So....this may be my shortest blog post ever but I had to write something....I'm not ready to blog about this just now, yet I feel the need to blog. So I will keep this one very short and to the point....I won Top Transformation for Round 4 12WBT on Sunday. I obviously have so much to say, but I will do that soon. For now I just had to share this while I sort it out in my head. It's hard when you feel the need to blog but don't know how to express what you need to express!
For now this is all I have to say:
I WON TOP TRANSFORMATION! And I am completely excited, extremely overwhelmed and sincerely humbled.
Will be back soon when I can gather my thoughts enough to put into words :)
Hello! Ok, it may be many days later, but finally, following on from my last post, here is Part 2 of my #operationbirthday story...AKA The Fairy Tale of all Fairy Tales, AKA the best bit - the
Read on to hear about this card
results! Results are always more fun to talk about rather than hard work, right? :)
So we left off from last time with me going to sleep, on the eve of my birthday...early...apprehensive, nervous, excited, all rolled into one. 12 weeks of hard work came down to when I woke up. Will I have made my goal??
I woke up at 2am. I was supposed to be up at 4am but when I awoke earlier, I couldn't help myself. Obviously I was itching so much to find out my result that I couldn't even stay asleep, which is extremely unlike me.
I got out of bed and walked to the scales, quite wide awake. I tried to tell myself it would be ok either way: a fruitless last attempt to save a hearty disappointment on my birthday. I jumped on the scales, looked down, and that is the moment that has me tear up while typing this.
Written across the screen of the scales, was the magic number. The number that I had visualised for 12 whole weeks; the number I had pictured in my head every day. The number that kept me busting my gut on my weekly run test when I really wanted to stop; the number that encouraged me to not sample my friends chocolate caramel slice at the work morning tea when I really just wanted to eat anything I liked, like everyone else. That exact number - that is what was on the scale.
91.0kg
TO.THE.GRAM.
91kg! Literally, the scales said, 91.0kg. Not even 90.9kg or 91.1kg (or a couple of kg's more, which is what I truly expected). They read, 91.0kg EXACTLY.
Now it may have been 2am, but I knew that I wasn't dreaming. This was real. I weighed myself 3 times in total to check and each time it read "91.0kg". :)
I had done it.
I cannot describe the emotions that I felt at 2am, in the stark light of my bathroom, last Wednesday morning.
In a brief moment, so many things had just happened.
I had just lost 50kg overall. Exactly.
I had just lost over 20kg (20.3kg) in Round 4. (12 weeks)
I had just lost 35% of my body weight.
I had just become Overweight - moving on from Obese, and before that from Severley Obese, and before that from Morbidly Obese.
I now had less than 30kg to go until I hit my (current but may change) goal weight.
I didn't see this calculated until later but I had just lost 18.23% of my weight in Round 4.
I had already measured myself but I had lost 52.3cm in my measurements throughout Round 4.
In an instant, I had made a dream and goal that I had set and worked towards, come true.
And it was my birthday.
Now this is a lot of things to try to conceive at any time, let alone at 2am! I tried to make sense of it all. To be honest it did make sense, because I had been planning it and preparing for it
My post on Instagram
and working hard to make it happen for 12 weeks. So it made sense. What I guess I couldn't quite grasp, is that it had happened so perfectly. 91.0kg. To the gram! That's what had me in shock. It was perfect.
I walked out of my bathroom and into the kitchen to get some water. I stood in the kitchen, wide awake and smiling to myself. 'To the gram'! LOL - I couldn't believe it. I was grinning my head off and I could feel myself glowing - well, as much as you can glow at 2 in the morning...
As I stood there drinking the water, I realised that my flatmate had brought in the mail from the
day before - I had obviously not been on my game the day before to collect the mail myself! #distractedmuch?
There was a parcel there from a friend, Kellie. Kellie is Kellie Martin, or Kellie Moon from The Biggest Loser Australia series in 2011. We've become friends on Facebook, and although we haven't met yet, she is one of my lovely supporters and is always cheering me on. The week before she had messaged me to say that she had sent me something in the mail. It had seemed to have taken awhile - I remember thinking it should have arrived earlier compared to when she had sent it. I stood there and opened her parcel...and as if my exact 50kg loss on my birthday wasn't perfect enough...
Kellie had sent me a gorgeous card, and inside the parcel, was the shirt that she wore on The Biggest Loser, when they did the Hobart yacht race, which was one of their big challenges on the series. It was so thoughtful of Kellie to send me this, and so exciting. As a viewer, I love that show! The Biggest Loser is one of the many things that inspired me to start on my own journey. I used to sit there and cry bucketloads while watching it, usually stuffing my face with KFC and icecream at the same time. Now I just sit and cry bucketloads, minus the KFC and
My weight marble jar now!
icecream.
And now I had my own actual shirt from the show? I was stoked. And the irony was definitely not lost on me. I had literally *just* lost 50kg...then walked into the next room, and was 'given' an actual Biggest Loser shirt.
Incredible timing and just...yeah, no words.
This was the start of my birthday. It wasn't even 2:30am yet, and already all of this had happened. :)
Regular readers may remember me explaining how I was a bit nervous about my birthday. My last two birthdays were a little bit sad. As always I had amazing family and friends around to help me celebrate both of them, but my actual birthday days themselves, were tough.
Last year I woke up to the Brisbane floods having hit pretty hard. I was safe and my house and belongings were fine - I was whatsoever, not a flood victim. But I woke up on my birthday to find
Some of my presents from my family ;)
my power had cut out completely, after 4 days of a gradual decline. I spent the morning having to throw all of the contents of my fridge and freezer into the bin, which was heartbreaking as I couldn't afford to replace it. My workplace got flooded that day and I couldn't go to work, so I spent part of the day shovelling and sand bagging at the local SES, and the rest of it getting ready for my birthday dinner in a shopping centre bathroom, using their electricity. It was too dangerous to shower at my house and I didn't want to bother any friends, so I washed myself a little in the public bathroom basin as well!
The year before that, as midnight rolled into my birthday, I was getting a needle shoved into my arm in the hospital Emergency department. I remember it literally being midnight as this happened, and thinking "Happy Birthday to me!" I was released later that morning, but I spent the day in a daze, exhausted, having to inject myself and being an emotional wreck worrying about my mortality following a scary hospital stay earlier that week.
Not that I believe in anything along the lines of those kinds of things happening again just because they did twice, but I hadn't been having a great birthday day track record, and I dearly wanted to have a happy day on my birthday instead of feeling crushed. I lowered my expectations for the day so that I wouldn't be disappointed and upset again.
So to have such an amazing morning even before 2:30am, was even more special. :) I knew that it didn't matter what else happened that day; I had given myself the best present I could
2:30am selfie
ever ask of myself.
I put my new TBL shirt on and went back to sleep for an hour or so, wearing the shirt. :)
And then, it was time for Kate Day :) I'd taken the day off work and had planned to spend the day just doing things that made me happy. In fact, Kate Day was one of my goal / challenges for this round!
My day started off with boot camp - which I was so excited about. I'd been excited about doing boot camp on my birthday last year, but the field was flooded so I wasn't able to. This year however, boot camp was on! And I went!
They were all sweet and sang Happy Birthday to me and were so excited about my 50kg. :) Afterwards I threw my stats up everywhere - on Instagram and the forums and on 30+. I was so excited and proud of myself. And then I did something really big. I shared my weight loss on my personal Facebook account. I've mentioned here a lot about how I keep my two lives very separate. When "Kate
I've never had so many likes on my personal page!
Does Life" came out, so did a lot of exposure about my weight loss, so I have been fairly open ever since then. Even still though, never have I shared my weight loss or a before and after photo, or anything like that.
But this morning, that changed, and I shared this status.
I have the most amazing friends and family and I had messages and comments of congratulations and support lighting up my phone all day. Coupled with it being my birthday, and me sharing my stats elsewhere, my phone stayed lit up for the entire day. It took me literally hours to reply to everyone a few days later and I haven't even touched on or read my messages yet!
I raced home and had a shower as I had planned to go to see a movie that morning. Going to the movies is one of my very favourite things to do :) Yet I can't remember the last time I went. So it was so special to go on my birthday. I saw "Saving Mr Banks" and it was just awesome - I have a huge soft spot for Disney and it was just great.
I then ran to meet one of my brothers for lunch. On the way I saw I'd had the most beautiful
The most beautiful post
Facebook post written about me, by my trainer Margie. What she wrote blew me away, it was so kind. I had amazing, supportive messages like this all day.
I had lunch with my brother; I had wanted to have a pub lunch, so we did.
I then did a bit of shopping ;) I had my Rewards jar $ that I had been saving every day, all round. This money meant so much to me as I specifically remembered how hard I worked for each $1 - every day.
I'd been wanting a new bag as a reward from a while ago, and I managed to find 'the' bag on the day. I got a few extra treats too :)
I then did something a little strange but something that meant a lot to me. When I was 12, I went on Summer Camp. Just locally, for a week in the school holidays. I remember begging my parents to let me go. I think I'd seen one too many American movies...
I adored camp. I made amazing friends, got my first real crush, got my first boyfriend, visited the haunted cabin, learnt camp songs, ran amok and had THE.BEST.TIME. I declared the camp as My Favourite Place In The Entire World. I begged my parents again the following year and went back to
Road leading to my childhood favourite place
camp at the age of 13 and had the same amazing time.
When I was 14, I organised by myself to go back there as a junior camp leader. I had to put my case forward and push for the camp to allow me to do this, because at 14 I was the youngest leader they'd ever had. They ended up allowing me but I actually found it tough as I was the same age as the oldest campers, yet so much younger than the late teens / early 20's camp leaders I was supposed to be one of. I spent a week of feeling like I didn't belong anywhere. But aside from that, this camp remained in my heart as My Favourite Place In The Entire World (as a kid).
A couple of weeks ago a friends son went to this camp with school, and it occurred to me that it wasn't too far away...and that I could go back to visit! When you're 12, everywhere seems like a long way away, and you can only get there if your parents drive you. However I realised that, I'm an adult with a car and a license...I was now able to get there myself! Haha! So, I planned to visit there on my birthday. It may sound like a strange thing to do. But it was Kate Day and my birthday on which I only wanted to do happy things. Why not choose
At camp
this day to return out there?
I drove up and as soon as I arrived, I was overcome with emotion. It was so unexpected. It had been an overwhelming day and I guess returning to a special place from my childhood just added to this. I stood at the front gate and burst into tears. It looked like there was a camp that was on so I just stayed around the gate and took it all in.
As I was leaving, my friend Cathy texted me. She asked what I was up to as she wanted to see if I could come and meet her and another friend, Julie, as she had something for me.
I was only on my way home, so I did a quick detour and went to say hi. Cathy handed me an envelope and started filming me. Hmm this was strange...I decided it must be a very special envelope, and went along with it and opened it.
It was a Cinderella card and the front said "Happy Birthday Princess!" There was a blue bracelet attached to the card that played a song when you pressed it "....every girl can be a princess....any dream can be....close your eyes and see...." it played. It made me grin - if you're a long time follower/reader you'll know how perfect this was. :)
Wondering why Cathy thought it necessary to film this moment, I opened up the card.
Inside, the handwriting read:
'To my darling Kate Beck,
Wow!! You are totally a ROCKSTAR!
Happy Birthday darling lady. You inspire us all. Love, hugs + support, Mish xx <3
HAVE A GREAT DAY!
Love Mishy xxx'
Ummm....
To say I was a little in shock was an understatement. I watched the video back (quite a few times) and all I think I said was "are you serious?" LOL.
I listened to the song again:
"....every girl can be a princess....any dream can be....close your eyes and see...."
And that was me, gone. I couldn't do it any
more. Apart from the little moment at the camp (oh, and in the movie, it was beautiful!) I had held it together all day. There's only so many perfect, beautiful moments I could take in my stride by acting calm and collected, and that was it. I burst into tears.
At the start of my 12WBT journey, I made a mindset video for a weekly challenge, where I declared that I was Cinderella, trying to transform, and Mish / 12WBT was my Fairy Godmother.
It was a bit of a jokey thing but underlying it was kind of true. And so, to lose 50kg on my birthday and get a Cinderella card and bracelet from my Fairy Godmother herself, on the actual
day...could this day have been more perfect? :)
It was so special. I have no idea how Cathy pulled this off - she was with Mish that day and I believe there are some pretty beautiful magic fairies around who helped. :) So that was pretty much it! I celebrated my birthday on other days but the actual day itself was just all for me, so happy and so perfect. I could not have been more proud of and so thankful to myself for putting the work in. It was the most amazing feeling and it reminded me of how special things feel when you put in the work. I swear, I didn't think my day could get more perfect after the 50.0kg in the morning but it just grew. The day made up for the previous two years one hundredfold! :)
Oh yeah, and it rained on my birthday (I adore the rain!) And in the morning I fit into a pink dress for the first time that didn't fit when I bought it! And I had 3 amazing cakes made for me...my friend Rachel made me a pavlova (my favourite) and decorated it with butterflies and princess pictures, my
Julie, Cathy and I
Mum made me a running track (!) and my friend Courtney made me a pink butterfly!! My favourite birthday to date :)
So that is how it happened. #operationbirthdaysuccess #operationbirthdayoverandout Goodbye 50kg :)
P.S. It's the most exciting weekend this weekend! Tomorrow is Mish's "Get Real" book launch, and myself, my beautiful friend Tracey and another lovely lady who is also in the book will be modelling One Active wear up and getting interviewed by Mish up onstage! It's happening tomorrow and I am soooooo excited! If you happen to live on the Gold Coast, Australia, come and say hi! :) Saturday is another insane, awesome and pre festival day and then Sunday is the 12WBT Summer Festival! I am so so so excited. This sounds weird but if you're coming along please say hello...after each finale I always get a couple of beautiful girls messaging me to say that they were too shy to say hello to me. It's overwhelming to hear that someone would be shy towards me, I am just Kate, so I feel like a knob for acknowledging it but please please say hello! I get so disappointed when I find out I didn't get to meet people. I promise I am not scary :) I absolutely love meeting people so if you're shy or whatever please don't worry, I'll just hug you! :) I'll be onstage with Mish during the 9:30am mindset lesson answering mindset-ty type questions so if you're in that session keep an eye out! And to everyone going to the festival, have the best time! Enjoy and savour every moment - finales / festival weekends are just amazing! Soak everything up :) xxx
The sun setting on a perfect day :)
Crop top I bought with some of my reward $
My reward jar at the end of Round 4!
Cals burnt at my birthday boot camp!
I went to the movies!
Lunch with my littlest bro
My birthday splurge...reward bag!
Cake #1!
Perfect decorations!
Cake #2! Running track!
Cake #3! Pink butterfly <3
It's true!
I will spend the rest of my rewards jar on joining marathon school! I enrolled in MARATHON SCHOOL!!! How cool is that?!
parkrun on my birthday week...a random runner called this person fit on Margie's FB page ... she was talking about me!!!
Crying to Cathy... "is this really from her??"
I bought myself a banana smoothie on my birthday :)
I know I always say this :) But I have so much to tell you. I still have a few stories to catch up on from the last two weeks including my triple event day, my latest half marathon, and to tell you
about some exciting things coming up and other stuff that's happened. But I want to tell you firstly about Wednesday...my birthday :)
If you follow me on Instagram or have seen my posts on the forums, Twitter or Facebook, you will know the outlines of how it went down...but I wanted to tell you all about it here, because, of course, I would anyway, but also as a bit of a keepsake 'diary entry' for myself so that I can remember it forever. It was one of the best days of my life :)
Because I have no filter on the length of my posts (lol), I'm going to split this story up over two posts. This one is a summary of my round and the lead up to my birthday...the next one will be about the result :)
To refresh, or to explain if you're a new reader, Wednesday was my birthday, and it was also the last weigh in Wednesday of Round 4. I decided at the start of the round that this would be a perfect goal date to make some big goals happen by - and that is where "Operation Birthday", or #operationbirthday, was dreamed up.
I made some big goals, some fairly intricate plans, and I started on my mission. I threw everything into it.
My completed star chart for #operationbirthday
I made my goal sticker star chart which kept me on track like nothing else. Every single day for 12 weeks, I stood in front of the chart, usually late at night in my pyjamas, and gave myself a star sticker if I had stuck to my nutrition, exercise, water and sleep goals for that day. One sticker per category, per day, and extra big weekly stickers every Sunday night. I made a beautiful rewards jar to go with it, and for every star sticker I got, a dollar went in the jar. I didn't know exactly what I would spend the money on, but I knew that it would be a reward of some type. I focused more diligently on pre-season and Mish videos, on my diary / calendar and on food prep. At the start of the round I did the hugest cook up in the world and overloaded my freezer, introduced pillow cases instead of my pencil cases, and most weeks I prepped all of my food on the weekend, for the week ahead. I did more exercise, I tried to get out for more runs and I started doing a lot of stair climbs in the safety of my apartment block. I continued to surround myself with people whe support me, and used anything I could to keep me on track. Countdown apps on my phone, motivational wallpaper, anything I could do to keep me on track, I did. I scheduled days off to keep me excited, and the rest of the time I was super strict.
I have no idea how I managed to do this at the same time, but I also tried to improve my relationship with food and cure my own eating disorders. I've asked unsuccessfully for professional help for that one too many times and to be honest, I have given up. There's only so many times I can handle being turned away from professional help before I refuse to ask again. I had to suddenly get really strong and have started curing myself. And it's working. I feel more in control of it than I have in 17 years. My relationship with food has improved and I have never
My bra comparison last week! Double GG to ... smaller
been more proud of myself. I faltered as well - for the middle few weeks of the round, I was pretty slack. The first 4 weeks were brilliant, and it was kind of like I became a little complacent for a few weeks. I didn't go off track, but I also didn't put 100% into it. Complacency + slackness unsurprisingly eventuated into 3 days of complete and utter bingeing. Because of this, about a month ago, it got to the point where I had to readjust my #operationbirthday / Week 12 goal. I stressed about it a bit, I don't like changing goals! I am very determined and once I make a goal, I like to stick to it! But there comes a point where you have to be realistic. And your goals are yours to adjust as needed - they are your goals. So even though it was a bit tough, I adjusted it and refocused.
My new goal was to get to 91kg. 91kg meant so much. Not only did it mean I would have lost 50kg in total, it would also have meant I would have lost over 20kg in the round, and would have officially have shifted from the BMI category of 'Obese', to 'Overweight'. And that I would have less than 30kg to go until my goal weight. Being a member of the 30+ crew, this is significant milestone. It would also mean I would have hit 35% of my weight loss. So many cool things rided on that number! As much as I was upset at having to make a new goal, this one was still so, so cool, that I started to get excited about it. I considered that what if I worked so hard and didn't actually make it? There's only so much we can do to help us shift weight - we physically can't dictate numbers on the scales. Our bodies are biological, not mathematical. Having everything riding on a number goal is risky. I didn't want to be upset on my birthday because I didn't make my goal! I had a good, long, hard think about it and decided that if I made it to the 29th January and fell
Me at my half marathon on Sunday
short of my 91kg, it was ok, as long as I could know, within myself, with true conviction, that I had put absolutely everything into trying to make it happen. If I knew I had given 110%, even if I didn't make the number, then that was present enough for me. But I had to work my backside off - I needed to know within myself that I had given it everything. I was pretty proud of how mature and reasonable I was being. Then, somewhere in between being reasonable and the 29th January, in about Week 10, for some reason, my mindset changed. I somehow decided that no, I would in fact be upset if it didn't happen. OMG Kate! Am I annoying or what? I reasoned with myself and thought it all out and tried to get back to my old way of thinking. But no matter how much I tried, I couldn't do it. I had to make this goal happen, or I would be disappointed. Far out. Way to make a rod for my own back! I knew I was being silly. I knew there was only so much I could do! I couldn't control the scales! But - my mindset had other ideas and I decided it had to happen otherwise I would be really upset. Don't worry, I kicked my own backside with my silly mindset!
I decided that fine, if I'm going to be unreasonable with myself and want this so much then I had to continue what I started, and continue to work hard. I put absolutely everything into it, and every day visualised making 91kg / 20kg lost for the round / 50kg lost overall by my birthday. I also tried every day to calm down and tell myself that it was ok if I didn't. But the pig headed side of me wouldn't allow it. I had to make it happen. #iamsoannoying I was nervous. Week 11 saw me putting on weight. This was after a week of absolute 100% perfect nutrition and exercise. It was a stark reminder to myself, that no matter how much you try, your body has so much more going on inside, and you can predict all you like, but you just cannot control what the scales decide to do. I refused to give up and kept going. I tried to keep focused and one major thing that I did was learn to listen to my body. In Week 11 I started to get sick - I knew it was from being run down. Work has been manic, I was exercising like a nut case some days, I wasn't sleeping much and my body started to show it. I had absolutely no spare time - zero. And that was on 4 hours sleep a night - if that. When I found myself crying like an overtired baby a couple of days in a row, I knew I had to change. As much as I had only a week or so to go, I listened to my body. I gave myself a couple of unplanned rest days. I got a bit more sleep. I stepped things down a notch. I wanted this goal more than anything but nothing was worth stressing my body out to the point of getting sick. I am blessed with a pretty amazing immune system, and after a couple of quieter days, I managed to halt the cold in it's tracks and got better. I jumped back up and kept running for that 29th January goal. To be honest I didn't do too much exercise in that last week. I did a half marathon on Sunday so I had to taper down for that, and then recover after. It was difficult to combine tapering, resting to avoid being sick, and bringing home #operationbirthday with a bang, all at the same time. But I did my best. The main thing I focused on was nutrition. I tried to do that 200%. In the last couple of days, I realised I couldn't do anything more. I had put everything into the 12 weeks. I had put my heart and soul into each and every day. Even the days where I slackened off, my goal was still in my sights. I wanted this just so much that I could taste and visualise it like nothing else. Having a number goal for a certain day was risky, especially when you have my dog determined mindset! But even though my unreasonable measure of satisfaction was
Thank you Al for sending me this the day before xx
at stake (!), I realised the day before that all I could do now was to step back, go to bed, and see what the scales brought me in the morning. I could do nothing else. I may be disappointed if I don't see 91kg, but I knew I could also rest assured that I had given it my everything. And no number on the scale could take that away from me. Call it apprehension, call it fear, call it excitement, but I went to bed very early on Tuesday night, like a kid on Christmas Eve, waiting to see what the result was in the morning. It had all come down to this.
And that is Part 1. Like a TV series cliff hanger, I'll tell you what happened next, in my next post :)
Ok back to normal now after my last 2 posts! I had so much to say that as much as it took forever
to do, it was just easier to transfer my IG posts across to give you an overview of, well, lately!
So still a million things to tell you so I'll get moving on these posts! In no particular order, this one will be all about The Blue Dress!
So if you're a regular reader you have probably seen or heard of Operation Yellow Dress. Basically I had a dress I wanted to wear, so over a round I kept accountable by taking a weekly photo of me trying to fit into it, until I did. A while ago I started Operation Green Dress, Operation Leather Jacket and Operation Denim Jacket. I've been documenting these here as well...I haven't updated it in a while but I have been taking weekly photos...I just haven't uploaded them yet. I will get onto that soon!
But more exciting than that, is Operation Blue Work Dress. I kept it as a special project on my Instagram only, and each week I posted updated photos. It wasn't the best dress to choose for an
'Operation' really, as the style of the dress meant that you couldn't really see differences even though they were happening. Many weeks I got embarrassed as the photos looked exactly the same as the week before haha!
But I kept going with it...and, in Week 11, last week, I tried it on as usual, and IT DID UP. It was amazing - the best feeling ever. It was one of those zips that once you got it over a certain point, it went all the way up. And up it went.
That then meant I had to wear it to work! After all, it was Operation Blue Work Dress. Eeek! Even when it did up it was still really tight, so I was pretty nervous!
But I wore it...and took a lot of selfies all day of it :) It felt amazing to finally wear it to work, even though it was a little tight and you could see many of my 'bumps'.
Just wanted to share this little adventure here :)
It wasn't Operation Blue WORK Dress until I got a photo looking like I was actually at work, as opposed to a multitude of bathroom selfies!
It finally did up!
I made this in Week 9 to help keep me focussed. "Where I'm going" was reached in Week 11!
So....this may be my shortest blog post ever but I had to write something....I'm not ready to blog about this just now, yet I feel the need to blog. So I will keep this one very short and to the point....I won Top Transformation for Round 4 12WBT on Sunday. I obviously have so much to say, but I will do that soon. For now I just had to share this while I sort it out in my head. It's hard when you feel the need to blog but don't know how to express what you need to express!
