I woke up today not feeling so good as I have been lately… My head was pounding, legs were heavy, couldn’t get my ass out of bed and my eyes felt puffy. I retraced my steps from yesterday. What did I eat, what did I drink. I went digging in the bin and found my empty lemon beer in the trash, but no change during the night; it still said Non-Alcoholic beer… So this was not a hangover.
Me and my Non-Alcoholic Lemon Beer
Then I went over my food from the day before, which seemed not so bad. Brown rice, some meat, veggies, oven baked carrots & pumpkin & beetroot. Egg sandwich for dinner. Sort of healthy.
Aaaah finally I got IT!
When we woke up from our afternoon siesta, we both felt like having “something” but we didn’t know what that something was… So into to the car we climbed, and drove to a Shell gas station that has a convenience store with the basics. Richard opted for a soda. I on the other hand still didn’t know what I wanted so went a little overboard and I convinced myself I can celebrate since it was a public holiday. (Namibia’s 29th Independence Day) I bought peanuts, Magnum Ice Cream, Cookies & Cream white chocolate bar. I ate all of them as soon as we left the parking lot!
I had a SUGAR HANGOVER!!!
Day 1 TapOut XT
It’s been about two weeks now since I started the “New Me” project. To be honest this was suppose to start after New Year, just like everyone else’s when they make their promises of getting fit, eat healthy, loose some weight and have a dry January. But for months I came up with excuses not to start. Or as I always said to myself -I will start NEXT Monday. Week after week that Monday came and the same thing, -Next Monday. Until I just had enough! This was it! Now or never moment!
My exercise calendar
I decided to start TapOut XT again from the start, 3 months, and then progress onto TapOut XT2 for another 2 months. So a full 5 month exercise plan. (I’ve spoken about TapOut so often here and I’m not going to bore you again with the details of the workout! But definitely google it if you are interested! An ass kicking workout program for those who love MMA workouts & the UFC). I’m on week 2, and feeling great. Sore but great. Truthfully my plan was just to get fit and get some muscles back not so much to loose weight. Well loose a little bit obviously since you cannot see abs under a layer of fat..! Hahahaa.. Plan is just basically to get back to where I was 2016, the me I knew and liked.
That is not the only challenge I threw at myself. I also left alcohol for a while. I have been thinking of doing it for a while now but never really thought I could do it. It was such a habit of ours while we lived in London to have a glass (or two) of wine once you get home from work everyday. That habit followed us to Namibia. To kick the habit I did really well last year and I used to only drink during the weekend and leave the week alcohol free, but since Christmas I sort of fell back in to it. So easily done here. Everyone drinks here everyday. Drinking became a norm in every occasion. If it was a “good day” or a “bad day”, visitors popped around or a evening braai; the event was a cause for a glass of wine (or BOX in our case!).
To be honest I did not think I would get further than the first weekend and would fall at the first hurdle; SATURDAY EVENING. But no, I am on day 14 at the moment and feeling quite proud of myself. I am in my “training mode” for sure! And I found out all the crap about when you leave alcohol for a while -you sleep better, -your skin clears up, -you feel energized, -you have motivation, they all turned out to be true! I feel Great! 🙂 Although the sleep thing might be due to my Spike Mat which I started up again and lie on every evening before bedtime for 10-15 minutes. I also found out not every occasion needs alcohol and I still do the same things and I have started exploring Non-alcohol beers and refreshments, they taste just like cocktails. I am not taking this challenge that seriously and I am not saying I’ll be a non-drinker for the rest of my life, but my first goal is just to go alcohol free until Easter. If I want a glass of wine at Easter I will have one, if I don’t feel like it or don’t want to break my good streak, I will not. Then I will try go without alcohol all the way till my birthday 21st of June. Midsummer! 🙂
My Weights made out of bottles and sand
My wall of Motivation and exercise equipment, bands, spike mat…
The third challenge I threw in the mix was to start the 5.2 fasting program. I am not going to say DIET here because it is mostly a lifestyle way of eating and you could do it for the rest of your life (eventually 6.1) and not “diet your way through it”. But I was on it in Finland a few years back and I really got good results (lost 10 kg in 3 months while also doing TapOut). You feel lighter and have way more energy because you are not so “stuffed” all the time. I was in a bad way last year and I really need this! (the method is you eat normal for 5 days and keep 2 fasting days a week when you only eat around 500 kcl.) Although this is probably the hardest challenge of the three I am sticking to it. Also on day 14. It’s harder here than in Finland where everything is labelled so you know how many calories you have left during your fasting days. Here it’s usually my home-cooked meals so use myfitnesspal as a guideline for calorie consumption. I struggle watching Richard stuffing his face in the evenings while I get a piece of salad on my fasting days…!!! Every Tuesday & Thursday. I have started to “save” most my calories towards the evening so I can also enjoy some meat with my salad. Or it’s Soup and vegetable purée all the way… I get so cranky and ill tempered towards the evenings on fasting days! Hangry!
We have a bad habit of eating heavy meals in the evening as it is our main warm meal of the day. So imagine stuffing meat, potatoes, rice, gravy and veggies at 21.30 then sleeping by 22.00. That was our life for years, even in London already. I obliviously know it’s not good to eat so late or so heavy but that was our way. I’ve made adjustments lately so even on normal eating days I tend to just have protein and veggies and leave all the pasta, rice, potatoes out of my evening meals. Richard can eat as he pleases!
I threw so many challenges for myself at one time, one is surely to fail! Which one, I don’t know yet… So far 2 weeks and all 3 challenges are going according to plan. 🙂
Motivational quotes on my wall
As I mentioned earlier yesterday was Independence Day. It was a public holiday and Richard was off as well. Most companies had planned to be closed for Friday as well so many people had a long weekend here in Namibia. The road to the coast has been super busy. The school hostel opposite us was closed too and the kids had a long weekend so we didn’t have the annoying alarm on at 4.30 am this morning! Independence day didn’t seem like big deal here, but there was some celebrations in bigger cities and the capital.
Oubaas supervising the braai
Morning walkies and breakfast at the riverbed
Oubaas is growing fast, he is already 4 months old! And he did his first “big boy pee” with the leg up yesterday, such a proud mom moment!! His character is also growing, and we need to be firm with him sometimes, he’s just like a hurricane if he wants to be! I really suck as a trainer and I’m sure he just sits because he sees the treat bag and not because I ask him to sit. I’m still trying to figure out how to get him to -stay and -come with the commands, sometimes they work sometimes not… But I’m enjoying the Beagle ride!
There might be big changes happening in our lives in the near future but more about those when our plans clear a bit later on…
I can also report: Still NO RAIN! Not a drop… And rainy season is nearly finished. Another dry year. Days are getting shorter and shorter as well. Soon it will be dark already by 6 pm and winter is coming our way.
nooratoyryla 