Say Goodbye to Fatty Boombah - The one where I get jiggy with it

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Today is Friday, so the day I do a re-cap of how my week has been doing the Michelle Bridges 12WBT run by Huggies. We started Week 1 on Monday and so far, it has been great. The eating plans are full of fresh, wonderful tasting food. I have not been hungry throughout the day and not looked to top up with anything tempting.

Exercise has been easy as well. I have diarised what I am doing each day and its funny how your mindset changes, but if the diary says 6.30pm Pump class, it gets done with minimal fuss. I am doing a combo of classes and DVD workouts. TBone leaves at 5am for work 6 days a week, so I can't eave the house in the morning to exercise - and I am not going to exercise before 5am regardless of how much Michelle threatens to kick my butt. So weekends and 2 week nights I can get a class in, but the other days are DVDs in nap time, which seems to be working well. It gives me enough variety to keep my goldfish attention span going.

I love the Les Mills classes, particulalry Body Pump, Body Step and RPM. I find the repetition suits me, nothing tricky and I can just switch my brain off and exercise. Then last night I tried a Zumba class ..........

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My mum must have learnt early on that I probably wasn't going to make a career as a dancer. When I was given the 'lead' teddy bear role in The Teddy Bear's Picnic ballet recital she probably guessed. 'Lead' sounds good yeah? No. I was just the teddy bear that stayed in the centre of the stage the whole time in first position and all the other girls pirouetted around me. She also probably realised that I wasn't co-ordinated enough for gymnastics from all the bruises I came home with. And by the time I was doing Jazz Ballet, she was confident enough that I could miss the grand finale recital so we could go to Perth to have my braces tightened. I was sure I would have rocked to Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer, but she obviously recognised the truth.


I love to dance, but it is usually confined to the house or with the aid of cocktails. Having a love of something, doesn't mean you are good at it and last night proved it. 

I have always wanted to give Zumba a go. I was blinded by the hype. I had seen the ads and thought it would be easy. I expected a Latino instructor, but was met with the tiniest whitest girl - don't get me wrong, she was good at what she did, but I think I would have done better if she spoke Spanish.......

I was atrocious. I didn't really even get a sweat up because I spent most of the time just trying to stay upright 20 steps behind the class. There are lots of salsa and cha cha moves, a lot of hip gyrating and pelvic thrusts. I couldn't, for the life of me, get my pelvis to move separately to my arms, so ended up looking like a helpless octopus. I wasn't even helped by the song words "Put your left hand in the air", "Put your right hand in the air".

The other women (only women) in the class seemed to have some idea what was going on and had genuine looks of enjoyment on their faces - just like the ads promised me. They didn't all match what the instructor was doing, but kept dancing through the whole thing and I think that is the key. I came home feeling that I needed to do more exercise to make up for the lack of sweating I did, so today I will have to do a morning and evening DVD session.

Will I try Zumba again? The Old Me would say No. 

Next week, Michelle wants us to focus on breaking old habits. Maybe one of my habits that needs to change is that I don't persist with anything that I am not immediately good at. Maybe to make new habits, and a new mind set, I need to give it another go, get over my self-consciousness and realise that although I think the world revolves around me, no-one else in that Zumba class cares about what the fat chick (soon to be healthy) in the back row is doing with her hands. 

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I may just have to put myself out there and give it another go. I will let you know. 

How do you exercise? Do you get self conscious of how you look?

Chantel x

Preparation is the Key

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As I mentioned in this post, I am taking part in Michelle Bridges 12 Week Body Transformation and it starts on Monday. Every Friday until the end of the year, I am going to post about how my week has gone, what I have learned and how the kilos are melting off me - here's hoping!!!

Michelle has set several pre-start tasks and I have now completed all of them. I completed my kitchen makeover today, where I had to get rid of anything tempting. Surprisingly, there was not a lot to throw out - what was more disconcerting was the stuff in the pantry with expiry dates pre-2008. I also took the opportunity to clean the pantry and the fridge - very satisfying.


I have planned the exercise I am going to do - and if I am honest, I am really excited about getting back to regular exercise. I love the feeling you get from regular exercise and am planning to do a mix of Step and Pump classes, DVDs at home and I am going to will myself  to try a Zumba class. I love doing the Step and Pump classes as it is mindless exercise for me - after a few classes, when you get an idea of the routine, I can switch my brain into neutral and wake up in an hour. Two times a week, I am planning to get up at stupid o'clock to exercise - we will see how long that idea lasts!!!


The final task we had to do prior to commencing is measuring!!!!! I knew this was not going to be pretty, I knew what most of the measurements would be, but it was a definite reality check as to why this needs to have my 100% commitment for the next 12 weeks. We also had to take a photo - yep, that ain't going to ever see the light of day! But I think that I just have to look at it as motivation to never get back to looking like I do today - I never want to weigh this much ever again.


Michelle has posted our food plans, - which I must say look very substantial and pretty enticing. I have shopped today, stocked the cupboards and am ready to go. I also got some new work out gear, as the maternity trackies that I have been bumming around in for the last year probably don't need a public showing.
BRING. IT. ON.

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Have a great weekend.

Chantel x

Say Goodbye to Fatty Boombah

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A lot of bloggers are talking about looking into weight loss programmes at the moment - must be the hint of summer in the air- that pressure of having to be seen in public, possibly in a bathing suit will do that to anyone. 

Like so many women out there, I am not happy with how I look. I feel fat, I feel unhealthy and I don't fit in to any of my pre-pregnancy clothes. I have always been a yo-yo dieter, but before my pregnancy with Master Z, I was at my ideal weight, I was comfortable in my own skin and loving life because of it. I then got pregnant, and unfortunately suffered a miscarriage at 8 weeks. In my infinite wisdom, I decided that spoiling myself with all my favourite meals and food treats was going to make me feel better and take the pain away - nothing like emotional eating hey!! For about 4 weeks, I ate everything in sight - so proud of myself that I wasn't resorting to alcohol or anything silly to make the pain lessen. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I now know that in times of hurt, I eat to feel better and it is something I am more aware of and definitely don't want to do again.

Fortunately, we got pregnant again straight away, but the damage was done. I had already put on 18 kilos when I found out I was pregnant the second time and through the course of the pregnancy with Master Z, I put on a total of 42 kilos. I didn't think about what I was eating or doing and even my obstetrician said that pregnancy was the one time you can eat what you want, so I did .... and then some!!!! I have managed to get rid of 23 kilos, but am stuck in a cycle of excuses about how I am going to manage getting back the old me.

One of the blogs I follow is Dr Duncan Jefferson and as I was eating a pack of Tina Wafers last night (not even Tim-Tams! C'Mon Chantel, if you are going to do something, at least do it in style! - but no, I don't keep Tim Tams in the house as I would only eat them - hence the Tina Wafers!!!) I read his post about Stroke prevention. I looked at the risk factors he mentioned and aside from not smoking, I am really not doing anything to look after my health. As I am carrying a significant amount of extra weight at the moment, I am sure if I was tested, I would have high blood pressure, high cholesterol and be heading towards developing Type II Diabetes. These are all factors that can cause significant health complications and even death.

I need to look at being overweight as first and foremost a health issue and focus on getting healthy. I want to be healthy and fit enough to run after my kids, I want to feel good about myself, be able to fit into pretty clothes and most importantly, I want to be around to watch my kids grow up. My biggest short term motivating factor for getting healthy and losing weight is having more kids. If I fell pregnant at the weight I am now, I would not be comfortable and would be putting myself and the baby at risk. 

I had been toying with ways to get back on track, when the universe delivered me I received an email from Huggies, promoting Michelle Bridges' 12 Week Body Transformation. It starts on 26 September and finishes at Christmas. I saw this as a good way to get myself started, get back to eating well and starting an exercise habit back up again. I realise I haven't exercised at all since Master Z was born, so going on 20 months now!

Since signing up, I have read that Sarah at Ah,The possibilities! and Suz at Segovia are also participating and I am sure there are more bloggie people joining in that I haven't come across yet. Michelle has set some Pre-season tasks for us to do, which includes introducing ourselves on the forums, shedding our excuses and making a commitment to ourselves and those around us. So this is me making my commitment - I will do everything in my power over the 12 week programme to make steps towards my short and long term goals. I will blog about it along the way, so sorry if it gets boring, but putting it out there, in this space, makes me accountable and will hopefully be one thing that helps to keep me on track. My goal is to lose 15 kilos over the 12 week programme and have an exercise regime established that becomes a long term routine for me.


So please cheer me along, be stern with me when I falter and remind me of where I want to be at the end of these 12 weeks.

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Chantel x

  linking up today with Jess from Diary of a SAHM for I blog on Tuesdays.