One hundred days

And so it goes... A pretty good day today - started off by receiving multiple texts from sick staff members, which meant a complete change of plans for my day. All for the best in the end, I was so busy I had no time to dawdle about. As well as concentrate on great food, I've decided to give up coffee for five weeks, not as a health benefit, just 'because I can'. It was becoming a habit rather than a treat and I want to get back to enjoying one or two coffees now and then, rather that the three or four I needed each day. So, cold turkey - no coffee today - lots of insipid, warm tea instead. Food was fine today - bacon and eggs for breakfast, delicious vegetable soup, with a beef stock base and cold chicken for lunch and an enormous tasty vegetable medley with chicken breast for tea. Oh, a protein shake at about 4.30, to gird my loins for black belt class and a square of dark chocolate after dinner. So unmotivated tonight, I had to force myself into the dojo, which is very unusual for me. As usual though, once it was all done and dusted I was happy as. I was pretty much left alone after the warm up, so played with the bo. Going to book the holiday this week, I'll go to one more travel agent for a quote and then just do it.

Nek 100 days...

Kind of lost focus last week. But there is always next week :) and it will be great! Booking a holiday in surfers - so there is now a hundred day countdown to a bikini body, lol.

Mum's the word

All good, scales looking fine. In control. The weekend wasn't perfectly paleo, but not too bad. Saturday was fun with a trip to the Port Chalmers Library to watch my youngest son play an hour-long set for Music Month. Really impressive, and we followed that up with a celebration lunch at Carey's Bay pub with the band(wedges were consumed). I had an early start to kata class on Sunday, and squeezed in my primal exercises before class started. Home to a great breakfast with all four kids arriving and organizing it - so nice to have them all together. Lots of bacon and eggs, so paleo all the way for me. Chicken salad, cauliflower soup, for lunch. A great coffee with a side of dark chocolate ginger, nom, nom, for afternoon tea. Dinner, the same as lunch. Official weigh in the morning, and then another week. Keeping it simple...

Friday on my mind

Yus! I came home and ate a great meal. No Friday treats, no slips, no 'I deserve it'. So pleased. One working week of great food and I feel fabulous, scales dipping a tad, in control, lots of energy, never hungry, repeat, repeat, repeat. I'll just carry on. Keeping it simple, aiming for 90% compliance, but achieving mostly 100%. I have a workmate who is interested in what I have been doing, and that it going to be helpful. I know so much, want to help her out, and that helps me. Just keeps all that good info at the front of my brain. A busy weekend ahead; youngest son has a gig to play at a local library tomorrow and somehow I have to transport four of them, with all their instruments, which includes a drum kit; karate Sunday morning; mothers day brunch (bacon time!) and that ever present study.

May 10

Yeah, I'll have to jazz up those post titles a little, but it's enough to just post at all - so out of the habit. This Whole1 is working like a sweet treat! I can do things if it's just a day - just a day is doable :) I'm now up to four days. I'm keeping it very simple. Breakfast and lunch is the same everyday (spinach salad and two poached eggs, with an olice oil and lemon dressing, same salad for lunch [easy to do double in the morning] with an oil and raspberry vingrette and tuna, then a sensible paleo dinner - I'm using the two Primal Blueprint recipe books for ideas very successfully so far. Carrots as snacks mid afternoon and a carrot and about 5 almonds or 2 Brazil nuts early evening, oh and a square of dark immediately after dinner. I like what the scales are doing already, but appreciate it's those lovely early days. I think writing it up will help and staying focused. I have notes and inspirational quotes and tips everywhere, and am making it compulsory to read up the fitness/health blogs each night. Big challenge is my treatie attitude to Friday night teas, and then the whole stressy business of studying through the weekend after a long week of work. Focus on outcomes and not the short term gratifications, yes indeed. Might get that bikini out, lol.

May 9

And that is how a week slides by. I was sick and had a shockingly sore throat and head for about two days, and then just a husky voice, and then a tickle and now I am back to normal. So, whole30, lol. I just set myself up for that one. I'll stick with Whole1, very doable that is - and I've done three! Pat on back. I'm using fitday app to chart the food, now and then. The philosophy(this time)is, just one day at a time, and do it well, no snacks, cut meal sizes a bit, only real food. We will see, trick is to eat well, sleep well, exercise well, think well, breathe well, and hydrate well. I'm doing ok with the first four and need to work on breathing and drinking. It's so cold, it's hard to be bothered to drink water at this time of the year. Second assignment away yesterday, so one to go and then to decide if I want to go through it all again in the second semester... One year (last Monday) since my shodan grading - must get onto that tattoo!

May 2

What a dummy! I know that weighing myself ALWAYS does my head in. Such a pity addict. No longer whole30, more like whole1, skip a day, carry on... Had the day at home with seriously sore throat and aching head. No study attempted, pretty much sat and read, except for a ridiculous side trip to the supermarket for chips and chocolate - women are the least rational people in the entire world. Enjoyed every crunch and bite. Great tea, recipes out of Anabel Langbein's book, a chicken dish with mushrooms and stir fry including my first ever book choy :) Off to Chicago, the show, tonight. Jack's school musical for the year.

May 1

Ugh, off to bed at 930pm! A long, cold, miserable day - just the weather, the food was fine. I weighed this morning for the first time in months - about 5 kg heavier than I'd like, 3 kg heavier than I can easily be and yet looking in the mirror it all looks pretty good. I'll do a BIA in a while with Dee (naturopath) and see how I'm doing. I detest the numbers on the scale, and much prefer the muscle/water/fat ratios her wee machine provides. I quite like having my age calculated as younger than I am too. B: 3 slices bacon, 3 eggs, mushrooms, carrot/celery/ginger/green apple/beet juice L: smoked chicken salad - dressing avo oil/ raspberry vinegrette (stevia) D: steak, roasted winter veges. Snacks: macchiato at 11, 2 boiled eggs at 4, 2 x squares dark choc at 8, 5 x almonds an apple and a carrot later I had to go to bed or eat THINGS. I even smelt a chocolate biscuit! Really sore throat since Sunday, feverey, assignment due in a week! Think tomorrow will be a sick day :(

Whole30

I'm going to try to go paleo for the month of May. I've been mucking about the edges of it, read the books, read the websites, and the blogs. Think it is all good...so tomorrow it begins. I will blog each day...let's do it Jo!

February 2012

Not a lot happening at the moment. But I am still about. Enjoying my karate, a lot! Love taking a class and watching people improve. Still a way to go with my shodan syllabus, but small improvements... Playing with Tabata and my gymboss - liking that. Determined to do pull ups this year - seemingly impossible at the moment, but I have a plan! Starting with Library studies again, dull and time consuming. Kids all well, I'm perfectly adequate, if not too excited :/

2012 and summer days

Xmas 2011 @ St Clair Beach

A favourite spot: Sun, chair, book, coffee...

Hmmm, a lake up near Middlemarch

Phoebe being delicious at Pounawea

The year rolls about...2011 ends

I've been playing about and developing a new website for my karate club, and decided it was a bit poor not to be updating here as well - for all my loyal followers, ha, ha, ha!

Winter came...

Fun times were had...

Rugby World Cup came to New Zealands, more fun times were had - loved the nude rugby! We won!!!!!

The kitchen is almost finished!

I remember this moment

My daughter, Senpai Zoë, hugs (holds) me after the fortieth fight.


Aaaahhhhhh, I feel like I can breathe again. It's now a month (yesterday) since my shodan grading. I've been ill and miserable for most of that time - and that was so unexpected. It really took the gloss of my achievement. I started to wonder if I had really done the grading at all - I was feeling so old, and tired, and lethargic.

But yesterday, and today, I have suddenly started to feel like myself again. I have some energy, I have a little excitement brewing about my next steps in the karate journey, and I can look at the grading photos and think, phew! That was me and I was OK!

My kyu grade days are over - I'm feeling sad about that. I had some great classes and teachers in those six years. Someone told me recently that moving up to our black belt class is like the transition between secondary school and university. The teaching is less structured, the learning is at your own instigation and pace, no one hassles you or reminds you of your syllabus. You have to work out what to do and why. There is no more being drilled in the basics. You need to be totally self-disciplined. The journey really does start again.

I had my first shodan class yesterday - a full hour of bo work. Loving the stick!

Crash city

Unbelievable. Three weeks out and I have giardiasis, a cold sore and a sty in my eye. Shit (literally) for three weeks. Lucky it's post grading I guess, but I feel old and tired and sick as! Also self diagnosed with PGD - post grading depression. Previous six months was a piece of cake compared with this :)

Shodan - 7 May 2011

Done and dusted.

Exhausted, and I don't know what to feel about it all just yet.

More later...

One week to go

Wow! The weeks fly past don't they? In Wellington for a long weekend. Not a gi in sight. Very strange times. I'll be pleased when it's done. The question at the moment isn't 'will I forget?' it's more, 'how will I cope when I do forget?'

Breathe, lower the stance, relax, and just let it flow. As my husband likes to say..."you've done all the work, it's all in the kete, just let it out now."

Fun times.

Four weeks!

Whoa, this is the big one. Three more serious weeks of training, a quiet week and then my grading. Kinda worried, kinda blasé. Weird times. I know I'm fit, I know I've done heaps but also know that on the day I'll feel every sloppy kick and mistimed technique, and wonder what I should have done more of. When I'm put under pressure it all flies out of my head so quickly.

I don't want to be judged as unworthy.

I hope my spirit, technique and strength all unite to pull me through on the day.

Weary
Jo

First dojo visit of the new year

In town for a bit between holiday spots and I made it to the dojo. The new shinzen is well on its way.

Karl and I went through all of our kata, self defenses (basic and intermediate), and yokosuku. It's good to be back. Off for a wee run now. I haven't quite formalised any training plans yet - working on it at Pounawea - and the 'start' will coincide with the start of the karate year on January 24.

It will be great to have a date to work to - but I know what to do. Know my syllabus, get super fit.

Christmas Blessing

How could your life be anything but blessed when you have helped to create something this good?

My darlings; Ben, Zoë, Phoebe, Jack and Jed - Christmas 2010.

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!

I've been asked to do my shodan grading! Wahhooooooooo! No actual date yet, but sometime before June next year and in our dojo! Sweet.

Tomorrow is my youngest son's 2nd kyu grading and also his 14th birthday. It's also the end of the year for the club. Do I break for a few weeks, do I carry on, do I do more....? So much to think about now. The countdown begins...where to start?

Very excited!