Some more about me!

By the time I left school, fitness had became entrenched into my daily lifestyle, along with a less healthy (but fun!) enjoyment of hanging out with friends, going to bars, parties, beaches - and well, any adventure that came my way. I skied, did triathlons, cycled, swam and went to the gym most days for quite a lot of my late teens and early 20's. I went through a few 'fat' moments where I hated myself, wore loose clothing and tried to diet and exercise to lose 'all that weight'. I was around 10kgs (22lbs) lighter than I am now!

When I was 25 I went on my big OE where I spent three years working in London in the winter and traveling around Europe in the summer. I tried to exercise while I was away. I even joined a gym once - and went once. There was a nearby park where I went for a few jogs. I was far too busy working, partying and exploring new and amazing places. In spite of all the food and alcohol I consumed, and lack of exercise, I managed to remain quite slim while I was away.

Things soon changed when I returned home. I continued to work hard - and party hard. I continued with the excess food and alcohol and every now and again I would see that I had put on a bit of weight. I would then exercise and diet frantically to lose it. The only problem is that each time I did this; I would lose some of what I had put on but not all of it, so my weight slowly but surely started to creep up. As I got older it also started to get harder and harder to lose the weight. Over the past few years a combination of life challenges, over indulging in food and alcohol, and not enough exercise left me around 16kgs (35lbs) overweight. I guess I just got tired of trying and 'gave up'. It was all too hard.

But all was not lost... sorry, you are going to have to wait until my next post to see how this story ends and my next begins as it is late and I am tired!

A bit about me - the early years

Over the next few weeks I am going to give you a bit of background info about myself, mainly from a fitness and health perspective, as well as what I have been doing the past three months. There is a reason the past three months are significant, as you will soon find out.

I grew up on a large sheep and beef farm. Most of my childhood years, when not at our local three room school, were spent running barefoot through cow poo and mud, and building huts in the hay and surrounding bush. I also loved horse riding and spending time caring for all my other pets.

When it came to fitness and exercise as a kid, I pretty much got all I needed from just being on the farm. My main 'sport' was horse riding. I avoided any sport that involved a ball. I was scared of them. If one came towards me my first instinct has always been to get out of the way... I was usually the last one to be picked for any team sports that involved a ball... or running. I couldn't run. At least that is what I thought until I ran in my first cross country and realised I could run, just not very fast. Middle distance turned out to be my thing. I continued with cross-country running when I got to high school, along with rowing and middle distance track. I also dabbled in cricket and volleyball... didn't last long... cricket and volleyballs are even harder than netballs and tennis balls.

As far as food and nutrition went, most of what I ate came from the farm. We had a huge vege garden, an even bigger orchard with every fruit tree imaginable and a farm full of beef and mutton. Mum baked and preserved. There was always a yummy cake or home made bicky in the cupboard (we didn't have pantries in those days). I think that explains my life long addiction to muffins, cakes and biscuits. For the most part as a kid and teenager I was a healthy weight. For a few years at primary school I was chubby and I hated it but that eventually went (for a while anyway!).

Thats pretty much it. I was active and not scared of too much when I was little - as most kids are. I loved growing up on the farm. Even now, I can still picture just about every corner of every paddock we had on our farm, including the patches of bush where I would go bird nesting and the swamps that I would wade through looking for 'things' and end up with gumboots filled with sloshy, muddy water.

In the beginning...

Hi! This blog is going to be a work in progress as I am really busy working through the final days of the 12 week Turbulence Training Transformation Challenge as well as working on my goals with the help of a brilliant goal setting system called Magic 100.