Big Week Day 3!!

Day 36 (3)/365 -> Weight Loss: 10.3 kg

Did Zumba again today, rhythm was heaps better, only one or two things that I still had trouble with, but not as bad as last time. It is actually really fun, even though I don’t like dancing that much normally, I guees the comfort of home makes a fair bit of difference. Anyway I thought I’d share a video of my 4 year old daughter doing Zumba with my wife and I, only a short video but cute none the less.

Big day tomorrow, my regular class of 23 will increase to 30 with the Grade 3’s on camp, I get the leftover Grade 4’s. This is amongst trying to complete our amazing father’s day presents and ‘cards’. I think I’ve nailed them this year, would share what they are but incase any fathers read this I’ll keep it quiet.

Looking ahead towards Thursday and Friday I have Uni but I have plans on some ways to cope with my time away, as well as the trip to the footy on Friday night. Getting a good vibe about this week though, keep reading and enjoying. My Twitter followers are increasing nicely but really want more people to join my Facebook group and follow me on Twitter.

Remember you can follow me on twitter –> http://www.twitter.com/ben_mr_g

Or you can now join my new facebook group –> Overweight 30 Year Old

Thanks everyone for your support and kind words.

Big Week Day 2!!

Day 35 (2)/365 -> Weight Loss: 10.3 kg

Today at the school athletics sports, my school Meredith finished second overall! Our best result ever and a great effort from all of the kids running around. Unfortunately I got sunburnt…you’d think I’d learn because I do every year regardless of the weather.

Have done some exercise today, did my push-ups for my 100 push-up program this morning and also some sit-ups whilst watching the Basketball World Championships. An amazing game between Australia and World Number 1 Argentina. Then Later on I jumped on our spin bike for 25-30 minutes whilst my wife was watching Hairspray.

Made a new batch of vegie slice tonight that is currently in the oven cooking and I’m watching one of my favourite movies of all time, the classic rock movie, Almost Famous.

Plan on going to the Gym tomorrow morning for a dfecent workout as tes tonight wasn’t a very good option, pizza, however I ate far less than I normally would so that is a positive that I can take out of it.

Remember you can follow me on twitter –> http://www.twitter.com/ben_mr_g

Or you can now join my new facebook group –> Overweight 30 Year Old

Thanks everyone for your support and kind words.

Big Week Day 1!!

Day 34 (1)/365 -> Weight Loss: 10.3 kg

Just wanted to start by pointing out that in my last blog where I said my clothes were feeling smaller I meant that they feel like they’re fitting better.

Sunday today, and a big day for the Overweight 30 Year Old. I had the Biggest Aussie Pie Night last night, where my 5 coures Italian Pie Banquet took the title for the best pie, for the second year running…and then broke the auction record selling for $450!!!! Wondering if I should give up teaching and try my luck on MasterChef….

Then today my beloved Bombers sacked our embattled coach, Matthew Knights, not going to give opinions on this, but I do feel it needed to be done and I’m not disappointed in it. I drove to the shops this morning to grab some equipment for my students father’s day presents, a 15 minute drive to onlu realise. I’d left my wallet at home, thankfully my mum saved me a trip all the way home.

For my exercise today I’ve done my push ups, but in a whole lot of fun the whole family got together to do some Zumba. I’ve never been a big dancer and this helped me realise why. It was a heap of fun, but my coordination sucks! It was nice however to do some exercise all together as a family.

I have had a lot of people ask me what diet or program I’m following. So to clear it up, I’m not actually following a progam of specific diet. I’m just trying to eat healthier and do more exercise. I can definately still increase the exercise side of things however, but somethimes we all need more time in the day.

So tomorrow I have the School Athletics Sports, mwill be having Roast Beef, Cheese, Tomato and Avocado in my sandwich and bought some GIANT pears from the supermarket. Only bought 3 and they weighed nearly a kilo. Hope they taste good…. Blog to you all again tomorrow!

Remember you can follow me on twitter –> http://www.twitter.com/ben_mr_g

Or you can now join my new facebook group –> Overweight 30 Year Old

Thanks everyone for your support and kind words.

OW30YO

A Disappointing Result

Day 32/365 -> Weight Loss: 10.2 kg +0.1kg

Well, I’ve included this weeks reults at the top as I don’t feel it is worth holding them over and revealing them at the end. I felt pretty good this week, thought I had done fairly well. Eating was good, exercise down a bit, but work and Uni had me very busy and the cold weather made it very hard to get up and go the gym in the morning. But I felt that I had done enough to lose 0.5-1kg. Unfortunately I obviously hadn’t and looking back now, my eating wasn’t as good as it should have been. Whilst I’m happy to still lose weight, this is where I have to be very careful.

In the past when the great loss of weight has steadied, I have gone off of the wagon and gone back to my old ways, so this week is clearly going to be a MASSIVE week for me, and just to make it that bit more difficult…I have 2 days at Uni this week. In one way this is a bonus as Uni is Thursday/Friday so I will not weigh in until Saturday…one extra day, but there is a lot of temptations and difficulties that I will be faced with in the next week. Some things that I have on are:

• The Biggest Aussie Pie Night, not good food when you’re trying to lose weight. (Click on this link to support children with cancer –> CHALLENGE)
• Atheltics Sports on Monday, lose the comfort of my set lunch that I normally have.
• University Thursday & Friday, Need to find healthy lunch to eat, usually a lot of junk foods doing the rounds. Hard to find time to exercise.
• Hotel stay on Thursday night. Too tempting to order room service.

Whilst thesemake me feel a bit nervous, reflecting on what has happened in the past. I also see a possibility to develop something great from this week, a massive stepping stone. So I am going to set myself a few goals to help me achieve good weight loss this week.

1. Blog/Tweet every day, so follow me on Twitter so you don’t miss out.
2. Get back on the Vegie Slice! Haven’t had it for a couple of weeks and I actually miss eating it.
3. Get the Wiki finished so other people can contribute.
4. Exercise AT LEAST once a day and report it on my Tweets/Blog.
5. Retake my measurements as I feel my clothes getting smaller.
6. Enjoy my time with my family so I don’t comfort eat when I miss them on Thursday Night.
7. LOSE AT LEAST 1KG THIS WEEK!!!! This will help inspire me and get me past the difficulties that I have had in the past.

So make sure you log in to this blog all throughout the week as there will be plenty of updates done. If you have anythign you’d like me to talk about in my blog, let me know because it can be difficult at times to think of things to talk about.

Remember you can follow me on twitter –> http://www.twitter.com/ben_mr_g

Or you can now join my new facebook group –> Overweight 30 Year Old

Thanks everyone for your support and kind words.

OW30YO

Weight loss this week: 0.1kg for a total of 10.3kg

A quick weigh in update..

Day 26/365 -> Weight Loss: 9.6 kg +???

Well, the blog has been fairly quiet this week as I’ve been very busy with a Uni assignment due in on Monday. However I thought I’d better update my weightloss progress. As per usuall I weighed in on Friday morning, hopeful of breaking the 10Kg barrier. I was not confident as I was expecting my fast pace to drop a bit, and I had stood on the scales during the week and was actually up a bit.

However on the morning I stepped on the scales and found that I had lost .6 kg, which means I’ve broken through the 10 kg barrier. I’m very excited and will promise I’ll blog more next week after I’ve submitted my assignment.

Remember you can follow me on twitter –> http://www.twitter.com/ben_mr_g

Or you can now join my new facebook group –> Overweight 30 Year Old

Thanks everyone for your support and kind words.

OW30YO

Weight loss this week: .6kg for a total of 10.2kg

Breaking the habits….bad habits.

Day 18/365 -> Weight Loss: 6 kg +???

Weigh in day today…but I’ll leave the results to the end again.

One thing I’ve made a big effort over these first couple of weeks is to break out of the bad eating habits that I have developed over time. My worst habit was eating in the car, a 35-40 minute drive to work was always supplemented with something to eat, never anything healthy, and then the same on the car drive home again. I started thinking about my own children. I believe my wife and are raising 2 amazing children, due in part to the regular routines and consistency that we have put in place as they grow up. Now if this is good for children, why isn’t it a good thing for adults as well?? So…I decided to try and develop my own routines for consistency.

My worst area was breakfast time, no doubt about it, it’s always been an issue. I don’t like to eat at home before work as I don’t want to wake up the kids or my wife as I tend to leave fairly early. This led to me eating CRAP in the car, such as take away breakfast from fast food places or something else to fill me up. Now however, I get my plastic contain and put my breakfast cereal of choice, Shredded Wheat (I’ve actually always liked this type of cereal, not just eating it because it’s healthy), and drive to school knowing that I will eat my cereal when I get there. My body has had no trouble adjusting to eating breakfast a bit later and this in turn keep s me feeling fuller for longer and I don’t need to eat a great deal for morning tea.

Still this week, I haven’t done as much exercise as I would have liked, but there is reasoning behind this. I wanted to drop a few kilos and focus on getting my eating right before I started to crank up the exercise. One thing I have really focussed on though is eating more vegetables. I like eating vegetables and have always liked the taste of most, can’t stand peas though!!! So now I try to integrate them into everything that I cook.

I’ve had a lot of people ask me what diet I’m on, what do you have to eat, and othere questions. Most peole that know me quite well would know that I hate to count calories, or points or things of that nature. So my diet philosophy is very simple accross this journey.

“I’ve spent 30 years eating whatever I wanted and this is how I’ve turned out. Now it’s time to eat what I should, to make me a better and healthier person.”

Anyway, I did weigh in this morning and achieved another great result that exceeded my expectations. This week I lost another 3.6kg. Here’s hoping when I ramp up the exercise this results will continue for a couple of more weeks before they start to settle down.

Remember you can follow me on twitter –> http://www.twitter.com/ben_mr_g

Or you can now join my new facebook group –> Overweight 30 Year Old

Thanks everyone for your support and kind words.

OW30YO

Weight loss this week: 3.6kg for a total of 9.6kg

The Ultranet!!!

Day 15/365 -> Weight Loss: 6 kg

Yesterday was a big day for all teachers, the launch of the Ultranet! As a lead user it was my job to help train those that had not learnt how to use it yet. The only problem was that it wasn’t working, it was down all day. Luckily as part of our day another primary school came over and I did a few Maths activities with them so the day wasn’t a complete waste of time. The highlight for the OW30YO though was the amazing spread of food put on for morning tea, of which I did not partake in, a great effort for me. And then during lunch I ate my own homemade Vegetable Slice, while others were eating pies,pasties and other pastries. I did however have a couple of little sandwiches. Below is a photo of all of the food out during morning tea.

Today however I’ve felt pretty ordinary. Think that I might be getting a cold and also very head achy, which I’ve put down to cutting a lot of sugar out of my diet, but I could be wrong. I’ve found things a lot easier this week than last week. Saying no is not too difficult and at work, my colleagues have been amazing. Yesterday while everyone was eating their very nice looking lunches she came out of her way to talk to me about mine, and I didn’t feel left out, which I could have easily been.

Two weeks in, I feel that I should thank everyone for the support that they have given me so far, you make it a whole lot easier for me. I’ve also had a few people ask and message me about food that I’ve been eating so I think that I might start up a wiki for us all to colaborate in an talk with eachother.

Remember you can follow me on twitter –> http://www.twitter.com/ben_mr_g

Or you can now join my new facebook group –> Overweight 30 Year Old

Thanks everyone for your support and kind words.

OW30YO

That time of the week…

Day 11/365   –> Weight Loss: Read below and see.

It was a nervous morning this morning, weigh in morning. But more about that later.

I type this blog from a hotel room, as I am at Uni today and tomorrow. This is the next big test for me. Normally a weekend like this would have consisted of McDonalds for Breakfast on the way to Uni, then some take away for lunch. Snacks of lollies throughout the day. Some rubbish from the room service for afternoon tea. Junk food at the footy and a buffet breakfast. Not this time….

So far today I’ve eaten:

Breakfast – English Muffins, Snack – Peanuts, Lunch – Sushi Rolls, Afternoon Tea – Club sandwich (From Roomservice, and I left the chips on the plate!!!)

Today has excited me as I haven’t craved the sugarry foods I have in the last week. When I walked around the Vic Market, I didn’t feel like eating anything, it was a really good feeling, something that I haven’t had in a long time. Tomorrow for breakfast I have ordered pached eggs with English Muffin and Weet Bix. Not sure what I’m going to have for tea tonight, might look for a noodle place or something.

Today I work up feeling very nervous, weigh in day. What if I’ve put in this effort and I end up not losing much weight? I know big weightloss isn’t sustainable, but when someone undertakes what I am doing, they should lose a fair bit of weight in their first week. I haven’t done the exercise I would have liked, so that is something I will step up next week. Anyway, this morning I got out of bed, freezing cold. I walked into the ensuite turned on the lights and stepped onto the cold white tiles. I starred down at the scales on the floor of the bathroom, I was shaking a little bit, but I think that was because of the cold. I spent a good 5 minutes analysing the needle on the scale, making millimeter adjustments to ensure it started exactly on the zero, I didn’t want to be short changed or mislead 1 gram. I stepped back, took a deep breath, and stepped on…..

Here I was hoping to lose 4kg, not want I want to lose every week, but what I was hoping for this week. I slowly opened my eyes and looked down, as my eyes automatically adjust themselves I notce what it says. I had lost the 4 kg I was hoping for…PLUS 2 MORE!!! There it was 6 kgs in my first week.

As exciting as that was, the best part of the day today was the realisation that this is something that is sustainable and that I will be able to live by. After all, I’m not doing anything special, just eating the right foods and a little bit of exercise.

Remember you can follow me on twitter –> http://www.twitter.com/ben_mr_g

Or you can now join my new facebook group –> Overweight 30 Year Old

Thanks everyone for your support and kind words.

OW30YO

Weight loss this week: 6kg

First big challenge…

Before I start with any of the deep stuff, there is some exciting news for the OW30YO and his wife. We’re buying a new car!! Went to the bank today, increased our loan and now are on the hunt for a new car. Leaning towards a 2009 Ford Territory.

Things are continuing to go well, I’ve increased my exercising. This morning I used the Wii to play the Biggest Loser game. Started off very boring, not to strenuous doing individual exercises as the only lasted 30 – 90 seconds. But then I discovered the challenges and had a blast, I had quite a sweat up by the end of the challenge, which I won. The best part of the Biggest Loser  exercising was that my daughter joined in by my side and did it with me.

Last night however posed my first big test, one of many to come. After spending the afternoon and evening out at school cleaning and rearranging in preparation for our new school building the staff all got together for tea, one of my favourite foods, pizza! But I sat through the dinner, eating my vegetable slice, while the others ate their pizza. It wasn’t that hard to resist it, and none of the staff members said anything about not eating it. In fact my fellow staff members have been fantastic. I don’t plan on forgowing all types of take away food forever, that’s not sustainable. But for a few weeks, I want to focus on eating healthy food. I’ve spent 30 years, eating what I’ve wanted and eating what I felt like, it’s time to dedicate some time to eating what I need.

What a coincidence….

Sometimes things are just meant to be. Yesterday during the staff dinner I got a phone call from a new personal trainer at my gym Anytime Fitness offering a free 30 minute boxing session. I love doing boxing training, very therapuetic so naturally I said yes and am very excited about throwing punches until I’m throwing up. I’ll give a report tomorrow on how it goes and at only $20 per half hour session something I would definately consider doing on a weekly occasion.

Thanks for reading and keep sending comments as I appreciate all of them and remember to follow me on twitter –>http://twitter.com/Ben_Mr_G

OW30YO

The fear of failure…

Day 7/365 -> Weight Loss Unknown

First real day today of my attempt to become a healthier person, and it started with a trip to the Gym at 5:30am this morning. I’ve decided to have a crack at the 100 push up program (iPhone app) and supplemented that with some leg weights and additional arm weights. I will also to the C25K running program, however I started this once before and about 4 weeks in had real problems with my calves and shins. My running program will start next week, as I give my sore knee a rest from camp, but I will be doing cardio in other ways. In fact after typing this I plan to go and jump on the ergo (Rowing Machine) whilst I watch the new episode of Entourage.

As with the start of all diet changes it was a bit os a difficult day, particularly in the afternoon after work, when in the past I have gotten something, unhealthy, to eat in the car on the way home. Today however I treated myself to a carrot! I’ve been drinking plenty of water and trying out this Super slim drink that is supposed to help make me feel fuller, but it is breaking the habits that will be the hardest thing to do. Overall my eating was good today, I’m trying to eat a protein and plenty of fruit and vegies with each meal, and my snacks have been pears and carrots. I spent last night cooking up plenty of Vegie slice to use for lunch and sometimes breakfast, however it’s not as nice as the last lot I made, probably because I left out the mustard.

The biggest thing for today was the feeling of fear that I had, it was strange, I want to do this and I believe I can. However, letting everyone know about this worries me, what if I fail again? How will all of my friends and familiy see me then? What do I do at school? Do I tell the kids/parents? If I do tell them and succeed, I’ll be an inspiration, but if I fail, I’ll have put myself out there for nothing. How do I tell the rest of the staff that I work with? But I’ve also started to realise that these are the reasons I wanted to do it this way. Whilst failure is always an option, in this case it’s not and acceptable option…

OW30YO

*Follow me on twitter –> http://twitter.com/Ben_Mr_G