It's 2021, and has anything changed?

 2021. 

We are entering into the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Vaccinations have started, but variants still evade total elimination. At this point, I know of three - UK, South Africa and Brazil.  Australia remains lucky - we are barely touched by community spread.  Our cases are from returning international travellers.  We have limited restrictions and occasional snap lockdowns, with only a few states with mask mandates.  Of course social distancing and hand sanitiser remains ubiquitous. 

I started this blog 9 years ago.  Back then I weighed 97 kgs, and I thought that was too much.  27 kgs too much.  The original title for this blog was 27 Years Old and 27 Kilos Too Heavy. 

9 years later, I am 119 kg.  In 9 years, I haven't lost anything, I've only gained.  Seeing it in black and white like this is upsetting. I've gained 20 kilos in 9 years. I'm going to die from my own poor health.  

5 years ago exactly, I set up an April Challenge to exercise more consistently, and to cover a total distance of 30km.  This sounds like something I should do again. I'm one week into April in 2021. I am not restricted to a 5km radius (like Melbourne was last year). I can go outside and exercise. Exercise is good for mental and physical well-being.  I can make it a priority, and I must.  

Sunday just gone (4th April - Easter Sunday) I went out in the rain, and walked for around 30 minutes, covering 2.59km.  I'm calling that day 1, and my first part of the 30 km to cover in April.

As before, I am going track with a ticker, hopefully if I can remember how to make it, and upload it. 

That's me done.  Good night for now. 

-SunnyDuckling

Another Year, Another Time to Try Again.

I came to the realisation the other week that while I'm miserable and hate my working conditions and my family sitch, I don't need to make it worse on myself by also making myself miserable about my size and the fact that I don't fit into my clothes.  In fact, out of the big 3, this is the one I have the most control of.  So I should control it, and be responsible for it. 

I'm gonna get a hold of this eating sensibly and moving meaningfully business.  

I've started relogging in my MFP diary, and I sat down this weekend to foodplan what I was going to eat for each meal & when I was going to cook what. 
     Not gonna lie, it took a while.
   
Thinking about what I wanted when was time consuming.
     I had trouble thinking so far ahead to Thursday & Friday.  I wrote the meal plan out on a sheet of paper, with a basic idea of what I was going to eat for breakfast, morning tea, lunch & dinner.  For example, tonight for dinner I am having tortellini with a spinach based pasta sauce.  I sat down and planned out (as best I could) for a whole week in advance.  Probably took me over 60 minutes.  I got distracted or frustrated along the way too.
     Writing the specific details into my (paper) food diary wasn't too bad.  That only took about 15 minutes for the whole week, given I had to flip back and forth between pages as I realised that I would need to create a recipe for the green sauce, so I needed to list the ingredients for that.  I keep a paper food diary in a notebook so I have somewhere to write down how much everything weighs.  This is especially useful for when I am creating my own recipes and I don't measure out my quantities in something as arbitrary as 'cups' when the food I am eating isn't liquid, like a stir-fry.
     I would love to know how people know how many cups of food they've cooked without ladelling their whole dish from one container to another 1 cup at a time.  For me it's easier to create a 'recipe' listing the raw weights of the ingredients, weigh the whole thing when it's finished, and then create portions based on 100g serving sizes.  Then, when I do weigh out how much I've eaten, like 335g, I know it's 3.35 servings.    I find it a quicker process.
     It was entering everything in advance in MFP that was trying.  Nearly 1.5 hours to enter a week's worth of logging in advance.  I did it though, so that when it came time to log the weight, I could save time during the week, by already having the ingredients/foods already entered and I wouldn't have to search for everything.  It was quicker on my phone too, than the webpage.  Recipes were easier to do on the computer, but everything else went through the phone. 

On Saturday I went to a butcher to get quality mince and chicken breasts.  I shopped at a Fruit & Vege grocer first, before going to Coles to get everything else I needed.  For the first time in a while, I set myself a food budget, and I think I stuck to it.  <--- This is another much needed motivation.  I was finding myself going through Drive-throughs and spending $20-25 for a meal, sometimes three times a week.  I don't have that much free money to just throw away. 

I decided to join MFP's April 2016 Running Challenge.

I have never really paid attention to how much I walk in a month, so I set myself a fairly low goal of walking 30 km this month (~18mi).  I'm trying for consistency more than I am concentrating on distance.

I always start out with good intentions, and walk 2-3 days in a row, and then... fizzle.  I get lazy.  Or find excuses like I don't have time, or I'm tired.  I'm trying to tackle that by taking the time to evaluate: am I physically tired, or mentally tired? Because there is definitely a difference and I need to work on recognising that, and not letting it get in my way.

I'm re-evaluating my goals.  I'm currently at 110kg and I wanted my first goal weight to be 90kg because that's the BMI cutoff between being obese and merely overweight.  I've stepped it back a fair bit and am going for 105kg, because that becomes the distinction between Obese Class II and Obese Class I.  I'll look into setting myself 5kg goals after that.

I've also measured 7 points around my body to keep a track of too, because it's not really about weight for me.  I honestly couldn't care if the scales said 400kg! It's the fact that I don't fit into clothes that really gets me down.  So taking (and writing down!) those measurements and entering them into my spreadsheet is going to happen the first Monday of every month.  I won't share them publicly I think, but I will be graphing them to see what happens.

Sun 26 July

In the last two and a half weeks, I've been doing better.
I've been exercising more regularly.  Not super regularly, but picking up the habit.
I've also been working on the eating.  That's taking longer to get right.

I've also had hectic weeks back at work.
And with looking after my mum & her house.

All of the next weekends in the forseeable future have something one.  Every weekend in August, plus the first few in September.

Crazy.

Gotta keep working on getting those good habits in.

Because they have made a difference so far.

Wed 8 July, I weighed in at 110 kg.  My official highest weight ever.
As of Wed 22 July, I was down to 104.7 kg.

That's progress.

I need to keep doing what I've been doing, but better.

Better eating
Better journalling
Better logging
Better sleep
Better exercising

Better looking after myself.

So I can get better results.

Wed 8 July

The Bridge event was pretty cool.  VERY packed and busy though.  Apparently 20,000 people per session time (1.5 hrs).  At first I thought that 90 minutes would be plenty of time.  Nope!  We barely got the the end of the bridge bit and to the music by the time 70 minutes had passed.

There was a whole lot more food stalls and music stages and events that we didn't get to see because there was still so many crowds.  I missed out on the Filipino food stall, which I was most looking forward to.  I LOVE Filipino food.  Would have to be the best food from another culture, as far as I am concerned.  Love it.

The day care mum up the road from us when I was young, looked after me while mum was at work.  She had three kids of her own, plus there were I think four of us? that she looked after also, at various times and days.  Anyway, she was Filipino.  Whenever there was a family celebration for either her family, or her sister's family, they would all get together at Fe's house.  And there would be food.  Oh my word!  The biggest variety of noodles you've ever seen.  The best collection of barbecued meats.  Spring rolls.  Oh,  my mouth is watering even now.

Isn't it funny how food makes such an impression on us?  Whenever I meet someone who is Filipino (or at least half Filipino) I always comment on how they must eat the best food at home.  They always agree.  Sometimes, I think it is to be polite, but a lot of them are genuinely pleased and agree wholeheartedly!

So, I missed out on Filipino food, simply because I didn't get to wander down the bridge far enough.  Where I did wander to though, I found the food that was my second most-looking-forward-to food:
Lángos.

Not my hand by the way, just a pic I nabbed from Google images.  URL credit in the alt-text (hover text). I just wanted to give you an idea of the size of what I was talking about.
My langos didn't have anywhere near this much cheese by the way!  Mine was topped with a sort of tabbouleh mix of parsley, red cpasicum, red onion, garlic, sour cream and a generous sprinkling of cheese (about 1/3 of the amount shown here!)

It's a Hungarian fried dough-bread thing.  I have no good way to describe it.  Google pages tell me it's "Hungarian Pizza", while every time I've eaten it, stall signage has always called "Hunagarian garlic bread".  Whatever it is exactly, it is delicious!  Garlic is right.  I don't know whether it's in the batter, or just as a dressing, but, gosh I love it.  First came across it when I went to musical festivals in my youth.  I look out for it now ever since.  Yum!  I got one with the lot, which had a tabbouleh kind of mix of parsley, diced red capsicum,  diced red onion, garlic, sour cream and cheese.

I also managed in the course of the day to walk over 10,000 steps.  First day in a long time I've done that.
:-)

Sun 5 July

When I woke up this morning I went for a short walk.  2.1 km.   It felt good to do that and made me question why I don't do it more often?  It only took about 20 minutes.  And despite it being winter, it was a lovely morning.  Guess that's what happens when you live in Qld  :-)

On Friday night I went to the gym.  Not my regular one that I signed up in, but rather the one closest to my house.  I joined one of those 24-hr gym franchises.  So glad I did.  It meant that on Friday when I got the guilts for just sitting and bumming around the house all day, I could pack my bag, get into gym gear and go exercise - at 10pm at night.  Loved it.

For starters, the gym space at this second location is bigger - way bigger.  It had more weight machines and better layout, so that I actually have space to do ab work at the end of my routine.  The gym that I signed up at, well, it's looking a little bit sad and pathetic.  I even questioned whether I had made the right choice when I first went in.  (I picked this franchise because it had locations that were most convenient to me - for where I am studying (1), working & living (2) and even near my mum's house(3) ).  Now, as it turned out, I saved myself the $180 joining fee, because the (1) gym I use is actually going to relocate soon.  Luckily, it's still convenient for me.  It's little closer down the road, and its meant to end up with more parking, more change rooms, and more equipment.  If (2) is anything to go by, then (1) is going to end up great!

The other reason why I liked (2) is it had better music!  The music at (1) is crap.  Even through headphones, you can hear it.  Overall, (2) feels more modern and updated too.  So I can't wait to use it again.

Although not today.  Today, I'm off to a major celebration milestone that my city is putting on.

For a bridge.  

Yep!  One of Brisbane's iconic bridges is turning 75 and the city is making a pretty big deal out of it and making it pretty spesh.  Tickets were only available online through an allotment?  allocation?  system.  Not entirely sure how to put it.  There were only so many tickets made available and you could only reserve up to 10.  And they were gone within minutes!  Like, 25,000-tickets-snapped-up-in-less-than-20-minutes kind of thing.    I'm a bit worried about how I will go with the crowds today, but I've been having a good run of people interactions lately so I'm feeling confident?  calm?  Like, I have to leave the house in an hour, and I'm still not panicking yet.  Normally, I'd have been feeling sick and dread from this time yesterday.

But so far so good.  :)

Wish me luck!

2 July 2015

Ooooo-eee. 

I just hopped on the scales for the first time in a month.  

110kgs.  

Ouch.

1 July 2015

Quietly entering the spectrum again to try, once more, to get my eating and weight under control, for the benefit of my health.

It's the same old excuses for the same old reasons.  "I don't have time" and then I'm upset that "I don't fit my clothes".

Holidays this week.  Today is a day for getting meals and exercise sorted.

Going to make a meal plan, go the shops and cook what I need & then freeze.  I'm even willing to go a bit further out than my usual shopping centre, so I can buy fruit & vege from the discount barn.

A few weeks ago, I joined a gym, and have been having sessions once a week with a personal trainer.  He's a super muscley, sunbed tan, protein-&-supplements, kind of guy.  Dim, but friendly.  I have already started to slack off from how much I thought I was going to use the gym, so I'm going this afternoon (or evening), for the first time in nearly a week.  I've got a mix of cardio, weights and abs exercises to do.

When it comes to making progress on losing weight, I definitely do better when I am logging food into MFP.  Weighing and logging food is so time consuming, but necessary.  I just wish there was an easier way.  Especially as I cook food in bulk, I'm always having to build the recipe - with no easy way to edit/adapt it.  After nearly two years using MFP (on and off) I still don't know if I'm better off creating my recipes to be 'per 100g' or in bulk and then guessing how many portions I'll get out of it.  :-S  Both seem unnecessarily awkward and time consuming.

Right.
 
Time to stop whinging and do something about it.

Oh, and have lunch,.  Before going grocery shopping.

Cheerio

25 April 2015

So I went to the doctor's and I was able to get a course of anitbiotics.  My word, they helped a lot!  I can breathe again!!  Yay.  I'm still coughing a fair bit, but it's a lot more manageable now.  I think it's going to be one of those things that's going to hang around for a bit, so I'm going to keep on top of the change between hot and cold air.

Speaking of cold air, I think we're finally getting closer to autumn - finally!  I love Autumn.   Gotta be my favourite month, never mind that in Queensland there's very few places that have a real Autumn.  We don't get that lovely falling leaves, chill in the air, faint scent of woodsmoke at dusk that most places would associate with an Autumn.  Where I am, Brisbane, is just too tropical.  Sad.

Back at work this week, although I'm still not at full health.  Unfortunately, I have to save my sick days for looking after mum.  That and I find it hard to walk away from my job.  There are so many things and projects always going on that it just becomes difficult to wrap things up and leave work for a temporary contract.  So I'm just going to have to try to take it easy and not say 'yes' to every extra project that comes along.  That being said, I have 2 new projects that I'm picking up next month.  I did sign up for them at the start of the year, and I'm really keen on them, so there's really no real way of getting out of them,

I received an email this morning reminding me that in 8 weeks, I'm going to participating in the 14km race that I do every June.  Hmmm... I have not started training for that at all.   And I need to get on that, because this year I want to better my last year's time.  I am aiming for < 2 hours this year!  Yeah!  But in order to do that, I need to run part of the way.  Last year, I didn't really run, unless it was a downhill stretch.  It was after that race, that I started doing seriously (but never finished) Couch 2 5K.  So I think I need to spend some time on that again in order to pick up the momentum of interval running.  If I'm still somewhat unwell and coughing a lot, of course that's going to be a problem, so I will need to progress carefully.

Food?  I'm still eating all over the place.  When I was sick I stopped eating.  Now that I'm on the mend again, my eating seems to have increased again.  Urg,  So annoying.  I also need to go grocery shopping and buy food so I have something to cook with, and eat decently (running low on the fruit and veg!) but I didn't go last night, and today is a public holiday so everything is shut.  So I have to wait until tomorrow.  Tricky.

Lucky I have some pre-cooked meals in the freezer to get me through until then.

Still sick

Urgh... I am still sick.  This is so unusual for me.

I have a very set pattern for when I'm sick.  1 day of achy-tender skin, sore throat, fever, flu type symptoms.  1 day of coughing starting the day as a dry cough ending as a wet phlegm cough.  1 day of runny nose, that then ends up as a blocked nose and sinus build-up the next day, which just had me attached to a tissue box.  4 days, done and dusted.

This is different.  I'm still coughing.  Half choking.  I don't seem to be able to cough up whatever it is that's sitting in my chest.  So I have a sore throat from coughing, and pain in my chest from coughing.

I left the house today for the first time in days.  I had promised two weeks ago that I would go op shopping with my best friend, and I didn't want to let her down.  I'm known for cancelling on her all the time.  Usually for no good reason at all.  Just because I've had a freak-out and don't want to leave the house.  So I didn't want to cancel on her because I thought she would think that I was just bailing without a legitimate reason.

I'm glad I went out today.  I was able to pick up a nice stash of books to add to my collection - including what I swear must be the rarest book series possible to need to complete - The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper.  We had to read the first book 'Under Sea, Under Stone' as our year 8 English novel.  I loved it, and years later I discovered there were more to the series.  5 books in total.  Tracked down through various libraries.  Nearly impossible to buy.  But today I was able to buy the 5th book - the Silver on the Tree.  Not only that, but I managed to pick up the whole series in an omnibus edition.  It's fairly small print through, so I possibly won't get into it very often.  But it's nice to know it's there to read the whole series.

I've got a doctor's appointment tomorrow about this being sick business.  Hopefully I'll get definite feedback about whether it's something that can be treated with antibiotics or if it's just bed rest.  To be honest, I I kind of want it to be bad enough that antibiotics are needed.  I've had enough of chicken soup, tomato juice and tea with lemon honey.  And I want to get something done in this last week of the holidays.  Not just spend two weeks at home because I'm sick.

Gogglebox

I watched that (newish) show on Thursday night called Gogglebox.   Hilarious!  Going to be part of my regular weekly viewing, hands down!

Basically it's a reality TV show, where 10 households are filmed while they're watching television.  They're all told what shows to watch, and the reactions to what they are watching are edited and shown.  Priceless!  There are families, couples and flatmates.  It's really cool to see 1 - how other people watch telly and 2 - how other people talk and comment on what they've seen.  I think it's great because I was watching it and thinking they are so Australian.  The reactions they have to things are are brilliant.  Unfortunately I'm trying to think of an example and I can't quite think of one.  Most of the people featured swear a lot, which suits me.  I'm a big fan of curse words; I use them fairly liberally myself.  There's a swear jar at work just for me.  :-/  But back to the show: it's those throw away comments and one-liners.  It's the randomness.  I need to get to somewhere with free wifi and catch up on the first 6 episodes I think!!

**

I did end up going for that walk on Friday afternoon.  2.4km (1.5mi).  I'm relatively happy with that.  Although it did make me start coughing again.  : S

I need to plan out food that I am going to make for the upcoming week, and workout my schedule/routine for the new few months until my next holidays,  I'm always leaving everything until the holidays, and then when the holidays come around, I waste them.  Like all this last week, I've been meaning to call the tax department.  Have I though?  Not a chance.

There's also organising a doctor's appointment, dentist appointment, plumber, fixing a bookcase (that I've been meaning to do since I moved in 2.5 years ago!),  repainting, replanting, changing over clothes and bedding to a winter wardrobe.  And maybe donate some things that I've been meaning to donate.

I also got it into my head that I want to buy some lino or vinyl to line my kitchen cupboards.  It was exit-cleaning my best friend's rental over the New Year that gave me the idea.  Her kitchen cupboards were lined and it made it so fantastically easy to clean.  They weren't even her idea, they were already in the house when she moved in.  I had been meaning to do it ever since then, but put it off because I knew it would be a tedious task to measure every cupboard to work out how much I would need.  But when I got back on Tuesday, I opened a cupboard to discover a tin of fruit (that, to be fair, I'd had for a fair few number of years) must have rusted through because there was a dark syrupy type substance on the shelf.  So I after I cleaned it up, I figured that it was no time like the present to organise and look for some lino/vinyl for my shelves.

In fact, I may as well do it for all the shelves in the house - my wardrobe shelf is not very smooth and occaisionally my clothes catch on in.  I originally taped down some butchers' paper, but I think lino may go much nicer.  I want to get some of a decent thickness that won't slide around.  Otherwise there's no point is there?

It's Friday already? Oh dear...

So I started the week with a renewed sense of wanting to get fit, organised and healthy.

I went for a 25 minute walk on Tuesday morning.  I planned to go as soon as I got up, but it was around 9:00am before I left the house.  Nearly 2 hours later!!  Mind you, it's the first time I have undertaken any form of exercise in weeks.  Possibly since January to be honest?   It's not surprising then I felt out of it for the remainder of the day.  I split my time between the sofa and my bed.

I still managed to do a bit of washing up, but I also spent a lot of time just kicking back in the air-con (yes!, April and I still have the air-conditioner running some days - it's just that hot).  That's when I wrote the other blog post.  Felt slow and dopey all the rest of the day.

In fact, I kind of felt achy and my skin was tender - like I was coming down with something.  I was originally planning to walk to the shops (1.6km/1 mi each way) to pick up a few things like chicken drumsticks to make chicken soup.  And tomato juice. But I piked out and ended up driving.  And I'm glad I did.  Because when I crave tomato juice, it means I'm getting sick.  A cold or virus.  Urgh!  Just what I don't want when I'm on holiday.  So I made chicken soup with LOTS of vegetables and garlic.  And drank nearly a two litres of liquids before bed.

It helped.  I woke up Wednesday feeling better.  WAY less achy, but with a minor sore throat.  I decided to go for a walk anyway because I figured that a short bout of exercise could only help to boost my immune system.  25 minutes again.

This time, I felt a bit more motivated and later that morning I walked to my nearest hardware store to buy a hose.  I don't own one anymore, and I decided that I really needed to wash out my wheelie bin and my kitchen bin.  So it's easiest to do that in the backyard with the hose.  Especially as Wednesday is bin day, so it was "freshly" emptied.  So that is one of my (many!) holiday jobs done.

I've since spent the rest of the week doing nothing but lounge on the sofa and either be on my laptop or playing games on my phone.  Physically I'm still going back and forth between being better and worse.

For instance, last night I felt really full of phlegm and mucous, and this morning woke with a pretty horrid sore throat.  Gargled salt water, had a few cups of strong black tea with honey.  And am feeling much perkier. I've not got a runny or blocked nose and for that I am incredibly thankful.  Sinus infections just seem to drag on forever don't they?  But I have been coughing a bit.  A wet cough.  *Gross out warning*  I've been coughing up a lot of mucous, but it has only seemed to reach the top of my throat and then I've swallowed it again.  This morning I was finally able to cough some up and spit it out.  Gross I know, but as soon as I did that, I've started to feel better.  

Hmm.... I think I need to leave the house this afternoon and go for at least a small walk.  25-30 minutes like I have been doing.  Try to motivate me again to keep up some momentum.  And plan out what I am going to do with the rest of my weekend.  So I actually stick to it.

7 April 2015

Still here. Still not losing any weight.  Still upset at myself for not trying.

It's Easter  break now.  10 days.

10 days to complete a to do list that has around 25 dot points.  Some more urgent than others. But a lot that definitely needs to be done.  Some of it house stuff, some of it health stuff.  Some of it looking after parent stuff.  Which I hate.  I swear I'm going to end up spending more time looking after her, than she ever had to look after me growing up.  If we were close maybe it would be different.  But my mother is a nasty bitter unpleasant woman and causes far more stress than is healthy for me.  And it never seems to end.

But back to my physical health.

I'm really really over being fat and overweight.  I just want to fit into clothes again properly.

I'm slowly working on the food issue.  I've worked out a fairly good system of making meals and freezing them.  I'm eating a form of dinner at work at 4 o'clock and then only fruit or crackers later at 7pm.   Now I've just got to get back on track with weighing and logging everything.  After all this time, I still find it a time consuming thing to do. It would probably work better if I took more time on Sunday to plan out and log my entire week in advance, just modifying where needed from where I deviated.  Yet another system to set up.  And stick to.

My whole life has been like this. I am full of ideas and plans and projects. I am a great starter of things but not a great finisher. I either get distracted or my enthusiasm wanes. I have so many incomplete hobbies and projects everywhere.  I wouldn't be surprised if they made up around 15-20% of all the stuff I own.  Which I'm still sorting through.  Which is yet another project to work on.  And I've already come up with yet another new project to do. And I can't let it rest until I have more time,or at least a better time because my enthusiasm will wane and I'll be left with this half finished project  that  wont get completed for another two  years.   *Rolls eyes*  This is the way I live my life. Every single day. Does this happen to anyone else? Is it fixable? Is it a learnt behaviour that can be unlearnt?

It's frustrating that's what it is.

7 Feb. 15

Oh dear.  Can you tell I'm back at work again?  Absolutely no time to blog.  Or read other blogs.  Bugger.

Annoyingly too, weightloss is not happening.  But I know exactly why.   I'm not sleeping well, which leads to me not eating well.  I'm also not logging properly or even exercising.  So frustrating, because it all seems to take time, time which I feel I don't have to put into these things.  But I have to have time to do all these things otherwise I'm shortchanging my own health.  I keep telling myself I just need to get my feet onto the ground with what I'm doing at work and then I'll be fine.  *Rolls eyes*.  Yeah, because, like, that ever happens.  /sarcasm


I'm continuing on with the house cleaning and organising and unpacking.  I managed to clear another two boxes on Thursday afternoon, so I'm feeling pretty good about that.  It's starting to really get to me that I have been living in my unit for over two years now and I still haven't unpacked everything.  In every room there is mess and clutter and STUFF.  So much stuff... I mentioned it before how I find it hard to get rid of things.  I hold onto things for such a long time.  In fact, in one of those boxes I unpacked, I found the portable CD/Tape/Radio player that I received for my 13th birthday.  The one that hasn't working properly since I was fifteen and there was a power surge.  This means it doesn't work through the power cord any more, but it will work if you use 8 D cell batteries.  So I've held onto it all these years.  Because it was still usable.  It wasn't broken, just not in the best of working conditions.  

I'm feeling upset even as I mention it, but I decided to throw it out.  

 
By which I mean, I've put it in another area of my flat with the other electronics and appliances which no longer work as they should and I can take it to an e-waste disposer. 

It makes me so uncomfortable to know that I am doing that.  My first reaction when I saw it was 'Oh, I remember this, I remember how proud I was that I had a CD player, how cool it was to have one'.  My second was 'I don't need to get rid of this.  It still works on batteries.  This can go in a storm survival kit!' 

Anything so that I don't have to get rid of it, right? : (

It's so hard, but I'm working on it.  I am telling myself that it just wouldn't be practical in a storm kit.  It's huge.  It's 50cm in length (20in), and bulky besides.  It would take up most of the space.  Plus on top of that, 8 D cell batteries is expensive.  I've had it for over fifteen years, it's time to cut the apron strings.

So, another work in progress.

Checkkit! I made bread!

:D

First time ever trying to make anything like this. I can't remember quite what inspired me to try/want to make bread, but it probably had something to do with making the most of the hot weather and the sun that streams into my study in the afternoons!

I remembered that I had some old packets of yeast in my baking cupboard.  They technically were Best Before 2011, but I did a yeast check and they foamed up fine so away I went.

I looked up a few recipes and decided to go with the Jamie Oliver Beginner Bread recipe.
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/bread-recipes/basic-bread-recipe/

I was a bit concerned that the recipe asked for 1 kg of flour, so I decided I would downsize the recipe to 2/3 of what was called for, so I could try for a plain and a flavoured loaf.

After doing the yeast test, you needed to apparently work quickly. I managed to make a mess of the kitchen counter by breaking the well, but I got there in the end.

Started out with proofing the dough for 30 min for the first proof
Before:

 

After 30min of proofing in my study.  

 Check out the split in this dough - niiiiiice

Then, after a quick punch down, I split the dough into two.  Roughly equal. 1 - plain loaf and 2 - herb loaf

Plain Loaf  before second proof

 And after

 

 Then there's the herb loaf.  I ended up using a mixture of fresh and dried basil and dried thyme.

 

 AAAaaand... finished product. 

 

 

Although it smelt fantastic, and I really wanted to try some, I thought it was more important this first time to follow the recipe properly and let the bread cool all the way, to make sure that the cooking was complete.

Remember that this is the result from using 2/3 of what the recipe called for. and obvs I split it into two.  I'm curious what the full-size single loaf would look like.  Might try it next time, if I feel inspired about the bread baking.

I tasted them both this morning, and thought it turned out pretty darn well.  Yay for me :)  I think the herb was a little drier than I would have wanted, so that's something else to play around with next time I want to make bread.

A reflection on Depression

I am inspired to write this after replying to a post by Josh over at 700poundsisasbadasitsounds.blogspot.com  There he points out how he reached a low place and stopped blogging.  

Depression.  And it reminded me of my experience with depression, about 7 years ago. 

*By the way, I am going to offer a trigger warning here for depression, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and other thought/behaviour patterns of that nature.  Please don't proceed if this is a trigger for you*


Depression sucks.  It affects people in so many different ways.  
I was really critical and hard on myself.  I was forgetful and so confused <i>all the time</i>.  I couldn't keep a thought straight in my head.  I hurt so much inside. I lost my social skills and didn't know how to interact with people. Everywhere I went I never seemed to feel right.  When I was at home I wanted to be out.  When I was out I wanted to be by myself.  I was either crying for 4 hours non-stop, hating myself violently or not feeling anything at all.  

I hurt myself in different ways.  
I bit down hard on my arm one night.  To stop myself from screaming from the hurt I felt inside.  Ended up with a whopper bruise that lasted over 2  1/2 weeks.  I scratched my arm til it bled.  I still have the scar from that.  I started smoking around this time and I used to give myself smileys from the lighter.  On my feet, so no-one would see them, but I would feel them everytime I walked, their presence a reminder of what I was not feeling.  Oddly enough cutting never appealed to me.  Tried it, I couldn't even break the skin.

I ended up on Zoloft as my anti-depressant.  We started on the lowest dosage and then bumped it up one when the low dosage wasn't doing anything for me.  I felt nauseous (nauseated?) for the first two-three weeks which was an expected side affect.  I had the most god-awful twisted dreams, I remember being really unsettled by them when I woke up.  They could also be linked to the depression I suppose.  For a while, it seemed like I was still getting lower, which my doctor warned me about, but we kept on at it.  

I have a really clear memory of an absolute horrid night, where I didn't think I was going to make it through the night, because I couldn't take it anymore.  I honestly didn't think I'd make it.  I was lucky enough that one of my housemates sat with me as I drank and he took away my car keys.  And in the morning when I woke up, I was so happy to be alive, so relieved.  I don't think I will ever <i>ever</i> forget that feeling of sheer relief I felt, when I realised I made it through the night.  It was my turning point, two months or so after starting the meds.  I have such a clear memory of that night.  I can even tell you it was a Thursday night.  That is how much it is cemented into my brain.  Along with the overwhelming relief.  I can still bring up that feeling now, if I'm ever incredibly wound up and anxious about something.  I use it to remind myself how good unstressed and relaxed/relieved feels like. 

I took antidepressants along with counselling/therapy (at my request) and meditation for anxiety.  I actually went to a psychologist first, who referred me back to a GP.  My doctor also prescribed 30 min of exercise daily - some kind of activity that was enough to get the heart rate up.  It took me about 6 months of the combined treatments to be off the meds.  I haven't been on meds since then, although there are times when I possibly could have been.  Or should have been.  There are times when I've felt bad, or low and it's taken a few weeks to swing back.  I often wonder if I would have recovered better those times if I was on medication. 

Now, I just focus on getting enough rest, enough time to chillout and I try to keep exercising.  This is probably my other big push for why I focus on exercise more than my diet.  I try to keep reminding myself that I need to exercise so my brain works better. 

Truly, things can get better.  They don't need to stay bleak.  I put off going to see anyone for a long time, until I broke down crying at work.  Completely no idea what started it, but I was crying for three hours, just couldn't stop it.  Even when I somewhat pulled myself together, I still had tears leaking constantly from my eyes.  Had all these circular thoughts going around and around in my head.  I was crying for me, for my boyfriend, for my friends.  Just crying.  It was my call to action.

As I said, I went to a psychologist first, to see if I could do this without medication.  After a few sessions, we decided to get the GP on board who did a whole range of blood tests.  After ruling out anything hormonal or nutrient or vitamin deficient, we chose to medicate.  I don't regret that decision at all, because for me, it was a necessary step to pull myself up before I didn't need them any more.  I continued to see the counsellor twice a week until the worst of it eased off, then once a week, once a fortnight.

I still have the meditation CD now and it's always one of the first mp3 files I upload to a new computer/device.  I just realised I can put it on my new smart phone.  Will get on that.  I will set aside the time to mediate when I feel myself getting too stressed, although I could probably do with meditating more often.

Overall, I would say it took me 6 months to get back to how I was before.  And I'm still not exactly the same.  I'm a lot more anxious now.  A lot more reserved.  I went from being carefree and pretty out there and extroverted to being an introvert and a homebody.  I still find it really hard to be in public and in crowds.  But I am no where near what I was like when I was depressed, and I feel I can live with this change of personality, if it means I'm not depressed.  Besides, I'm okay with who I am now and I reckon it ties in with growing up and growing older too. 

But this is what worked for me.  I can't say what will work for you.  BUT if you are feel low and depressed  you need to seek out professional help for this.  Your friends and family can support you, but a doctor/medical team will be the ones who can best help you, whether that's by counselling, hormone or vitamin therapy, or by prescribing anti-depressants.

Take care everyone,

Moving with the times

I bought a smart phone and upgraded from a prepaid to postpaid setup.

And I downloaded the MFP and fitbit apps - yay!  No more missed days.

Oh how I ache...

Wow.  I am beat.

I have spent the last 4 days cleaning a 2 storey house from top to bottom.  My best friend and her husband are moving out of their rental into their first home.  They just finished getting it built - yay for them!  :)  It does mean though that they are a bit short on spare cash at the moment and so can't afford to hire someone to exit clean for them. 

Enter best friend.  It sucks, but it's part of the contract, right?  Bestie to the rescue!

I don't think I have worked so hard to clean a house since I moved to my unit 2 years ago.  And I had to clean that all by myself, because I lived too far away for anyone to help me.  I made the decision then - and it was confirmed for me these past few days - that I am stumping up the money for someone else to clean for me when I move out of this flat, whenever that happens.

Well, anyhow, I spent the last four days on my hands and knees scrubbing and washing and wiping dry every single corner of that house.  It's a poorly built house, with no insulation, so on a hot, humid sunny day of 32*C (90*F) - inside it was probably another 10*C hotter than that. (Note 42*C = 107.6*F).  Did I also mention that it's two-storeyed?  And because I'm taller than my bestie, I got all the jobs that involved going up the step ladder to clean the ceiling.

And before you point out who cleans the ceiling?! can I point out that this house was built so it is exposed beams/rafters?  They needed dusting at the very least, on top of the cobwebs that had accumulated.  And, as we know, heat rises.  I was sweating and dripping everywhere *shudder*.  It got to the point where my sweat wasn't even salty any more X-P  I was worried, but realised it was okay because at least I was still sweating.  It's when you're hot and no longer sweating that is a worrisome sign for heat stress. 

Quick thoughts

Now that I'm back home I need to get into the logging habit again.  Slowly but surely, right? 

Already started one good thing when yesterday I ate my portion for dinner... and that was all. ☺  I was about to go and get more food but then I stopped myself.  I self-talked and questioned whether I was really hungry and could I not just let it be for once.  
Now the trick is to make it not just "for once" but for twice, for three times, four times...

Exercising has really been my mainstay.   I've been getting up early nearly every morning.  I skipped yesterday morning because it was raining.  In fact, it was raining this morning too.  But I didn't realise that until I was outside.  It was only a light dusting of precipitation.   If it were 20°C colder, it would have been the nicest lightest snowfall... * sigh*  I miss snow.  Anyhow.  It was light rain when I left the house. Ten minutes into my walk and it became a fraction heavier.  A steady drizzle.  It was heavy enough to be noticeable but too light to bother turning back.

This morning I also did 20 sit-ups for the first time since I don't know when.

☆   ☆   ☆

I mentioned last week I was starting to go through and sort my clothes.  Well, I decided to keep on going and unpack some of the boxes that were still in my bedroom.  I managed to knock through 2 of the big "wardrobe" size boxes yesterday.  Some things that were in there, were packed away in 2011.  I found so much stationery that I bought: pens, textas, highlighters, notebooks, staplers, scissors, erasers, sharpeners, display folders... so. much. stationery...  !!

I also found my sewing machine, my telescope and my exercise mat amongst all the other things.  So, with the duel benefit of having cleared space on the floor (by unpacking two boxes) I also thought I'd start some sit ups again.

So after getting back from my walk this morning, I talked myself into some sit ups.

I'm going to try and make it another daily habit.  I am sure I have said this before, but I think the sit ups help with how much my stomach hangs out from my body.  It's probably really stupid, but I really do think that when I do sit ups, the muscles of my gut get stronger and are more able to hold my tummy in.  In fact when I suck my gut in, even right now at my current size, I can almost fool myself into thinking that it is not so bad. I'm willing to leave the house looking like I do, as long as I concentrate on keeping my gut sucked in. Next Monday when I do photos again for progress I'll do contrast of stomach muscles relaxed versus tensed.  I'll bet there's a difference.

Merry Tidings of Joy to you all

Okay. So I'm now at my mums place and already I've eaten things out of my diet plan.

Christmas is hard because 1 - Mum makes food that I don't normally eat. 2 - I have limited idea what the ingredients are and in what quantities.  3 - I won't be able to weigh out the amounts of what I eat, because we have guests over and it wouldn't be good manners to show them I'm trying to do something about my unhealthy size. *Sigh*

I'm also the taste tester.  Not voluntarily but because I'm the only one. So much for watching every bite, lick and taste. ☺

There really isn't much to be done about it though is there?


Well, there is something that I can do right? I can keep exercising.  Over the last week I've been getting better at getting into the routine of getting up in the morning and going for a 3km walk.  I even got up this morning and went out.  Traversed some of the terrain that I used to wander as a teenager.  Made me realise just how much I used to walk everywhere...!

I'm in the process of coming up with my new years resolutions. As usual most of them are health and fitness based.  Joining a gym is high up there.  Need to do some research though because I'm going to be in split locations next year, spending time in two different suburbs.   I'm thinking one of those 24 hour gyms where you join one - you join 'em all type deals.  Hoping that all the specials for gym membership come up soon.

Anyhow, we're about to have our Christmas Day breakfast.  Leftovers yay!

Merry Christmas, Joyeux Nöel, Szczęśliwego Bożego Narodzenia and Feliz Navidad.

The Purge - part 4

So, over the past few days I decided to tackle my clothes.  

I’ve discussed how I find it hard to get rid of things.  That I have strong memories and attachments to my possessions.  To a certain extent, never is this truer than with my clothes.  I love clothes, I really do.  One of my career aspirations when I was a young lass was to be a fashion designer.  And because I have strong memory associations with my clothes, I found it very hard to cull and get of things.   

Even things that I wasn’t sure I would ever wear again. 

The problem was I could remember wearing them, and what went along with that.  I could picture myself standing in the precise spot in my room as I chose that piece to wear.  Every item I picked up, reminded me of people or events.  “Oh, that’s right, I wore that when…” or “that’s the night I met…” or “… always loved this skirt”.  Even other associated events leading up to or after the time I wore that outfit.  One dress that I own, a black lacy thing I got as a Xmas present from my mum when I was 17.  It was my first LBD.  I have a very strong memory of when I was in my second year of uni.  It was March, and I decided I was going to wear it for a friend’s birthday party at a nightclub on Friday night.  I knew which shoes, earrings and make-up I was going to do.  Hair up.  (I went with a gold accessories theme.  I even had gold eyeliner!).  Because the dress had a lyrca liner, it was clingy.  I’ve always been pot-bellied/pear shaped, not much I can do about that.

Except sit ups.

For the two weeks leading up to the party, I was in my room, doing situps right before bed.  I can picture myself laying on the floor, the overhead light was off, but the lamp on my desk was on, illuminating my room.  I remember doing 40 (40!) situps and struggling with the last 2-3.  I remember doing them much slower, and that intense muscle feeling of the slow crunches. 

I remember the small turn out at the club, the drinks I had that night, who I danced with, and going home alone.  My friend whose birthday it was hooked up though – woo! Go him ;-)

*Sigh*

I remember faintly other times I wore that dress, but that memory is the strongest to me.  So of course, I don’t want to get rid of that dress, because it reminds me just how much fun I can have with friends.  And I stupid sentimental (or maybe just mental) part of me doesn’t want to get rid of it yet, because I want to know how I will look in it when I do get back to 68kg.  I’m having a hard time telling myself to get rid of it before hand, because I won’t truly know if I will wear it again until I get back to that size.

*Sigh*

Obviously, that line of thinking was going to get me nowhere.  So I somewhat comprised.  I took those giant plastic shopping bags – you know the ones that are very square when they are full?  With a zip? And I designated one for each size category.  Only what was in there would I keep.

I had to be little bit sneaky with the 12/14 because I had so many that I wanted to hold onto.  Casual wear, going out clothes, smart casual, fancy dress and costumes and most important – smart dressy clothes for work.  Skirts and button through shirts and dress slacks.  All the classy elegant things I would love to wear to work, but just don’t work now at my size.  Things that would make me look the part and fit in a little better with how our general director wants us to dress. Things that are made of cotton and require ironing. : D   Anyhow, because they were the clothes that I had the most of, I cheated a little bit and put some of the smaller ones into the 8/10/12 bag.  And then I used some vacuum storage bags for the rest of it.  And I mean, I did think about some things as I was packing them in.  Like do I need a red jumper (long sleeves), red jumper (elbow sleeves), red knit vest (external pullover vest, not undergarment vest), red 7/8 sleeve t-shirt, red short sleeve t-shirt and a red “falsey” jumper – the ones with a fake button shirt under them?  They just have the collar and cuffs of the shirt sticking out.  The rest is just the jumper.  [Oh!  A jumper is also known as a pullover, or a sweater.]  I don’t even wear red very often because it clashes with my skin tone.  I questioned what I was doing as I sat them together in the one pile.   But I put them in to save because, how am I to know what colour will be in fashion and whether I’ll even like those things when I get to that weight? 

As I said, I love clothes.  I also happen to be one of those people that have a huge variety of clothes, depending on mood.  And I wear colours daily.  I’ve had numerous people comment on the fact that I always wear bright colours.  I would probably go as far as to say I think my clothes are the type that people describe as “loud”.   Attempted a monotone wardrobe once.  Couldn’t make it more than 6 days before I caved and wore something with bold patterns.  My bestie on the other hand?  Black, offwhite/cream, occasionally red, and a very particular shade of bluey-teal.  She’s starting to introduce a light baby pink in the last 18 months.  That’s it.  That’s all she’s got.  Her mum and I have tried over the years to bring in other colours or styles, but it just doesn’t stick very long.  Lol.  Kind of opposites there huh?  : )

Well, anyhow.  Sorting out my clothes is a big job.  One I’m still working on.  And I think it’s going to have to wait until I get back from Xmas break, because today I need to go to the shops to get my last minute Christmas gifts and tomorrow, I’m driving to Mum’s for Christmas.  Should prove interesting.