Traveling and Fatloss Day 4

Hi!

My husband and I have a office in Cambodia and we also travel to Asia a lot. I’m on a strength and fatloss journey and I have never been good at staying on that track while I am travelling. Basically as soon as I get on the plane I say woohoo I’m free and binge on all the sugar I want. So I want to document my trip this time so that I can pick up some tips for myself and others along the way!

While I’m in Cambodia this internet is really slow so it’s going to be hard to upload videos but I will upload them when I get back home. Though, while I am here I want to document how I am going with sticking to my goals while I am in Cambodia.

Confession time – It is now Thursday and I got on a plane on Monday. We went to Bangkok first for about 48hours. Now we have been in Cambodia for one night so far. I have learnt a lot already in the last 3 days.

Lesson 1 – I’m not mindful on planes – with food. I think it’s because my body just wants to escape and I think well I don’t have any other options so I’ll just eat all the sugar I can… My body doesn’t like all that excess sugar now, especially the next day I felt so sick and I couldn’t sleep properly. (Even though my travel diet is better now than it has been in the past it’s not what my body is used to now)

Travel Day 2 #sweatyselfies

Travel Day 4 #sweatyselfies

Lesson 2 – after a day of travel and sugar overload and crap sleep and 10 hours on a planeTravel Day 4 #sweatyselfies my body was not up for a long workout… so this massive pump up that I had gotten myself ready for was just never going to happen.
Now I’m on day 4 of my trip, I didn’t have any obvious/processed sugar yesterday and I got a good 8 hours sleep last night my body was ready for a good workout. And thats what I did.

Lesson 3 – sauces and drinks… usually when I am traveling I like eating curries, soups and I love drinking the sweet coffee/tea/fruit ice blends… oh and of course multiple happy hour cocktails. This trip however, while I am in Cambodia I am committed to reducing the curries and soups because of the amount of MSG and also extra sugar in those. I will only have drinks I would normally have at home so basically nothing with sugar in it. The big one though is I am not having any alcohol while I’m in Cambodia this time… just to see if I can.

I basically need a new frame of mind for myself… since travelling will be a much more regular part of my life in the coming years I need to be able to make it work for me. I need to be able to easily lose fat or maintain while I am overseas. So I need to have systems and plans for myself to get this done. These trips aren’t holidays and I shouldn’t treat them like they are in my head. Especially when i am in the middle of a 12 Week training block/cycle.

More travelling tips to come!

…SBK

New Hair and New Shanti 2.0

Hello

So I’m currently do a lot of fun things… getting some really interesting responses and results from my body. I can do things now that I could never do before, like a full squat, touch my heals when I’m in a bridge and deadlift 55kgs for 6 reps. It’s really exciting times!
I have found that actually I am becoming a new person, not just on the outside but on the inside as well. I’m finding out what it really means to be me and have fun being me. Which is why I have said goodbye to my old hair!

Yep! its all gone and I have even died it pink!

I am having so much fun figuring out who this Shanti 2.0 person is. The hair is just one fun little thing about it.
The thing that I have discovered it, lifting up heavy stuff gives you a feeling of power and confidence and it shows. Physically I walk talker and with better posture – partly because of the training but also because of the growing confidence in myself.

I would never have had the guts to die my hair pink before because I never wanted to stand out or be noticed, but now I don’t care! I don’t care if people have to take a second look or stare at me because I know I did it for fun and I did it because it made me feel good.

More fun stuff on the way

…SBK

When I look in the mirror

Hello!!

I have been really beating myself up lately about not posting and not doing vlogs and I am really sorry about that I have missed that. I have been going through a lot in my head. 

I have been getting good results I’m hovering around the 90kg mark not yet getting under and I have had the feeling that something is getting in the way. 

So I realised I needed to write something… please note this is very real and honest and may make some people feel uncomfortable and that is totally understandable. I still think it needs to be shared because I know I’m not the only one.

Remember its about LOVE!

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I used to look in the mirror and totally despise what I saw… I could not think about myself without hate in my heart. I hated everything about myself.

I have looked in the mirror and cut myself, I even spat at the mirror once because I just hated what was staring back at me.

I have abused my body in so many ways… with physical harm, toxic thoughts the type you would even think about your worst enemy. I have hurt my body with alcohol, drugs and food. This is nothing new, I know that there are so many people that have been down that path and are still there. It is a battle that a lot of us have been through. I say battle because it is a war that you fight every day… though now it is getting easier and easier to win.

I can’t remember ever looking in the mirror and liking what I saw. I can only remember having different levels of hatred. I started to gain weight as a child around 8-10 years old so from the time I started to be self aware I hated myself – what I looked like and therefore who I was. Even as an adult it is hard to separate these thoughts in my mind. Who I am and what I look like are technically two separate things but that’s not what it feels like.

I have come a long way I don’t physically harm myself and I have no desire to. I don’t abuse my body with alcohol or drugs and I don’t want to. I don’t abuse my body with food to the extent that I no longer binge and purge I also don’t want to eat food that doesn’t help my body. I have days where the food isn’t as nurturing but it isn’t out of hatred for my body it is the draw to the food.

The main point is that I do not desire to hurt my body, I desire to nurture it and build it and treat it the way it deserves to be treated.

One main thing I have learnt in my journey over the last 6 years is that our bodies are amazing creations, they can withstand so much and when they are treated right they can heal themselves at such a rapid rate.  

I have also been able to release myself from the guilt that can be associated with food and exercise. I do not feel guilty when I eat too much or eat less nutritious food. I may feel physically sick and I probably don’t want to eat that way again but I do not feel guilty for the most part I don’t even regret it because I had fun while I was eating it and I learn each time I do something that I don’t want to do again. I don’t then say “oh crap now I have to do a hour more at the gym” I know it doesn’t work that way. I can’t eat a muffin and then burn off just that muffin. That is nuts!

So where am I at now?

I look in the mirror and I still don’t like everything I see. I don’t hate myself and I don’t hate the way I look, I just don’t love it yet. I like parts of what I see in the mirror and I try not to say bad things about the parts I don’t like, I just skip them. If I have a training session where I feel like my body is weaker than normal I don’t get angry at myself anymore. I simply say “today my body needs to chill a bit and I’m totally ok with that.”

Recently I had about a week or two weeks where my heart rate was just not getting that high and I felt like I wasn’t training as hard as I should have and I got frustrated but then I was reminded that everything in life happens in cycles… my body is no different.

I am starting to understand that who I am and what I look like aren’t the same thing. I struggle to love myself even though I know I need to improve lots of things. I love the people in my life, and they aren’t perfect but I can’t seem to switch that to myself yet. I see my family and friends for who they are and they are great, and none of them are perfect.

I am afraid that I will never love myself or accept myself for who I am, I honestly don’t know what that looks or feels like. I have heard a couple of women talk about what they love about themselves and it makes me very uncomfortable… and that scares me.

So I know that I have come a long way, I have gone from being very negative to at least a little bit positive… which is exciting. I have a long way to go and it is very foreign to me but I will get there. My body has experienced a lot of hate and it deserves to start feeling some love.

…SBK

Paleo so far

Since 1st October Skeeve and I decided to go Paleo… very interesting approach fairly common sense. No processed foods, dairy, legumes and grains. Basically meat, fruit, veggies, nuts and seeds. Though, for the first 10 days I had eaten way too much meat and I have been so sluggish and tired on top of that my skin/eczema flared up massively.

Through some research and interview watching I found a couple of people that have been on Juice fasts. Basically this means just fruits and veggies for a while. So I have decided to go with that. At the moment I am drinking vegetable juice and eating fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. Then I will do just a juice fast for one or two weeks then back to eating fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds for a little while. Then slowly introduce meats again. Basically as Joe Cross says “Reboot your system”. Flush out all the crap and start fresh.

This process for the first time takes about 15 days I think 5, 5 & 5. 5 eating and juicing, 5 days juicing, 5 days eating and juicing. Joe himself did a 60 day juice fast which is how he started. I don’t think myself or my household is ready for that yet.

This has all happened since I have decided I am going to listen to my body. It got to the point were I was sweating at the thought of eating meat and gagging when cooking it. So it was fair to say my body didn’t really want it. I will never be a vegetarian or anything I am just taking a little break to give my system a chance to re-aline itself.

In a couple of days I will go to nothing but fruit and veggies. I have always been so obsessed about my weight that I never listened to my body. I figured if the healthy people say eat this then eat it. I totally forgot that not everyone responds to foods the same way.

Anyway so this is where I am at. When my body says I’m hungry I eat, when I don’t want food I don’t eat. When I want vegetable juice I have it. Its great… I am yet to have a craving for pizza or a burger or anything that isn’t within what I am eating right now.

Roll with it.

…Thinking Thin

Pushed Through the Lazy

Today was the first day in 2 weeks that I have felt like I didn’t want to make my veggie juice and my smoothie. I kept thinking about the cleaning up and I really didn’t want to do anything. I was feeling really lazy. However, now I am chowing down on an awesome smoothie… I started by just peeling a yellow grapefruit and kept thinking “you can’t stop now”. I cut the ends off the cucumbers and thought “you can’t stop now”. Anyway I got there.

I think this applies to everything. When I don’t feel like exercising I will put my shoes on and think “can’t stop now”. My own thought process and laziness is my biggest hurdle. I know think is the same for a lot of people. My mum and I have done a lot of “diets” over the years and the biggest thing for us has been that we don’t finish any of them. Weight Watchers used to be a 13 week program. We would usually miss a week around week 7 and not make it past week 10. We did Weight Watchers 3 times. I am much worse than my mum, she has pushed through and now she eats like a bird and looks fantastic. I on the other hand have a different story.

I’ve been on this new journey since June and I have only lost 5kgs. This is because I got uninterested during the middle and travelled for a month. Anyway this kind of follows my normal pattern except I am not stopping at all. I haven’t stopped and put back on all the weight, all I have done is had a pause in the middle.

So for me, this morning when I was making my juice it wasn’t about the juice. I knew if I didn’t do the juice it would be the beginning of the end. So I juiced. Maybe that is too much to put on a juice, but it needed to be done because I’m not going back this time.

We all need a little excitement now and then. Well this is mine!

…Thinking Thin