Fitbit Tidbit

I did the entire Round 4 2012 12wbt without a heart rate monitor and coped just fine, but I did think having one would have been handy. When I won my Fitbit, I ignorantly thought that it was a heart rate monitor of sorts – how wrong was I? 

Hugo set it up on the Fitbit website for me, I put it on and then soon realised it was not a heart rate monitor (I was a touch disappointed). It seemed to be a type of step-counter-gadget, a pedometer, with some bells and whistles. I did remind myself that Michelle Bridges thinks these are cool, so cool she has them as prizes, so I had better keep and open mind and give it a chance. 

That night I went to bed a little unimpressed with the fancy pedometer, I could not remember how the sleep ‘thingy’ worked so I left it next to my bed and went off to sleep. The posh contraption stayed there until I got back from work the next day :(

I had committed to giving it a chance – so I got into the swing of things and started to wear it. I started reading my Fitbit dashboard on the Internet and I kept it on me for my workouts. Below is an example of my dashboard.

(BTW I have since found out that there are on average 10 steps in a flight of stairs – in case you were wondering)

Here are two examples of the calorie detail data.

The first sample is of a week day. You can see that I do my work out early (Big up to the 5:45am Club!) and that the red lines show the spike in calories burnt. (warm up and final blast)

This second sample is from the Super Saturday Session of Week 1. Check out these red spikes. Crazy to think each of those spikes was 250 skips with a rope!

On night 3 of having my FitBit I activated the sleep tracker.

After synchronising the data with my computer the following morning – I was now impressed. The sleep tracking reports had me agog!! 

It told me; how quickly I had fallen asleep, how many times I had woken up during the night and of the time I was in bed, how much of it was actual sleep. This was interesting stuff. Take a look at one of my sleep graphs.

I was compelled to do a bit of extra reading about the sleep tracking and how it works. For the sleep tracker to be accurate the Fitbit should be worn on your non-dominant arm (in the wrist pouch that is provided). There are two settings, sensitive and normal.  The sensitive setting will pick up more changes and movement than the normal setting while the sleeping mode is active. Tossing and turning in ones sleep is a sign of restlessness, it suggests that one is not completely resting.  Arm movements are a good indication of how deep or light ones sleep is. The motion sensors in the Fitbit monitors movements and can distinguish between awake and asleep. I wake up on average between 7-9 times a night, I don’t remember every waking, but I have since learned that these wakings can happen in an unconscious state.  

On Thursday evening I put the washing on, put the kids to bed, went into the kitchen and then had a sinking feeling...You know how they say "you don't know what you've got till it's gone"? Well, I realised that I had put my fitbit into the washing machine. I felt ill, already I missed it, I just assumed it was damaged. Nevertheless, I still found myself hurtling down the stairs and stopping the washing machine - there it was, a little wet, but working just fine!

This tiny little piece of technology has been multitasking all the while hanging from my hip. I love it. I don't need a heart rate monitor anymore. (Maybe if I start doing tri-athlons I will need one, but for now, I am so so thrilled with my fitbit, it is perfect for what I need!) 

I downloaded the pictures off my Fitbit dashboard on Fitbit.com

Where Oh Where Have My Boobies Gone...

Where oh where can they be?


Take at look at exhibit A:
This picture was taken on the 31 October 2012. (please don't ask why I have this picture,because I could not say for sure, let us assume that one of my kiddies were playing with my phone that day)

Exhibit A

Now, take a look at exhibit B:
This picture was taken on the 05 February 2013. I can tell you why I have this picture, it is cropped from one of my 'After' pics submitted for the 12wbt Lean and Strong comp.

Exhibit B

Can you see the difference?

I would like to state for the record; the lines making my 'cleavage'  in exhibit B are a little bit of muscle and my boobs are still round (not long as this picture might imply, it is what they call an optical illusion!)

I was compelled to do this 'fun' blog because I have just returned from a bra shop. I have not been into a bra shop for many years, 4 years in June, to be exact. I know this date because will be married for 4 years in June and the last time I went bra shopping was for my honeymoon.

Since then I have been pregnant and\or breastfeeding. In the last 3 months I have lost plenty centimetres off my chest, a direct result of Round 4 2012 of Lean and Strong 12wbt. I have been managing with my old bras, but I knew it was time to go bra shopping when the cup of my old bras do not even touch the flesh of my breast anymore. The cups collapsed under t-shirts and made the contours of my rack look like a a pair of flopped pavlovas. I have gone from a 12C to a 10A.

Previously I would have chosen the plunging neck line to show off my boobs. But now I can wear high neck line tops and dresses and I feel good in them. (Like the dress I wore to the 12wbt Final) I am fairly happy with my new little 'puppies'. I have joked that I may consider a boob job once I know for sure we are not going to have more kids - but to be honest - I don't think I could go under the knife. Is there media pressure to have a nice big set of boobs? I suppose there is. But right now I feel kinda sexy with my perky pair, this could be due to the fact they are new and still a novelty.

I should have taken a pic of them in my new bras - wow - a good bra can do wonders for posture and body shape. If anyone out there is wearing a bra that does not fit and you have a few bucks to go and upgrade, I urge you to do it. When your 'sisters'  are supported and they are comfy, you will carry yourself better and your tops will instantly look and fit better too.


To answer my own question, my boobs have been melted away from lots of fat burning, muscle building workouts!

Food for Thought on Weigh-in Day

Today was weigh-in day for Week 2, Round 1 2013. I was looking forward to doing this weigh-in because I have a new set of Tanita Body Composition scales (one of my wonderful prizes I won in Round 4 2012) which I had not used yet. 

I set it up (i.e. put the batteries in and set the date and time, not all the other personal deets because I have not been on line to check out the Tanita manual), took off my PJ’s and jumped on. I could be forgiven for thinking that there was a problem with my new scales.  It was before 6am and I only had 7h and 12min sleep (according to my new Fitbit, another wonderful prize I won in Round 4 2012, will do a blog on that another time)...I was 1kg down.

I jumped onto my old Kmart scale and it revealed the same number. 

I jumped back on my new scale and the number was unchanged. 

I had lost 1kg in 1 week. This shocked me. 

Never before had I experienced such a dramatic loss in one week during my 12wbt journey (not even during the ‘Getting Ripped’ phase last round). I am supposed to be building muscle and supposed to even put on a bit of weight during this current phase of ‘Hard and Heavy’.

Please don’t get me wrong, I am not disappointed, I am fine with it, I don’t mind...I just wanted to know why? Why this week? If you read my last post JFDI - Good Vibes for Week 2, you will see that  the past weekend I had an icing blowout...something I can’t imagine assisting weight loss, butter cream icing to be exact. 

While I was driving into town this morning, I remembered that another one of my wonderful prizes was the Natures Way Figure protein shake, the Michelle Bridges one.  It states on the label that it  "trims and defines muscle tone", and Michelle is quoted "high protein, low carb".  I started using it last week Friday. Could this have made the difference to my weekly weigh-in?

The protein shake I have previously been using was the Instant Natural Protein from Nature's Way – I chose to use that one because; of the options at my local woollies, it was the one with the least ‘scientific-scary’ ingredients and seemed to have a high protein ratio per serve.  It tasted great and I have really enjoyed it – but perhaps it was also keeping me from any dramatic weight loss. 

This afternoon I took some time to compare the ingredients.  There is green tea in the Figure. So I read up on green tea. It definitely helps with energy expenditure and fat metabolism which means it assists weight loss. It is quite high caffeine.  The fat and energy per serve were similar in both but was astounding to see is that my original shale has 6.5 times more cabs than the Figure and the Figure also has 4.2g more protein per 100g than the original one.

I am considering stopping the Figure for now and sticking to the  Instant Natural Protein for these next muscle building 6 weeks and when it come to the getting ripped phase, I will pull out this 'uba' trimming shake.

Anyways, I thought this was rather interesting. 

BTW my body fat read 18.8% on my Kmart scale and as I have not properly set up my fancy new Tanita scale yet, I don’t know what it would say about that.  I will have to get it ready for next week’s weigh-in.

JFDI - Good Vibes for Week 2

Just thought I would share these 12wbt pics of my kids; sowing some good vibes for Week 2...I needed some positivity to kick off my new weeks training.

When I feel low or slow - I think of these happy little faces saying 'JFDI'.  It usually gives me a smile and a boot in the right direction. I then remind myself that I am on this program because I want to be here, and that usually keeps the momentum going forward!

"JFDI"

"JFDI"

I went to bed last night feeling stuffed - like Christmas turkey. I should state for the record, I usually eat moderately and I don't usually go for desserts and sweet things; I am a starters-and-mains-kind-a-gal as opposed to  a mains-and-dessert-kind-a-gal. (Except for my weakness for certain ice creams :))

We had a delicious pork spit roast at a friends birthday dinner, accompanied by superbly baked veg, coal cooked potatoes and healthy salads, plus a birthday cake...I ate like a king.

But I was surprised my internal conflict between what I would prefer to do and social etiquette. To eat the cake would be polite, but would not be doing what I want for myself. The end result was that I did not have the cake but I still felt guilty for not sharing in the celebrations. (I suspect that the host and hostess were unaware of any of this 'awkwardness' and most probably did not care if I had cake or not) So all and all it was a good result, but it is alarming that my self talk even goes there.

When I got home my self discipline took a turn in the wrong direction.

I had to ice my daughters birthday cakes...I had a few tricky corners to navigate and was constantly scraping the excess icing off to get it just right. Each icing scrap was effortlessly popped into my mouth - It was so soft and sweet and creamy...I was working to a deadline and it was late, I was focused on the cake and not so much on me. Once the cake was done, I was done too. I really did not like the way the butter cream icing made me feel. (You know you have has too much sugar when your tongue hurts) I drank a glass of milk - thought the protein would balance off all the sugar - not sure of my logic, but it did make me feel less gross.

This is not the best way to end a day, but I woke up to a new day and another chance to make it a good one...I started by thinking of my JFDI mascots and headed to the garage (read: my gym) and 60min later, I was done, this time though, it was a super good kind of done.

Hello Kitty - Ballerina Cake

This is Anna’s 3^rd Birthday Cake

Hello Kitty Ballerina

Since October (that is when her brother turned one and her interest in birthdays was reignited), she has asked me to make her a Hello Kitty Ballerina cake for her birthday in ‘fevurrarry’ :) I absolutely love making cakes and have a new found passion for decorating them. Since having my kiddies I have been given the opportunity to release these creative juices.  I have kept this simple and maintained that I would not make a cake that required me to copy a caricature. I believed that the pressure would be too great and if I missed the mark, it will look like a botched attempt. (I guess this just highlights a side of me I forget exists – I can be anally retentive. Anyhoo-hoo, despite my vow not to do a caricature, the request was made and I accepted. 

I was originally going to try and carve the Hello Kitty head and shape it myself, but Hugo (DH) suggested looking for a mould online. I am blessed to have a creative consultant (DH) living with me. I found one and I bought it.

I had to ‘think quick’ on the skirt plan. I had brought some fairy floss to make it with, but when I tested it on the morning, the sugar started to melt within 20mins of being exposed to the air. While tidying up the kids room I saw Anna’s feather bower, I was inspired and I hooked out a hand full to make the skirt! The rest was fairly straight forward. Almond MM’s for the eyes (brown ones painted black with food colouring), almond MM for the nose (bought a few packets to get the right shape and size.) Wand was a goodie bag gift from a friends party and the rest is really just rollout icing.  The big tip I would give to anyone who wants to give this ago, is to slice off the arm – decorate the whole cake, place the accessories and then replace the arm so that the skirt looks like it is continuous and that is because it really is.

Here are the cakes I made to support the Hello Kitty. As big as the Hello Kitty was, my chief potion controller (DH), advised we needed more cake to feed the party. He was right. 

We had an amazing afternoon at the creek – I wish our family from South Africa could have shared it with us.