20to12forlife-blog - Tumblr blog

[20to12forlife-blog]

Yep left is me 6 years after reaching goal weight. Right was sometime before that ?

[20to12forlife-blog]

Check in Time

Checkin time.....It's been about 5 weeks now since I decided to try to lose those 5 kgs that I had gained. In theory I should be nearing my goal weight by now. But nooooo, my weight has yo-yoed and I even charted in it excel to find the trendline. Even the trendline doesn't like me...it has me sitting on exactly the same weight 😢. I have been working out more, tracking what I eat and noticing my emotions, but nothing is changing. Not my clothes size, although I do have a little more definition showing up in my arms. What I have discovered is that I eat when I'm feeling restless and kinda bored. And then I eat to numb the guilt of emotional eating. How's that for a vicious cycle 😳 Even though I said I wasn't going to calorie count anymore, after the trendline wake up call, I decided it was time to check what was really happening with my food....calories and portion size.......so back onto myfitnesspal app to get really honest with myself. In the five days I've been tracking, its already obvious that is isn't my meal portion size, it's my quantity of snacks rather than quality. And good old sugar. (Although I do take the calorie count with a grain of salt on my fruit intake, because I eat fruit, I don't drink it.) I'm finally seeing the connection between my snacking and emotional eating....snacking is my form of emotional eating. So I snack rather than binge to cope. This is an insight I hadn't had before....6 years on this journey and I'm still learning about myself. So what am I doing about it? Firstly I will continue to track & calorie count for now. I'm back to measuring portions - although I am pretty much on the money there. But by far the most important things I am doing: 1. If I'm hunting for food but I don't know what I want, I drink a glass of water, just in case I'm thirsty. 2. If I'm still hunting, I ask myself, would I eat broccoli right now? If it's a yes, I eat, I'm hungry, if no, then I do no 3. 3. I sit (not literally) with my emotions, I often find I don't know exactly what restless or bored feeling is all about. I have to wait for an emotion to come up. Sometimes it's not an emotion, but rather tiredness, but mainly it's an emotion. I journal to see if that helps. It can take days or weeks to identify what is going on for me.... This process of learning not to numb emotions is easy, however I cannot say the same about the process of discovering and dealing with those emotions in a psychologically healthy way. For me is by far the most challenging and painful part of lifestyle change. Long term weight loss and management isn't only about adapting behaviours, it truly is about an attitude change, which together become the lifestyle change the experts bang on about. I believe the stuff that goes on in my head is as important as all the physical elements such as diet and exercise changes. I slipped back into default fat thinking, that's how powerful the mind is. I reverted to seeing myself as a fat old failure, and forgot how to see myself as a fit healthy 44 year old for a while there. The positive me is back, it was amazing how the new me in my head came back as soon as I thought and behaved like the new me.

[20to12forlife-blog]

Mid October: It has been over six years since I lost 30kgs but due to stress and injuries I have put 5kg back on. This is my before collage in my attempt to lose the gain. I have to change tactics and not rely on calorie counting and the same types of exercise. I'm changing up, with a food diary to track food & emotions (yeah I'm an emotional eater), running, different gym classes, swimming and yep, the free weights. Wish me luck.

[20to12forlife-blog]

43 and counting. Lost 30kg (60+lb) over 5 years and have kept it off…come check out my sporadic blog on how I keep it off

Please Help us Find Fitblrs 25 and Older

Everyone, please reblog this to signal boost

Like and reblog if you are 25 or older and a fitblr

Like, reblog and add a gif if you are 25 or older, a fitblr and awesome!

If you are a personal blogger, feel free and tell us a little about yourself in your reblog so we can find and get to know you. :) 

Go :) 

[20to12forlife-blog]

It's the fitness, that healthy glow, that's what makes you beautiful. It's the confidence you gain from knowing what your body and mind are capable of, that's what makes you beautiful, and happy.

this is actually my favorite quote ever

[20to12forlife-blog]

My shoes most likely won’t fit or be comfortable on your feet, so how can my exact nutrition or lifestyle fit what’s best for you? For sure, it may almost fit, but you might need one size smaller or one size wider, or some more cushioning for your arch; just as you may need less protein or more exercise than me. Just as you need shoes to run, or you may choose barefoot, much will be similar, but there will weight management ideas and tricks that work for me that won’t work for you. And that’s ok, sometimes it may take longer to find the metaphorical pair of shoes that fit perfectly. And at the end the day the shoes will get worn out, so you have to go find a new pair, just as you may have to adapt your weight management tricks to match your life changes.

[20to12forlife-blog]

[20to12forlife-blog]

Health is not just about what you’re eating. It’s also about what you’re thinking and saying.

Unknown (via kushandwizdom) And doing...

[20to12forlife-blog]

While I was running today, for the first time in some time, I didn't punish myself with my thoughts today. Mostly the voices in my would have been scolding me for being so slow and lazy. Instead it occurred to me to look back on how far I have come and stayed. I may not be exactly where I want to be but I'm still a hell of a long way from where I was. Today was enough to simply acknowledge that I have still lost over 25% of my body mass. 5 &1/2 years it's stayed away. As I am completing yet another uni assignment, I'm finding research constantly reinforces that I have achieved something beyond "normal", beyond the standard deviation. Study after study confirms that to lose weight and keep it off for any length of time is more unusual than usual. Maybe it's time for the researchers to listen to the long time losers who don't gloss on Instagram about the hard slog it is, physically, mentally, emotionally and socially, and still is. Fitspo may be fine for the normal weight but it may set others up for unrealistic goal expectations. Here is a little reminder of just how far I have come...

[20to12forlife-blog]

Today was another awesome reminder of just how far I have come!!! I didn't go from wearing that brown belt to a smaller one in record time or by fad diets or by focussing on just one part of my life. Indeed, I was boring, I did everything that needed to done, BUT not all at once. Baby steps so I could integrate it into my life. I broke my big goal into small steps & goals. I tried to stay in the present and not think about how immense the task ahead seemed, I just started. Can I sum what I did and what I thought or what I learnt in a few sentences or a few paragraphs? Nope, not even gonna try. Maybe it's bookworthy....

[20to12forlife-blog]

Probs a bit slow for you, busy studying and moving house so not much happening.

‘My dash needs more people’ promo

I unfollowed ~350 fitblrs/healthblrs/nurblrs in the last day or so, and I’d love to expand my dash to a whole group of people who

Are health/fitness focused (studyblrs and nurblrs/medblrs welcome!)

Post personal content (selfies, progress posts, rants, whatever. Show me the person behind the URL!)

Preferably over 22

Don’t post a tonne of body-centric/’bodyspo’ posts 

I’m looking to follow at least another ~150, so reblog and I’ll check out your blog! All people that I newly follow will be put into lists of ~30 and promo’d :)

[20to12forlife-blog]

This therapist is onto something!

My therapist and I decided that from now on, when I’m thinking something negative about myself, I’m going to imagine that Donald Trump is saying it, because it’s really easy for me to just tell him to fuck off.

Example:

Trump: “Your thighs are fat.” Me: “Fuck you and your fucking wall.”

I think we’re onto something here.

[20to12forlife-blog]

Exactly. Nothing but lifelong healthy eating will keep weight off permanently. I don't know the value of detoxes as i have always suspected they are pure quackery. Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty none of them have any scientific rigour behind their claims. Tea is good, it has its place, certainly has kept my mother hydrated all her life, as part of a healthy balanced diet. Only time she has used it as a detox is to have her cuppa & escape from her kids!!😂

When Someone Tells Me

The will do a tea detox to lose weight.

Wait what !?

http://www.gymaholic.co

[20to12forlife-blog]

Confession time

I have a little confession to make…

I’m no longer at my goal weight. In fact I am, at 6.10 this morning 3.8kg above. And here’s the second part of my secret, I lied at weight watchers about my height, so I could secure a reasonable goal weight on their charts. From previous attempts I knew that it would be very difficult for me to even get into their range, because I have a large frame. Excuses, no, challenging but achievable goals, yes. I’ll explain more soon

I am so glad I cleared the air.

So here I am 5 ½ years on, still in learning phase on how to maintain my new weight. How the hell do I take off those few kilos put on during 2 surgeries in under 2 years that limited my movement in different ways, without the crutch of weight watchers meetings? And how the hell do I extend that to my dream goal weight? In reality I have 6.8 to 8.8 kgs I would ideally like to lose….side note…see how I picked a range I want to be in? It’s unrealistic for me expect to maintain exactly a certain figure. My body can move 1.5kgs overnight depending on my cycle, the scale placement and the way I hold my tongue :) wiggle room is making room for success. I also want more lean muscle…better tone. It means I can burn more fat and eat more! The women in my family are prone to osteoarthritis, and I want to prevent that too.

I am time poor, it takes a lot of effort to lose weight, and being min my early 40s it’s even harder with biology wanting to give you fat not muscle. How do I balance it all? Partner, kids, work, study, cooking, exercise, house, friends and family…just for starters?

I have no idea if I can do this but I’m gonna try and I will try to share my learnings as I go. I have dropped 1.3kgs in the past 6 weeks, so it’s slow going.

So what does this all mean? It means it’s never done, the learning never finishes. I will have to find my own answers in my own time to those questions I posed. I will seek help along the way as needed. I know some things that work, but I don’t know them all, for me, at least. People say maintenance is just like weight loss. Hell no, it isn’t. The rewards are not as overt and obvious. Yet it is still a hard slog at times. All I know for sure is that the learning, the trial and error has never stopped. We are all, until the day we die, works in progress.

[20to12forlife-blog]

Sleep loss makes me fat

So last night I managed four hours sleep. Ever since I was pregnant with my firstborn, I've had trouble sleeping. Last night I had no reason to be lying awake after my partner left for work at 3.30am....but I did. And guess how much I am going to struggle today with a. Moving and b. Eating? Yeah you guessed it, bucket loads. I'm going to be looking for ways to close my eyes, and I am going to be looking for food to boost my energy levels just to function normally. Being tired makes me forget all my strategies on how to combat temptation and busy-ness and stress. Double edged sword, that's why lack of sleep, for me is vital to my weight control. It really doesn't matter what stage you are at with weight journey, sleep will always, always play a important factor. It affects almost every part of your day, because if you don't get sleep you don't function. God knows how many sleep deprivation experiments have been done and lord only knows how many research papers have shown the damage lack of sleep can do. Want to keep the weight off? BIG tip: keep the sleep on.

[20to12forlife-blog]

Who's sabotaging in your life? Who fears the changes in you?

They Don’t Want You To Get Fit

I promise you. #djkhaled

http://www.gymaholic.co