Happy New Year!!!! Bring On 2014!!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas & New Years and brought in 2014 with style. I spent Christmas with my family, well those that are not overseas :). For New Years Dean, Maddie and I went up north to a beach called Mahinepua. We camp on the beach here with a family that Dean has been friends with for many years. It was a wonderful family holiday even without the working toilet and shower :p.

Onto 2014, I have so many things I wish to accomplish throughout my life and wish I could do them all this year but have decided that I need to give myself a chance to complete these goals and if I am unable to complete a goal I may become discouraged and fail the remainder of my goals as I have done in the past.

Here is a list of all my goals for 2014 including my hobbies, lifestyle, family, studies etc

• Do at least 4 fun runs throughout the year
• Fit into a size 14 comfortably.
• Exercise regularly
• Make healthy food choices
• Attempt (and hopefully complete) climbing Mt Kilimanjaro
• Take a photo everyday (this is about me completing Photo A Day through Fat Mum Slim follow my instagram rtob to see my pics)
• Enter at least 2 photos into photography club 1 being of the set subject and 1 into open
• Blog at least once every fortnight on each of my blogs (check out my other blog http://lifeasiknowit2012andbeyond.blogspot.co.nz/ I will be giving it a makeover and starting up my posts again regularly)
• Make at least one item of clothing on my sewing machine
• Learn to knit a basic beanie
• Make time for family fun
• Get into the garden for an hour or more each week
• Keep a cleaning schedule and stick to it
• Stick to the 2014 budget

At the moment these are my goals for 2014. I know it looks like a lot but quite a few of these are in my current lifestyle already I just want to make sure that I keep them up.

I hope you have made a note of your goals and can vision yourself at the end of 2014 celebrating what you have accomplished throughout the year :)

Will post again soon
Rachael xx

Back on track

Wow, it feels like ages since I last wrote a post on here.

Exams are over, YAY!!!! It is now time to relax and concentrate on me for a couple of months before going back to studying.

I have been speaking with a personal trainer who takes one of my classes at the gym and he is looking at creating me a specialised eating plan that will allow me the energy I need to get through the days and also help me to lose weight. Due to my large amounts of exercise I feel tired a lot which means I eat sugary foods to keep my energy levels up, its a vicious cycle really because I tend to have huge highs and then big lows. I look forward to receiving this later this week or early next week :)

In terms of weightloss I do not believe that I have lost anything on the scales however I did go around trying size 16 dresses the other week so the cm's must be coming off which makes me feel really good.

Here is a picture of me wearing one of these dresses at my nanas 75th birthday party

I hope you are all on track and seeing the results you want to see. Christmas is coming so we need to work extra hard over the next couple of weeks to allow for those treats come xmas day.

Rachael xx

Before and during

Its been a month since I took my before photos and as I promised I have taken some progress shots.

Personally I don't see much of a change and my partner didn't take the photos from the same distance as the first time. I do however feel one when I'm wearing my clothes and trying on new ones to buy for summer.

Today I purchased a size 16 dress which was my goal for new years so if I'm really good over the next month and a bit I may even be able to buy a big size 14 on new years eve.

Here is a picture of my front

 

And my left side

Finally my back (can't make it larger sorry)



I hope your goals are going as well as you want them too and that you are enjoying the last few weeks of 2013.

Rachael xx

Sculpt 6k run

Yesterday I picked up my run pack and got ready for today.

Today was the day I have been waiting for.....

Start line

I completed the Sculpt 6k run this morning with a time of 49 minutes and 28 seconds.

The time I wanted to complete it in was 40 minutes but unfortunately it was very hot and I did struggle a little. There where many times that I wanted to stop and walk for a short time and it may have made me faster but I was determined to run the whole race even if it was a slow jog for some of it.

Here is a picture of me after I've completed the run and enjoying a nice coffee.

I hope that if you also did some exercise today you enjoyed it.

Rachael xx

Whoops long time no hear

Sorry about that I have had a very busy and stressful few days with exams coming up and a group presentation that was presented yesterday.

I hope everybody is still on track and enjoying the new lifestyle they have chosen to follow :)

Exercise wise I haven't been very good, since Friday last week all I have done is two runs :/ Unfortunately I have been dealing with a lot of tiredness and headaches so they are keeping me away from the gym in the evenings. The run's I have completed though are big and I have been extremely proud of my time and distance. On Saturday I completed an 8k run in 55 minutes (including 5min warm up) with an average pace of 6.37mins per k. Today I completed a 65 minute run, this was over 9k and was at an average of 6.58min per k. I very much hope to keep this time for Sunday when I complete my 6k run and would like to complete this in 40 minutes.

In terms of food, I am feeling quite good about how my eating is going. In the weekend we did have a big BBQ with friends for guy Fawkes which meant that there was a lot of junk food :(.

Weigh-in on Monday showed no change in weight from my loss last week but I did buy a pair of size 16 jeans on Saturday so I feel like my body must be changing. I look forward to seeing my so far photos on the 22nd of this month.

Again I hope all is going well for you all, as I have exams coming up I may not be around as much in the next couple of weeks but I will try my hardest to update you as much as possible :)

Rachael xx

Update on food

So I thought I'd do a short update on my food as I have complained a couple of times about how my food intake hasn't been very good.

Still I have not been able to get my food under total control but I am feeling a little bit better about my eating. I made it to the middle of the week this week before having a treat or two and I feel like I'm becoming more aware of my triggers for my sneaky treats too.

I am still trying very hard to eat the right foods throughout the day and keeping my exercise up so I'm hoping to see this on the scales this week.

I hope your week is going well so far,
Rachael xx

Vision Board

Today I finally made up my vision board that I have been wanting to do for the last couple of weeks.

Here is a picture:

I was so stoked when putting the board together that I could cross off two kg's as when I weighted myself this morning I was down to 103.6.

Seeing my loss on the scales was great as the past few weeks I have not been seeing anything and its just so hard to keep going when you don't physically see the results.

In terms of exercise I'm very happy with my runs lately as my time has been getting better and better. I hope to be able to reach my first fitness goal of 6k in 40 minutes when I run the Sculpt 6k in two weeks time.

Hopefully you are all on track for your goals, let me know how your going or what is helping you to keep on track.

Rachael xx