Sacrifice

Dieting and healthy living is apparently about sacrifice. 

It's about giving up the 'good things' in life and focusing on the healthy, according to some trains of thought.

Sacrifice to me, is about giving yourself, all of you, wholeheartedly for a better life. 

The ANZAC's made sacrifices, the Australians and other allied troops that died fighting for peace, made sacrifices. To give us, their children, their grandchildren a better way of life. 

They walked and slept and fought for months and years  on end, in the bitter cold, with wet clothes, wet boots, minimal food and in atrocious conditions, so we could have a better life.

Our generation is very lucky to think that the only sacrifice we have to deal with now, is not eating chocolate, or minimising our alcohol content.

When did we, as Aussies, loose our fighting spirit, and become a nation of people all too ready with an excuse for over eating... Big bones, genetics, medication effects?

How about today, Anzac Day, we stand together as one, and make a sacrifice, again for our children and our grandchildren?  Lets fight the battle of obesity and laziness for them, to allow them to learn healthy habits, to give them a better life.

We will win this battle, as proud Aussies before us.

Lest we forget.

Paleo eating for all the scaredy cats...

I know I rabbit on and on here about Paleo food, its benefits and I've had many a question about why and how I maintain this lifestyle since loosing 70 kgs. I want to explain how simple it really is.

I guess for me it started through pure laziness and lack of resources... Which sounds extremely negative but let me elaborate.

I was a battling single Mum for years, struggling to make ends meet in regard to both food and time. I lived in a fairly remote community, with minimal resources or access to the usual Weight loss program's. I worked enormous hours, I had no time to weigh food, count calories, and no money to buy prepackaged weight loss foods. 

I dieted hard but i always struggled to maintain momentum. I would walk and eat well, loose 6 kilos and within weeks return to my old habits.

In the end I just gave up. It was all too bloody hard. Weigh this, eat then, eat more, eat less, walk more, lift weights, eat carbs, minimise fruit, check the labels.... ARRGGHHHHH... 

So, I began to eat real food, just meat, vegetables, nuts, berries and a little fruit. I ate when I felt like it, and whatever I felt like. I gave up bread, pasta, refined flours and sugars. I guess back then I was eating intuitively, although I didn't know it at the time. 

I also gave up regular alcohol. I went to bed earlier and minimised the stresses in my life. I let go of emotional baggage that I had collected. 

Weight started to fall off, even without a huge change in exercise. I felt better, I was sleeping better. People started to comment on my skin, my hair, my sparkly eyes. I had more energy, I wanted to exercise, I ran when I used to drag my feet. I felt fantastic and I still do. I still exercise every day in one form or another, we go camping and bush walking on weekends, we are much more energetic and have way more fun than ever before. 

A lot of people knock the Paleo way of life, citing that we must eat grains and whole wheats etc for optimal nutrition. Me? I can't eat any of that without hearing my Dads voice telling me that cereals are used to fatten cows. 

I'm really not sure if I completely fit in the mould of Paleo, because I still eat some dairy. I eat butter, not margarine, and I eat good quality Greek yoghurt, not diet stuffed full of poison yoghurt. 

My theory, and I've said in the past, I'm not a Dr nor have any medical degrees, is that the packaged foods we eat are so jam packed full of preservatives that we are getting fatter and succumbing to more illnesses than ever before.

This was tested when I spent some time in France last year. I ate everything, croissants, chocolate, bread! French people use fresh food. There are few supermarkets and every block has a baker, a butcher, and a fruit stall. People buy their food daily. Not a kilo was collected and my hot flushes were non existent. Back to Australia and back into the preservative laden food, bam, fluid gain, aching joints and hot flushes to the max. 

Recently, I read a Peter McCallum Hospital study that notes cancer cells need glucose to live, hmmmm don't have to be an oncologist to work out that its time to minimise sugar intakes. Quickly. 

Paleo is not a really diet, it's not always even a weight loss tool, but it has increased my health 1000 fold. Just eat real food. if it comes from a farm, eat it, if it comes from a factory, avoid it. 

imagine your local supermarket, you only need to skirt the edges, grab fruit, veges, eggs, meat, fish, chicken, and butter. i cook in coconut oil, instead of the canola oil i used to use. Theres no need to venture into the aisles. The only thing I buy in a tin is salmon or tuna. 

Some people will say its expensive to eat like this, but we have no medical nor pharmacy bills. We don't get colds. Overall I think it's an investment in long term living. Hugo and I have 10 kids and 4 grandchildren, and I want to be around to spoil them all as much as I can. I want to travel the world and be well enough when I'm 90 to go to Uni. 

There is so much information on the net about specifics, I'm not going to bore you all with it here, because its so simple. Eat real food. Eat Well, Feel Well.

Google Nerd Fitness ( my favourite site), PaleOMG, check out Paleo recipes online,  Buy Peter Evans new cookbook, if you need help or inspiration.  It takes a little tweaking to personalise but you can easily live a full life round this way of eating. If I have chicken fillets out for dinner, I will often google paleo dinner with chicken, if looking for a change. Experiment with different spices or herbs, grow your own food. Reconnect with the idea that food is nutrition, eat slowly, at the dining room table, and make it a ritual rather than a rush. 

There will still be those amongst us who won't give up alcohol, or chocolate, or cereal and that's fine, it's your life and your choices. Please remember, though that every decision has a consequence.

I'm now in the process of launching my Wellness Coaching business, amongst other things, so please contact me if you would like a session in getting your life, your health, your energy and vitality back where it should be. You won't regret it. 

Let me show you why diets don't work but wellness coaching does... 

Repeat after me... Focus!

Hello everyone, 

It's been a fortnight since I posted, the time just slips away too fast these days. 

I had taken on a project that thankfully is now complete, so you'll be hearing more from me now I've freed up some time. 

Im sure you all know I've been recently really hung up on my plateau, watching every single thing I eat, recording it all madly, wearing an exercise monitor, worrying about it 24/7. Trying to make some sort of sense out of a nonsensical problem. 

I really should know better. 

It is what it is. 

I've wasted so much emotional energy thinking about it when i know I've hit plateaus before and worked through them. And I will this time as well. 

So, I've actually given up worrying. As my beautiful Cate would say 'be a warrior not a worrier'. 

I've stopped focussing on the plateau and started once again to focus on the exercise. Because as we all know, what we focus on, gets bigger. Like attracts like, so to speak. 

I was so busy thinking about how I was stuck at the same weight, I wasn't allowing my body a chance to do its stuff. Now I'm thinking about the class I've attended and the muscles I've moved! Feeling the burn for hours after... I'm becoming addicted to that feeling, I think. 

So, I'm trying new classes, harder, more intense classes and I know that very soon I'm gonna get those scales out of the box I threw them in, and I'll be lighter, fitter, leaner. 

We all hit plateaus, we all gain a kilo here and there. Each time it happens, it should serve as a reminder that our body is taking time to adjust to the change, and we should continue to work through it. 

So, Push yourselves, step out of that same old routine -  skip, squat, run across the court.. 

Why?

Because its different, because it requires focus, and stamina, determination and patience. All the requirements we need to maintain a weight loss program. Step away from your comfort zone. Move your body in new ways, use new muscles, try something new. 

Push through that plateau- keep focused on your goal - and you will be rewarded with success.  

Just as I have been.. Finally. 

Stop doing what doesn't work.

For 16 years you've walked the same walking route at the same time every morning, usually with the very same person. 6 kilometres, every morning, yet still you're overweight... What does that tell you?

It's not working. 

Your body has got used to that amount of exercise and has made the adjustments internally to accommodate the same amount of energy you burn each morning. 

From where I am standing, you have two options. Continue to do the same, and continue to get the same results or change to something else that works. 

Ride a bike, buy some hand weights, skip, jog a little, walk another route in the evening instead, visit a gym, see a PT who really does have your best interests at heart, go for a swim. Anything that gives your body something else to think about. It does not have to be difficult nor cost a lot of money. 

Same results or different?

You choose. 

Food Focus.. Mindless eating

More flights, more airline food, more Qantas club coffee and treats.... I'm up to my eyes in poor food choices, in free licorice all sorts and snack packs of corn nuts hard enough to break diamonds. Having racked up more frequent flyer points this month than in the first 6 months of last year, I have come to a number of conclusions, airline hostesses are not dieticians,  the 'healthy treat' served on QF 2410 is not actually a healthy treat, the bizarre combination of chicken, pimento and risone gives me bad chest pain, and Qantas clubs should have a separate section for beer swilling, thong wearing shutdown workers flying home on days off. 

These days, I spend a lot of time in airport lounges, supposedly writing speeches and creating presentations on healthy lifestyle choices. But instead I find  myself studying people. To pass the time, I makeup stories to match what I see, like the little girls catching a flight today to visit an absent Dad, or the elderly couple heading off to a great grandchild's christening. 

I also study body language, demeanour, habits. And if people choose to sit near me and speak overly loudly in pompous voices on their mobile phones, I will listen in. Sometimes I have to stop myself from responding, but only sometimes. 

So here I sit amongst thousands of people, most of whom are mindlessly eating and drinking  their time away, all waiting for flights. I've  just watched whilst a fellow, who's comfortably perched on two velour cubes pushed together, munch his way through three bowls of crunchy snacks, two large handfuls of jelly beans, 6 Venetian biscuits and 6 beers, all without taking his eyes off his computer screen. His travelling partner, PA, wife, long suffering girlfriend, whomever, has hopped up and filled the bowls, or beers as required, without one word being uttered.

I wonder if he actually tasted any of that food? If he could describe to me the crunch of the first bite of Ventian Pastry, recall the tang of the sweet passionfruit icing? I wondered if he could remember the tasty spice flavouring of the crunchy pappadum type of cracker he devoured? I thought about if he looked at the colour of each sweet sugary jellybean that he threw into his cavernous mouth? I wonder if he realised the bowl was actually empty as his hand searched for more?

How many of us are guilty of that? Of being so busy focusing on something else that we eat only because we are bored, or we are in a hurry, or we throw our food down quickly before our babies start to cry. We eat almost out of habit rather than necessity or for enjoyment. 

When my twins were very small and Will was just 10 months older, and  the beautiful Cate 12 months younger, I remember taking up drinking hot water, because at least when it went invariably cold, I could still drink it when I had time, unlike my coffee. 

Life was busy, and I learned to make our own versions of fast food. I created one pot wonders, to minimise washing up, I fed all three babies with one bowl and one spoon, usually whilst breast feeding the other. I was the Queen of Fast, home prepared but easy to cook, probably not extremely nutritious food, out of sheer necessity. I cooked fast, I ate fast. Everything was frantic! 

No longer.

I have learned the hard way, that mindless eating and eating quickly has an unwelcome effect. I try now to eat slowly, to taste the food, to cook with finest ingredients that my budget allows, to use fresh produce and minimise the preservatives I use every day.

I still eat at Qantas Club, I still eat the odd Counter lunch at the Star, I still have my trusty favourite foods that I can create at home in a wink of an eye, but the difference is, I'm now mindful about what I eat and how I eat. And that, I'm sure makes the difference.

One trick I've started to use is mentally describe my first mouthful of food... Is is salty, sweet, hot cold, flavoured? It makes me focus on what I'm eating and has helped me slow down, to relax and enjoy the food. And I've now stopped eating food that is boring or bland. A trip to Paris has made me realise the beauty in food, and in slowing down to enjoy the moments. It taught me to eat well. To eat fresh food, to shop daily and stop buying processed food. it taught me To laugh a lot, to love my family and the appreciate the beauty in my surroundings. 

I can't wait to go back. One day, I will spend 6 months in the French countryside. 

Until then, Bon appetit. 

Negativity and the effects of..

Howdy,

First blog in a while, because I've been depressed and hiding in my room. Seriously, I have.. 

I've recently been unwell, having caught one of those 36 hour bugs which I don't usually get. It actually knocked me rotten. I have struggled to get back to where I was fitness wise since then, but I've listened to my body and taken it slowly. Been gentle with myself for probably the first time ever. 

During this period, I also volunteered to be the guinea pig for a friend who is completing an assessment in her fitness course. I was just starting to feel better, and I was just getting back into walking. Life was returning to normal. I arrived for my first session to be weighed and measured..  I was pretty upbeat and happy that I could help.

After I left that session, I collapsed into a state of deep depression. According to an electronic device sold in chemists, that measures an electrical current and the resistance your body has to it, my body fat percentage was 40%. 

40% WTF?

 All I could think of was almost half of my remaining body weight is fat? I'm a size 12 and I have 40% body fat? How much did I have before I lost 70kgs? 160%?

This figure rocked me to the core. I eat Paleo, I do not eat chocolate, or lollies, or drink alcohol etc. I exercise every day of the week. And most of that exercise is high energy, hard work exercise. I run 4 times a week. All these things were spinning through my head at a million miles an hour. I went to my local gym to see what the machine there said, but no one knew how to use it. Probably a good thing.

That number has spent the last week rattling around in my head. I've spent hours web searching how to make a difference, other than exercise every day and eat well. That number has consumed me, my waking thoughts, my dreams at night. I have not been in a good place. 

Over the weekend, I gave myself a bit of a pep talk - I couldn't believe that I had let something as silly as a digital number in a screen have such a negative effect on my head. I got up this morning with a renewed zest for exercise and headed off to Boot Camp. I huffed and puffed my way through 50 minutes of hard work, of weights and burpees and push-ups... And I feel fantastic.

I've drank more water today than I probably did for the whole of last week, and I feel more energetic, more alive and much happier than at any stage in the last fortnight. 

Today I found out that the machine was not reading right, and according the the good old calliper pinch test, my results are nowhere near that. But, even if they were, it's a number. Just like the reading on the scales, it does not define you. You are not your weight. You are a beautiful, alive, happy, healthy woman that does her best to get where she wants to go, every day.

In the last fortnight, I have not blogged because I have felt like a fraud, a fake, all because of that one bloody number.  But really, Why should it matter? 

If, as a person, you know in your heart that you are doing the best you can every day, to reach your goal, that should be all that matters. You against you. Your personal best of yesterday against your personal best of today. Your goals, your life, your way.

That's what matters. Not the scales, not the body fat percentage, not the callipers.. 

You matter, your health matters, and your happiness matters. Do what you can do to make a difference to those. 

I'm glad I crawled out from my cave of sadness this morning... Hope you are too. It's a much nicer world out here.

Maree the Superwoman.

Hey! 

I just finished reading a whole heaps of emails and messages via Facebook regarding your personal challenges. 100 days, seems so little time when it's compared to the rest of your life.

I think we are at Day 22 ish, as I know not everyone started on the same date. I'd love to hear more from you guys about what's going on, are you succeeding, are you struggling, are you finding it hard to find the time? Message me via Facebook or email me at jakimac3@gmail.com

Apparently, so far,  there has been successes, there have been tears, and there have been injuries. But in all the communications I have received, there is one common  thread. There is determination. There is grit, and perspiration, and there is gumption. There is the will to succeed this time. 

And also There is my daughter in law, a beautiful girl who is undertaking to loose a bit of baby weight, after the recent birth of another gorgeous baby for me to spoil. This young woman would have to be one of the most strong minded, yet kind and compassionate people I have ever met. Maree is a Mum of three small children, her husband works away, she has recently packed up and moved house, she works, she cooks, she plays games with her kids. She also walks, and swims and exercises every day.

To me, she is a superwoman.  She achieves everything she sets her mind to, she is the epitome of SYMMYA. She knows what needs to happen, and she is doing it - along with all of her daily chores. There is no excuses, no grizzling, no whinging, no moaning. Everyday, she wakes early with my baby grandson ( cutest in the world without a doubt)  and just gets on with it. Amongst all of the other things she has to do with her allotted 24 hours, she finds the time to exercise and eat well.

She, along with all of you, is working hard to make her world better, her life healthier, and her kids life healthier. 

Somehow recently, for most of you, there has been a light bulb moment. The precise moment in time that you realise that you can do this, you can make positive change, and you are. 

Pat yourselves on the back, give yourself a huge hug! You are doing a fantastic job at making a difference.

And I can't ask for more than that.