Finally, finally I am getting back on the wagon. I’m convinced that the week either side of New Years’ Eve has some kind of special mojo that enables me to achieve things I have been struggling with all year. New Years’ Eve is my most favourite day of the year, followed closely by the 1st of January, so I am always at my happiest at this point in the year. Maybe that has something to do with the recent upturn in my ability to progress in my goals.

Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that I have finally unwound enough from my hectic second year at uni to begin enjoying my summer holidays. It could also be because, lately, life has mostly consisted of this sort of thing:

Photos by Blair Holloway.

Exercise

I got three comments on my last post, so I worked out for the last three mornings, and I have remembered how much I love daily exercise. Over the past four days I have done:

• one hour of cardio (dancing)
• 45 minutes of weights
• 45 minutes of yoga
• two hours of walking (to and from trains and buses, to and from the supermarket, and around the city)

I am really, really proud of myself and I’m going to continue the daily exercise as much as possible (except tomorrow when Boyfriend and I are going out of town for the day, but I’ll try and get in some walking on the beach).

Diet

I have been eating much better for the past five days (though I’m still eating some rubbish, don’t get me wrong). My breakfasts have been variations on this theme:

Not only is it healthy, but it looks stunning (well, before the big dollop of yoghurt and LSA goes on), which greatly enhances my enjoyment of it.

Lunch has mainly been vegetables and beans with toast, and I’ve cut down on junk food snacking, replacing it with rye toast, fruit or oats. I’m still eating wheat, which is something I need to wean myself off as it makes me bloat so much that I look three or more months pregnant — not healthy. That will be my aim for this week.

Whenever I’m home for dinner, I get a healthy meal, because I live with my mother and sister who cook traditional Indian dinners for the three of us. The problem begins when I go out for dinner. Boyfriend and I often eat rubbish. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had takeaway for dinner this month, partly because I’ve lost count, and partly because I know the number is shameful. I know he would co-operate if I told him I wanted to eat better when we’re together, so I shall do so.

I’m generally feeling optimistic and, well, happy!

Does your mood impact your ability to live healthily?

You know those people who are addicted to helping? Who will go out of their way to solve other people’s problems, but won’t touch their own? I think I’m one of them. In my everyday life I try to help people solve their health problems by telling them about the healthy living tools that I’ve picked up in my travels: The Work, flower essences, herbs, supplements, how to keep your blood sugar from spiking, and on and on, and I never truly focus on working these things into my life. I have the best intentions. I make a lot of plans and lists. I spend a lot of time thinking about how to make life the best for me. But do I put these plans into motion? Well, I try. But I usually fail. It’s like I subconsciously believe that everyone else deserves perfect health and happiness, and I don’t. That I should help others to succeed, and my success and wellbeing is not a priority. It’s like I try to get people to love me by helping them, and when I don’t help, when I’m not selfless or I don’t have the appearance of being selfless, I feel unlovable. I think not taking my own lifestyle advice makes me look like a hypocrite, and makes me seem somewhat false.

I’ve decided that the last few posts in this chapter of Getting Healthy will be entirely about me. I’m not going to think about what I think you’d like to read. I’m just going to write about me, and risk not being liked because I’m not actively helping. Here goes.

Exercise
No dedicated exercise in the past week, aside from 20 minutes of cardio one morning. I have been walking an awful lot, to and from the train station (about 10 minutes each way), from the bus to Boyfriend’s house (about 20 minutes), and shopping (for up to 6 hours at a time). My family is Hindu and so we don’t really celebrate Christmas. Christmas Eve day and Christmas Day are two of the quietest days in the year for me. I’m going to try and get some exercise in on those two days. And I’m going to jump on the bandwagon and ask you for help. For every person who comments on this entry, I am going to do one morning of exercise (meaning cardio and weights, or just cardio depending on the day).

Diet is, for the most part, terrible. I’m eating a lot of junk food, and it’s stress-eating. I’m eating every meal (except for today, I skipped lunch) and I recently cooked a big meal to eat during the week (lentils and vegetables). However the food, although it looks appetising in this picture, isn’t. There’s something about tinned lentils, the way the skins come away from the rest of the lentil, that I find offputting. I have a whole dishful of this concoction, but I’m reluctant to eat it. I think what I need to do is feed it to someone who does like it, or throw it out and make something else. There is no point making or keeping healthy food if I’m not enjoying it.

One of my main problems with food, which I may not even have mentioned because I hate explaining it to people, is anxiety. I am anxious about the food I eat. I have a specific list of foods that I consider ‘safe’, no matter how irrational that is, and in times of stress I tend to want to stick to those foods. If I eat foods that aren’t safe, sometimes it’s alright, but sometimes I get really anxious. I feel terrified, I feel like my life is ending, I feel unsafe and horrible, and like I’ll never be happy again. Most of the foods on the safe list are junk foods. I have no solution to this issue right now, all I have is the acknowledgment of the issue.

Body shot

As you can see, I got my hair cut. My long hair was weighing me down, so I thought it was time for a change! I’m hoping that this hair cut will inspire me to be a bit more confident, spunky and odd, i.e. a bit more in line with the person I feel I am inside. Then again, it’s just hair. I’m still getting used to the new cut. First of all, some of my clothes now no longer suit me, because my big, long hair was, to some extent, balancing out my proportionally large hips. But that’s OK, I can give those clothes to friends. It’ll be fun working out how to dress myself again!

Are you a helper personlity? Are there areas in your life in which you’re selfless to a fault?

I’ve realised that most of the things that are stopping me from eating and exercising properly right now are emotional in nature:

• I have had conflict with friends lately
• My family is a bit more stressful than usual
• My beloved cat has been sick
• Money has been very tight
• My room and lounge room look like a rubbish dump and I feel oppressed by the piles of stuff around me
• Boyfriend has been very stressed, and unable to support me in the way in which I’ve become accustomed (rather, I’ve been trying to support him)

All of these things make me feel tired and overwhelmed, and all I want to do is lie down and do nothing, forever. Hardly motivating.

The solution? Do The Work.

I wondered when I would write about The Work here. It was only a matter of time, really, as it’s one of the most important things in my life, and I’ve been practicing it for almost four years now. The Work is the only thing that has helped with my anxiety disorder. I can defuse a panic attack and prevent another one in 10-20 minutes using the Work. My anxiety is now a quarter of what it was. But you certainly don’t have to have a mental illness to benefit from the Work.

What is The Work? The Work is a way of systematically examining thoughts that give you pain. The premise, and it’s not a new one, is that all suffering comes from the story you tell about what is happening, and that believing your stressful thoughts is the root of all pain. It was developed by a woman named Byron Katie who had very serious depression. One day she woke up to the Work, and she now shares it with the world.

To use The Work, you sit down quietly with pen and paper, and write down the main painful thoughts that are rolling around in your head. Then you apply the following four questions and what’s called ‘a turnaround’ to each thought.

1. Is it true?
2. Can I absolutely know that it’s true?
3. How do I react when I believe the thought?
4. Who would I be without the thought?
Turn it around.

To show you how it works, I’ll Work through an example. Say the thought you were struggling with was ‘Boyfriend thinks I’m ugly’.

1. Is it true?
To answer this question, you get very quiet, close your eyes, go within, and listen to the voice inside you for the answer. You don’t try to justify the answer in any way, and the only acceptable answers are ‘Yes’, ‘No’, and ‘I don’t know’. The right answer is whatever feels true to you.

Yes, Boyfriend thinks I’m ugly.

2. Can I absolutely know that it’s true?
To answer this question, you might ask yourself, “Can I absolutely know beyond all doubt that Boyfriend thinks I’m ugly?”, “Can I really know what Boyfriend is thinking?”, “Is it possible I misinterpreted what he said?”, “Can I know more than God?” Again, the only acceptable answers are ‘Yes’, ‘No’, and ‘I don’t know’.

No, I can’t absolutely know that it’s true that Boyfriend thinks I’m ugly.

Then you sit with that for half a minute or so. You can’t really know that Boyfriend thinks you’re ugly. Maybe he doesn’t. Wow.

3. How do I react when I believe that thought?
To answer this question, you consider how you feel when you believe that Boyfriend thinks you’re ugly, both emotionally and physically. Then you think about how you act, how you treat Boyfriend, how you treat yourself, and you write it all down.

When I believe that Boyfriend thinks I’m ugly, my chest tightens up. I cry and cry. My heart pounds. I feel devastatingly ugly, I feel like I’ll never be happy. I go to the fridge and binge on chocolate. I look in the mirror and feel disgusting. I feel absolutely livid with Boyfriend. I snap at him. I call him a jerk, and a bastard, in my head. I call up my friends and we say unkind things about him. I avoid his calls. I think about leaving him.

4. Who would you be without the thought?
To answer this question, you imagine that it is not possible to think the thought ‘Boyfriend thinks I’m ugly’. You close your eyes, and think of your life exactly as it is, only you are not able to think this thought. It’s especially important to imagine whatever it was Boyfriend said that sparked this thought, without the thought. Describe what you see.

I feel light and happy. I see that Boyfriend was just putting his foot in his mouth as usual, which I find so endearing. I feel so much love for him. I feel strong and confident, I feel unshakeable in my confidence. It feels amazing.

Turn it around
To me this is the most interesting and powerful part of the Work. You manipulate the words in the original thought to investigate other possibilities. You can turn the statement around to its opposite, to yourself, to your thinking, and to the other. After you turn the thought around, it can be useful to find three ways that the turnaround is as true or truer than the original thought. Note that in this part you’re not being asked to give up your thought, only to explore other possibilities.

Boyfriend thinks I’m beautiful

1. He sneaks adoring looks at me when he thinks I’m not paying attention
   
2. He keeps a photo of me by his desk
3. He’s in a relationship with me!! He wouldn’t be if he thought I was ugly!
   

I think I’m ugly
This is much truer. I interpreted what Boyfriend said through a filter. I already think I’m ugly so I looked for evidence to support that. It’s really only my own opinion that matters, anyway. If I was convinced that I’m beautiful, no-one could make me feel ugly.

I think Boyfriend is ugly
If I’m really honest, I don’t think Boyfriend is 100% attractive 100% of the time, especially when I’m feeling annoyed. It doesn’t mean I don’t find him drop-dead gorgeous 98% of the time, and it certainly doesn’t mean I don’t love him. It could be the same for him.

My thinking is ugly
Yes. It’s only my ugly thinking that’s upsetting me. I will examine my thinking more with The Work.

Here is a video of Byron Katie facilitating the Work with a woman who thinks her body is too fat. This is only the first part, the other parts are also available on YouTube.

In other news…

Exercise
I’ve been walking a LOT. Yesterday I walked or stood for six hours because I was shopping with a friend in the city. However the main thing I need to work on is muscle strenghtening and building, because many of my issues are muscular in origin. So I need to focus on that this week.

Eating
To be completely honest, I didn’t do what I planned in my last entry (meal planning, setting alarms), but I have stopped skipping meals, and I’m eating much more sensibly than I was last week. Once I deal with some of the emotional stuff, I think it’ll be easier to get my eating in line.

What do you do to deal with scary thoughts and feelings?

I am so far off the wagon that the wagon has not only disappeared around the corner but is now trundling off to Sydney.

Somehow in the past two weeks I’ve forgotten how to eat three square meals. Lunch has been the most neglected meal. I have been eating either Weet-bix or a banana, or failing to acknowledge lunch all together. I’ve also forgotten how not to eat wheat, even though I know I don’t tolerate it very well. I am eating more junk food than I have all year, and I seem to have gone backwards in every possible way with regard to my diet.

Yesterday I finally had enough. I have decided that I am not allowed to do anything social unless I can manage to eat three square meals. It is ridiculous to skip lunch because I am meeting someone at 2 and I’m running late. I cannot place social engagements over my basic health and wellbeing. Eating regularly and well must become my top priority.

How am I going to remember to eat? By planning my meals ahead of time, finding new and exciting recipes, and setting an alarm on my phone to remind me that it’s meal time.

Meal planning
During semester I sat down once a week to plan out the next seven days’ worth of meals, including snacks. I wrote a ‘to do’ list for each evening (highlighted below in pink), detailing exactly what I had to cook or assemble to take to uni the following day.

The whole process took about half an hour, and saved me a lot of brain power and time. I rarely found myself staring blankly into the fridge, wondering what to make. Instead of dilly dallying around the kitchen, trying to come up with something, I could get straight into cooking. My meal plan also discouraged me from impulse buying and eating junk food, because in following the plan I was rarely caught out with nothing to eat and only a 7-11 within walking distance. As a bonus, I rarely wasted food, because everything I bought in my weekly grocery shop was included in the plan.

I kept my meal plans in a binder, scrappily written on lined paper:

If you prefer something more visually appealing, Kikki K, a boutique stationer with stores in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, has made these delightful little meal planner pads. I’m sure there are equivalents available in other parts of the world.

(Photo courtesy of the Kikki K website)

I am a crafty sort and may design my own meal planner pad this summer. Anything to make healthy eating fun, right?

New and exciting recipes
Food is not merely fuel. For a healthy diet to really take hold, food must capture all the five senses (with the possible exception of hearing). I have had the most success with sticking to a healthy eating plan when my food has been tasty, novel, beautifully presented, and eaten with due attention and reverence (read: away from the television).

Part of my problem at the moment is that my food is same old, same old. I am eating the same vegetables prepared in only slightly different ways. It’s time for something new.

My favourite source of new recipes is Vegweb, a free site where members upload their favourite vegetarian or vegan recipes and other members comment on them and rate them. It also comes with a ‘Recipe Box’, where you can save recipes you are interested in, a Grocery List, which automatically extracts the ingredients list from your chosen recipe, and a Meal Planner which is self-explanatory. My favourite Vegweb recipes include the Spicy Sweet Potato-Bean Burrito, which I made for Boyfriend on a very successful candlelit dinner at the beginning of our relationship. I also wholeheartedly recommend the Nigerian Peanut Stew and the Spicy Fries for a treat.

Setting alarms on my phone
Boyfriend is possibly the most forgetful person on the planet. To remind himself of important dates and tasks he needs to accomplish, he sets alarms on his phone. Co-opting his method will help me remember to eat. I will set alarms for the next week for an hour before I am likely to be hungry, so I remember to get cooking!

In other news…

Exercise

Exercise has gone out the window. It’s hard to move my body when I am not providing it with the nutrients required to make energy. I have been feeling weak and lethargic due to my poor diet, and it’s unrealistic to expect to drive myself as far as I have been while only half-filling the tank. I will pick exercise up again once I get my diet in order. In the meantime I will walk as often as possible.

Body shot

I look a bit larger in this picture, but that’s only because it was taken in a different place. I assure you that I remain unchanged.

Do you forget to eat? What are your strategies for organising yourself around mealtimes?

This week I began a course of Australian Bush Flower Essences. In a nutshell, Flower Essences are energetic preparations, made from flowers, that can be used to heal emotional and spiritual blocks. There is very little of the physical flower left in a Flower Essence, and only the flower’s vital energy remains (kind of like its aura). Each flower’s vital energy behaves like a unique ‘signature’, and is identified and processed differently by the human energy field, or aura. As such, each different essence targets a specific aspect of the human experience. Flower Essences are very safe, have few side effects, and are most often taken orally.

Yes, I know, it all sounds airy fairy and mad, and the guy on the Flower Essences website (Ian White) looks like herbal medicine Fabio. I probably wouldn’t believe in it, except that I’ve had personal experience of its effectiveness. I took a course of Bach Flower Essences (an English range) for anxiety and irrational, repetitive, negative thoughts for two years. This mix of essences has helped stave off my panic attacks and reverse downward spirals.

I was prescribed a mix of Bush Flower Essences by Kate Watt, a Melbourne Flower Essences therapist, and sometimes lecturer (she gave six weeks of lectures on this healing modality at my school last semester). The mix was made for me after a nerve-wracking consultation in front of a room full of my classmates. In the consultation I talked about how I have been struggling with body image, and with feeling comfortable and at ease in my body. After careful questioning, Kate selected four remedies for my mix:

• Billy Goat Plum: For body shame and self-loathing. This will help me accept my body and let go of the idea that it’s dirty, ugly, or unacceptable.
• Five Corners: For low self-esteem and general self-loathing. This will help me remember my true self, love myself, and be joyful and open to life.
• Flannel Flower: For people who have difficulty being touched and difficulty being intimate, physically or emotionally. It also increases physical energy and facilitates joy in physical movement, which is ideal for someone like me who is just starting an exercise program!
• Bottlebrush: For healing ‘unresolved mother issues’, and cleaning out past garbage, allowing me to move on. Which is great, because a lot of my issues stem from identifying too much with the past.

I wasn’t able to begin taking the mix until yesterday, as you are not meant to take two different mixes at once (I was still on the anti-anxiety mix until last week). I’ve been instructed to take 7 drops of this mix under my tongue first thing in the morning and last thing at night. After taking the first 7 drops, I stepped into the shower. Five minutes later, memories from childhood that I haven’t looked at in ages started to come up. I ended up bursting into tears in the shower and later working through some concepts and blockages that I’ve been living with for ages.

Since then I haven’t noticed anything major. I’m excited to see what happens, and I will keep you posted!

In other news…

I’m still off that wagon that I was never really on in the first place. I have been exercising sporadically, but I’m hoping to get my act together and start my daily exercise program this week. I have also been eating quite a lot of junk food, and I don’t know that that’s going to change, realistically, right now. Especially in the lead-up to Christmas with all the marvellous Christmas parties that will be going on every weekend. I’ve also drunk more in the past couple of months than I usually do in an entire year. These are not healthy times! Oh well. I am doing my best.

Body Shot

My camera batteries have completely died, so we will have to content ourselves with this photo from last week. I assure you I still look exactly the same. I pretty much always look exactly the same!

And a question for you:

What do you do when you fall of the wagon, whatever the wagon might be? How do you get back on?

Is it possible to fall off the wagon before having really got on?

Last Thursday I finished exams (YAY!). That evening I said to myself, “Gauri, tomorrow you will drink with your uni friends. After that, there will be no more junk food in your diet for two whole weeks.”

Well, it was a nice thought. On Friday after drinks (one vodka and apple juice) I had a lot of hot chips at Grill’d, followed by Hungry Jacks (Australian Burger King) for dinner. Then I spent the weekend at Boyfriend’s house and put away a whole season of Veronica Mars as well as:

• half a packet of Tim Tams (the most amazing chocolate biscuit in the world)
• two slices of chocolate Bavarian
• a scoop of chocolate ice cream
• half a 100g bag of Kettle Chilli Chips
• a whole lot of waterthins crackers with pumpkin and cashew dip, and brie cheese
• two vodka and apple juices
• lots of Weet-bix, when I’m not really meant to be eating wheat

Whoops. Do I ever know how to self-destruct.

The day after the binge (Monday) saw me in the worst mood I’ve been in in a very long time. I felt depressed, and I cried uncontrollably for half an hour in the morning. I felt fatigued and I spent the day fighting off an almost irresistible desire to sleep. I tried to tell myself it was just the post-exam come down, but I think the post-exam come down had a little help from the weekend junk food binge.

This is one of my major roadblocks on the road to healthy eating: I treat my time with Boyfriend like a holiday from my life. When I’m with him, the rest of my life (study, health, etc) does not exist, and at some point I subconsciously decided that what I eat when I’m with him ‘doesn’t count’. Boyfriend and I have said that we will not do this to ourselves and each other any more. We want to be good for each other, not bad. Hopefully we can stick to our resolution, because it would improve both our diets immensely!

Today I am truly going to begin my ‘no junk food for two weeks’ kick. I may allow myself a square of chocolate every couple of days, but then again I may not. After two weeks I will assess whether giving up junk has made me feel better, and whether I should try for a month without junk food.

Exercise
I resumed my exercise routine yesterday. I do yoga, then stretching, then cardio, then weights, then cardio, stretching and yoga again. The whole thing takes about an hour and a half, which I can definitely afford during the holidays. When I started the routine, I was only doing it every second day. This summer I will try to exercise every day, but continue to only do the weights part of the routine every second day. A day of rest between periods of exertion will give my muscles time to repair themselves and build themselves up.

I’m excited to see how my body changes with exercise. I’ve already seen a change: my biceps are bigger than they’ve been in a long time. They’re still small by most people’s standards, but that’s OK.

Diet
Great weekend binge aside, my diet has been pretty mediocre. I’m still exhausted from exam period, so cooking has been unappealing. I just got back into it today, though. I made a lovely omelette for lunch:

• 2 free range eggs, beaten, with a little water added
• half a red (Spanish) onion, finely chopped
• handful of cherry tomatoes, quartered
• a pinch of chopped fresh coriander
• salt and pepper
• sliced avocado
• rye toast

Sautee the onions in a little organic, unsalted butter (seriously, that stuff is amazing and nothing like conventional butter, have you tried it?) in a small frying pan. Once softened, add the tomatoes. Pour over the eggs, add coriander, turn the heat right down, and cover. Allow the egg to just cook through. Serve on rye toast and top with sliced avocado. Add salt and cracked pepper to taste. Thanks to my mum and her ‘backseat cooking’ for the recipe.

A body shot
This chapter I’ve decided to do a weekly body shot, even if the shots look exactly the same from one week to the next. It’s nice to catalogue it anyway.

And a question for you: Do you eat differently with your partner, or when you’re on a date? If so, how, and why?

My “Getting Healthy” Info

1. As of the beginning of this project, what are your height and weight?

Height: 165cm (5’4″)
Weight: 60kg (132).

This is what that looks like:

2. We all know that numbers never give us the big picture. When you think of your body – its size, shape, strength and health – how do you feel?

This is a particularly pertinent question for me as I don’t put much stock in weight, clothing size or the Body Mass Index as indicators of health. Personal experience has taught me that thin does not equal healthy (I am recovering from hyperthyroidism). Instead, I rely on a review of my exercise and eating habits, and the feeling of what it’s like to live in my body, to determine the state of my health.

At this point, I don’t feel very healthy. I wake up tired and feel fatigued and foggy throughout the day. I have muscle pain, headaches, back problems and I’m weak due to lack of muscle. I react to all food with bloating. I am often stressed and anxious (I have suffered from anxiety for the past 6 years). I believe all of this is due to, or greatly exacerbated by, lack of exercise and too much junk food. The lack of exercise is based on the fallacy that I ‘don’t have enough time’ (yet I find time to watch TV and waste time on the internet). The prodigious junk food intake is from the fallacy that I ‘need treats to cope with stress’ (yet junk food makes me feel tired and cranky).

Although my current weight looks healthy on paper, and I am squarely in the middle of the ‘normal’ BMI values for my height and age (I’m 25 years old), a nasty but honest body composition machine tells me that my body is 38% fat. The (rather generous ) maximum healthy body fat percentage for a woman my age is 33%. This is not a healthy way to be, and if I had any meaningful amount of muscle, I would fall squarely into the overweight category of the BMI.

Despite all this, I am grateful for my body and I like my appearance, though I would love to feel stronger, stand straighter and be more muscular.

3. Based on all of that, what is your biggest goal in the Getting Healthy project? What is one thing you must accomplish during the next two months?

I like to think of my goal as ‘Project New Body’. I intend to begin the new school year, in March 2010, with a whole new body. This body will be lithe, muscular and strong, and will afford me the strength and mental clarity I need to get through a tough academic year without getting sick, overwhelmed, or depressed. I also plan to change my attitude towards life by changing how I feel in my body. I anticipate that positive side effects of ‘Project New Body’ will be lasting healthy eating and exercise habits,  elevated mood and an increased appreciation for life and my body as a gift.

4. Do you have any secondary goals? What are they?

• Exercise almost every day, including cardio and yoga. Do weight training every second day.
• Eliminate junk food for at least a fortnight (preferably a month), and reintroduce only occasional, good quality treats (e.g. fair trade, organic, dark chocolate shared with friends).
• Make every meal choice an intelligent one.
• Log everything I eat and the exercise I do every day. You can follow my daily food and exercise journal at Eat Move.

I’d also, eventually, like to fit into these jeans, which I can squeeze into but can’t do up. But if I feel healthy and fit and I’m eating well and exercising often, and the jeans still aren’t doing it for me, I won’t be upset.

5. What’s your day-to-day lifestyle like? What are you into? (We’d just like to get to know you better!)

I’m a naturopathy student, fiction writer and self-confessed chocolate addict living in Melbourne, Australia. My course involves spending most of my time studying nutrition, homoeopathy, flower essences, iridology, Western herbal medicine, anatomy and physiology, and biochemistry. It’s a very full-on course with a lot of subjects and material to cover, and the crazy study schedule I’m forced to put myself on is one of the reasons I don’t treat my body as well as I’d like.

I spend my non-study time pottering about the house, cooking (I love trying new foods and recipes), playing with my cat, singing, spending time with my beautiful boyfriend and friends, and obsessively watching Gilmore Girls.

6. What is one way that our readers can get you motivated, right out of the gate?

Interact! I find comments, whether they contain encouragement, constructive criticism or suggestions, to be extremely motivating. Feel free to ask me anything you like, or say anything you like, and if there’s something you’d like me to try or write about, do let me know.

7. Anything else you’d like to share with us, to help everyone get to know you?

I am generally very introspective and analytical, and I love to know and analyse myself, along with the people and the world around me. All my favourite questions begin with “Why”. Most, if not all, of my Getting Healthy posts will contain at least a little soul-searching! I’m also very interested in alternative therapies and lifestyle changes that improve mental health, and I expect you’ll see some of that reflected in my posts.

Looking forward to getting to know you in the coming weeks!

Hey there!

This week it’s a video blog from me instead of a post. In this video I talk about how things went last week (badly, I’ve fallen so far off the health wagon it’s not funny), and I wrap up the first chapter of my Getting Healthy experience. Click here to watch it. Don’t worry, the link opens in a new window, so you can keep browing Getting Healthy while it loads! It’s here!

Thanks so much for accompanying me on this journey and supporting me with all of your lovely comments and suggestions. I look forward to encountering you in the second chapter of Getting Healthy!

Is there anything health-related you’d like me to try or write about in the next chapter? All suggestions welcome!

Yesterday morning, during the cardio phase of my work-out, I noticed something was wrong. My muscles were stiff, I felt more tired and dizzy than usual, and dancing like a nut to 90′s hits wasn’t having the usual beneficial effect on my mood. I considered stopping my work-out, but decided to put the sensations out of my mind, and continue.

Cardio over, I switched to weights. I was still feeling dizzy and wrong, but I ignored it. A couple of minutes into my warm-up, I got a foot cramp. It was one of those excruciating ones where your toes freeze in an abnormal position. I sat down until the pain subsided, before getting right back up again and continuing the work-out.

Ten or so minutes later, during an exercise that involves lifting weights while your torso is bent to a 90 degree angle, I realised I was feeling dizzy, nauseated and downright sick. In addition, my leg muscles were shaking in a way they don’t normally. Finally, I decided to listen to my body’s messages. Instead of finishing my work-out, I stretched out and began my yoga routine, but felt too unwell to finish it. I dosed up on some arnica (homoeopathic remedy for overexertion), and lay down for fifteen minutes. The dizziness and fatigue persisted until I’d rested and showered.

What interested me about this experience is that it took three messages from my body for me to trust its wisdom. Why didn’t I stop at the first sign of wrongness? I don’t have an answer to this question, but I do recognise that it is a pattern in my life, especially in connection with my health. For example, it takes (at least) three bad experiences with junk food before I’m willing to cut back. Even then, I eventually forget or deny my experience and start eating junk again. I think if I listened to my body’s messages more often, I would be healthier.

Are you attuned to your body’s messages? Are there times when you ignore them?

Diet

Every few weeks I see a student naturopath at the Southern School of Natural Therapies student clinic which I would recommend to anyone living in Melbourne. Her name is Lou, and she is just fabulous — supportive, helpful, knowlegable, the whole works. Since I started seeing her earlier this year, she has given me a lot of remedies, and a lot of lifestyle advice, especially regarding diet and stress relief. She’s helped me put more protein into my diet, helped me brainstorm easy, tasty and healthy snacks, and generally supported me to develop an eating plan that both nourishes and delights me. She also gives me gorgeous stress relief advice, from getting a massage as often as I can, to wearing red socks when I’m anxious (red apparently symbolises the base chakra, which helps ground you, especially if it’s on your feet!).

Last time I saw her she said  in kind but firm words that I must stop eating junk food. My last thyroid blood test came back slightly funny (I am recovering from hyperthyroidism) and, apart from taking herbs, altering my diet and stress levels are the only things I can do. To that end, I have decided that for 14 days I am not going to let one morsel of junk pass my lips.  No chocolate, no chips, and definitely no takeaway. So far I am on day 3, and although the first two days were hard, especially since they were particularly stressful, I got through them. This has forced me to conclude that I do not, in fact, need to eat junk to get through stressful experiences.

Body update

I took my measurements on Sunday, to see if my new exercise program (begun 3 weeks ago) has produced any results. Here are my new measurements (in bold) alongside my old ones:

Bicep (unflexed): L 26cm, R 27cm, L and R both 27cm

Forearm: L 21cm, R 23cm, L and R both 23cm

Upper thigh: L and R both 56cm, unchanged

Lower thigh: L and R both 39cm, L and R both 41cm

Calf: L and R both 32.5cm, unchanged

Waist (well, actually it’s my umbilicus, not my waist): 96cm, 95cm

Hip: 98cm, unchanged

Shoulders: 100cm, 102cm

Bust: 95.5cm, 96.5cm (monthly variation)

Weight: 60kg (approx. 132 pounds), unchanged

I think three weeks after beginning weights is too early to see a real change in my measurements. I will take them again in another three weeks, and compare them to the first lot. I will say, though, that I feel a huge internal change. I look forward to and greatly relish my morning weights sessions. My mood is better, my posture is better, and I feel stronger and more capable.

And here are my new body shots:

They’re pretty much identical to my old ones taken six weeks ago. I don’t think I’m going to see a change until I stop eating so much junk food, and increase my cardio. I’m hoping to do cardio every morning and weights three times a week, but at the moment my schedule isn’t really allowing it. Apparently you need to do an hour of cardio per day to really burn any fat. Well, an hour one day, half an hour the next day, an hour the next, and so on. That’s what I’ll work up to.

And here’s what I look like in my clothes, pretty much exactly the same as I did last time.

Phew! I hadn’t realised what a big week it’s been for me!

This week I tried dry brushing. Dry brushing is a gentle circulatory and lymphatic stimulant which helps your body eliminate toxins through the skin. It has the same effect as a gentle massage, which is ideal for me as I have very tense muscles!

To get into dry brushing, you need a brush with natural fibre bristles that are firm but not too scratchy. Dry brushes are available in health food stores and stores with an environmentally friendly bent. Instructions for dry brushing can be found here.

What was my experience like? Well, it was not unlike being drunk. Fortunately I’d been told to expect a bit of oddness. When a lecturer at uni started dry brushing, his urine went black (he had been living an incredibly unhealthy lifestyle, he says). A friend from uni who adopted daily dry brushing, found it brought on her migraines (she dropped back to once a week, which fixed the problem).

Directly after dry brushing, I felt nauseated. I took a long drink of water as I’ve been instructed to do after a massage, and almost threw it up. After getting in the shower and washing off anything that might have seeped through my pores, I went downstairs to cook breakfast. And I couldn’t stop laughing. I was just standing there, boiling an egg, laughing. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t even drink my morning supplement-loaded juice. The high lasted for an hour or so, and then things went back to normal. We’ll see what happens next Friday. I don’t think I’m game to start daily dry brushing just yet.

In other news…

Exercise

Exercise is still my friend. In fact, it’s my best friend. Nothing new to report, except that next week I’ll be measuring myself to see if anything has changed in the past three weeks. I’m wondering if three weeks is too early, and whether I should wait until six weeks before I measure. If I measure too early, I risk feeling disappointed if there is no change. Should I wait? Am I overthinking this? Thoughts?

This week I did weights three or four times, and cardio four or five times. I’d like to be doing cardio every morning, even when I don’t do weights, but my schedule doesn’t always allow it. Or, rather, I press snooze so many times that my schedule no longer allows it. Something to work on this week.

Food

Since uni has kicked itself up a notch, my junk food intake has followed suit. I am eating absurd amounts of rubbish, and I’m not even loving it! I’ve even started eating chips in bed again, a habit I thought I’d left behind. This week I’ll try and drop the habit again.

I need your advice, though. The reason I eat chips in bed, or eat junk in general, is because it’s a very quick reward. When I’m putting in 6-8 hour study days, there isn’t a lot of time for a pick-me-up, so I use junk food. Can you think of any other quick rewards I can give myself, that only last for five to ten minutes? My eternal gratitude if you can.

Oh PS, I made quinoa again this week and realised I forgot to mention that you must rinse it a few times before cooking it. This is because it is coated with natural saponins which are bitter to the taste. If you followed my recipe and it tasted like feet, this could be why. Sorry!