The Barrel, the Feasting, the Blue Footed Booby and the K.O.

Well hasn't the last month or so just been a barrel of laughs - with the emphasis on barrel, which in turn emphasises the "round" shape of my middle region.  I am getting somewhat ahead of myself, however, and should prolly start where I left off what seems like forever ago.

Divine went on holiday, remember?  Which was clearly where my trouble began.  He left on a Sunday but first met up with me at the gym and prepared a personalised, step by step 5 day workout schedule, taking me through all the machines and explaining stuff about weight and reps and whatnot.  Literally preparing a "gym for dummies" type of manual for me.  I tried to be enthusiastic when, during the first "solo" week, I trained regularly but was lonely as all hell.  There I stood, all forlorn and sad and alone next to the machines, desperately clutching my workout schedule in my sweaty digits.  It sucked big time.  I tried faking it - occasionally laughing loudly at jokes I recited in my head or yelling either encouragement or insults at myself (either in my mind, or out the side of my mouth Jeff Dunham style - no, this is not weird) but nothing helped.  It was so hard.  It took about two weeks of self-pity and misery before I got over the solo training bullshit and started getting used to my own company and that of my exceptional iPod playlist.

So anyway, the onset of my rapid and excrutiatingly painful downhill gallop could probably be explained by the little known fact that December and January are a time of festivities and eating and drinking and socialising.  Oh and did I mention eating? I nibbled and tasted and sipped and supped, as one does during this time. I trained. I really did.  I went to gym most days, and on the days that I didn't, I tried to skip at home or do something equally as strenuous like go to the the bar fridge myself to fill my wine glass instead of asking an offspring to do it.   But I ate.  Bread, chips, pudding, cauli cheese (cheese I tell you!!), peppermint crisp tart (truly, who could say no), pear crisp (hey, this comprised my fruit intake for the day) and more.

The result was twofold. Firstly my system shut down somewhat.  My digestive system said "oh no bitch, you didn't just eat that" and promptly refused to work at all, resulting in me bloating up like a beached whale and hitting some interesting nausea patches.

Secondly, my weight changed - what a frikking surprise! But see, my body was dead sneaky. I thought I was golden because every day that I trained, I weighed too - yeah I know, stupid much?  There I was, eating for my country, but for some reason didn't really have any sort of serious weight fluctuations (such a good word that).  I was so chilled, my mindset being more or less that as long as I trained regularly I could eat whatever the hell I wanted, in whatever quantities I wanted, and all would be awesome sauce.  Wrong.  Pear shaped (literally) is where things ended up. Stupid stupid stupid.  In reality what had happened is that my body had conspired with the universe and decided to teach me a lesson.  It pretended not to put on any weight for days and days and then, on the Friday after Christmas, I sauntered up to the scale and was faced with a weight gain of 1.5kg!  This (appropriately) can be put in a familiar form with the help of the Blue-Footed Booby:

This Blue Footed Booby weighs 1.5kg.

The onset of panic and night sweats was immediate and severe.  Complacency was not allowed to set in.  Divine had issued a stern warning about weight gain.  And aside from anything else I had spent a fortune on new clothes!  With renewed fervor, close to fanaticism, I chopped spinach leaves and tomatoes and ate salad and fruit and stuff - for 2 days. That's it. That's all I managed.  2 bloody days.  Eating healthily when you are on holiday is simply too bloody hard! And then it was New Year's Eve.  What was a girl to do?  Too many drinks, too many snacks, too much indulgence.

Next thing I knew, it was 2013. I promptly made (and broke) two NY resolutions, one of which was to get back to healthy eating.  (Still hopeful about implementing this one though!)

Oh and another thing happened over the holidays which caused some consternation.  At home one morning, dressed for gym, I bent down to pick something up off the floor.  My daughter - who was standing behind me - let out horrified yell and turned an odd shade of lime.  Turns out that when I bend down (which I do regularly at gym) all but 1 pair of my gym pants turns completely see-through and the entire expanse of my bum is visible.  So .... I am now the proud owner of sexy spandex shorts (pfffft) which I wear under my gym stuff.  I can happily bend and manouevre to my heart's content without displaying ye olde starfish to the entire gym!  Good times!

Eventually (and after what felt like frikking forever) Divine came back to work - thank all the angels and other fairytale folk.  Luckily by then I had managed to exercise the extra weight off - even though I was still eating like a stupid head.  I have to admit - even though I pushed myself hard when training solo, Divine expects waaaaay more from me than I expect from myself!  I am now, once again, the proud owner of bruised shins from kicking, aching arse and leg muscles, creaky knees and arms which are too tired to move!

I have to boast a little though, so please bear with me! During our most recent boxing session, I managed to hit Divine hard enough to wind him - twice.  Yip!  I shit you not!  I was so thrilled by the fact that he was forced to call timeout and take a minute to recover that I even did a "Rocky" move - punching my arms in the air, with a loud yell of victory - yeah I know, not very sportsman like but hey, I take my victories where I find them. And the K.O. shot had NOTHING to do with the fact that Divine is currently battling a bout of 'flu and isn't at optimum strength.  It was all me!

I have made a decision.  A new goal in fact. Slowly (yes), but surely (yes damnit), I would like to lose a final 3kg to 5kg or so and then change over to a maintenance programme.  The first and most pressing goal, however, is that I am currently only about half a kilo away from clocking down to the weight decade below.  i.e. Imagine, if you will, that I currently weigh 40.5kg (haha, as if), I am really super keen to clock down to 39kg. It sounds so much better to say that you weigh in the 30's as opposed to in the 40's.  You know what I mean? It's the small things .....

And that, my sweet carrot sticks, is my first post for 2013.  It is however the second time I have written this specific blog post - the first having been eaten by some Google glitch.  All up.  I was a little grumpy, I won't lie.  With a little luck I will have some fun stuff to share with you soon.   Till then .....

T
x