G Day is here!!!!!!

Finally - I've done it - weight this morning - 57.8 !!!! whoooo hoooo - I have to admit - in my wildest dreams I never really thought I would see the day!
Its a very surreal feeling - the weight has come off so slowly that in many ways I haven't really noticed the changes - and now that I've "arrived" it kinda feels like "what now". Dont get me wrong I have plenty of plans to continue on with my journey to health and fitness, but even last night I was reading about some of the weight loss challenges coming up - including one you can register and pay for - with a financial incentive - and realised that I can't really join in on them any more. Yes I may still want to lose up to another 5 kgs, but its really not enought to make these sort of challenges worthwhile - and there is a sense of loss here - how totally weird is that - and on second thoughts - how incredibly stupid!
I HAVE REACHED GOAL! I HAVE REACHED GOAL!

I have been tempted to post a few times since my November 18 cut off post - but I resisted but have saved up the stories to fill you in. After posting on the 18th, I was 600gms from goal. The very next morning I weighed in at 58.0gms - just 100 gms off of my target. Wow - I thought - I wont be keeping anyone is suspense for long - I'll probably have to post again tomorrow thatI 've reached goal. Must have jinxed it right there and then. The next day my weight inexplicably went up by a whole kg! Aggh - I was devasted - but then remembered that this is how it goes, don't get discouraged - it had dropped down before quite quickly- my weight will stabilise and then drop again.
However Friday morning I had an early phone call to say that my mum had been admitted to hospital and was having surgery in the afternoon. It was minor surgery - but my mum has MS and is physically totally dependent on other people. She also has a fear of hospitals - so I rushed down to Adelaide to sit with her. Whilst the surgery went well - they told her that she would need to remain in hospital for some time - so I took a week off work to stay with her. (She needs someone there as she doesn't even have enough control to push the button for the nurse if she needs something.) what this meant though was that I spent a week without access to normal food or home cooking - and also relaxed my eating (had a couple of pieces of cheesecake - ate out quite a bit). I did keep up my exercise visiting a gym and running, but this was really all. On my return home - my weight was up another kg - to 60kgs. Aggh - now I was further away than ever from my goal. I wanted to post and let you know - "stop checking - I'm going in the wrong direction" but I held off thinking that this might just be a temporary glitch, and thankfully it was. My theory is that when you eat more than usual, your body may temporarily hold on to the extra calories as fat, but if you return to normal healthy eating fairly quickly (back to the consistent nutritionally sound intake) it will drop back down - in an effort to maintain status quo. And it did happen - on my return I had a few Christmas parties - still stayed fairly relaxed - but in between ate very well, and when I stepped on the scales a week ago - I was back down to 58.7. So for the last week I worked very hard on the perfect diet/exercise schedule and I made it!

So what is the perfect diet you ask?
I know we all have a lot of ideas about this - mainly influenced by Weight Watchers, but as you know I have become very focussed on fitness over the last 6 months or so - and I read all the fitness mags - Oxygen, Women's Health and Fitness, Fit Australia - you name it, I read it. I think I've said before that I prefer these magazines to slimming ones because the people in them are fit and healthy with well toned, well defined muscles/body shape, rather than just being thin. But in reading all of these, a couple of things have become really clear:

1. Fitness models consistently say that achieving their look comes 80% from diet, 20% from exercise
2. A "Clean Diet" is the way to eat properly to fuel your body, cut fat and increase muscle.

I have been fascinated by their diets (and exercise routines) and recently bought Tosca Reno's The Butt Book, and (can't remember the author) Sculpting Her Body Perfect.
Tosca Reno is a 46 yo fitness competitor who used to be overweight and has a body to die for. In her book - she gives a one week sample of a 'clean diet". Essentially this entails 6 small meals a day (you must eat every 2 - 3 hours) - and each meal consists of a palm size serve of protein (eg chicken, fish, eggwhites) and some complex carbohydrates (usually salad vegetables). I've had a good look at it and think it is sound nutritionally - except for two things - there isn't enough dairy - so I 've replaced one aspect of one meal with dairy, and it is high in protein (about 100 - 130 gms protein/day). I don't actually have a problem with this though. It is above the Australian guidelines, but it is consistent with the CSIRO diet - so not so bad. It is also specifically designed to build muscle. To build muscle you need to consume 1 1/2 - 2 times your body weight in grams of protein - which means I need about 100gms/day, and this is a much healthier way than relying on protein supplements. So I've been following this for the last two weeks and it has worked really well. I've also still tracked my eating with points and kept within my allowance - it certainly means eating a lot - and eating a chicken salad at 10.30 in the morning takes some getting used to - but I'm sure this is the healthiest I have ever eaten. I have NEVER eaten so many vegetables in all my life - and the protein does of course keep you full.
So this year I plan to focus on sculpting MY body perfect and dropping my body fat down to 22% (its currently at a whopping 32%). So my goals won't relate to weight, but I estimate that I will probably have to drop another 5 kgs or so to get there.

Being Christmas - I don't have a lot of time to for complicated posts - but next time I will post final pictures and stats from this phase of my journey - as well as my goals for the coming year.

Have a great Christmas everyone - I've already received the best Christmas present ever!
G DAY!

Lisa