I’m really angry and frustrated about some things that are happening in my personal life, so here’s a post that’s not about losing weight.

I do a lot of volunteer work for my sport. I come from a family of perpetual volunteers who would drop anything to help another so the idea of putting back into things that I value comes naturally to me. It always confuses me that other people don’t feel this way, but I can understand that some people just don’t care enough to put back, or whatever it is doesn’t have such a profound effect on them as it does on me.

However, I can never ever understand people who disrespect work that volunteers do. I organise the entire schools league for underwater hockey. It’s a lot of work, usually 5 hours a week on top of physically being at the pool for 8 hours a week on top of that. This is a huge undertaking to a person generally, and I specifically make significant sacrifices to my personal life to accommodate this. I work 20 hours a week, attend university full time and also volunteer with other organisations. It’s a huge chunk of my life that I could be spending working, studying or at home with my boyfriend, that instead, I am dedicating to others.

The issue started on Friday night when another volunteer criticised what I was doing, saying that I was supposed to be ‘helping the sport’. It really upset me that he would say that when he KNOWS the work and effort I put in to help the sport.

Throughout the year Marcus and I have also got a lot of flack from other volunteers for selling gear to players. They have said that we put making profit above our jobs as volunteers.

This annoyed me for several reasons – firstly, I am the only one out of the two of us who has a role as a volunteer. Secondly, I drop everything, and have lost sales so I can make sure that things are running smoothly. I have even advised people go elsewhere. And, most significantly of all, we have put all of the profit back into purchasing a 4 camera-camera system to live-feed and record games – it’s the most high-tech system out of all UWH camera systems in the world, and has cost us thousands of dollars – more, in fact, than we have made selling gear.

Any time I ask for help from the rest of the committee (who are volunteers themselves) I either get no response or a response so late that it is rendered useless. I know that I can’t expect them to help all the time and I don’t. I do, however, expect at least some acknowledgement that they aren’t assisting me so I know at least that they’ve got the message.

It infuriates me how much people take for granted the work that volunteers do and have the balls to criticise it. Please, please, please, make an effort today to thank someone in your life who you know does a thankless job. It’s those little thank yous and smiles and the teeny bit of help that you give that makes it all worthwhile.

And if you are a volunteer, I sincerely thank you for all of the work that you do. If it wasn’t for you, life would be much harder for someone else, so take heed of the fact that someone out there values what you do.

Remember; never, ever knock a volunteer.

Monday, Monday

Today’s Monday. My weekend of eating well did not go as planned. On Saturday, I was planning on eating lunch at home, but ended up going to McDonalds AND forgot my water bottle. I chose a McChicken, but had L&P with it, so hardly a great meal. That night I was out at a sports think and had sausages from a sausage sizzle for dinner – also not great for me.

Sunday, however, was a bit better. I took a packed lunch from home as well as a fruit bar, and had omelette for dinner.

Marcus and I bought a bench top water filter/chiller to help encourage us to drink more water. It’s working well, I think. It’s really great to have unlimited (well, as long as we remember to top it up) fresh, chilled water on tap. I’m definitely on top of my target water bottles per day – I think I had about 6 or 7 on Saturday and about the same amount yesterday too. You know, it’s right what they say about you having to pee less when you’re hydrated – those first couple of days where you drink and drink and pee and pee are horrible. Now I’m waterlogged, I pee about the same number of times as I did before, but I feel better, and less hungry.

In regards to my 5 fruit and veg a day, it’s been a bit of a fail, I have to say. Today I’ve had 2 servings, but I’m pretty sure we don’t have anything in the way of veges at home, so I might have another 2 servings of fruit tonight and that will be it. In saying that, I don’t want to get upset about it or feel like I’m behind – any effort I’m making is better that how I was this time last week, and I need to be proud of myself for that.

I’ve also done no exercise since my walk on Friday, but I do plan on doing at least a little something tonight or tomorrow. I really need to get into a positive mindset where any little effort I make is worth it – I think it’s so easy to get into that trap of ‘oh, but I have no time this week to exercise, so why even bother trying to eat better?’. Reality says of course eating better is worth it – nothing happens overnight, it all takes time!

So here we go, I’m taking baby steps to be a bit healthier, a bit fitter, and a bit happier.

Goals

I currently weight 100kg, give or take 2-3kg either way. This is the first time I've ever admitted that, even to myself. My BMI is 37, putting me in the ‘obese’ category.

Generally, I dislike BMI calculators as I don’t think they are very accurate or tailored to individuals. At my fittest, I weighed between 68 – 74kg. I would like to eventually lose 30 kg to get down to a goal weight of 70kg. How awesome would it be to break the 70, and see 69kg on the scales?? This would put my BMI at 26, which is still overweight as a healthy BMI is between 20 and 25 (give or take. Although I’m short, I have a large frame, and I think the recommended 60kg is an unrealistic goal for me. Now, I’m not saying that it would be unhealthy for me, because I’d probably look fantastic, but 70kg would still be a huge achievement, so I’m going to aim for that. I think it’s silly to aim to lose almost half my body weight when I’ve NEVER in my adult or adolescent life weighed 60kg. When I get to 70kg, I’ll see how I’m looking and re-evaluate.

I know the key to weighloss is to make small goals, so by this Christmas, I would like to break the 80s – I don’t care if it’s 89.9kg, but I have to be below 90. This gives 4 months to lose 10kg – 2.5kg per month. I would love to weigh 70kg at Christmas 2011. That means I have 12 months to lose 20kg, 10kg/6 months – about 1.5kg a month. I think these are realistic goals.

The boyfriend and I were discussing last night what out goals are. He doesn’t think I should focus too much on weight because if I gain any weight, I’ll get disheartened which I tend to agree about. His target is fitness; he wants to get to the same fitness level he was when he represented New Zealand.

When I was younger, my mum did a weight loss program called ‘Natural Way’, where you take herbal supplements to aid your weight loss. They also were very big on recording measurements and charting progress using actual measurements. I think this is a great option for me, as I will be able to see the physical changes as I go along, so even if I don’t lose weight, I still may lose a cm here or there, so I know my efforts are working.

I would also like to set some fitness targets; I think I’ll follow Marcus’ lead and aim to be able to successfully complete the NZ Women’s’ training program. I used to be able to do it, and a couple of months training should get me into shape to do it again.

Foodwise, I have some goals also. I want to drink 4 bottles of water a day (750ml bottles). That’s 3litres. Research (well, okay, google) has told me that adults need to drink approximately 2l of water to replace what they lose a day. I also know that people who drink 2 cups of water before meals lose more weight because they feel more full, so this can only be good, right? I tend to drink quite a lot, so I’ll go for 4 bottles a day and see how that goes. Probably, once I’m properly hydrated, I will be able to reduce my water drinking, although it is a great alternative to keep my hands busy rather than snacking.

I also want to get my 5 servings of fruit or veg a day. It sounds pretty silly that I’m an adult who dislikes veges, so I think I should make this a priority.

I'm sure I'll come up with some more goals as I go along, but for now, I'll just focus on these three things:

• drink 4 bottles of water a day
• Eat 5 servings of fruit or veg a day
• Lose 10kg by Christmas

The first step

Last night, I watched a show on TV about obese people who had surgery to reduce the size of their stomachs, and their struggles and successes in losing weight. The show also followed a family who were all obese with medical problems. All of the people lost a heap of weight, but were left with disgusting amounts of lose skin that they had to get surgically removed. I never want to be like that, so I have to make an effort now to stop this cycle and get healthy.

My weight crept up when I stopped playing sport seriously when I started university 4 years ago. I was training for a couple of hours a day every day, then dropped off to 5 days a week, then 3, and eventually to nothing. The thing that didn’t change was my eating habits. My weight isn’t as bad as these people on the show last night. I’m a size 16 – 18, and I don’t have trouble walking up stairs or anything. I’m simply bigger than I want to be, and I want to be healthy and make good choices.

This year I started playing sport again, and I know that if I get back into it seriously, I’ll lose the weight and be back down to my ideal weight (70kg) in a matter of months. However, my boyfriend and I would like to change out relationship with food, so we’re putting good fuel into our bodies.

Last night, we went through out fridge, freezer and pantry. We hate to waste food, so we’ve decided to keep what we have, but make good choices (like having ONE cookie, rather than 4!). We will also be going grocery shopping as we have NO veges in the house. We have cut fizzy by finishing the open bottles that were in the fridge, and taking out the unopened bottles. We are purchasing a water purifier/cooler today (yay for 20% off sales!!), and will be drinking water instead of fizzy drink.

I’ve tried to lose weight before, but I think I really need the support and motivation of someone who will hold me accountable. I need, at least at first, to be strict with myself, to make meal plans and to stick to them. This blog is to keep me accountable.

I don’t want to deny myself food, I just want to teach myself to make good choices. I’d like to make sure that every day, I do some sort of exercise. I’ve decided that on top of sport twice a week (once for an hour, and once for 2 hours), I’ll go down to the lagoon by my house and walk around it. I’ve set myself the ultimatum that I have to walk around the lagoon a set number of times, and once I’ve done it that many times, I’m done. That means, if I walk, it will take longer than if I choose to run. I’m thinking probably 4-5 times around, but I’m going to walk it today at a decent pace and see how many times I can go around in approximately 1/2h.

So here I am at the start of my journey. I’ll share some weights and measurements when I take them, and I’ll also share any successes or setbacks I face along the way. In saying that, I don’t want this blog to be just about my weight loss; I want this to be a little bit of everything where I can share my passions and exciting news and day to day mundane things.

Until next time,

Lauren