Er...hello...it's been a while

I just read my last blog post, and like many others in the Blogisphere, cannot believe how long it's been since my last musings.  How full of hope was the note the last post ended on - a holiday, a writer's retreat, sunshine, exercise.  How it all went awry....

Let's see...I was living in a house I didn't want to be in, it was cold, uncomfortable, there were dramas galore, family feuds and upsets and my best friend was terminally ill. What was a girl with my propensities to do? Well among other things I continued to comfort eat, I upped my alcohol intake as a way of medicating away my sadness and stress (yeah, I know, NOT smart), I hibernated, I got sicker, I became even more inert, I fought with my partner, I worked til stupid o'clock every night, I got addicted to several TV series (more medication), Actually I blame the series Mad Men for my increased tolerance to massive amounts of alcohol. Every time Don Draper or Roger Stirling had a drink, so did I (though they usually had a tipple at about 10 in the morning, just after they got in to work, I reserved my imbibing ways til dark) . Those Madmen aficionados out there will wonder why I am not blogging about joining AA...

Hey there Julia, care for a refill?

Anyway, here I am many moons later, many kilos heavier, a dress size up, and feeling rather sluggish. I have headaches that make me want to get migraine treatment, aches and pains all over my body, inflammation, a creaky neck that makes parallel parking and lane changing  difficult, not to mention downright dangerous! I'm keeping the physio, the chiropractor and the makers of Panadol Osteo in business.  I feel emotionally bereft. Oh, and I have very little energy either. All of the above has made keeping in touch with people extremely rare and like changing lanes in traffic, very difficult. My resilience is low and I have been at my wit's end, unable to make the changes that I know I need to make to get back to a semblance of health and sanity.

So begins the journey I started a long time ago now...Here I go - from Round and Rubenesque to Lean and Luscious. This time I will need all the help I can get.

"Great biceps girlfriend!"

Sadness? Weight Gain? Blame it on the winter!

"Abracadabrafatsad"!



I blame the winter really...and ours started in May with plummeting temps and frosts way before we're used to it. It feels a bit like the endless winter in Narnia here, and I feel like the cranky White Witch/Snow Queen (Can't remember what she's called without consulting Wiki or my battered copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, so I will just call her WWSQ).  And not exquisite like the flawless waif that is Tilda Swinton either - I've been a WWSQ who's been hibernating and getting a little rounder and a little more Rubenesque while she awaits the thaw called Spring that is allegedly supposed to start happening any day now.


Yeah, what of it? Ever heard of Rubens?  

    

Is that...you?

 

So the last few months I have been feeling  a little bit slumped, a little bit blue and well...a little bit sad.  And I mean sad in a couple of senses.  I have moved about 83 thousand times this year and I have "stuff" stashed in 2 storage rooms, 3 apartments and a garage.  I don't know where anything is, and I am currently living in a house that's not mine in a suburb that I don't wanna be in. I have writer's blank/block or just a general inability to write anything that anyone, let alone me wants to read; I have internal struggles to deal with; one or two or three family dramas; and I have had a virus for months that culminated  a little while ago in the mother of all influenzas that laid me flat for 2 weeks.  This, I thought, was my body telling me something - I chose to believe it was saying "...rest...rest...rest." What better time to rest than while the Olympics was on? Yippee!! I thought. I can lie on the couch and watch people in the prime of their lives doing amazing things with not an ounce, a skerrick, a gram, a smidgen, a jot, of fat on them. 

But the coverage was awful and I was too cranky and then too tired to watch anything, let alone amazing athletes and their amazing bodies over and over again in the same two swimming races that the network insisted on playing over and over and over again, leaving me to think I was watching a swimming carnival instead of the Olympics.

Anyway, being ill, alone at home (except for the dog who is more like a cat and sleeps about 23 hours a day) gave me the chance (always on the look out for opportunity) to think about 1) why I was ill and 2) why was I SAD? and 3) why were the lumpy, round, jiggly bits that I had thought disappeared last year returning and placing themselves on various parts of my body?  I came to the conclusion that 3) was the answer to 2) and that 3) and 2) were the answer to 1).

Here is my logic on this one: stress (38,000 moves, no stuff, family dramas,etc) + winter = SAD. SAD + inactivity + stress+ delicious winter comfort food + wine+ stress + a lot more wine  + compromised immune system due to the aforementioned factors = round wobbly bits in the form of fat cells.  Voila! Questions answered and explained.

Why so blue?

But a little more on "SAD".  The dictionary tell as sadness is "emotions experienced when not in a state of well-being".  Yep OK I will agree with that.  My being wasn't well, so I was sad.  SAD however, is also an acronym for "Seasonal Affective Disorder".  Seasonal Affective Disorder is a form of depression that usually occurs in the winter months and can cause the following symptoms:

Depression

Anxiety

Lethargy (lack of energy and enthusiasm)

Weight gain

Oversleeping

Loss of libido

Withdrawal from others

Loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities

Dietary changes – for example, increased appetite for carbohydrates

Difficulty concentrating

Depression pattern that follows the seasons – usually symptoms start in autumn, get worse in winter, ease during spring and disappear by summer

OMG! Check out point number 4, and the one about increased appetite for carbs. And it all started at the end of autumn! I found the answer! I went ahead and diagnosed myself! I have Seasonal Affective Disorder!!  Look it up, I am not kidding! It is a real illness!. Best of all, it can be treated! (Did you note all those exclamation marks? I'm excited, how 'bout you?) Some of the cures for SAD are:

Increase sunlight exposure
Get some exercise
Let the light in at home - open the curtains and blinds
Look after yourself - eat well, drink water, cut down on caffeine, alcohol, sugar

But here's the best one:

"Holiday somewhere warm and sunny".

That's it - I'm taking the cure folks...no more SAD for me (and those wobbly jiggly bits can get the hell out of here too!).  I am booking a trip up north...to a writer's retreat, with a gym, a lot of sunshine and no curtains!

Goodbye cranky-impossible-to-please, immune-compromised,  a-bit-too-Rubenesque- for-my-liking WWSQ!  The thaw is about to start!

SWEAT IS FAT CRYING!

That was the huge banner I saw on my local gym’s Facebook page (I only went to the page so I could get a free water bottle J)

SWEAT IS FAT CRYING!!  What could  this really mean? I pondered. I mean it’s kind of humourous really isn’t it?  The idea being that you  go to the gym, work out and then you lose the fat,  and the fat  (sweat) starts to cry like a lost child at the supermarket. 

Sweat is a clear salty liquid; just like tears. I’m starting to see the connection.

OK, so sweating is what we do when we get hot (like when we are working out, or standing in 40 degree heat outside in the summer – not only getting sweaty but sunburnt as well.).  Sweat is our body’s cooling system.  When we are too fat (round, heavy, large boned, Rubenesque – see my very first post for fat descriptors) we can be prone to getting hotter faster than skinny folk because it takes us more energy to haul ourselves around. Sometimes this can make us cry and sweat.  Often it makes us sit in the shade and rest.

The lovely Sue Read, former elite athlete, personal trainer and currently psychologist extraordinaire (she's been an athletics champ, weightlifter, former goal keeper with the Matildas – Australia’s women’s national soccer team) knows a thing or two about sweat, having done a lot of it in her lifetime.

“If you don’t sweat when you exercise, you may as well stay at home and watch telly”, says our Susie, flexing a knowledgeable muscle or two.

“Sure, sweat helps our bodies to cool down when we are exercising, but it has other important uses as well.  It is also essential that if people want to lose weight they must sweat”.

Here are Sue’s top six reasons why we MUST sweat when we are exercising:

1.       Sweat tells us when our heart rate is increasing

2.       It signals that our metabolism is working

3.       Sweat and exercise helps us produce human growth hormone* – which burns body fat and builds muscle!

4.       Sweaty exercise produces important "feel good" hormones such as endorphins, which makes us feel happier, calmer and more relaxed

5.       It makes as younger looking, leaner and less wrinkly (therefore savimng money on botox and cosmetic surgery)

6.       A trickle of sweat looks great on a well-toned back, or a sexy cleavage!

*Human Growth Hormone is a natural hormone secreted by the pituitary gland of the brain.  What does growth hormone do?  It helps us burn carbohydrates and fat, and build muscle.  Best of all it makes our skin turgid – ie less wrinkly, younger looking and lean – it is the hormone of youth!! We love it.  We get a free kick of it if we have good quality sleep.  A diet high in carbohydrates  directly inhibits the production of growth hormone due to the release of insulin, which in turn inhibits the release of growth hormone .  That means if we only eat mostly bread, pasta, lollies, cakes, rice, cereal, and ice cream  (oh yeah - see my post on "Beige Food") then we are stopping ourselves from getting a free hit of the hormone of youth!

The downer is that human growth hormone is at its peak during puberty, and by age 21, we decrease our natural production by 10% each decade of our life.  Before you cry into your glass of wine or bowl of ice cream, there is hope!! We can recreate those youthful bodies by doing these key THREE things:

1.       Modify your carbohydrate  intake to decrease your production of insulin, particularly at dinner time.

2.       Have good quality, worry free, deep sleep.  Make sure  you have a good "going to bed routine" and make sure you are relaxed before bedtime

3.       Have a short, sharp high intensity exercise session just about every day. Ideally, this means interval training, and some weights work

The great news about all this is you don’t need to hit the gym for hours on end every day.  You can get a hit of the elixir of youth with half an hour high intensity a day! and because exercise can help regulate sleep...well the answer's obvious, isn't it?

Human growth hormone is at its peak production at night time - IF we don’t consume too many carbohydrates before bed and IF we get good quality sleep.  We can keep our human growth hormone levels at a high level and avoid the ravages of ageing just by doing a few simple things.

So…go to it!!  Get up, get moving and get sweaty.  Cry me a river. 

Coffee!! You can sleep when you're dead!

I blame that double espresso I had at 3.30 yesterday afternoon.

It’s 3.30am…again…and I am awake again!  Not helping my weight loss journey at all (OMG I sound like a Biggest Loser contestant…they all say “my journey”…I will feel like a big loser in a few short hours when I am supposed to be at my perky best, all bright eyed and bushy tailed ready to greet a new day...I feel more like I am "tripping", than journeying). However,  I digress…

It is 3.30am and therefore it is now 12 hours since I had that delicious, aromatic double shot espresso in my little white espresso cup...my reward for a hard day’s work, and a little boost to help me cope for a  few more hours . I need to have serious words about coffee...

Caffeine is the most popular and widely used drug in the world. It is a substance found in the leaves, seeds or fruit of a number of plant species, such as coffee and tea plants.  Caffeine is a stimulant which acts on the central nervous system to speed up the messages to and from the brain. Caffeine takes 5–30 minutes to circulate in the body after it has been consumed. Its effects will continue as long as it is in the blood, which is usually around 12 hours.

Hear that ? 12 HOURS!!!!  12 Hours: 3.30pm to 3.30am = TWELVE HOURS!!!  Who knew 100mls or so of black liquid could be so powerful.  It’s left me stressed, sleepless and cranky.  I am worrying about worrying. I am worrying about worrying about worrying.  I am worrying about not sleeping and I am trying not to feel resentment towards Sleeping Beauty upstairs, burrowed under a soft, warm featherdown quilt, snoring away, oblivious to my pain.  I am also worried about the following:

Caffeine is a stimulant – and here’s what it does:

It elevates heart rate, increases blood flow, and raise body temperature. Caffeine enters the blood stream where the brain detects and stimulates the adrenal glands to release adrenalin. Adrenalin will increase heart rate. The liver is then stimulated where glucose is released into the blood stream. As a result blood glucose levels go up and the pancreas then releases insulin to regulate blood glucose levels…and therein lies a slippery slope, people.

So, I am flooded with adrenalin when I should be relaxed and enjoying my REMs…it’s making me fat, I am panicking,  I can feel it!  My body is panicking: “Head for the hills! The famine is coming, hang on to that f a-a-a-a-a-a-a-t!!!”

Where was I? Right, yes. But wait, there's more. Research (yes, yes I found it on the net!) has shown links between heavy use of caffeine and osteoporosis, high blood pressure and heart disease, heartburn, ulcers, severe insomnia and infertility.  

The major behavioural problems associated with heavy caffeine use are anxiety and depression. ..which as we have previously discussed can make us fat!

Credit for this drawing goes to a blogger called "Psychosheep" or somesuch

On top of all that the Grehlin Monster (remember that pesky hormone that tells us we are hungry in the wee small hours when we haven’t had enough sleep, or haven’t gone to sleep?) is raging around my body…this night is doomed and that’s how I feel. Caffeine withdrawal required.

But wait: here are the symptoms of caffeine withdrawal: irritability, nervousness, headache, anxiety, adrenal signals switched on, FAT programs activated…

We are all doomed 

The Bearable Lightness of Being...

The bearable lightness of being, well, 10% lighter…

Though I would still describe myself as more on the Rubenesque side of the bumps and curves spectrum than the Picassoesque side, I am now 10% (and a bit) lighter than I used to be…and I have gone from being in the “OMG I can’t believe it, I am obese” category to the “well, you’re still overweight with a BMI of 26.8, but that’s a bit better” category.  And, I have to say I am feeling better, my clothes fit me a lot more comfortably and I am enjoying being able to run…yes Lola, that’s what I said run!! Me running! Yeah, incredible I know.  This from the wine-imbibing, chocolate eating, you’re a big lass so why don’t you just have another wheel of brie with that water cracker kind of girl.

When I started out just a few short months ago, I was determined to get to the bottom of this weight loss gig and 1) work out why I couldn’t lose it and never see it again and 2) why it seemed so hellishly important to lose at least 10% of my body weight to start with.  It seemed like a magical number to me and I thought there might be some compelling reasons why losing “just” 10% would be so important.  So after extensive researching – yes, ok, some of it was done on the internet – these seem to be the Top 10 benefits of losing 10%:

1    Better blood pressure
2.   Improved heart health and lower cholesterol levels
3.   Decreased risk for diabetes
4.   Enhanced sex life
5.   A better night’s sleep for those with obstructive sleep apnea
6.   Less pain associated with arthritis, joint disease, and lower back pain.
7.   Better breathing
8.   Decreased risk for colon and breast cancer

9.   A healthier gallbladder
10.  More energy

So, have I managed to achieve the Top 10?

1. Let’s see, my blood pressure seems to be ok right now, and I think it was ok at the beginning.  I do know a person who lost 10% of their body weight and their blood pressure dropped from 140/95 (on the quite high “you should be worried about this” side), to 120/80 (much more normal). 

2. I will take “their” word for it and believe that my heart is healthier, and my cholesterol is under control.

3. This I know, it is well-documented on and off the internet.  I for one am happy about this - having a few rellos with diabetes increases my risk of getting it too, but I also know that Type 2 diabetes can be easily avoided by eating well, exercise and maintaining a healthy body weight

4. Look, I am a bit of a modest girl, so what I will say is …well, um…yes

 5. I didn’t have obstructive sleep apnea, but I have certainly been sleeping better…and I might not snore as much either J

6. I’m sorry, but I am yet to experience the joys of number 6.  I went to a Zumba class a few weeks ago.  I had a ball, clapping and jumping and yelling out “Zumba!” at odd moments, but the Zumba-bubble burst when I woke the next morning because my knee (my medial meniscus to be precise) was screaming “what the hell have you done to me?”  Off to the phsyio I went and returned crestfallen and suitably admonished about not doing Zumba, going running or vigorous twisting type activities for at least 2-3 weeks.  I also have to do hellishly painful exercises to help fix said meniscus.  In addition, a while back I walked up a very steep hill – my thighs still haven’t forgiven me.  You get the drift, don’t you?  So while I like all the leaping round and moving that I have been doing, I am not exactly pain free – yet.

Cardio "party"?

7. Yep and yep – I breathe better – as in I no longer feel as though I am about to have to go to hospital for “exploding lung” when I dash across the road, and I no longer feel like I am about to die after running for more than 20 seconds.

8.  My colon appears to be quite happy at present, thank you. (Stay tuned for the blog about the adventures of Julia’s colon). And again I am happy to accept the assertion that my risk for both colon and breast cancers has diminished

9. I am not exactly on intimate terms with my gallbladder, but I am not having any trouble with it, so would like to keep it that way.  And if my gallbladder is happy with 10% less of me, then so am I!

10. Categorically yes…smiles all round

Visualise a thinner future!



Check out the non-believer on the left!



I’ve often thought that it’s a rather wild claim to say – “just imagine it, and it will happen”. We have all heard of “The Secret”, and the laws of attraction, and many of us have squeezed our eyes tightly shut and wished really, really hard for something, or wished on a star, or bargained with God.  Doesn’t always happen, sometimes it does.  A fluke, karma, the David Jones’ Santa heard the kiddies’ wishes and told the parents to buy their offspring an X-Box, or a “magic happens” kind of thing.  When it comes to weight loss, I just don’t think one can “wish” to be thin - and viola! – you’re on the cover of Vogue and Hello! with Katie chainsmoking Moss et al. I think there’s more to to it than that.



In my quest to learn more about the power of  imagining, focusing, visualising, dreaming and hoping to get what we want, I stumbled across the  Capital T, Capital S “The Secret”, and I have just read some cracking good stories about weight loss on the Secret Website (if it is secret, how is it so easy to find?).  How’s this one from “Dee B’ in Florida:

Miss Dee is the one in the pink shoes

“I told myself that I could eat whatever I wanted and lose two pounds (that's a kilo folks!!) every night in my sleep, and even wrote it for every day on my calendar. This happened for a week, and I began to get discouraged when I didn’t feel results, but I believed so what did I do… I took out all the clothes that I had in storage containers for when I would be “skinny”, and hung them in my drawers. I put the other clothes in a bag on my closet floor. I hung up all the clothes that I BELIEVED I would wear shortly. After that I released it into the universe and just let it go without doubt. I honestly believed I had done my part of the process, and ate whatever I wanted with the internal belief that it would help me lose weight.  What can I tell you except that at my cousin's wedding four weeks later I was utterly in my perfect form, with a beautiful short hairdo wearing my beautiful size 3 dress”

What’s missing for me in Miss Dee B’s “I do believe in the Secret, I do believe in the Secret, I do believe in the Secret” excerpt (the original was way too long to put in here – but hey check it out yourself) is that Miss Dee B apparently took no action to be thin, as in changing her behaviours in any way that may have caused the weight loss.  She just hung skinny clothes in her drawers (drawers with hanging space? Big drawers Dee B) and “ate whatever she wanted”.  The implication being that WHATEVER she wanted meant she didn’t follow a diet, an exercise plan, or a good eating program, -  but maybe she wanted sprouts and chicken, maybe she did follow a good eating plan but just omitted to tell us that.  The Secret stories (there’s thousands of ‘em) all imply they all did nothing to achieve their hearts desires but release their wish to the universe and “believe” in “the power”. Call me a sceptic but as Oprah said:

“Hope is not a plan, honey".

So maybe just imagining and wishing for things might not work (for me anyway, I’m not Dee B), but we do have at our disposal a very marvellous tool that can help us reach our long hoped for goals. 
So what am I talking about here?  I am talking visualisation, baby. Using visualisations as a way of helping us achieve our goals is probably a more helpful way of going about losing weight than merely wishing for it to happen. There’s even science associated with visualisation for achieving goals.
Take sport as  an example – sports psychologists have been helping athletes for years to visualise their performance, perfectly and in minute detail.  There is much research to support the efficacy of visualisation in sport.   Think back to the last Olympics – right before the start of a race or event – the athletes are not waving to the crowd or chatting idly to each other. Instead their gaze is set firmly on the finish line and they are visualising their event or race as they want it to go – perfect and error free, perfect in motion and execution.  They have rehearsed and practiced their event until they know exactly how it will all pan out, exactly where to place their feet, their arms, their torso, their head.

An effective way of visualising the future is to think about the processes that are involved in reaching a goal, rather than just the end-state of achieving it. 

Visualisation is also used in psychological therapies to help people change their behaviour. There are a couple of reasons why visualising goal achievement works:

• helps focus our attention on the steps needed to reach the goal; and
• leads to reduced anxiety.

Visualisation helps us deliberately change the way we feel, our level of autonomic arousal, our behaviour, and it helps us improve performance, reduce fears and phobias, and can also improve the functioning of the immune system. Creative visualisation help us relaxxxxxxxx.....

So how do we do it? Creative visualisation is a practice that uses the mind to focus on  visual stimuli that is pleasing or empowering - and done so in a state of calm. As our mind is guided to focus on this imagery, a feeling of already being in that place, or that state, is encouraged and stimulated. The idea is to vividly picture our goals and actions as if they already exist, as if already happening.  And here is the BEST thing: the subconscious mind does not know the difference between what is imagined and what is real - this remarkable fact is what makes regular creative visualisation so powerful.  That our mind belives it is real then helps us to take the steps needed to reach our goals.  Pretty good huh?

Try it and see what happens – I might even tell Dee B about it!

 

"I wish I may, I wish I might..."

 

:

To sleep, perchance to be thin (apologies to W. Shakespeare)

So, it’s 3.45am on this wintry night and here I am surfing the net and looking for inspiration.  I thought it was better to get up than stay in bed tossing and turning worrying about producing stress hormones because I was worried about not sleeping because I was worried that not sleeping and stressing would send a signal to my body to turn on my stress response program as if there was a freakin’ famine about to start and telling my fat cells to hang on in there, we still need you in this time of need…

Okay, okay this all sounds like the rant of an insomniac, who doesn't use any punctuation whatsover, and well…I suppose it is.  But I do know sleep is important in relation to weight loss, so here are some sleep-deprived musings…

I just read about this diet that two guys in the UK published – it’s called the “Hibernation Diet”, and basically they extol the virtues of a spoonful of honey before bed to get your metabolism firing while you sleep, which turns off your stress hormones and allows your blood sugars to level and provides fuel while you sleep. It's a dream come true! (hahahaha – a bit of late night/early morning humour) .  Now, this  really is the stuff of weight-loss wishes— shedding kilos while tucked up in bed and waking up refreshed, thin  and ready for the day ahead.  And it’s all down to a spoonful of honey.  

But hold it right there – please read the fine print before you rush off to your local 24 hour Woollies in your PJs for your jar of manuka honey– our British duo then go on to say that a healthy diet that excludes white bread, chips, pizzas and sweets, and exercise that includes resistance training, pilates and yoga 5 times a week will also assist with weight loss. Well der…

Okay here’s the thing…when we are tired, sleep-deprived insomniacs the last thing we want to do when our bleary eyes greet the dawn is reach enthusiastically for our gym clothes and head on out to Fitness First for an early morning workout.  No…what we do is make a coffee and slump on the couch with eyes half shut against the brightness of day and bitch and moan about how tired we are while criticizing what stupid Mel and even-stupider Kochie are saying on "sunrise", or "good morning blah blah".  Then what we do is crave carbohydrates because our brains our saying “hey you, get your bum off the couch and feed me – NOW!!”. So we grab toast, or a pastry, or a muffin on the way to work in the vain hope that this and a few more espressos will keep us going for the day until we can once more go to bed...and try to sleep.

But seriously those two UK diet dudes are right about our hormones and they are right about sleep. Good, adequate sleep aids weight loss. (Forget the honey and the hibernation though). Why do we need sleep? It’s not only a necessary part of rejuvenating the body; but is also highly important to the metabolism.  We eat because our bodies are given signals to eat.  Those signals come from hormones called  ghrelin and leptin  and they are directly affected by sleep; and directly affect our eating patterns.  Ghrelin is a hormone that tells the body “Hey you!  You’re hungry! You need to eat!”  Leptin, our true hormonal friend, tells the body when to stop eating.  When we are sleep deprived, our bodies increase production of ghrelin and there is a decrease in the amount of leptin in action.  What does all this mean? What it means is when we don’t get enough sleep we have a higher craving for food and a lowered resistance to overeating.  Double that with the body’s need for energy and those of us trying to control our weight have a recipe for disaster! (more late night puns…sorry).

So gang, if you need to lose some kilos, get some sleep!