GOAL!!!!

I've done it!! I've finally done it!!

As you know, I weighed in on Sunday and was still 500 grams from goal. After feeling a bit sad that I still wasn't there, I decided that I would just take the focus off the number and would keep expanding on what I'd already achieved. I kind of forgot about all this for a while, and just muddled along, making healthy choices with my meals, going up the stairs at work rather than taking the lift, but not doing anything extraordinary.

I thought I would weigh in today, seeing it was my 1st "anniversary", a year ago that I decided to start this journey. Just to compare. I was expecting it to say 77, seeing that I'd eaten my Easter bunny and had two serves of spaghetti bolognese on Sunday! But no...... smack bang on 76!!!!!

I AM AT GOAL!!!

It's still sinking in, to be honest!! I cannot get over how much my life has changed in just one year.

A year ago today, I weighed 103.5kg. To get to my healthy weight range, I had to lose 27.5kg. I felt so hopeless and out of control that I didn't know where to start.

But something snapped in me that day. I knew that I'd had enough. I never ever wanted to be in that position again, and that has what has kept me going this entire time. Something about me really changed that day - I started to believe in myself. I knew that if I kept going, no matter how hard it was or how long it took, then I would get there.

It's such a wonderful feeling to set a goal for yourself and achieve it. And what an incredible coincidence that I reached goal exactly a year from when I started?!

I am really happy with where I am right now.

And now begins the lifetime job of maintenance!!! LOL

What a difference a year makes

Exactly this time last year I was shooting an episode of The Einstein Factor. This was a photo taken from that night:


This is me last night:


What a difference a year makes.

David and I went out with Brooke and Miles for dinner last night, to a restaurant in Federation Square called Chocolate Buddha, and it was absolutely divine! It is a Japanese place, or Japanese-inspired rather. We all shared a gyoza (dumplings) [of course!] for entree, and then I had the teriyaki beef with steamed rice and vegetables. It was so yum! But I was a bit naughty and indulged in a dessert afterwards, which I don't normally do. But I am a sucker for anything with white chocolate in it, so when the waitress recommended the white chocolate custard with strawberry syrup, I couldn't resist. It was magic. More like very thick melted chocolate than custard though, if you can imagine that.

I don't even want to think about how many points it must have been.

I didn't finish it (just!), but it didn't stop me feeling guilty about it. I kept thinking "Geez Phil, you've really screwed up now - you're not going to get to goal this week!" And even now, I keep saying, "what was I thinking?!". Honestly, why isn't this the most focused week of my life, when I am so f******g close?!

But then, Rational Philippa said, "You go out to dinner a lot, and you have ordered dessert maybe twice in the past eight months. Why beat yourself up about that?! If it takes another week to get to goal, it takes another week!"

Silly Philippa wouldn't listen though. Until tonight. I got home from work and was very tempted to sink into the couch and the comfort of a well heated house, but decided to go for a run instead. I pushed myself very hard, but got a stitch half way through and was tempted to just give up and go home! But then I said to myself, "Phil, if you finish the run you planned to do and make it home without stopping, then as far as I'm concerned, you've worked off last night's dessert." So that was what got me through the run. I feel a bit better now.

I'm still worried that I won't get to goal this week because of it. And if so, then maybe it will be the snap out of the complacency I've been wallowing in lately! Right now I'm thinking that as long as I maintain then I will be happy, and there is always next week.

The important thing is that I don't treat this as a failure, because it isn't. I probably didn't need it, but I felt like it, so I had it. I've done a lot of exercise today to compensate. And I'll be more mindful next time I feel tempted. I've come a long way from that first photo, taken a year ago today.

I'm a lot stronger, a lot wiser - and a lot smaller!

It's not rocket science

I was browsing through the newspapers in the staff room at work while waiting for my coffee this morning and found a letter to the editor in the Feedback section of The Weekend Australian Magazine, March 25-26 Issue. It was written by Alexandra Suvajac in response to an article they had done two weeks earlier on the CSIRO diet. It really got me thinking:

"How about the maths diet? Calories consumed minus calories burnt equals fat stored. Do we really need to fuel the multi-million dollar antics of these business gurus? After all, it's not exactly rocket science. We all know what the good foods are. Eat in moderation and...wait for it... exercise. Seriously, how many times can you repackage the same message?"

I haven't read the CSIRO diet book, but frankly I avoid books with the word "diet" in the title! Apparently it is very good, but the premises are just common sense, like Suvajac's letter says above. Eat good food in moderation, have a little of what you fancy now and then, and exercise. It's really that simple.

People seem surprised, and even a bit disappointed, when I tell them that all I've done to lose nearly 30kg is eat healthy food, cut down on the portions and exercise on average five days out of seven. It's as though they don't really want to accept that that's all it is - it doesn't sound that difficult, but surely there's an easier way. Well there might be. But if you want to keep the weight off forever, then I doubt it.

Over the weekend I got an email from someone who runs a blog asking if I'd link to them on my site. I checked it out and discovered the site was mostly focused on fast weight loss which turned me right off, so I decided not to place a link here. I have nothing against the person who runs it, and told them so, but it's just that fast weight loss isn't something I really want to be part of or encourage - because to me the word fast implies that it is easy. And the last thing I want to do is perpetuate this cycle of fad diet after fad diet, gimmick after gimmick, deception after deception, and playing on people's vulnerability when all they need is access to intelligent and relevant common-sense health and fitness information.

The problem is that a lot of people view reaching goal as the end of the journey. They don't think about life after they lose weight. They just want something quick that will drop the kilos off them and then once the school formal, wedding, anniversary dinner, high school reunion, etc is over, or once the size 14 jeans fit again, they get complacent and think they can go back to eating whatever they wanted. I know I did.

It took eight long years for the penny to drop. I said to someone the weekend before last that this weight loss journey has been one of the hardest things I've ever done, but it's also been one of the easiest. Easy in the sense that once these new healthy habits became part of my life, part of who I am, and brought me so much more confidence, happiness and energy it became easier to stick to.

But it has also been hard, very hard, at times. Take a look back over my archives (especially October and late January) if you need proof! It's taken a year to get to where I am now - and I'm still not quite there (but not too far away!). But I haven't followed a "diet" as such - I've just done the points system, where no food is taboo, where I was taught portion control, the value and joy of exercise and how to make this a lifestyle, not just something I would do until the jeans were looser. I never needed any of these fad things like "Fat Blaster", "low carbs", "Atkins", or any of the other latest celebrity no-carb, no-sugar, no-wheat, no-meat, no-life diets. I recognise that some people might need those things, but I haven't. It has been eating healthy foods in moderation and exercising. That's all it takes.

But it has been a pyschological journey and victory as well as a physical one. This time last year I was very unhappy, had low self esteem, and turned to food for comfort. Once I decided that I was going to do something about it, that I was going to stop blaming other people or things for the way I was and the way things had turned out, it was like a lightbulb was switched on and I could see a way out. I realised that if I really wanted this to work I could make it work.

This is the message that I want to spread far and wide - that if only people would realise that the power to bring about change lies with them and them alone, not with weight loss products and plans that promise everything and never deliver, then they can do whatever they want to do and be whoever they want to be. I honestly never thought I could change, that I could be where I am right now. And really, if I can do it, then anyone can.

If you take nothing else away from my blog and my various ramblings, please take this - if you want to lose weight, please don't go for a quick fix. You deserve more than that. Be healthy, eat well, exercise and focus on improving yourself and your life one day at a time.