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I rode the whole way to uni from home today - it took me about 1hr& 20min (it usually takes me about 35min to drive it, so I actually think that's not too bad!). It wasn't quite as hard as I expected, but it was still a slog, and I am definitely hot, sweaty and dehydrated. And, not to forget, can I just say OW about the whole sore bum thing! I have just organised with my DH for him to come and collect me at 8pm, since it's already so late and I have heaps of study to get through today, so obviously I won't be riding home tonight - but having done it once I definitely know that I'll ride in again next week, and I feel really good about that.

I did weigh myself, although it was after brekky because I forgot to do it earlier in the day - it was about the same as a couple of weeks ago. No major change - but most importantly, no upward change!! And, if I keep riding in to uni, I have no doubt that there will start to be a downward change.

The other thing I have organised with my DH is that I'll walk to & from East Malvern station, and get him to drop/collect me at Syndal, but that once we're home and the kids are taken care of I'll also go to the gym and he can have our dinner ready when I get home at 9pm. (This is pretty much what happens now anyway, since we very rarely eat the same as the kids - we're just not that organised.) So that will be good :D

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There is never a wrong time to do the right thing

wahoooooooooooo what an achievement!! well done!!

Thanks LW, I thought it was an achievement!

On Monday I caught the train and then  walked the last bit to work. To get home, I walked, caught the train, then walked home - 1hr 10min pushing both babies in the pram. Man, I gotta tell you I was in some pain from blisters after that!

Drove today because I have some stuff to do tonight, but will do the long walk home again on Friday :)

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There is never a wrong time to do the right thing

Thanks LW, I thought it was an achievement!

On Monday I caught the train and then  walked the last bit to work. To get home, I walked, caught the train, then walked home - 1hr 10min pushing both babies in the pram. Man, I gotta tell you I was in some pain from blisters after that!

Drove today because I have some stuff to do tonight, but will do the long walk home again on Friday :)

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There is never a wrong time to do the right thing

It's a couple of weeks since I've posted - have been crazily busy with work and study and the whole family having the flu. My exam is in three weeks, and I'm counting down!! I can't wait to spend time with my babies again!! And Mr Coops is going OS the day after my exam, so I get my babies all to myself, which will be lovely (and exhausting!).

Food intake has been really bad because I've been so stressed and busy - lots of takeaway. But exercise has been really good - am getting back into a really good routine. Am preparing to come off my antidepressant, and I feel really good - like I can tackle anything. So, other than  trying to sort out work-study-family balance, and being really really fat and hating the way I look, life is good

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There is never a wrong time to do the right thing

hey there coops.. the best of luck for your exams! Im sure you will enjoy all the R&R with your family when its all over.. where is your dh heading off to??

Im about to tackle the work, excercise and family routines so wont try and give you any tips at all except to hang in there LOL At least you have a great outlook on life and thats the important thing!

 Let me know how your exams go I have everything crossed for you!!

Rossy

Hey Rossy, thanks for crossing everything for me! I'm afraid it didn't go nearly as well as I would have hoped - I don't have my results yet, but I'm expecting to get about 15% less for the unit than I got for my unit last semester. It's not a surprise, I knew that I wouldn't do as well - still feel pretty upset by it though, because I had set myself this extraordinarily high standard at the start of the year which I knew was unrealistic but still has left me feeling as though I've let myself down.

DH is in Germany for two weeks then Wales for one week, then home next Wednesday (9 days away). He went for work - he works for a multinational manufacturing company.

Because DH is away I've been taking care of Miss Three and Mister Two all by myself, which has been all of   LOL It's a LONG time to be taking care of kids with no respite - I am SO amazed by single parents!!!!

I had an epiphany the other day about this whole weight thing: The difference between a fat person and a thin person, is that a thin person lives a thin person's life. Sounds obvious huh?! But it's a great basic idea - if you want to be a thin person, behave the way a thin person does!

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There is never a wrong time to do the right thing

I'm just testing because I just did a really really long post and it didn't go up......

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There is never a wrong time to do the right thing

Since that really long post didn't work the other day I'm redoing it - but in an abbreviated form...

So in the original post I said that I had been finding it really difficult to get motivated, because when I went to the information session on lap-band surgery they were talking about diet & exercise as an approach, and they said that the research says it's really effective for people who have up to ~10kgs to lose, but over that amount it is incredibly difficult to keep it off, and once you're talking about people in the 30-40kg overweight range (like me) the *only* thing that has been proven to work in the long term for large numbers of people is this surgery. So I've been thinking "Right well what's the point then? All that stress and anxiety over something that isn't going to work anyway?" So, like I said, the motivation thing has been totally non-existent.

I know though that over the last month, while my husband was overseas, that I went to the other extreme of no exercise at all and really crappy food, and I've been feeling quite physically and emotionally bleugh over that. So I've decided that ok, even if I do have the surgery, the goal here isn't to see how fat I can get before I have it!! It's to make me as healthy as possible to deal with it, because it *is* major surgery.

So I set myself the goal on Saturday of exercising for one hour, which I am glad to say I ACHIEVED by taking the two babies for a walk in the pram . However, I have decided that I will not be setting myself the goal of exercising every day - I think that's too much given that I am coming back from nothing. But, since I had yesterday "off" (I spent the whole day cleaning my house and when I woke up this morning I was aching all over!!):

GOAL FOR TODAY: exercise for one hour.

MECHANISM FOR REACHING THE GOAL: I packed my gym bag before leaving home this morning and am heading home in just a minute via the gym. I think I'll do 30 mins on the x-trainer and a 30min spin class.

 

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There is never a wrong time to do the right thing

Hi Coops, I'm Jo and I've been writing my journal for about a week now and absolutely love the support and friendship of the group here. 

Did you note that Don has just reached the pre-lap-band surgery goal he needed and has gone for the surgery today or yesterday?

What was the information session for... to market the operation and get people to buy... did they offer a free face lift with that??  Sounds like they weren't really there to help those who thought they might keep trying without the op.

It is really hard to stay motivated and strong willed, temptations are so... tempting (for want of a better word) and its hard to keep saying no all the time.  It only takes one 'oh ok' to make the second one much easier. 

When will you be having your op?? How much did the doc want you to lose?

I'm not going to be exercising every day either.  They say a minimum of 3 days a week can make a big difference.  So I'll be really focusing on not doing less than that. 

Great start with the hour walk with the kids.  I also have 2 kids, Caitlyn (3 in Feb) and Ethan (5 months).  My double pram is an absolute #$%#.  Its wheels go in totally the opposite direction.  I tried to push the single pram, with Caitlyn on her bike (still with the Parental Steering bar at the back) once and that took so much concentration I think my brain got the biggest workout.

The packing ahead of time is a great idea, hope you enjoyed the class.

Have a great week, Jo

Setbacks pave the way for comebacks

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Hey Jo, great to meet you! I see you live in Wodonga - I grew up in Howlong (age 0-10) and Albury (age 10-17). Ah the memories.....

The info session was actually great - I might have portrayed it unfairly - they were just very matter of fact about its success compared to other weight loss methods - the thing they said, and I think Don and I and everyone else who has tried to lose weight will agree with, is that weight loss can be achieved using any number of mechanisms - the problem is all about maintaining that loss. For me, the surgery is a way for me to know that diet and exercise won't be undone by constant hunger pangs, maladaptive default coping mechanisms etc.

As part of my training to be a psychologist I have been studying addiction, and it has made me much more forgiving of myself - as much as I hate the way I am and the fact I have gotten to this stage, the study I've done has made me realise that as much as the mind and heart might want something, there are a whole heap of biological processes that fight against it. For me as a fat person, those biological processes include feeling hungry and slowing my metabolism when I reduce my calorie intake and/or increase my energy expenditure - a process which is normal and healthy and an evolutionary advantage, except when you weigh >100kgs and live in the Western world.

I haven't spoken to a doctor about it yet, because I am waiting for my 12mths to come up on my health insurance, but having just read Don's journal I'm going to give the guy from the information session a call so I can start preparing, and have the surgery as soon as the 12mths is up, since that's where most of the cost goes. I've been told I should expect to be about $3000 out of pocket.

Re my Monday goal: I had a freaky thing of getting to the same intersection at the same time as my husband, who was on his way home from work via the childcare centre, so on the spur of the moment I decided to go home and spend time with my absolutely perfect family, and changed the workout to a walk pushing the pram. But, goal ACHIEVED.

Today, was planning on going to the gym tonight - have not yet liaised with my DH about what time he'll be home from work - might change it to a walk again, or maybe a DVD... But standard GOAL: One hour of exercise.

 

 

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There is never a wrong time to do the right thing

Hey coops, yeah it definately is beautiful round this neck of the woods.  Do you ever still come this way for hols/visits??

I've just bought a book called 'Anatomy of a Food Addiction. The Brain Chemistry of Overeating' by Anne Katherine, M.A. and have been really interested in the idea of food and sugar addiction for a few months now. 

I am very interested in the idea of "Reducing Food" and "Increasing Exercise" "slowing the metabolism".  I have only dropped under the 100kg mark in the past month and want to make sure I'm doing the best for myself and understand exactly what my body is doing; what I am doing to my body and what I can do to my body to make this work.  I gather this is (Is it??) basically the body's natural reaction to the burning of energy.  What do you mean when you say an evolutionary advantage???

Keep up the great work

Jo

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Hi Coops... me again...   I just found this on http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/BHCV2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Obesity_and_hormones?OpenDocument

Leptin and dieting
Various studies have shown that blood leptin levels drop after low kilojoule diets. Reduced leptin levels may increase appetite and slow metabolism. This may help to explain why crash dieters usually regain their lost weight. It is possible that leptin therapy may one day help dieters to maintain their weight loss in the long term, but more research is required before this becomes a reality.

So this answers my question a minute ago :-)

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I also thought this was an interesting comment

Behaviour influences these hormones
Obese people have hormone levels that encourage the accumulation of body fat.

It seems that behaviours such as overeating and lack of regular exercise, over time, ‘reset’ the processes that regulate appetite and body fat distribution to make the person physiologically more inclined to gain weight.

The body is always trying to maintain balance, so it resists any short term disruptions such as crash dieting.

However, there is evidence to suggest that long term behaviour changes, such as healthy eating and regular exercise, can retrain the body to shed excess body fat and keep it off.

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jomarti:

What do you mean when you say an evolutionary advantage???

It's an evolutionary advantage for the body to hold onto calories as your food intake decreases - its what got our prehistoric ancestors through the cold winters without starving to death.  No risk of me starving to death over winter though I'm afraid.

Feel about my wardrobe at the moment.

Have also had a couple of [:'(] sessions about being this weight and what it'll mean once the weight comes off. I will never be beautiful or look the way I want to look. I will either have scars or saggy skin or both. My tummy is already destroyed by both. I look at things I think I will wear when I'm thinner (esp lingere etc) and then realise I'll still never be able to get away with them because of the reality of what being this weight has done to my body. AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I am SO angry at myself for letting it get to this point. Planning on going and taking out that anger on a treadmill now.....

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There is never a wrong time to do the right thing