where it doesn't matter if I get a full nights sleep the night before... I wake up dog tired. Today is one of those days.

My alarm was set for 6am, however my eyes only opened at 6.30am. I wanted to be at the gym at 7am. Instead I arrived at 7.30am. Yeah I know, 7.30am doesn't sound too bad doesn't it? Except that when I opened my eyes all I really wanted to do was go back to sleep. I don't know what part of my brain made me get up out of bed, but I'm glad it did.

Here is a new wordle, it's very different to the one I made yesterday. It just goes to show how ones mindset can change from one 24 hour period to another. I hope when I wake up tomorrow, this fog that I am swimming in today has cleared, so that I can be a little bit more productive.

Some Mindful Words

So far I have been to the gym everyday since joining...... Okay so I know that means that I have only been to the gym three days. But still, three days in a row? That's a big deal for me lol I thought I would have been a bit over it by today. But I was up at 6am and at the gym by 7am :o)

Everyday day I go gets a little bit easier, I feel my muscles loosening and this enables me to do a little bit more. The other thing I have noticed in just three short days is that my legs aren't hurting as much, even though I did more today than I did yesterday or the day before.

I put together a wordle of words that have been coming to mind lately. These words, plus I'm sure a whole lot more words, will be needed to get me through to my goal weight of 70kg.

I have been in need of inspiration when it comes to food..... I don't want to eat the same old thing over and over because it's 'healthy'.... So I purchased two new books today:- Forks Over Knives - The Cookbook: Over 300 Recipes for Plant-Based Eating All Through the Year By Del Sroufe and The Flexitarian Diet: The Mostly Vegetarian Way to Lose Weight, Be Healthier, Prevent Disease, and Add Years to Your Life By Dawn Jackson Blatner.

I downloaded samples of both last night on my Kindle, after reading their reviews and found them to be quite good, so I purchased the paperback versions today. I prefer paperback to Kindle for cookbooks :o) So I am looking forward to both of those arriving :o) I have also seen Forks Over Knives the documentary and highly recommend it!

The Biggest Loser

Deep down I just knew that there would come a day where I had to join a gym. Yesterday was that day :o)

Sunday morning my wife and I both had our first workout at Jetts 24 hour fitness. We chose Jetts for 3 reasons:- 1) it's open 24hrs and my wife is a shift worker, so she can go before or after work 2) because it was cheaper than the other gym nearby and 3) Jetts does not have any contracts.

I am also trying my best to use the Calorie King website, it seems quite easy at first, but when you are creating your own meals, it can be a little tricky. But I will persevere a bit longer.

I wanted to put one of those little ticker tape thingies on my blog, to track my weight loss, but the columns on my blog aren't wide enough...... So I'll just have to do it the old fashioned way and type it into each blog post lol.

I know what I'm like.... I can be a procrastinator..... Paying for a gym membership alone, isn't really enough to motivate me into hauling my backside to the gym. So, I created a competition for my wife and I lol

The rules are that because we started on the 3/1/13, this will be our weigh-in day.... So on 3/2/13 we will both weigh in again and the person who has lost the least amount of weight has to take the the winner out to lunch/dinner and an activity ie a movie of the winners choosing. We can both weigh ourselves before the 3/2/2013, ie weekly, but it doesn't count... lol

There will also be a bigger prize at the end for the first person to hit their goal weight. I am currently 89kg..... This is the biggest I have ever been and I am determined to drop down to at least 70kg.

So far I have been to the gym two days in a row and my legs are sore, but I will not let the pain stop me from losing weight!

Frugalling Away

I posted on 19/12/12 that I was going to cut back on my spending.... I believe that I am succeeding. Today I went to Aldi to stock up on some canned staples such as beans, lentils, chickpeas, diced tomatoes etc. My wife and I eat a lot of legume based meals and although we usually have the dried variety in the pantry, it's handy to have some of the same in cans for when something goes wrong lol or needs to be prepared in less time than has been allowed.

Tomorrow I will be travelling in the opposite direction and I will stock up on dried staples from a great little fruit and veg shop near us. They have the biggest selection I have ever seen of dried fruit, nuts and legumes at the right price and the quality is excellent.

I have also not made any unnecessary purchases this year! So I feel that even though we are still in January, that I am off to a good start and I have not lost my way. I also finished reading Frugal Queen's blog for the second time :o)

This is a Tagxedo that I made a couple of days ago.... I think it summarises the most important words to me at the moment.

I'll leave it there for now!

Displaced

We all have somewhere to call home right? It might be our parents house, our grandparents house, an aunt or uncle's house or if you're lucky....Your own house. This feeling of 'Ahhh I'm finally home' is common to many, except me. I will quickly add that I came close to having this feeling when I once lived in my grandparents house. I'm not sure why, because I didn't know my Grandparents all that well.... So I don't feel that this feeling came from an emotional response. I did blog about this about 2 years ago.... However, at the moment I'm too lazy to go and look for it.

I have for most of my life floated around not knowing where I belong. With the exception of my grandparents house, I have moved around hoping that the next house I unpack my stuff in will become 'home'. This feeling is what I imagine being homesick would be like and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

I'm getting itchy feet again, where the feeling that I don't quite fit in the house that we are living in is creeping back again. This is a bad feeling as I cannot just pack up and leave as we have a mortgage. My wife does not understand this feeling that I have, as she calls 'home' where ever the two of us are living. I on the other hand constantly read real estate websites looking for the next 'perfect house to call home'. I feel displaced, I don't know where I belong and this constant feeling that I will spend the rest of my life roaming is driving me crazy!

Of course I know that there is no 'perfect' house, I am also aware that a house becomes a home, a place where memories are are created. What I feel is something completely different..... It is actually very hard to explain....

New Years Resolutions

I've been watching my friends on Facebook discuss their New Years Resolutions and listening to my friends in real life do the same. Sometimes I make resolutions, sometimes I don't. This year, instead of having an unrealistic list as long as my arm, I'm just going to have one NYR......

I actually had no plans of making a NYR, until last night. I was reading Frugal Queens Blog. I love her blog, this woman makes so much sense, she makes the rest of us look deficient! lol Anyway, I was reading away and catching up on the posts that I had missed, when I realised that my $pend thrift behavior must be curbed.... This is NOT going to be an easy task.

I know that there are going to be slip ups, changing ones behavior does not happen in the blink of an eye. What I am going to do is re-read her entire blog from start to end. This is what I actually did when I first stumbled upon it last year. I am going to take notes, just like I am taking a class. I am also going to read the blogs of some of her readers, who have similar trains thought, just to pick up some different points of view.

I have already decided that I am going to focus my first frugal lessons towards the pantry, as I am the kind of person who is so easily swayed by ***New Products** (In my brain = MUST TRY NOW!!) in the supermarket. My wife is always telling me how well advertising works on me..... She's right! 

Once I start on my frugal path in on the 1st January 2013, I will keep you updated as to how well or badly I am doing. Until then I will be madly reading other blogs to gather as many tips as I can.

I'll leave you will a photo I took out the front of my house this evening:o) The sunset was just beautiful!