Rewind my life 6 weeks ago and things were very different. I was wrapping my head, once again, around weight loss and ongoing lifestyle changes. My motto was “Everyday Better Choices”.  I somehow got myself into the right headspace, which in my personal opinion is the ONLY thing you need to lose weight. I don’t know where it came from and how it took over the “Evil Food Queen”, but it has so let’s run with it.

My awesome gym EnVie Woonona was running a 36 Day Challenge and a weight loss seminar, in my endeavour to keep my momentum going I opted to participate in the challenge and attended the seminar. Knowledge is power and I came away from the seminar with a new vigour, re-enforcing things I already knew and learning some new key points.

These are the things I really truly embraced:

Planning – “Proper Planning Prevents (Piss) Poor Performance” – the extra P word usually gets a run in our house, you may choose to leave that one out.
Meal and snack planning has been a major contributor to my success, it is not for the lazy or unmotivated. I personally found this more challenging than getting my butt to the gym. I have been working out for 7 years WITHOUT consistent weight loss, so exercise is never my problem. Even portions were not a huge problem, but the kitchen scales came out, and almost every morsel that went into my mouth (when possible) was weighed.
My biggest problem has always been snacking, finding healthy snacks to eat when you are on the run. Grocery shopping is hell and cooking is only fun when I want to do it and it’s usually cake. When I stop for fuel regardless of the time of day, filling the car up usually earned me a reward and the evening munchies I could rustle up some horrendous high calorie food with almost nothing in the cupboard (it’s a skill). These were the things I had to change. So my replacement snacks were hummus and carrot sticks, 1 row of rice crackers and a slice of cheese, protein ball/s*, peanut butter  and banana muffins*, vita wheats with light cream cheese and a small tin of salmon, dried fruit and nuts, small bag of lite microwave popcorn (I didn’t even know the small bags existed), apple or strawberries. I know some of these choices are better than others, but compared to what I could have had, it is a complete turnaround.
* These recipes came from the EnVie 36 Day Challenge Booklet

Eliminate – My mission was to get rid of as many things in the house as I could that I would normally “go-to” when I felt the urge to make bad choices. Some people can have a square of chocolate, I am NOT 1 of those people, I am a minimum of a row at a time and could easily consume ½ or whole family block in 1 sitting no problemo. I would sometimes buy a bag of Corn Chips for a nacho dinner, very rarely would they make it to that meal. I also love and Icy cold can of coke and a coke slushy, but they are wasted calories, I will confess I had 2 coke slushy’s in 6 weeks. Alcohol was creeping up to a couple of glasses to a bottle of champagne a few nights a week and often more on the weekend. This has been stopped, now only on special occasions and I have opted to drive to some events so as to only have 1 glass or none at all. This is a big change for me.

Set Goals – Small weekly goals, mini weight goals all leading to the bigger picture. Whilst I haven’t posted my latest goals they are in my head and I will post them this week to be held accountable and measure my success. “Failure is not an option”.

Everyday Better Choices – I enjoy a skim chai latte a couple of times a week and somehow crept up to a Jumbo size, these got a major cutback to a small once or twice a week. Every time I wanted something I shouldn’t have I would think, is this better than I would normally have, ie snacks at the movies, toppings on pizza, homemade pizza vs store bought. I will admit I am enjoying making my own food as I am often disappointed with take-away and café options, it just takes planning (see above).

Mindset – as I mentioned my head is in the game (it is all the game of life), not letting things get to me that would normally derail my mindset and I will confess there have been a few things in this 6 weeks that could have easily done that, I had to deal with my problems and not eat/drink them away. End result is everyone is happier (I think).

Support – I had to ask people for support, don’t be afraid to ask. Hubby had his part to play, if he felt a craving or a desire to have something, I asked that he not share it with me. The words “chocolate” and “McFlurry” were banned from evening conversations. My problem is I am not lazy, I will jump in the car and do a junk-food run at the first mention of “I feel like…….”
Friends on weekends away and dining out have all supported my better choices. Some friends today actually apologised for having easter eggs, cupcakes and biscuits, they shouldn’t have apologise, nor their kids go without because of my food choices. I proudly said “no thanks” because I truly didn’t want any, my fear of not being able to stop at just 1 is always in the back of my mind.
The girls at the gym are a massive support network, all the staff knew I was participating in the challenge and took the time to have a chat about whatever concerns I had about nutrition or exercise. Some of them were even participating in the Challenge themselves so they could discuss recipes and meal planning, it was fantastic.

Today was my final weigh and measure for the challenge and a little bit of “Old Me” came back with thoughts of launching from this fast moving wagon to go on a binge after weigh-in (because I can recover before I have to weigh-in again, please tell me other people think like this). Instead I packed my breakfast and lunch plus snacks for the kids and took it with me to our playdate. A binge is still lingering but with more support from the girls at the gym it is taking a back seat to just carrying on with what I have learnt from the Challenge.

So here are the results:
Start                      Finish                    Loss
Weight                 112.3                     108.3                     4kg
Arm                       40                           39                        1cm
Bust                      121                        118.5                     2.5cm
Waist                    127.5                     124                        3.5cm
Hip                        137                        132.5                    4.5cm
Thigh                     64                          62                         2cm

So 4kg down and 13.5 total cm’s lost, I am pretty happy with the results and the wagon is still rumbling along with me securely aboard.

PS: I’m at pre-baby weight, woop woop.

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