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Friday 30 November 2012

Routine? Ha! Cassie and Anna, this one's for you!

"Hi, my name is Hollie, and I'm a blogger. It's been 27 days since my last blog-post."

Now, I'm really not meaning to take the piss from any kind of 12-step program, but for someone who's meant to be keeping themselves accountable, the above-mentioned statement is kind of in reverse to how it would be heard in a 12-step program. People would offer words of encouragement at the fact that 27 days of abstaining from something is wonderful. In my case, 27 days of not blogging has resulted in serious weight fluctuation and plateauing - not a good thing at all.

Making yourself accountable

When I started this blog almost 5 months ago now, it was all about making myself accountable. I've had a Floptober and a Fauxvember. What will December hold?
I started this blogpost 5 or 6 days ago, and progressed no further than "What will December hold?"
My girl R and I decided that this week we really needed to get back on track with our MFP tracking. She's been doing fabulously, while I've been going along really crappily! I still have no routine, which is really killing me. I think that over the weekend at some stage, I need to sit down and work out a daily planner so I can make sure that I am accounting for everything: VTMB work, exercise, housework, LGIS work, relaxation, time with A, and so forth. The other thing I need to plan again is meals. Accountability. I should put a sign up in the bathroom with that word. 
Accountability score for week ending 2 December: 3/10

Finding out people are reading my blog

I started this blog hoping that people would read it. I'm not sure how many people are reading it, or how many people are bloggers themselves, but it tells you how many people are reading it in the back end maintenance areas. I'm not going to tell you how many people have viewed/read my blog, but the figure is more than I ever expected.
At my girl M's hens night last weekend, I saw some girlfriends I hadn't seen for quite a long time (life gets in the way, but no matter what, I still feel like a terrible friend. I really want to make a concerted effort to see these people more, because I really and truly miss them). As you do, you talk about what you've been up to - work, family, moving house, new jobs, the weather, clumsiness, and reading my blog. I was really, really surprised that my girlfriends read this, and more to the point that they enjoy it. I guess I am surprised that ANYONE reads it.

Now, without wanting to sound conceited (honestly, anyone that has told me this really does make me blush) these girlfriends told me how much they enjoy reading my posts and that I'm a good writer. Again, cue blushing. It made me realise that there really are people who read my blog, and I may have got a little warm and fuzzy.
Blog-writing has kept me accountable for such a long time, so why am I all of a sudden having a hiatus? The same can be said for meal planning and tracking my food on MFP.
Just because I have lost 15kg doesn't mean that I have to stop. I enjoy writing here, I enjoy seeing what food I'm consuming (in terms of calories), I enjoy meal planning, and I enjoy trying new foods. So why on earth am I not doing any of them?

Resetting

I think what I need to do is reset myself. I don't know how or why, but I haven't gained any weight, aside from the fluctuation. My diet hasn't been fantastic but it hasn't been terrible either.
I mentioned earlier somewhere along the lines (and right now, it's almost 2300 and I really can't be bothered to find the link) that I had been reading Mirelle Guiliano's French Women Don't Get Fat. Mirelle talks about resetting, so I think I'm going to have to revisit that particular chapter, and reset. However, be stuffed if I'm going to be making soups when yesterday was 40 degrees and today was around 30 degrees. Not on your nelly. Instead, I'll have to trade for something more summer friendly.

Sleep is important in weight loss. Eight hours really is best.


It's bed time now. Tomorrow, I'm going to come back and write something proper. I have 31 days to lose 5kg.
Sweet dreams everyone (and please, I really would love if you could take the time to leave a comment!), stay safe, and cool!





Wednesday 7 November 2012

Back on deck

It really feels like forever since I've written anything decent about my weight loss journey. This can be attributed to things like uni assignments taking up all my time that wasn't spent sleeping.

My last recorded weight loss was 17 October 2012, when I weighed in at 83.5kg, just 500g from my 83kg goal set for 31 October 2012. Key words recorded weight loss.
In those two weeks, in fact, in just one week, on 24 October 2012, I weighed 85kg. I put on one and a half kilos in a week. I wasn't surprised, I'd barely slept, had consumed obscene amounts of carbs and sodium, and was stressed to the max so was in lots of pain. Thanks, uni, thanks. Go back and read all about it here

Enough of all that sourness and negativity already. I'm back, and I'm ready to do this shit! Not that I haven't been ready all along, assignments are just pooh and occupied my free time.

On Sunday, my girl F posted a picture of her dinner on her Facebook page. Now, I'm pretty sure I had already eaten by that stage, but I became all shades of hungry again when I saw it. What did she make for dinner? Oh, just the tastiest prawn salad ever.
Warning: am really not happy with this photo. My phone was flat and I had to resort to using A's, which I'm not particularly fond of. Add this to the fact I was ravenous and I was getting pretty darned shitty with the photo-taking procedure.

Prawn and Mango Salad
So, like I said, this recipe came from my girl, F. Also, I am terrible at remembering to take step-by-step pictures. I like to get things done without any interruptions, perhaps that's why. I think we did this slightly different to F, but the results were pretty impressive. I'm also not a whiz in the kitchen, so my terminology may not be so sound.

Ingredients:

  • Green prawn meat (thawed)
  • Cherry tomatoes
  • Mango
  • Bean sprouts/shoots (whatever they're called, I'm too lazy to go to the fridge and look)
  • Mesclun salad mix
  • Canola oil (so the prawns don't stick to the pan)
  • Olive oil (for the dressing)
  • Lemon (fresh juice for the dressing) 
  • Salt and pepper to taste (we use rock salt and peppercorns in our grinders)
     
Method:

  1. Heat canola oil in pan
  2. De-vein prawns, cut cherry tomatoes in half.
  3. Cook prawns; add tomatoes once prawns are cooked and heat through.
  4. Rest prawns and tomatoes; rinse mesclun mix and bean shoots.
  5. Dice mango.
  6. Add olive oil and fresh lemon juice as desired to prawns and tomatoes, stir through.
  7. Layer salad: Mesclun, bean shoots, mango, prawn and tomato with dressing mix.
  8. Serve.
That's it. Really simple. My kind of cooking. Mind you, all I did was steps 1, 3, 7 and 8. A did the others as he's a champion in the kitchen (kinda comes with being an ex-chef, I guess).

Along with cooking that delicious dinner last night, this morning is Wednesday Weigh In. Wasn't too sure how things would look this morning. I stepped on the scales with trepidation (okay, maybe trepidation is a slight exaggeration, but you understand what I mean). I waited til they stopped before looking down. I could see the line that represents 85kg AND the line that represents 84kg! Woohoo! I made it, even if only a week late! I got to 83kg at long last!
Writing that sentence, it has just dawned on me - I HAVE LOST 15 KILOGRAMS since 18 April 2012. When I was weight myself this morning, I was just excited to see 83kg and the fact I was one step closer to losing 5kg by NYE this year to have lost 20kg. I clearly did not switch my brain on til now: 20 - 5 = 15.


Anyway, enough with the numbers, and back to food.
Routine has been missed so much in this house over the last few weeks, possibly even the last month. My half-arsed attempts to meal plan have been exactly that, half-arsed, and we've eaten lots of carbs in the evening, something my body doesn't understand anymore.
Today, I'm able to get back on the meal planning bandwagon, and so far, we have the following on the list (please note these are mostly dinner ideas):


  • Wednesday: home made pizzas
  • Thursday: One-pan chicken and chickpeas
  • Friday: Meat curry 
  • Saturday: Fishy wraps
  • Sunday: Lunch: Green Bean and Quinoa salad, meat and salad rolls/wraps, crackers and other assorted healthy snacks Dinner: Whatever we buy at Harvest
  • Monday: Lamb with spicy chickpeas
  • Tuesday: Roast with veges
So, now that list is actually written, let's see how well we can stick to it. I am fairly confident everything will be fine though. On that note, I best go check out the kitchen situation so I can compile the list of items required in the groceries this afternoon!

Toodaloo!



   



Saturday 3 November 2012

Life... Part Two

Continued on from here

So, while A disassembled the desk, I untangled the tools Ikea had wired to a utensil holder, but were tangled up by careless customers. The hour A took to disassemble the desk (because, let's face it, when there is only one suitable tool available for use, and that tool is tangled in the above mess, there's only room for one person) I untangled the tools. Yup, an hour of my time I'll never get back.


We call ahead to A's mum to let her know that there is more of our furniture coming her way. She was only too happy to hear from us and took us out for a bit to eat! Before dinner, as we were about to walk out the door, she helped me with what I needed from her for the wedding gift (you see, I am getting there)! Dinner wasn't too bad, not flash, but filled the hole. We went to The Little Hungarian in Caulfield South. We did get there just as the kitchen was closing, so that might have had something to do with it, but A's and his mum's dishes were quite tasty. Once dinner was in our bellies, we dropped A's mum at home, and went on our merry way. We had a desk to reconstruct! Wanna see it? Good (and tough if you didn't!).


Just set up - Ikea's Micke desk


It's so cool, much smaller in footprint but with all that storage space, it's also bigger! 
Underneath, it has a cable tray, so we've got a 6-port power board there with all the cables running from it. Like I said here, a bargain not to be missed!
The next image along is what it looked like this morning. We're now in the process of rearranging everything so I have more storage space for all my craft stuff (because I have my own small business). Only thing is, now that A moved all his texts to his desk (see below pic), I have more space than I know what to do with, unless I buy more things to craft with - but that's just not possible! 




Messy because we're now rearranging!



As you can see, we have a BIG window with sheer-ish curtains for privacy, but no shortage of natural light. 
We substituted two of the Vika Amon/Vika Adils legs with the Antonius (which is now discontinued and has been replaced by the Algot range) for cheaper storage. Big tub in the bottom is our techy tub - the drawer filled with all things tech (think cords (electrical, USB, etc.), original phone packaging, and lots of other techy things.
The mess you see on the return is me sorting out my craft stuff: what is scrap to be used and what is scrap to be put in the recycling, what is to be packaged for sale, and just general crap that needs to be found a new home.

Tip: housework burns calories, so moving furniture and tidying up and all that stuff totally relates to me getting a new swimsuit (which I should maybe think about doing).

Now that that story is out of the way...

I can get back to telling you about the wedding gift! 
I mentioned before about seeing A's mum. As well as bringing our other desk to hers to be put in storage, I was also visiting to get things for the wedding gift. Shoe string budget, remember? A's mum was so thrilled I came to her for help with the gift! I had so much to choose from, but let her be the best judge. I even have enough left over to do one for A and I.
Saturday morning, my alarm went off at some awful hour (anything before 8am on a Saturday is awful). I had no idea how long this gift would take to make, so I got straight into it. It probably should have been done outside, but it was too cold so I did it in the kitchen. Wanna see what I made!? Good. There's no step by step images though, just the final product. Maybe when I make the next one, I'll have some step by step images for you.

My First Terrarium
No more digression. Here it is. The wedding gift. 
It's quite a deal bigger than it looks here in the photo, there's 1.5kg of sand, approximately the same of dirt, and about 1kg of stones, plus the succulent cuttings.
Two blog posts just to get to this one little picture! Apparently now that I have finished uni, I want to continue writing essays. Hrmph.

To recap:

  • Bubble Ball vase - K-mart (sorry, no linky)
  • Potting mix - K-mart (again, no linky)
  • Florera sand - Ikea
  • Knaster stones - Ikea (every time I see the word 'Knaster', I think of Canasta, though I'm sure it's a silent K)
  • Cuttings - A's mum's garden
Tip: carrying a bag of potting mix is good strength building work.