Introduce small changes into your life – that you can stick to.

Small steps lead to great things. Even two years ago I don’t think I would have ever seen me following an actual weight lifting program and sticking to it.

I’m a great believer in slow and steady. I think that was my favourite fable as a child, particularly as I was never very fast (hello short stumpy legs!) and I do like it when the underdog triumphs

In terms of reaching an end goal, whether it be weight, health or fitness related, the best first step is to identify small things that you can gradually change. One step at a time.

Be realistic with your goals though. Not everyone is the same. There are different genetic and environmental factors that can come into play and you need to work with them. Take into consideration your individual needs and abilities. Don’t compare yourself to others – they have different bodies and different genetic makeups and with different responsibilities. The only person you should compare yourself to is yourself.

When I finally decided it was time to lose that excess weight that had crept up on me over several years, I started by looking at my diet and deciding what I could change. When I say ‘diet I mean what we eat. Not a ‘lose x amount in 2 weeks doing y’ fad-type diet thing. Just swapping things around, cutting back on stuff, having a good hard look at how much I was eating.

I started really simple. Drink more water. I bought a filtered water bottle (I prefer the taste) and my first aim was to drink one of them a day. These days that water bottle goes everywhere with me and I drink at least 2 each day. No more problems with water, and yes, initially I was all ‘but I don’t like water’. Trust me, you learn to like it and even crave it. It really is my preferred drink of choice now.

There’s a lot of talk these days about how sugar or carbs or grains are ‘evil’ and ‘toxic’ and somehow ‘bad’. That’s a load of hogwash. It’s just food. We need all three macro nutrients – protein, fats and carbohydrates. The amounts may differ from person to person, but we still need them in one form or the other. As I said, everyone is different.

That said, yes, I agree that our modern western diet contains a little too much in the way of added sugar. But it’s fairly easy to cut back on that if you need to.

I have Poly-cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) and the insulin issues that come with it. I also have a family history of diabetes on both my mother & father’s sides. So for me (and I stress the for me individually part), reducing the amount of added sugar in my diet was important. I mean, did I really need 3 teaspoons of sugar in my tea? (yes, seriously). That was the easiest thing to cut back on. It took me a little while, but now I drink both my tea and coffee with no sugar, and sometimes black. Which is handy when you’re out and there is no dairy-free milk available (I’m lactose intolerant).

Look at what you eat each day, and how much. Identify areas where you can cut back or swap out particular things. It could be as simple as reducing your daily coffee intake, researching proper portion sizes or carrying a water bottle with you everywhere and reminding yourself to sip it throughout the day.

I still eat cookies by the way. And brownies (I make awesome brownies). I just eat less of them. And I changed the way I cook, partly through necessity (when my son was diagnosed with Coeliac Disease) and partly because I became more aware of what I was eating and how different ingredients work together.

As Michael Pollan says, “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.”

I pretty much stick to that.

I really like food. This was a really yummy burger from Grill’d. I had to try their gf low-carb bun at least once – it was definitely a winner with me.

Once I got my food intake sorted and to a point where I thought I was okay (although it’s an ever-evolving process), I started to think about exercise.

At least once or twice a week I got together with a group of school mums and we started walking around the oval after school pick-up while the kids had afternoon tea and played. I still do this actually. I go with one friend on Monday and I’m going this afternoon with another. Sometimes we run, sometimes we walk. We keep each other motivated, but also the kids keep us motivated – they don’t want to miss their afternoon of hanging out with their friends!

I also slowly started added 20-30 minutes of deliberate exercise into my day. I looked at my weekly schedule and the only time I could fit it in was in the morning. So I guess I forced myself to become a morning person. I started with the basics and the 30 Day Shred (Jillian Michaels) – 20 minutes, quick and effective at 6am lol Eventually I moved onto longer DVD sessions (I highly recommend Fitness Blender on YouTube – all free and all good) and during this time I rediscovered my love of strength training. I’d always done a lot of gymnastics and bodyweight exercises while growing up, but now I realised I was in a position to be able to do real weight training and I devoured every piece of information I could find and decided upon Lou Schuler’s New Rules of Lifting for Women.

I get up at 5am three times a week to lift. It’s only at 5am because that’s the only time I can fit it into my day around kids, school, work and husband. Otherwise you can pretty much bet I would be staying in bed and getting it done later lol but those lifting sessions are my sanity-keeping time. They allow me to focus on the given task at hand without any input from all the other stuff flying around in my life. They are my time to myself, and probably my form of meditation.

Find an exercise or sport that you enjoy doing and make it a part of your life. It’s all about getting up and being active. Choose what works for you – everyone is different. I like lifting weights, hanging off pull-up bars and kayaking, you might like running, swimming, yoga or basketball. Start with a little, and keep adding to it. Don’t rush it. Eventually the change will happen.

How to do Tricep Push-ups

Someone asked me about tricep push-ups. They are freaking hard, but fun if you are a push-up addict like me.

These are a tricep push-up with hands close together, sometimes called a diamond push-up.
The first two are regular toe push-ups. The last two are the beginner modification on knees for a little less resistance.

You could also space out your hands a little if needed, but always keep your elbows by your side.

And yes, I did that on the porcelain tiles in my kitchen, barefoot. I never said I was completely sane ;)

I do recommend using an exercise mat and don’t follow my lead of being too lazy to get it from the gym (I wanted good lighting for the video lol).

Learning and living, my journey to a healthier life simplified.

Kayaking is my happy place.

I suppose it was about 3 years ago that I finally got serious about wanting & needing to lose weight and do something about my rather poor fitness levels. Having been fairly active while growing up (I lived on a farm, with two brothers, we were rarely inside and there was always something to do), the so creep of a sedentary city lifestyle as well as other more personal factors had taken their toll. I’d started taking small steps already – cutting down on sugar, trying to move more (I started Couch to 5K, but stopped at about week 6 after somebody told me that what I was doing wasn’t counted as ‘running’ – yes, I had issues, but also some people are just plain rude), but I needed to learn more and get stuck in and do it in my own way.

It really is a bit of a wake-up call when you finally step on a scale and realise that you are heavier than you were at the end of your last pregnancy (with the Boy who was not a small baby for someone my size – big hungry bubba he was!). And that little number has tipped you over into the ‘overweight’ zone.

What the hell? I’d never been overweight. Underweight, yes. But overweight, no.

I wasn’t carrying another life inside me, and I hadn’t magically grown a couple of inches (I actually lost one!), so I had no more excuses.

At the worst of it, I couldn’t even walk up the stairs in our new house without being out of breath at the top. I had become resigned to the fact that perhaps this is what happens with age. You get heavier, you can’t breath, you get sick all the time, constant headaches and everything hurting. I’d almost come to accept that I would also probably get diabetes just like everyone else in my family as well, especially as I already had PCOS (poly-cystic ovarian syndrome).

That’s really just a little bit sad, isn’t it? And depressing.

I much prefer being able to bound up the stairs two at a time now.

In the beginning, it was hard to get proper support from others around me (see case in point mentioned above about my ‘running’ style). Being so short, if you discuss your weight numbers with someone of average height, they get jealous because to them, it seems so small. They never take into consideration the height difference. They don’t realise that when you are so vertically challenged (145cm/4’9), a ‘measly’ 5kg (11pd) weight gain or loss can make a huge difference.

I started small. I walked with some friends after school 1-2 afternoons a week while the kids played on the playground. We went round and round the oval. Then I would go walking/jogging with a friend of a morning after drop-off and before work. We managed to squeeze 20-30 minutes in before 9am. I began reading, and researching and learning, and trying different things until I found something that worked for me.

And over a period of about 18 months I lost 20% of that original overweight bodyweight. I’ve been maintaining a perfectly healthy weight range since October 2013.

I had moved onto at home DVD’s (Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred) and little by little I got used to including exercise & movement into my daily routine. Eventually, I found my way back to strength training, something I had always enjoyed when I was younger.

These days, I love food and I love lifting heavy things and being active – which is a really good thing as they all go so well together. This healthy lifestyle business really is a journey of self-discovering and never-ending learning. There’s so much more knowledge out there, I don’t think I will ever truly be ‘finished’.

Food is awesome. As is coffee.

Life and living is one hell of an awesome journey.

I’m not naive enough to think that life will be all smooth sailing, although that would be nice. There are just so many more ways to really enjoy life when you’re fit and healthy. I was missing out on that before. I have no intention on missing out any more.

Turn leftover steak into a delicious dinner

We had some leftover steak from dinner last night and seeing as it’s just The Husband and I at the moment, I wanted to do something a little bit different.

We’d been discussing the Paleo concept today, so I wanted to turn it into something inspired by that train of thought. We aren’t, and will never be on a strict Paleo lifestyle (too many intolerances as it is without restricting more food), but as we are gluten and lactose free (coeliac and diagnosed lactose intolerance), we’ve found we naturally lean towards whole foods without these things which is basically Paleo anyway

This was really easy to whip up and I did it all in fairly short time.

Slice up the piece of steak very thinly and stir in this marinade:
1 tbsp tamari, 1 tspn sesame oil, about 1 tspn crushed ginger (to taste)
Put aside while prepping everything else.

I just used vegies that I had in the fridge – carrots, snow peas, broccolini (I use the stems as well), capsicum and pak choy. All cut thinly except the pak choy which I just threw in whole and broke up a little.

Heat a non stick wok and heat the meat through (mine was already cooked, so just needed heating, if starting from raw, obviously cook to your liking). Put aside in a bowl and cover with foil.

In the same wok, stir fry the vegies.

Portion the veggies out into bowls and cover with foil while you cook the eggs.

Put a small frying pan over the heat, use a little bit of cooking spray. Cook eggs to your liking. You could poach them if you wanted, but I wanted fried tonight

Put it all together – veggies on bottom, steak on top and egg layered on that. All done.
Easy as, and delicious and it may just pass for Paleo as well, but don’t quote me on that lol

Flourless Berry Muffins (gluten-free and dairy-free)

The small boy child and I made these gorgeous muffins this afternoon. Completely gluten and dairy free and so easy that my 7 year old could whip them up – and he did!

Flourless berry muffins

1/2 cup Natvia
1 tsp baking powder
1 3/4 cup almond meal
4 eggs (lightly whisked)
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
12+ berries (whatever you like, we used blueberries, raspberries and blackberries)

1. Preheat oven to 200’C (180’C fan forced).
2. Line 12-hole muffin tray with paper cases.
3. Combine natvia, baking powder, and almond meal in a bowl.
4. Add eggs and vanilla essence and stir to combine.
5. Distribute mixture between prepared muffin cases.
6. Top each with a berry or two of your choice.
7. Bake for 20 minutes.
8. Cool in tray for 5 minutes and the transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Building a home gym

As you know, I’m a huge fan of working out at home. That’s mostly because I don’t like sweating around other people. I also enjoy having the ability to work out whenever I want, something that is a bonus when I work from home and have kids.

My husband and I have been building a home gym in the garage using mostly 2nd hand equipment. It’s hot, not all the walls are plastered, and the light doesn’t work, but it’s mine.

It’s not all that fancy or flash, but it contains all the basics that I need to lift heavy stuff.

My garage gym has a squat rack (with pulley), adjustable bench, and a lot of weights (obviously with bars and dumbbells to go with them). I also have some little extras like the swiss ball, some medicine balls, step and a chin up bar. Next on the list of things to get is a suspension system and some kettlebells.

I do have a preference for cast iron weights. Mostly because, well, I just like them more than the others.

The squat rack and bench my husband bought for me 2nd hand off eBay. Best damn present. Ever. He has even re-sprayed the big plates as they were a little rusty. Now they are all shiny. He has no interest in using the gym, so it’s all for me

There’s about 130kg+ of weights sitting there to use. For those playing at home, that’s about 3x my midget-sized body weight. More than enough for now.

My advice when setting up a home gym is to stuck to the basics, there’s no need to go over the top. If you want to workout at home, buy equipment that you will actually use (and fits in your house – get a tape measure). No dust collectors allowed.

I am lucky that I have quite a large space. I can fit what I need in there and have space to do a quick HIIT session. I don’t need a treadmill though. I have kids. And stairs. And a cat that likes to play catch-me-if-you-can every night before bed.

January detox? What January detox??

Let me preface this post by saying that if you ever see me wearing makeup, count yourself very lucky – I’m not too keen on the stuff lol

This photo was taken just before heading out to a friend’s place for dinner, and after my week off of training over Christmas. I spent that week eating, drinking and generally being nice and social. Well, as social as an intense introvert can be – I only hung out with family lol

I still fit in my xxs jeans, my muscles are still there and haven’t atrophied, and the world was still going round.

Life isn’t static. It doesn’t stay the same every day. There are fluctuations, days where you feel awesome and days where you feel like crap. There are days you are so busy you don’t get time to sit down let alone eat and there are days that revolve around food – birthdays, celebrations, picnics, pizza & beer nights. It all evens out in the end.

You don’t need to ‘detox’ or ‘cleanse’. Just eat real food, mostly vegetables, and not too much. The end.

I don’t do New Years resolutions, but I do have some 2015 fitness goals.

Everywhere I go I’m seeing people talking about their goals for this year.

I’ve made a few myself, but they are a bit different this year. This year it is not about losing weight, getting faster, getting stronger (although that will come naturally with what I plan to do), or eating ‘better’.

This year is about learning to be me. Learning to love my body and appreciate everything it’s been through. It’s about living an active lifestyle and having fun. It’s about learning to work smarter and not necessarily harder. It’s about family.

My fitness goals are simple. Keep lifting because I love it. Do fun cardio when I can – swimming, kayaking, hiking etc. And try out new things to see what my body can do.

I want to walk on my hands, I want to do more pull-ups, and I want to do a somersault on the trampoline (which should be interesting as I’m afraid of heights lol).

No more dieting, no more counting calories. I’ve spent the last few years retraining myself to pay attention to my body’s cues. I know real hunger from boredom hunger. I know what foods make me feel the best and I know one day of extravagance will not undo anything. No more stressing over every mouthful, trying to hit macro targets or stay out of the ‘red’.

Now is the time to be true to myself and to finally learn to treat myself with the respect my body deserves. And that is my goal for 2015.