Why you should stop comparing the amount you can lift to what others can do.

Weight is relative.

This is a 10kg plate (about 22lb). Two of these on a light bar (about 8kg) is my 12 rep Romanian dl in BT3 New Rules of Lifting Supercharged.

That makes about 28kg all up (a little over 60lb). Seems light, doesn’t it?
Until you realise that I’m only 145cm (4’9) and weigh 40kg (89lb). Then it’s 70% of my body weight.

Of course, for lower reps of proper dl I can lift bodyweight and more, but 12reps is the current stage and I ain’t out to kill myself ;)

So lift what is heavy for you, everyone is different, and don’t compare yourself or your numbers to others.

They are just that, numbers, and don’t and can’t define how strong/fit/powerful you are.

Learning to eat in my own way

It’s not always pretty, but it is yummy. And it may not look like much to some, but this was my lunch today. Leftover steak, eggs and spinach with some pine nuts and the usual sweet chilli sauce (I think I’m addicted to the stuff).

I listen to my body’s cues and I eat when I’m hungry and stop when I’m full.

I’m not low-carb, I’m not Paleo, I’m not anything labelled. We eat gluten free because my husband and son have Coeliac Disease. Do I have gluten sometimes when out? Hell yes!

I eat lactose or dairy free because even the smallest amount will have me throwing up within the hour. I mean, I love cheesecake, but not THAT much.

We eat low-amine because my daughter has shown intolerances to it, the main offenders being cocoa/cacao, grapes, oranges, bananas & tomatoes (all determined through a medically supervised elimination diet). My brother has an anaphylactic reaction to grapes, so I am careful with how much she eats of those foods.

I don’t add much sugar to things because I have Poly-cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) and a family history of diabetes. That doesn’t mean that I think sugar/carbs are evil. I just need to keep an eye on it for my individual health needs. I train a lot, and carbs give me energy, so I eat them, keeping as low GI as I can (blueberries are my current favourite). I don’t actually like bread much, so I rarely eat it. Except when I have a craving for vegemite toast. And then I eat vegemite toast.

I get the judgements and I get the comments. Trust me, I think I’ve heard them all over the years. From a slightly chubby child to being a tiny, skinny person, to an overweight mumma, and then down to a small, muscular person who lifts heavy things, I’ve had a lot of things said for my benefit.
The one that is currently bugging me today is the “that’s only a small amount, you should eat like a normal person!”. Yeah, that might actually work if I was, you know, the size of a normal person instead of a 12 year old.

I tried ‘eating like a normal person’, and guess what happened? I became overweight.

I’ve spent the last 2 years re-training myself to eat to my own hunger cues. If I’m not hungry at breakfast time (you know, in the morning), I probably won’t eat then, but instead will ‘break my fast’ later in the day. If I’m hungry at that time of the day, then I’ll eat. Life isn’t a static series of events, each day will be different. I prefer to eat slowly, and I prefer 1-2 small meals throughout the day and a larger one at night (maybe a couple of snacks thrown in there, depends on the day). It’s just how I am.

Eat the way you want to eat, when you feel like eating, and what you want to eat. Be mindful of portion sizes, but otherwise just do what works for you.

And if someone does things different to you, that’s okay. The world would be a boring place if we were all the same.

Gluten free, Dairy free Gingerbread

Last year I came across this recipe for Gingerbread Trees in the Australian Healthy Food Guide (December 2013 edition). I made several batches last Christmas and it was a huge hit, even with the kids and adults that didn’t have to be gluten or dairy free. I have fond memories of my nephew grabbing a couple of biscuits every time he walked past the container – he was most disappointed when they were all gone! So I made him some more lol

Today my girl had a class party and she requested the gingerbread. I managed to whip it up yesterday afternoon and used some of the cute cookie cutters I picked up with the latest Taste.com magazine (I may or may not have succumbed to buying the magazine purely because of the cookie cutters – I could have a slight addiction to cooking magazines…)

Of course, any slightly broken or misshapen cookies needed to be ‘taste-tested’ with ice cream last night. Hopefully my girl’s class mates will like them as much as she does.

Summertime snacks- fruit and CoYo coconut yoghurt

Summer means lots and lots of yummy fruit to choose from. The girl and I got a little excited at the fruit & vege store on the weekend.

Today’s lunch time snack was CoYo coconut yoghurt and an iced coffee with Liddells lactose free milk (it would have had actual ice in it except someone put an empty tray back in the freezer…)

I love this yoghurt and am so glad I found it in the little fruit & vege store at my local shops. It’s rich, delicious, and keeps me full and content for ages. I’ve tried a few coconut yoghurts now, and this one is definitely my favourite.

Swimming hard

This little dude has gone up another level at swimming.

That puts him just one level below squad and his older sister.

He’s been working so hard on his swimming this year – it’s like all of a sudden he’s decided to knuckle down and pay attention. And I’m so proud

Now if he could just work a little harder and get into squad so I don’t have to sit by the pool so many times a week, that’d be awesome ;)

Stop demonising food.

I’m not in favour of demonising any food. Food is just food. There is nothing inherently ‘evil’ about one particular type over another.

Here’s a little story for you:

My son has Coeliac Disease, is lactose-intolerant and has an issue with a particular preservative. In Prep he wanted to be just like the other kids so he asked for a sandwich for lunch. The only gluten-free, dairy-free, preservative-free bread I could find (all my home attempts at that time failed miserably!) was a white bread. He was so happy to have a ‘normal’ lunch.

Until he came home from school one day with an uneaten sandwich and in tears.

Why? Some lovely little child had bailed him up at lunch time and told him that white bread was unhealthy. That it was really bad for you and he should be eating brown bread >>because her mother said so<<.

What works for one will not always be applicable to another. We’re all just doing the best we can.

Don't you hate it when...

You go to type a response to a fitness-related question, make it through several detailed paragraphs and then realise they aren’t going to read it anyway because they want a quick fix. And so, you delete it.

FWIW. Abs are made in the kitchen. You can’t target specific areas for fat loss with exercise – it all comes down to what goes in your mouth.

No, it’s not a sparkly new-age miracle cure for fat-loss, sorry. It’s just the truth.

Dear ‘nutritionist’ at the health food shop…

Dear “nutritionist” at the Health Food shop. Please don’t tell me that Coeliac Disease doesn’t exist and that you can ‘fix’ my son.

Apparently it is a ‘learned’ behaviour (he was diagnosed at 3yo with no-one in the house being gluten-free, trying to work out where he ‘learned’ it from), and a magnesium blend will help to ‘cure’ him.

Well, golly gee. Why didn’t I try that before?

We only went in for some muesli for my Mum and I needed more carob powder. Next time, I’ll go elsewhere!

#idiotpeopleareidiots

AFL coaches award

On Sunday we went to Wet’nWild for the annual AFL end of season trip and award presentation. Every kid has a plaque and gets a new badge on it for every year played, and then there are 5 extra trophies handed out per age group.

We were so proud of the little dude as he got the Coaches Award this year. His coach said he was always willing to get stuck in and have a go, even if it sometimes ends with him being trampled a little by bigger kids. He never complains about what position he’s given and he’s always the first to volunteer to make up numbers for the other team if they are short.

We’d been in two minds about continuing on with AFL next season, but I think we’ll give it another year and see how it goes. He will stay in under 8s, and will have an opportunity to keep learning and playing in a safe environment, and he really is learning so much more than just football.

It will have to be a family decision for the next level up though – tackling and more contact starts then. I’m not too sure about it, but I do know the club looks after the kids pretty well. I have a year to decide lol

Still pretty proud of him though, and glad we made the decision to sign him up.

Cheesecake balls, gluten-free & lactose-free

Every Saturday we bake something. Mostly so that the kids have something special for their lunch boxes through the week, and also so there is a backup stash of food on hand for emergencies (like no safe food at church on Sunday, or a last minute ‘bring a plate’ afternoon tea).

I saw a recipe doing the rounds on Facebook the other day for Tim Tam balls. We can’t eat Tim Tams, and we can’t have condensed milk, but the recipe made a suggestion right at the bottom that cream cheese could be substituted.

That gave me an idea, and that’s how our Cheesecake Balls came about this afternoon.
Thank you so much to Liddells for making a lactose-free cream cheese. I love you so much (really, totally, honestly).

Cheesecake balls

1 pkt Leda Golden Crunch cookies (gluten & dairy-free)
2 tbsp carob powder (you can use cocoa/cacao, but my girl is allergic, so carob it is for us!)
1 tub Liddells lactose free cream cheese
Desiccated coconut

Process cookies and carob powder together until fine.
Mix cookie mixture and cream cheese together in a bowl. I did this by hand, but if you have a big enough food processor, you could do it all in one go.
Roll heaped tsp size of mixture into balls and cover in coconut.
Chill in fridge until firm.

Then try to stop your kids from eating them all in one go.
Simple, easy, quick and so very, very delicious!

A short person who lifts – progress pics.

Progress Pics.
Looking back, I probably should have taken more photos, but I preferred to be the one behind the camera.

Keep in mind, I am 4’9 (145cm) tall – or short I guess,  so weight distributes differently, particularly with my very short legs.

The first pic, from June 2012 isn’t me at my heaviest. But it’s the only photo I’ve got. And that day I felt horrid.

I started 5:2 in March/April 2013. After trying multiple things. And them not working. Stopping and starting, feeling like a failure. Getting sicker each week – non-stop migraines, UTI’s, sicknesses, aches, pains, everything.

I started walking with friends for exercise, and learning about the food I ate and how much I actually needed. That led to learning to run again and Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred followed by Ripped in 30.

And that’s where I re-discovered my love of strength training.

The second picture is November 2013. I’d been maintaining for about a month. I had just started playing around with New Rules of Lifting for Women. I didn’t have all the equipment, but I was giving it a red-hot go.

Jan-March 2014. I’d bought a proper bar and weights with some Christmas vouchers and I knuckled down and got stuck in to some serious weight lifting. I kept learning about food and nutrition. Less isn’t always best. Food is fuel.

I had up days and down days and weeks where I didn’t know whether anything would ever change. But it did. Slowly, but surely. Even when there were some weeks were I didn’t even exercise at all, and my eating habits left a lot to be desired.

I wanted to get stronger. I wanted to be healthy. And it was happening.

September 2014. You better believe I can do handstands. I can even do handstand pushups (and have the video to prove it).

October 2014. I got my husband to take that photo yesterday. I finished the New Rules of Lifting for Women program last week, and today I started NROL Supercharged. I’m stronger, I’m fit, I’m fast and most importantly I’m HEALTHY.

I fast once or twice a week, depending on how I feel. Calories don’t bother me so much as what I am eating these days – and I eat for fuel and for health. My tastes have changed. Yes, I can still devour an entire brownie batch in one sitting, but that’s okay – I try not to put myself in that situation too often (I make freaking awesome brownies though ).

Do you want to know the best bit?

At my lowest ever adult weight, I was NEVER THIS SMALL.

I weigh at least 3kg heavier than that weight, and yet I am about 2-3 sizes smaller.

I’m still a work in progress. I will never, ever be ‘done’. This is me for life. And I kinda like that.

My first encounter with a pushy sporting parent

I managed to get myself talked into handling the time keeping job at our swimming club. It’s not too bad, the sheets of paper with the race times and names are handed to me and I enter them into the computer.

Once I got the hang of the program (it’s still a little daunting, but I think I can work it out) it’s all just a matter of speed and accuracy and hoping my boy child isn’t peppering me with a million questions a second while I’m doing it.

Last night was club night. And I had my first encounter with a ‘pushy parent’. I’ve been told I’m not one by ex-competitive swimmers (firm but fair I think was the term lol) and I think I’m starting to believe that. In fact I think I’m probably downright laid back and nonchalant in comparison.

To the lovely lady who was sitting right in front of me watching me like a hawk while I typed in the times – I’m a learner. I’m a volunteer. I’m doing my best. I don’t even get to see all my kids races because I’m sitting here making sure it’s all entered in correctly and I don’t break the program in the process.

I’m sorry that your son didn’t get a pb ribbon last night. I can only go on the pieces of paper given to me and the names and times on them. I don’t know half the kids and I have no idea who your kid is. I do now, however, know he’s a little kid perhaps my sons age or a little older. Let him learn. Let him have fun. Beating pb times is awesome, but it’s not going to happen every week. My older kid trains several mornings a week and she didn’t get a pb on the previous club night, and you know what? I don’t care. She had FUN. She was moving, doing something she loves, and doing it with friends she has made along the way.

The main focus of the night is to do your best and have fun. If you think I’m incompetent (seriously, I’ve done the job twice!) then by all means, step up and offer to do it. Then I’ll go off a cheer mine and other kids along as they swim. My favourite part is cheering along that little kid who could previously only swim half a lap and can now make it all the way – the look on their face as they touch the wall is priceless. THAT is an achievement. THAT is to be celebrated. Watching them grow in ability and confidence throughout the season and the camaraderie that develops between the big and the little kids is brilliant.

It’s a disjointed rant I know. But there you have it. I was a little taken aback, but I’ll get over it. In the overall scheme of things, it was pretty minor.

Oh and results will be on the board on Tuesday. I kinda have a life, family and work that gets in the way before then.

It's all just numbers to me...

Reading through My Fitness Pal forums this morning while having my breakfast and looking at the usual ‘lifting stats’ threads that get posted.
In all honesty, listing your individual lifting stats really doesn’t mean much to me unless you include your height and weight.
Taller and heavier peeps should be able to lift heavier loads, but what percentage of bodyweight is that?
Otherwise it’s just numbers.
I’ll go crawl into my teeny tiny little space now lol
But I did 2 sets of 8 deads this morning at 1.1x bodyweight. That’s only 45kg (not quite 100lb) but still… ;) lol

Food for everyone to eat.

While grocery shopping today, we were looking at the wide variety of foods available – that we couldn’t eat due to various intolerances or allergies – and my girl says, “Mum, when I grow up, I’m going to make foods that are safe for everyone to eat and I’m going to sell them so that everyone has something to eat.”
That’s my girl

Supercharged is here... Time to get reading...

Yay! It’s here
Time for a little bit of light reading.
I’m almost half way through the final stage of New Rules of Lifting for Women, and it’s pretty much kicking my butt. May I just mention that I’m not the biggest fan of high reps, but I’m also just being a sook ;)
I am really looking forward to moving on to this next program, it seems to be definitely leveled up from NROL4W, and that’s pretty exciting.
Making the decision to stop being scared and start lifting heavy things was one of the best things I have ever done. I did it for me, and me only. I don’t lift for competitions, I don’t lift to be ‘the strongest’, I lift because I enjoy it and I like what it is doing – even the occasional DOMS is all worth it.

This is where it begins.

With a handstand.
In my backyard.
I think the girl-child did a relatively good job with the iPhone.
This is me. I’m short, I’m a little weird and I like to lift things – heavy things.
I love my husband, I love my kids and I generally love my cat (except maybe when she runs away at bedtime).
This is my space for my everyday chat – food, fitness, fun and life in general.
And handstands.
Lots of handstands.