12wbt - pre program preparation

Okay, so after much hemming and hawing and polling select friends, I ponied up the money and joined the 12 week body training program run by Michelle Bridges. There are eight pre-season tasks to help prepare for the launch on Monday (the site says Sunday but that makes no sense at all). For each of these Michelle recorded a short clip explaining the task and the rationale.
The first is to introduce ourselves on the discussion forums, which was a little frightening - many members had joined over a month ago, and the first few posts I saw were from fit, thin people looking to cut their four-packs into six-packs. But then I read posts from people who had as much, or more, as me to lose, and some who seemed to have more pressure and less knowledge than I, which was more reassuring.
The second task is to get real - write down all the excuses that have gotten in the way of doing this before. Excuses can be internal (like self talk), external and within my control (I can't exercise, it's raining) or external and out of my control (work crisis) - this last should be rare and is acceptable, but it these occur all the time we need to reexamine how uncontrollable they really are.
A key part of this step is taking responsibility for our own progress and behaviour, which segues into step four, making a commitment to complete the program. This combines telling other people in our lives with writing and publicly posting our commitments in the forum. I imagine writing it here doesn't really count since, with the exception of Lynn, nobody reading this knows who I am outside the blogosphere.
I skipped over step four - gearing up, by picking the kinds of exercise locations (indoor at home, gym or outdoor) we'll use, and looking at suggested (but not mandatory) equipment like a heart rate monitor, new training clothes and good quality shoes. For home exercisers, which I'll mostly be, Michelle also recommends DVDs, a step, and weights. The outdoor work requires a track, stairs, a bench, and a grassy area for circuit work. My local park has all those, so I'm set!
Step six was clearing the kitchen of crap - this wasn't too hard, as I already have a pretty clean pantry and fridge. Michelle said to chuck out nuts but because I can eat two or three then stop, and because all my nuts are raw and unsalted, I'm happy to keep them. As I reorganised my shelves I was amazed to discover how many cans of legumes (over 12), types of rice (6) and grain (5), and varieties of pasta (6) I have. The jelly babies and gingernuts I found will go to work, and the TimTams are already earmarked for my supervisor.
Step seven is scheduling workouts and noting (and planning for) 'red flag interruptions.' The workout schedule is six days a week, with three days of fitness mixed with two toning and one light fitness/core/stretch day. I can fit exercise in before work any day except a late/early combination, and as I'm going to be on all evening and nights for the next six months that should be fine. As I don't have external, set commitments (like school holidays, business lunches, anniversaries or kids' birthdays) to worry about, I acknowledged but skipped this stage
The final pre season task was measurement: weight and girth, with an option of posting a before picture. My weight was a pleasant surprise - I've lost 3.6k in the last two months without doing much except avoiding lures like the chicken shop but not really eating particularly brilliantly, and with only incidental exercise. The measuring was less enjoyable - it seems that all these years I've been measuring my waist wrongly, at the narrowest part instead of at the belly button. Result - I'm 14cm wider than I thought. And the bad news continued, because I've been measuring my hips on the bone, instead of making sure I included the swell of my buttocks. Add 11cm. The fact that my bust and thigh measurements were accurate was of scant comfort.
But this is the last time I'll have those measurements, and I'll hold on to that! Tomorrow is the launch, and I'm more pumped that apprehensive :) Alex

A change of plans

I love The Biggest Loser, and have watched ever US and Australian season since it started airing. I even downloaded the entry form four years ago, but chickened out half way through completing it.
When reading TV Week today I discovered that Michelle Bridges, one of the Aussie trainers, is offering a twelve week, online training program. I checked the site and watched the recruitment video. It's $199 up-front (or $19.95 per week, which ends up about $40 more over all) and includes exercise, diet and psychological components, to help shift participants' mindsets. This last is particularly interesting to me, as I do already have a handle on what to eat, though portion size is still challenging.
Apparently the online training can be of use to everyone from beginners to advanced participants, and there are prizes along the way. I'm interested to see how she balances it all, and apprehensive but excited. I also think that forking over the money will add to my commitment to actually doing it - I've never been a gym person and so in the past the idea of wasted money hasn't propelled me to exercise when I've lost interest.
I know I was launching myself on the Real Age program next week, but now I plan to combine the two - using the 12 week program as a basis and starting point, but supplementing and replacing some foods with Real Age recommendations if that doesn't affect the 12 week program. - Alex

Information saturation

As will be obvious from recent entries on our companion blog, I've immersed myself in food and (less so) exercise books. Not all the foodie books have been exactly diet related, but none of them made me feel like pigging out, and some of them were invaluable.
On March 1st I'm going to adopt the eating patterns recommended by Real Age creator Michael Roizen, following as closely as I can the fourteen day meal plan near the back. I'm quite excited, in part because the focus is on health and flavour rather than counting grams and calories. Unlike a lot of diet diets, the point is sustainable, long-term, lifestyle change rather than weight loss as an end in itself.
I just need to lay the groundwork, both mental and organisational. Fortunately the start date arrives in the middle of a stretch of days off, so I can focus fully on what I'm doing for the first few days. And, even better, a few weeks later I've got some annual leave so I can concentrate on exercise and new habits. I feel quite pumped! - Alex

It's not one decision...

... it's the same decision over and over!
I know this is obvious, but I think I've worked out while this whole lifestyle makeover's so hard. After an exhausting morning shift (and I am so very much not a morning person) I walked past my local fabulous chicken shop, where I was struck by desire for one of their justifiable famous chicken dimsims. I so wanted one, and had to remind myself of the four D's I've lifted from the Quit campaign:
Drink water
Deep breath
Delay gratification
Distract yourself
So I walked further along to the newagency, rewarded myself for my long day with a magazine (Weight Watcher's no less), and moved briskly home, telling myself I had equally delicious (if not hot and succulent) bliss balls waiting for me.
Two weeks down, twenty two to go (and the rest) - Alex

Bliss balls

A couple of years ago I regularly watched a program called Good Chef, Bad Chef which starred now-celebrity chef Gary Mehigan (better known for co-hosting Australian MasterChef) and nutritionist Janella Purcell. Each week's program had a theme - like Melbourne Cup picnic, and each co-host would prepare accordingly. Gary's food was invariably a luscious, full-fat offering, while the more puritanical Janella would just as invariably express shock and create lower fat, often vegan alternatives.
I've purged my home of all the high-density, low-nutrient foods I used to turn to when I was bored or peckish, which has left me in the cold when I crave something sweet. Yesterday, after seeing a bottle of tahini in the pantry, I remembered Janella had made bliss balls, and I decided to make some too.
Recipes abound, but are all variations of the same basic pattern - just add more of what you like and less (or none) of what you don't. In essence you need a cereal base, nuts and seeds and dried fruit, a binding agent, a sweetener, and a coating. I MagiMixed the following based on what I had to hand:
3/4 cup puffed rice (beautifully crackly crunchy)
1/4 cup puffed quinoa (to add grain variety to my diet)
A date
A couple of dried apricots
A small handful of sultanas
A smaller handful of diced dried pawpaw
1/4 cup each walnuts and brazil nuts
1/2 cup LSA (ground linseeds, sunflower seeds and almonds)

I then poured in about 200ml tahini (shaken to mix the oil and paste) and about 100ml rice malt syrup to taste - you could also use honey, golden syrup, or a fruit concentrate syrup like pear.
When I was happy with the consistency I rolled them into balls and coated them with sesame seeds. You can also lay the mixture in a tray and bake at 180 for about 20 minutes to make muesli bars but remember to score the mixture first!
Either way you get a sweet treat that's nutritionally dense, satisfies a yearning for a mouthful of something delicious and, though high in calories, is chock full of good fats, and too rich to plough through mindlessly. - Alex

Shift work and eating well

I've been a shift worker for about twenty years now, and though my weight's been fairly stable and my diet is generally good, trying to eschew the sometimes foods and embrace the always foods isn't made easier by irregular work hours, rushed tea breaks, short change overs (arrive home no earlier than 10PM, leave for work no later than 6AM), and the ready availability of Milo, white bread, margarine and spreads, soft drinks and snackables high in calorie content and low in nutritional value. At 2AM, having not stopped in five hours and the dawn a long way off, the siren-like allure of chocolate is particularly hard to resist when it's just sitting there, looking at you.
I know that the secret is meal planning, particularly having something delicious, nutritious and quickly prepared, waiting at home after a long day. Well, that and not having alternatives like biscuits and cheese. It's just the doing, and a lot of meal planning suggestions don't work when you're only cooking for one. But if it was easy I'd have done it already, right? -Alex

A new beginning - again

In 24 weeks my family will be together for the first time in just under seven years, for my brother's wedding. The last time my parents and I (who live in Melbourne, though not together), my younger sister (who lives in London), my youngest sister (who lives in Colorado), and my brother (who lives in Massachusetts) were together was at my UK-based sister's wedding in Spain.
I love my siblings, and I'm thrilled at the idea of a reunion. I get to see my London sister most years, and I actually saw my brother for two blocks of time in 2009 (when he came to Melbourne and then when I went to the US), but before that it had been a while. My baby sister I also saw last year, after a two year gap.
However, when friends see photos of my siblings they very often say "Wow! You don't look anything alike!" Which isn't exactly true - my brother and youngest sister have the same colouring as me, and although my younger sister's colouring isn't the same, she has similar bone structure to my other sister. In fact, both my sisters look in some lights like our mother.
Here's how we look different - my siblings are all taller than me (my brother's 6' 2", my sisters are both around 5'7" and I'm 5'5" if I stand very straight), and they're all in the healthy-to-lean weight range. I? Am not.
In fact, only if I lost half my body weight would people feel the need to come up to me on the street and force feed me chocolate. I've long seen myself as fat, even when (as I look back on the few photos that survived my self-hatred-fuelled adolescence) I was slender.
Of course, that was in no small part thanks to years of bulimia. I (mostly) managed to stop the purging part by my final year of high school, though my current home is the first in which I've never used self-induced omiting to manage stress. The binging component proved more tenacious, and as a consequence I put on around 30k in the first six months after leaving school and was utterly miserable, which somehow went unnoticed by my mother. And in the years that followed I rounded that up a little further.
Although I've been within about 10% of my current weight for the last two decades and change, I've had enough. So, using this upcoming wedding as an impetus, I'm going to lose 25k between now and the middle of July.
I'll let Lynn write her own introduction, but we're going to be spurring each other on! - Alex