welcome my little family. The extra push behind my workouts.

This is where i finally introduce you to my reasons for living and wanting to improve myself.
As most of you know being a mum is the most incredible feeling on this planet.
It doesn't matter what kind of day i have , seeing my kids all happily tucked up in bed with those sweet little faces fills me with joy and pride.

This post will be a brief hello to my family, not all of my family mind you cause wow that would take forever. This will be my kids and my parents to keep it brief.

Wanting to improve myself in health , weight and fitness was encouraged by many things. Hearing my daughter say that kids called me fat, and then her trying to appease me while shes wobbling my belly with her hands. My youngest son saying he hopes I'm still alive when hes a dad ( that was a tear jerking conversation).
Seeing my second eldest daughter struggling with obesity all her life and struggling to get her to help herself when her fave excuse was, "well mum eats it".
Wanting to make my parents proud and not have them worry that i might keel over and they will have to look after the 5 kids lol I'm kidding I'm kidding. i just know that they worry about me even when they don't say for me to lose weight. The fact my mum busts her ass with me in workouts every day is testament that shes willing to support me through this no matter what it takes.The health benefits that i pray are there, less vertigo , if not have my vertigo be gone forever. Be able to run and play without feeling so arthritic. My last motivation  but not my final as I'm sure along the way i will find many other reasons to be doing the 12wbt program, my last is my boyfriend, he deserves a rocking body pressed up against him, one that doesn't keep undulating after a playful ass slap.

OK lets get these introductions in place. My boyfriend has already got a post all about him , which can be found with a few scrolls of my blog:)
i will start with my parents.  My dad Colin, and my mum Lisa. They have been together since i was 7 ( hes my step dad, but the only dad i ever knew )

This is me as a kid with my dad. he is a very gentle man and is always respectful to the feelings of others. he worked hard for his family and taught me so many things that have helped me be a better woman today.  My dad is the most patient father, he was also always proud of me no matter what i did. even with this program hes proud and full of encouragement.  He always told me i was beautiful and everything i did , even if it was a crappy drawing, it was always the best ever to my dad. They don't make them like him anymore. I love my dad.

I am starting to think that my dad may be to blame for me being photographed wearing the daggiest clothes and what is with my hair ?

I know this though that my dad will be proud of me no matter what the outcome is. 
He also has a quiet sense of humour. it sneaks up on you when you least expect it. 

My dad also had a fondness for moustaches :) woohoo dad,  oh , the above pic is me in the green swimmers, my mum and my dad. look at my smile aren't i just the cutest?

 

 He the best dad ever. Good job picking him mum. 

That brings me to my mum Lisa, she is a bloody character that one :)  Mum and i are as thick as thieves and always have been. We have done every adventure we could, from comedy shows to operating karaoke together, to dressing as and elf and fairy to raise money for charity. We have sweat it out at the gym together and survived a beach boot camp. Mum has always been a give a try kind of woman. Talk about funny, mum and i without fail always find something to laugh at. shes generous and kind, and always encouraged me to do what i needed to do. Even if it wasn't what she hoped me to do she didn't judge me by my decisions or my mistakes.  Good work mum :) 

Mum made the mistake of falling asleep before me :)

Both my parents have a great sense of humour :)

me on the left mum in the green elf suit

me hiding my double chin lol at my 30th birthday

  

mum and i with Ewan, on his 1st birthday

She is a well travelled mum, oh my i don't want to know whats under his lap lap thingy

 My mum has the prettiest blue eyes ever. 

  here is mum and Kahlyssa and Tatjahna , mum was a very naughty elf 

 I'm so proud to have my mum with me on this journey. i would be lost without her.

Time to introduce my babies. starting from oldest to youngest. 
Kahlyssa is my eldest, oh boy . This  cheeky girl has given me a run for my money . Always full of energy and pent up frustration.  i have had many trials a tribulations with her but she has the wickedest humour and has never stopped loving her mum. My journey with 12wbt has been eagerly watched by her.
She may be almost 20 but she will always be my baby girl and almost losing her in a car accident in December was  terrifying. Seeing your child in a coma isn't something parents should need to see. It still haunts me to see her so helpless. She is fine now,  she got quite a few injuries  that how now healed mostly. 


Kahlyssa and i always had a hard time getting a  serious pic 

  we managed it this time 

  she doesnt realise how gorgeous she is 

  lol  but shes a great photographer

  this was her first bath , she was a cutie head.

  who would think this innocence would become a teen terror lol

 Next is Tatjahna , she is now 14. She can be such a sweet girl but i need to remind you that shes a teenager.. "run for your yife" as Dakotah used to say

Tatjahna is  a food lover too and i worry about her health, nothing i did , even removing all :"bad" foods from the house mattered as she would then just eat copious amounts of other foods. I'm praying she sees what I'm doing and she wishes to make a difference to herself, because counselling, dietitians, doctors , none have helped. When shes not trying to act like Godzilla she is a loving girl. 
As shes gotten older she has shied away from the camera. 

 Such a beautiful girl i only hope she realises this and treats her body with more respect with regards to food. I have noticed  her keeping a food diary too and trying to be aware of foods and keeping a little more active. i will hope my influence will help her too.

 She also has the sweetest chocolate coloured eyes with the longest lashes ever ... mmmmm chocolate
My biggest issue with her these days is trying to keep her at school, but that's a different story.

Next in line is my pigeon pair, twins Ewan and Dakotah. These guys were supposed to be tiny, i mean they are twins, this will be an easier birth  cause they are so tiny right? nope ,  they were a month premmy , Ewan was 8 pound 3 and dakotah was 6 pound 11. 
I remember complaining that Ewan's birth should have made it easier to push her out but not a chance  lol.

Dakotah , with a turtle found crossing the road after the floods here in 2010/2011. i can still imagine mum now pulling over and rescuing it, while trying to be brave lol ( we took it back to the river)

 This picture below is Ewan on crazy hair day  with his funky faux hawke

  Ewan's front teeth missing, :)

Dakotah proudly showing off the dress i made for her, she still drags it out and wears it two years later, gotta love that :)

Even as a babe she was a smiling face kid :)

 The twins  are total opposites,  and Dakotah is very bossy , even with me, well she tries to be anyway.

They grew up with singing around them 

  and humour around them :)

 It has been a wonderful thing watching them grow. 

 Dakotah is always the boss of them, and the following video , shows a little of that. She used to love watching mum and i at dance class and was super excited to have her own little pretend tap shoes 

I love this video :)  , . Last but not least we have young  Connor,  He is the baby of the family and  because Kahlyssa watched him being born she has spoiled him, hes just a sweet little mummy's little boy and i wish my last child would stay young forever lol. Connor can be a larrikan, but then again it was genetically bound to happen 

  He is Kahlyssa's fave subject for photos 

crazy hair day, he must have confused with crazy face day :)

  the things he will  do for a laugh lol

 With my dad as a baby , 

 Such sweet innocence 

 All together my kids and parents are what keeps me going ,

 Of course Damian helps big time, Who else would i test my HRM with?
If all this isn't motivation , nothing else  will :)

thanks for reading today and welcome to my Family :)

I have hobbies :)

I have always been a creative person, being an only child has a way of making you creative i think. No one to play with , i had to make my own enjoyments.
 One was food, the other was crafts. From a very young age we travelled every year to Victoria for three months, this may have been the start of me using food for comfort. I remember we were awake so so so early to get travelling for the 2 day trip. Mum would always make sure we had a breakfast stop a couple of hours down the road. I usually got straight back to sleep when i got into the car to travel, waking up mainly at each food stop, sleep , food , sleep , food. That is how we made our trips. Because of car sickness i had to eat often to keep me from feeling sick. 

It was only the other day that i was remembering these travels and the comforting, snuggled feeling i had when i was feeling a little car sick, then mum would buy a yummy lunch  and i would snuggle up in the back seat ,  warm and cozy and lovingly eat my food. it was euphoric to have good food when i was younger. 
I continued this ritual even after we stopped travelling , Food always made me feel good. Safe and comfortable. 
I was often bored as a kid due to the lack of playmates till i was alot older. i would often steal food when i was growing up. My mum never denied me anything , but to me food was a solution. If i was bored, sad, happy, lonely, even while i was doing things , food wasn't far away, and even as an adult my greatest joy was to rug up in bed or on the couch and eat chips, or ice cream.,not every day but often enough to be a problem,

I was not a sporty kid at all, running was not my strength. i was content to read a book, or do some tapestry , or drawing, crochet, sewing, anything i could try i gave it my best. Being creative served me well over the years. 

4 years ago mum was talking about folk art and i told her how amazing i thought the art looked and i had wished i was able to paint. It seemed to be the only thing i had not figured out. That was soon to change. We had a few lessons  from a dear friend who did the most amazing works of art, these lessons resulted in a watery scene on a place mat. We were impressed with out novice work. i tried other things and felt good about how my painting was going. I did some zebras, a beach scene , a plane for my son. They started to no longer feel like a challenge to  me. Could i do better?  This was to be the thought that brought forth talents unknown to me until my first try. I was about to try my first portrait. I had no idea at this stage what the heck i was to do. All i knew was a few tips on painting a flower and here i was going to give faces a try. Who would be my guinea pig? My kids of course lol. 
Mum had not tried portraits either and she was on holiday so we couldn't try together. i decided to try my painting and send her pics of it as i went along. Her amazement at my work so far spurred me on and i got it finished, my first ever portrait. took me over 44 hours work. It still has pride of place  right beside me in my office.Being over a meter tall makes it an eye catching peace. 

The more i painted the more i figured out new ways to achieve the looks i wanted and i never gave up . It seemed as soon as i sat down and got in the zone i could get my paintings done in about 6 hours , sometimes a little more if they were tricky. 
I was and still am self conscious about my work, but also amazed at myself too. If that's even possible. 
The worst thing was each time i painted i was also shoving food in my face. The worst offender being chips. i could easily eat a large party sized pack  while painting. 
This was not helping my size in any way. Then my vertigo and anxiety took my painting off me for about a year and a half. i rarely picked up a paint brush. Even now its been a couple of months. I have some fresh ideas though , and with my weight loss , and resulting confidence boost and probably more oxygen, i can feel my creative juices flowing. Either that or i just peed a little.
I will no longer feed my face whilst I'm painting. The only thing between my teeth will be my paintbrush ( i do this sometimes when i change brushes over repeatedly.) 

So its time to share my creations. i look forward to hearing what you think. 
I am making sure that i get myself painting more this year. I think i will give a few celebrities a go, starting with Ellen who will be here in March, I'm hoping to have a Mish portait done by end of round so keep an eye out for that too. 

My whole point with all this jabber is my admission  that food was my bestie  and now with weight loss and gained confidence i shall be whipping a paint brush around again soon. very soon.

Below is my very first portrait. is just over a meter tall. and is of my 5 kids and the two dogs we had at the time. From top left is Kahlyssa, Tatjahna, second row, left , Ewan, and his twins sister Dakotah, 
Then below her is Connor, The very bottom is left, Remus, and little Tango. I use Acrylics.

The next two are old friends of mine , i thought i would try  male faces.

 Then a gift to my phillipino friend for her birthday 

An action shot, i wanted to try clothing painting 

The love of my life below, I made this for him for Christmas, while we were still just Best Friends 

I dabbled in equine 

My first time at doing the back grounds of a painting. this is my doctor, mum (who is also a painter ) and i both painted him from the same reference photo to see how we differ in technique. 

 This gentleman below is an artist in Italy named Leonardo .. he wanted to paint me one day so i said yes ( he uses oils) we got talking about art and how i was just beginning so he challenged me to do a painting of him. 

Bored one day i made a lion for my cousin, who is most proud of my skills 

 This beautiful Woman is my mum , and one of my fave paintings. This was back before she embraced her lovely white hair that she shows today. 

I have a long way to go perfecting technique but im also just happy to keep going the way i am and i refuse to have lessons ... That determination will see me survive 12wbt :)

First weigh in was a bust

On Wednesday was my first official weigh in with 12wbt, i was looking forward to how much weight i surely lost due to the intensity of the workouts.
I got up Wednesday morning and i went for my wee, got nekkid , avoided my reflection in the mirror, bent down to get the scales lined up and thanked the heavens no one could  see me at that moment.
Then i realised that i could possible use the loo again. it seemed i needed to but unfortunately my bowels had a different plan. oh well weigh in time.
I stood on the scales nice and tall, then  thought well its not going to make a difference how i stand  so i just slouched again. (Michelle would hate that). I got my feet evenly spaced apart and looked down. WHAT?????
gained 200 grams. nawwww drat.  i worked my patooty off, new food, major exercise and i gained.
Here's my theory, my lazy assed body , upon feeling the pain  of my workouts went into panic mode, running around screaming , "Hold the weight , hold the weight, gather your kids and your wives, "
I was understandably bummed and after the weigh in.
This weeks food changes has made my body a little helter skelter ( my head too i think , or others would say it always was )
So i have not been very regular in the toileting department. The day after weight in i had been to the toilet twice and i thought i had better do a weight in out of curiosity. voila, i was down 700 grams ,  naughty naughty body. So if i keep being a good girl my next weigh in should be a good one. as of my last official pre-poop Wednesday weigh in i was 98.2.  not a bad job since i started at 103. :)  that's just the beginning.  Tomorrow is super session Saturday and I'm slightly terrified . but i will take it as it comes. If it gets too hard i may have to break it up through the day.

Today was core and flexibility , sadly it was a no go , i got alot of it done but with my back  and neck problems the floor work made me very sick and dizzy, totally disorientated. I need a new plan for Friday's core and flexibility , then i remembered that i got a DVD with the gym ball my boyfriend bought me. i threw it in the player and it had a core and flexibility sections that mum and i will be trying in place of Mish's ones.


Time for me to relax before i go get kids from school. i will  be blogging my first super Saturday session with lots of pics. assuming i haven't died , and that i can still  use my arms.