time to re-organise and re-measure everything

Well weigh in this week is as usual, i could crap more than i have lost lately. i am at 90.7kg now , so blooming close to that 89. i need to change something as this is getting too slow , there has to be a way to get my losses bigger, so i have decided to pick a few recipes that i will bulk make, measuring every step of the way, then i shall freeze them, i will also make little containers of my days snacks and  mentally train myself that  it is all i can  have through the day. 
I cant do much more with my training as i have really been exceptionally good training 6 days a week and getting more active over the weekends.  this weather being colder has also been affection my joints, my back and shoulder hands and knees are all hard to warm up in the mornings before a workout, so i will need to get some krill or omega three to try help out. 

So my shopping list is going to include some good freezable containers , 
lots of bok choy  and strirfry veges, 
i will be avoiding any breads as much as i can as i think they have been causing me trouble this week. 

I think i also need to have a fishing trip in case I'm lucky enough to catch this weeks fish supply. 

I have finally gotten myself a lovely little vege patch per se , Damian surprised me with a couple of awesome little portable vege beds, they are brilliant, and just the right height and size for growing my herbs and spinach and rocket and fancy lettuce. he got them for only $29.95 at bunnings. 

 He is such a sweetheart, he said he loves to help me with things that make my new life easier for me to maintain. i also had some big assed pots just sitting around doing nothing so i filled them with capsicums, beans and tomatoes.

I will be getting another vege patch  this week so i can have a whole range of veg going . 

The above pots have aloe vera, mint, basil and cos lettuce, and spring onion, 

 these two are of those handy garden beds from bunnings, in the top one i have lettuce, mixed and puk choy. with some spring onions and garlic chives.  The bottom one has spinach, rocket and bak choy

 these are my pots of beans and tomatoes, a little pot of garlic chives and two pots of capsicums. 

i might not get a huge yield but it will be something to be proud of , i will be growing some dwarf broccoli next as its the  most use vegetable by me as well , 

A week of changes this week in the hopes of tricking my body into some good losses. they say slow and steady wins the race but i swear this is a race that will take a very very long time. time to go and dig out my organic gardening books too. For now i am about to get my hooks out and crochet some kids beanies for the markets on the weekend. 

Muscle developments

Good morning , i thought i would sneak this post in while i wait for mum to get here for our killer workout . i want to be snuggled up in bed  where its warm and stuff but I'm here dressed in my training gear and hoping i can get through today's workout without the mental tantrums i have been having lately over the way these workouts are getting really tough on me. I also worry about mum when i feel like I'm about to pass out i keep checking that mums doing OK, and shes a trooper, i know shes feeling it , so i tell her its OK to modify if we are past our boundaries, we still get results. 
So speaking of results, i am going to use this post as a continual update  of my bodies developments. i know a bit boring for you most likely but it is a good way for me to track  how I'm responding to training. the only thing you wont see is abs lol  big lol here, after 5 kids  there is no hope for them without surgery, but i assure you one day i will be at my goal weight and able to have the abdominoplasty to correct muscle placement and remove the excess skin i have had since having the twins. you can see that stomach in my first couple of posts early in this blog  http://12wbt-getting-jiggly-with-it.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/mummy-kids-at-school-say-youre-fat.html    So i will now add my first pic, i haven't been able to get a close pic of anywhere else yet but i will do it as soon as i can. At the moment i just have my arms, or one of them as they both are almost the same, 

i will update this post as soon as i  get some clear pics of my legs and back , this will help me tell my progress as i don't ever see my back.

On lighter note:)

This will be my last blog till after weigh in lol as I'm blogging like a madwoman to catch up on some things. 
Today was a struggle with the exercise, holy crap I'm sure Mish thinks that we are training for  the Olympics or something. just when i thought i had a handle on the exercises we struggled with last week she changed them and gave us even more skipping, 125 to be exact. well I'm sorry to say i only skipped 250 of them before  deciding to do knee high jogs instead. I'm new to skipping so i do tend to get really breathless. Today even more so cause its Monday I'm sure of it lol. 
it was a very tough workout for mum and i but we got through it, it was an almost 400cal burn for me , and lately my blood pressure has been a bit low so i have to be very careful after i train. 
mum and i have come a long way this year with our training and even when i felt like i couldn't keep going we got each other through it. 

 this is us trying to get a pic together , but as you can see we do not cooperate very easily and that's not on purpose either , Kahlyssa got a shot of us doing knee high lifts too, those things are brutal at times

 i wanted to keep tabs on my legs as i haven't had a pic of them for comparisons so i got a calf and thigh one for my future references. 

this one of me  is me getting into some rowing type of exercise as an alternative to towel pulls.  

 I think we are really kicking ass, and intermediate is bloody hard for peeps like us so i will stick to it next round too as i think beginner might be too easy and we really haven't gotten the most out of intermediate yet. I'm waiting for my gold medal in skipping. 
Have a great day and see you on Wednesday x

Why i will never buy anything from a Harvey Norman store again

AS promised in my last post i will give you the reason i had a very nasty run in with my local Harvey Norman store, and to have the story make any sense i will give you all the back ground info on it  so it will be a little long winded but i will do my best to not lose you before i get to the point .

In late 2011 i bought myself a  brand spanking new office desk and chair,  i didn't spare the expense as i wanted it to be solid and the chair had to be extremely comfortable. 
I have had a back injury leading to severe and sometimes crippling lower back pain so i cannot sit in ordinary seats in my home, or even the couch for that matter so i can only "relax" in  my office chair otherwise i suffer the consequences. The accident that caused my back pain  was also the same accident that gave me vertigo. the vertigo took control of my life, i didn't like to go anywhere , i couldn't walk very far and my anxiety and depression went through the roof. My office chair was my safe haven and my prison, i couldn't and still cant stand for too long and to sit i had to be extremely well supported, hence the $300 purchase of my high backed office chair, you may notice it in some of my selfies. 

Early through the next year and whilst still under warranty the gas lift on the chair stopped , in the lowest position, which meant my knees were up under my chin.  So i rang Harvey Norman and made an enquiry about it. I was told that yes indeed it is under warranty and that they will send for a new part immediately and will ring me as soon as it arrived. 
A week later i rang and was told the right person to help me would ring me back soon.
I rang a few days later and was told that the part was on its way 
Then a week later after no word from then i rang again, still no word yet and no part. By now i was getting really annoyed and sitting on a tiny chair that i couldn't lift. eventually another 3 weeks later they had the part for me , that was supposedly already there 2 weeks before but they couldn't find my number *coughbullshitcough.
i went in and got the part and Damian fixed my chair. All was well and good for a few months before, bam the same thing happened again, wtf, i don't even use the gas lift other than to raise it to the right height  then it stays there. 
By now I'm thinking this must be a dodgy make of chair  but i couldn't really complain as i have used it non stop every day since i owned it, i sew in it, paint in it, eat, relax, anything i needed to do that was sitting (other than the toilet ewww, you guysssss) 
 so my chair looked well worn and loved. The amount of mummy hugs and stories i have had in this chair were uncountable. 
This leads me to another phone enquiry with Harvey Norman. I wanted to know if this was normal and if not how can i get another gas lift, either under its warranty or i buy one, either way i just wanted to fix my chair. 

Unbelievably i got the same run around, this time for the same amounts of time, over 5 weeks told they were on hoilidays, noone else could help me as it was  this ones job or that one had their files and knew what was happening. I eventually after my last enquiry before i  lost my cool , get told that the manager has decided that the stock must have been faulty and they want to refund the chair so i can get another. I am a little reluctant at this as i  was concerned to be without my chair if i couldn't find a replacement that was suitable.  I also reminded the lady that this was an older chair now and that i would be fine with a gas lift i can put back into it myself. She insisted i get it into the store , this was not going to be an easy task as my van has been at the mechanics for am month waiting on a new cylinder head. more money i have to come up with. 

So mum helps me take the chair to the store on Friday. I a little embarrassed as i didn't want to wheel the chair past other customers. so i rang the store from the car park and asked which section they needed me to take the chair to. Bring it to whichever end you want to , it will be fine.So i wheel the big cumbersome thing with much struggling into the store, with everyone looking at me , yay me. ugh . i get to the desk and explain the situation and  she informs me that i need to now take it  through the store to the other section. You have to be kidding me, by now there are  many sets of eyes wondering what the hell I'm doing  with this big assed chair  plowing through  the store.  I cannot see anyone at the main desk but there is this man in  his uniform glaring at me like i just walked dog crap through his store. he asks what i want and i try to explain the situation briefly and that i needed to speak to the lady that organised it all as she would know what was happening. 
He tells me to go to the other desk but is really glaring at me and my chair like we are filth. this is rather embarrassing as i start to fumble my words a bit trying to explain the situations again to the lady at the counter while the before mentioned staff member is looking at me and saying i should be thankful I'm getting a refund cause look at the state of the chair , then in front of everyone and with the flamboyance of a man at the mardi gras he swans around the chair hands on hips saying rather loudly , look at this chair, i need to get peter to see this and make sure its one of our chairs. then calls out to this peter fellow who doesn't arrive. By now my face is red, I'm more embarrassed than i have ever been  and this upstart  is being really rude glaring at me like i just ruined a chair and am now trying to get a refund. I looked him square in his orbital areas and said to him, you are a very rude man and you have no right speaking to me like that when i didn't ask for the refund, i didn't ask to  have to drag  this chair through the store to have him treat me like a criminal.  He then stood there with his hand on his hip again , with a face like he just burped up some bile and told me i should be grateful I'm getting a refund at all, I was then told that it would take days for the funds to get into my account and i asked is there another way that they could do it so i was not left without a chair for that many days. 
The guy just rolled his eyes and huffed and puffed at me like i was the biggest cow in the world for asking such a question. then they tried to say they would give me a cheque and i refused it, the only way that the refund would be done was by eftpos.
By now i had  well and truly had enough there was a gathering now of another staff member and also customers in the store.  The newly arrived  older female staff member must have sucked a lemon on her way over to the desk to watch what was going on, or she thought she was a body guard the way she had her arms crossed and sidled up to the desk near the man and not looking at me at all. 

I looked  at the guy again who was making me feel like i was stupid and i said, that i would not be accepting his behaviour and that i will be speaking to someone higher up than him. 
Next thing you know A short  balding man with his chest all puffed out like he was a fake body builder steps around the corner with the look of death in his eyes and says, lady you aint gunna get higher than me, i own this place. from the look on his face and how rudely he snapped those words at me  i could see i was in for the time of my life here. i looked at him squared my shoulders and said so i see from that comment that you condone how your staff members speak to your customers then. 
He then looked at me and said lady you look at this chair, its been abused. He practically spat those words at my face. I  was stunned and said i beg your pardon if anything this chair has been nothing but loved.  then i said whats your problem , you were the one that told me to bring my chair back in here that has been much used and loved for the past two years when i simply asked that the staff do their job in a timely matter and get a gas lift. He was then going on about this refund and i reminded him again that i never asked for a refund and if it was going to cause so much animosity towards me then i would rather take my beloved chair with me and he can give me the gas lift and i would fix it, he then yelled louder about how there was no way he was fixing it , that he was going to send it to the manufacturer , and was i going to pay the postage of running it around Australia.
 i asked him what that had to do with any of it that i have complained about the parts on this chair since the first year i bought it and it was his staff that didn't do their jobs properly. he was going on about the fact that the chairs arms has wear around it and i said maybe that's something you need to ask the manufacturer as i also mentioned that to the staff when i first complained, that the vinyl wore off the arms within 6 months  and the only thing they were used for was to steady myself to get up .I tried to explain that i had to use that chair daily due to medical reasons and that while i was not well i practically lived in that chair ( meaning it was the only chair i could use each day in my house) He then said Ohhhh well then maybe you could have said to the staff member who sold you the chair that you were going to live in it.

 I was absolutely gob smacked this guy was just being a complete arsehole and i just smile and said I'm amazed that you don't have a very good grasp on the English language if you think that is how it went and then i said, i will have you know that you young staff member knew exactly what i wanted the chair for otherwise i would not have spent so much money on a chair. By now i could feel the humiliation setting in. I don't even want to imagine what my face must have looked like. I could see the crown gathering through the store watching and listening to what was going on.  the other rude staff member was still standing there staring this time very smugly as his boss tried to tear me down. It didn't work, i stood tall as the lady got me to sign a refund slip and put it through on my card. 
He was still  standing there and  having cheap shots at me  about how i should go and look at his office chair , and i said let me guess its two years old in perfect condition and you bought it from here huh. he was like , yes in fact , ..... yer right .  I just got my card back , and started walking aways but not before letting him know he hasn't heard the last of this. I then said to them all that i am glad they confirmed the fact that i will never spend another cent in his store and that i will make damn sure anyone i know doesn't go there again either. He just yelled out "Good". i turned and then had to walk the 50 meters out of the store knowing they were glaring at me as i exited.  The customers all furtively looking at me as i went, I have no idea what they were thinking i just was biting the inside of my lips to stop me crying and got out of there at a steady and fast pace. 
 i got to mums car and told her about it , before breaking down. i couldn't stop crying for over an hour, every where i tried to go , shopping, butchers etc, i would have tears rolling down my face. 
Never in my life have i been so humiliated like that by so many people at one time. 
Over an hour and a half later i get a phone call on my mobile. It was the police. WTF.  i expected him to say that someone had seen or heard the abuse i had gotten and had reported this man . Nope it turned out that the lady that was doing the refund, was so caught up in the arguments that she over refunded me....... the policeman told me she was scared she would lose her job....... is that right ? i said to him after that treatment and abuse in there i should let them just dock her pay. I also told him i will not be stepping foot in that store ever again...
What would you do if you were in this situation? p.s i have not touched a cent of it.

i do have a chair now that i got from a lovely young gentleman at office works that was not at all worried that i was standing there crying or that i had a call from the police mid sale . as he had already talked to me on the phone before i even went to Harvey Norman when i was checking on chair prices .

All this drama because one person couldnt follow up on a work order and an owner of a store thought he had the right to humiliate a customer. Maybe he needed to check my name up in his system and see that i had spent over ten grand in his store over the past ten years, now im taking my cash elsewhere.  I knd of felt like julia roberts in pretty woman as i walked away saying "big mistake... big mistake , huge"

What makes me feel good on the inside?

yes this is my third post in as many days, aren't you guys lucky? or not, depends if you like reading them. 
Sometimes when I'm feeling a little off i like to remind myself of the things that make me happy or that I'm grateful for . Most of these things are from nature and will be simple things like  big white fluffy thunder clouds in an otherwise perfect sky. Beautiful flowers with rain drops on them, the smell of my vege patch when I'm watering them. 
Being able to cook my family a special meal. The  way my kids play or talk, or make each other laugh. 
The sweet little love notes my youngest son writes for me just to tell me he loves me to the moon and back. 
Singing my fave songs, or better still hearing one of them come on the radio when I'm driving and i can crank it up and sing like noone can hear me.
Or when i can crank it up at home and dance like noone can see me, throwing my arms around if i want , just feeling the beat and letting go. 
Having a really tasty meal that makes me moan as I'm chewing, yup i do that and I'm sure it embarrasses anyone around me lol, 
That sweet taste of a square of dark choccy i allow myself each night after a job well done, i eat in in 6 bites , savouring the flavour and enjoying the moment. 
Snuggling up with Damian on a cold night and hearing the sweet things he says to me even after  all  this time. 
Speaking of Damian, he is one of my major  inspirations for my happiness moments after my kiddies. I just need to think of all the times he has surprised me with sweet gifts and love notes or loving texts just to say he is thinking of me, or he appreciates me , or that he loves me. These are the moments you cherish as a woman, when your man makes you feel like the only girl in the world. 
This weekend has been a big one for me emotionally and i had a really rough time on Friday morning, i will blog about that incident involving the owner of Harvey Norman in another post. Due to this and a very heavy training day on Saturday i was a wreck, emotional and exhausted , i was feeling the pull of anxiety trying to claim hold but it didn't win, i was not letting a few hard moments ruin my inner happiness.
 Damian knew i had really been battered around, including  by myself and my dance class and training session straight after ( i need to ease up on that , my body did not like me after it ) i was hardly able to move at all, let alone function and it was Damian that guided me to the car and took me to a beautiful lunch that was just what i needed,
 It was exactly what my body was craving and i felt alot better after it. He made sure my weekend was filled with things that would make me happy, we went shopping, made another vege patch, went fishing,  And through it all i was realising , it wasn't the activities themselves that was making me feel good and loved and even cherished, it was his consideration and care and company that made it all feel so good. 
Even if we were just at my place doing nothing  his demeanour towards me was the winner. So there are a million things i can list that i use to inspire happiness in me , but the most important one is gratefulness, I have learned that i get the most happiness from things i am grateful for  because without gratitude there is no way of bringing forth the things in life you deserve to you. 

I treat my relationship with the same respect, i am grateful to have him, i am grateful for the things he says and does to and for me , and its this gratitude  that brings with it love, trust and all those other wonderful things that makes a relationship a lasting one. 

What else makes me smile and feel happy, tonight when i stepped out of the bathroom after blow drying my hair, Damian was there  welcoming me with a warm hug and leading me to my office, when i got there i saw a beautiful   bunch of red roses and a loving note, for no other reason that he loves me and enjoys seeing me smile :) 

There are many things that make me smile, too many for me to list. you have seen but a small portion of them, even the way mum and i laugh together when working out, will always make me smile later as i think about it. Its these things that become inspiration to get fitter, stronger and healthier so i can enjoy them all for as long as i possibly can.. I hope you all have found your reasons to smile xx

Damn you stockings and static electricity!!

Just a quick post, what the hell is it with stockings? These things were obviously  designed to give women a bit of an extra workout , just in case they were the kind of women that liked to do nothing otherwise. It really doesn't matter what size you are these nylon torture tubes are always uncooperative and an enigma to me. The joy is that i finally have lost enough weight that wearing a pair doesn't result in fainting spells due to tightness or that mintie look where the elastic in the waist cutting in and the gusset around the lower body cutting in makes me look like an unwrappable lolly. While winter is upon us i have been partaking in the wearing of these before mentions tubes of squeeziness. My thinking is that if i wore some support hose then it will help me  during a busy day with some leg support as i have had inflamed veins in my legs a couple of times. plus they can keep your legs warmer during those cold morning workouts.
The thing is, trying ot get these on ...... there has to be an art to it that i have not yet masters in my over 20 years relationship with them in many and varied colours and textures. When i was young and slim and had to wear the m for work everyday , i was a little cheeky and used to wear suspenders  as it made it alot less hot and uncomfortable under the big black woollen skirts as was the original attire for sizzler staff back in the 90's. Now most of the time we need to wear stockings we are putting them on after a shower, this is probably the worst place we could try to put them on as opposed to actually trying to put them on in the shower. It doesn't matter how well i dry my legs they are going to seem like i have painted them with glue as soon as i try to attire myself. the thing with alot of stockings is that they have a very obvious way that they are to be worn. there is often a heel and toe placing so i always line them up to the right direction then do as we all do , i gather them up with my fingers till i have one leg all bunched up in my hands so all i need to do is step my toes into the footing and i can loving glide the "hose" up my thigh all sensuously like they do in the movies right? bow bowwww, not right at all, i do not know what the hell they do to make those flawless shots but i have not managed to figure it out, for me when i start to glide them up i find they glide for but a moment, as I'm rapidly unfurling the stocking as i stretch it round and round, back and forth spiralling up my leg, i get to my knees and start on the other leg, so far so good,, then i look down and realise that is all there is , the legs have stopped and the crotch is stopping at my knee.
Tall size my ass, I'm not even tall so where the heck is the rest of my stockings. I'm feeling ripped off right now, so i start again, this time pinching the stocking from the outside and  stretching it upwards in the hope of magically finding the missing 30 or more Cm's of nylon. i then grab the waistband and using the same slide and rise motion as with the legs i try to hoist the band upwards with the wish of the much needed stocking being found in the process. well i now have the waist up under my armpits , the crotch still at my knees and still no upper thigh coverage.
By now I'm starting to sweat and my legs are getting grabbier so this is becoming futile,  its time to bring out the big guns, before i cut off the circulation to my knees its time to hula hoops these blooming things up. grabbing the stocking from ankles again i start my back and forwards pulling to bring them up, giving my legs a bit of a shake as i go to help the hoisting, then comes the middle again, holding the elastic i hula hoop my way into them, back and forwards back and forwards to help.  By now my finger tips feel like they have carpet burn on them and  my stockings are up, unfortunately they are twisted, i have somehow managed to turn them around to the point of the skin on my thighs being pinched  by the twisted fabric. ugh will this ever end. time to do the pinch and arrange , pinching careful fingertips of stocking to  realign them so i don't feel like my girly bits are being halved tortuously. almost done and them pow, i manage to pop a hole in it, crap. but its high enough i might just be able to save them, now where did i put my clear nail polish?

I have tried drying my legs with a blow dryer, powdering them, even using a body oil before putting them on and they are all the same. heck some of them look like elongated sausages when i get them out the packet , leaving me wondering if i will be able to even breathe when i get them on, hahah assuming i can get them on.
Another annoying thing is that i never seem to have an anti static spray so i walk around with my thighs rubbing up enough static electricity to run a whole city for 3 months , i am my own tazer. I cannot touch anything or anyone without creating my own force field.
i know i can spend alot more money on some finer hose, i have even been told a light spray of hairspray helps with static, i couldn't think of anything more horrifying to spray on my legs when I'm a sticky phobe. i cannot stand dirty hands or anything sticky. My kids were rarely fed anything that might cause stickiness ,  the idea of a child touching anything in my house with sticky fingers then me touching it  is a nightmare, ( it has happened a few times much to my horror lol)
no matter what size i buy them in i know they will be alot of work to get them on.
There is always that furtive glance others give bigger women when they see us eyeballing the stockings aisle and its varied choices.  the colours and styles and different fabrics, to be honest i have no clue and don't care i just want one box  of stockings with a label stating "the eastiest sons of breeches to get on " then i will gladly have silky smooth  supported legs  without the ability to jump start a car with one finger.

I have not found such a pair so i will either continue my exhaustive  routine wrestle match with my step ins or I'm going back to the suspenders idea.  I hope you all have a far better go at it that i do.

week 6 and holy wowsers im buggered

hi lovelies. I missed my chance to do my weigh in blog this week, i have been so busy crocheting for the kids that i haven't had a minute to even get pics done.which reminds me i need to get a pic with my yellow dress and update that blog with it.
Wednesdays weigh in showed a 100gram increase.  that was expected as i had way too many hungry days , damn you winter, damn you to heck. i would have thought that having a crocheting hook in my hands all day would keep me from eating but i managed to  do it anyway.
so i have managed to make each child a beanie this week and have a few more to make by order.  i will show off my handiwork , albeit i have been crocheting since i was 7 but never followed a pattern i just made scarves or blanket things. i taught myself how to read patterns now and have been making  them all week. so I'm still a novice crocheter.

 I have also been dabbling in my sewing again and making baby shoes and school hats for the kids and a quick jacket for tinkerbell , the family dog you can see curled up on my bag of wool 

 Fir weigh in this Wednesday just gone i was happy to see i went down to 90.9. I'm getting closer and closer to the 80's so i have really been putting in the effort this week . fingers crossed there will be a pic of my scales for that weigh in lol. 

This week i have been more used to the severity of the exercises, i also do not whip myself anywhere near as much with the skipping rope so all the skipping on our super Saturday workouts has been mostly done, i say mostly because after about 700 skips i was starting to think i would black out lol.

I went for a thyroid check up last week with my doctor and my levels are good apparently. I still am symptomatic so its always a burden. I had my blood pressure checked and it was low. i had finished a workout an hour earlier so it must have lowered my blood pressure. That explains why i feel a little off after some workouts so i will have to keep an eye on that. 

i have been taking more pics lately and making collages of old pics of me and how i am now. if you have been following my journey you will be able to scroll through and see some of my pics from the beginning. 

today my daughter messaged me and included an pic that was taken in may last year , she had thrown me a surprise birthday party  it was just  a few of us and i remember it as it was a sweet thing for her to do. I don't remember her taking the pic  but she found it on her phone today and sent it  to me , when i saw it  i was brought to tears, I didn't even fathom that i looked like that to me i knew i was overweight but i didn't think it was all that bad, seeing the photo today really showed me that i had really let myself go, given up and thought it was just how it was going to be, That it was all going to be too hard and i didn't know how or where to start on my way to a healthier slimmer me. 
Well its now a whole new story , i started this journey and it has flown by, it seems like a whole different life  before, that it was so long time ago but it was this year, and only a few short months ago. So much change in such a short time. 
so here is that photo of me that she sent me and the picture beside it is of me this week. 

the first was in May 2012, and this is the size i was when i joined 12wbt in February 2013 103kg    the picture on the right is me now, part way through my journey and weighing in at 90.4 kg  as of weighing myself this morning. 
No wonder Damian is so supportive of me, he sees that smile  on me more often , a smile of achievement and vitality. 
My workouts are hard for me sometimes, like today's when i finished and broke down and cried, my body's way of coping with the endorphins i guess. 

This collage is the things i have been doing lately, top left is me skipping, i never thought i would get both feet off the ground at the same time ever  lol, the only time that will ever happen i have to admit is if there is something creepy crawly  running past , then i seem to be able to levitate. 

I also have a nice little collection of clothes from Michelle Bridges One Active range so the pic top right is me showing off my new One Active jumper to Damian. the top middle is supposed to be a walking lunge with arms above head but I'm thinking its closer to an impersonation of E.T.
 The bottom left is a smaller version of the one in my comparison pic above, the collage maker ate the rest of the pic lol. and the final right bottom pic is me trying to see if i am developing any biceps yet . It really does take a while for them to appear when there is still so much insulation covering them. 
I better get off here and have some feet up time before i go to sleep for the night , i shall make better efforts to get some posts through this week, i was even going ot do a vlog but the time goes so blooming fast, i am going to introduce you to my 12wbt vege garden son too :) take care 

hi my name is Gayle and i'm a first time skipper

I remember as a kid always having a skipping rope round me, it as one of the fave things to do in the early 80,s, that and use a pen to rewind a cassette.  i have not skipped using a rope since i was probably 8, i don't ever remember saying to my mates at high school, "I'm bored , lets go skipping" by high school i was more interested in skating and that crazy new thing where you can buy blank cassettes and record your fave songs on the radio if no one made any noise at all, so yes i did have  quite a few songs on tape with a random, cough sneeze and fart on it. You know how this round of 12wbt I'm trying intermediate, my way of pushing myself past any barriers, i mean , the past 4 weeks have been pretty good, not so challenging, maybe i have gotten so fit now that intermediate is going to be nice and breezy too..... silly silly me, * shakes head. 

I would like to double check that my mother knows CPR and that i have life insurance cause bloody hell. I am seeing a little of why peeps doing the advanced programs are at their goal weights or close to it. I say i see a little of it because i know this is just the beginning, i remember when Mish stepped up the last 4 weeks of round 1 , I'm starting to crap myself here,. I'm going to give you a walk through of today's workout.  You might want to go and grab yourself a cuppa before you read, you will need it. In fact , if i can get off this chair in a second i too will go and make myself a drink. i will be back in just a moment. i hope. 

OK I'm back, a nice hot cup of Aktivite,  so today's workout, ugh well i went to bed a little too early last night then had to get back up again for a nocturnal wizz because i slept too early, then later was awoken by hip pain, that's when i knew it had been raining. my poor ole arthritic body is really feeling the pinch of winter. So my night of fitful sleep didn't help me at all with today's workout. Here's how my mondayitis torture went.

we have to warm up by doing fast low steps, alternating legs every 30 seconds, OK , done this a heap of times so all good here. or so i thought, i didn't count on the rain last night making my step a little slippery or that my left leg suddenly would lift that cm higher to clear the tiny step, so i stumbled a little, not very gracefully either, but i got back on the horse and kept going, then was the medieval whipping torture, or should i say skipping. 
Its like riding a bike, you never forget, but apparently i have become a little more violent with my rope swing and have now learnt that i need to be more gentle when i swing it over my head , i was more concerned with the rope clearing my feet and me actually physically being able to jump over it with both feet like grown ups do and not in that one at a time skipping i did as a kid :) 
I was starting to get the feeling i was in a convict movie and constantly getting lashings cause i didn't think skipping was meant to sting like hell, this was my first clue that I'm a violent skipper, or i just done know my own strength, the first sting of the rope across my triceps should have taught me a lesson before the second sting in the same place cause a little bit of an expletive reaction and some rubbing , much to my mothers amusement as shes feather lightly skipping away .

if you look carefully you will see a couple of horizontal red lines across my arm. 

I continued on, i still had 3 minutes of skipping to do , now I'm telling you if this had been  tralalala skipping  then i would have merrily been able to do that but this bloody rope thing  its a whole new ballgame. 

So into minute 2 and three i have accumulated two more whips , one across each ankle, the front of my ankle to be exact because my brain said  jump and my feet said "wha??"  too late, whack. Mum by this time is thinking this is hilarious. oh yeah its bloody funny alright, so now i can truly feel that i have an arm and two ankles by the stinging sensations that has not subsided yet. 

 The final minute became my undoing , i was doing really well with technique and with  my pace so i was confident i could do make it to the end of my 4th minute unscathed. pffft yer OK Gayle. i must have distracted myself with my inner head dialogue congratulating myself  on being able to skip at all, i remember in round one there was no way i could do it, not even one skip, in fact if you remember back then i could not jump at all so this was an amazing achievement to me. It was during this dialogue i felt my first of two ass whippings... how the hell did i whip under my ass cheek, well however i managed it , i did it twice, one on both sides. Mum had to have a pee stop in the middle of all this, probably due to her laughing at me beating myself up. I  pulled my shorts down a little and said "are their marks" to which she looked and laughed again.. Gleefully taking a pic to show me, I am sharing this pic with you today  probably just to horrify you that you will see part of my ass-cheek, and i say  part because that's a bloody big ass cheek lol

you can make out the red line across my thigh towards the crease, that's if you can stop staring at the giant freckle long enough to see it lol

this was the end of my 4 minutes skipping, but i did say, that's going to be easier with practise and i dare say it will. I'm not one to give up that easily. 

The skipping had really taken it out of me, anything to do with bouncing usually wears me out fast, that's a lot of booty to get off the floor still so I'm  trying my best. 

The rest of the workout read like a torture test. if we survived this test we were allowed to stay on the island. 

this is the order we did things, 10 Turkish get ups, i wont explain how these things are done in case its a copyright thing, i don't want to get into trouble, so i will use a basic term for them,  lets just say this exercise involves being on the floor then not being on the floor all with only one arm. oh boy, that's something i never want to watch my mother do again.... but i know it will happen . *shivers.

then it was 20 squats on one leg, yessssss one leg, what in the name of all that is holy, i had to watch the video for that before i assumed i had to tie one of my mothers legs up to her ass. Luckily i did check as i would have been wrong but it would have been very funny, like putting sticky tape on a cats paw.. if one was incline to try that for a giggle.. not me as I'm a good girl and such. i just heard about it once.  so we managed the squats fine and I'm thinking this is not going to be easy today as i know what is left to do yet and already I'm feeling a little sick in the tum, such a sook i am. 

30 push ups (clapping)  this was OK,  we have done it many times, then 40 crunches, my neck hates these, they always make me feel alot of burning across my neck but we got through them. It took me a while to get back up though. Me getting up from floor to standing resembles a baby elephant trying to do the same, no coordination and a hefty middle to shift.

next  was 50 of an exercise that makes me look like im one armed rowing .  this also wasnt as bad as i imagined when i saw what i was to do. then  the trouble came and lots of wtf is she kidding came out too lol, like a pair of whiny kids, oh we had full intentions of getting them done but it made us feel better to have a little whinge about it too, if we look too keen Mish might up the reps on us. assuming she knows what we are complaining about cause there seems to always be more the next time. 

Next was time for mum and i to lunge walk our way around the house looking rather odd, please don't let anyone turn up right now while we are doing this. we had to do this 60 times, feel the burn is not a word i would use to describe the way my thighs seemed to swell to the point i couldn't actually walk any more.

so how did she top this off, with 70 burpees, *faints. we strategically worked our way through them, lots of puffing and panting,  to then start on the 80 squats, nooooooooo already my ass cheeks and thighs were giving up , yet surprisingly it wasn't as hard to get through as i thought. My body really is screaming at me though, i have done so many reps today on each muscle that my heart really felt like it was working way harder that my heart rate monitor said it did. my 130 beats a minute felt like 180. 

90 tricep dips and a lot of crying and begging for it to end followed, well in my head i cried and threw myself on the floor banging my fists and screaming " you cant make me do this"

bring on the 100 basketball jumps, each one i made sure both my feet left the floor, i noticed mums were not doing that, hmmmm no wonder when we finished then she was dancing around the kitchen while i was gasping for air and checking if i was about to keel over. 

various crunches followed ,  and i braved my way through them despite the burning in my neck. gleefully welcomed the stretched and realised, we are not in Kansas anymore Toto. it is only going to get harder from here, can i handle the new pace, will i be able to make it through the round as intermediate? i bloody well hope so cause I'm going to give it a damn good try..Even though i have not shifting huge numbers all along, i have tried to lose a little consistently, yes i could be alot better with food and sometimes i am sometimes I'm not perfect , so i know where its at. I am losing cm.s and that's a good thing, it will take me at least another 10 kg for my cms to make a big difference to my shape. I took another progress shot this morning, it has made me decide to try alot harder in my food so that i can  achieve better results. I need to order alot more number 7's this will help. 

Time for me to go and get more sewing done .. see you in Wednesday for my weigh in.... thanks to my stupid hormones I'm 2 weeks late again for a period) this always happens and no not preggers lol) so this weigh in could be my gain week, its been a while since its happened so I'm hoping it doesn't but I'm also expecting it too. 

yes the dress is a little shorter to see if my legs are changing, they are slowly , not in cms dramatically but firming up,  Damn my inner thighs, how i hate them. 

a busy week, week 4 weigh in and fitness test ,

hello every body *waves excitedly.
Well what a busy week i have had this week, i discovered my  love of making baby shoes, and i have been getting alot of sewing done. I am going to see if i can make some "buy the boys tap shoes" money by selling shoes, i am keeping them as soft soled 0-6 month and 6-12 month, the latter being in a non slip sole. and i have a head full of so many ideas its awesome. i have been testing out some crocheted ones as well , i will post a pic of them when i get a pair finished in a colour i like.

these are just my first few , i have a lot more practising to do and  will get them to a perfecto level. 

Today marks the 4 week mini milestone, it is weigh in week, plus...dundundunnnnnn  measure and fitness test. 

My results are as follows, after 4 weeks, i have lost 1.7kg, yer  i know, bloody slow but at least its coming off. 

my measurements, down 11.5cm making it a total since Feb of 57cm in total body size.. Cant help thinking it is taking its bloody time with my double chin lol, 

 so today's scales were 

tadaa 91.1kg, that's 800g loss this week. which is a change as i was just dropping teeny bits for so long. lets hope my head is in the game more. 

I had noticed i was still cheating myself on calorie intake, some days just so hungry i would snack too much and it would show so much on the scales it frustrated me, but i didn't let it get me down as i knew i was not being the best i could be. 

I have been far more vigilant with what i eat now. Its funny cause i hear people saying how they have struggled with the exercise but are doing well with the food and yet I'm kicking ass with the exercise, doing training 6 days a week regardless and still  seem to mess up my food a bit, not in a really bad way, just in a damn i shouldn't have had some of that kind of way. i still behave and don't ever ever drink soft drink, i don't drink diet drinks, I'm not eating chocolate like i used to, i have not eaten chocolate for a couple of weeks ,  as in bought a block and had a few squares,  just in flavour of my belvita breakfast bars. So i know i am really close to being the best i can with food but not quite there yet. 

I have been making sure i am more active.  ans really pushing myself through my training, Saturdays i do my hour of dance class , then i go home and do another hour of my SSS, super Saturday session and i train my ass off, last Saturday i burned 705 calories just in  dance and training so i was very pleased with myself. 

i was going to sneak in another vlog but Tatjahna is home unwell and i  hate trying to video anything with kids around , it always goes pear shaped lol.

oh I was supposed to be in court this morning for the DVO application i applied for , and totally missed it as i was doing my damned fitness test. the judge threw it out of court.  and now i have to make a new application , i was rather annoyed.  I will go to the courthouse and get it all done. 

Speaking of fitness tests, today was a calorie burner, whoa, me running a kilometre, its crazy as i see these women posting in the forums about the  10 and 11km runs and I'm like wtf, how is that even possible lol. i normally do 300 meter jog, then 300 meters walking then 400 meters of walk/jog, cry, beg and plead for it to be over... lol its almost like that anyway. Today i jogged 600 meters non stop, then power walked for a hundred then jogged the final 300 . i was thinking holy shit woman how are you doing this, you are a machine rawrrrrrrr... well for a brief moment i did cause my head was doing this......... OK Gayle find your pace and stick to it, that's it , too fast wait, yes that's it nice and steady, this feels good and you are breathing good too. wow look at you go woman,  ohh careful bit of a pot hole there , nearly threw a shoe. phew you kept going , good work, oh no a cars coming, its OK , you are lighter now so you don't look as bad, but oh gawd what do i look like? my face might be all red ooop another pot hole, head in the game Gayle , that's it,  whooo, kinda feeling it now , breathe slower, easier, innnnn and ouuttt , oh thats right I'm supposed to breathe out and in through nose, warm the air, OK better try I'm starting to pant here... innnn through nose, out through mouth damn not enough air, in out in out in out , ugh how the hell do they breathe while, they do this,  gee my legs are shaky, what if i fall over, how embarrassing  oh crap another car, what the hell is my chest doing , please don't look at me just keep going Gayle,  damn these boobs are really trying to free themselves today.  silence for a brief while, that's 600 I'm allowed a breath walk for a minute , damn i need air, innnnnnn and out innnnn and out, walking , i still feel buggered , i may as well be jogging, so back into it, you can do this , look its not far now, oh look at that funny dog , hello little one,,,, concentrate..... 100 to go, take it home , push push push,  i think I'm going to hurl or pass out.  almost home whats for lunch?

yes my head does this the whole time I'm running, i need to up my game a lot and learn to shut my brain up when I'm doing this its like a reunion in there.i kept pushing hard cause i knew that mum knew CPR lol. well i hope  she remembers it. * note to self do CPR refresher course just in case.

I finished in 5 minutes 22 seconds which is 30 seconds faster that 5 weeks ago. i gotta be pleased with that.. 

as a final note, i took Tatjahna to the doctors for her chest infection, which is all cleared up now, and asked the doctor about the coughing i got after my run and he told me to not breathe the air through my throat and to make sure i either use my nose or wear a scarf over my mouth to warm the air as i breathe it , i figured i might try that next time. i just cant get enough air through my nose  at this time of year. then i told him of my 57cm loss and he was like , you are looking really good, you will have to let me know if you become single , i like women with ambition... should have seen how freaking fast i got out of  the office lol. I'm so glad i don't go to him for pap smears.... what is it with pap smears anyway, i mean we go into the room and the doctors gets us to disrobe and we  get the sheet thing to cover us for modesty ,but i always hide my undies under my clothes so the doctor doesn't see them  then  get on the bed thing and just open wide anyway... why is it more embarrassing to have a doctor see my undies than it is for them to be foraging around in my vagina like they are looking for their keys.    i really just don't get that lol...... Have a great day, I'm off to crochet.xx