the man behind the woman

OK the kids are watching TV so its time to add to my blogathon., 
I just finished making the yummiest dinner , some lean lamb mince, julienned carrots, onion, capsicum and celery stir fried, tossed with some udon noodles,  then lovingly molested by  a sauce of tomato sauce, a drizzle of soy sauce and a table spoon of sour cream, a teaspoon of garlic and a teaspoon of BBQ seasoning. It was absolutely scrumdiddlyumptious. 

No this blog isn't meant to be about what i just ate for dinner , but it was just so good, i only got a small portion and i wrapped up Damian's and put it in the fridge as he fell asleep. i better muster that will power again to avoid diving in and gnawing on his  food. 

Speaking of  Damian, he is the reason for this post. You see the story goes like this. Damian and i  became friends, soon to be best friends, then bestest friends forever kind of friends :)  then friends with benefits ( stop reading now mum , lol)  This was a hard situation to be in as i had to stand back and pretend it didn't matter when he dated others. the fact it tore my heart out made me eat more comfort food. you would be surprised at how comforting it is to rug up in bed with some chocolate and some ice cream and soft drink. This is usually where i ended up when my heart would break wishing he would want to date me. we spent most of our time together, chatting, playing poker, fishing, even going camping. 
 Camping with Damo  wasn't what i expected, it involved rowing a canoe across a wide river and around an island in the middle of the river, yup smack bang in the middle, a small ,very small island. this is the same river that had flooded  a year before so i was rather scaredy cat. 

By this time i was well and truly in love with my best friend, not a great place to be though , he wasnt interested in dating me *rolls eyes. 

so i was just going to have to be patient. Anywhoo, camping, canoeing and  all the things i was not used to, but always wanted to do., these are the things damian introduced me to. The thing that worried me,  was letting Damo down, i was embarrassed, worrying if my big ass would sink the canoe, then also worried my useless unfit arms wouldn't be able to keep up the rowing efforts for that long without my  vertigo ruining my camping trip.

we got the canoe packed and ready to go, 

this is a photo of the actual way the canoe looked, i was seriously shitting myself . Damo was siting in back to control the beast so i knew he would get a rather hideous view of my fat ass as i got in, with as much grace as a new born baby elephant i might add. This was a scary thing for me,Damo watching my ass wobble around while i tried to get into the canoe with  the same confidence he used,  as i knew that Damo was usually only attracted to sporty girls. That's one thing i could not be called at the time. i was more the before photo of the said sporty girls.

Even knowing he liked his women to be sporty and  this and that, i was sure that he was  ticking most of those boxes with me , there was just a few issues that stopped us being together, I really needed to start looking after myself better if i wanted to snare this mans heart. 

 The camping trip was awesome.
I picked the tent :) nice and cosy isn't it? looks like we might need to sleep closer together ( wink wink , nudge nudge)

It was a stepping stone to my love of fishing and outdoors now, except on a really hot day. and not when its raining, and only if i can sit if we will be a long long time, and have sunscreen on and a hat and plenty of water , and snacks, yer what about snacks , you need them too when you are outside, and closed shoes, cause of snakes, theres snakes you know. and don't forget the insect repellent (damo doesn't like it cause the smell scares the fish away) , Maybe its safer if i stay home ... 

No.. that's what this is all about , this journey , to get me out of my comfort zone and make me live , not just simply exist. That's why I'm blabbing on about Damian at the moment. He has  helped me grow as a woman and a mother and a friend, all with his gentle patience, his understanding, and the fact that we cannot seem to live without each other  any more. 
So where was i?  Yes that's it!!  Damian and i would often go fishing too, not always catching fish, but loving the quiet and me especially loving the view :)

I mean look how good the water looks :)
This seemed to be the only place i could spend time with Damian without the constant disruption of the kids, and having 5 kids sure is scary, so much so that it was a factor in Damian and i remaining "friends" for as long as we did. *sigh. 
Two peas in a pod... bestest buddies

Over time i learnt alot about myself but still didn't do anything about my weight, it would constantly be on my mind. I wanted to look good and feel great, i wanted to be like a siren luring the man i loved into my fold... sadly the amount of folds i have would smother the crap out of him and all would be lost, except the weight , * sigh again . 

In the end i just continued to think of how great Damian and i would be together, how well we got on 

Gee wizz i have a big mouth, Damo left, me right , my oldest daughter in the back.  I knew from experience that he was a great dad, he has two really great daughters that i know he adores. that's a good sign in my books. when he was around my kids he didn't roll up in a ball and cry when they were loud. he didn't run like hell arms flailing. he involved them in things, taught them things, showed them his man sized toys,  remote controlled boats , that he made, ( he actually made the canoe we used too , *sigh hes so smart) 

He was patient and caring with me too, constantly resisting my feminine charms and uber seductive ways ;)
 i thought we looked great together , then i saw a photo of us together , probably the first real pic  we had together, still as bestest mates.

I thought i looked great that night. then i saw this photo, oh my, look at those arms ,those chesticles, how did i get to this size without really noticing?   Damian is very fit and strong, even more so now than when we met. he really looks after himself, doesn't eat sweets  loves all the good healthy foods. 

After knowing him as long as i have ,( almost 3 years) you would think this would have rubbed off on me before, but it didn't ,cause like i said , i would end up miserable when i would nudge the discussion towards us  possibly dating and he would back away slowly .  then it would be food time for Gayle. its sad to think that i got more pleasure from a night alone without the kiddies, a movie in the DVD player, some Chinese food, a tub of macadamia ice cream and a couple of choccy bars and a bottle of lemonade. i would snuggle in bed with my food , my tissues and my movie and ponder life's unfairities ( i think i just made that word up)

Being Damian's best friend was awesome, even when he got bogged and i got covered in stinky rotten mud. 
i knew we would be good together , i knew that if he was this sweet to me and his bestie, imagine how much better he would be if he was a boyfriend, would i ever get to find out?  It turns out that it was close. :) woohooo

we spent more weekend together , more fishing

look what i caught :) 


and more drives to beaches for some quiet  and four wheel driving. Damian always knew what was needed and what we were to do , he was also very good at carrying things,

by the way , he doesn't smoke, that's a lollipop in his mouth :)" yer we are so tough we eat lollipops when we go to the beach. no wonder the people who drove past us had a second look. 

Time moved forward and we started to go on little "dates". Breakfast at a lovely  cafe.  fishing trips,  playing guitar cause he knew i loved hearing it,

our time together was changing, my mind set was changing, i wanted to be perfect for him as he was making every effort to be that way for me. I had no idea how to do it, how to get off my ass, stop worrying about the effects on my vertigo and do something about my weight. 
I knew Damian was not going to ask me to do it, hes not an ass like that ( all the time ) by now i knew he loved me , and we were going to be together , yippeeeeee, after waiting so so long i finally had my man :)  
what a team we were going to make. As time together moved on , and we got closer and i saw just how genuine he is, how much he cares about how i feel and about our future , i also realised that i wanted more for him,  i saw his body changing from working so hard, his muscles getting tighter and  stronger, i was so  very lucky to have the chance to be with a man that  was the way he was. 

He looked after me in many ways as i did him, we complimented each others personalities. He deserved better, he deserved a woman that looked after herself, exercised and wasn't obese.  He deserved to feel a strong firm body against his and not have a woman so embarrassed about her body she sleeps in clothes. I love this man totally and completely for all that he is and does. and a part of my  journey is dedicated to him. 
Some of my motivation is because of my need to give him what he deserves, a strong, healthy , sporty woman by his side..... i intend on giving him that. He now knows my journey has started and hes very proud, he even said so. He is in fact , paying for my 12wbt. 

He believes in me and he sees changes in me all round that makes him happy, this also makes me happy and his support has been amazing. Hes not making fun of my efforts no matter how small they are, I'm no longer shy about exercising  near him. He doesn't freak out that i want to buy a polar ft60 or a bunch of recipe books. 
He quite simply is helping me achieve my goals by making me believe i can do it. and encouraging me with praise and recognition for my efforts. 
Hes my personal trainer without even realising it, and the thought of having a girlfriend with an awesome body probably crosses his mind often.

This beautiful man helped me start my journey ,  He will also be there to keep me on my path. Hopefully one day he will do that as my husband. Yer i know I'm pushing my luck there lol it took me over 2 years to get him to even be my boyfriend. 

thanks for reading, and hanging around long enough to read these parts too,  and this little bit more typing here. I will be filling you in on all of my little family and the roles they play in my life's decision to better myself physically and emotionally . Ciao for now.

mummy the kids at school say your'e fat.

January 5th 2013,
The day my life was going to change forever.
The beginning of a new me, a journey to see how much power i have over my own destiny. That includes me rewriting my original blog and probably not getting it anything like the first one, all because i accidentally edited over it and lost the lot. It's OK i still have the photos, and i will do my best to get back to what i was originally talking about. I just hope its still enjoyable for you to read.

This post was mostly about me and my weight wars over the years, you see i wasn't a fat kid, i didn't have a flat stomach but i wasn't overweight, i looked awesome in my teens, large breasts tiny waist all that lucky stuff.

As you can see from this pic, i used to be small once :)

This is me at 13 with my dad. He's the best dad ever.

 heyyyy come on it was the 80's and also 88 which was like a double 80's hit so my clothes were cool back then. 

I didn't get to enjoy the wonderful figure i had because i was an early starter, was engaged at 17, and a mum by 18. thought i was going to be with him forever,  *lols at my sweet virginal naive self

So begins my love hate relationship with my body. 

By the time Kahlyssa was born i would have been over 100kg, i didn't weigh myself much but i know i put heaps of weight on after her birth , more so than during the pregnancy. i remember trying a short stint on Jenny Craig  in 1993 but the food tasted terrible back then. I stopped after a week as it was ridiculously expensive. 

i didn't have many pics of that time on me  but i promise when i do come across one and i know there are some floating around i will add it, even in all its hideousness. 

Because i didn't have a car, and was to find myself  a single mum by the time she was 5 months old, i had to walk alot. I took her with me everywhere and soon i was looking better than i had in years.

um yes i did smoke when i was younger .. tsk tsk, been ten years without one so yayyy.  top right , is me with kahlyssa, and i always seemed to be wearing those kind of shoes, no wonder my legs suffer now., the middle pic is me at 21, with my husky kasha. and the bottom left i was about 20.  

so i managed to do ok after her birth and  eventually i married and later divorced (phew)  by the time kahlyssa was 5 i had my second girl Tatjahna. this time i didnt put on as much weight  during the pregnancy as i was working, and the same after she was born i was always  running around at work or doing alot of walking.

it still took me quite a while to lose the excess, but i dont think i was as big as i had been. This pic is of me with Tatjahna, and her little dress i made her. a dress i think she only wore once cause i almost had to sew her in it, oh well. those moments when you underestimate the size of your kids . while the kids were young i did alot of singing and fundraising with my mum for various organisations. 

thats me in the maroon dress, and mum is the naughty elf beside me , oh boy we made a great team. and funny, we really were a pair of funny old crows.  so my weight here was probably around 80kg,  and i was to get down to 74kg, thats what i weighed at the gym, mum and i used to go every day, it helped us for our singing that we were fit and all that jazz, we used to do clogging too, its a form of dance not wearing wooden clogs)  so i was pretty active for a mum of 2. 

this is me on stage having myself a little sing song in an outfit i made cause i couldnt afford to buy new clothes. So i was feeling pretty hot about now, again finding myself as a single mum this time with two littlies. then i met someone. i was careful and on the pill but had a cyst burst on my ovaries, seems the pill and i didnt like each other and boom, hello twins. I was excited  to  be having twins, but i knew what was to come with weight, but most women having twins didnt get too big, did they? i mean they usually are premmy and very small and as im only 161cm tall i figured nature would take care of me and not stretch me out too far....

here i am 22 weeks preggers with the twins and see? im not too big, this is a good sign......................

 yer right gayle, i gave birth to two healthy babies naturally  on 27th of July 2004. four weeks premmy... my  first son Ewan was  8 pound 3 and his sister Dakotah was a wee delicate flower at 6 pound 11

the following pictures were taken a month before their arrival. around the time i had to live with my mum due to  the inability to be able to walk properly or even breath  without restriction.

look at that thing,  thats just not human  i felt like a massive cow, so you  can imagine where that stretched skin is going to fit after weight loss. 

So here i was in need of losing weight again. the twins tipped me well and truly over 100kg and after they were born i was so full of fluid that my doctor  put me on lasix for a week and i lost a whopping ten kilos thats got to be some kind of record. i was down to 90kg but then i was living off the easiest to eat foods available. my body was so tired and achey and i was just getting bigger. 

Welcome Hashimotos disease. Another loving gift from my twinnies. This means a lifetime of medication and an even harder time at losing the kg's.

i ended up gaining 5kg and within two years  and was 95kg when i fell pregnant with connor, yes i was on the pill again, and  going to the gym. this means i have fallen pregnant  every time i have joined the gym. so you will notice my weight loss journey and exercise is being done from home , there is something not quite right with the gym and me. i mean damn, 5 kids and everyone of them i was at the gym. how the hell can i even be sure these kids are even mine? :)

this was me at the twins first birthday.  i was still at this size when i fell pregnant with Connor.  i will be honest when  i did the wee on the stick thing and saw the little stick pointing and laughing at me  all i could think of was noooo not now, not while I'm this big , i will end up massive. i felt terrible, i cried immediately and cried for 2 weeks later. it wasn't the baby that bothered me , it was the weight . i didn't want to get even bigger , i had too much to lose already.

I couldn't stop what was happening but i made sure i didn't go overboard with my eating , and when Connor was born i hung around the hundred mark, peaking at 107kg . wtf??/? yes that would be the heaviest i had ever been. 

Little Connor and his mum who of course is chowing down.  i still didn't bother trying to lose too much weight at this stage as i was crazy busy with 5 kids and a now alcoholic boyfriend. there was  trouble  on the horizon for my relationship as he drank more and i ate more to cope . 

this next picture was the one that actually horrified me enough that i went to Jenny Craig.

what the hell was i doing to myself. i walked in and joined and lost alot of weight, then money ran out , i didn't get a chance to learn how to eat my own foods so after  getting  down to 87kg ,  i was left to my own devises. I felt great though, i had my mojo back. My relationship had ended  after almost 10 years. and i was free to do what i chose, to take my own journey. My relationship had been a very stressful one, living with an alcoholic is a nightmare. 

i was able to wear cute clothes again and express my inner self outwardly  and i made sure i did this every day. it made me feel better to wear makeup and dress up. 

look at me go lol, yer i hide my face in these two pics, i was still never comfortable with having my full length photographed so my face was always a little weird. 

I really loved my voluptuous new me ,  and loved that i was small enough to  wear my lusty busty bar wench corsets. Don't worry i will get small enough to wear them again i promise. 

what a little poser i was. 

then the shite hit the fan. i was single and able to do as i chose so what did i chose to do???????? i freaking ate . i made food my ultimate pleasure. nothing felt as good as sitting on my bed, laptop on a good DVD , and take out food surrounding me on the bed. ice cream,  chips, soft drink, omg McDonald's mcflurrys  they were so so so good, yes yes , i know  the calories  in them are redonkulous but i loved them, they made me happy , they were my preciossssssssssssss.

sorry

um anyway, this leads me to where i am now. i noticed a change in my weight, creeping back up,  my chins getting bigger.

that chick in the middle with the black skirt and kids in tow... you know the one with the bedonkedonk growing.. that's me . the beginning of the ass spread was evident here. 

the top pic clearly emphasising the chin reformation like it was a final concert of the rolling stones or something.  my cheeks getting fuller, but did it stop me , no it didn't, not at all , i still loved to rape a jar of nutella with my spoon as often as i could. 

hence the pics no longer had any body showing, i was reverting to just head shots, i loved this pic though as it was taken by kahlyssa,  who is now 19.  so its a special pic  and i don't look too bad for an old fat duck lol

so now it is time to face the music, a car accident three years ago left me with back and neck damage, meaning i suffer daily with vertigo in one form or another and i had to stop going to the gym because i was embarrassed in case i fell over, i also had trouble with using my upper body as it made my neck stiffen up and the spins would start. i became  lazy, and was still eating too much crap. not exercising at all and just using every excuse i could to get away with it. 

so here i am today, i started this journey with my fellow 12wbt members at a whopping ( wait !Damian's behind me i will type my weight when he leaves the room lol)....

OK hes gone fore a drive, I started on the 5th of January 2013 at a gruesome 103kg. and as of this day i am down to 98.5kg. 

i will post some pics in a moment but i wanted to enlighten you on why i finally seem to have my shit together with weight loss. 

My daughter had to defend me at school, when the kids said i was fat, she was most annoyed and told them it just wasn't true.My youngest son asked why  the bottom of my legs were so big. i lovingly explained that they were calf muscles and how men wished they had calves like mine... this made me really notice a few things. my kids were starting to be affected, i had managed to teach my second eldest daughter bad eating habits and she was now wayyyyy over weight.  and my new boyfriend who was my best friend for over 2 years , he deserved a woman with a rocking bod  because he has a beautiful body ,  and he looks after himself well . he has respect for his body. It was time i too had respect for my body, time i gave him a firm ass to slap when he walked past and not an ass that tried to swallow his hand and would then jiggle for 20 minutes after the initial slap. 

you will notice the change in my hair and lack of make up these days, that is because damian has made me see that i don't need to cover my face in spac filler to be beautiful as he sees the real me  that way. plus , as im getting greyer in the hair i decided to head towards my 40's with longer lighter hair and  see if blondes really do have more fun. 

i look happy don't i , but i assure you when the camera came out i was horrified but as a keen fisherman i wanted a photo of my first catch .  mum saw the pic and asked me if i was actually wearing a bra. gee thanks mum, yes i was but  they are so bloody heavy they decided to head down south a little . 

OK here the brutal truth in photo form., the left was my first day signing up, 103kg, and not looking to happy about doing a selfie.  the right hand pic i took yesterday and am 98.5kg.  i decided to pose this way so i can see better what is getting smaller. i wanted to see my tuck shop lady arms disappear.  so i will take all my future shots in this pose too. or something similar. 

my exercises so far has been cycling as i find i can handle the stationary bike well enough for my vertigo, but i also have my Aero pilates machine, gym ball, bosu ball,  dumbells ( they didn't having any smart ones left) and my DVDs  ready to give it my best shot. Damian also bought me a new copy of wii fit plus, i used to love that game , well now i can add that to my exercise routine.

come on peddle you big bitch , lol,  i manage to get 20kms now, some days i don't,  others i do, as long as I'm getting on there and trying that's what matters. 

January 5th 2013 is also the date i joined Michelle Bridges 12 week body transformation round 1.  already i have seen a loss of weight that i will pray continues. i have already learnt alot about how i got to be this way , and how hard i will fight to get myself back on track.

well its time for me to get some cleaning done. i also want to clean my wii fit balance board and have a play. 

you are more than welcome to follow me on my journey and this time i have backed up all my posts so i don't lose it again. i apologise if this post isn't as good as the original i accidentally edited over.