My Commitment

I'm back...I don't want to be but I am.

I am back to where I was 6 months after my youngest was born...she is now 4!

Time for another round of 12WBT.

I'm hoping that having a Thermi will make it easier to cook all the food in need to even if I cook different meals for the kids and my DH and I. I know I will need to be organised with both food and exercise.

I want to get back into running. I always loved how it made me feel when I would run. I am very much starting from scratch again so it will be slow going to begin with. I'm hoping to find a friend to run with to keep me motivated and get me out of bed in the morning! I am also going to try and walk more just to be moving more and to encourage the kids to move more too.

It is still all in the planning stage but in a week and a half I am sure I will be all ready to go!!

I will be back later this week to share a yummy thermi recipe for 'Baked' Eggs. It is low cal and delicious!

Fennel and Lemon Risotto in the Thermomix

I have a Thermomix and I LOVE it! Trying to stick to WW has been challenging though as there are so many yummy and slightly naughty things you can make so easily. I have decided to rejuvenate this blog and start posting my Thermi versions of WW recipes!

Fennel and Lemon Risotto - Serves 6
9 ProPoints per serve

Ingredients
2 leeks cut into chunks
2 cloves of garlic
10g Olive oil
Rind of 1 lemon
400g Arborio rice
2 small fennel bulbs (mine were about 120g each once sliced up)
2-3 tbs vegetable stock concentrate(from EDC)
aprox 1L of water
180g frozen peas
60g parmesan cheese
Rocket leaves to serve

Grate lemon rind 10 seconds/Speed 7 scrape down and repeat if necessary. Remove from bowl and set aside.

Chop leeks and garlic 3 seconds/speed 7

Sauté leek and garlic 3 min/Varoma/Speed 1

Insert butterfly. Add rice and saute 2 min/100C/Reverse/Speed 1

Add stock, sliced fennel, lemon rind and water and cook 16 min/100C/Reverse/Speed 1

Remove butterfly and pour into Thermoserver, add parmesan and peas and stir through. I also added the juice of half a lemon as I like my lemon! Let it sit for at least 5 minutes to warm up the peas and finish cooking.

Serve with rocket

Menu Plan – 15th-21st October

Monday – Chicken Mince with Rice Noodles (November Weight Watchers Mag) – 11 ProPoints

Tuesday – Apricot Chicken (from the WW website) – 11 ProPoints

Wednesday – Spanakopita (from the WW website) – 7 ProPoints

Thursday – Chicken Saltimbocca (Cook It Quick WW cook book) – 8 ProPoints

Friday – Lamb Vindaloo Meatballs (Cook It Quick WW cook book) – 12 ProPoints

Saturday – Beef and Spinach Lasagne (from the WW website) – 7 ProPoints

Sunday – Spaghetti and Meatballs (November Weight Watchers Mag) – 13 ProPoints

Making it work

I must admit I have found it hard to make everything work the way I would like it to. I tend to throw my all into something and then realise that I have overcommitted and then nothing happens. The same thing happened with my last round of 12WBT. I so wanted it to work, I was all organised and I joined the gym and organised all my recipes. It just didn’t work though. I was spending my entire day just trying to get to the gym and cook food. I got grumpy with the kids if they interrupted my workout at home(as the gym didn’t work as they hated the crèche, the 40min drive there didn’t help either). My husband wasn’t keen on the food and my kids wouldn’t touch most of it.

So, I went back to Weight Watchers. I am not sure if I have shared my weight loss journey on here before but here it is now. With each of my pregnancies I gained over 20kg. Baby weight is what I called it but really it was ‘I ate too much crap’ weight. I am an emotional eater, I eat when bored and I eat when I am upset and when there is something to celebrate I want to celebrate with food! I reward myself with food too. I have never been hugely overweight so many people probably don’t see my struggle as I manage to not gain too much but it is a daily battle of eating too much and then making up for it by not eating or going on silly fad diets. I am very thankful that I grew up with a mother who fed us lots of healthy food and I love vegies and salads and lots of good food. I hate to think how big I would be if I was more drawn to junk foods. Don’t get me wrong I eat these foods on occasion too but give me the choice of a McDonalds burger and a gourmet salad I would take the salad!

After I had my third child I was desperate to loose weight. I was officially overweight and I felt so uncomfortable and hated how I looked in everything. I had tried to convince myself that it was ok. That you can’t expect to be the same weight after kids as you were before. I ended up attending my first weight watchers meeting when my littlest was 6 months old and I was so glad that I did! Over a period of about 4-5 months I lost 12kg and not only was I at my pre-pregnancy weight I was at my wedding weight. It wasn’t hard, in fact it was easy! I felt so great!

Over a period of a year I gained 6kg of this back. I was slack and stopped following the WW guidelines and of course as a result I gained it back. I have spent the last year trying to get it back off as I didn’t really want to go back to WW meetings. Not because they didn’t work but because the new meeting leader was rude and would often say things in the meeting about the children being noisy…I felt very unwelcome and stopped going.

A friend messaged me a few weeks ago and said that she was thinking about going back as she too was not having much luck in shifting the weight she wanted to and WW had worked for her before too. So I thought I would go along too. The meeting now had a new leader, she is great! Totally fine with the kids there and she has this way for bringing the whole group together to encourage each other, she is very good at what she does. So over my first 2 weeks I lost 1.8kg and I am thrilled! It works for me and I don’t find it hard. I need to be organised with planning all my meals and I would like to start bringing in some exercise this week too but I am making it work for me at my own pace.

I want to post my progress on this blog again. Maybe add my meal plans and the occasional recipe too. I hope you will stick around and maybe find something here to help you make it work for you too

5 minutes

That is how long it took Miss Eve to stop crying today after dropping her off at the gym crèche. I actually got a workout in! When I got back she was happily playing and didn’t even look up! I am SO happy as I think this is going to work! Looking forward to trying a Punch class on Thursday morning and then maybe Pump on Friday. I am not doing my fitness and toning on the right days but as long as I get them all done I am happy.

Weigh in tomorrow. Not feeling too confident about it actually. I think the pizza and apple crumble on the weekend may have done a bit of damage. The challenge for me is going to be getting on with it if the numbers are not kind. I would be happy with any loss at all this week…as long as it is not a gain! That would be a bit depressing. I should start thinking about my Saturday and making sure that I have a plan in place for any social occasions! I don’t actually have any plans as yet for the weekend and I am not working! My first weekend off in 4 weeks! Yay!

Operation Gym Crèche….FAIL

So it didn’t go too well today. I was all organised and got Miss Elsa(5) to school on time(an achievement for me!) but she was all clingy again and I left school about 20 minutes later than i would have liked to. I did kind of expect it since it was the first day back after a 3 weeks but it did mean that I was arriving in the car park at the time the Zumba class was starting and I still needed to get the kids and the pram out of the car into the gym and into the crèche and get changed so I knew that it wasn’t going to happen.
Dropping the girls off at the crèche seemed to go so well to begin with. Miss Eve(2) ran straight over to the play kitchen and started to make mummy and Miss Isla(4) a cup of tea while I signed them in. I had my ‘cup of tea’ and kissed the girls goodbye and then Miss Eve’s bottom lip dropped and began to quiver, tears filled her big brown eyes and she whispered ‘Goodbye Mummy’ and I quickly left the room. I was out and there was no screaming(yay!). The lip quiver was pretty heart breaking though!
I headed to the change room and by the time I had pulled all my workout gear from my bag the screaming had started! I could hear it loud and clear from the change room and I couldn’t stand it! I headed back in thinking I would give her another cuddle and head back out to do my workout….WRONG! I ended up being in here for another 20 minutes trying to settle her so I could go again. Finally I decided to go anyway and see if she would settle. I managed to get changed and take a 5 minute phone call from my mum and all I could heat coming from the crèche was the sound of Eve sobbing. I went back in and that was it….50 minutes at the gym and no workout!

Source: funnyphotosto.com via Kay on Pinterest

The carer and one of the trainers (who also has one of her little ones in the crèche) both think I need to toughen up and leave her a bit longer…maybe they are right…maybe they aren’t. I don’t know! I REALLY want to make this work but do I really want it enough to have Eve scream it out! The carer suggested I leave her for 15 minutes tomorrow and then 20 minutes the next time and just continue to extend it. She said this had worked with others over about 3 days. I think I will head back in tomorrow morning and try again. I guess it can only get better!
It is SO tempting to just throw in the workout for today as I have only just walked in the door and it is 4:20. I still need to make dinner for the kids, dinner for Josef and I(different things tonight as I know the kids won’t eat curry), bath them, dress them, put them in bed, clean everything up, do a load or two of washing, sort out everyone's clothes for tomorrow, make lunches for tomorrow and a whole lot of other things that I will remember along the way…BUT I will fit in a workout somewhere!

So far so good

So it has now been 2 weeks and I only just got to blogging today. I guess it has taken all my focus to get started and stay on track. I feel that I am finally there though! Each day is getting easier(except for Saturdays so there is something to work on there!) and I am getting into better habits with my food and shopping. Oh I have written numerous blog posts in my head but they just haven’t made it to the blog!

I am 1.3kg down as of last weeks weigh in on Wednesday and I am pretty pleased with that. It was hard to not compare to others figures but as I don’t have much to loose I really am happy with my progress so far and should reach goal if I can keep things going like they have been.

Exercise has been a struggle some days especially with school holidays as the routine is all mucked up! I do love having Elsa at home but it is definitely a lot harder to get out and get things done with an extra child! School goes back tomorrow though(Yay!) so the routine starts tomorrow morning! Actually really it starts tonight with me getting everything ready for my day tomorrow. Clothes are set out for all of us, the lunchboxes have been packed and my gym bag is packed too. Tomorrow I conquer the gym! Well at least I will attempt to if Miss Eve(2) will let me. She loves her mummy that girl! I do love that she always wants me near but I do want that hour a day to myself at the gym so I am hoping by the end of the week she will happily go into the crèche at the gym and I can actually get a whole workout in! I have picked all my classes that I would like to do this week but I am fully expecting to be interrupted for at least the first day! If it happens I will pop the kids back in the car drive home and finish off at home. It will be a pain and take heaps longer to get my workout done but I am hoping it will only be a few days and it will all be working well (fingers crossed!). Tomorrow I try Zumba!

Source: pinner.in via Arla on Pinterest