28+2

Hello friends,

How have you all been? I've managed to catch up on your blogs but had no time to comment so just know, I've been there!

I really hate this time of year. I'm not really a people person and the added pressure to catch up with every single person I know for Christmas really grinds my noodle. Hubby of course is the social king of the world, which just makes it that much harder. I literally had to block off next weekend in my calendar so we don't book something in and so I can do some christmas shopping! Lordy bigordy.

Had a great weekend in Busselton. Ended up coming home on Monday though instead of Tuesday because my mum (who was house/dog sitting) had to have a carpal tunnel operation on Monday so the pooches would have been abandoned! But still it was good to get away although we were by no means having a relaxing time of it! GB headed down with one of his teammates on Friday morning and my sister and I drove down after work on Friday night. We all stayed in a gorgeous house in Broadwater - too bad it was too cold to swim though! Saturday we didn't do too much, breakkie in town, grocery shopping then I cooked up a chicken caesar salad for lunch and a lasagne & salad for dinner (boys were carbo loading and so were the supporters!). Bed early - 8.30pm as we had an early start. The boys headed into the event about 4.30am and we followed just after 5am. The individual competitors started at 5.45am and the team event just after that. Our lads took between 1hr20 and 1hr30 for the 3.8km swim and then it was onto the 180km ride. Because hubby was doing the run leg at the end he decided to go back to the house for a rest so me & my sis went too. Home and dozed for a couple of hours and then back again. The bike leg took about 6hours to complete. Then the run was off! Luckily conditions weren't too bad - it was overcast and not too much wind. Hubby cramped up after 28kms and had to walk a bit but then powered on to the finish. I think it took him about 4.5hrs to do the 42kms. So just about 12hours all up. The pro who one it as in individual did it in 8hrs or something crazy!!!  I was really proud of our guys and stoked they all pulled up ok (not even a space blanket in sight!). It's a super long day for the supporters too I might add. Didn't help that I needed to pee every hour! Ended up getting home around 7pm I think. Ordered pizza for the gang and then we all crashed.

And as I expected, even though he's been saying he'll never do a marathon again, on Tuesday GB said "I want to do the Ironman as an individual". Right, of course you do you crazy freak! We talked about it and agreed that it just can't happen in 2011. It's an expensive event just to enter (about $800) then he'll want a new bike ($3-4k), and I want to be sure he's prepared so there'll have to be coaches and physio and whatnot so it's just not something we can afford with a newborn and one salary. But if he's still keen he can do it in 2012. Scares me even to think about it!

On other news, I had the glucose tolerance test on Tuesday. The OB likes to do the 2hr ones up front so I had to go in at 8.30am, have a bunch of bloods taken, drink a green drink which was like pure cordial, wait 1hr then have another blood test, then wait another hour and have another blood test! All this to test for gestational diabetes! Today I gave them a call and I was given the all clear which is great. So if this baby turns out to be a fatty boombah it's entirely my fault from eating too many magnum icecreams!

Last night we went to see  Bon Jovi. Those boys know how to rock. It was a great concert I have to say and today I bought this online:

bah hahahahahaaaaaa

Weight wise have been up and down the same kilogram the past few weeks which I guess is ok. I really don't want to put on too much more weight. It's not cool. I know it. You know it. The baby knows it. Band is there - I still get stuck some times, but I'm sure it's more about eating too much too fast in too big mouthfuls. Sound familiar?

Anyhoodly, must get a bit more work done before my water aerobics class!

Stupid cough

Hi all,

Well I was sick as a dog the week before last with chronic asthma. Had to go on a course of steroids and antibiotics. Was pretty much at 80% last week with the cough subsiding. Well in the last few days it's been back with a bloody vengeance. I sound like a fricking barking horse. Had some steroids left still so starting those again. Hopefully it won't get to the stage of last time where I "slept" (and by "slept" I mean watched tv all bloody night) on the couch for 4 nights. GB needs his sleep this week for his 1/2 ironman triathlon on Saturday so will take myself out of the room if I have to.

Had a lovely weekend, gorgeous weather in Perth. Had friends over for lunch on Sunday where I cooked and prepared from Saturday afternoon and then all day and night Sunday! We had tapas style but certainly not healthy food by any stretch of the imagination (the deep fryer got a work out!) but most of it was really tasty and only 1 dish failed on the day! We had a fun afternoon of food and far too much wine and then watched the video of our wedding that they had recorded. It was really fun to relive it and reminded us of how fantastic our reception was - I'd do that part again!

Super short work week for me this week. Friday we're off to Busselton (2.5hrs south of Perth) for the 1/2 ironman. Seeing the doc at 8am before we head off though. DEFINATELY getting a fill. Don't want to make my dilated pouch worse but can I just tell you what I ate last night? 6 party pies, - SIX!, a slice of lemon tart, bowl of icecream and a cold milo. Lordy that is embarrassing.

So yeah getting a fill then off down south. GB's friend's fiancee & I are having facials in the afternoon while the boys check in (3 of them plus 1 of my best friends are doing the triathlon). Have I said what this entails? 1.9km open water swim, 90km bike ride, 21km run. And they're all doing it individually this year not as part of a team. They've been training hard though so I know they can do it. So that's Saturday and then we'll be celebrating Sunday and Monday before heading back to Perth on Tuesday.

Catching up with our wedding photographer on the Monday to talk albums. We hadn't booked one before because we weren't sure about $$$$ so the package we had chosen was just the edited photos on a disc with the rights to print. Still worried the album might be super expeno but I really want one! She said she should have our online gallery ready by the end of this week too. Can't wait to see the photos!

GB and I checked out houses to rent for my birthday weekend (the weekend after is a long weekend) as last year due to the wedding we didn't go away at all. So we might pack up the pooches and go away just our little family for a couple nights. It's heaps more expeno to rent a house or cottage but we love to take the dogs with us so we'll suck it up.

Anyone watching masterchef this year? Glad it's down to the top 24 now. I'm so sick of the crying though! Keep it together people! And if I hear one more bloody sob story I'll scream!

Anyhoo, best do some work! Hope you're all well.

Up and Down

Story of my life right there! Whilst I'm residing fair and square in the middle of plateau town it's easy to forget how far I've come. Yesterday I read Cara & Amy's blogs who reminded me that it's not all about weight. So I thought I'd reflect some if you can bear with me!

 There are plenty of other benefits to having lost 57 odd kilos (from heaviest) - that's 125lbs for my American friends. I remember not so long ago, it would take me 5-10mins to recover from walking a flight of stairs. ONE flight of stairs and I'd be huffing and puffing and about to cark it! My fitness has never been better. Even though I still can't run the 5kms I want to, after the 3kms it only takes me a minute or two to recover before I can start jogging again.

Something I think Cara mentioned I can totally identify with. Whenever we were out I used to look for the most sturdiest looking chair (and nothing with arms, that I'd have to squeeze my butt into!) to ensure it wouldn't break under me. Sad but true folks!

I love the fact that my entire day doesn't revolve around food anymore. I'm not thinking about where my next meal will come from! To be perfectly honest, I'm rarely hungry and now when I eat it's more because I'm looking for something sweet or because I know I have to eat something!

And even though I suck at pilates, I love that when I'm doing some stupid ab movement it looks like I have a super flat stomach and I can feel my pelvis bones! Nevermind the fact that the fat has just slid to the sides! haha

I'm currently wearing a size 14 pretty comfortably. I really want to be a size 12. Clothes on, I look ok but I really hate my body. My upper arms are flabby which I hate because of my weirdly disproportionate mid-upper arms. Like my shoulders are ok, above my elbow looks fine, but the bit in the middle is oddly big. Has always been that way and my sisters say they've definately gotten smaller, but anyway...I'm definately going to need a tummy tuck at some stage. Even though my skin bum bag (that's what it feels like!) has reduced in size, it's still there and I hate it. Boobs? Well boobs are like bags of marbles. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I had a breast reduction when I was 17. My boobs were huge. I can't even remember what size bra I used to wear. Anyway I went down to about a C cup. Now I'm about a B cup but they're really unattractive boobicles.

Here's some before/afters as I know some people love pics.

[caption id="attachment_444" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="Graduation March 08"][/caption]

The first one was about a week before banding. Obviously I'm in a giant cape so it makes it difficult to see how big I was but there you go anyway! The second one - well I can't find a recent full length of me but hopefully you can see my teensy waist! And my gorgeous fiance who will kill me if he finds out I've put his pic up but oh well!

[caption id="attachment_445" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="October 09"][/caption]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, I wasn't going to weigh in this week after 4 days down south eating junkfood and drinking wine, plus nearly no exercise (except for yesterday) but I though I'd jump on the bloody scales anyway and found I was back to 77.8kgs (300g loss this week). Thank you TTOM! It's so weird how you can work out and eat well and not lose, put weight on and then have a super dodgy week and lose.  But I'll take it. Coming up to the silly season which is soooo hard to keep on track. We've got multiple parties every week till New Year so I'm going to TRY to be sensible. I'm no nun though, so guaranteed there will be alcohol and lots of food but I'm going to attempt to get in my 5 days/week exercise and definately keep the water intake up. And it's going to be 37C and 39C this weekend - FARK! (98F & 102F) so maybe I'll sweat some fat off! hahaha

The band is in a pretty good place right now, even though sometimes I feel like I can eat too much. But over TTOM I was really tight - quite a few PB's and felt a bit of reflux so I don't want to make that any worse than it is. But I'm not hungry and usually satisfied after a smallish amount so that's good. I am booked in for a fill next Friday but think I'll postpone it another month.

The boys did the Busselton Ironman last Saturday and I was soooo proud of them. To recap, the Ironman is no normal triathlon it's a 3.8km swim, 180km cycle & 42.2km run. They finished it in 12hrs42min (middle of the pack). It was awesome. Bloody hot day though and the poor dog wasn't handling the sun and the swarms of people well - she had a couple of vomits, but we took her for a couple of swims at the beach while the cycling was happening (we only got to see our mate go past every couple of hours) and she loved it!  Cooled her down no worries. It was really nice to get away for a few nights and we went to Watershed to speak to our wedding coordinator to finalise a few wedding things which was fantastic.

Good luck to Girl Bandit, who's having the operation on Monday!

Funny tidbit - normally I average about 40 views a day and then a couple of days ago I had 280!!! And still no extra comments! hahaha Not sure what caused the spike but I hope people are getting something out of my ramblings!

Later,

Em :)

Just stuff

Hey there, look at this - another post!

Just thought I'd drop a quick line to say GB and I had a great time at the beginners dancing course (Week 1). We learnt the progressive barn dance, progressive jive and the slow rhythm. I'd done the barn dance way back in high school and it did come back to me so that's good. They have a social dance after the class so you can practice alongside the intermediate/advanced classes. Got thrown around a bit by one of the other beginners and rolled my ankle (although I soldiered on for another 20mins!) so it's a bit tender. But we both enjoyed ourselves which is the main thing.

Yesterday I went for a swim with GB after work. Did I mention that in their infinite wisdom GB and 2 mates have decided to enter the 2009 Busselton Ironman? Well they have. Just for the unititiated, the ironman consists of a 3.8km open water swim, 180km cycle and 42.2km run (that's a marathon folks). A friend of ours did the whole thing by himself a couple of years ago - took 13hrs. GB and his friends are entering as a team, taking 1 leg each. GB is doing the swim. So he's bought a full body suit and doing some swimming lessons etc. He's asked for my support (which he has of course) in swimming a couple times a week. But geez it's cold! At least the gym up the road has an indoor 50m pool. Last night I did 1km and GB did 1.5kms. took about 40mins (forgot to check the clock). My shoulder is a tad sore though. Man, can I complain anymore??

I've just come out of my pilates class. Onto term 2. Felt super flexible today! GB has joined in too - he's onto his 2nd week. I don't think he's enjoying it very much but I'm sure it will help his core strength which will help his back problems that he has.

This past week I've been really uninterested in food. It's a complete first for me. Like I don't feel like eating anything at all. Of course I still am, we all need food, but I'm usually thinking about nice stuff to cook for dinner but the past week.. meh... don't care... crackers will do. It's weird I tells ya.

Anyhoo, best get back into my work clothes!

Em :)