August 2010

21 Days of Accountability – Day 20

by Chavah Kinloch on August 31, 2010

Twenty days. Two Zero. I’m almost finished! I say that with a touch of sadness but a lot of happiness because this has been really great for me.

Today’s tip is a tip that is often overlooked but it has great significance in the weight loss journey.

Find some support.

This is really important.

Knowing someone’s got your back can help you do things you never realised you could do.  When you’re venturing out to drop a lot of weight, you need someone who believes in you to be there. It is not easy to change your life but it’s a heck of a lot easier to do when people around you are willing to help you reach your goal.

My biggest support by far has been my husband. I have to give him a lot of credit.

Having his support has been essential to me. When he eats right, I want to eat right, when he works out, I want to work out. Feeding off each others positive energy is amazing.

My kids have also been great. They’re only young but they ask plenty of questions about exercise, food and drink. I’m sure you all know what kids and questions are like. Yeah.. never ending! Having to explain things to them keeps me accountable. After all I’m a massive role model in their lives, I really should be practicing what I preach.

Then there’s the Creating My Reality community. I said I would use my blog to find supporters and that’s exactly what happened. I want to thank each and every person that took the time to interact with me these last 20 days. Social media is a powerful tool in society nowadays and reconnecting with old friends and connecting with new friends because of these posts has been wonderful. I really do thank you all. Each person that took the time to say something has made me smile, made me try that little bit harder. I hope that you’ve gotten as much out of these posts as much as I have.

Do not overlook/underestimate the importance of having even just one person who will stand beside you and say “You CAN do it.”

I hope you can find that someone who will be there for you too. That’s your challenge today. :)

I’ll see you all tomorrow DAY 21!

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21 Days of Accountability – Day 19

by Chavah Kinloch on August 30, 2010

If you’re not sweating anywhere, you’re not getting anywhere.

Not only is it a great quote, it’s our topic for the day.

It’s like this. Body fat is burned off in the form of heat. So if you’re working up a sweat, you’re burning off the fat. Remember that the next time you’re working out. It makes me feel better anyway… I often wonder if I’m the only sweater in the gym. Everyone else seems so dry! Then there’s greasy me. Not pretty.

The benefits of a good sweat are this. You improve sleep (that’s me!), relieve symptoms of depression (me again), boost immunity and reduce stress levels.

The perspiration achieved by exercise also boots out toxins and disease from our system. Another bonus is it softens skin and keeps pores clear (I’ve noticed that this month!).

Sweat is simply an indication that our body temperature is rising. All that’s happening is internally we’re burning calories and fat, turning them into energy. Remember what I said yesterday? Fat is just energy we haven’t used.

As I lose the weight, I’ll sweat a little more and in turn I have to remember to really up my water intake. All these things are a good sign that my metabolism is increasing.

So today’s challenge – Sweat like your life depends on it. It kind of does. :)

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21 Days of Accountability – Day 18

by Chavah Kinloch on August 29, 2010

Oooo weeee. Am I super late with this post today or what?

I woke up this morning greeted by my period. That’s today’s topic. Yeah, awkward.

I’m one of those women who’s life goes completely out of whack each month because of cramps, exhaustion and excessive bloating. I also get really anemic at this time. I’ve tried a lot of things both natural and drugs but at the end of the day, this is how my body reacts and that’s all there is to it. Some people are lucky enough to not be affected at this time but if you’re female and in my family, that’s not the case.

My day has consisted of this:

Wake up.

Workout.

Eat.

Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.

Eat.

Blog.

Exercise during menstruating releases endorphins that can counteract the mood swings that come along with this awesomeness that is reserved only for women. It can also help eliminate cramps and I’ve read that you burn more calories exercising during this time too. I googled it today and there are some sources that say yes, and others that say no. The article I remember reading was on Women’s Health somewhere. I’m pretty sure it said some thing like, you’ll burn more fat at the end of your cycle because the progesterone in our bodies promotes the use of fat as an energy source. Always a good thing right? After all, fat is just unused energy; best we burn it off.

All I know is that in my own experience, it doesn’t hurt to workout during this time. I’m not as strong as I would normally be but I change my routine to suit. It’s a good thing I’ve been doing a lot of cardio this past week, hopefully it will balance things out. Yoga is a great option too, it’s not uncommon in our household to almost fall asleep on the floor after cooling down from our yoga workout lol.

In the end, after a menstrual workout,  I have more energy (which is a must for survival for me) and I don’t feel guilty if I need something extra to sustain me.

Not sure how weigh in will go this week, not because I’m not doing what’s right but I usually gain weight every month for this one week! As soon as the period disappears, so does the weight. We’ll see how it goes.

Train hard, eat right and rest.

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21 Days of Accountability – Day 17

by Chavah Kinloch on August 28, 2010

Today’s post is inspired by what’s going on in my world today.

I was enjoying a lazy Saturday morning with my family, when a friend showed up to invite me out to dessert tonight with the girls to celebrate her birthday.

Yay! Of course, right? No way I’d say no.

But hold on a minute, aren’t I trying to lose weight? Doesn’t eating dessert counteract my actions?

Well yes, and no.

If I were to go out and just overindulge in delicious dessertyness (I am female, hear me say yum) then yes, that’s a really bad choice but what happened is my brain when into problem solving mode.

Here is a super secret tip that I use when I am in ‘training’ mode and craving something that I know has very little benefit to my body. Not that I’m craving anything, but I’m also not a tightwad, and want to let my hair down with some female company.

Of all tips, this is by far my favourite.

You can eat treats BUT you should only eat them at a certain time.

The time to treat yourself is directly after you have been doing your weight training workout. There is about a two hour time frame, in which, believe it or not, you are allowed to eat a cookie, chocolate bar, apple pie & ice cream…whatever it is you’ve been craving.

It’s called the anabolic window. Only after intense weight training can your body absorb more nutrients than normal. Your body will absorb more than twice the nutrients that it regularly will in these next few hours.

There is a certain way to eat after strength training, your body needs to get protein and carbs into it asap. Amino acids and glucose are getting used up right then and there to repair the muscle you’ve just torn.  We already have stores in our body but our muscles are seeking more fast burning carbs and protein to continue fueling and building themselves up. Glucose (you know, that sugary stuff) is only stored as fat when the glycogen stores in muscle and liver are full, therefore, because you’ve just actively worked your muscles and they’re burning pretty quickly through your stored glycogen, you are at this time allowed to treat yourself.

Did you get that?

Basically, I just said, I’m going out tonight and although I want to order something healthy for dessert (like there is such a thing) I’m going to weight train the heck out of my body at a certain time before I leave the house, so that when I’m out the sugar filled treat I might eat will go straight to being burned instead of stored making me fail and feel miserable.

It’s all about planning :)

P.S. You still have to eat a really good diet to make this work. Used properly this tip can really help keep cravings at bay and boost your muscle building ability. Use this as a reward for good behaviour, not an excuse for bad.

21 Days of Accountability – Day 16

by Chavah Kinloch on August 27, 2010

Is it strange that I’m feeling a little sentimental that my 21 days is almost up? Of course it doesn’t really mean anything, this is my life from now on, I can definitely feel that in my bones, but it’s been fun blogging about what I do and sharing my little bit of knowledge. Oh well, five tips left and then it’s time to see what’s changed.

Today I’m going to follow on from the past few posts. I’ll share some of what I know about strength training. There’s too much to put in one post. I told you I had a bunch of knowledge on this stuff and it was just getting wasted. Embarrassing. :(

Through a lot of personal research and talking things through with my cousin who himself reshaped his body and many others, there are a lot of tips floating around in this brain of mine. I’m glad I’m finally putting them into practice again.

The tips I’ve been sharing do work, so much so that last time I went through this I got stopped by multiple trainers at my gym to ask what exactly I was doing. Trainers… professionals, asking fat ol’ me for tips?! I plan on doing it again and I won’t stop until I’m satisfied.

Eat right and exercise, that’s it. I’ve been really open, I feel, and you can see that I’m not doing anything strange. Just treating my body the way I should have always treated it. These tips are to shape and sculpt a body, not just turn someone into a skinny fat person. Do you know what I mean? It’s something that scares me even more than being fat, becoming a skinny fat person. Shapeless and still unhealthy. I want to be my best self. I want to feel strong and energised. That’s why I do all of this.

Remember, the knowledge from today’s post goes hand in hand with the testosterone post and yesterday’s monitoring post.

When it comes to strength training, you must train your whole body. There are eight main muscle groups, three large – legs, back and chest and five smaller – shoulders, biceps, triceps, abs and calves.

Ideally, you will use two (I’ve seen one source recommend three) different exercises for each muscle group. There are a lot of extra little things that can be written here but that’s a bit overwhelming for me to write. I’ll share these as I carry on my journey over the months, year, however long it takes!

Before you even attempt to workout though, PLAN. Plan the exercises you’ll do. There’s no point going to workout and wasting half the time you’re there wandering around trying to figure out which exercises to do.

Keep a training diary that records the exercises you do, your rest times, the weight you’re doing, the cardio you do and the resistance level you’re on.

This is how you’ll see your training progress.

Do 10-12 reps (repeat the same action 10-12 times) for each exercise. If you can’t get to 10, the weight is too heavy, if you find it quite easy to get to 12, the weight is too light. Write these details in your book so you know for next time.

Extra tip – if you’re in the middle of your reps and your form is beginning to look awkward, drop the weight. It’s better to perform the exercise correctly than to mess it up and risk injuring yourself. You’ll get better results too.

The reason you must train your entire body is because our bodies can canabalise themselves. When I say it like that it sounds creepy. For example; if you see a guy with chicken legs, it’s because he’s over training his upper body and his body can deem the leg muscles unnecessary. If we were to concentrate on only one area of the body, neglecting the rest and also weren’t fueling it with the right foods, the muscles stored in those legs that are getting neglected begin to break down into amino acids, and not only do those leg muscles not grow, they get smaller. Eating appropriately helps avoid this scenario but I wanted to use it as an example for why we have to train the entire body.

Today’s challenge – Work those muscle groups!

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21 Days of Accountability – Day 15

Take Measurements. Yes, more monitoring. It’s a never ending thing. Dropping the weight takes a lot of planning and monitoring, if you haven’t already noticed… Well, it does when you’re not doing a quick fix and you go about it on your own. Obviously the scales tell you how much weight you drop and Jillian [...]

21 Days of Accountability – Day 14

It’s weigh in day. Week two, done and dusted. I’ve been on track for 14 days now. There’s only one week left to push through for this challenge. I know it’s helped me, in so many ways. New, good habits are definitely taking over my life. Wanting to exercise has been easy. I’m working out [...]

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