My Gasoline Rainbow

Well it's been a few weeks since my last blog and of course the new medication for my underactive thyroid and as per usual some upsets to my routine with weather and family visiting. Last week I didn't do any training at all with Brendan, but still managed to go walking every day including a long 2 hour walk today along the beach which was fantastic considering the weather has kept me inside for the majority of the past week. My last training session with Brendan was Tuesday of last week was one of the hardest so far and in the gym, still focusing on strength training. I definitely enjoy working my legs, and as you can see from the below pic, results are starting to show and i'm rocking i'm killer pins - even if i do say so myself - so it's been really encouraging to finally start to see some results, albeit slow. My biggest challenge, which i'm fully aware of is still my motivation. The irony is, i tell myself i'm dedicated to do this, i bust ...

For those of you that are regular readers of My Gasoline Rainbow, over the past month you may have noticed the missing weekly blogs about my body make over challenge with Brendan Junge from In Motion Health. After 6 weeks of training and healthy eating, I started to get quite concerned as to my slow progress with weight loss, so decided to head to my GP for a check up... After some blood tests, he discovered that my liver wasn't functioning properly due to medications that I was taking and that I had an underactive thyroid - so basicially my body was prohibiting myself from losing weight - great news lol. As a result, I was instructed to reduce my intensity of my "challenge" and take a break to allow my new treatment (liver and thyroid) to take hold which will be about 2-3 months. In the meantime, Brendan has now re-structured my training from focusing on primarily cardio to a weight based plan to help me put on a bit of lean muscle to assist in boost...

It's the end of my first month of training with Brendan Junge from In Motion Health + Fitness and I feel like the penny has dropped. Exercise has never been something that I've enjoyed or really looked forward to which is part of the reason why I've struggled with my weight over the years. I guess I was always "trying too hard", joining gyms and never going, starting diets and never sticking to them.. all because I was doing it for the wrong reasons. Never really LEARNING or UNDERSTANDING what I was doing. Our first session, we did weights which is something I've never really done before. Brendan taught me how to do a Dead Lift,  Front Squat, Clean and Power Press. I felt like Arnie in Pumping Iron!!! (Minus the hundred's of kg of weights of course lol) Our second session consisted of interval sessions of boxing and step ups on a chair bench.  Started off with 10 left, 10 right, boxing, 15 left, 15 right, boxing, then in intervals of 5 up to 25.  ...

3 x medicine balls, 4 x flights of stairs Up she goes lol Yes, i'm actually having fun :) Today was the beginning of week 3 of my body make over challenge and after a rocky week 2 I was ready to get straight back into it with Brendan from In Motion Health + Fitness. After making some MASSIVE changes to my lifestyle during week 1 including my diet and exercise my body didn't seem to react overly well and left me with some excruciating migraines so the exercise took a bit of a backseat until I was able to get things back under control. Brendan had me walking up and down 4 flights of stairs with 3 different weights of medicine balls.  Up one flight, drop the ball, back down again, up again with another ball, back down again and so on with all three balls and with all 4 flights. Then the same and with squats but with each level add a squat... oh it was fun times lol. I even had my own cheer squad with my cat Neo watching from the top landing at the screen door g...

One of the amazing things about living on the Gold Coast is having the water right across the road, it also means that there is no excuse for having an amazing view when exercising... So on our third session yesterday Brendan and I did interval training along the beautiful broadwater near my house as we talked about how things have been going as we approach the end of my first week with him. It's been a massive change to my lifestyle already, integrating exercise and a new healthy eating plan limiting my kilojoule intake but I can feel the differences already, both positive and negative... I've been sleeping better, I'm eating more food which is great, and eating healthier however, due to the fact I've cut out a lot of sugar I've been getting more headaches which hasn't been much fun but the detoxification is a mild sacrifice in the long run. And I can proudly say that it's not quite been 1 week and I've already lost some weight and I'm still...

Today was my second training session with Brendan from In Motion Health + Fitness  and we went through what my daily energy consumption needs to be to get to my goal weight based on eating a minimum of 5 times a day or up to 7 times a day including 3 and 5 meals and 2 and 4 snacks. He was very thorough giving me a breakdown of calories/kj per meal/snack with a weight loss goal of 1kg per week. So now, time to head off to to the supermarket with my profile in hand - who would of thought i'd be one of "those people" checking the nutritional information! I woke up with quite a severe headache this morning (stress), so after going through the above, we still went for a very brisk walk along the broadwater as part of my training. After being relatively sedentary for so long,I think he appreciates the fact that forcing me to go too hard too soon is not going to do anyone any favours. The walk in the sun did me good and after a shower, my headache had subsided enough for...