Anti Obesity, Anti McD's, what we're doing about it

They've got a lot to answer for and there is at least one in every town. They target kindergarden kids with their (scary) clown. We all know it's crap food. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been under the golden arches with my kids. And the more I know about obesity and the effects on both adults and children, the less inclined I am to go there.

It saddens me to see queues of cars waiting for the drivethrough filled with supersized kids and parents too lazy to walk the 10 metres from the carpark to the actual McDonalds (sorry I refuse to call it a a "restaurant"!). I see parents bringing their kids McD's, KFC or fish and chips for lunch at school. Or the kids with no fruit in their lunch box, only processed food, unhappy little packets of fat, salt, sugar and colouring.

I'm almost through reading "Generation Extra Large. Rescuing Our Children From the Epidemic of Obesity". It's very interesting and pretty scary with global examples of obesity issues in children. One part of the book said something like "you wouldnt deliberately give your kids an illness, yet we happily give our kids foods (and too much of them) that CAUSE obesity related disease such as heart, cancer, sroke and of course diabetes." The "Happy Meal" with obligatory toy is really an UN happy meal.

I could go on and on and not change anyones mind about this, but I guess all I can say is what we DO now in our family...(the kids and adults that is, we don't make them be healthy and then sit down and chow into chocolate bars while they have carrot sticks..). It's taken years to slowly get to this point to "evolve" from whole tubs of 2 litre icecram in one sitting, half a plate of mashed potato per person and full fat blue milk and tasty cheese

- Have meals together as a family at the table every night
- Kids eat snacks at the table, never in front of TV or PC
- Try to eat dinner without the distraction of the news on, still working on this one...
- Kids have sandwiches, at least one piece of fruit and usually a yoghurt for lunch each day
- Use trim milk for the whole family
- Family Fun Cardio Day on Sundays (as opposed to a food based activity such as going to a cafe)
- Kids walk to school as many times a week as possible
- Kids encouraged to do outdoor play, climb trees etc as much as possible rather than sit inside on PC/Playstation (this one is still being finetuned and summer means more opportunity to be outside running around)
- Use edam cheese and feta and only occasionally
- Dinner is a lean protein of some type with veges and/or salad. Sausages are rare. Mince is rare and I use low fat premium mince when I do make it. I find 300 grams will make enough for a whole family of 4 once I've added all the tomoatoes and vegetables. on the odd occasion I make homemade hamburgers with wholemeal buns.
- Pudding would be rare, maybe 3x a month. I will make fresh fruit salad, they LOVE icecream, stewed rhubarb or apple crumble.
- Party foods are for parties only. This includes crisps, lollies, fizzy drink, red sausages.
- We have whole fruit rather than fruit juce
- Drinks = water or milk, no sugar drinks
- Allow dried fruits, nuts and seeds but small quantities as high calorie
- Encourage an afterschool sport (10 year old does basketball)
- Chocolate would be a rare treat, 2-3 x a year. Especially when we go camping, a bar of chocolate around the campfire is pretty good!
- No processed food really, we make everything from scratch like pasta sauce, gravy, all meals. We dont buy anything much already made except perhaps tomato sauce, jam/peanutbutter, marmite, milo and multigrain bread.
- Moving to low GI breakfast cereals for all. I have been low GI breakfasts for over a year with whole oats way up there on my "yummy, filling and healthy" scale. I do them as several porridge recipes with nuts, fruit and seeds, or as a muesli.  I have eliminated the sugar cereals totally such as pre made muselis (I make my own), nutragrain, coco pops, honey puffs etc. I buy a small bag of rice bubbles (high GI) a week and when they're gone, they're gone...
- Encourage more water drinking. They're improving but still dont get enough water, certainly not 8 glasses a day
- No nutella (icing sugar for bread...)
- No fish fingers or any crumbed processed meats/fish
- No salami or high fat small goods
- Grow veges in the garden
- Have planted fruit trees..waiting...!
- No KFC. No McD's etc
- Takeaways only about 2x a year when we're out and about and stuck (we used to have them once a week..)
- Plan food for all trips, take lunch and water etc with us (chicken, rolls and salad etc) rather than be forced to spend a lot more money on less healthier options
- Kids cook, so they can learn to cook.
- Kids help shop so they can learn about choosing healthier options at the supermarket and read labels etc
- Baking would be about once a month or so and will be healthy wholemeal, low fat versions of muffins, biscuits or the odd cake

We're all happy with this lifestyle and I'd say fairly healthy. As I said it has taken many years of slow gradual change to get to this point. I still feel I'd like to see everyone more active (less TV/PC) and drinking more water, but we're pretty much there.

My Fellow FLP Guinea Pigs success

I am loving my fellow "Guinea Pigs" fatloss stories fom the Go Sleeveless 6 week Fatloss Project. here's the links...

Carla
Ginny
deAnne

(more coming..)

I'm going well, keeping to the nutrition plan, with the exception of a couple of glasses on wine on Saturday night and a piece of my own wholemeal bread made all healthy. The bread was nice but I have no plans to go back to all the bread I used to eat  (4-6 slices of toast for BF and 4, 6 or 8 slices for sandwiches at lunch...) Argghhh! far too much bread, even wholegrain etc Now I LOVE my salad with lean protein, it is so filling. Lunch never used to fill me up, now it does.

I'm continuing to lose weight and HAD to buy a new bra today as the old size was just falling off me and no support whatsoever.

Another SUCCESS for me yesterday, I was twiddling with my rings and my wedding ring came off easily. This ring has been stuck on my hand for 20 years now (not that I wanted to remove it) but I could not, it was just so small and my finger had got so much bigger, it was well and truly stuck and would not even turn. Although I weigh in the early 90 kgs right now (down from 128 kgs), this ring fitted me when I weighed 65 kg. So although the scales show 90 +, my fingers are down where they were at 65 kg. My body is getting smaller even though the scales continue to lie. I am now a size 14 top or a medium, which is "normal" as far as I am concerned. The bottom bits are size 18, just heading into size 16. Today I
"had" to buy new pants and a new top, as I gave away my "fat" clothes, helped by Coaches encouragement . Not only do thes epnats have a wasitband but they actually look better with the shirt tucked in, instead of hanging over to hide everything as I used to. Next I need to go and buy one of those big belts to really show off the cinched in waist (in progress). I have had to avoid belts which I loved in the 80s. Now I'm lookiing for a big red one!!!! The thrill of those new clothes is just indescribable! Before I would buy what would actually fit and still dislike it most of the time, but options are limited (and expensive) at size 24/26 pants...

All is so very good. look forward to other success stories soon

One year of weightloss, the results with pics!

The other day I posted my FLP results for the six week Fat Loss Project from Go Sleeveless and Coach Rylan, which I totally recommend!!!

Today I post my results for the ENTIRE year of weightloss, which includes FLP in the last six weeks since I started on Oct 28 2008. Even I am blown away by these results..! It has been a long focussed year and I have done it day by day, step by step and suddenly I am one year on and have met and exceeded my goals for the first year. Now I have to acknowledge the first years work and then get down to business for the next year..(I started Monday morning with an FLP workout, game on!)

OK, here are the results for the entire year..the envelope please..!

Weight Before 128 kg
After 92.6 - loss of 35.4kg

Bust before 119cm, now 104, down 14cm!
Hips were 150.5, now 128, down 22.5cm!
Waist, was 103, now 84, down 19cm!
Upper arm was 45, now 38, down 7cm!
Thigh was 84cm, now 76cm, down 8cm!
Ankle was 27cm, now 26cm, down 1 cm
Neck was 36, now 34, down 2cm
That's a total loss of 79.5 cm from my entire body..that is mind blowing.

Fat results down. My personal trainer and best bud Jo from Hauraki Fitness centre has been measuring my fat on my tricep, bicep and back with her little caliper thingies. It was now possible to measure the ab for the first time ever now too as as there was simply too much before. She estimates my body fat was about 50 percent...It is now 37.5% with 26% being at the upper end of "normal", so I am getting there.

One year ago, I studiously avoided doing any exercise, I ate somewhat healthily, but far too much of it. My first walk on day one, after about 2 or 3 minutes I was red all over and my skin was itching like hell from the all the jiggling. It took about three weeks for the jiggly itchies to go away and I walked a little further everyday. By about six weeks I got really brave and slowly jogged one lamppost, then walked one. I was so surprised when I did not fall over wehn I tried to run. Fast forward and I am whole lot fitter and doing real pushups!

A lot of the first part of the journey is on my first blog at livejournal.com/girlwhoclicked.

Today I revisited and wrote down in my book, my weightloss/fitness goals for the short, medium and longer term. One goal was fit a pair of size 16 jeans as I am now comfortably in 18s. So I thought I'd try the pair on to see how far away ot would be, thinking beginning of next year maybe, as last time I'd tried them about 6 weeks ago they were about 3 inches away from zipping together. Tried them today and they zipped up, no worries! I am astounded, two jeans sizes in only about 8 weeks! They did not look great, I would not waer them out yet as they were a bit tight and maybe not the right cut anyway for me. They were just a pair given by a friend that I was using as a "goal post", so TICK to that goal!!!!!

Here's some pics of before and after (well let's call them "during" as I am just over half way there). There are bugger all of me bigger at 128 kg, for obvious reasons...and I am still learning to make friends with the camera now...(as subject, not photographer)




At the Napier Art Deco Picnic. I really wanted to wear one of those fringy sleeevless flapper dresses but at size 24/26 pants, it was not possible to "dress up" the way I wanted. I had a good time that day but then saw the photos, OMG, yet it still did not inspire me to lose weight, that came later...

Arms as big as thighs here...

Sept 09 (below) you can see the arms are now a lot smaller



"after one year" back shot (others did not turn out..) Now wearing size 18 pants, looking for size 14 (denim!) jeans comfortably as my ultimate goal. I'm more than happy as a 14, I like my curves, I look really good at size 14. Dont want to be a stick...

Post FLP, the results!!!

Fun Cardio, did NOT include the family this weekend...LOL, it was lounging in an outdoor bath in the bush and other cardio I shall not go into here...(again picture nicked of the outdoor bath has been nicked off the website as I always forget the camera).

Hi again all Guinea Pigs, I can’t wait to see your results on the go sleeveless blog. I'll cut to the chase and give you mine for the six week FLP in a nut shell here ...

Weight 93.2kg (was 101.8kg)

Bust 104cm (was 107 cm)

Waist 84cm (was 89cm)

Hips 128cm (was 132cm)

Right upper arm 38cm (was 40.5)

That’s a total loss of 14.5 cm from those key areas, but I also lost off the neck and ankle and 8.6kg in weight.

So post FLP I have been having a bit of R and R, rest and literally - recovery for the past week. I went to Les Mills Pump (a one hour strength training class with weights) on Tuesday and Thursday and found it hard. It used to be fairly easy and I was way up in weights, this week I had to cut most tracks back in weight and I wondered how I ever did 20 kgs on the back track...! (only could do 15kg) and I was sweating like mad and sore for days afterwards. This is a good sign that it worked though. To be honest I have not done much else and have been aching like hell.

I've happily stuck to the FLP plan food wise and calorie cycled Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Funny week, lost and then gained, up and down, but I was not too worried. At the end of the week I had lost about 200grams with only two days of exercise, so not so bad. Really needed that "time out".

But now I am feeling refreshed, revived and getting excited again about the Go Sleeveless Workout Of The Month club. I am starting to set some new goal and new visualisations for the next years journey ahead too, still have the “old ones” and mulling some new ones….

I have now lost 35 kg in just on one year and my friend said to me today, that although the transformation has been dramatic, these last 20 (or less) kilos will be even more dramatic. That really got my wheels spinning because I feel really really good now. It's quite ***delicious**** to think ahead to looking even better and wearing even nicer clothes and lingerie...wohoo...!@!!!

Speaking of lingerie and back to "fun cardio weekends", my husband and I just got back from our weekend away up at Coromandel for our 20th wedding anniversary. Though it took a little coaxing initially but I actually got in the outdoor bath, in the daytime (yes au naturale). I can tell you I would not have done it even in the dark a year ago! It was lovely lying in the sunshine in the warm water looking through the trees to the blue sky (we stayed at Indigo Bush Studio), we do recommend it as a very special place, light years nicer than any motel, if you're ever up Coromandel Peninsula way. And yes the new lingerie came out, roll on more, more, more as there is less, less, less!

Now as it was a special day I DID allow myself some large leeway on the food. I had FLP breakfast and am snack on Sat and then we had lunch at Peppertree Restaurant in Coromandel, outside, alfresco under their 100 year old peppertree. So yes I had planned to have WINE!!! I chose well for entree and main, entree was cerviche of fresh fish with red onion and lime juice (and coconut milk) (only bad bit) and rocket salad. Main was a duck salad again on rocket with cointreau dipped mandarins, YUMMY!!!! We felt like neither red or white wine and instead chose a Rose Noir from Ohui vineyard from the local Coromandel Peninsula region. It was divine, peaches and cream tasting, very light, perfect in the sun.

Then I went a bit astray on the dessert as I had decided to allow myself chocolate and berries for this special occasion. Had not had chocolate for over a year and I seriously love berries. The only thing answering that description was a chocolate cheesecake with berries. Very very nice and I did not eat the biscuit crusty bit (aren’t I good!), but it was decent portion of a white choc piece AND a dark chocolate piece and I have not had dairy for seven weeks now, cream for much much longer than that and I felt a bit stonked. But then to top it off, my husband ordered pinacoladas as we'd heard the Pinacolada song in the car on the way up - and that really finished me people. I tell you, cream is off my menu. Once a year Christmas Pavalova and that's it. I just can’t handle it. I was bloated and uncomfortable for hours afterwards. So full I could hardly drink my bubby in the outdoor bath, how bad is that!

My husband had battered fish with chips as a main and I am so glad I chose away from that, yuck...

So lesson learned, no cream! And also check the menu first, if they don’t have healthy(-ier) dishes, don’t go there. I knew this one did so it was perfect.

So back into it again next week, will weigh in the am, probably put on like a kilo or more from all my wine and food efforts this weekend, but hey it was a one off 20th wedding anniversary and you’ve got to enjoy life and let loose a bit *sometimes*. I didn't blow the whole weekend at all, just the few things I chose to. Next day I cooked oatmeal with apple for us for breakfast and we drank the rest of the bubbly with it (goes surprisingly well?!). For lunch we had oysters off the rocks on the coast on the way home, can’t tell you where - don’t want people figuring out we live in paradise with free oysters to boot!

So this weekend was a really empowering experience to know I can choose to eat well, even at restaurants and a good lesson learned on the cream. I also learned I must keep eating every three hours or so, or I get really hungry and then I eat too much and feel sick as I can only handle small portions now (dinner was quite late and I ate too much steak as ravenous due to time lapse and bubbly on board..)

Oh and I had a latte on Sunday (trim milk) and it was neither here or nor there, could take it leave it. Think I’ll generally leave it, coffee and tea no longer have any hold on me, and the bubbly I would usually guzzle, I had about one glass and that was all I could manage (who is this person?!)