Little things really make a difference....

So the day went okay.  I ate well.  I didn't do any exercise today as I still had a lot of things weighing me down, on my mind.  But I suppose the triumph for the day was that I went to New World to buy some milk and resisted buying anything else :).  Normally I'd walk out with a couple of croissants, Up & Go...and well a little bit more than what I went in for.

Throughout the day, I had little battles with my girls (as the eldest ended up staying home because she manipulated what her dad had told her..."Dad can I watch T.V. (when she got up at 7am)?".."Yes Nia"....then I wake up at 8.30am "Nia why aren't you ready for school?" "Because Dad said I could stay home!"....family meeting is warranted here.

I had moved the laptop and my school books to my room to hopefully motivate me to actually doing it.
Instead I got distracted watching youtube clips, having a nosy at other people's facebook pages.  It's awesome that when I look through their photos they are always smiling.  Seem to always enjoy their time with their families.  When I realised what I was thinking, I looked back at my own family albums.  I'm not in many photos. :(  This is something that I really want to overcome in the near future.  To not think about how awful I will look like in pictures and just enjoy the moment with my family and my girls.  There was an ad some years ago.  I think the product was Johnson & Johnson baby products or some stretch mark cream ad and the mothers in the ad talked about not caring about their stretch marks because it was part of the process of bringing in their beautiful children into this world.  I need to take on that mentally if I am to feel better about myself, that what matters most is what my girls and husband perceive of me.

So today I had a healthy breakfast, and leftovers from dinner which was lemon and honey stirfry with mung beans, capsicum (red, yellow), green snowpeas and hokkien noodles.  It was yummy and filling.  I had a berry smoothie (home made - thanks to my new Magic Bullet!) for a snack and some fruit :).  So I am feeling good.

I think on my journey I'm going to start to have alternate days of exercising and doing things that make me feel good about myself.  I am very much an internal person so to feed my spirit I really need to spend some time on my own to do so as well as finding that time with my girls.  I think you can feed your spirit with others around you.  But alone time is just as important.

I came across an article in the Tots & Toddlers NZ magazine (I think it's called).  They're free at the supermarket.  I always grab one because they have really great ideas of what to do with your kids, as well as articles on education and development.  So the article I read was about Mummy's not feeling that they have to dress down just because they're no longer ..you know...working in the office etc.  You can still feel great about yourself and dress up a little just to take your kids to school.  Compliments from friends passing by is a real uplifter.  One of my cousins in Aussie commented on the way I dress saying that she liked my sense of style.  Now what came out of my mouth was...."oh thanks, because of my body shape now I try to dress in a way that hides the bits and pieces"...what I should've said was..."Thanks...that's really nice"....
So the article gave tips on dressing in a way that makes you feel good about yourself.  Appropriately of course. :)

I am making conscious decisions about what to cook for dinner also.  I am appreciating a home cooked meal again.  I like to be a little creative in the kitchen...hence my lemon and honey chicken which I've never made before.  And knowing that I made the scrumptious meals that would've normally seen our family spend $40 smackers at McDonald's...makes me appreciate my meals even more.  So it's also helping me to save a little dosh in the old piggys :)

So towards the afternoon when I was supposed to be working on my assignment, I got as far a downloading my assignment sheet, I felt like a mini-makeover.  Something to get me out of this rut...so I searched on youtube on how to cut my own bangs.  For those that know me personally, know that I would always google/youtube for 'How-to' videos :P....so I came across a video on cutting my bangs using the "twist and cut technique"...and there you go... :)

It was amazing that just a simple 10 minute cut actually made me feel pretty good.  I'm even noticing that my skin is a little better from the water that I'm drinking and actually taking care of myself.  I still have yet a long way to go, but I'm taking baby steps up a very steep hill..... :)xxx

Words, Words, Words....

So Day 1 started off well with a good healthy breakfast.  Drank a lot of water.  As soon as I made yesterday's post, I shut down my lappy, and went about my daily chores.  I grabbed my school books and put it on my dining table to remind me that I need to get onto my assignment.  Great deal that did because now it's put more pressure on me that my deadline to have my assignment in is on Monday, and I'm heading to Auckland this Friday night to catch my brother's RWC game!!!  I had two little ones with me this morning.  We had morning tea, then spent the morning in the garage.  I cleaned the interior of my car! As I was cleaning I reflected on my life (as I do so often now!), and with getting into the cracks of every corner of my car getting rid of all that grime, I realised that's what I need to do with my inner being.  I need to real clean out every bit of bad feelings/habits I have for my "temple" to really be clean.  Today I will get onto cleaning the exterior.

I managed to squeeze a little bit of exercise, well with the car-cleaning, but also with a Biggest Loser Kinect exercise routine.  That is, until my youngest came into the lounge after already having spent 45 mins mucking around instead of having a shower and my eldest calling out to me every 5 mins for something "Mum can I wear this for P.E.?", "Mum can I go to the car to get my bag"...argh!  Unfortunately Dan had just returned from an overnight work trip and is feeling really sick so he went straight to bed.

I am now even more determined to not sit still unless I'm working on something with my girls, family or school work.  With all this "excess baggage" I'm carrying, I hate feeling the extra kgs sitting at the top of my thighs when I sit at the table!....I'm afraid that with these posts, I am going to have to be really honest with myself, if I'm going to make any real changes.  And I say this remembering that I stared at my reflection in our kitchen window last night eating my daughter's leftovers right after I had made a fruit smoothie so as not to be tempted to dig into the pasta, kebabs I had made for dinner for my girls!!!  I was staring at myself in the window and was absolutely mindless as to what I was doing eating the kebab!!!

I have a huge headache, and I'm not sure what exactly that is due to.  I know that I am stressing a little with my school work, and so close to putting my studies on hold to take care of me, but I know that I will be regretting it come May next year.  I have family around me having babies and though that is very much in our plans to expand our family of four, but I'm afraid I need to be really selfish right now and get myself right.

I headed this post as "Words, Words, Words..." because it was written in the background of the Biggest Loser Kinect game I was exercising to.  It said "Words, words, words...Stop Talking and Do Something!"

Right now I feel like I have a real "dislike" of myself for having to even get to this point.  I started this journey being about learning to love myself again.  Key word...learning.  I think once I start really believing that I can do this, I will begin to love myself again.

So day 2...kicks off with DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!

I strive not for beauty....

I am so touched by the messages I have received of support for this journey in my life.  I am really looking inward for the transformation.  This morning my encouragement comes from Proverbs 31.  The passage in particular verses 10 to 31 describes the kind of woman that King Lemuel's mother advises he should marry.

This scripture focuses more on what a wife does and the qualities she possesses.  Verse 30 is a reminder to me of my purpose of finally taking the step to improving my health and my life.  It says "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised" NIV.

My skin lately has been very dry, obviously the junk and the portions I've been eating have contributed to that. I see the cracks in my skin, and the slight sting I feel when I wash my face and as I think about taking steps forward it's a reminder that at the moment there are cracks in my health, my family life and my spiritual life.  Before any healing can truly take its course there is going to be a sting.  It was a huge sting yesterday finally revealing and being real and true to myself of where I am at and something needs to be done.  So now the healing process begins.

My measurements at the start of this journey are:

KG - 138
Chest (cm) - 121.2
Waist - 111
Hips - 138.1
Thigh - 83.7
Bicep - 45.5

Current size ranges from XL/20 upper body, and XL/24 - 26 lower body.....Wow that was really hard to type that...

So today my aim is to keep moving....KEEP MOVING!!! KEEP MOVING FORWARD.....

xxxx

Learning to Love Myself....

I am now into week 4 of my leave and feel only now I am winding down.  The past few days has been a real struggle for me.  As my post is headed, I am learning to love myself again.  Actually I don't think I ever really loved myself before.  I watched with my husband the other night an old episode of Extreme Weight Makeover or something like that, about a candidate who needed to lose 250 pounds.  I was shocked at how someone could allow themselves to get to such a size and then I remembered a status post from one of my friends on facebook.  She has committed herself to eating right and exercising regularly. No more sitting in front of the telly and watching everyone else do it on Biggest Loser etc.  I totally agree with her.  It's so easy for me to sit and watch other people go through all the sweat and tears.  It is such an effort for me to try and go at it myself.

I weighed myself the other morning and was shocked...well not completely because I knew that the results were going to be bad.  But I never thought I would ever allow myself to get to this weight.  I remember when my mum was over 130kgs and thinking she had to do something about it.  And now weighing more than what she was (she has since lost more than 20kgs gradually over 2 years), I'm feeling really down about myself.

I have had my husband, and close friends and family encourage me, give me tips and routines over the years but it just never stuck.  I would do really well for a couple of weeks and then slack off again.  I've tried mainstream weight loss programmes and that went well and had lost up to 11kgs.  But then piled it back on again gradually over time.

I was really kicked in the stomach when I told my husband how much I weighed and when disappointed by his reaction or lack of, I got really angry when I told I felt that he didn't care.  His response was..."I've just given up trying to help you"....I know that I pushed him into responding that way but of all people to hear it from.  I was really sad.  I angrily began to throw every bit of junk (not that there was much anyway) out of our fridge.  My husband apologised later but by that time I knew that I wasn't angry at him.  I was angry at myself.  There was something that candidate said in that Extreme Weight Makeover programme.  He said that he realised the problem was that he didn't love himself enough.

I thought about what he said, and realised a number of things in my life.  I am a bit of a people pleaser in the sense that I will do anything if it means to please God and that has been through doing things for people of late.  I once told someone that I keep myself busy because I don't feel worthy to rest.  I seek attention from people for the things I do because growing up I thought that I wasn't getting that attention from people in my life.  I substituted gratification from people for love.  I don't think I pity myself but I am learning more about myself to be a better wife, mum, daughter, sister and friend.

I know that loving myself more will help rebuild my relationship with my girls.  I know that my grumpiness and stress levels is partially due to my lack of health.  So I know that my taking care of my "temple" everything else will fall into place.  My eldest has shared with her dad that she is afraid to be around me because I am so grumpy and expect so much of her. :(

I have always believed that by confessing with your mouth, puts it out there that something needs to be done.  I do not like making promises that I cannot keep.  But this promise I really need to work hard at.  I hope from this post, you will understand that where a problem persists and you thought you had the reasons for these problems arising, there is definitely something deeper.  At face value I thought my issues with my weight was to do with not having enough time to take care of myself, but I realise now that the deeper reason is that I have not loved myself enough to do something about it.

So with that said, I am about to make known to anyone that reads this that at 33 years of age....my weight is now 138kgs.  It breaks my heart that I am letting people know that I have allowed myself to get to this point, but I believe I really need to get myself right.  A good friend once told me that it is biblical to write down my goals and plans.

So my goal is that by the time my graduation comes around in May 2012, I will be in a healthy position which will mean that I will be a happier servant of God, happier wife and happier mum.

I will aim to log in and post anything to keep my mind focussed.  Whether it's one word or one sentence I will keep logging in my progress.

It's time to change!!!!! xxx

And so I start again...

Having just returned from what was a sad trip to farewell a dear relative but one that united relatives for the first time.

I testified at my uncles private family service that despite one life ending it meant a new beginning for many especially for his four children.  So for me returning home to my family feeling not-quite-right from the late nights and junk food of the last 7 days....I start again...

I came across this web post from another blogger which talks about goal setting.  I had written in a previous post about writing down your thoughts and goals because in doing so it was a step toward achieving what you have planned.  A good friend had told me that it is biblical to do so.  And so my advice comes from another blogger...

Stay blessed....GO SAMOA!!! RWC fever :)


"I’d always felt it was important to set goals and write them down. Something ‘magical’ happens when you take them from your mind and begin to visualise them in words and images.

This devotion from The Word For Today again emphasises the importance of goal setting and bringing them to fruition – with God involved in that process.

Eight principles to live by...

“Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity…” Proverbs 21:5 NLT

People who set goals accomplish much more than people of equal education and ability who don’t. With that in mind, build these eight principles into your life. (1) Decide what you want. But first consult God. “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails” (Pr 19:21 NIV).  (2) Think on paper. Writing your goals down gives them a sense of permanency, plus it energises you. “Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity…” Wishy-washy objectives won’t get you where you want to go.  (3) Establish a deadline. Without a definite beginning and ending it’s easy to procrastinate and get nowhere.  (4) Make a list of what you need to do to. Keep it before you at all times; it’ll give you a track to run on.  (5) Convert your list to a plan. Decide what you need to do first and what you can do later. An organised plan is always better than trying to carry stuff around in your head.  (6) Act immediately. “Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity…” (Eph 5:15-16 NIV). Do something! A mediocre plan that’s implemented beats a brilliant one that’s not.  (7) Do something every day to move you forward. Build it into your schedule. For example, read systematically through your Bible, call a specific number of clients, engage in physical activity for a given time.  (8) Have a goal you’re willing to devote your life to. And keep your eye on that goal at all times. “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Ps 90:12 NIV)."