Picking myself up, Dusting myself off and pushing forward

hello to all my readers , yes I'm still alive :) it has been many weeks since i have bent your ear with my tales. I have a bit of a rough time trying to figure out what i was going to do with myself, i have had to make alot of changes to my lifestyle and diet because of my thyroid and the over exercising thing. It ended up making me feel scared to exercise in case it happened again. I have joined round 3 even though i only lost 4kg in round 4, i maintained my weight for a few weeks.  i started round 3 on  Monday   and have exercised well on those days, only this round i went back to the beginner level and have taken it slower with less push on the cardio. I'm even resting a little longer between the sets to help keep my heart rate lower . i get a stress reastion to exercise that causes me muscle problems so i am still in the baby phases of trying to get a hold on that and make it less of a thought process to do/ 
 I am now supposed to eat Gluten /soy/corn free as well and cruciferous veges are off my list, this makes things a lot more difficult than i had imagined as i loved my broccoli and lettuces. I also have to concentrate on keeping my blood sugars balanced all day to perform better so I'm learning this too. 

Lets hope i get  to keep losing weight  and soldiering on. I will tell you one thing though, not properly exercising for those weeks was terrible, i felt depressed, useless, anxious, scared of my own body. it was a terrible time.  Now that I'm back in to it my body is screaming at me with many aches and pains lol I'm damned if i do I'm damned if i dont. I'm about to make some gluten free toast, this will taste like cardboard no doubt. i think it sucks though how expensive gluten free foods are with so many people needing to eat it. on a good wicket those companies are, so I'm learning how to make do without the things i used to eat like that. 

I thought you might like some pics mum took of me stretching today , lol it isn't easy for me to do with all my aching bits, 

hahahahha  its not easy when someone says smile  while you are stretching. 

I wont bore you with the rest of my happenings just that  i have been busy with the making side of things. 
today was also first weigh in for round 3 and i was still at 88.9 which is good because on Monday i was 89.8 and nearly had a heart attack lol, i have also got myself a goal weight reward that's magnificent, and i have been making and selling beanies to help pay for it , i will show you all as it gets closer :)

week what?

hi guys, wow i have been so absorbed in my own dramas that i dont even know what week im in of 12wbt, i think this is 8 leading into 9. you see i have had a very rough couple of weeks with my body being rather uncooperative and its very frustrating indeed, my weigh in on wednesday had me at 90.1kg, so so close again to those 80.s ,  
To explain what was happening to my body first though so you can understand my last couple of weeks.  for a week  i noticed i was really getting exhausted after training, these workouts were a killer to begin with , then i noticed that i had easily fatigues muscles and muscle vibrations all the time after that even when i stopped training for a week. this concerned me and my imagination was having a field day with my head. At first my doctor said that i just was over training  and to see if i improved when taking it easier,, nope it didnt and i was starting to get really scared, still am a bit as i havent gotten any results back yet. I just had my blood tests done today and wont get the results till monday. So i will not feel stress free till i get a good result.  I got on the scales this morning and am happily still losing weight even without my training. im actually losing more while not training, so i have a theory that  i have a bit of a habit of eating too much when training, It makes you super hungry when you work as hard as i was. This morning i was at 89.2kg. Im keeping my fingers crossed that i keep getting smaller. I have been really watching my food intake and will be testing my body with a clogging class tomorrow morning. I am a bit worried about it  , more so im scared that i will embarrass myself by not being able to dance for long, or by passing out or something.  That would be embarrassing for sure. 
I will write another post on monday night to tell you all what my results are from my blood tests. fingers crossed its just something i can correct easily. have a great weekend. i will be having a very quiet relaxing weekend , possibly a mini holiday. or not. lol depending on how i feel. 
Talk to you all soon. 

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