Day 69: Going no where slowly

Guess I should probably listen to this!

Long time no see! Ah here I am and I still am not feeling the motivation! I have one month till Thailand and I need to get my A into G...

I have been sick for the past 3 days so exercise have been, well, no existent. I am so tired of lacking self control! I don't know what more to do, but saying 'no' has never been this hard! Right now I feel like I just need help!

So honestly I don't have any advice for you today! I need some advice myself! Help is welcome and appreciated...

Day 51: How to be a healthy cheap skate

Everyone is on a budget these days, especially as a student, and unless you're racking it in, money is always going to be on your mind. Despite what a lot of people may think, eating healthy is not that expensive. I think a lot of people may say that as an excuse to getting healthy. You just have to be looking in the right places! So I have some hints for you to make sure you are keeping your pockets and stomach happy.

Numbero uno: Plan

Before doing you're grocery shopping, plan your meals for the week if you decide on your meals for the week before hand then you know exactly how much to get and you could 'stretch' some foods like meat. Also try get everything you need for the week, often I forget something and have to go back to the store, then once I'm in the store I end up buying something else I didn't need.

Two: Staples

Fill up your pantry with the staples (and keep them in check). This way you will always have those extras that many recipes call for like spices, herbs or garlic. Here is a list:

Three: Labels

This is food, not a bag. Most labelled product are more expensive than the generic no name brand, you don't need the best of the best, as long as the nutritional information is the same.

Link

Four: Bulk

Buy in bulk and freeze, even if you are on your own, buy non-perishables and freezables in bulk. Cook a big meal and freeze it for future meals, so quick and easy. I LOVE bulk, Rob doesn't understand it but I do. If I see a deal, like 1.19kg oats is 11,000won but 4kgs is 33,000won, it won't matter that I didn't want to get a big one, I will get that one. I realise this means I am spending more money but I see it as saving money in the long run. That said, avoid doing the same thing but with food that isn't on you shopping list, like buying something just because its on sale when you know you don't need/eat it. OR something that will spoil easily.

Five: Buy in season

Fruits and veg prices can add up but if you know when they are in season then you can get the lowest price. Or you could just grow your own fruits and veg?! Here is a South African in season fruits and veg list I made:

Six: Tin it

When you are buying fruit and veg you should take a look at the tinned options, they may be cheaper! However do check that there are no added sugars or syrups contained.

Seven: Sharing is caring

If you are living with other people then share the budget and plan healthy meals for the week together, this way you can buy all the bulk you want :D.

Foods to buy on a budget:

• Oats: super cheap and healthy.
• Beans and lentils: so many healthy recipes containing these ingredients.
• Brown rice/wholewheat pasta: you can make a lot of food with this to freeze for the week.
• Packaged Soups: try get low-sodium/calories soups.
• Fat-free noodles: I like to add these to soups or throw on top of a salad (dry or cooked)
• Crispbread and marmite/bovril: watch out for too much as it is high in sodium.
• Lean cheap meat cuts.

Weight watchers

Cant afford to be on the wight watchers program? No problem, here is the free version!

Link

So that's all for today friends :D

I will be burning some calories by skiing the weekend away! To my American friends: Happy Thanksgiving y'all <3

Day 49: Under pressure

"And food dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
This is our last dance
This is ourselves
Under pressure
Under pressure
Pressure"

Thanks Queen for those wonderful lyrics that so nicely complement my theme today, Freddy speaks to my soul, lol. (ok fine I changed 'love' to 'food' but still).

Too much pressure is today's topic of choice. Today was supposed to be weigh in Wednesday but due the immense pressure it is putting me under and the stress I am feeling as a result I decided to do away with it for this week until I feel happy about weighing myself, I want to look at the scale and see a number I want. This is not a cop out, I have been working hard this week, in fact I just got back from gym and am feeling super stiff from the last two days :D. I just don't like feeling pressured to weigh myself right now. It sits on my mind all of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, so I'm taking control and changing things up a bit this week.

I do think that weekly weigh ins are good but if you too feel this pressure then do away with it for the week. Also if you are beginning to get stuck in a rut, or have lost the excitement you started with? Then take a wee break, let your body relax, sooner than you know your body will miss being in that gym! If you do this then make a plan, don't just do it. Plan the duration and make sure that you schedule something for the end of the break to commit yourself to going back, so book and pay for a class, or a small run/walk, or schedule a 'gym date' with a friend.

That's all for now, remember, you are in charge so take charge, keep calm and listen to Freddy <3 xxx

Day 42: Weigh in Wednesday #6

Hello all!

Today I want to chat about the best summer salads for all those lucky buggers in the southern hemisphere that are going into the summer season now!

This website will give you some great salad ideas and recipes as well as some good dressing recipes.

30 summer salads

Dressing can be your downfall in an otherwise healthy salad. It is very important that you keep dressing to a minimum if at all. Or you make your own healthy dressing! here are some ideas:

Creamy avo dressing

Healthy salad dressing recipes

Not a fan of salads? I feel you! Here are some other ideas for summer lunch. They are from a website mean't for kids' healthy lunch ideas but works just fine for me.. and yummy :)

Healthy Lunches

Healthy lunches

Weigh in update:

Weight gained this week: 900grams :(
Total weight lost: 1 kg

I am pretty bleak about the gain, especially since is quite a lot in comparison to my loss. But I know exactly where I went wrong, like I said above I have been unmotivated on the gym side and too motivated on the eating side, especially since the care package from home. So now I have made sure that my treats from home are well rationed out and fit into the calorie count! I will lose it again! This weekend we are going skiing and 4 hours of skiing can burn around 1700 calories so I'm looking forward to that :D

If you have had a rough week like me, don't worry about it, we will get through it together. Don't spend time stressing over it, find out where you went wrong and get back on that horse! :P

xxxxxx

Day 41: Baby it's cold outside...

Ah I need help! I need some motivation, I am going through a phase where food is best and gym is a mission! Also its getting cold here so all I want to do is drink tea and hot chocolate and stay indoors at all times. But I know movement will keep me warm... ahhhhh! I just need to keep my goals in mind and realise they wont be reached without hard work!

But due to this weather I actually wanted to mention some healthy recipes that keep you warm in winter. I realise that all those in the Southern hemisphere are now going into summer so I will also do a summer eating post!

Soup is my favourite! If you dont have time to cook your own then check out woolies slimmers choice soups :) If you can cook for yourself then here are some recepies.

Everyday for lunch I have a cabbage and chicken soup. I make a big batch on Sundays and it usually lasts me 4 or 5 days. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

2 chopped chicken breasts
half a chopped onion
4 chopped garlic cloves
1  chopped chilli
1 chopped green pepper
1 sliced carrot
2 handfuls of bean sprouts
1 quarter cabbage head
basil spice
ground pepper
1 chicken stock cube
1.7 litre boiling water

Method:

Throw chicken, onion, garlic and chilli with some oil in big pot, cook till chicken starts browning. add all other ingredients and let simmer on low heat for about 40 minutes (covered). Leave to cool for a bit, then tupperware that ish and you're good to go! MMMM

Here are some other options click the caption below the pictures to go to the link:

Low Calorie Thai Chicken Noodle Soup

Top 10 healthy soup recipes

Soups and stews

Slow cooker meals

Yummy!

Hope everyone is keeping on track xxx

Day 35: Weigh in Wednesday #5

So after last weeks weigh in I seemed to think "oh great, now I'm a month in, I'm on track in terms of loss, I can slack a little more now". Luckily though, I didn't wonder too far from the beaten path.

Nevertheless I was still nervous for weigh in day today. The horrible anxiety feeling as you approach the scale is enough to make me work harder for next time.

So here are the results:

Weight lost this week: 200 grams
Total weight lost: 1.9kgs



Ps. received this amazing care package today from home (Thanks ma and pa!!)... moderation and self control has just hit level Expert! Eish

Day 34: Shake and BAKE baby

Hello all!

LIES

The motivation for this blog stems from this picture! Because it is one big lie! Yes being smaller is my dream but I love food, and the fact is that some things are just too good to give up! So here's  how to eat delicious treats and still get fit :D





One thing I absolutely love is baking. Just because you are trying to lose wight doesn't mean you can't have some delicious treats (in moderation). But treats always come with baggage (literally... on your thighs), so lets talk about healthy baking :D

You can even take some of your favourite recipes and replace some of the ingredients to make it a little more healthy :). Things you don't really want to be cooking with are flour, sugar, butter, cream or oil..... so what does that leave? haha well here are some substitutes:

Flour - almond flour/ oats/ oat flour/ black bean puree
Sugar - apple sauce/ stevia/ vanilla extract/ honey
Butter - mashed banana/ mashed avocardo
Heavy cream - light cream/ evaporated milk/ skim coconut milk
Chocolate chips - dark chocolate/ raisins/ cranberries/ nuts/ cacao nibs
Canola oil - greek yogurt
Bread crumbs - rolled oats
Milk - skim/fat free milk/ almond/soy milk
Eggs - mashed banana/ chia seeds

Here are some healthy yummy recipes (click the title below the picture to go to the link)

date balls

Banana bread

Healthy cookie recipes

37 calorie brownies

58 calorie muffins

Oreo lollies

Enjoy xxxx

Day 28: 1 month in!

Wowzers, can't believe I am one month in, 2 months left... that's amazing!

So I probably haven't posted lately because of the guilt over the weekend! Everyone has there moments but eish... I'm not sure.

So here's the story: I went to the Halloween party on Sat night where I said to myself I could drink and knew there would be sweets etc. Well drinking wasn't the problem! Had about one drink and was already well on my way due to the lack of alcohol and it was vodka and I'm relatively fit. So I only ended up having 2 drinks :O. But wow did I eat. No excuses but I made sure that I ate lightly the whole of Saturday and low calorie meals but still. So yes I stuffed my face and had a good time.

Since then I have been back on the usual routine gym and eating wise. Today is weigh in day and I will update this post later tonight after I weigh myself! I am so nervous though because of Saturday. Lets just hope I have still lost something. Today I'm having a bleh day, don't know if it's what i am wearing today that makes me feel like my thighs aren't going anywhere. Anyways here's to continuing the fight.




So what I wanted to talk about today is something else that can make you feel bleh... that is the bloat, yes it needs 'the' article before because we all know that bloated feeling. When i first arrived in Korea I was in constant pain with bloating problems. I have recently cut down on Korean food (no longer eating school lunch etc) and the bloating disappeared. I realised that it was probably as a result of all the salt Koreans use in their food. Another thing I recently found out is that many people have problems digesting pork (Korea's main meat). The reason for this is because pork is so similar to our own meat that your body literally thinks its eating human/yourself and therefore struggles to digest it :O. Gross but cutting down on pork truly helped get rid of the bloat!

Other ways to cut the bloat:
Lemon water
Celery
Watermelon (mmmmm)
Rosemary and Tumeric (I love adding Rosemary to foods)
Beans and Lentils (high fiber)
Yogurt

How to stop the bloat:
Limit alcohol
Limit sodium intake
Get more sleep
Sit less
Eat water retaining foods like wheat bran or all-bran

Here is a great workout video to reduce bloatedness :P

Click here

Weigh in Wednesday Update:

Weight lost this week: 200 grams (yay)
Total weight lost in one month: 1.7kgs

This puts me on track for the total weight loss goal, still would like to lose 3.1 more kgs so thats 1.55kgs per month... I can do that.... right?

Also a big shout out to my parents who are on day 3 of their Thailand workout. And to my boyfriend Rob... Happy Birthday xxxx

Day 23: Spice it up

Yellow :P

Its always a good idea to add something exciting to your workout or change it up a bit in order to keep motivated. Or find something you enjoy doing like running or cycling, then find a race or event in the next few months and start working towards that. Knowing that you have some kind of goal or deadline is very motivating. The consequences of not working out become more intense (like being unfit for a marathon).

It doesnt have to be something big at all either though it can be small things too like being able to do a plank for longer than 2 minutes, try the plank challenge.

Already a regular planker

Newbie

For me I would like to become more flexible and be able to do the splits again. So from today I am going to start this below. Not sure I will be able to do it in 2 weeks though (I'm very inflexible) but I'll give it a try and let you know how it goes :P

Join an aerobics or a spinning class for a change. Or kick it into high gear by joining crossfit or some kind of martial arts class! Sometimes you end up looking like a spazz in those coordinated step class but hey as long as you're moving, you're doing something!! If it really wasn't for you then don't do it. there are so many ways to go about losing weight, you don't have to do something you don't enjoy... so no excuses!!

Fun 60 min workouts:

1. Ultimate Frisbee (572 calories)
2. Hula Hooping (420–600 calories)
3. Salsa Dancing (393 calories)
4. Rowing (250–600 calories)
5. Hiking with a Backpack (500 calories)
6. Cross-Country Skiing (500–643 calories)
7. Sign up for an obstacle-course race

Happy Friday xx

Day 21: Weigh in day (3 weeks down)

So weigh in day has snuck up on us once again but if you have been sticking to it then you shouldn't be nervous, I was excited to see what I had managed to accomplish so here are the results:

Weight lost this week: 300 grams
Total weight loss: 1.5kgs

Today's topic: Habits

So they say that it takes 21 days to make and break a habit. I can already feel myself getting into certain habits when it comes to both eating and exercising. So if the picture alongside has any truth to is then motivation has gotten me to where I am and habit will keep me going? However I believe I will still be using a bit of both.




Here are some good habits to get into:

1. Going to gym around the same time, make a routine out of it. I make sure that I go straight for work to gym, shower, then come home. If I don't do this then things feel out of place and just 'wrong' really.
2. Drinking water, if you like cold water like me then keep one big bottle of water in the freezer and drink the other, then replace during the day. Keeping water on you at all times means you will drink it and keep hunger at bay.
   
3. Start adding less sugar and milk to your tea or coffee, then switch to honey and no milk and eventually no milk, no sugar/honey.
4. If you don't already, start eating breakfast, its the best meal to eat during the day and skipping breakfast can mean binging, or eating more than you should later on, calorie intake should be spread out.
5. Start cooking at home, rather than going out to eat, they usually cook with the wrong oils or too much. They also tend to add unnecessary sauces.
6. Stop eating in front of the TV, you just end up eating more
7. Chew slowly (I need to work on this).
8. Get more sleep in.
9. Stand more, if you sit often during the day get up and walk around every half hour to hour.
10. Track your calories and exercise with MyFitnessPal.
11. Envision the goal :)

Finally, I realise I mentioned a lot of habits to get into, but always tackle them one at a time, once you feel confident you have it down move on to the next :)

Good luck :P

Day 19: Quickies 101

Wow, it's been a while, I don't even have a good excuse for not posting but I hope that you are all still on track :)

Here is what I have been up to since my last post on day 14.

• Day 15: Thursday Eating was good but I hit a wall in terms of exercise, I was just not in the mood. It wasn't laziness because I can usually power through that. This was just a mood problem and there was no changing my mood, I did a leg session and a brief cardio session. But just remember:
  
• Day 16: Friday was a good day, I dominated an ab and cardio workout and eating was spot on.

• Day 17: Saturday Did a good arm and leg session in gym but Sat night was a mega challenge, I went to a Halloween party in Seoul with everyone eating and drinking big time. I was sooo tempted to drink but I couldn't. When I thought about why I wasn't drinking I knew it wasn't for money and not even for health, at the time my biggest motivation to not drink was that I said to myself (and all of you) that I was only drinking again on the 2nd Nov, so I stuck to it. As for eating I have a confession to make, I ate a wrap (not bad), but followed by a waffle. Later in the night someone offered slap chips and once the box was open I grabbed a few :(. My final confession is that at about 2:30am I was feeling peckish and everyone was getting a pizza piece so I got a piece too. I am glad I told you all because I was feeling guilty, I did dance the night away for about 2 hours straight though till after 5am! And of course no added alcohol calories. 
• Day 18: yesterday was a rest (sleep) day so no gym but stuck to eating well :)

So my main update is I have been (proudly) on point in terms of food! My only hiccup was on Saturday night/next morning. Exercise has also been on form.

Todays topic: Quick sessions

Sometimes I find myself with little or no time to do things, not often, but when I do I have quick sessions that I can do! A lot of people have busy lifestyles, especially when you have to sit in traffic all day, it ends up taking up a lot of your day.

Here is a quick 10 minute sweat session to do in a short amount of time:

Torch Fat Fast: The 10-Minute Plyometric Workout

Here are 2 videos that will make you burn more than 100 calories in 10 mins or less:

Video 1
Video 2

Oprah's website has some good workouts

Extra info

• You should try do HIIT workouts as this burns more calories in a short period of time.
• According to USA Today "10 minutes on the treadmill still were measurable 60 minutes after people cooled down." So it will speed up your metabolism for an hour afterwards.
• If you can then try get more than one 10 minute workout spread out in the day :)

Enjoy the High intensity 10 minutes and make them count.
Peace xxx