Banning myself from grocery shopping!

I have come to the conclusion that I need to ban myself temporarily from grocery shopping. With all the free time I've had since being on uni break, I have seriously been to the grocery store FIVE times this week... there were so many new products that I had to buy... like, I actually can't leave a new product on the shelf. I'm beginning to think it's a problem!!! I have spent a ridiculous amount of money on food I do not need! Of course it will get eaten but there is already plenty of food in my house.

I am going to *attempt* to fill the grocery shopping time with going for a daily walk instead, every day of December (Unless I'm going for a run that day, in which case I will run). This ties in with my (again) efforts to try and lose weight. I want to do it, but there's no pressing need. I'm in the healthy weight range, it's just that I have put on 8 kg since last year (I have no idea how... but moving back in with the parents probably didn't help) and my clothes don't fit the way they used to. Losing the 8 kg again will still put me in the healthy weight range, considering I am right at the upper end at the moment.

My plan is to hopefully see a dietician, as all of this "eat back your exercise calories" "don't eat back your exercise calories" and conflicting information all over the place has confused the hell out of me, to the point where I seem to switch between the two and probably confuse the hell out of my body. Obviously 1 year of uni has not taught me enough yet to figure out how to do it myself!

As well as that, continuing on with increasing my running mileage should help + more weights sessions...

I'm sure this blog entry had a point, I just can't remember what it was... anyway, the sea breeze is now in so it's time for a walk. (36'C / 96'F today!!)

October Summary & Broken blender

I'm pretty stoked with how October has gone. 

I managed to do:

Bodypump 3 times.

My own weights sessions 2 times.

Kickboxing 6 times (not as much as I'd like, but exams held me back here....!!)

Swam 2 times

75km of running (average around 18km / week)

Yoga x 1 (not great!! Need to work on this...)

Elliptical twice.

So I'm thinking for November I'm going to aim for 100km running, and increase weights sessions. It's going to be much more difficult as I'll be away for three weeks with work and I have no idea what the hours are going to be like and whether I'll be able to access gyms and that kind of thing. I'll do an update on November goals later though.

I also finished uni for the year (1st year over! Woo!).

Yesterday morning's breakfast. It was meant to be a smoothie. In the middle of blending, the blender died. DEVASTATED. So I had berries floating in oat milk & yoghurt... I ended up draining the liquidy part and drinking that and eating the rest as a kind of oaty yoghurty mess thing. But... this means no smoothies for a while, and that makes me so so so sad!!! NoooooOOoo....

I've been really bored with food lately and have had to get inventive, so most of my meals have been mish-mash mixtures of totally random stuff - for example this was a piece of bread with cheese, chopped up falafel, and an egg mixed with mushroom and cajun spice... with a bit of spinach thrown on top. (SUPER ugly, isn't it? ;)

Falafel sandwich with random salad... it had pickles and bits of goat's cheese and other stuff.

This is probably the most random :) Some of mum's AWESOME pumpkin soup, two vegie sausages on bread, two mini falafels, and two mushrooms with vegemite on top.

I'm super hungry right now, hopefully dinner will be ready soon. We're having the full roast with all the trimmings for my brother's birthday.

All or Nothing

This is somewhat of a "negative nancy" or "debbie downer" post *and there may be triggering material*, but I'm getting increasingly frustrated at several things. First, my perfectionist attitude. Last semester at uni, I got all high distinctions, and was upset because they were not 90% high distinctions, but 80%. This semester I know I can't get high distinctions and therefore I don't feel like putting the effort in. What's the point if I can't get the highest mark? I know I've already passed all my topics before the exams, so that motivation isn't there either.

Then I did a fitness test this morning. I got the exact same score for 2.4 km (1.6 miles) of 12:40 mins as I did last year, when I was way more unfit(?) and doing way less running... it just frustrated me, especially as I definitely did not hold back this morning!

Also this morning I weighed myself and I had gained 1kg (2 pounds) from last week. Which makes my BMI now 24.5. (Much too close to overweight category for my liking...) This is beginning to be a really irritating constant struggle for me. Gain, lose, gain, lose, gain, lose, gain... it's the same as maintaining, I suppose, but it's almost like... one week am I doing it right, and the next I'm not? Or is that just normal fluctuation of maintaining? Am I eating enough, too much? Am I exercising enough? What am I doing wrong? Sometimes I think... well, the only thing that has ever worked for me to lose weight has been eating disorders, so maybe I should just do that again. But then my rational brain takes over, and says hell no! No WAY am I going back to that.

Anyway, I know I've lost it healthily before, but that was before I had ever known about calorie counting. I think it's pretty difficult once you have calorie counted for a long time to stop. After all, even if you do stop, you still know the calorie, fat, carb content of the majority of the food you eat from counting it for so long. I've tried stopping so many times, but I can't help but still count in my head. Or I go the other way and eat way too little or too much.

It doesn't even seem to make a difference when I make small changes, like increase intensity of exercise slightly / amount, or eat slightly less, or eat slightly more. I've tried all these little experiments... the main one I did was eating at "maintenance" calories for a month or two - which made me gain two kilos (4.5 pounds) which I just cannot lose again (A really GREAT experiment that was.... :( )

Even when I went on that hike for a week last month, and did 30 hours of hiking in a week.. I lost nothing.

I should not be still obsessed with my weight, because I am supposed to be recovered. I mean, I'm not obsessed the way I used to be... but I think it's just hard the days I weigh myself more than anything. At least now I'm doing exercise because I enjoy it rather than to burn calories. Honestly, I am so deeply in love with running and kickboxing right now. If only I could do it more often than I do! I've been sore a lot lately.

Because I don't like being a negative nancy for too long... I went to the shops for retail therapy... and bought TWO new running shorts, THREE running magazines, and some other stuff. One of my pairs of shorts is fluro orange :D How do you spell fluro, because blogger says that's incorrect?

So one of my plans is to incorporate more HIIT into my training schedule... I'm just not sure where to fit it... this is another problem of mine. How do I fit in one week:

Running x 3  (at the moment just increasing mileage, but eventually want 1 x long, 1 x intervals in that)
Kickboxing x 3
Weights x 2
Swimming x 1 (I use this to work on my breathing / as a recovery)
HIIT x 1
Yoga x 1 (usually after long run day)
Rest day x 1

... That's 11 days worth of workouts! Unless I double up on four of those days, it doesn't really work. There's the all or nothing again... this is kind of what I did before I got my ED - running every day, kickboxing every night.

OK... / end confusing rant.

Finally getting motivated!

So I kinda made the banana bread pancakes again mentioned in the previous post... they were so good, what can I say? This time I put almond spread on each pancake before making it into a pile. They were way better this time because they didn't stick to the pan and get all messy :) So I had to get another photo... 

Today was great. I finally got some of my exercise motivation mojo back, and headed off to the gym for a BodyPump sesh. I even upped the ante, putting my weights up on the hamstring, squats & back track, which I don't usually... so I'm expecting some DOMS tomorrow! Then I went for a fairly slow 20 min jog on the treadmill... it was boring, but today it poured with heavy, windy rain all day so... yeah.

Here's a pic of my shoulder. It seems disturbingly muscly considering how little weights I do and how much fat is actually on it haha. This isn't even flexing... what's going on there?! Oh well, can't complain... now if only my calves could have that much definition...

Well, not too much else to say! I just thought I'd post a pic of those delicious pancakes again... I might try apple & cinnamon ones next...

WIAW #3

I've been pretty busy catching up with uni work, I think I'm almost there - but understanding chemistry seems to take me a long time!!
So anyways... today was Wednesday :D


Thanks for hosting the party Peas & Crayons :D Enjoy it every wednesday!This is kinda gonna be some random eats from the last couple of days since I forgot to photograph breakfast this morning (was a yoghurt, oats and berries mix) and most of my snacks...

Yummy chicken in a can (I know, sounds bad but tastes great!)

It went on top of a small can of four bean mix, steamfresh veg (carrot, broccoli & cauliflower), some mushrooms, red capsicum and a small amount of cheddar cheese. Trying to make myself have more dairy... testing the lactose intolerance out!! This lunch was delish. 

This was a RAW bar... apple cinnamon flavour I believe... I actually ate this yesterday ;)

I eat these like way too often...

Here's a pic from the City 2 Surf website which had me on it! Ha, barely, but I'm the one behind the insanely tall bloke in the white shirt with red bits, wearing blue shorts and a blue hat... (It's like Where's Wally... but one of my mates actually spotted me!)

Anyway, on to my workouts lately... well since Sunday's 12k took it out of me a bit, I did yoga on Monday and went for a light swim yesterday. Today I was DYING to go for a run so I let myself... probably a dumb idea since my shins are STILL playing up... but I took it really slow and only did 3km. It was great though :D Debating whether to do a weights class tonight, and then most likely I shall do spinning tomorrow morning... I'm thinking I need to take a break from running for a bit to let my shins heal properly but it's so hard not to run. Maybe when I go for the hike in two week's time it will give them a break?? Although that's still using my legs... hmm...

Now I plan on eating this delicious oat bar I made the other day... unpictured, but just imagine a yummy oaty bar with coconut on top, and bananas and raisins throughout... undercooked so very gooey!

Where did the strength go?

Have been slowly changing the blog around as I learn to use Blogger :) Plus I changed my name... again!

Still trying to work out how to do things, but hopefully I'll get there eventually.

Today went off to BodyPump... used lighter weights than I normally would as I wasn't sure how I'd go after boot camp... turned out to be a good choice. Where did my strength go?? :( The only part I had improved on was the pushups! Oh well.
Then I went for a 5k walk on the treadmill, bit faster than yesterday but I suppose that's because it was the treadmill...

And here's some food porn from today's eats because text only is boring :D

Breakfast this morning: cashew butter & apricot jam on "four seed ploughman's bread". I like the look of spreads on toast in pictures... I don't know why?? 

After exercise snack: raspberries and greek yoghurt...

And after I smooshed it all up :D Yummo...

Weird oat cookie type thing I attempted... with apricot jam on top! Tasted ok... needs work.

Green smoothie with banana, spinach, maca powder & cocoa powder... my usual recipe

Mushrooms with vegemite, another one of my favourites!!