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Well, I guess I have quite a story.

In 2012 I started 12WBT and over four rounds I lost 40kg - I was fit, healthy and happier than I'd ever been! Mish even posted my comparison photos on her FB page, and I had a small article about my weight loss journey published in Offspring magazine. That's me on the left in the black and white dress. That dress is a size 8. I developed a love of exercise, got addicted and ran 3 fun runs, and dreamt of more. 

I then fell pregnant with our 3rd (and final!) blessing. Madison entered the world on January 13th, making James (4) a very proud big brother again and Chelsea (2) a very excited new big sister. 

I kept up my training during my pregnancy until my pelvis gave way at 28 weeks and rendered me practically immobile for the rest of the pregnancy, but here's the kicker. Over the course of the nine months, shocking eating choices and slipping right back into old habits saw me gain 40kg. My baby girl will be six months tomorrow. When I had her I lost 7kg. I'm 5ft nothing and when I hit goal weight I was 54kg. I started my pregnancy at 58kg. I ended it at 97kg. I'm currently over 100kg (guessing, but definitely over 99.) That's me on the couch in the black. My clothes are all size 18s.

A reality check:
- 12 months ago, I could happily run 8km without stopping. Right now, I can shuffle for about a minute and I get breathless trying to tie my shoes. None of my clothes fit, I feel like a massive failure and three words are constantly running through my head. FALL FR GRACE. I'm embarrassed to see people because I feel that they're all judging me and whispering about how I failed. Again.

It's time to make time for myself now, to give my children the gift of a healthy and happy mother, and my amazingly loyal husband back the woman he fell in love with. The happy, confident one.

So here I go. This round of 12WBT starts on August 4th. Until then, I'll be focusing on the pre-season tasks and getting my head back in the game.

I can do this. I HAVE done this. And I will do it again!

13 Days Until 12WBT

12 days until the 12WBT starts officially. I've started to eat a lot cleaner, and make smarter choices. We're also working our way through the pantry to get rid of all the not-so-brilliant stuff!

One of the pre-season tasks is to set your goals. So, I've set mine as follows:

In 1 month: Get under 90kg and back into the 80s
In 3 months (ie 12WBT): Lose 15kg and get to 80kg
In 6 months: Lose 20kg, sign up for Round 2 of the 12WBT for 2012
In 12 months: Be at 65-70kg, and start trying for baby #3!

So there they are, laid out on the table for all to see!

Looking forward to getting this ball rolling :)

Hopefully not just another diet I fail at

Ok, so now it's 2012. I've got a two year old boy and a 3 month old baby girl, and it's time to get rid of the pregnancy pounds. Kilos. Pounds sounds better, even though I'm not American. Anyway, I digress...

I'm sick of looking in the mirror and hating what I see. I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan of me. Not a fan at all in fact. But it's time for me to start to believe that I am worth it, that I am worth fighting for, if not for my sake but for my kids' and husband's sake.

Tomorrow the pre-season for the Michelle Bridges 12 Week Body Transformation starts. I will wake up and take a horrible 'before' photo in my underwear, and hide it from the world until I've made a significant change.

I am not as crazy over the top motivated as I have been before starting previous 'diets'. But this time shit's got real, and it's time to change. I have to. I'm not healthy. For a nearly 26 25 year old, I sure do a lot of huffing and puffing and experience a lot of aches and pains. My body is older than it's time.

I'm sick of feeling lethargic and heavy. I'm sick of not being able to roll around on the floor with my two year old because it hurts, or I struggle to get back up. I don't want to miss out on my kids' childhoods. I don't want my kids not to have a mum! Even thinking about that, I get teary. I need to do this, and that's my motivation.

I don't even care if no-one reads this. I hope to read back during my journey and see how far I've come.

My body needs transforming... But my mind needs a swift kick up the ass. Daily.

Bring it 12WBT, I think am ready for you.

Finally!

Well after my annoyance at only losing 2kg in my first week, I kept thinking that it will start to fall off... any time now... any time now... but it wasn't happening.

So I had a think about what I was doing differently this time to the last few times - and it seems I've worked it out. Coffee. Previously on Tony Ferguson you were only allowed decaf, but the rules have now changed and you're allowed 1 cup of normal caffeinated coffee per day. So, that's what I had been having.

On Wednesday, I decided to not have a coffee. On Thursday morning, I was 400g lighter. On Thursday, I decided to also not have a coffee. Again, another 400g lighter.

So I am please to report that I have now so far lost 3.2kg and am hanging on to the 90s by a thread - I was 90.1kg this morning. Hopefully I will meet the 80s this weekend! Never thought I'd be happy to get to the 80s, but there you go, everything is relative.

I have just over 2 weeks to meet my first goal of losing at least 5kg by the wedding in Melbourne, and so far so good.

Weekend = Success!

I did it. Survived a weekend of killer temptation, and came through relatively unscathed.

First thing's first - today was my first week weigh in - and my total loss was 2kg. Not brilliant for a Tony Ferguson week 1 unfortunately, and I am definitely a bit bummed. But - I have thought back about what I ate and it is possible there was perhaps a little too much salt. So the weekend unfolded like this.

Saturday morning we were up bright and early for Jim DiCarlo's 60th birthday breakfast at Dome. For breakfast I went for the fruit salad, a skinny latte, and just had my shake when I got home. Unfortunately the fruit salad did have quite a number of high GI fruits in it, like watermelon, rockmelon and pineapple, and it also had a big dob of yoghurt with honey on top (which I avoided, and wiped as much as I could off the fruit without looking manic in public!).  But I still figure that some fruits that aren't 'allowed' is better than having the big breakfast which is full of fat, and way too much protein for my allowed portion size, not to mention the huge amount of carbs in the big chunk of white toast. So, whilst not perfect, it was the best I could do without offending the group by not ordering anything. So, I see temptation challenge #1 as a fairly good outcome.

Saturday afternoon, we went to Belinda and Paul's engagement party. I made sure to have my shake in the car on the way, so I wasn't feeling hungry at the party. This worked quite well, and I managed to avoid all the deep-fried platter food, and didn't eat anything at all. I had about 1 and a half glasses of white wine, and 2 glasses of water. Temptation challenge #2 - definite success!

Next stop after the party was to head to Kat and Kylie's for a 'Be Brave and Shave' barbecue - Kat shaved her head after raising over $800 for the Leukemia Foundation. All I drank there was water, and when the food came out I had 2 sausages (correct size for my protein serve) as they were the only protein available, some fried onions and some coleslaw which I saw Kat make with whole egg mayonnaise which is allowed on Tony Ferguson. There were also a few sultanas in it, but I wouldn't have had more than 5. So, again, best option I could have gone with out of what was available.

Then, Sunday we went out for lunch to celebrate Evan's 30th birthday. We went to Zanders in Scarborough, and I chose to not have lunch as my protein meal, but instead to have a salad and still have my shake. I didn't want to deviate from 2 shakes a day in the first week. For lunch I ordered a chargrilled pumpkin salad, which had no more than my allowed serve of pumpkin (pumpkin is a restricted vegetable on TF because it has a higher GI than other vegetables), green beans, heaps of baby spinach, cherry tomatoes and feta cheese. The feta cheese got shipped off straight away to Glenn's plate, and so the only feta I ate were the traces that were stuck to other bits of the salad. I think there was a very light dressing on the salad, perhaps just an olive oil and lemon juice or something like that.

Last night Meaghan came over for dinner and I cooked. I did skinless chicken breast stuffed with ricotta and spinach, with steamed vegetables (asparagus, green beans, yellow capsicum, roma tomatoes and broccoli) and made up some Greens gravy (allowed on TF) with some mushrooms in it. So, a TF friendly dinner too.

So after the weekend I had, I am a bit bummed that I didn't lose more weight this week. I was 91.3kg this morning, but did get down to 90.9 on Thursday - so it's a shame I didn't get back there. Have thought about everything I ate though, and thinking the following factors may have affected me:

• Yoghurt traces on fruit salad, and too many high GI fruits, or too much fruit in general for 1 serve;
• 1.5 glasses of sweet white wine, instead of allowed 1 glass of dry white wine (you are allowed a glass of white wine instead of a fruit serve a few times a week, so perhaps I had too much 'fruit' on Saturday with the fruit salad and the wine);
• Sausages are high in fat and sodium, and the whole egg mayo may have been a bit too fatty too;
• Dressing on the pumpkin salad may have been too oily, and the traces of feta I had were very salty;
• Gravy with last night's dinner is full of salt so would help me to retain fluid, and I also couldn't get low-fat ricotta so the 2 tablespoons of ricotta I had were full fat. I also had probably 40-50g too much protein at dinner (but if I hadn't cut my chicken breast back at all it would have been 200g too much!);
• Also struggled on both Saturday and Sunday to drink enough water, I don't think I would have gone over 1.5L on Saturday or 2L on Sunday.

So today it's back to basics, just about to have my big bowl of veggie soup for lunch, then head off to personal training, and have some steak and vegetables for dinner. So we'll see how I go on the scales tomorrow morning!

Thank god it's Friday

Well, not really, because that means it's the weekend, and weekends are inevitably harder because there is more temptation. We have a busy weekend coming up, but I am happy to report we started it on a good note by going back to personal training tonight. All three of us. Well, James came, but to be honest he slacked off. Kids these days, just don't have the same work ethic.

So, it's day 4 - and so far so good! Four perfect Tony Ferguson days, feeling good, getting back into exercising and focusing on staying positive. Day 2 was a bit of a struggle energy-wise, I hit quite a slump around lunch time but went and had a nap to try and combat that. I think that's what is making it a little easier, that if I need to just relax I can.

When I weighed myself Monday morning, I was 93.3kg. This morning, I was 91.2kg. Gotta love week 1! So, I will stay strong over the weekend and look forward to a good weekly loss on Monday morning.

This weekend will be quite a challenge, with 3 meals out for special occasions (breakfast at Dome, a barbecue, and dinner at Zanders). Fortunately I am confident I'm in the right headspace to handle it! The barbecue should be easy enough, and dinner as well - can just stick with mainly salad and perhaps some lean meat. Breakfast should be interesting as I'm not sure how flexible Dome are. Might plan ahead and look at their website now!

Planning ahead = required if I am to succeed.