The Bitch, The Burpies and the Bunny Rabbit

Two incredible things happened on Tuesday. Let me start by mentioning that my family have been really amazing through this - dealing with bitchiness and boring meals, listening to me harp on endlessly about every single gram I lose, every aching muscle, every millimetre of loosening in the clothes - and they do this with only the occasional quiet sigh!  There I was, on Tuesday evening, busily chopping fruit and veggies and stuff, when Damon randomly turned to me and said, "I am really proud of you. With this detox.  Really proud".  Gosh!  I cannot even begin to tell you what this meant to me!  And later (cos clearly this wasn't enough validation) I was discussing Chloe's Afrikaans exam with her which she had written that day - and she mentioned, in passing and just by the way, that the topic had been someone who inspires her, and had written about me!  WHAT? Insane!  Trying to lower my huge head onto my pillow that night caused some serious neck ache! :)

The rest of the week was pretty much the same of the same - rice cakes, fish, fruit, Divine, sweat and pain.  With a few notable exceptions.  On Wednesday, when I got home from work, I took off my belt and could literally pull my jeans off without unzipping them!  Progress!  And on Thursday morning Divine decided I was strong enough for burpies.  Let me tell you - no one is EVER ready for burpies.  Holy shit! 20 of the fuckers in a row. And let me just say here - if you are questioning the use of profanity, you have never done a burpie. End. Of. Story.

With the official end of detox mere days away, and weigh in and measuring looming, I was very strict and didn't even think about cheating!  Luckily exams are finished and schools closed on Friday so stress levels were greatly reduced.  The weekend passed quietly comprising of an awesome win for Damon's soccer team, watching an entire season of Spartacus, sleeping, staying warm and eating popcorn.

And Monday arrived.  Day 22.  Or Day 1 if you wish. End of detox.  Time to face reality.  Divine was there - waiting!  He actually seemed more nervous than me!  Of course my achievements - or possible lack thereof - would also be in part be a reflection on his ability to kick my arse. #challengeaccepted

Here are the figures:
Weight loss: - 6.2kg (not the 7kg I was hoping for, but not far off)
Chest: -5.7cm (this was made up mostly of back wobble I reckon, since I don't have much "chest" to speak of!!)
Upper arm: -1.2cm
Waist: -4.7cm (yeah baby)
Thigh: a whopping loss of 5.6cm (on one thigh, please note - not collectively on both!!!)
Calf: -0.3cm (I have pretty good calves so this figure did not phase me in the least).

2 x 2.3kg puppies = 4.6kg!

PLUS

This bunny weighs 1.6kg!

So I have lost two puppies and a bunny rabbit!  Not too shabby for 3 weeks right? And then I naively believed that Divine would take it easy on me this morning - kind of as a reward for my hard work.  Pffft - not a chance!  Toughest workout yet.  Because now comes the really hard work. Makes me nervous, I won't lie.  Things have gone really, really well and I have survived detox without once cheating - something i never thought possible, especially on days 5 to 8!  The weight loss has been phenomenal, I feel great, I am getting noticeably fitter and stronger.  But I am now faced with the reality that things are going to slow down dramatically.  I can start eating again like a regular person - some carbs, red meat, chicken and - wooohoooo - booze! But I am going to have to give 200% more than what I have been giving so far. Both in terms of exercise and eating wisely.  And size does matter - of the portions at any rate!  I am almost inclined to continue on the detox diet until reaching my goal weight - what is preventing this, however, is the fact that I am absolutely completely and utterly over steamed fish, and don't even mention the buggering rice cakes! And mommy needs a glass of wine!

In the words of the inimitable Florence and the Machine: The Dog Days are Over!
T

Pacman, two puppies and a tablet

Ok so I am (more or less) over the drama and self-pity which flounced around last Monday.  Gosh it was not a good day at all!  I got many hugs and no potatoes – so all in all a victory I reckon!  ‘Nuff said about last Monday.

Tuesday arrived and I decided to stop beating myself up. I went back to gym determined to prove I wasn’t a bloody sissy and ended up having an amazing session with Divine.  Yeah, it included the dreading skipping, but less of it.  Loads of abs, some running, squats, lunges – you know, the good stuff!  Feeling  mighty pleased with myself I decided to push my luck and hop on the scale.  Reasonably good news followed – but I will expand on that after the official Friday weigh in.

So in a much better frame of mind, and somewhat re-motivated, I headed out into the world to deal with the day.  And a good day it was.  Had no problems getting through the dreaded rice cakes, found that I am actually starting to enjoy the detox tea (true story) and made a divine (haha) salad for supper.   I even managed to help my daughter study for History and Afrikaans without even once reducing her to tears!  Boom! 

The one thing both Steve and I are both battling with, however, is the cold.  It is damn icy at the moment and – what a shock - eating cold, raw food is not conducive to countering the chill. Neither is not being able to have a cup of hot chocolate or a glass of wine to warm the inside bits.  I’ve been told that the lack of carbs means my body has no fuel to burn and is feeling the cold more – dude, not true, my body has much fuel:  two butt cheeks and a tummy to start! Burn baby, burn!  Our long-suffering Financial Manager (who also, bless her soul, shares an office with me) suggested that I should imagine, when feeling hunger pains or discomfort from the detox, that the pacman dude is munching on my fat stores! Epic!

Damon brought the dreaded ‘flu virus into the house last week and managed to infect Chloé pretty damn rapidly.  Needless to say, on Tuesday my throat started complaining and my nose leaking (dead sexy stuff this)!  

Wednesday was a gym off day and I did my best to beat the germs into submission.  Training unfortunately couldn’t happen on Thursday or Friday (sob ……).  This also means that weigh in will take place on Monday (gulp).  Quite sad actually because I had built up a really good momentum with training and detoxing and wanted to keep on.

Saturday was interesting because Chloé had a karate tournament and there I arrived, armed with a cooler bag filled with rice cakes, fruit salad, a hot water flask and cupasoup!!  Even though I was surrounded by people munching on curry and toasted sandwiches, I maintained like a frikking pro!

Sunday however was really rough.  Father’s Day.  We had a braai – which of necessary involved the delicious aromas of red meat and garlic bread sizzling over the coals.  So, so hard!  It didn’t help that I had some smoked angel fish to put in the salad for Steve and I but when I opened it, the smell almost knocked me out!  Vrot angel fish!  Great for the mood, let me tell you!  I ended up having a cupasoup and munching on some beetroot.  Poor Steve maintained like a hero!  His headaches seem to be getting worse though, and his muscles are starting to cramp up.  When we sat down to salad, oh I mean supper …. pffft, we felt it was advisable that he start using salt again.  Luckily I am ok as far as that is concerned.  My ‘flu is still hanging around and Divine was reluctant to have a session on Monday morning.  I could feel I was losing the momentum though and bullied him (haha) into a session.  And it was awesome!!!  I was buggered at the end but we didn’t do any real cardio – legs, arms and abs.  It was great.  And then, because I was feeling so bloody self-righteous, I hauled my exhausted sweaty self onto the scale and ended up feeling even more impressed with myself, if that was possible!  I am now down a total of 5.4kg!! 

2 x doggies = 4.6kg

Weighs 800gm

So in picture terms, I have lost two Yorkies and a Tablet!  Whoop!

Today is day 15 – the first day of the last week of detox.  My next weigh in and proper measurement taking thingy is next Monday, when detox is over.  I am going to try make a point of avoiding the scales until then …. I am hoping that I can bring my total detox weight loss to 7kg.  And I am going to work flipping hard to get there.  I also know that the hardest part of this entire exercise is going to be dropping the remaining post-detox weight to achieve my goal weight – because, from next Monday, detox is over.  So in other words, detox was, in reality, the easy part!  However, in the words of Toya Delazy, “Why live to die when you can live to soar".

T

The lost dog, and the lost spirit

Thursday was a gym off day, and the detox went as, well, the detox goes. Friday morning brought a hectic cardio session and my first proper weigh in.  Great news on the scale: I have lost 2.3kg!  Let me put this weight into pictures!

This doggie weighs 2.3kg!! So I lost a dog!

On Saturday things started to go a little pear-shaped.  Picture this:  a football match, Damon on the field, Chloé taking shelter under an umbrella and trying to study, parents around me drinking coffee,  eating burgers and chips and stuff, and there I am – with my water bottle and rice cakes.  A miserable figure.  And it just went downhill from there. 

Later that day I had to drop Chloé off at a party at Grand West – an ice skating party – which meant we had to walk through the food court to get there.  Now it’s important that you understand that the problem was NOT hunger.  I wasn’t hungry.  I was however literally going through withdrawals.  Physical withdrawals.  It felt very similar to when I quit smoking.  If I could have figured out, at that stage, what the hell my body wanted I would have had it – in bucket loads! I had no choice but to resort to doing the heavy Lamaze breathing thing to try keep calm (while only appearing slightly insane).  On my way back to the car (or so I thought) I had to walk through groups of kids milling around, making a noise, chewing food, smiling and laughing – the little shits!  And this almost tipped me over the edge.  I wanted to swipe them violently out of my way!  Grumpy and depressed I made my way back into the casino, loaded up a card with my petrol money (!!!) and proceeded to play a bit of poker.  High roller that I am, when I reached the point where I was R6 up I cashed out and went home.  Steve had, by this stage, left as he had a wedding to dj.  Cupasoup, followed by steamed fish and veggies did not help matters.  Seriously.  I did not realise that this would be as hard as it is. 

Sunday just aggravated the situation.  I decided to soft boil some eggs for us today – as a change from peanut butter – but made the bloody arse things too soft and the white was snotty!  By the time I had progressed through fruit salad for lunch (with wickedly sour grapefruit) and the cupasoup for snack I was destroyed! Oh, and by the way, it is also exam time.  Usually I survive exam-prep with the assistance of a case or two of wine.  Not this time!  The fact that I ended up having a fight with my daughter (and reducing the little karate champion to tears) over fossils, just highlights the state I am in.  In the greater scheme of things, who gives a single shit about fossils?  By the end of the evening I had managed to end up on the shit list of pretty much my entire family!  I was feeling depressed, hyper sensitive, hard done by, weepy and exhausted.  And it was getting worse.

This morning, Monday, I started off with great intentions.  Off I headed to gym – even going early so that I could warm up properly before Divine arrived.  I do not understand how it fell apart. When he got there we started brilliantly - a wicked workout session including me managing to do 126 skips without stopping, along with all sorts of other heavy duty crap – and then, 25 minutes into my session I broke. My lungs were on fire, my head was pounding, the world was spinning and I was scanning the gym for a bucket to throw up in!  No exaggeration!  It was the most demoralised I have felt – so far – on this journey.  It didn’t matter that Divine said that he had pushed me really hard, that I had done well and shouldn’t beat myself up.  It didn’t matter that he said that the withdrawals I had been experiencing were as a result of no carbs and that the lack of carbs was also the reason I was so tired, weak and depressed.   I felt like an absolute sissy - reduced to a shaky bundle of sweat on the gym floor, wanting to huddle in a corner and sob. 

So here I am, (mostly) recovered from the session this morning, but still left with the stink of defeat in my nostrils.  At the beginning of this journey a very wise friend told me to “be kind to myself”.  Would the kind thing be to give in and have some carbs?  Maybe, but is it the right thing?  In the long run, would I be being kind to myself by quitting?  But am I being kind to myself by pushing beyond the misery and withdrawals?  Maybe the kind thing is a combination of everything.  Listening to my body because it knows what it can or can’t do, what it needs and what it doesn’t.  But also be kind to the Tracy I want to be – the healthy, happy, fit and 15kg lighter one!  Melodramatic much? 

I am in desperate need of one of two things right now.  A potato.  Or a hug.  Who knows what tomorrow will hold.

T

The Hitman, The Egg and The Brocolli

So, after a weekend filled with debauchery, alcohol, red meat, alcohol, red meat, alcohol and chocolate, it was finally time to kick detox into gear.  I was strong like a lion and really believed that it would be a simple matter.  Oh and did I mention that Steve, in support of this madcap adventure of mine, is going to sympathy detox with me? So impressed!  J

Immensely enthused and amused by a message from my mom saying good luck and “June the fourth be with you” (comedienne of note, my mom!) off to gym I went. Divine took it somewhat easy on me this morning , putting me through the circuit - I think I scared him somewhat last week by almost dying (ok so that’s a little melodramatic, but still). 

The rest of the day was fine except that when it came time for the rice cake and boiled egg I fell apart somewhat.  Can anybody say GAG FEST?  It took me like 45 minutes to eat two rice cakes – I kid you not.  This cannot continue every day! BLEGH!  The detox tea is also gross but if I drink it really quickly then it’s not too bad!  Chloé and I made an awesome tuna salad for supper and, in self-defence, I hauled myself off to bed at 9PM!!  Not sure how I am going to survive another 20 of these!

An interesting thing happened on Monday when I phoned my dad to tell him that Father’s Day would not, this year, include the normal feast of roast and all the trimmings!  Yeah I know, selfish much?  Anyway, my dad’s comment, at the end of my long explanation, was that it was fine because he doesn’t live to eat, he eats to live.  Love that! 

Day 2 started off all guns blazing!  Divine seriously put me through my paces!  (Divine, my beauties, is also known in MMA circles as Divine “The Hitman” Volontiya – clearly I’ve lost my frikking mind)!  Today involved skipping (Sounds like fun right?  Wrong!), loads of kicking and other exhausting shit.  I have to say though that the stretching at the end, when he bends me into all sorts of angles, is really awesome.  Not elegant.  But awesome.

After complaining bitterly and ad nauseum (haha) about the eggs, Divine said I could switch to peanut butter. I am beyond thrilled!  Who thought I would be ecstatic at the thought of peanut butter?  All was going great guns – oats, peanut butter rice cakes, water, detox tea – and I demolished my fruit salad practically in a single bound (all Hulk like).  However, that was when Steve messaged me to say he could only eat half his fruit salad – HE WAS TOO FULL!  I admit, I got a little grumpy for a minute or six but, under the pressure of a lot of bitching from my side, he finished it and all was forgiven!

It was around then that my body started fighting back.  I found that if I stayed absolutely motionless, I was fine.  The problem arose when I moved. Or breathed.  Unfortunately, due to the fact that I am currently drinking water for the Republic, unless a bedpan is brought into my office I have no choice but to move. Sink or swim they say.  Pffft!   So I did the hobbleshufflelimp (technical term) to and from the loo and the kitchen – each time wondering why the hell I am doing this. 

Something other pearls of wisdom Divine passed on to me: he said that women have incredible resolve, and in his experience when we set a goal, we do whatever it takes to reach it.  Awesome.  If I fail, I am failing the female species.  No pressure!

Our first supper of steamed fish and raw veggies did not go as well as I imagined!  The fish was fine.  Some thyme, a little black pepper and a splodge of lemon  - it was actually quite tasty.  However I cannot understand what inspired some moron who perchance happened to stand in a field of broccoli (do they grow in fields or in Satan’s lair?) to think gosh golly, these green tree things look yummy.   So I hereby present proof that there was broccoli in my house.  Last time.  Ever. 

Wednesday morning saw the introduction of my worst nightmare.  An ab workout.  Now just so that you know, all through my gym sessions over the last year and a bit I have worked everything EXCEPT my abs!  I always seem to conveniently “run out of time” – thus resulting in the bakers dozen sitting around my middle.  This horrified the Hitman whom, I believe, has made it his personal crusade to ensure that I end up with seriaaas abs when he is done with me.  I gasped and grunted my way through the session, ending with a 10 minute sprint up Kilimanjaro (ok it was a jog at level 8, on an incline of 2 but still).   Divine also warned me that I should expect, at any moment, a breakout of note.  So probably by the end of the week I will be rocking the full complement of hobbleshufflelimp, a pimple covered face and my tummy yelling out at intervals “what the fuck dude???”. 

So 4 training sessions, and 3 detox days and my resolve is still strong – even if the body is taking strain.  I have also resorted to doing the stick / carrot thing – at the end of the 3 week detox we are going to Bloemendal for supper.  Bloemendal serves cooked vegetables.  Just saying!

x