http://www.gamespy.com/dailyvictim/index.asp?id=692
lol! Oh how often I have wanted to do this, without the consequence of course.

Haven’t done this for a while..

At this moment, what is your favorite…
1.….song?
A friend was begging me to listen to this song for weeks and weeks so I finally gave in and now I totally can’t stop listening to everything by these guys. I don’t know how I’ve missed this for so long. Angels or Devils by Dishwalla.

2.….food?
Hm. I’m having serious cravings for apple & cinnamon pancakes.

3.….tv show?
Gilmore girls. I crave this too. Other than that I loove That 70’s show.

4.….scent?
I can’t get enough of the Africa Spa Body Oil Mist at The Body Shop Mind you everything in that store is yummy. I love the scent of rain on dry earth too. It was definitely a welcome change today.

5.….quote?
Famous last words: “Forget picking the lock, just kick the door down.”

‘I broke my site in Mozilla It never used to do that and I can’t find a reason for it. All the graphics are out of line It’s frustrating knowing It’s probably some tiny little mistake that I’m just skimming over. I may have to finally pull it apart and go full css. Now It’s just stylesheets and tables and a pain in the ass.

I started seriously wanting to do something about getting fit and losing weight in October 2003. It’s hard to believe that 12 weeks have gone by already. It still seems like I’ve been doing this for a week.

Looking back in diaries is rather depressing. “I’m going to lose weight for the formal!” “Going to be a certain size for summer holidays” “Will be able to get into this dress by bla bla date” That was 10 years ago. 10 years of saying I should instead of I will. Ugh..

Anyway dwelling on the past is just as bad so I’m focusing on the now and what I WILL achieve. So what have I done to lose over 17kg? Ok start erasing the word diet from your vocabulary right now. Lifestyle change and adapting food is more important BUT the adaption is strict when it comes to detail. I think people would be surprised with what a portion is. Before I started this I was eating twice what I eat now. I was eating heaps! Dinner for example should only be an amount that you can fit into two hands.

Sugar in tea and coffee matters. No butters, margarine, white bread, rice, pasta. Every thing’s grain, rye, vegetable and lean meat. Carbohydrates ARE important (the atkins diet is shite) but in small quantities and at the right times. We need carbs for energy and raising the metabolism. We don’t need them before bed. Click here to see a typical days food for me.

6 mornings a week I go to the gym. I have a personal trainer who devises weight and fitball programs for me. I was worried about the whole weight aspect as first too but the correct repetition and weight is the key. It’s extremely hard for a woman to bulk up using weights. Fitball is amazing for strength, flexibility and core strength. So one day I do about 45 minutes of weights and fitball focusing all on legs and lower body and the next day I do arms and upper body. The muscles need that day in-between to recover and build. I do abs every day. You can’t do too many abs I might just post my program up here eventually so anyone can do it if they want.

Then I do between half an hour to an hour of cardio (anything that gets your heart rate above that target rate, which I think is around 120 - but NOT so your gasping for breath, that will actually reverse the effects and your body won’t burn fat. You should be able to hold a conversation just, but not sing.) Half an hour minimum is key and not changing in the middle is key too. Like, doing 15 minutes on one thing and 15 on the other doesn’t give your body long enough to build to that fat burning stage. 30 minutes lifts it to that level and then whatever cardio done after that is just a bonus. I alternate what I use. Cycling, treadmill, rowing machine. It’s important to alternate the routine now and then or your body gets used to the exercise and starts refusing to cooperate anymore hehe.

That’s about the gist of it. It’s hard work, no doubt but It’s a satisfying kind of hard work if you keep focus on what you’re doing it for. The simplicity of it is to just burn off more than you eat. Willpower, strength, determination. All major factors. But like any serious change, you have to want to do it. REALLY want to do it. If you’re feeling half hearted about it then you don’t really want to do it, so don’t heh Either way. I thought I’d just put this down somewhere to explain where I’m going, where I’ve come and how I’m doing it.

Bah, almost wrote a book again lol. Ok I’m off to weigh in again now to see how good a girl I’ve been (or not so )

Just an update on the weight loss Have lost a total of 17.2kg which is equal to about 37.9lbs I believe. ! I’m still finding it hard to comprehend. Exercise has now become an essential part of my life and I think the combination of weight training and cardio has been the key element to losing so much so quickly. My entire life I’ve said, I’ll do it tomorrow, I’ll start tomorrow. It’s a stupid logic. It won’t get done tomorrow at all.

It’s amazing seeing muscles and tone you never thought you would see again. My fitness levels are much higher and I feel pretty amazing because of it. I will never go back to how I was because only from this point of view can I see how miserable I was. It was the evil that controlled every single aspect of my life and held me back.

Oh, quick update on the site too. Will be updating a lot over the next couple of weeks and Circle of Shadows ring will be getting the overhaul It’s been needing for ages. Since my life has returned to some sort of routine now, sort of It’s a good opportunity to get these things done.

‘I want to thank you guys for your kind words on the previous entry. It really gave me back some focus that I guess I had almost given up on. I am feeling better about the situation now. I think I try and normalise my partnership, compare it to what society brought me up believing should be the way a relationship operates ( ok ditch the society crap and lets just face the facts.. what media has taught me to believe )

A lot of focus on the ‘what ifs’ rather than looking at all that I already have. It’s true at times I don’t like him at all. I would rather be anywhere but here, but it doesn’t last long, wait, long enough for me to consider leaving. The truth of the matter is, I don’t know what I’d do without him and times we have had extended time apart I’ve not known what to do with myself and missed him terribly. We have started to settle into a deeper kind of respect/love and those exciting first love feelings are fading. That’s what scares me, perhaps I just have to adapt as with any situation.

I really should be so lucky I have someone in my life that adores me to the point he does. There’s not a day goes by that he doesn’t tell me how beautiful I am, or how much he loves me. He tries his hardest to do little things just to please me and make me smile but then of course there are moments where we just annoy the hell out of each other. I really need to get past that and hearing that other’s relationships go through the same highs and lows is indeed comforting

I really don’t know what to do. Every morning I wake up and continue with what I have to do as normal but what happens when the “normal” suddenly doesn’t fit your plans? What happens when you start believing that maybe you’re not in love with him anymore. It’s killing me trying to figure reason or reality behind it. I’m scared to stay, scared to go. Plus I feel like the very act of doubting my relationship is the wrong thing to do. Damn morals. But I can’t help what I feel and I can’t make it go away. It really hurts, but a future as is terrifies me.

I don’t know how to make it better.

I had to get a picture of this little guy, or not so it seems. He was attached to my washing a couple of days ago. Hard to tell proportion with the pictures really but he was huge. Length would have been 5 inches and about 2.5 wide. I’ve just never seen a moth this big before and I have no idea what type it is. I love his little alien eyes

He was so friendly too, was hard to detach him from our hands.

At this time of the year I tend to write about how I felt about the year gone by and what I want to achieve out of the forthcoming one. Looking back I realise how important the past few years have been for me and how events have fallen into place in order for my present situation to be reached. Not all of it was good, in fact most of it was a challenge.

In 2002 into 2003 I was very sick. So much so that I couldn’t work, I could barely make it out of my own driveway without feeling crap. I had every available test to try and get to the bottom of what was causing it all but everything came up normal. There was no viable reason for me to be feeling what I was.

I then began to think perhaps it was psychological. Maybe it was all in my head but nothing I did changed the fact. I was seriously sick 5 out of 7 days and the days that I felt ok were spent cautious not to do anything to spur it to come back. I had to say no to friends invitations to go out. I couldn’t plan anything, had to be watching what I ate, drink, breathed 24 hours a day. I was miserable.

After trying everything possible and becoming extremely depressed, suicidal, having given up all hope of ever being able to do regular things again, a sequence of events happened that would turn my life in the direction it needed to go to be rid of whatever it was making me sick.

I was smoking at the time and I got a really bad bronchial infection. Smoking was near impossible and I had to stop completely for weeks. I never took it up again after that and even though I was still sick after that, things began to get gradually better outlook wise.

A few months later I was rushed to the hospital with extreme abdominal cramps and an ultrasound revealed two gallstones the size of those big marbles, a kidney cyst and a problem with my liver. I was booked into hospital to have them removed and to have a liver biopsy but it was almost two years on a waiting list to get it done. The doctors informed me that because of the severity of the operation (they remove the entire gallbladder now rather than just the stones) I should consider losing some weight, it is safer when looking to go under anesthesia.

All of this scared the hell out of me and 18 months later when I had the operation, I had lost 25kg and changed my eating habits for life. My liver had recovered and was healthy due to the lifestyle changes and I was feeling a lot better although I still had my bad days.

Two years later and all of that is in the past. Not only has my lifestyle changed for the better but my outlook on life and understanding of things has deepened. I’m completely at peace now. I’m happy, on my way to my goal weight and feeling pretty darn amazing. If I hadn’t had got the bronchial problems I would still be where I was, or perhaps in an even worse state. My body had been telling me for months that something was wrong, that where I was heading was a dead end but I wouldn’t listen to it, I just kept blaming it.

2003 has been a year of change for me. It’s been a pivotal point in my life, one I won’t soon forget. Everything that started off here has taken me to the place I want and need to be and for the wake up call, I’m extremely thankful. I think sometimes we need such intense sadness, or pain to make the comparison, to realise what’s wrong with the picture and want to change it.

This year is going to be even better. This is the year I come out of my shell, having already reached a point of self acceptance. I can now be who I want to be without fear of not being enough. I’ve had confidence issues all my life but I think this year that’s all going to change.

• Reach my goal weight
• Enjoy the silence in a place where nobody knows who I am
• Do my BA with honours
• Save money rather than spend it (03′, the year of spending)
• Listen and Learn

A short little list of some of the things I want to achieve. I haven’t really sat down and worked out details, I’m not that well planned. I want my life to be full of options and surprises rather than schedules and deadlines.