I am, not to put too fine a point on it, fat. I have a million excuses and reasons for why I got here but something I realised recently is that how I got here isn’t as important as deciding whether or not I’m going to stay here. I’m not going to tell you how much I weigh yet because I’m still coming to grips with the numbers. It’s enough to say that even if I was pregnant with octuplets my current weight would probably alert you to the fact that I’ve made friends with more than one chocolate biscuit in my lifetime.
Crap. It's way more than I'd thought it would be. Any urge to hit the Tim Tams for a morning snack evaporates in the face of reality. A nectarine it is. I duly record my weight and body fat percentage beside the date in an Excel sheet. Then I start a second sheet to show what I eat during the day. There will be no cheating.
Finally, after everyone has been fed I tackle the house. This morning I start by removing the rubbish, doing the dishes and tidying the kitchen. Later, while James has his morning sleep, I will tackle the lounge room. I’m meant to be hosting a baby shower on Valentine’s Day, so I have a very firm timetable to get on top of the house and make it presentable for visitors. All the way through this my body aches and complains like a six-year-old on a trip across the Nullarbor. I just know it's angling for one of the Tim Tams because my mouth waters any time I go near the fridge and my hand is usually halfway to the door handle before I catch myself. It helps to have those little digital numbers flash up in my head and glare accusing in a bright pink neon. Ah...thanks but no thanks.
I’ve switched the scales from kilos to pounds because, although the number is a lot higher, it means that results will seem faster and better. Frankly I need the psychological boost. When James has his morning nap I change into my workout gear and cue Foxtel IQ up to the Workout show I recorded off the Lifestyle Channel. My Workout rotates through celebrity personal trainers. This morning we have Geraldine – a glorious example of the female species who can most accurately be described as a black Barbie. She is tall, beautifully proportioned with long glossy hair and has a killer smile. I hate Geraldine on sight.
Geraldine and three other perkies are guiding me through the “New York Ballet” workout. Two minutes in and I’ve managed to do everything the perkies and Barbie have managed. I’m feeling a little out of breath and I can feel some muscles complaining, but I’m confident that I can keep this up for the half hour the show goes for. In fact – I’m starting to step into over-confidence. Maybe I could be a New York Ballerina.
Four minutes in and Barbie announces that we’ve finished the “easy warm-ups”. I should have known this was way too easy. I pause the workout and run for my heart rate monitor. If I’m going to be doing some serious work, I want to know how hard it was. Press play…and then comes a series of moves which involve squats disguised as pliés, leg lifts cunningly hidden behind a veneer of arabesque and general torture disguised as fluffy pink ballet fun. Five minutes in and my legs are screaming and I’m sweating all over. Seven minutes in and my legs are quivering with the trauma inflicted and I start cutting some of the moves short.
At nine minutes Barbie and the Perkies start doing yoga poses for strength and this is where I come undone. Trying to balance and twist at the same time my outraged thigh muscles give one final spasm and then I go headlong into the coffee table. It’s at this point that I discover that you don’t even need to do the workout to feel virtuous – you can watch it while you sip your water and your brain will convince you that you’re losing weight and getting fit.
After a minute of recovery I become determined not to throw it all over on the first day and so I head to the orbital trainer and do 20 minutes of fat burning cardio. I feel horribly stiff and quite sore but I’m not a dead loss – I manage to breathe through it and last the whole 20 minutes. My heart rate monitor tells me I’ve done 30 minutes overall and burned 300 calories. Excellent. No doubt I will be crippled with muscle cramp tomorrow but I think this is a pretty good kick off point. The only downside is that I am now officially too knackered to face housework. Cest la vie –
Day two pretty much kills the enthusiasm. Not only can I not walk thanks to performing a million “thigh-toning” pliés, but I’ve had a horrible night with James. I stick to my diet but I don’t exercise as much as I probably should. Or at all. Whatever. The next week is pretty much a perfect example of how my good intentions always fall apart. Charles’ depression resurfaces, James starts teething (and stops sleeping) and here we are back in aisle six with the mint slice biscuits on special.
Okay, so I can’t completely overhaul my lifestyle Biggest Loser style in one week. But I can do some things to start heading down the right track. When we both crave hamburgers, we buy the ingredients and make the low fat version on the sandwich press. I double the amount of fruit I buy each week and snack on that. I try to up the level of water I drink and I go back to taking my vitamins (frankly a breastfeeding woman should never stop).
I’m a week in now and unsurprisingly, I haven’t lost much weight. Only 500g. But my body fat percentage has gone down and my percentage of water weight has increased. I feel better and I have a bit more energy. Today I’m going to get Charles to photograph me in my knickers for comparison purposes and I’m flirting with the idea of publicly confessing how much I weigh. I believe that true weight loss will take time and is best achieved through sustainable changes to diet and lifestyle so I need to be patient and start changing slowly. Anything too hard and fast and I’ll no doubt stop doing it.
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