From Flab to Fab

Recently I lost weight, and toned up... I have 3 kids so there was quite a bit of toning in the mid section to be done lol. Anyways, the past week or so I have been getting a few comments about my weight loss (it wasn't dramatic, I wasn't overweight to start with but as you will see in the photos I definitely had some to lose!). All up I have lost about 7kg. People want to know how I did it. So I have decided to write this blog post to tell you how I personally have done it. It's still a work in progress - I don't want to lose any more weight, but I do want to build more lean muscle. Especially in the mid section - it looks fine (good even) when standing, but when sitting, it pushes all the fatty bits back out lol, so I'm still working on it.

And for the first time in years, I bought a bikini. A well fitting one, and I wore it for the first time last weekend, in front of my husband's extended family. It felt a lil weird, but I have to admit, I don't think I looked half bad lol, despite having a VERY indulgent weekend with a lot of bad food and a LOT of alcohol.

This is the picture that sparked it all, the one that it dawned on me I had been putting on weight instead of losing it. I am normally around 60kg, and in this picture I was 66.2kg. A friend took it and posted it on facebook. And I had back rolls. I was horrified. It's the heaviest I had ever been without being pregnant. I wish I took a proper before photo for comparison, as the one in my comparison shots I took a couple of days before I weighed in around 64kg. But here, this is the culprit



Now, you may not think it's bad, but it sparked something in me! I wanted to get back on top of my weight now, rather than putting more on and having more to lose. I estimated my weight was about 65kg, I had been 64kg when I got married in March, and this photo was taken in June. But no, I was 66.2kg. That really shocked and upset me lol so there sparked my desire to lose weight.

So there we have it, excuse the fact I am in a bra (at least it's a pretty one aye! haha). I actually have abs you can feel. You can't *quite* see them yet though, that is what my next goal is, just for kicks!

So how did I do it? The old fashioned way really - diet and exercise. But I didn't "diet" - I still had my treats, I would still eat maccas and muffins and everything - I just moderated what I ate a lot more!

I joined www.myfitnesspal.com - HIGHLY recommend doing so. It's calorie counting made easy. It helped me learn a LOT about what I was putting in my mouth. It makes me think twice about eating all the treats I used to eat. I will still have one or 2, but I no longer will eat 6 or 7 muffins in one sitting like I previously might have lol (gross I know). With using MFP (myfitnesspal) I managed to shed 6kg in 6 weeks - I thought it would be a struggle being that I was already at a healthy (just chubbier) weight. But it was really easy. I wasn't even exercising at that stage.

But then it came time to maintain the weight. That was the tricky part. My weight started fluctuating, I started exercising, and it took many months to balance out to where I am now.

What do I do for exercise? Well I play netball once a week, I always have done that though. Then I came across Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred. I can not recommend this HIGHLY enough. It is only 20 minutes a day, and it gave me my abs. TWENTY MINUTES. Its so easy to find 20 minutes a day! I even did it in the school holidays with all 3 kids around me. Mr 1 likes to pretend hes doing it with me, and Mr4 and Mr7 like to have a go at the video when I'm finished. I have been lent a couple ofher other dvds but they are 40minutes long and so far I haven't been able to find 40 spare minutes. But 20, that's easy.

And then more recently I have realised I really need to step up my cardio, it's the only way I'm going to burn the last of the fat off my stomach. I have been walking/jogging just under 8km 2-3x a week. I wish I could do more, but unless I invested in a treadmill, it's just too hard with the kids.

So there we have it. I will repeat the important 2 things I said here, if you read nothing else, at least read this - www.myfitnesspal.com and Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred.