Monday 27 April 2009

OK so I've been saying I'm "about to start" for the last week or so. And I'm still going to... until tomorrow. I'm cooking all the food right now for tomorrow. So here goes!

Tuesday 21 April 2009

So how amazing is this - remember on Tuesday 14 April I asked for opinions on Ideal Bodies Online? Well who knew that Sue Heintze has a blogspot AND found mine?

I must admit, I'm totally flattered.

Anyway, above the Feedback System outline, I posted "(I had asked how often you check in, etc) and ... well, IMO it's not very impressive. What do you think?".
Sue replied with:

Thanks Erica for mentioning us on your blog! It's unfortunate to read you aren't impressed by the feedback service we offer as it is something we have perfected over the 6 years we have been in business. As you can see from our gallery, the results are really impressive if you are committed to working hard. Perhaps herein lies the problem!! We also have a mentor program if someone feels they need to be in contact all the time but we rarely find that is the case. I wish you well on your body blitz! Work hard and the results will be worth it.

OK, so now I feel like I'm eating humble pie. hehehe

I wrote her an email to which I replied:

Me: "In all honesty, I'd really like something face to face over something online - it's just that face to face can be expensive."

(Caps due to the email format - she wasn't yelling at me ;))
Sue: "THAT'S FINE, WHATEVER SUITS, JUST THAT YOU ENQUIRED ABOUT AN ONLINE FACILITY - THAT'S WHAT WE DO :)"

So, yeah, true.

We also said:

Me: "the results are truly impressive and, you know, I really don't know how your system does it. How can only checking in once every now and then by text really give people the spur on they need to work so hard? I just assume they must have inner determination, which at the moment, I don't have too much of."

Sue: "FEEDBACK COACHES ARE THERE TO KEEP YOU ON TRACK AND MAKE SURE YOU ARE PROGRESSING IN YOUR PROGRAM AND FOLLOWING IT PROPERLY. YOU HAVE OVER LOOKED ONE VERY IMPORTANT ASPECT, AND THAT IS OUR CLIENT FORUM. THERE IS SO MUCH SUPPORT AND ASSISTANCE THERE, WHENEVER YOU NEED IT, FAR MORE THAN YOU WOULD EVER GET FROM A PT OR A WEIGHT LOSS COUNSELLOR 1 X WEEK."

So how's that? :D

I have to say I still don't know how they get the results they do with their system (and I've spoken to other "real" people on other forums that also swear by it) but maybe I'll never know. Or maybe when I don't have to lose so much weight I'll take it up to do the toning. Because right now I probably need to lose about 35kgs.

Oh, my exciting news so far .... I DID BOXERCISE YESTERDAY AND THEN PILATES STRAIGHT AFTER! ... I survived!!!!

I'm barely even sore, too. But, I did do tons of stretching afterwards. My pt was unwell yesterday so I'll be setting up the action plan tomorrow instead, right before I go see Dylan Moran. Excited!

Sunday 19 April 2009

So I'm looking up recipes today and planning on getting back into the kitchen. Unfortunately as much as I like salads, I either can't be bothered making them on the day I want to eat them, or I pre-make them and they go off before I get to them. So, for practicality only, I'm looking at meals that can be totally pre-made (or at least mostly pre-made) and often frozen.

An example to get your appetite excited:

Roasted Asparagus with Lemon Zest and Shaved Parmesan

8-6 asparagus spears
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup parmesan
zest of half a lemon
salt/pepper

Toss asparagus with oil, salt and pepper. Lay out flat in toaster oven and toast on highest setting, making sure they don't burn. Once stalks brown slightly and become tender, remove from heat. Toss with zest and cheese. Enjoy!

One of the things I find often with using recipes from the net is that they're usually American and therefore I don't know all the equivalents. For instance, I don't know what a toaster oven is. If anyone knows the Aussie name for this appliance, please let me know! Otherwise, I'm going to use my grill.

On another note, did you know if you put a tiny bit of cheese cornchip flavouring on the nose of a cat, it starts licking itself like mad with a huge 'smile' on its face? The whole cat ends up wet, content and purring. lol

Friday 17 April 2009

OK, so I did something really silly today........

... I kinda opened my big mouth to my trainer about wanting to do some kind of 12-week body blitz style thing... and you know what? Already she's got me booked in for a boxing class AND a pilates class on Monday. And we're supposed to be meeting up before they start to go over an action plan, food and to discuss how much time I can allocate to training over the next 12 weeks.

Scared!

Wednesday 15 April 2009

Still thinking about signing up to that training... a friend has agreed with my suspicions that the contact time isn't really that impressive. I wonder how people get such good results? I guess they do it by themselves and just following the instructions. Which is good and all, but I'd rather buy the book which lasts forever.

Anyway, I guess when I really think about it - it's just over half a week's worth of pay. So it's expensive. And I already pay $360 per 12 weeks for my personal trainer.

I'm thinking I will just see how much more I can squeeze out of my trainer. Maybe I'll see if I can give the money to her instead and she can do the weekly checkins and stuff like that. I think she's a really good people reader so at the moment when I just want to cruise along and work out, she does that. If I tell her I want to do a body blitz type thing, I think she'd get really excited and want to do it straight away.

Now I'm excited

Tuesday 14 April 2009

Ok, I've been annoying the idealbodiesonline crew a bit more since I last updated. They sent me a copy of their Feedback Checklist (I had asked how often you check in, etc) and ... well, IMO it's not very impressive. What do you think?

12 WEEK PROGRAM – FEEDBACK CHECKLIST


Here is a running sheet detailing the weeks you are required to submit your feedback email. Please read the 12 Week Program Feedback Requirements & Guidelines you received with this email, before sending through your feedback. Remember, feedback is to be sent only on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.

Please print the following section and place in a prominent position. Check each box after completing and sending your feedback email.

Send your feedback email at the end of the weeks nominated below:

□ Welcome Email
You will receive a welcome email from your Feedback Coach when they receive your program information. You are not required to respond to this email.

□ End of Week 1
Please provide your Feedback Coach with 3 days eating example. You should include everything you have consumed (food and beverage) including the times you ate, using the 3 Days Eating Examples Template provided in your Welcome Email. You will receive the End of Week 1 Checklist from your Coach with your feedback response at end of Week 1

□ End of Week 2
Submit feedback as per the 12 Week Program Feedback Requirements & Guidelines. You do not include eating examples in this email unless your Feedback Coach has specifically requested it.

□ End of Week 4 – is your update due?
Some clients will have an updated program due at the end of Week 4.

Please check the top of your training program to see if you are due for your update. If so, please provide start and current measurements and scale weight, and optional progress photos. You should also provide us with 3 days eating example, as you did at the end of Week 1 and advise your Feedback Coach what you would like to achieve for the remainder of your program. This will help us ascertain any changes that will be required to your updated program/s. Your updated program will be forwarded to you within a few days. In the meantime, continue to follow your current program.

For clients who are not yet due for their updated program, submit feedback as per the 12 Week Program Feedback Requirements & Guidelines.


□ End of Week 6 – is your update due?

Please check the top of your training program to see if you are due for your update. If so, please provide start and current measurements and scale weight, and optional progress photos. You should also provide us with 3 days eating example, as you did at the end of Week 1 and advise your Feedback Coach what you would like to achieve for the remainder of your program. This will help us ascertain any changes that will be required to your updated program/s. Your updated program will be forwarded to you within a few days. In the meantime, continue to follow your current program.

For clients who obtained an update at the end of Week 4, submit feedback as per the 12 Week Program Feedback Requirements & Guidelines.

□ End of Week 8
Submit feedback as per the 12 Week Program Feedback Requirements & Guidelines.

We have a Photo Shoot Preparation guide available in the Library if you would like to look your best for after photos. This is when you should start perusing this document to familiarize yourself with the instructions. We recommend you begin to look for a professional photographer at this point, if you are entering the Body Blitz or New You competitions. Even if you don’t feel ‘ready’ for it at this point in time, you will be amazed how you ‘scrub up’ at the end! Professionals can do magic things with lighting and posing which can make you look sensational!

□ End of Week 10
Submit usual feedback, and include any questions you have regarding your final week plan

□ End of Week 12
Provide start and final measurements and scale weight, and after photos when they are ready. This week you will receive an article titled Maintaining Your Results from your Feedback Coach. If you would prefer to have your own personal maintenance program designed, or would like to continue on as an Ideal Bodies Online client (we have many regulars!) please email info~idealbodiesonline.com and we can discuss your personal requirements. We have some great specials for re-signing clients!

Congratulations! You made it!!! Go and buy yourself something nice – you DESERVE it 

Sue Heintze
Managing Director
www.idealbodiesonline.com
Transforming Ordinary, into Extraordinary!

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How can I speed read and even memorize perfectly? - Yahoo Answers

Read this (at your own speed)

1. Raise your speed- comfort level. How comfortable are you speeding in a car? How fast do you have to go before you feel you are “on the edge?” 70 MPH? 90? 120? How about 210 MPH, the speed the Indy car drivers can average? Get the point? Some people have learned to drive faster; their comfort level has been raised. You can do the same thing for reading. Face it, speed-reading isn’t mostly about technique; it is about mind set. Indeed this may be the reason you can play a CD while reading — you are merely driving along at 25MPH. Can you imagine an Indy car driver playing music in the background? No. The driver focuses all his or her skills on the track.
If you are out for a Sunday afternoon stroll in your book, then ignore this. But if you are serious about becoming a speed-reader, then start expecting more of yourself.

2. See the book as a mine full of ORE not GOLD. Books offer wonderful gold to the prospector. But the reader must sort through tons of ore to find and refine the gold. The speed reader changes mindsets: quits fooling around with the ore and searches for the gold. What is a book anyway? What are words? They are “carriers” of truth, thoughts, ideas, a thesis, information, terms, concepts, notions. One reads a book to get the message, not to obsess on the words. (I’m tempted here to talk about Bible study, but we shall let it pass this time.) Switch your mindset to looking for the gold.

3. Quit Subvocalizing. Most of us learned to read by sounding out the words. The trouble is, most of us never stopped. Sure, maybe we no longer audibly sound them out, or even move our lips, but in our heads we are “reading to ourselves.” We have learned to read by Mouth-and-Ear. To become a speed reader one must discard this habit (or at least reduce it) and adopt the eye-and-mind method. It is mostly a matter of mind set. Instead of acting like the ear (even in one inside your head) is the route to the mind, begin believing that the eye is the gate to the mind. Start drinking in books through your eyes. Let the books pass into the mind directly from the eye, skipping the mouth and ears. Go ahead and start trying it.

4. Use your finger. For most beginning speed-readers this is a shock. They remember reading in grade school with their finger and assume it slows one down. Actually the finger is your pace car. It leads you forward at a speedy pace, and keeps you on focus and avoiding back-skipping. There are several ways to use your finger (or hand) but just try it out for starters. As you improve, buy one of the books on speed-reading and settle on the pattern which works best for you.

5. Break the Back-skip habit. Most of us read along a line of type like this one to get the interpretation of the meaning, but as we read our eyes jump back to dwell on a word we just passed. We do this without knowing it. In fact, probably the only way to discover how many times you back skip is to have someone watch you read and count the eye-darts back. But, unless you have someone you feel pretty comfortable staring you in the face while you read, just trust me – you probably back-skip. How to stop? First confess you do it. Then start recognizing when you do it. Finally when tempted to back-skip, treat the book like a movie — that is, even if you miss something in a
movie, you don’t stop the video and replay it. You just let it flow on through, hoping you’ll make it up later.

6. Use your peripheral vision. Just like you must develop a muscle in the gym, so your mind can be trained to use the eye-gate to take in a broader amount of data. For instance, instead of reading left to right across the lines, pretend there is a line right down the middle of this page and you are following the line. Let your eye take in through peripheral vision the phrases to the right or left. Can you do it? With practice you can train your mind to read on “both sides of the road” even though your eyes are on the center line. To practice this skill most speed readers actually draw lines down pages of a book until they have mastered the skill with an invisible line. Let your mind drink in the information on the page without looking directly at it — just like you “see” the sides of the road when driving an automobile.

7. Learn to read KEY WORDS. 40-60% of the words on a page are neither critical nor important. Indeed, if someone took white-out and hid them from your sight, you could still figure out what the paragraph was communicating. So, it stands to reason that if you could figure out which are these KEY WORDS you could scan past the other words and let your mind fill in the blank. Train your mind to find these key words and you’ll add even more speed to your reading.

8. Eliminate “Bus Stops” (Eye rests). As your eyes read down this line they stop periodically and “rest” on a word. Children’s eyes often rest on every single word.

Monday 13 April 2009

Thanks guys :)

Although I like the colour scheme, the graphic art on the wall would be a bit too much for me... a bit too permanent. I wouldn't mind a giant wall hanging with something like that on it though. Great to hear you all love the bed/seat thingy. I'll have to do a bit of searching for one now.

As for me, I'm doing ok. I haven't yet but I'm looking around for some sort of weight loss program that requires accountability. I think ... no, I know that's the reason Jenny Craig worked so well for me. The higher BP, the (non-permanent thank goodness) liver damage, the messed up menstruation and the constant cravings and feelings of ummm what's the opposite of 'inner peace'? Anyway, all that was easy to get through and ignore if I was diligently working towards something specific. I'm looking for that again.

idealbodies.com.au are having a $100 off special at the moment. The only thing I worry about is following their nutritional advice is part of the program - so I've emailed them to find out if they are low-fat or low-carb, etc.

Will let you know how it goes. I might not even do it. Ideally I'd like to find some sort of checkin point face-to-face and follow SBD while doing it. Fingers crossed!

My star reading for today:
You now have a very clear insight into a complicated situation. You can see exactly what's going on and you're sure you know why. It also seems obvious, to you, what needs to happen next. The trouble is, other people in your world are not blessed with a similar amount of perspicacity. Nor is it simply the case that they are unsure or doubtful. They feel convinced that their own, very different view, is correct. Without engaging in any conflict or argument that can be avoided, you should be firm this week. Cainer.

Ohhh did I remember to tell people my birthday just happened? Well, it was a week ago - I'm now officially 27. I'm also not one that handles ageing gracefully, unfortunately, but I'm working on it. ;)

UPDATE: Idealbodies got back to me, and on a public holiday too! She said they design the program depending on your body and what you, personally like. She said personally she likes around 30% fat and moderate carb so that sounds promising.

Now I don't know though, it's a lot of money but I'd really like some sort of accountability to keep me on track....

Saturday 11 April 2009

So what do you think of that picture? I'm thinking of putting something like that in my soon-to-be study, so it can double as a guest room if people stay. I'm not blessed like people are on TV with a whole spare bedroom to keep empty permanently for guests, so what do you think as a compromise?

Went to the gym today, feeling good :)

Haven't done much in the way of SBD (book hasn't arrived yet) or their website today. Been re-arranging my room.

Happy Easter for tomorrow everyone!

Friday 10 April 2009

Awwww aren't you guys lovely? Thanks heaps for all the welcome backs!

I've been doing a lot on the SBD website before it runs out, I seriously love the recipe/food planner thingy they have.

For those that haven't used it, you click on your day of choice (ie. Today, Saturday, Sunday, etc) and it spits out a Breakfast, Morning Tea, Lunch, Afternoon Tea, Dinner and Dessert menu for you. You can either print this menu just as names or you can choose to print it with all the recipes included. If you don't like something (like I don't like anything with mayo or turkey) you can switch that one. Click on it and it takes you to a list of suitable meals (I'm guessing with similar cal/carb/prot counts) and you can exchange it. THEN when you've completed your day or days of choice, you click on Shopping List and it takes you to a total listing of all the ingredients separated into food ailes in the supermarket. On this list, you then untick any of the tick boxes for ingredients you already have (eg. pepper) and print the remaining items.

Isn't that just a stroke of brilliance? I love it!

It's not worth $5 a week though, and the fact you have to call a toll-free USA number to cancel isn't a subscription I want to get myself involved in. A) I'd have to time the time difference and B) toll-free numbers have never worked from overseas to my knowledge. I just don't like it, it's too forceful for me.

So that's what I'm working on now. I'm still sick and there's a Grand Designs marathon on TV so I'll be busy for the rest of the day.

Have a good one all!

Wednesday 8 April 2009

Well I often use an Aussie weight loss forum site too (just that it's low-fat based unfortunately) and I posted there about anyone having a spare SBD book they didn't want anymore. What luck! Not only did I get a person that would like to send me the book, but she sent it to me for free (said it was her good deed for the day) AND another lovely person has a paid subscription to their site until July or something and doesn't use it anymore. She gave me her login and the site looks fantastic. How great is that? *big smiles*

Thanks heaps Sadekat for the offer of the book, but I (hopefully) wont need it. Just depends on whether the books arrives as she said. I'll find out tomorrow or on Tuesday - darn Easter public holidays delaying the mail. Ruins my WebFlicks stuff too hehehe

I didn't know your husband runs a second hand book shop though. Is there an online catalogue or something? I'm also after the book Weevils in the Flour which has a few release dates... I think sometime in the 70s, again in the 80s and one more recently again. I'd be happy with any of those release dates if you have it.

So the plan is to learn all the SBD stuff, use the Shopping List on the site to go shopping this weekend, do a bit of cooking and then be on plan from Tues. Sound ok? ;)

Tuesday 7 April 2009

I kinda wish this were a normal blog and not a menus blog. Is it possible to change it? I don't feel like posting my foods anymore ... well, at least for the moment. I'm working on personal growth right now and I'd much prefer to write about it here if I'm able.

I'm thinking of giving South Beach Diet a go, just looking for a place to get the book with reasonable shipping charges to Aust.