Yeah I know it's been a while but I've been busy doin' stuff - one of which is losing and gaining and losing weight :)

Here's how the graph looks now - yup I have passed my first target goal of 62Kg. Mind you I was there three weeks ago as well but then put on weight for no known reason (other than perhaps my body protesting at riding my bike to work again now that the weather has fined up!)

Time to set a new target goal - which is 59Kg, so that's what will show on the graph
next time I post.

So I'm keepin on keeping on, Calorieking.com.au still getting my attention every day with it's easy to use food and exercise diary and helpful folk in the forums.

Started boot camp yesterday, only a little sore today, though I'm sure the trainer will crank things up a bit next week and make me as sore as I *thought* I would be this week!

That's all for now, will tell you about Earth Carers another time, wonderful course I've been doing.

Ciao

And up we go ..

Whilst I didn't expect to keep losing weight at the rate I had been, I hadn't really expected my weight to go back up, but eh, it happens.

I guess it is not surprising as I had increased my calorie intake due to being concerned my body was going into starvation mode.

So I put on 400g from last Sunday. Not disasterous, but need to get the line going back down in the other direction!

Here's the chart .. still looking fairly good!




This Weeks Challenge
This weeks' challenge is that my mum is staying with me whilst she has some surgery and recovers. Unknown yet how long she will be here. It may be a bit of a challenge sticking to the eating plan whilst she's here - we'll have to wait and see how that goes.

Have a great week everyone!

I've had to post date this post as I didn't get to add this info last week, and my internet access is 'shaped' so internet usage is a pain in the beeeehind at the moment.

Anyway, as of Sunday last week I had lost another 700g (ie 0.7 Kg). I was mightly impressed with this, I had expected to drop down to losing half a kilo or less.

I'm sure this trend will cease soon enough, so I better enjoy it whilst I can!

Here's the chart - doesn't it look good!!!!


Minor issue with fibre and some accidental overuse of Nulax on the Friday night preceeding weigh in, but I had a full roast dinner on Saturday night!

Am really liking the CalorieKing website, so easy to use and doesn't matter whether I'm at home or at work I can fill in the food diary and how much water I'm drinking :)

Probably wont post on this Sunday either as I'm off to the Conscious Living Expo and will no doubt be there all day just like the last two years :)

Ciao fer now.

The Downward Slide

Yay me!!

I lost 1.6kg this week - that's the most I have ever lost in a week since I started trying to lose weight!!!!!!!!!!

Woohoo go me!!!

Here's the graph:



Doesn't that look good!!!!

What am I so Happy About?
Well yes, of course I am happy about the weight loss, but even more than that (and perhaps a little more Buddhist) I am very pleased that I have been disciplined this week.

On one day I ate more than my imposed calorie intake of 1200cal. I went to the movies on Tuesday night and decided I was going to have a treat - a 100g bag of chips (Red Rock Deli Chilli. of course - there may as well not be any other type of chips as far as I'm concerned!). This put me over my 1200 mark, but under 1600, so I was still happy with that. Whilst I want to lose weight I still want to live as well :)

I skipped exercise on Tuesday and Thursday. Tuesday cos of going to the movies and Thursday - well just because. Exercised all the other days - 30 minute walk mostly, although on Saturday I found out about C25K (more about that later).

So I'm very pleased with myself for having maintained exercise and allocated calorie intake for most of the week.

Reward
Earlier in the week I thought I was doing fairly well so I set up a reward for myself. I didn't have to go to work on Friday so I made an appointment for a full body scrub. Ahhhh such a wonderful pamper that is!

I like getting these in the cooler months to help slough off all the dead skin, and as a bonus you get a body rub as well (softer than a massage) when they rub the moisturizer into your skin. It was heaven, I really enjoyed it.

Think I'll make my next reward either a manicure or pedicure; I can't afford to splurge on a full body scrub every time!

Tools
To help keep track of how I'm going I have a sheet of graph paper in the bathroom right next to the scales, and have been weighing myself every day. Now I know that's not recommended due to usual daily fluctuations, but what if weigh in day happens to be a heavy day - no reason to feel all dejected if you've been half a kilo lighter all week then only get a 100g weight loss on weigh in day! So I weigh myself every day, but keep it in perspective.

In addition to the graph I have been keeping a food diary in MS Excel and using the CalorieKing website to find out the nutritional values of the foods that I eat.

This has been working really well except that it can be a bit tricky remembering what I've eaten until I can get home and put it on the spreadsheet. I started moving the spreadsheet to and from work/home on a thumb drive, and also tried emailing to myself to the other location, but it was getting too much fiddling for me. Then I discovered more about Calorie King.

Calorie King Website - Weight Loss Tools
I was looking at the site on Friday getting some details to add into my Excel food diary when I noticed the other menu items on the website. I'd never bothered looking at them previously.

Wow, this is an amazing website to assist with weight loss. I joined up (costs NOTHING) and they have an amazing food diary right there, suggested meal plans, recipes, articles on weight loss, exercise and nutrition, forums ... the whole shebang.

This is great - now I don't have to cart my food diary between work and home, I just log on whether I'm at home or at work and there is all my information ready to be added to!

You can add your own custom foods if they don't already exist in their database, and save them so you don't have to type all the info in every time you eat that particular thing. You can also make your own custom meals for things you eat frequently - like the cheese and turkey snack I often have for morning or afternoon tea. I've added it in as a custom meal so now it's just one click to add that in as a 'meal'.

There are tallies for each meal as well as a progressive total for the whole day, plus an area to record how much water you're drinking, and of course a spot to indicate whether you've exercised that day.

At the bottom of each day it indicates how much of your calories you've consumed and gives a net calorie total for the day (ie calories eaten less calories used in exercise).

You can also set what nutritional values you want to see - calories and KJ are standard, but you can add in Protein, Carbs, Carbs, Fat, Fibre, Sodium, Calcium and a bunch more. For each item you choose there is a bar at the bottom for the day showing how much of your allocated amounts you've consumed.

And of course there's an area to check in each week/however often you wish, and record your weight and also your measurements.

Impressed
You can probably tell I'm very impressed with this website. It really does seem to have all the tools one requires to assist with a weight loss plan. There's a US version of Calorie King as well.

So if you're trying to lose (or gain!) weight, go check out Calorie King!

Losing Weight - or Not!

I haven't been very strict on what I've been eating lately so it's no surprise that I haven't been losing weight, and in fact it has been creeping up slowly slowly.

Also not helping is that I have not been motivated to exercise. The treadmill has achieved the sole purpose of dust gathering this week. It does come in handy to hang clothes off that need that extra bit of drying from the heater though!

The only exercise I've done in the last week is the regular Sunday morning walk with my ex.

But enough is enough. I really don't like the size of my thighs not my tummy. And I don't like the number the scales show me when I get on. So it's time to jump back on the bandwagon.

It Starts with Today
So today I am starting anew. I've checked out the eating plan for the week. 1200 calories 45% protein, 30% carbs and 25% fat. I have everything I need in the fridge/pantry.

Instead of purchased frozen meals for two of my lunches I've made a Continental LITE beef and vegetable casserole and split it into four portions in the freezer.

I really quite like these Continental LITE meal bases, I've tried the Country Chicken and Beef Stroganoff and both were quite yummy. As I wasn't particularly watching my food when I made those I ate them with brown steamed rice (I use the ppouches of 90 second rice), which of course put the calorie, and particularly the carb, count over what I should have been eating.

But the beef and vegie caserole already has vegies in it so I don't need to eat anything else with it. 300 calories for a lunch is right on the mark.

So The Food is Sorted, Now for the Exercise ...
This is the hard part. I find it difficult to get motivated to exercise, particularly when I am by myself.

The Sunday morning walks are good as the fact someone else is involved always motivates both of us to actually get up out of bed and go do it.

I bought the treadmill as a replacement for bike riding during winter. I'm not gung-ho enough to ride when it's cold, wet and windy. Some weeks I've been fairly good, doing three nights walking in a week, but often it is just too damn easy to simply lay on the couch and watch the box.

I did wonder for a while though whether that was partly due to a low iron count. Now that I'm taking iron tablets (well, I remember *most* of the time) hopefully I wont be feeling quite so lethargic. We'll see!

Supplements
As mentioned above I'm taking iron tablets on my doctors' advice. He advised it was probably diet induced as there isn't much red meat in this eating plan and I'm not big on spinach.

I'm also taking 1000mg Omega 3 oil and Green Tea extract.

Goal
Yes I'm setting myself what may seem as a fairly easy goal to start with. I'm aiming for 62Kg. That's just a smidge more than 2.5Kg to lose from where I am now.

That may seem far too easy for some ofyou, but my experience earlier in the year is that I do not lose weight easily. Even when doing exercise 6 out of 7 days, both cardio and strength and being fairly strict on what I eat - it took me nearly 4 months to lose 2.5Kg. So let's see what happens this time.

Here is my chart so far ... I will try to post it weekly:

My Weight Chart:

Meditation

I practice meditation fairly regularly - at least once every week, generally more. I'd really like to return to practicing every day however I haven't managed to work it into my 'new' schedule as yet.

There are many types of meditation. I don't know the name of the type I practice but it's of the empty/spacious mind, being present in the now type of meditation.

The place in which I seem to meditate the best is at the Buddhist Society of WA temple in Nollamara. Partly this is because I have set aside the time to be there for the sole purpose of meditation, but there also seems to be something about being in a room with 100+ people all meditating, and maybe the Buddhist monks who conduct the meditation have something to do with it also.

I attended Friday night meditation very regularly last year but have got out of the habit. At the moment the monks and nuns are on Rains Retreat so there are guest speakers conducting the meditation there at the moment. I think I'll try return when Rains Retreat has concluded.

Going to meditation on Friday nights was rather hectic in getting there on time, however always well worth the effort. I found it a wonderfully practical way to signify the end of the working week and the beginning of the weekend.

The main road to/from meditation is a 70kph zone. I would usually be doing just over the speed limit on my way there, however I always found it difficult to get up to that speed on my way home after meditating! A sure sign that meditation had resulted in a slowing of my pace.

Life Intrudes
I find it much more difficult to calm/clear my mind when I'm at home. Primarily I think that's because there are so many other things I should or could be doing other than sitting doing 'nothing'.

If I go to another place (like the temple) to meditate that's the only thing I'm meant to be doing - meditating - and so there are less thoughts in my head to distract me.

Stretching Time
One thing that rather amazes me about meditating is how it seems to stretch time.

In normal waking life time only ever seems to go slowly when you're doing something you really don't want to do, or are somewhere you really don't want to be.

At home or at work 10 minutes just flies past. But when I'm meditating time slows right down and seems to last so much longer.

I open my eyes to peek at the clock thinking the timer must be just about to go, and it's only been 5 minutes since I closed my eyes!

What a shame I haven't yet worked out how to transfer this time stretching over into other activities - it only seems to work when I'm meditating, oh well, something to aim for :)

They Way I Do the Things I Do...
Generally I just try to clear my mind and concentrate on the sensation of my breath in doing so. If I find myself thinking I bring my attention back to my breath. Sometimes I count the breaths if I'm particularly distracted.

In Buddhism for Busy People David Michie (sp?) advised if counting breath to 10 is too much then just try for 4. He apparently spent quite some years doing only that much - 10 minutes sessions counting 4 breaths, and often not even getting to 4.

I was very heartened to hear this - I often can't get to 4 either!

But with meditation, as with a number of other things, it's not the quality of the meditation - it's the fact that I bother to try that is important.

More, some other time...

Work

One of the things that has been distracting me for some time is work.

At the beginning of November last year I returned to work from two weeks holiday only to be told that I was being laid off due to the economic downturn.

It was rather a shock, and I'm probably one of the first 'victims' in Perth of the GFC. I had just used up almost all of my holidays and we were only just over a month from Christmas - not a great time to lose your job (not that there's often a GOOD time to lose your job!)

Thankfully I had already been applying for other jobs however none had come to fruition and as they were government jobs I was going for, the selection processes were very long and drawn out.

On my last day at my old job I was advised I'd been sucessfull in being placed in a 'pool', and there was a big chance that I would be offered a position with that department very soon.

Then came the governments' 3% efficiency dividend ... I rang every week but still there was no position for me.

Temp'ing
So I contacted a temping agency and did 6 weeks temp work over Christmas. They pay was lower than I had been getting, it was only a month-by-month thing and of course there was no sick leave.

No problem, I don't usually get ill very often at all. But I came of my bike on New Years Day and had to have two days off work due to injury (and would have taken longer if I'd had paid sick leave - my leg was a mess, and is still not back to normal now!)

Temping wasn't too bad, I'm glad I had the experience - and now this is what my daughter wants to do when she finishes uni at the end of this year!

I worked at the Office of Enery and they were a great bunch of people. I didn't get paid for public holidays so of course worked all through the traditional Christmas break. But for those stalwarts who were at the office we made a roast turkey lunch on Christmas eve :) Learnt things from these folks that was helpful for me in regards to my solar power experiment (see previous post).

But no security was not good for me - security is one of the biggies for me.

Slightly More Security ...
Then at the end of January I had a phone call to say there was an 11 month contract position available from hte pool - I took it, 11 months was far better than temping month by month, and it was a higher level, so more pay. Plus I would be doing the same work as if I had a permanent job from the pool, and would slide over seamlessly when a permanent position became available.

Then Finally ...
I only had to wait about 6 weeks for a permanent position to become available, so now I'm a permanent employee in state government public service.

I'm slowly recovering my financial situation and should have that all under control by the end of this year.

Then I'll be past the 'just paying the bills' stage and be able to plan some more fun things!

Time for dinner,

Ciao fer now.

Power to the People!

One of the things I've been researching, thinking about and planning is to have a solar photo-voltaic system installed at my house.

I've had a very small system on top of my shed (installed by my prior partner) for quite a few years. It powers a couple of garden lights. Well, actually only one still works.

I love the idea of generating my own power, and from since before the garden light system was in, have thought how great it would be to generate my own power for the house.

Thanks to technology, generous government grants to encourage folk, and some long awaited funds I now have my own solar pv system on the roof of my outbuildings:


There are 6 panels and they take up a surprisingly small amount of space:

You can see from the above I could easily fit another two sets of 6 panels at least on that roof. The garden light system panel is sitting on the shed roof just above the far right corner of the new panels (small dark rectangle on the white roof).

This is a 1.0 Kilowatt system and it's expected to generate up to one quarter of my power requirements going on my usual usage. It is shortly going to be connected to the city's power grid and then, if my house isn't using all the power the system is generating, the extra power will be fed back into the grid. The power company will pay me for this electricity - basically at the same rate as they charge me.

There's an inverter that changes the current/voltage from 12v to 240v so that the power can be used by the house/fed back into the grid. The inverter has a readout that shows how much power the system has generated since being installed.


At the moment it's stating it has generated 60Kwh (kilowatt hours) since it was installed 1 month ago. My average usage in winter over the last 5 years is about 14 units per day - so in one month I've generated enough power for just over 4 days. My most recent power bill which includes three weeks of the system being operations states on average of only 12 units per day. Not very impressive when it comes down to it.

However it is the middle of winter and the inverter panel frequently indicates the system is generating only about 25% of it's total capacity. Whilst the system isn't located in an optimum location (it was the best of the available options) I'm expecting much better performance in summer.

Considering the price of electricity has increased twice in the last four months by more than 25% at least I should be sheltered somewhat from the price increases by my lower usage of power.

But the real reason for doing this is not the money. Initial cost of the system was substantial even with the government grant, and I would not have been able to afford it other than I had some funds coming to me. And the money the power company pays me for the power I feed back into the grid is never going to be substantial. Even if they introduce the Feed In Tarriff they have been talking about that only continues until the installation costs of the system have been recouped.

No, the real reason for doing this is I just LOVE the idea of generating my own power. I don't know whether it's an independence/self-sustainability thing, or a be-kind-to-the-planet thing, but it just makes me feel really good inside :)

The "I'll Just Pretend I Don't Know I Haven't Posted for Ages" Post

Strangest thing - I'm trying to lose weight. Many of the people who've made my acquaintance in the past would scoff at this idea; I did not used to be the type of person who ever had to even think about losing weight.

It's the dreaded non-smoking that did it (of course - oh yes, that's sarcasm). Whilst not smoking would have surely slowed my metabolism I'm sure it is not the only reason for me being about 13kg heavier than when I stopped smoking.

So now that I am a confirmed non-smoker (confirmed non-smoker = more than 12 months since I stopped) it is time to do something about the spare tyre around my middle, and the love handles (don't really see the point in them since no one's there to hold onto the handles!), and the thighs that don't fit into standard shaped trousers. Mind you I do quite like the fat that is filling my bra at the moment - haven't had a rack like this since I was pregnant/breast feeding! (Yes, yes, I do realise it will be the first thing to go when I lose weight - sigh)


I have been making a valiant effort to lose weight, but so far the results have been less than spectacular.

Eli Stone is on TV now so the rest will have to wait 'til another evening.

Ciao