Becoming a Real Dragon - with the wings and everything!

[RiaDragon]

Okay, so I thought I should finally start one of these battlelog threads and keep proper track of what I'm doing. I need to do it now, even though it's my birthday this weekend and I know I'm not going to be eating properly for 2 days (or at least not for every meal for 2 days).

 

So, I'll give you guys a little bit of an idea of where I'm starting from, because that's always good, and it will be great to be able to look back on here and see where I started. There will be photos, later tonight after I've taken them. For now, there is weight and measurements to be listed. With luck these measurements will be updated once a week, as well as the photos. Food and exercise shall be listed daily.

 

As of right now, I weigh 84kg. For those of you who don't read in kgs, thats 185lbs or 13.2 stone. I'm somewhere between an australian size 16 and 18 (18 is the last size before plus size clothing starts). Also, just in case you're interested I'm 167cm tall (or 5ft 5 1/2in). 

 

So, other measurements:

 

Stomach (around belly button height): 101cm

Rear (roughly middle): 116cm

Left thigh (at the top): 75cm

Right thigh (also at the top): 73cm

Ribs (because I felt like it): 86.5cm

 

All my friends don't think I look fat, which is good in some ways, but makes it much harder to be motivated to get off my arse and make changes. My BMI is now 30.3, which is officially obese. Yay (sarcasm).

 

 

The aim here is to go full paleo! At least as much as I can (trying to become a chef apprentice, so I might sometimes be required to eat grains and potatoes), but also allowing myself treats sometimes. Sometimes being not once a week. Sometimes being maybe once a month. (No, bad RiaDragon. Don't drink the soft drink!) I'm counting calories as well, so that I can keep track of how much I eat. I will also be tracking my exercise. 

 

On a positive note, I got a gym membership yesterday to a gym that is 5 minutes drive away! (Don't walk there... it would take at least half an hour...) It's a 24 hour gym with free weights, and I'm paying monthly, which is nice for my budget... kinda... I'm planning on alternating between cardio and weights, once someone teaches me how to use them. 

 

I want to be like this:

 

But at the moment I am like this:

[RiaDragon]

Also, this is awesome for anyone who needs a smile to make it through their day: 

[Emma123]

I knew coming into this challenge that things would be slow. I didn't know what I wanted to accomplish with it this time around, so I've just been trying to find some sort of goal I could strive towards by the time the next challenge rolled around. I guess the goal of this challenge was finding a goal.....

[shaar]

Bahaha, that diet diary day 2 picture... yup, that's me on the weekends!!  ^^;

 

And I'm right there with you on the birthday thing - I'm traveling this weekend to hang out with my boyfriend's family and celebrate my birthday a little early, and I KNOW I'm going to be eating some awesome food that isn't quite the best for me... I'm allowing myself one "last hurrah" weekend, and then it's serious business time!  I hope you enjoy your 2 days of food too

[RiaDragon]

Thanks shaaraway!

 

Okay, time to update on yesterdays happenings. I'm pretty pleased with most of it. The only let down is, just after I started this thread, I went and got junk food for dinner. Welp. That clearly wasn't the best start. I don't seem to have much willpower when I've been hungry all day. I'll work on that...

 

Food summary:

Breakfast: non-existant because I woke up too late. This is another thing that needs to be fixed. (I can get up okay when I have to be somewhere by a certain time, but otherwise I don't seem as capable)

Lunch: 3 pieces of shortcut bacon and 3 eggs scrambled with a bit of milk! WOOT! This is the tastiest meal on the planet, I swear (besides apple crumble)

Dinner: 1/4 chicken and chips takeout. Yeah. Not sure what to say about this, other than I didn't eat all the chicken, or all the chips, so that kinda wastes some of the $11 I spent on that.

 

Exercise summary:

I WENT TO THE GYM! This was amazing. I only got my gym membership on Wednesday and I'd never been to the gym before. Granted, it did take me wandering around outside the gym at 11pm, deciding there were too many people then coming back at 1am when no one was there for me to have the courage to go in. I then proceeded to spend 35 minutes on a treadmill and 25 on an elliptical thingy. This is mainly because I injured my leg a couple of weeks back and I wanted to test what was possible. So far so good, only a little achy afterwards, so that's another WIN!

 

Okay, proper exercise summary now:

35 minutes on treadmill

Did most of that at 5kph on a 1.5% incline, just to see how it went

Walked 1.7km doing that

 

26 minutes on elliptical

Chose a setting which got you to keep your heartrate at a certain level (I chose 140, because that seemed like a middle number when I was on the treadmill)

2.3km distance covered!

 

According to those machines, total calories burned was 316, which isn't bad for a first try!

 

I also wandered around and checked out all the equipment, and tried lifting some of the dumbbells to see what I was capable of, and I can actually lift a 10kg dumbbell! Sweet!

 

So that's all for yesterday. I will try and update tonight before I collapse into bed this time, and my workout today (again probably going to be at 1am) will hopefully be more of the Beginner's Body Weight Workout!

 

Also, have a picture of a cat exercising:

[shaar]

I love Pusheen!! <3

I have a hard time ignoring the eventual cravings for bad food when I'm in a good phase of eating well, too. Especially on the weekends. Just one more slice of giant pizza.... aaack. Baby steps, one day at a time!!

[RiaDragon]

Okay, I know that was a bit of a fail there, posting only twice before disappearing for over a week, but I'm back now and I'm going to do my best to keep updating on here.

 

Unfortunately, the last week of the course that I'm doing (this week) involves cooking a lot of pasta, potato and other grain dishes. My choice is to either spend money on lunch (I don't have much money at the moment) or eat the food I make for free. I'm going with the second option. It's just one more week and then I will be free of the lure of carbs for a while. I will still eat Paleo breakfast and dinner, just not lunch.

 

Also, me and my fiance have our engagement party this weekend (despite being engaged for nearly a year!) so there will be more non-Paleo foods there.

 

Next Monday is definitely the start of the new diet. For now, I'm going to try to get to the gym at 5:20am. Seeing as I struggle to get up at 6am, this is going to be a challenge, but I'm heading off to sleep shortly so that I can get up early. GO ME!

 

[shaar]

YAY there you are! :D

 

Sometimes it feels like eating "clean" is out of your hands!  (Especially with gatherings and parties...)  I guess we can just do our best and make the smartest choices we can?  (Better eating potatoes than pizza, I guess?)  I love pasta - my lunch for work this week is actually pasta that's mostly made out of ... vegetables .... hmm, so we'll see how that goes!

[MegaShe-Ra]

It's ok to fail or mess up sometimes.

Everyone has days where they lapse.

The most important thing is just to get right back up and keep trying.

[RiaDragon]

So I did miss out on the gym in the end, but at our course today we cooked a load of eggs before we made the pasta, so I ate those and only had a couple of mouthfuls of the pasta. WOO!

[RiaDragon]

Okay, so I'm planning on getting on track next week (starting Monday since my engagement party is on Sunday and there is bound to be cake and sugary drinks). I'll be back at the gym, trying to eat healthier, and I'll be doing work experience at a small restaurant, so I will work on packing my own food to eat.

[RiaDragon]

Okay, nope, change of plan. I've been stressing myself out by trying to change heaps of things at once. I'm going to start with one thing, and that one thing is exercise (because I'm already paying for the gym). I've missed two full weeks of going to the gym, but no more! I am definitely going tonight, and I'll be working on my squats. Tomorrow morning I will do some cardio, and then I will try to keep alternating between strength and cardio. 

 

I will report back on the number of squats that I do!

 

Food will be on the change menu once I've had a chance to get into a habit with the gym. That doesn't mean I will eat appallingly all the time, it just means I won't stress about it for now.

 

[shaar]

Yay, little bits for sure! Too much would have anyone throwing their arms around going BLLAARGRHEJWJRHENQ for sure!

I think I'm an anomaly because I love squats! I just did some this morning.. one of my big areas I want more muscle is my thighs though, so I guess it makes sense.

Get to that gym and kick its butt, and then tell us how AWESOME you did!!

[RiaDragon]

I fell over. I can't do full bodyweight squats yet, so I was using some bar on a machine to hold on to, and I leaned back too far and fell over. I did manage the 20 bodyweight squats holding onto things though! and I attempted some with weights, but I can't quite get all the way down while holding dumbbells either. 

 

I want to do the squats to try and strengthen the muscles in my hips, because they are pathetically weak, and I also want to be able to lift weights but my arms are like limp noodles at the moment. I did some dumbbell rows too.

 

That was actually a couple of days ago. I had my engagement party yesterday (nearly a year into the engagement!) and I'm hoping to make it back to the gym tonight.

 

[RiaDragon]

Okay, I'm back. 

 

Update on the food: cutting out the grains for the moment, not stressing so much about the sugar.

 

This week:

 

Monday was a success. I didn't eat grains.

 

Tuesday (today) was a day off, and I'm going to have another one near the end of the week because I will be celebrating something.

 

Planning on heading to the gym tonight.

 

Also, toffee and honeycomb yoghurt is amazing...

[RiaDragon]

Back again! Let's make this progress update a regular thing now!

 

Okay, we need a consumption log.

 

WHAT I ATE: WEDNESDAY (PALEO SUCCESS)

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs (no bacon because I ran out)

Lunch: We were out, so I bought a chicken caesar salad from Oporto. The chicken has no gluten in it, so I'm fairly sure it's paleo. There was bacon in it, and parmesan, salad bits, mayo and balsamic dressings. I had a boost juice with this. (All Berry Bang)

Dinner: We fried up some chicken strips with a lemon stir fry sauce. It was definitely a paleo sauce (although we cooked it a bit too much and it caramelised). We had veggies with it. I drank some soda stream, and I had half a can of Mother (frosty berry) BECAUSE

 

I'm going to the gym tonight! I'll be heading over there in about an hour to get my workout on.

 

Oh, also, I snacked on a can of mango chilli tuna!

 

On the downside, I'm up to 85kgs. Will be taking measurements again on Friday and uploading some photos.

[RiaDragon]

Okay, I think I will cover what I have been doing at the gym when I go.

 

WARM UP

 

This is kinda based on the warm up that was posted on the NerdFitness blog. I adapted it a little, and I take a few breaks in it because it's actually harder for me to do than the workout itself. I'm only doing strength exercises with dumbbells for the workout, but I know it's recommended to still warm up and cool down, so I do that.

 

50 jumping jacks

20 body weight squats - I can get down pretty much to parallel, but I stood next to a mirror and had something to hold on to to make sure I got all the way down. If I go too far I do find it hard to keep my heels on the floor, so I need to practice that a bit more

5 lunges (each leg)

 

Took a break here because I was out of breath and needed a drink

 

10 hip extensions

5 hip rotations (each leg)

10 forward leg swings (each leg)

10 side leg swings (each leg)

 

Took another break here

 

10 push ups (on my knees - I can only lower myself a little bit, but I figure if I keep doing it in a controlled way I can eventually lower myself all the way down)

10 spiderman steps - these I had to do in three sets (3/4/3) with a break after the second set, because my arms can't hold me up while I do all of them.

 

If you're interested in what the warm up exercises look like, there is a video http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2012/01/09/warm-up/

 

MAIN WORK OUT

 

I based this off the stronglifts 5x5 workout, because I'd really like to be able to do that once I get strong enough.

 

Squats (4kg dumbbell in each hand) 5x5

Bench press (4kg dumbbell in each hand) 5x5

Dumbbell row (5kg dumbbell, alternating hands) 5x5

 

I'm planning on gradually increasing the weight, while making sure I can still do these things properly. Hopefully it will work well.
 

COOLDOWN

 

I won't write out the specifics of the cooldown because I don't believe the exercises have names. I basically just did exactly what was done in the beginner cooldown routine thingy here: http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2012/01/16/how-to-stretch/

 

And that is it! 

 

Last night I actually did 15 minutes on the treadmill before that, because I could hear an alarm going off in the building and I didn't want to be caught attempting to squat if someone came to turn it off. Thankfully the squats worked out better than I thought they would. No one came to turn off the alarm though....