Head down, bum up

Hello!

I'm going backwards in time but I said I'd do a Week 4 round up and it's Week 5 at the moment so I have to get onto it! Making sure I post this before Wednesday WWW tomorrow at least. Firstly can I just whinge? I am sooooooo sore from Sunday! I haven't had DOMS this bad in a while. I've been limping around work for 2 days. Yesterday it took me so long to put my lunch in the microwave (as I had to crouch down to do so) that a girl standing nearby offered to get it out for me when it was done ha! I faded fast as well. I was pretty bright and sprightly (albeit limping) first thing in the morning but I got more tired and lethargic as the day wore on. Everyone laughed at my limping, I kept groaning without realising, everything hurt and it was a squealing on the toilet seat type day. Today was just as bad but this afternoon I've gotten rapidly better. Aughhhhhhhh. Thanks for listening - whingeing helps ease the pain by like 1%.

Anyway - Week 4 round up! So this round is going really well! I did up this picture on my Instagram to summarise it. My stats as at Wednesday last week (Week 4) were I've lost 10.8kg and 15.8cm this round so far! There's still 8 weeks to go and I have a long history of getting off track so maybe I won't continue at this rate! But...I really feel like this is working and quietly I have a special faith in myself that I've got this. I don't think I've lost this much in 4 weeks in any of my rounds. 

Aside from the scales and tape measure, I can also see improvements in other stuff I’ve been working on: 

• I’ve increased my 12min. run test distance by 130m. I know that’s not much but it’s awesome for me.   And a special shout out to my Instagram buddy @vichoskin for encouraging me to go for it each Wednesday.
• I’ve improved my stats on 4 of the 5 things we have to do for our fitness test. My Week 4 wall sit was a fail, I couldn’t beat my time. I’ll just have to try again to improve it in

  

  My current star sticker chart

  Week 8.
• My yellow dress items are fitting better! I’ve been updating the pictures on here, too, (faiiiiiirly timely), rather than just saying that I will! 
• My sleep is slowly improving. 
• My sticker chart has been working really well and the results have been interesting. I’m not as awesome with water as I thought. It’s such a good visual aid as I try and focus on my magic 4: nutrition, training, sleep and water.
• I started my marathon training. 
• I’ve done 2 of my 4 weekly personal challenges! I giggled at a Mish video the other day. She was explaining milestones and said something like “and we try and schedule one in for every 4 weeks.” In my head I whispered “except for Kate, who loves them so much she does them weekly!” I’ll do an update below on these.
• And I ran 30km. Ok this was on Sunday, not before last Wednesday, but it technically was still within Week 4. And besides, I had to include that one regardless! And mention it again. ;)  It still hasn’t sunk in. 

So my weekly challenges check in: 

• Week 1: Fitness challenge training: I have started! Man alive it is so difficult! I don’t think

  

  Finally started "Start the crazy"

  I’m going to be ready any time soon but I won’t ever get there unless I start working towards it – so I finally have!
• Week 2: School cross country: I haven’t done this yet. Rain delayed this once, I delayed this a few times. But I’m set to go again this Sunday! I have my outfit laid out and everything…..
• Week 3: Relax: I did this! It may not sound like much but I watched a DVD. Relaxing is huge for me, in that I can’t ever do it. Lately I decided to watch a DVD once I get some tasks done. Kind of like a “you can only relax once all the work is done” thing. I decided this mentality isn’t helping my poor relaxation skills, so as my challenge, I watched the DVD and tried to relax purposely before I solved the worlds problems. I can only keep trying.
• Week 4: Story Bridge run: Rain delayed this one as well – as did my mindset. It’s rescheduled for Thursday though.
• And Week 5’s Breakfast mountain climb is scheduled for Sunday and Week 9’s theme park visit is scheduled for January! (And others are scheduled too).  So these goals are ticking over pretty well. 

I'm just loving this round and am using all of the magic tricks I know of to get to my goals:

Can you tell which movie I chose?

Focus, consistency, organisation, applying myself, believing in myself, working hard and trying my best. I’m keeping a close check on my nutrition and I think my calorie free days are what are really doing the trick for me. I have more to write on this one day – I have to find a certain article I read so that I can explain it well. But aside from that, I’m making sure I plan and prepare my meals each week. It’s a pain in the butt for a few hours each week but the time (and temptation!) that it saves every day is worth the effort triple-fold. My epic cook up earlier in the round has really helped also. 

My star sticker chart and rewards jar are working wonders and are just little things that keep me motivated each week. I've earnt myself $126 so far!  And I’ve started a little weekly ritual of taking my ‘Yellow Dress photos’ each Tuesday and doing a mid week mini food prep each Wednesday, to prepare / pack foods that don’t have a weeks shelf life and that I can’t prepare on the weekend. I’m trying to make most of these things routine. Personally I’ve also been really trying to cut down on social events, to spend more time getting organised and less time getting stressed. Not the best time to attempt this in the silly season, but I’m giving it my best shot.

My jars

It hasn’t all been ticks and stars in Weeks 1-4. I haven’t finished my updated Inspiration wall yet – in fact I keep getting woken up by Blu-Tak giving way and the cardboard I stuck it all onto falling down one by one so I practically need to start again. I haven’t finished my last Pre-Season task, Organise and Diarise, which is annoying me but I am going to make an effort to try and get that done this week. There’s reasons I haven’t but they are just excuses I need to squash. I’ve had a few days where I’ve slipped up in a minor way, I skipped a couple of training sessions and have had a couple of weak moments where I’ve eaten Samboy BBQ chips or a chocolate bar. But nothing even close to major and nothing that’s sent me flailing. My new rules are really helping with this - in 4 weeks I’ve had no unplanned visits to Binge Town. My star stickers have dropped over the past 2 weeks so I need to up the ante and focus a little more on these. It’s good to have a visual record of how I’m tracking, and how this affects my results. 

But overall I’m so so happy with the first 4 weeks of the round and I intend to keep this up. Essentially all I’ve been doing is ‘head down, bum up’ – doing what I have to do and working really hard at it. That’s it. I’ll catch up on more updates soon…but for now I just wanted to share my first 4 weeks results from this round. Chat later!!! xxx