The year I realised that perfection = freedom

I was so confused last night.  I was overwhelmed - not in a bad way, it's just that there has been so much flowing through my mind.  It's the 31^st December so everything is all about the new year and fresh starts and reflecting on 2012 and goal setting and resolutions and summarising the year and hope for 2013 and ahhhh so much!  It is great to do this stuff!  I love it.  But it can get overwhelming.  

I've been a perfectionist all my life.  I remember when I was 9 years old, spending half an hour writing the first letter of the first word of a short essay I had to do for our Year 5 handwriting competition.  I think it was the letter "A".  I had to get it perfect.  Not to concern you, I wasn't as obsessive over the rest of the essay, for some reason it was just the first letter and then I was on the right track!  When you look at my worse-than-doctors-scrawl-handwriting now you wouldn't guess it, but I ended up winning 1st prize in this competition which I am still proud of to this day. ;)  LOL.  But the point is, I've always been like that. Spending half an hour to do the perfect 'A'.

So today is the last day of 2012 and as of the stroke of midnight tonight, everything will be fantastic.  All of the worries and stresses of this year will disappear for everyone and everything will be...perfect.  Can't wait.

Yeah, right.

At the stroke of midnight, things won't be perfect.  All that will change will be that we all have fresh hope.  And that is something that we can all do with.  I love how at the start of each year, everyone has such hope for the future and calls the impending year 'their year'.  There's nothing wrong with that.  We should all hope and be optimistic and be looking forward.

But if there's one thing I realised this year, it's that 'perfect' doesn't exist.  We can strive for perfection, but we will never get there.  And sometimes, that striving can come at a cost.  Life is a swirly circle of ups and downs and twists and turns and swishes and falls and...you name it.  As I heard one wise friend say yesterday, sometimes there's reasons for things happening, and sometimes...there's actually not.  Revelations derived from circumstantial happenings can be life changing and I have moved in leaps and bounds from some of mine that I have worked out this year.

But there is other stuff that doesn't make sense.  And that's ok.  Because it's called "life".  Life is life and things happen.  As soon as I realised that this year, I lost some weight.  Off my shoulders.

Usually at midnight on NYE I want to have everything organised.  And this year was no exception, until yesterday.  I am very ambitious.  I have goals: life goals, annual goals, 12WBT goals, weight goals, resolutions, you name it.  I wanted to be set up for the new year, say goodbye to 2012- the most challenging (good and bad) year of my life, and welcome 2013 in a 'perfect' state.  Enter it how I intend to live it.

Tonight, NYE, I was supposed to be in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in a flower bikini.  That’s actually what I had planned.  Well, I’m not.  My year changed.  That’s what happens.  And anyway, none of my NYE’s have gone to plan.  Each year I drum it up to be the #bestpartyofmylife LOL.  There’s so many expectations.  Not very funnily enough I’ve never had the planned #bestpartyofmylife.  On previous NYE’s I’ve had to babysit a drunk busload of men on the side of the highway.  I’m vomited from a high rise balcony.  (#I’mclassylikethat).  I’ve had a fight with a friend.  I’ve been assaulted.  I’ve had food poisoning.  I’ve kissed random boys who’s phone numbers end up in my phone as ‘Lifeguard NYE party pash.’  LOL.  One of my NYE’s was so terrible that a story ended up in the newspaper about it.

So in keeping with my perfect entrance into 2013, I got home yesterday morning from boot camp and was going to sit down and write some stuff out.  Finalise my goals list.  Clean my house.  You know, be perfect and stuff ;)  Instead, I fell asleep in my damp and sweaty training gear on my bed – a very rare thing.  I was tired.  And I didn’t do any of the stuff I planned.  And that’s ok.

Because I realised this year that the best laid plans can unravel.  That you can be going along swimmingly, and then BAM! something hits you in the face.  That we have to adapt.  That we have to be flexible.  That life in it's rawest form, is beautiful.

Growing up, I was so busy trying to be perfect, that I forgot why I was doing it all.  I had friends and family tell me for years to slow down.  I acknowledged this but thought that I had until I was at least 50 to calm my pace.  ‘Doing too much’ is only detrimental to 'old' people.  One close friend in particular, told me to stop moving at a million miles an hour.  She said that she used to be like me, and told me to look how she ended up.  She told me this from her bed in Palliative Care.  She passed away a year ago.

This year has been insane.  The most phenomenal highs and lows all smacked together.  Some of it makes sense.  Most of it changed me.  All of it was needed.  I have so much going through my head.  But it's time to simplify.  And let things go.  And block out the noise.  And, relax.  I have some huge goals and I still intend to work my ass off to make them happen.  But I'm cool now.  I know 'it' doesn't have to perfect.  It actually can't be.  I wrote some new rules for me for next year:

Laugh until I cry. (I forgot how to.)

Train until I (almost) throw up. (Because it makes me feel good.)

Love endlessly. (I already do.  This was just a reminder.)

Smile. Just smile. (Because it's all ok.) :)

Work passionately. (Because I want to do what I love.)

Let go with no limits. (Vulnerability = liberation = freedom.)

Play like there's a water fight every day. (I forgot how to play.)

Wear my heart openly. (Continue to.  It's part of who I am.)

Protect personally. (I deserve to protect myself.)

Accept consciously. (There is freedom in acceptance.)

Seize boundlessly. (I've ignored opportunities in the past if they weren't planned.  No more.)

Aim beyond the moon. (Because if I don't get there, I'll fall amongst the stars.  And the moon.)

Live deservedly. (Because it wasn't until recently that I realised I do…deserve.)

I spent a while on this list to make sure it was...dare I say it...perfect.  Then I remembered.  I'll probably update this list.  Edit it.  Grow it.  I may reflect some more.  I'll still 'finalise' my goals lists, to do list etc. too.  And then change them.  And will try to achieve them all.  And I may not get them all done.  They’ll probably change tomorrow even.  I’ll learn some more.  Because that's what happens.  We change.  We adapt.  We accept.

It's been a big year.  I'm really tired.  I'm letting go of the confusion, the pondering, the reasons, the lessons, the why's, and the perfection, and just focussing on living truthfully, graciously and passionately, with the rules that I have set above.  I was going to say that I'm not there yet. Not where? I'm not at my weight loss goal or at other goals (yet), but I'm 'there' with life. Because I realised that it's not about achieving perfection. It's about doing your best with what you have. It's about living your best life. And I know now that it's an 'every minute' thing, not a NY thing.  You can be whoever you want to be, at any time.  It’s inside of yourself and you have to trust yourself.  Sometimes it takes a pink My Little Pony to teach us that.  Well, me, anyway ;)

Midnight on NYE doesn’t give us anything that we didn’t already have.  It simply exemplifies hope.

Live to the maximum.  And in the moment.  Accept.  Let it go, let it all out.

Grab your hope - as this is important – make your goals, create your plans, and party in the new year like we all should.  Dream HUGE.  You can do anything you want to.  And keep an open mind.  Because you know perfection?  It’s actually acceptance.  And acceptance equals freedom.

Happy New Year everyone.  May 2013 be ‘your’ year.  I know it’s going to be mine :) xoxoxoo

A very Coco Christmas

Merry Christmas! :)

I hope you had a happy day and were able to spend it with those you love, or at least doing what you love.

I'm lying in bed, exhausted but compelled to blog before I go to sleep. I have nothing dramatic to share, I just feel like writing so I thought I'd report in on Christmas Day.

Firstly can I just say that it sux that Christmas Day and my birthday (and almost NYE) all fall on Tuesdays this round, the day before weigh in day? Not fair ;)

Christmas pudding

From a nutrition/exercise point of view, I went ok today. Christmas Day is a day that I decided a while back that would be a 'non calorie counting day'. That has the potential to get out of hand but I'm proud to say that I'm happy with how I did.

My Christmas Day involved getting up at 3am, 15 hours of travel, being paged over a loudspeaker for the first time ever this morning, and for the second time ever, again tonight, causing a security breach, traditions, time constrained running visits to hug family at their front door then run away again just so I could see them, little babies, heavy rain, meeting Santa, and most importantly, being where I wanted to be, amongst family.

When you get to hug Santa on Christmas Day, you know it's been a good one.  And the random guy who took this photo asked me out ;)

It wasn't a perfect day by any means. I wasn't able to share the day with my adored brothers, their partners and brand new baby girls on their first Christmas and other rellies and I missed them.  I had an ankle induced visit to the chemist. When I got to Christmas lunch I felt dizzy for a while and almost fainted. I was speaking to my Uncle and the room started spinning, I held the wall to stabilise myself and went for a search for sugar which came in the form of a Jaffa. Not the most nutritious thing but I needed something. I realised later that at that point I hadn't eaten one thing for 7-8 hours because of traveling - that could do it!  And just other funny little things that weren't great - family things, personal things etc.

But the best thing ever was that I was ok with it. Firstly I just felt so blessed that I have a family to share the day with and who love me. My heart ached all day for those people feeling sad or alone. But secondly I was so proud of myself, because I was ok. This year has taught me that life isn't perfect, things don't go to plan, I can't control other people, I can only control my actions and reactions and that you just have to live in the moment and do your best. In the past little things would have upset me- I usually secretly break down in tears each Christmas Day because its such an emotional day and I get overwhelmed - in a good way or in a bad way. But yesterday I just lived in the moment, accepted how things were, and smiled all day.  This was a huge step for me, personally.

No stress.  Accepting.

The only time I almost broke into tears was when one of my Aunts gave me a Swarovski crystal heart necklace as a present. This part of my family usually do Secret Santa and because my plans to join them were very last minute (as in two days ago!) I wasn't on the list this year. So I wasn't expecting anything but everyone gave me something and then this particular gift was so incredible and I was overwhelmed by it. It took all my strength not to cry when she told me why she gave it to me. I was just happy to be amongst my family - so the thought behind this was just so special- it's like a reminder that I'm so lucky to have my family. I really relished and noticed each moment yesterday- all of the little traditions - whether they be happy, funny or annoying - I just loved them all because they're familiar, I'm alive and well to enjoy them and they make up this big crazy family that I'm a part of. We are certainly NOT the Brady Bunch, but I feel so blessed and I wouldn't have it, or them, any other way.

Anyway I actually came here to talk about food and exercise haha - a little off track there. As I said, I had decided that Christmas Day is for me a day where I won't count calories. This is just a personal decision that suits me. The back up rules to that plan were that I would relax, not indulge/binge - and that I would jump straight back onto it the next day. So, rating my Christmas Day:

My grandparents' punch

• The 100g yoghurt breakfast I had before I left home: Good. But I could have had something more filling, or something more full stop.
• No alcohol: Good. This was easy though- I rarely drink- I only have a big drinking session a few times a year so this wasn't an issue for me. The no alcohol was more of a habit rather than a choice.
• The small glass of non-alcoholic punch my grandparents encouraged me to have: Good. I have no idea what was in it, it was high sugar juices etc. but the point is both of my elderly grandparents were so proud of it and wanted me to try it. This was one of those rare times where calorie counting isn't the most important thing in the world.
• The Jaffa I had when I was feeling dizzy: So-so. Maybe I could have chosen something better but I just felt like a sugar hit would keep me upright and it did.
• Christmas lunch: Good. I put onto my plate what I wanted. Ham, chicken, turkey, multiple salads, prawns, ciabatta, salmon etc. I didn't pile my plate up either, I just had a bit of what I wanted. I relaxed and enjoyed my Christmas lunch with no guilts. And I didn't go for a second round, because I had had enough.
• The extra few pieces of ham I had after lunch: So-so. Christmas ham is my favourite thing. I didn't need more ham but, I wanted it. It's ok. I'm glad I did that rather than a second highly stacked plate of seconds which I usually would have done.
• Dessert: So-so. I had a small piece of pudding and custard. I didn't need it- it's not my favourite dessert and I could have gotten away with declining it without offending anyone. However it's one of my favourite traditions of my family Christmas and I chose to partake in a small part of it. And that's ok.
• The chocolates I snacked on after dessert: So-so. To be honest this was because I was still feeling a bit dizzy and I felt like I needed more sugar, it wasn't about the chocolate. Again, I'm sure I could have found something better, but I gave my body the immediate hit it needed.
• The pre-weighed rice crackers I had in my bag as an emergency snack that I had instead of a high calorie laden dinner that was available: Win :)
• The chocolates I mindlessly snacked on on my way home "because it was still Christmas Day and I decided I'm not calorie counting today": Hmmm wrong. No win here! This wasn't cool. No dwelling on it though.
• No bingeing all day even though I 'could have because there was no calorie counting': Win :)
• The 4L of water I didn't drink: Not cool
• The 1.5km walk I did early in the morning: Good.



Christmas Day lunch

• The 1.5km walk I didn't do late at night because I chose to get a lift from my cousin because the area was unsafe to walk in: Good. Safety is more important than exercise. I did all of the exercise I had time for yesterday. It may have been 20 minutes but it was something.

So all in all I'm happy with how I went. There was no perfection and some not so great choices made, but I'm happy because it showed me that I can have a non perfect day - I can have a break and relax without going silly. Christmas Day is my favourite day of the year and I spent it - physically and with food and exercise, how I chose to. 

Pre-packed emergency snacks came in handy

I fell asleep last night so I'm finishing writing this today, on Weigh In Wednesday Boxing Day. I lost exactly 2kg this week at weigh in. I'm having a rest day today because I haven't had a total exercise break in 1-2 weeks. I have boot camp / PT every day for about a week and a half aside from public holidays, and with some other things I'm working on I will see if I can start to crank out the kg's lost from here on in. But today I'm having off. I slept in, am being lazy, am going to get myself organised and then go and watch A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas movie with my brother this afternoon. 

Merry Christmas to you all, I hope you were able to find some happiness, love, balance, peace or at least a little bit of magic in your day.

Lots of love, Coco xo  


P.S. Thank you so much to Mish who writes the fantastic blog: http://mishsmash.wordpress.com/  She nominated Coco Butter for a Versatile Blogger nomination - thank you so much!  I love Mish's blog and many others, so I will spread the love and jot some of these blogs down now.  I highly recommend them.  Apparently these are the rules with accepting this nomination:

• Display the award certificate on your website.
• Announce your win with a post and include a link to whoever presented your award.
• Present 15 awards to deserving bloggers. 
• Create a post linking to them and drop them a comment to tip them off.
• Post 7 interesting facts about yourself

So here are 15 of my awards to deserving bloggers, and below are 7 interesting facts on myself :)

15 BLOGS I RECOMMEND READING: (These are only 15 of many blogs that I love!)

1. Mindless Natter
2. Chronicles of a Gingerbread Man
3. angelbabee1971
4. Julie's Journey from Fat to Fab....
5. Unleashing My Inner Awesome
6. 20 Years of Living in the Dark
7. You got to move it, move it!!!
8. Rayon Dreams in a Cheesecake World
9. Coming out of the fat closet
10. Diary of a Dieting Diva
11. Finding Carol
12. From F**ked to Fab
13. Diary of an Ex-Fattie
14. Sporadic Buckets
15. I am enough

7 FACTS ABOUT MYSELF:

1. I am half Australian, half British and a 32nd Spanish Princess.  But I consider myself all-Aussie with a bit of an American heart.
2. I was fluent in 3 languages at the age of 9.
3. I began school at the age of 4.  I was in Year 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 due to changing schools and European scholastic spies.  I finished Year 12 when I was 16, with the same year level I started with.
4. I got conned by Philippino shooting alley scam artists and taken to an ATM on a horse to withdraw my $ for them on my 24th birthday.
5. I got fired from KFC when I was 17 because I refused to dye my hair back to a natural colour (it was bright fluoro pink).  #defiantteenagermuch
6. I've lived with 45 people.
7. I have bluey green eyes with a red streak.  I call it my 'love streak'. ;)

Sometimes I dream up crazy things to do. And then I do them.

Like yesterday.

As a part of my personal weekly milestone challenge I set myself, to do something that will challenge me each week, I needed to come up with something for Week 5 as I missed a week when I set my goals out at the start of the round.  (I need to update this list on here, I will do that soon).

So the high tech planning stages went like this:

Break

• Friday: Tried to think of something I could do.  Without too much thought behind it, I decided to cycle for 50km as this week’s challenge.  Didn’t know if I’d be able to manage to achieve it but I thought I’d give it a try.
• Saturday: Decided to do it on Sunday.
• Sunday: Did it.

The challenge behind it for me was that this is my cycling history:

See sprinkler, will refresh under sprinkler

• 2009: Started cycling again since being a kid.  Worked my way up over a few months to be able to cycle from 2km at the start, to 44km (my longest ride).  I had an epic 44km cycle that crushed my cycling soul and that saw me abstaining from my bike for the next 3 years.
• July 2012: Sat on my bike and rode down my street.
• October 2012: Rode 6km in my triathlon.
• November 2012: Rode 15km as part of #okr.

So, the plan to cycle for 50km was a challenge because (wow I’m loving bullet points today!)

• It would be my longest ride since the ride that crushed me – actually my longest ride in my life.
• The last time I attempted a massive ride (the 44km / 2009 one), it broke me.
• I am a really, really slow rider.  I’m talking 10-12km/h.  I have an old mountain bike, it’s hard to cycle when you’re so heavy, and I am just slow.  So it would take me a long time.

But as I said, I dream up these crazy things and then I do them.  With not too much thought behind it.  Which is sometimes a good thing, otherwise I may not do stuff like this.



Wish me luck!

 Anyway, I did it.  You don’t want a play by play, trust me.  There would be a lot of whingeing about sore butt’s in there.  So in summary:

• 5:30am: Arrived in New Farm Park in Brisbane and cycled 7km.
• 6:30am-7:30am: Santa/supersoakers themed boot camp.  Best boot camp ever!  I worked so damn hard and LOVED it and then we had a massive water fight with water balloons and supersoakers!  It was so much fun :)
• 7:30am-10:15am: Meditation, breaky/coffee/chat with boot campers.
• 10:15am: Back on my bike to do the last 43km.
• 5pm: Finished and left New Farm Park.

It was a long day.  It was an extremely hot day.  I tried to stay hydrated but should have had more water with me.

• 1-7km: Pre-boot camp, it was fine.
• 7km-20-ish km: Not too bad, not much pain.
• 20-40km: Pain began, struggled with my stamina – it was soooo long.
• 40km-44km: Over it but kept pedalling.  In so much pain – hands, back, butt, knees, everything was sore.  Mind games commenced.  I turned off my music and turned on 12WBT podcasts.

• 44km-47km: Fierce tears.  I was impressed I hadn’t cried until now.  But I was over it.  I’d started exercising about 11 hours earlier and I had had enough.  I was berating myself for  both dreaming up this crazy challenge and for being so bloody determined all the time to never give up.  Everything was screaming – my whole body, my mind, my eyes and even my bike.  I was so slow but I kept pedalling.
• 47km-50km: The hardest 3km of my life.  The mindset I had to push through to get through these 3km was enormous.  I had some cyber support from a few girlfriends and held onto that.  There was no way I was pulling out now.  But I wanted to like nothing else.  I had nothing left in the tank – I was drained.  But I did it.  Because I wanted to challenge myself.

This 50km was not about the exercise, or about the calories.  It was purely about pushing myself to my limits and proving to myself that I could do this.  And I achieved that :)  In saying that though, there is no way I’m doing an epic challenge like that and not having stats to prove it! ;)  So my stats were:

• 50.1km cycle + boot camp

• Total time cycling minus all breaks: 5 hours 37 minutes
• Total time actually exercising minus all breaks (including boot camp): 6 hours 31 minutes
• Total time from start to finish of #CrazyExercise: 11 hours 30 minutes
• Calories burned: 3647 (I paused my Polar each time I had a break so these were actuals)
• Personal satisfaction gained: Immeasurable



After

 I don’t know how I did that.  I don’t recommend it to myself again – well at least not for a while.  It was a long time to be out in the sun, pushing not just my body, but my mind.  My limits were reached. Most cyclists could get that done in 1-3 hours.  It may have been silly to do that, or to do anything for that long but I ended up ok.  Although last night I was a bit rocky on my chair and felt like I’d been on a boat.  And Tabata at boot camp this morning hurt.

But I pushed myself.  I set myself a challenge, and I did it.  And that’s what this whole story is about.

I’m so glad that this week’s personal challenge doesn’t involve exercise: reducing my Diet Coke – that’s gonna have its own challenges but at this point, it seems like Easy Street in comparison to yesterday. ;)

And this was only after boot camp

My view after I'd finished it: from the ground

Most fun boot camp ever!

Pumpkin seed break

My view from one of my breaks

"Are you my size?"

Do you remember that children's book, "Are You My Mother?" by P.D. Eastman where the little bird asks all of the different animals if they are it's mother?  Well, I'd like to write my own version: "Are You My Size?" ... because I need to find my (clothing) size!

Seriously!  I can see it now:
 
Are you my size, Size 26?
Are you my size, Size 24?
Are you my size, Size 22?
Are you my size, Size 20?
Are you my size, Size 18?
Are you my size, Size 16?
Are you my size, Size 14?
Are you my size, Size 12?
Are you my size, Size 10?   

I've been asking that all week and I just don't know the answer.

There's a couple of issues:

• Clothing sizes are so 'unaligned' - a Size 18 in one shop = a Size 14 in another. 
• I have a strange obsession with my old clothes which are too big for me.
• I have a weird dysmorphic (?) issue where I literally can't tell how big I am, or compare myself in photos.

Clothing sizes do my head in, as I'm sure they do for all of us who live in our great land of Australia.  There's no point whingeing about this - there is no standard sizing and that's that.  This week alone, I have worn Size 14 - Size 26.

My obsession with old clothes though is a bit harder to work out.  I spoke to some friends about it and they suggested it's the whole 'taking longer for my head to catch up' thing.  I'm not sure that it's that.  I understand the concept - someone loses a stack of weight and it takes them a while to 'realise' how much smaller they now are.  But I am not close to goal weight yet.  I think it may be a 'comfort' thing.  One side of it being that bigger clothes are physically more comfy to wear as they are loose.  But the other thing being that there's an attachment issue to them.  Take these 2 pairs of pants.  I wore them both this week.  And thought it was ok:

The top picture pants I wear with a bulldog clip to make them smaller.  I do own smaller pants but am attached to these ones.  The bottom pair - I could fit a cushion in the spare space around the backside area.  They stay up with elastic ok, but they are so baggy that they could double as a parachute if I really needed to.

I didn't throw these pants away when I finally looked at them like this.  They're currently being washed so I can wear them again!  Why do I do this?

The other issue is I just can't tell how big I am.  I saw a photo today and was shocked as I thought I could tell that I've lost weight.  Then I saw another photo and was crushed at how fat I looked.  These 2 photos were taken all of 5 minutes apart!  Seriously, my mind is screwed up when it comes to my size!

You may have read about my new Size 16 dress that I wore in Sydney.  I believed it was a one off Size 16 that happened to fit me.  I guess that's because I don't fit into Size 16 pants or anything else - just this dress.  I tried on another dress from my cupboard one day recently and pulled out a Size 16 and it fit.  Not enough to parade it in public, but it physically went on and fit.  I decided that that dress may be wrong sizing too.  The next day I tried on another Size 16, and it fit too.  And another.  Yet I refuse to believe I am a Size 16.  Because I know that I'm not.  But maybe I am?  I have no idea what size I am!  With a combo of non-standard sizing, and my comfort and dysmorphic issues, I am a bundle of no help when it comes to knowing what size I am.

The photo comparison above is something I put together the other day.  I keep looking at it and can tell that there is a difference.  Then I think that there's not.  Then I go back and forth with myself. It is a diffence of 25kg - taken at the start of my 12WBT journey and now. I know that that"s the difference. But recognising the difference? Different story.

Why do we have such an issue with sizes?  Why is there such a massive difference between sizes?  And most importantly, what size am I??
 
I have no idea.

Surely I can't be a "Size 14-26"?  That is a huge range.
 
Are you my Size?

Operation Work My Ass Off (#owmao)

So, #owmao, huh?  In other words, #osmf (Operation Slap My Face).

Alrighty.

We're now 1/3 of the way through this round.  4 weeks down, 8 weeks to go. I've had my fired up whingey post about my ankle and I've had my D&M posts about my moment of truth and revelations etc. etc. etc..

Time to cut out the whiney-ness all round and get to the crux of where I am and reassess.

To be honest?  Right now, I am:

Not.impressed.with.myself.

That's right.

I like my stats:

The past 4 weeks:

Group fitness test in Week 4

• I have lost 8.9kg / 7.2%
• I am 26.1cm smaller
• I did my fitness test with the QLD Crew (photos on this post) and you can see my results on my Coco's Stats page: all improved.

However I am frustrated at myself.  For a few reasons which include the fact that I know I could have done better; I have not stuck to my mini goals; and I have been off track the last few days in a HUGE way.  I am proud of my results but I still have that straight A school girl mentality thing inside of me that says "you did really well but what if you actually put everything into it??  You could have done so much better."  (#noperfectionisthere #havenoideawhatyouretalkingabout!)

I have been really bad the last few days.  I have eaten a lot of crap.  I could even see it coming.  I am really disappointed in myself.  I am not going to make excuses or explore why.  This was a bad relapse - like 16 year old bad.  Like the full extent of it is perhaps not appropriate for this blog bad. The fact is that I did it and shaming myself on here by saying it out loud is almost as hard to take as it is beating myself up.  And if that's not hard enough, the gain that I know that I will see on the scales on Wednesday will definitely be punishment enough.

The Great Wall of Kate!

This happened partially because I have not been following my mini goals that I set for myself:

Daily - Stick to nutrition plan - Not 100%

Daily - Stick to training plan - Not 100% Daily - Track all food - Not 100%

Daily - Track all exercise - Not 100%

Daily - Drink 4L water a day - Not 100%

Weekly - Enter weekly challenge - On track

Weekly - Publish photo in yellow dress - On track

Weekly - Do a cook up - On track

Weekly - Go through nutrition plan / plan meals / shop - Not 100% 

Weekly - Watch all of Mish's videos - Not 100%

Weekly - Read blogs - Not 100%

Monthly - Reassess goals - On track (that's what I'm doing now!)

I didn't make these mini goals for the fun of it.  I made these for myself because I knew they would work.  I knew they would help me to stay on track.  Well, I didn't stick to them 100% over the last week or so, and look where I ended up!

So no whingeing, no analysing, just one pure and simple question now:

• Is what I am doing taking me closer to or further away from my goal?

I need a good slap on my face and kick up my backside, which don't you worry, I am giving to myself.  So, it is time for #owmao (it sounds like an injured cat!)  But seriously?  If I want what I want, and I do, then I have to work my ass off.  Literally.  It's back to routine for me today.  So back to organisation.  Back to basics.  Back to the mini goals that will keep me on track.  Back to remembering what I want and focussing all of my energies onto it.

I know better.  I'm not going to waste time beating myself up over it either.  The feeling inside of me is bad enough :(  A relapse doesn't mean that I've 'wrecked it'.  It's simply a small setback that I can learn from.

Two beautiful friends sent me the below two pictures.  To me, they say the same thing.

My heart is set on something and I will go out and achieve it.  I know the path I want to take.  I am on it!  I just have to work my ass of to get there now.  No more being an idiot.  Back to basics.  One footlight at a time, yes, but some damn hard work also.  I'm cutting out the noise and the distractions and just continuing on with some good old fashioned...hard work.  What does my heart want?  I know.

Dream it, see it, plan it, be it.
Achieve it.

I'm off to have a shower and take some Valerian that I bought today.  Am hoping this will help me to fall asleep in my bed and not other places :(  At boot camp breakfast...in a work meeting...in another place I have mentioned :(  Just in bed would be nice thanks.

Wish me luck for a good nights sleep.

And when I wake up, look out world.
"Operation Not Working To My Full Potential And Occassionally Relapsing" ends.
And "Operation Work My Ass Off" commences.

I've got this ;)

<3