Think positive!

I've had a couple of conversations this week about how important a positive attitude and some visualisation is when it comes to fat loss/body transformation goals. And then this article was delivered to my email inbox. Synchronicity.

This summed up what I've been trying to tell people:

When you’re driven by negative thoughts about yourself, you just don’t have the raw materials that are necessary to achieve the results you want.

I speak to so many people who really, really hate themselves. They use their before photos as motivation in the worst possible, most negative way. Their self-talk is awful, horrible. They 'punish' themselves for eating "bad" foods by doing hours of exercise (and usually hating every minute of it). I know someone who used to drive herself on at the gym with words like "come on, fat girl, get that blubber moving".

All this makes me really sad, because it's so difficult to help these people. Many of them have deep-rooted problems, but are firmly in denial about them. They think that when they achieve their weight loss goal, they'll be happy, but the ones who get there are surprised to find that they still feel bad about themselves, still have the same problems as when they were overweight. And they still deal with those problems the only way they've ever known - with food. So in most cases, they regain the weight and find themselves stuck in a yo-yo pattern of weight loss/weight gain, never really achieving what they think they want.

What's the answer? I don't have it (except maybe to recommend a good therapist). All I can do is to point people in the direction of some books or articles or programs that include goal-setting and visualisation, and preferably journalling. And some exercises to promote positive thinking.

Tom Venuto writes some good stuff on the subject, if anyone's looking for somewhere to start.

Thursday

This week is going well on the training and food front. As well as my chest/shoulders/triceps training Tuesday morning, I headed back to the gym for some intervals on the bike in the evening. Today I did legs. Judging by the way they objected to lifting me out of my chair to go put my breakfast dishes on the sink, it was a good workout.

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I've just spent the last 2 hours cleaning the house. Again. This is getting really, really, old, really, really fast. After all the work I've done turning the house into a veritable temple of cleanliness, I get more than a little annoyed when I discover dirty handprints on a door, toothpaste in the bathroom sink, or dirt on the carpet.

I have to say that they're all trying very hard - beds are made without asking, towels are hung up, clothes are put away in drawers and dishes stowed in the dishwasher. But they just don't seem to have the ability to SEE dirt that's perfectly obvious to me.

I knew there was a reason I gave up on housework - it's just frustrating when you live with other people. Especially 4 other people of the male variety.

Someone better hurry up and make us an offer.

Tag! You're it!

I was tagged by LizN, and it's taken me a few days to get around to this, but here goes:

Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to write on their own blog about their seven things, as well as these rules. You need to choose 7 people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them that they have been tagged and to read your blog!

1. I am not a morning person, yet for over 3 years, I’ve been getting up at stupid-o’clock to train: summer, winter, whatever. Amazing how you can change.

2. I can’t stand wrinkled newspapers. I never take the one from the top of the pile at the newsagent, instead going for a nice neat, crease-free one a few copies down. I also have to be the first person in the house to read it so it’s nice and pristine. If I was rich, I’d have the butler iron it for me.

3. I’m a demon at handcrafts – paper crafts like scrapbooking & pergamano, funky things with rubber stamps, complicated embroidery with threads, ribbons and beads, sewing (used to make most of my own clothes in the far distant past, when I was childless and had oodles of time), crochet. I’m not big on knitting though – I can do it, but it’s dead boring. Now if ONLY I had some time to indulge…..

4. I have so much underwear, I can’t fit it in my drawers. Bras and knickers of all kinds, coloured ones, lacy ones, practical ones. I can’t resist them. I think it’s a sickness….

5. My hair is getting thinner. Boo-hoo. I blame my children, since it seems to have got progressively thinner after each one was born. I’m sure I’ll end up a bald old lady. Maybe I'll buy wigs in crazy colours and styles. And make the kids pay for them.

6. My favourite colour is blue. No wait, green. I can never choose between the two.

7. The weirdest job I ever had was working at a worm farm over summer when I was 17. No, I didn’t have to milk them, or round ‘em up and bring ‘em in from the paddock. Worm poo is fantastic fertiliser, and the worm farm people, who were friends of my Mum’s, made potting mix from it. My job was to seal the bags with one of those heat thingies. Exciting stuff!


I think almost everyone I know has already been tagged, so I'm copping out here.

New week, new focus

I finally got back to the gym this morning. I've had a few weeks of injury, stress, and just NO TIME FOR ME (and OK, a fairly large dose of feeling sorry for myself), and I'm so over it! So this morning I hauled my butt out of my cosy bed at 5:40am and headed off to the gym.

Enthusiasm was a little lacking as I dragged myself through the dark car park and into the less-than-stunning fluoro-lit surroundings of The Skanky Gym. The reception staff are usually surly at that hour of the day, but this morning, the girl on duty looked up at me and said with a huge smile, "hey, I saw you in a magazine!" She was way more impressed than the occasion demanded.... but it made me smile and put a little bounce in my step.

My workout went well - I took the weights down a little on chest and shoulders, since a) I haven't trained for 3 weeks *ahem* .....AND b) I have this sucky shoulder injury which I really don't want to aggravate. But IT FELT SO GOOD to be training again.

Tonight, I'm heading back there for some bike intervals before training a new client.

The last few weeks have been filled with plenty of activity (sanding, painting, cleaning, moving stuff), and there's been muscle soreness galore, but it's just not the same. Nothing produces endorphins like heaving a pair of rusty dumbbells around at 6:00am on a cold morning does.

More reno pics

The shower screen guy came today. Still waiting for our mirror, but the ensuite is almost done.

Before......

After.....

If we were staying, we'd have done a lot more than paint, new tiles, mirror and shower screen, but it's come up a treat anyway, and for minimal cost. And I'll enjoy it for the next few months till we move.

"If I'd murdered you, I'd be out by now"

I can always count on my husband to utter those words on the 25th of May every year. Yes, it's our anniversary today - 22 years of loving wedded bliss. Or something like it anyway.


In honour of the occasion, here we are - frothy meringue dress, big hair and all.

The healthy food test

I sometimes have clients who struggle to understand exactly what constitutes a good choice when it comes to meals. For instance, a salad always sounds good, but if it consists of boiled egg, beetroot, fetta, strips of bacon, lettuce and tomato? It might taste good, but probably doesn't cut it on a fat loss program. The only actual salad ingredients are lettuce, tomato and that great Aussie favourite, beetroot. (I've never understood the attraction of beetroot, I really don't like it and I ALWAYS manage to drop some in my lap, usually whilst wearing white....)

Anyway, I'd be likely to choose something like lettuce, baby spinach, mushrooms, capsicum, tomato, a little red onion, maybe some lightly steamed asparagus or snow peas, and then I'd add some tuna or chicken or something fairly substantial in the protein department. Plus probably a spoonful of olive oil with a squeeze of lemon juice or some balsamic. And pepper. Lots of pepper.

I was talking to Bike Boy about how hard it can be to get the good food message across to people, and he came up with this foolproof healthy food test:

1. Prepare your meal.

2. Show it to your husband and ask "does this look good?"

3. If he answers yes, throw it out and start again. If he answers no, yuk, or anything similar, go right ahead and eat it!

The man's a genius.

Claim to fame

I already mentioned that LizN and I feature in this month's Women's Health & Fitness magazine, but I forgot to report that another blogger, Clare, gets a guernsey in the same issue. She was interviewed for an article on joint pain and exercise.

Clare has just qualified as a personal trainer in Sydney and she's going to be GREAT. :-)

Uh-oh!

It's all happening - the bathrooms aren't complete and I still have a few little finishing touches to add to the garden, but I got a call from the agent yesterday and they're bringing a prospective buyer through TONIGHT! Aargh!

The board's gone up on the front lawn (the alleged lawn, I should say....it's more a few patches of weedy green, thanks to the drought), so I guess this place is really for sale.... Now I just have to get home early this afternoon, make sure everything's spick and span, then whisk the kids off somewhere for half an hour or so, to let these people poke around in privacy.

It's already driving me nuts trying to keep the house in a permanent state of clean, and we've barely started!

It better be worth it.

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My injuries are slowly getting better (not helped by typing at the dining table...), so it's back to the gym for me tomorrow. Yay!

Bloody hard work!

All the hard work has paid off - Bike Boy and I are both completely knackered, there have been several terse exchanges, and the stress has been totally out of hand....BUT we're more or less finished. The new showere screen and mirrors won't be installed till Friday, and there are a couple of small jobs to do, but things are looking good. :)

Here's the evidence:

The boudoir..... yes, of COURSE that's a genuine Van Gogh on the wall. ;)

The lounge.... ah, wide-angle lenses - how good are they? The room looks posiively spacious. Of course, taking my desk out has made a huge difference. It usually lives where Bike Boy's guitar is. Using my laptop at the dining table isn't so good for my neck/shoulder/arm, but may sell the house faster, so one has to make sacrifices.

The dining room - I love our doors! They're one of my favourite things about our house.

The masterpiece of organisation that is our walk-in robe. I bought out Safeway's entire stock of storage boxes..... (note my scales hiding there - in the bathroom, they're too tempting) The family room - actually more of a TV and computer nook, but we like to be a bit grand. :)

Kitchen - Tassie Oak, still looks good after 5 years.

This is meant to be a bedside table, but I think it works in the entry.

I LOVE the smell of fresh mulch!

I would have taken shots of the front, but it started to get dark..... another time!

I'm off to watch some TV with Bike Boy, then to bed. Next week will hopefully be more relaxed.

Saturday!!

Oh yeah. Saturday. Time to relax....for NORMAL people, anyway. For me, it was a day to: train a couple of clients, pack some boxes, shovel and rake 2 metres of mulch (and pull more than a few weeds along the way) do 3 loads of washing, load the dryer, hang the remainder on the line in the laundry....yes, its actually raining in Melbourne....pack more boxes, dust and vacuum the lounge, fold the dry washing, answer emails, pack MORE stuff (WHERE is this stuff coming from?), clean a bit more and read some stuff from our conveyancer. Why do I need to sign a Section 32 in quadruplicate, anyway?

*sigh* almost done....

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Got my copy of Women's Health & Fitness today - WOOHOO! This issue features a nice article on "Fit at any age", featuring yours truly and LizN. Ah, it's nice to share around some of the things I've learned and experienced about becoming fitter and more satisfied with myself and my body.

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I had a conversation with my two youngest kids tonight about the difference between tabloids and broadsheets.... I think I went WAY overboard when I got into left-wing and right-wing politics. My kids are familiar with the concept of "Dad lectures", which usually happen when Dad has had more than a few beers....but tonight's discussion turned into a "Mum lecture". I realised I'd given them way too much detail when they started looking at each other and rolling their eyes. Oops. We parents get a bit carried away sometimes, when just a simple answer will do.

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Tomorrow, I may actually have a few photos to post after all the work we've been doing. Most of the boxes are stacked in the shed or carport, I only have a few paint cans left in the house, and by tomorrow we should have all the furniture rearranging and cleaning finished. Can I have a big HURRAH??!

My week in brief:

Still painting, cleaning, repairing and rearranging. Sunday is our deadline, as the agent is coming to take photos on Monday. We're actually pretty well on schedule, and the place is looking good. Me, on the other hand - I am not looking good. My nails are ruined, my hands are all rough, I have a patch of eczema just under my eye, hives up one arm (no idea what that's from) and I've barely paused all week to run a comb through my hair. Also, I'm living in old paint-spattered pants and t-shirts 3 sizes too big for me. Very attractive.

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My shoulder is actually a lot better. I'm still getting pain in when my arm is in certain positions.... like extended in front of me, mainly. Which makes typing and mousing tricky, even with strict attention to posture and keeping-my-elbows-close-to-my-sides. Driving is also a challenge, so it's lucky I don't have to go on any long trips.

Oh, except for on Tuesday, when my normal 45 minute drive to the office turned into an hour and a half crawl, due to a peanut butter spill on a major road. Yeah, I'm still trying to figure that one out too....

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The Baby went on a school camp on Monday morning and came home yesterday afternoon. They went to Phillip Island and apparently had a great time on giant swings, ropes courses, canoeing and so on. Of course this means that this morning he did NOT want to get out of bed. I'm betting half the class are away today, as their parents let them sleep in and recover. My child? He's going to school - I'm just mean.

Mothers Day

I wimped out on the Mothers' Day Classic. Not because I wasn't up to it, but because there is just WAY too much to do around this place. And if I did the run, then went out for lunch with my Mum and sisters, my entire day would have been a write-off. So late last night, when I was tired, sore, and stressed to the max about all that still needed to be done before I headed back to work on Monday, I made the decision to pull out of the run.

:(

I feel bad. But I'm on a deadline here, and it's not like I sell my house every week. And there will be another Mothers Day Classic next year. Do I sound like I'm trying to convince myself? Yeah, I thought so.....

Well, I'll just look on my entry fee as a donation to a really good cause.

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And by the way, I had a good Mothers Day. I got a CD, some Belgian chocolates, breakfast cooked for me (NOT in bed - ick!), and some loving hugs from my children. I also had a lovely lunch with my Mum and two of my sisters, plus some wine and tasty nibbly things tonight.

All good.

*cough* *wheeze*

Today I had the fun task of scraping and sanding off every single skerrick of paint from the ceiling of our ensuite, right back to the bare gyprock. Ordinarily, this would not be fun. With an injured left shoulder and tennis elbow in my right arm, guess how much fun it was, spending hours up a ladder with my arms extended above my head? Hands up who thinks I'm feeling really relaxed and happy tonight?

It took me the entire day to get ONE COAT OF UNDERCOAT on the walls and ceiling of the tiniest room in the house. My only consolation is (as Bike Boy just pointed out) we will never, ever need to do this again. Our new house will have everything just as we want it, no compromises. And when something breaks or wears out or needs painting, I have decided we will get a man in to fix it. :) My husband has many talents (he says his chief one is keeping me happy.....can't argue with that), but D.I.Y. is not one of them, as he will readily admit.

Here's me, after all the sanding, and just before the painting, enjoying a well-earned coffee (kindly provided by Bike Boy, who also took the photo. Don't worry, I'll get him for that later!). I call this picture "Kek, plastered"




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Thanks for all the concern about my nosebleed the other day - that's actually quite normal for me, and just a rather inconvenient symptom of Osler's Disease. It's really no big deal. Really. I call it my party trick.

It works like this: You have blood gushing out of a ruptured lesion under pressure, and you stop it pouring out of your nose with a wad of tissues. So it builds up inside your nose and starts to trickle down your throat instead. Eeuw! Then the blood starts to form a clot and blocks up that escape route too, but there's still a fair bit flowing. So it only has one way to go....ta-dah!! Tear ducts it is!

Huh, tears of blood...I should sell tickets.

Anyway, that particular bleed stopped fairly quickly. I've learned the hard way that it's pointless rushing off to casualty - I just end up sitting in the waiting room for two hours, by which time it's stopped. Then I have to explain to the 15 year old doctor what Osler's Disease is (lucky me - it's not RARE, but it is UNCOMMON). Then he looks in my nose and says "I can't see a thing, there's a big clot in the way". Well, der! Then he gives me a lecture about how I shouldn't have waited so long and how if I have another bleed and it doesn't stop in 10 minutes, I really should head straight to hospital. Yeah, right! So I can sit and wait for two friggin' hours, then cop a lecture from a doctor who knows less than I do? Thanks, I don't think so.

It always amuses me when I see people freak out about a nosebleed - I've had them regularly since I was 5 years old and I just roll my eyes and think "Pfft, it's only a nosebleed".

Today, for a change, I have white crap oozing out of my nose and eyes - paint and plaster dust. Fun.

Bad start to the day

So, my neck/shoulder thing turns out to be ANOTHER overuse injury, and I'm in constant pain and unable to do any upper body weight training this week. This does not make me a happy camper. Add to that the terrible night's sleep I had, involving multiple weird dreams, including one where Bike Boy left me to go join some wacky religion and dimissed our 27-year relationship as a "teenage romance" ....BASTARD!! He claims that he cannot be held responsible for any of his actions in my dreams, but I can still harbour resentment....

Anyway. THEN we all slept in till 8:00am (oops!), and grumpy kids running late for school are not fun. I made eggs and coffee and settled down to answer emails, then to read blogs for a bit, since I don't have to leave for my first client till 9:00. But now I have 9 minutes till I need to leave and I'm still in my pjs. Why? Because I am having a major, MAJOR nosebleed. The kind where blood oozes out your tear ducts (that always freaks out Bike Boy, in spite of my HILARIOUS 'it's a miracle!' exclamations....tears of blood and all that.... so it's a good thing he's gone to the gym).

My day has to get better! Surely?

The chores continue

I'm still sorting, cleaning, packing boxes. I've cleaned out bathroom cupboards (WHERE did all that crap come from?), laundry cupboards, the pantry and the huge wall unit in our family room. There's now lots of space to hide other crap, and I have another 5 garbage bags of stuff for charity. Today I may tackle the nightmare that is our walk-in robe.


I also have to go buy a present for some kid whose birthday party The Baby is attending this afternoon, fold and iron a mountain of clean clothes and take Bike Boy's sister to check out the house we're building. Well, the display home, anyway. OUR house is still months away from even starting, of course. But here's one I prepared earlier:


Back to work! Hand me that cleaning cloth...

Ouch

I did something diabolical to my back. Not just my lower back, but also a REALLY annoying bit just inside and slightly above my left scapula (that's a shoulder blade, for those who failed anatomy). The cause? Um... all the cleaning, sorting, packing, lifting and general stooping over I've been doing.

Plus *ahem* the fact that I haven't worn my orthotics for 5 days straight. Well, I had to wear my work boots while gardening, cleaning out the carport, etc, etc - after the Great Secateur Disaster of 2000, which resulted in 6 stitches in my foot, I'm not allowed to do ANYTHING outdoors without protective footwear. And my boots are a little big, and my orthotics would slip around and.... OK, OK, I really have no good excuse.

So I visited Melissa the sadistic osteopath this morning and she spent an hour torturing me. She SAYS it's good for me, but I don't know. At the point where she grabbed one of the muscles at the front of my neck (sternocleiodomastoid??) and squeezed it until a throbbing pain shot up into my forehead and my arm went all numb and tingly, I would have admitted to anything. They could really use her at Guantanamo Bay...

However, my lower back is much better tonight, and I think my shoulder/upper back/neck is marginally improved. Some wine and Panadol have also helped considerably.

Attractive property with lots of extras

It's now only 3 weeks till our house goes on the market and I'm really starting to panic about making the deadline. My state of mind is not helped by Number One Son's pig-headed selfishness. So far, he has done exactly nothing to help.

His room is a pigsty and my constant requests to sort the crap he doesn't need from the stuff he wants to keep have fallen on deaf ears. He has also constantly moaned and complained about how incovenient this whole moving thing is to HIM, and how he doesn't want to live in a rented house while we build, and how he'll be getting close to exams while this place is on the market and having to leave so that the agents can bring prospective buyers through is REALLY going to make his life hell and blah-de-blah-blah.

SO.... I yelled at him last night that he doesn't have to move with us - he can just stay here and we'll happily go without him. I'm sure we can run an ad something like this: Cosy family home in great location with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, renovated kitchen, lovely outdoor entertaining area, ducted heating and cooling, 2 sheds and lock-up carport. Comes complete with lazy, smelly teenager with bad attitude who sleeps all day and refuses to do any chores.

Yeah, THAT should add some value to the place.

Hot, hot, HOT!!

Just what a girl needs after a gruelling week of work, work and more work: some HAWT guys! (ta muchly to the sweet and gorgeous Selina for these pics)

David Rylah with the two desperate groupies:

Warren Clampit with yours truly - he'd just finished a guest posing routine and I could feel his muscles shaking from the effort of flexing. GOD, I should have got a spray tan - could I get any more pasty white?

David again. Next time I decide to shamelessly promote UltraFit, I must remember to tame my just pulled a crappy free t-shirt over my head hair! ....And suck my gut in more.

And Nick Jones, who was a real sweetie (and just LOOK at those arms!):

I commented to Nick that once my husband saw these photos, he'd lock me in the house and never let me out alone again. So he decided to add a littel fuel to the fire:

Ahh, back to real life.......