A Clean Slate

how i got here.

Anxiety sucks.

As my psychologist Stuart says, "Anxiety is a thief". 

And he's right. It steals away your life and causes havoc and pain and misery.

I've had an on again, off again battle with anxiety for the past ten years. Always a worrying kind of child/teen, it wasn't until I was in my 30's that I had my first full blown anxiety attack and it was awful.

I didn't recognise it for what is was back then in 2005. It came disguised as food poisoning with the onset of symptoms so severe in a Sydney restaurant that my alarmed friends called an ambulance and the paramedics carted me off to hospital as they couldn't get my heart rate down.

I had no idea I had just suffered a major panic attack.

In fact the hospital didn't recognise it either and believed I had an allergic reaction to some mushrooms in one of the dishes we had ordered. They pumped me with fluids and sent me on my way. I was so dizzy and nauseous I could barely stand up. I wrote about it here.

Whether it was in fact the mushrooms or whether it was entirely an anxiety attack, I will never know. But it set up a pattern of ongoing anxiety attacks that seemed to come out of the blue and sneak up on me without warning in those early days after my hospital stay.

My GP gave me a clean bill of health and all my tests showed I didn't have any allergies at all.. He said it could have just been a dodgy batch of mushrooms. In fact back then my GP didn't really know what to do with me as I had yet another anxiety attack in his surgery during one of my visits. He gave me a Valium and sent me home. Driving! By myself. With Valium in my system. I still have the same GP now and he is much more equipped these days to sort me out which is great!

Back then my saving grace came in the form of a kind and gentle counselor by the name of Annette.

She was sent to us by the gods when I was at my lowest of lows.

before finding Annette I visited first with a psychologist we knew of when my mum was sick several years earlier. She was SO NOT the right counsellor for me.

She was not equipped either to sort me out and during my one and only session with her she told me that it was a LONG road ahead for me and that IF I was committed to the hard work, then MAYBE I would be okay. But I have to work hard. Okay?

She peppered me with questions.

She seemed to want to prove I had depression but I knew by then, this was anxiety. But still she pushed.. trying to prove it was in fact depression.

"Think of a silhouette," she asked me. "Now, what colour is it?"

Um, silhouettes are black aren't they? I thought, but if I say black she will pin this depression thing on me. So I boldly answered, "pink".

She said, "Pink wasn't your first thought though was it?"

Not able to lie to her, I admitted that black was my first thought and she was almost triumphant in declaring, "yes, just as I thought. You have depression."

At the time, my head was so mixed up, I came out of that session feeling 100 times worse then when I went in there. I cried all the way home.

She also asked out of the blue, "How is your relationship with your dad?"

"My dad?" I said puzzled. "yeah, good."

"Ah, I sense theres some underlying issues there with you and your dad."

My dad? You do??.. from my one perplexed answer you got that!

I shook my head, "my relationship with my dad is good."

"No. definitely some issues there." She stated, scribbling away on her little notepad.

"Now, do you wake up in the middle of the night with your heart racing?" She asked.

"Yes, I do! and I hate it!" I answered.

"Yes, thats the depression." She told me.

It wasn't depression. It was anxiety. Plain and simple.

I wanted to run right then. But I stuck out the full session and then limped away, like an injured little bird, feeling worse then when I had arrived. This woman was SUPPOSED to be my saviour. She was supposed to start helping me from the minute I arrived. She was supposed to be my answer to this nightmare I was in.

She didn't help. Not one little bit.

Later that day as I lay on my bed in the fetal position having cried uncontrollably on the phone to my mum several times already, my lovely aunty was in Sydney googling anxiety clinics. She was led to an article about a counsellor called Annette who specialised in anxiety therapy. She was also a guest speaker on the subject and she was based on the North Shore of Sydney.

My mum rang Annette first and talked about me.

She had an instantly positive feeling about Annette. I then spoke with her on the phone. Her calm voice and her positive "we can sort this out for you Kim" had an instant impact on me.

She wasn't interested in what colour a silhouette was or what my relationship was like with anyone. She said she wasn't interested in the past to start with.. she wanted to give me instant tips and techniques to get through the days and cope before we would start any real treatment where we dig up the past .. She said as soon as I walk into her rooms, she would start working with me on ways to make me feel better before discussing anything else.

I made an appointment and for the first time in a long time, I felt like there was hope.

Annette was indeed my saviour and I am eternally grateful to my aunty for finding her. I continued to see her weekly at first and then was weaned back to monthly visits and then every six weeks I would trot off down to Wahroonga to see her over the next 18 months. I had instant results. Just her voice and her calm approach gave me instant hope. She introduced me to the series of IT books by former anxiety sufferer Bev Aisbett. My IT book became my constant companion. And it helped enormously.

I soon became a fully functioning member of society again.

Anxiety was crappy but it gave me Annette. It also gave me a wonderful friend called Mardi who responded privately to a blog post I wrote about anxiety and she thanked me for sharing my experiences as she suffered as well and so began a lovely friendship that we still have today.

So fast track to now. Annette has since retired.  In fact my sessions with her came to a close because she retired.. she was 67 at the time and that was about 8 or 9 years ago.. and she declared that she KNEW I was totally fine and didn't need her anymore. I wasn't so sure and tentatively began a life without my 6 weekly sessions with Annette.

And I was fine.

But still had moments of anxiousness over the years but certainly nothing I couldn't handle. I was resigned to the fact that I was prone to being anxious and that was okay. I had the tools to prevent things from spiraling.

And now. Well the anxiety is back.. but started in a different form this time. After presenting to the Emergency dept with severe bronchitis and pain in my ribs, I was given Panadeine Forte (I have since learned I am sensitive to codeine) plus an anti inflammatory suppository for the rib pain, I was sent on my way. Well, after a reaction to the Codeine I found myself again in an ambulance, vomiting violently and again back in hospital. And while i was all sorted out phsyically, the anxiety returned.

So I began stressing over the slightest symptom, convinced it was something more sinister. I had the ability of manifesting symptoms so that they felt SO real and SO convincing and I would then become totally convinced I had some terrible disease.

It all came to a head at the start of this year. 2015. And again, I believe I was sent to see Stuart for a reason. Unable to see Annette but desperately wishing I could, we headed to google once more and this time mum found an anxiety clinic. It was local and they had a lady psychologist there.

Unfortunately she was booked up for a month but hey, our principal psychologist Stuart has a cancellation in just a few days time. It was a sign!

I hadn't ever considered a male counselor before.

And he has proven to be very different from Annette.  He's been the first person to break anxiety down and look at it all rather technically. My first few sessions were really like a uni lecture on Anxiety 101. I didn't have to do much more than listen and nod.

There were no questions on what colour was a silhouette and no delving into my relationships or my past. It was all very matter of fact and actually, quite helpful.

Over the months I started to reclaim my life. And my head space was much, much better.

I felt I was headed in  the right direction, but not entirely well just yet. And then I had a little setback just 10 days ago. I'm in the depths of anxiety crap again but feeling like I am so well educated now on the subject and armed with so many tools that I will be okay. I KNOW I will be okay. I have just hit a little pot hole for now. And besides, Stuart told me I would be okay.

And this is where I aim to write my posts about my wellness travels.

I'm still very much a work in progress but it's the word progress I am more interested in.. I intend to journal about my progress right here. Just for me. I know no one else reads this blog..except Jayne who admitted to heading back here for some 12wbt inspiration just recently. So Jayne, please skip over these posts!!

For someone who loves to write, blogging is very much a therapeutic exercise for me so I thought it couldn't hurt by keeping a blog about all of this.

And so.. we begin.

 

Day One

It's Day One of the 12wbt. Yay.

I started the day with a power walk and even managed some running  early this morning before the school rush. I bought a Polar heart monitor last time round and dragged it out of hibernation to give it a whirl this morning. I was dismayed to see I only burned about 150 calories this morning which, compared to people on the 12wbt forums is not much at all!

I can't get my head around people exercising for 3 hours straight and burning 2000 calories - each day! It seems incredibly foreign to me. And I do then feel disheartened about my efforts compared to others...

But then this email came in from Michelle this morning and as usual she has the knack of sending an email that times in pefectly with how I am feeling.

In her welcome message Michelle says, "So remember it's the little things each day, like saying no to sugar in your drinks, an average workout instead of no workout. It's these little things that add up, rather than training 2 hours a day for 2 weeks then giving up. Keep it real and keep it relevant to you."

And that's exactly right for me.

I need to remind myself I do need to keep the amount of exercising relevant for me and that any exercise is better than NO exercise..I need a routine/habit that fits in best with my day ..

And then we have our first 12wbt breakfast.

I love the food on the 12wbt BUT I am so not a fan of ricotta cheese. The texture is blah and I have tried to enjoy it but I just don't like it. Today's breakfast was ricotta on wholemeal toast with mixed berries and I dutifully defrosted my mixed berries on paper towel in the fridge overnight so they were ready to go this morning.

I bought both ricotta and cottage cheese to taste test them both again and see which one was the better of the two. Cottage cheese won and I spread that on my toast this morning and piled on the berries.

Seems I don't like cottage cheese much either :(

And the berries were all mushy.

So I scraped them off and tackled the toast with just the cottage cheese. I managed one slice.

And then decided to just make a half a banana smoothie with a sprinkle of seeds..

My breakfast was a little hit and miss!! But the calories were more or less the same as they should have been had I eaten my whole berry toast!

So.

9am and Day 1 of the program and it's all good!

Where am I up to?

Well an entire year has passed by since my final post here on my 12WBT blog. 

And the past year has been a bit of a rollercoaster year which started off not so good health wise with about five trips to hospital throughout January 2011 with various probs. My original goal was to get under the 60kg mark when on the program and I did do that (albeit by only 500g) and I did keep the weight off..BUT well, let's face it.. my comittment to exercise sucks!

So after I realised that while I have always been in the healthy BMI range I HAVE put on a couple of kilos that I don't want anymore AND I feel sluggish and unenergetic SO last Friday I signed up for the next round of 12WBT which officially kicks off on Monday.

So I'm diving into the program again.

Why?

Well to lose those few kilos that made their way back onto my body over Christmas (ooops) but mainly to get into a good rhythm with our eating and my exercising patterns again. To tone up and to feel healthy, fit and strong.

I really do love the program.

I love the routine. The forums. The support. The videos. The meal plans and watching the weight loss come down in my Stats area on the site. I love Michelle's live streams on a Wednesday night. I love how organised it all is. I love having a menu plan each week. I don't like the exercise plans :\

CHANGING HABITS

Generally I'm good with my eating.

I've changed some pretty big habits since doing the 12WBT previously such as actually eating breakfast of a morning and not just reaching automatically for Weetbix with far too much sugar on top. I always make sure I have a proper breakfast usually consisting of natural museli, some seeds sprinkled on top, half a sliced banana and some blueberries thrown in with skim milk on top!

That was a big habit for me to change as for as long as I can remember, breakfast wasn't my first meal of the day and I could go ALL morning without eating anything.

And dinners are usually from the 12wbt recipes we were given so that's generally good eating! I have several of Michelle's books PLUS a folder full of easy recipes from the program to choose from.

Plus, I don't eat Rice Bubbles before bed anymore! Well, I have a couple of times lately BECAUSE OF THE HABIT I HAVEN'T YET BROKEN...eating lunch!

Not having a healthy or filling lunch every day means by the time late afternoon comes I'm starving and reaching for stuff I shouldn't be reaching for. Or I don't eat anything..have a proper dinner and then I'm still hungry AFTER dinner which means...rice bubbles, some buttered toast or something unhealthy!!

My other downfall is not drinking enough water so that habits not entirely broken yet either.

And then we have the exercise. *sigh*

Now my intention is not to run a marathon or go cross country mountain bike riding or tackle any sort of endurance sports! I still play netball every week and I walk..well if I were to be brutally honest..I walk once a week if I'm lucky!

And that's not good enough.

So.

1. I need to fix up my bad lunch habit.
2. Stop the bad I don't drink enough water habit
3. and do something for my well being, exercise wise, each day or at least six days a week so I can feel fit, healthy and energetic.

And I intend to get back into blogging about it all on this blog because I seem to do better if I can document the progress and then look back and realise how far I've come OR how far I haven't come and can then give myself a kick up the behind!

So. Here we go.

Yikes.

final weigh in...

Things have been crazy, crazy, ridiculously crazy busy here and my blogging has been non existent.

I am THRILLED to announce my final weigh in weight last Wednesday was 59.8kg. I haven't been in the 50's for a loooong time. My total weight loss was 6.9kgs.

I will be back as soon as I can with some other details like my weight loss stats etc...

Thanks for still reading all this..and thank you for the comments and also the emails you guys have sent me:) It kept me going that's for sure!!!

KIM

Ooops. I skipped a week.

I have had a crazy, hectic past few weeks and thankfully things have slowed back to a normal, more manageable pace now!

Here's a quick catch up on how things are going on the 12WBT.

• last weigh in - last Wednesday I only lost 200g (sad face) BUT I KNOW I have lost much more this week as I have snuck onto the scales a few times since weigh in day. So I am looking forward to seeing what my final weigh in day weight is this week.
• Eating - still going to plan. I love the recipes on this program and I'm at the stage where I am following the meal plan quite loosely BUT using only recipes from Michelle's recipe list for our evening meal. My eating is still very clean and I am finding I am not craving sugar or junk food at all...
• We have our firm favourites for dinners these days...Char Grilled Beef with Avocado, Capsicum and Corn Salsa, Chicken Parmigiana, Not So Naughty Nachoes and Beef and Brocollini are among the family favourites.
• We are heading into Week 12 - our final week. I will miss the program and the emails and videos and forums and recipes and weigh in days!
• Mum and I are both close to our goal weight which is great...and we both feel so much fitter, healthier and stronger - although I need to work on the toning up now!!!
• It's getting easier to work out what to eat when eating out! Yesterday I went out for lunch for my long time school friends Christmas lunch and I had a minor panic when I realised that there were few choices on the menu for me! I bypassed the garlic prawn gourmet pizza and went for the thai chicken salad with a light lime dressing with prawns and avocado. But it took a while to eliminate and find something that was tasty and suitable!
• Exercise - well, not going so great with that one. I am still walking and running MOST days but I'm not as diligent as I should be. I'm back to netball again tomorrow night after a 2 week break so that will be good.
• But I am finding my fitness levels are so much better so I do train hard those few times a week that I pull on the runners and get out the door..but I need to up the exercise to at least 6 days a week - not three days!

This week we tie up all the loose ends.

We have our final weigh in on Wednesday. We also take our measurements and an "after" photo. We also have our last fitness test. And theres a few videos I need to catch up on. I am looking forward to Michelle's video on maintenance as I am not sure what we do once we get to that elusive goal weight we are all aiming for!

I love that Michelle has also organised all of our recipes into a downloadable eBook!!

People are finally starting to notice a difference in me which is nice.

And I can also see the difference in the mirror this past week especially. My clothes are fitting so much better and I FEEL slimmer. I have bought a few new things and slip easily into a size 10 again and even had to buy a size 8 dress yesterday as the 10 was a little big. The dress was just a bigger make as I am not delusional that I am really a size 8 but it was a nice confidence boost to slip on the smaller size even if it's just the one garment!

Thats about all for now..this has turned into a longer update than I planned!!

See you on weigh in day.

Wednesday.

Exciting.

 

weigh in...yesterday

It's Week 10 of the 12WBT.

Only two more weeks of the program to go.

And life has kicked up quite a notch here in this household. I seem to be hectic, crazy, insanely busy. And the blogging has taken a temporary backseat - for now.

But I am still going along on the program - eating cleaning, walking each day although I have been slack in the exercising department this week and haven't walked in a few days! So I plan to get back on track from tomorrow.

Weigh in was yesterday.

I was THRILLED to have lost 1.1kgs this past week. A nice big chunk of weight instead of a little few hundred grams! Was very satisfying.

Im now at 61kgs exactly.

And only about 2kg to go. Initially I thought if I get to 60 I would be happy but under 60kgs would be wonderful! So I will soldier on.

And see how the next two weeks pan out.

a little weigh in

Crazy with work around here.

It's that time of year.

Only a little weight loss yesterday.

200grams lost.

I'm a smidge over 62 kgs (62.1kg).

I hope these last two or so kilos don't come off s-l-o-w-l-y!!

My heads still very much in the game but I am not living and beathing and thinking the program as much because I am so flat out at work.

But I feel like what I have learnt has kicked in now and I don't HAVE to think as much about calories and foods to avoid and portion size and exercising each day. I am just doing it. And I think thats probably a good thing as it feels more like part of my life now instead of something I am learning.

Movies = popcorn?

I love the movies.

And I love the popcorn.

Mmm. Hot. Buttered. Freshly popped movie popcorn.

The biggest size possible.

And I munch my way through the entire contents in total bliss.

So now that my headspace is SO much better when it comes to healthy food choices (thank goodness) I knew there would be NO movie popcorn for me when I went with my movie friend Marie to see Eat. Pray. Love. on Monday.

It was a little tester for me as I haven't been to the movies since starting the 12WBT program.

BUT the no popcorn thing didn't even bother me - and that's weird because I WAS such a movie popcorn girl! But as we sailed past the popcorn stand to buy our tickets, I didn't even look blissfully at the mountain of popping corn and crave that big old carton of calories! It didn't feel like I was missing out. I didn't feel deprived of my movie tradition. I didn't battle the cravings.

And I took a little bag from home with my air popped, no butter, no salt popcorn and ate that instead.

(oooh..look a photo...I don't seem to add all that many photos to this blog!)

And felt a whole lot better afterwards!

Oh..and the movie was great too.

I really enjoyed it even though a friend I ran into yesterday announced it was a whole heap of self indulgent rubbish and that she would like to take a year off to travel the world and find herself too!

I hadn't thought of it like that - I just loved the fact that Liz was so brave to travel alone, so courageous to take that year off from everything to travel on her journey of self discovery and in the meantime come across so many vibrant and rich (not in the monetary way) characters who helped change and heal her.

More power to her.

It was great to watch anyway! And I do love Julia Roberts!

Shock

Today is weigh in day yet again.

I have been feeling yucko the last day or so. Bloated, heavy and yes, sorry for too much info, but it's that cyclic time for me which generally means feeling terrible for a day or two.

Today I stepped onto the scales three times. And I was so disheartened. I was moping around because I was 62.3kgs and that was what I was last week (or so I thought). I got on and off the scales three times and the weight still hovered around that mark sometimes even jumping up 100grams. I was SO sad. And mopey. And I didn't want to type in my weight for this week.

I then measured myself as it's also Week 8 measuring time again and I have lost 3cm off my chest, 2cm off my waist, 3cm off my hips (woo hoo) since last measurement day and both my thighes now measure the same (phew!) and I have lost 1cm off each thigh since the start. So I was pretty stoked with those results.

But still mopey about the weight plateau.

I did some self talk about how it DOESN'T matter that I am the same weight as last week and how it's only a number and I will work harder this week and that it's the big picture I am after...and then I started to wonder what the hell went wrong. And then I got all cranky with myself and told myself to snap out of it and just write the stupid measurement into my Stats page on the 12WBT site and get on with it.

So I took a deep breath and went to lock in my total for this week.

And then I stopped. And looked at the weight for last week and the little blank spot next to it for this week...

Last week's weight was....

63.2kgs

Huh?

What was my weight this week again?

Then I got myself all confused.

And mixed up and kept thinking, 63.2????? Was I 63.2 last week?? Ah. Lightbulb. I really did lose weight this week. I had just confused myself ...

So I dashed back (faster than you would believe!) to that bathroom and weighed myself again. And again. And again. And the number stayed the same as it was earlier today.

62.3kgs!!!!!

I was in shock. I did a little happy dance. Wrote in 62.3 as this week's weigh in and let the site calculate my weight loss for the week because I was still too confused to register what the difference was.

900grams.

Woo hooo.

Almost. Almost..a kilo lost.

I am ecstatic.

My total weight loss soo far is now 4.4kgs. That's amazing. And exciting.

And my mopey old self now has a spring in my step and a determination to be under 62kgs by next week!

Food - new habits

So I was thinking about the food I am now enjoying and how I have ended up having some favourites..and in the most part - they are newly discovered favourites.

And  I thought I would add a little list here...here's thirteen foods, off the top of my head...

1. sweet potato. A newly discovered favourite. Ask my mother - I HATE potato. Normal, everyday potato. Blah. Brings back terrible memories of being made to sit at the dinner table as a child and stay there until I had eaten ALL of my by then, cold, mashed potato. I can't face mashed potato even now (makes me heave) HOWEVER sweet potato..how delicious. Roasted and added to salads, homemade pizzas and wraps. Mashed and smoothed onto wholemeal pita bread pizzas as a base. Yum.
2. Apple Pie Forme Yoplait Yoghurt - I've already sung the praises of this little sweet treat!
3. Mountain Bread - NOT a favourite to start with as I quickly became very OVER wraps for lunch BUT now that I have discovered they taste SO much better toasted I seem to grab a wrap for lunch a lot of days. Plus they make great, low fat healthy nacho corn chip alternatives - cut into triangles and pop into the oven for a few minutes to toast them up.
4. Paddle Pop Moo icecreams. Ok..so they don't taste like a real Paddle Pop but they are close enough and for a sometimes treat they are tasty!
5. Baby Spinach leaves. Yum. Added to salads, pizzas, stir frys, wraps..I seem to always reach for the baby spinach.
6. Red capsicum. Roasted capsicum has become a staple in lots of our meals!!! But it has to be red!
7. Char grilled beef - medium rare!!! This has been a big NEW thing for me..to not cook the holy hell out of a steak but to cook it for about 4 minutes each side so that it is nice and tender AND still pink inside has been a new thing for me. And it's SO much tender this way and so much nicer.
8. Avocado - I've been a long term fan of the old avo so this has been a food I've always liked anyway and a little bit of avocado seems to find it's way onto a lot of my foods...
9. Mineral water - with a twist of lime!!! I do like some sparkle now and then and the best drink I like to have is  good old plain mineral water - a squeeze of lime juice adds a little flavour!
10. Black Pepper - our black pepper mill has been getting a work out. I whack ground pepper onto everything!!!!
11. Wholemeal crumpet - with a teeny bit of honey makes a nice afternoon snack.
12. Blueberries, strawberries, bananas - these are the main fruits I tend to go for...
13. Corn in the husk - microwaved for three minutes and scraped into a salsa of roasted capsicum and chopped up avocado. Delish.

And that will do for now.

There's plenty of other foods we are having like fresh vegetables, fresh herbs, basmati rice, wholemeal bread etc etc...and there's plenty of things I don't like much that Michelle uses in some of the recipes such as rocket lettuce, ricotta cheese, cottage cheese and cauliflower and mushrooms! Blah.

But really, I am having such a wide range of foods these days it's been great! Who would have thought - Mrs Weetbix for breakfast, lunch and after dinner would be sampling such a variety of fresh foods!! And enjoying it.