My First Weigh in Wednesday

I got up at 5am ready to workout but first weighed myself. OMG I've lost 2.9kg since I did my starting measurements a week and a half ago! Whoo hoo yay me! That is 4kg gone forever since I signed on for pre-season. That put me on a hugh high to smash out my 5am workout.
Roll on the next couple of weeks!

Day 1, Week 1, Round 3, 2012

Off we go!
I got myself up an extra half hour early this morning (5am) and got stuck into my first 12WBT workout - Cardio! I did interval training which was 1min 30 walk then 30 sec jog over 20 mins along the foreshore watching the sun begin to rise. Gee it was lovely down there at that time of the day.

Then I came home to complete the rest of the workout. I definitely have room for improvement in regards to technique as well as stamina. I worked off 368 calories and I am so proud of myself. Once I'd cooled down I felt quite good.
Next was my introduction to the food. Whoa - culture shock. I really struggle with eating much at breakfast and cope by having it just before I walk out the door. I struggled eating the toast today and the berries were a bit tart for my sweet tooth, but I will get used to it. I did enjoy it but didn't finish it, partly as I took too long to eat and needed to leave for work.
My alarm reminder reminded me to eat my morning snack and I coped with the beetroot and green stuff on my sandwich. I can do this! I'm looking forward to the fish stew tonight. It smelt so good!
I am soooo excited!
I took my belt in another notch today! That's four notches in three weeks! Yippee!

Meeting a 12WBT star - Angela Wallace

I am very fortunate to live "just down the road" from a very successful 12WBT-er, Angela Wallace. Ange's story begins about 2 years ago when she was very sick and unhealthy. The 12WBT literally saved her life. She is now trim taut and terrific and is a qualified PT.
Ange has added a 6am Saturday Bootcamp at a park about 10 minutes from our place to the training sessions she does on weekends. We are so fortunate. Ange is an inspiration to many, including some of my Townsville 12WBT friends who encouraged me to do this.
And oh boy she worked us hard! One of the best things was that our group was the first bootcamp group there - a couple of others turned up while we were there and therefore were still going when we left to get on with the rest of our day. Haha we were done nice and early! Ange is so lovely and inspiring, we will try and attend her bootcamps each week here.

I'm realy getting into this exercise thing, so much so that we rocked up to Elite HQ in the afternoon for another training session - are we crazy or what?? Maybe, but I AM going to get fit and lose this weight. Only my daughter, Mady come with me to the afternoon session as my hubby, Stephen had something else on, but we still worked our butts off.

This session was an Intro to SSS for the newbies on Round 3, so theoretically they were going to go easy on us. EliteHQ is a "crossfit" gym so there is always a huge variety of activities to do in each session and today we experienced a few more. Some of the "oldies" came along to help out us "newbies".
This was Mady's second training session and she did really well. She really impressed some of the adults by keeping up with them - she's only 11, though she is as tall and developed as a full grown woman.

Today I was introduced to kettle ball swings - ugh! The board above shows how many rounds / sets we did of the circuit.

Fitness Improvement already!

On our morning walk this morning I managed to jog about a third of the way (intermittently). And even better I have increased my speed and my shuffle was actually faster than Stephen's walking! He was very impressed, as was I.
So an improvement in my fitness already! And we haven't even started the program proper yet.
But then at home, while opening the pantry door, I think I pinched a nerve in my lower back. I've been in quite a bit of pain all day at work and the hot wheat bag hasn't helped. Hopefully a massage from Stephen tonight will fix it up so I can still walk/run in the morning and train this weekend.

Will I Change Too Much?

Doubts have already kicked in. I'm scared that I might change too much during this journey. Not my body - that needs to change. But will my personality change too much? Will I become an exercise Nazi at the expense of losing some friends? After hearing some of the transformations of the girls at our local crew, I'm amazed, but then you also hear of troubles they've had where friends and family are upset with their changes and that they've lost some really good friends. A couple have even been distanced from their partners. I know in my head that if I lose a friend this way, then what kind of a friend are they really? Or maybe they were sometimes friends for whilst I was fat and I need to find (or I will find) new friends for while I'm skinny. Doesn't mean it won't hurt or break my heart.

On the plus side I made a couple more small changes today. And I have survived.
Firstly I only put one fake sugar in my tea instead of two.
Secondly I had muesli for breakfast and only 30g at that. Also only a small amount of milk.
And finally I swapped the tasty cheese on my wrap for ricotta cheese. Quite nice actually. I don't miss the tasty cheese at all.

Today is Fitness Test day. We got permission to do ours on Saturday just gone, so the only thing we still have to do is the reach test which we will do tonight.

My First Bootcamp

The opportunity arose to attend a Bootcamp with Ben from EliteHQ this morning. We were out last night at the Brisbane Lions AFL game so it was very hard to get up to be at Redland Bay at 7am but we did. Alarms gave us 15 mins to get up and get out the door. We did it - all four of us!

We all met at the EliteHQ studio then walked down to to the nearby park where we warmed up with a run around the oval and then got stuck into the exercises. We did a variety of things including jumping over bollards, walking over the top of park benches and picnic tables, push ups, sit ups, burpees, squats and the big one - tractor tyre activities. That was fun! In groups of four or five (we had Stephen, Mady, Sai and I) we had to push the (big heavy) tyre across the ground from the edge of the oval to the cricket pitch in the middle. Easy enough? No. The tyre had to stay flat on the ground. We could not roll it nor flip it not carry it nor throw it. The rotten thing kept digging in the ground and stopping until we worked out a strategy. On the count of three we all pushed or pulled in one big effort and slid the tyre further than we could consistently. We got quite a head start in the other teams until they began copying us. It really was a killer though. But we we're finished!

Until... Ben made us carry the tyre as a team out to the cricket pitch and back. Are we finished yet?

No!!  Ben made us flip the tyre all the way across the oval and back again, though this time it was one person at a time and you had to flip until your team mate came back from their run across the oval. With 4 teammates and a very big oval, we had to flip for a long time. At least we were practising our squats with our flips.

Oh boy, are we finished yet? Apparently not. Now we had to do push ups and sit ups.

Finally we were allowed to stretch and go home.
We were so buggered that I hardly had the energy to study and spent the day in zombie mode. It was well worth it though. The team work and comraderie were great. I'll be doing that again.

SSS Charity Week

Today is Round 2 Week 11 so my local Facebook 12WBT group were celebrating their Round 2 successes with a Charity workout. The idea was that you had to bring along items to donate that weighed the amount you had lost this round. You had to pack it all in a backpack and would be wearing the backpack for the workout. Us newbies were invited to come along and particiapate and to be inspired by the others.
I put about 2kgs into my backpack and we donated a bottle of moisturiser each (so 4 all up) as our token effort for today.
This was a workout with a difference. There was a lot of bonding, reflection and tears. We started with a couple of km round about walk to the nearby park. On the walk we chatted with some of the "oldies" and got hints and tips and also found out that mnay of them have lost more than 10kgs this round!! Two ladies have lost more than 15 kgs - in 12 weeks! One lady I spoke to said she had not run since primary school and in the space of 12 weeks she learnt to run and can now run 10km. Wowie! That's totally amazing, and inspiring. One lady carried a 15kg bag of dog food throughout the whole workout - that's dedication.

Once we got to the park we had to run around the oval and at each big light pole do a differnt kind of exercise, such as squats, push ups, burpees, etc. Once we had been around once, we lined up for a sparing session with one of the PTs. I think I had to punch out 200 of each type of punch.

Once we'd done that, we walked back to the studio, via the long flight of stairs which leads up to the back of the (yummy smelling) pub beer garden. (torture)

When we got back to the studio, we laid out all our donations and heard some great stories from some Round 2-ers. We counted up the total weight lost for the group and it was over 200kg. IN TWELVE WEEKS!  Of course we took some photos, a few people shed some tears, and we got revved up for Round 3. Bring it on!

A Normal Day at Work

I started today in the wrong way, my alarm went off at 5:30am but I was so tired and still stiff from all this new exercise so we made an executive decision to skip the walk. Afterall, we need to have a day off. In hindsight, we should have gone for the walk, it would have worked off some of the stiffness and would have energised our brains ready for the work day.

At work I struggled. I was tired, hungry, and bored. I tried to be good and mananged to avoide the yummy biscuits in the kitchen.

I think the turning point was when a couple of the girls were going to Maccas for lunch and I said no. Wow, I said no to Maccas!
So, I started putting some strategies in place. I chewed sugar free chewing gum, drank water, drank some more water, peed, and drank some more water. I was so happy with myself for pushing through.
I kept this attitude as I went home (early finish Fridays, yay). As soon as I got home I put on a load of washing, then another and another. I got the whole week's washing done on Friday afternoon! Nothing left to do on the weekend. I just got in and did it. I had planned to do a workout on the Wii with my kids, but James didn't make it home from school so I had to go looking for him and ran out of time for the Wii. Nevertheless, some of the good habits are starting to appear.
(James did turn up, he'd had athletics day and had sore legs so walked home very, very slowly and was cutting across the park when I drove past so I did not see him).

Pre Season Task #6 - Organise and Diarise

Nice easy task this one!

We're always so busy that this one is pretty much already done. Everything we do is in our calendars. As we've hooked up with group PT training at EliteHQ we've already put our SSS's in the calendar (for Mady as well). We've already got our weekday morning 45mins in the calendars as well. Grocery shopping is Monday nights - Stephen and the kids do the grocery run and I do the fruit and vege run. Then the butcher is whenever they have a special on.
Special events and appointments are already in, including our trip to Townsville. And our trip to Townsville will not be a chance to slack off as all of our friends up there are already doing the 12WBT, so will support us and help us find somewhere to exercise.
the only thing we need to add is a weekend cook up time. I think that Stephen will have to do this one by himself until after I have done my exam on 18th September.

Task #6 - done!

Ekka Public Holiday

We both got a free day off today for the Ekka and the kids had to go to school as their public holiday was the Monday. We planned to go kayaking and then were going to go and see a movie and go out to lunch. Then last night James asked if he could ride to school so now we were riding with him to and from school. Once we got back from school I checked the 12WBT Redlands group and Tina was organizing a small group boxing class this afternoon. Should we go? Yep, bugger it, lets JFDI. So all of a sudden our relaxing day at home ended up being a full on exercise day. We didn't end up going to see a movie nor going out to lunch. We ate at home (and saved money) and I spent the small time left in the day to sort out our receipts in order to do our tax this weekend (another task I'd been putting off).
Mady had to be at school early so we dropped her off at the train station and then got our bikes and rode to school via the foreshore. the whole trip took 21 minutes and was 4.9 km long.

   We already had the kayaks on the trailer so by 9am Stephen and I were in the water near the jetty at Wellington Point deciding where to paddle to.

King Island it was! It was right on high tide so the causeway to King Island was just under water. When we were almost level with King Island I noticed some splashing and what I thought might be fish jumping. I looked again and saw fins. Sharks or dolphins? We decided to paddle closer to see whilst being prepared to turn around really quickly if it was sharks. Yay it was dolphins! We paddled to about 10m away but they ended up coming even closer. I had my phone with me but wrapped up inside our new dry bag. We decided the risk of getting bumped by a dolphin and dropping and losing my phone was worth it to get photos. I got a couple of ok photos and a video but it was hard to see whether I was actually capturing the dolphins due to the sun glare in the screen.

Once they went away we headed for King Island (via a big detour around the emerging sandbank) to rest and eat our snack (a muesli bar, but we didn't have anything else as we haven't yet learnt what to have).

Time to head back! With the tide quickly going out, we had to take a wider route around the shallows which meant a bigger distance to paddle. OMG my shoulders were aching, my legs were sore, but today not my back. We were using back rests in the kayaks for the first time and they made a huge difference to the back pain as they actually give some support. The paddle back was long and tiring. I really struggled, Crazy though, to think we only paddled for an hour and only went 4.77km, but it was definitely a workout. But oh so worth it! If experiences like these are what happen when you get fit and get out there - yessss I'm in!

So we went home, had a couple of hours rest and then Stephen rode to collect James from school and I drove to pick Mady up from the train. Then off we went again! This time to boxing at EliteHQ.

Boxing is a really good cardio work out, so I found out today. An hour of boxing (especially after all the exercise we did today) and I was totally stuffed and hurting, but in a good way. As there were only 3 other people at training, the kids joined in too. They had a ball!

Well, if this is to be the new me, then this is the way its going to be.

Pre-season Task #5 - Kitchen Makeover

I've been a little scared about this task coming up. This is the start of my new reality and I know we have tons of food in the pantry and freezer which is not ideal.

Watching Mish's video this morning, whilst entertaining, was what I expected. Reading the throw out list and shopping list provided at Task 5 was a different story. OMG I have to start eating all of that stuff? Well I guess I do. The biggest thing is that Stephen is doing it with me and is committed to throwing out all the bad foods and buying all the good foods. He's even going to throw out the deep fryer which I didn't want him to buy in the first place.

Stephen also being fully into this is a big thing, as previously on my weightless attempts I've always had to do it alone, buy my own low fat foods and cook my own low fat meals, while everyone else in the family kept eating as normal and the pantry still stocked with naughty foods. All of this meant temptation for me. Too easy for me to grab something naughty in a moment of weakness or to not cook my own food and have what everyone else is having. Wow! This time the whole family is making the change too and I'm not being ridiculed for inconveniencing the rest of the family.

Our pantry today is a little worse than normal as we still have leftover entertaining food from Stephen's 40th birthday party last weekend. Normally there aren't chips or lollies, or as much alcohol as there is today.

Although we don't usually have these naughty items, they are in there today! We discovered that our problem is not chips, lollies, soft drink etc, but all the prepackaged foods we have - such as all the dinner in a jar meals like Chicken Tonight and packet pasta and sauce mixes. Well, time for them all to go.
Funds are a bit tight at the moment, we are time poor, and we don't know what foods to eat, so we're going to finish off a few of these foods over the next two weeks, but as soon as we get the menu and shopping list for the round, what ever is left goes in the bin! We're letting the kids take the little chip packets to school for lunches (something they've never done before) and they've been told that once the muesli bars are gone, we're not buying anymore.

We have many of the things on Mish's buy list, we just don't use them because we don't know how. Well, that's about to change. I've been told to hand over all the thinking to Mish and that is what I plan to do. Here you go, Mish -------

I can't wait to learn how to actually cook leafy green vegetables so that they are appetising, and what to have for breakfast rather than cereal, and what to have for lunch and how much too big our dinners have actually been. Stephen understand he's going to have to eat "low fat" foods and drink low fat milk, and he won't be able to have his white bread ever again. A steep learning curve ahead for all of us. And the kids are coming along for the ride.

The one big thing we need to buy is a non-stick wok. We've decided on getting the wok from the same set as our awesome frypans - Stoneline. Their wok is non-stick (it really really is!) and we can use it on our BBQ on the extra side burner we got and haven't used as yet, again because we didn't know how, except that its' good for woks, but we didn't have one. The wok will cost $249, but we think it will be worth it. I do actually like stirfrys.

My First SSS - Meeting the Redlands Facebook Crew

In my excitement at starting the 12WBT I joined a few Facebook groups, including the "12WBT Redlands, Bayside and Surrounds (Queensland)" group.

After first introducing myself, I was very quickly invited to a few training sessions organised by the members. I hesitated for a bit but then decided to JFDI and reorganised my Saturday so that I could attend this SSS at Redland Bay.

I met some lovely people, was encouraged by the team, trained with a buddy who was as unfit as me, and tried to do as much as I could of the activities programmed. I did pretty well, just falling behind in the running and therefore missing out on a few exercises.

I'm so glad I went. If I'd been at home doing the same thing, I would have given up after the warm up! (Warm up started with a 200m jog, 50m heels to toes, 50m high knees, 50m lunge steps, 50m side steps followed by a 400m jog, plus more!) As it was, the trainers Ben and Tina made sure I knew what to do and encouraged me.

I learnt all about burpees, did some boxing, found out that I can't skip anymore, and discovered that I can run (a short distance).

The biggest difference to any other gym experience I've had is that the other participants also encouraged each other and me. It made me feel welcome and makes me want to go again. All of these people have been on the journey I am about to embark on. Some still have a lot of weight to lose and some are just toning up now... Anyway - I've put next week's session in my diary. (BTW I didn't take these photos, Tina did, (I was working out) there just aren't any of me).          

Pre Season Task #4 - Say it Out Loud

Phew! This is a big one - Saying it out loud.

My first step was to commit to Stephen, my husband. We had a big discussion about being all in, including the kids, and we are going to do this program by the letter. There would be no slacking off, no changing around of the menu to suit ourselves, we would try every recipe and give it all a go. That's a BIG commitment.

Next I posted a very small post on Facebook. I'm not confident enough to shout it out to the world there, but my discrete post was noticed by a few friends who are also doing 12WBT, but who I didn't know were. Yay, sisters in arms!.

Next, I sent an invitation to join 12WBT to my brother and to a girl at work - both who are struggling with weightloss.

And finally I set up a private group for 6 of my close friends who are all committed to 12WBT. Five of these lovely ladies have already done a round or two, but one is a newbie just like me. Most of the girls know each other and we've been through some tough spots together and supported each other at times, so this private group on Facebook will (hopefully) help us vent, and inspire.

Then I only have one more person to tell ..... Mum. This will be a hard one and I don't think I'm ready to tell her yet. I know that if I do, she'll be constantly asking me about it, how much weight I've lost, give me a hard time if I fail and generally pressure me. I'm not strong enough to cope with that pressure form mum yet. I don't want to let her down, so the pressure is always harder from her. I will tell her sometime in the future, just not now. Hopefully she will notice the weight falling off me and ask??

Stay tuned over the next few weeks to see if I got up the guts to tell her....

Pre Season Task #3 - Gear Up

Our next task tis to "Gear Up". In other words, decided where we are going to train / exercise and then make sure we have all the requirements we need.

We don't see the value in joining a gym - too expensive, not open at times that we can go, need to find someone to look after the kids while we are there, and gyms are boring. So, we've decided to do most of our workouts at home and at the local park. We are very fortunate in that we are a short 5 minute walk from the foreshore and at home we already have quite a bit of (unused) gym equipment.

At the local park there are some council provided gym equipment which we can use any time, plus there's a terrific pathway right along the water's edge which goes for about 3km. There are park benches for step ups and dips - everything we need!

At home we have an exercise bike, a rowing machine, swiss balls, skipping ropes, push bikes, kayaks, foam mats, a weights bar (but no weights) and a swimming pool. Crazy hey? All this "good intentions" stuff and a family full of unfit, fat people!

The one thing we needed to complete our mini home gym was a set of dumbells. So off we went to Rebel Sport to have a look.

We bought ourselves this set of dumbells which comes with 2 x 2kg bars and 16kg of weights to give two dumbells each weighing up to 10kg. A total of 20kg. And the best thing is, this set matches the bar we have at home, so we now have dumbells and a weights bar!
Well, buying the dumbells was the easy thing, carrying them to car was another. Twenty kilos is really quite heavy to carry for any distance. We all had a go and when I struggled, Stephen quickly pointed out that the dumbells only weighed HALF of what I need to lose, So half of what my poor body is carrying around every single day that it doesn't need to! Woah, that hit home. 40kg to lose, 2 lots of these dumbells and I was having trouble carrying them around. OMG.

Now that was a lightening bolt moment which I need to remember. Once I have lost the weight, I will need to pick up these dumbells and remember how far I have come and that I never want to go back to that again!

We are currently building in downstairs at our house and putting in a bedroom and a media room. Well, maybe not anymore. We need somewhere under cover to workout, so it looks like our media room just became a multi purpose room. BRING IT ON!

Pre-Season Task #2 - Set Your Goals

Goal Setting:
Our next step is to set some SMART goals. Now I know all about SMART goals having literally finished my CA project last week which including determining SMART goals for the case study business.

SMART goals are:
Specific
Measurable
Achieveable
Realistic
Time based

Mish wants us to first look at our long term goal and then break it up into smaller manageable goals which aren't so scary.

Here are my goals:

Overall Goal:
Lose 43kg by Christmas 2013

One Month Goal:
Lose 5kg; Run 1km without stopping;

How Will I Get There?
Follow the 12WBT to the letter

Three Month Goal:
Lose 15kg; Run 5km without stopping

How Will I Get There?
Follow the 12WBT to the letter; Sign up for another fun run;

Six Month Goal:
Lose 30kg; Run 8km;

How Will I Get There?
Follow the 12WBT to the letter

Twelve Month Goal:
Lose 45kg; Run 10km;

How Will I Get There?
Follow the 12WBT to the letter; Sign up for another fun run;

Imagine what kind of a person I'll be if (I mean when) I achieve these goals! I can't even imagine, it's so distant to where I am right now. With all my past failures in the weight loss stakes I'm not even confident I can get there. Hopefully with Stephen's and the kids' support and encouragement I WILL do it this time. I really need to, or I'm just going to get bigger and bigger and more unhealthy. If I don't, I'll be sending myself to an early grave.
THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Hear it out loud today - I WILL DO THIS!!

Pre-Season Task #1 - Get Real

Our first task in this journey is to Get Real. We do this by working out what all our past excuses for not losing weight or getting in shape are, and finding ways to overcome them. Mish says there are 3 types of excuses:

1. Internal Excuses.
2. External Excuses within your control.
3. External excuses outside of your control.

Here are my excuses and their solutions:
Internal Excuses:
1. If I don't eat it I'll miss out;
2. I'm too tired;
3. I'm too unfit;
4. I'm too busy;
5. It costs too much;
6. What about the kids?
Solutions:
1. So what if I miss out? Do I really need the calories? If I miss out it's less weight to lose;
2. Exercising more & eating properly will actually give me more energy, and I will sleep better at night;
3. Work at my own pace; Stephen will have to go ahead until I improve my fitness;
4. You've always been busy. What about all that time wasted on Facebook? Or reading novels for hours at night?
5. What price my health? Not buying chocolate will save us money;
6. Kids can join in

External Excuses Within My Control:
1. It's too cold;
2. It's raining;
3. I need to study;
Solutions:
1. Put on a jumper; once you get moving you will get the circulation going and warm up;
2. Put a windcheater on; You will be having a shower as soon as you get back anyway.
3. Schedule study time & don't procrastinate; then exercise

External Excuses Outside My Control:
Need to stay back at  work;
Solutions:
Just stay back and sort it out, then come home and get back on track

In all my previous weight loss attempts, I've never really done the "mind" tasks. I'm thinking this could be the big thing as to why I didn't succeed in the long term. I really need to change my mind set. Even just writing down these excuses and their solutions has made me realise that my mind has not been in the right place - ever!

And it begins

My 12WBT Journey
After months of watching the weight drop of Kristie and Mel while they were doing the 12 Week Body Transformation (12WBT) program by Michelle Bridges of Biggest Loser fame, and with a five month break from my studies coming up where I can actually devote some headspace to losing weight, I decided to approach Stephen about letting me join the 12BWT for Round 3 which starts on 27th August. This round will start a few weeks before my exam, but I figure a few weeks overlap will be better than waiting another 3 months before the next round begins.
I deliberated all day about approaching Stephen as I've tried many weightloss things before and this was going to cost $200 for me to sign up. At one point I jumped on his computer to have a look at the website (as it was the only computer on) and when I'd finished I left it up (not purposely). Later after he'd been on his computer he came up and asked if that was what Kristie and Mel have been doing. When I said yes, he asked if I wanted to do it and then said we both could! He didn't even ask what it involved, nor how much it would cost. So we signed up that night and got straight into our first couple of pre-season tasks.

Why am I doing this and why is this time going to work?

• When I ride my push bike, every time I pedal, my thighs bump into my stomach.
• When we flew from Sydney to Brisbane back in March, my bum didn't fit in the seat - my thigh was under the arm rest between the seats. In fact the arm rest couldn't go down properly because my thigh was in the way. I was about half an inch away from needing an extension on my seat belt - now that's really embarrassing.
• I have to be careful which chairs I sit in at home so that I don't break them. I can't stand in a chair in order to reach high places because I don't feel as if I can balance and I'm afraid I will break the chair. I have put a cushion in my dinner chair because I could feel that I had pushed the upholstery cushion down into the frame with my weight and was now only sitting in the frame edge.
• I have put on so much weight in the last few months that I'm going to have to go up another size in my clothes. I know that none of my summer clothes are going to fit me once the weather gets warmer.
• I get puffed walking up the two flights of stairs to the office.
• I can't comfortably drive the 4WD because the seat is too skinny and the seat belt housing digs into my bum.
• I've finally seen some photos of myself and realize that what I see when I look down is not what everyone else sees - yes I am fat.
• We've bought full length mirrors but I'm not in a hurry to get them up because then I would see the real me instead of just my head and shoulders.
• For the first time in my life I've had high blood pressure and have a premium added to my life insurance policy.
• I can keep up with my kids who love their sport. "Mummy doesn't run".
• My daughter is starting to get big and has my body type. She is the same height as me and weighs more than my goal weight. It's time for her to change her ways too. She eats way too much for breakfast and then pigs out when she gets home. I don't want to deny her treats but the reality is she is heading to be teased at school just like I was. She loves to swim but soon she will be embarrassed to be seen in her togs. I can't let this happen and the time is now to correct this.

I am very excited and I am committed. I am so glad Stephen is experiencing some weight issues for the first time in his life and now understands and is going to join me on this journey and support me all the way as I will do to him.

My inspiration is the Townsville girls, plus my bestie Kylie who lost a heap of weight on her own and is now a yummy mummy still 3 years on.

So, what's my starting weight? 108.8kg
What's my goal weight? 65kg
What is my goal for this Round of the 12WBT? 15kg lost.

 And so that I remember how big I really am, here's my before photo: