I Could Drink A Case Of You

I am loving Canada, it really is a beautiful country. When I try to write about it, I keep saying: spectacular, beautiful, magical... but it doesn't come close to describing it!

I have quickly uploaded a few photos of my trip so far, they are all out of order because blogger won't let me move them, but it doesn't really matter.

Please note that I am wearing the same jacket in every photo, it has been really freaking cold and it's the only jacket I have. I do have other clothes, I swear...

I will put together a travel blog soon so that I can fill you all in properly on everything that has been happening, there is too much for me to even start here!

Me, AJ, Ash and Connie in the Rockies

Bear country... terrifying...

The Rockies

Big horned sheep on the road

Fucking freezing at the Rockies

Lake Louise, frozen over!

Connie with the horses on our sleigh ride

Me and AJ on a sleigh ride at Lake Louise

Me experiencing snow for the first time ever

Connie cleaning off her massive truck before we head off

Me at Bunzen Lake looking stuffed

AJ at Bunzen Lake

Me with a deer in the back yard

Me in Banff wearing my new Vancouver jumper, that is too small, but I am trying to stretch it out...

Me and AJ at Chilliwack River

Me and Juanita tasting the brews at Granville Island brewary

AJ was falling off a rock and instead of helping him, I got the camera to take this photo of him completely stuck doing the splits on top of a rock

Me being an idiot at Capilano suspension bridge

AJ blending into the scenery at Capilano suspension bridge

A cute baby squirrel

Me at Capilano suspension bridge

AJ at Vancouver totem poles

AJ about to be attacked by Canadian geese, I decided to take the photo, rather than tell him they were coming

Bunzen Lake

Me trying to work out what to do next in a Whitespot in Vancouver

Incoherent

I have been in Vancouver over the last week and tomorrow I head off to Banff to see my other brother for the week. I am still struggling with jet lag and being awake half the night, when it is evening in Australia, and then wanting to die come morning time and I should be getting up. Who cares about jet lag thought because I am having a brilliant time.

I have been keeping some notes of the things I have been doing and was thinking of posting them in a blog, so I can just link to there and not bother with writing it all twice. The notes I have been keeping (just in Word) are not extremely coherent or interesting at all, sort of like that essay you write in primary school about what you did on the summer holidays, but I might post them in case anyone is interested. There has been a sort of freedom in writing and knowing no one was reading, but at the same time, it is great to share these things with your friends.

I'll update with pictures and more details soon, but AJ is in charge of all things camera and I'm not even sure how to plug the stupid thing into the computer to be honest. I've got a lot to say about food, diet, eating and exercise (don't I always), but my mind changes from one minute to the next on how I feel. One thing is for sure, I better get my mind straight soon, otherwise I'll have a suitcase full of clothes that won't fit me...

Vancouver Town

Writing to you from freezing cold Vancouver where I  am loving wearing my jacket after the hot Melbourne weather.

Not sure I have accepted that I no longer work for my company, I have been more excited about a long weekend in the past and now all of a sudden I don't work there anymore and it hasn't sunk in. Of course now I miss all the girls I work with desperately and want to call them and see what is happening over the last 24 hours.

AJ took a photo of me on my last day of work wearing casual clothes for the first time ever, which is so unlike me at work. So this is me trying to be casual for work...

Then this is AJ and me on the Auckland - Vancouver leg of our trip...

This is now me at my brother and his girlfriend's place in Vancouver tonight after some wine and Wii tonight. I have come over with a bad cold and look like I am on my death bed, which always happens when I leave a job or go on holidays, so I'm not surprised, but I look freaking awful. I hope I get myself together soon and realise my life is about more than work.

Year Of The Tiger

My dad sent me the following extract from a gym newsletter a few weeks ago and I didn't bother to read it because, yawn, who wants to read boring extracts of text people send you? Then a couple of days ago I noticed it in my inbox and thought I'd have a look, just to be polite, you know. Funny how you find things right when you need to...


Chinese Year of the Tiger
As you may well remember, 2009, the year of the Ox, was all about patience, plodding on, carrying your load without complaint and not challenging the status quo – generally just plain old hard work. As of the new moon on February 14th, 2010 will be the year of the Yang Metal Tiger, a year that could be filled with intensity, change, travel, and challenge. People born in a Tiger year  are said to be passionate, competitive, charismatic, proud, energetic, and very courageous. But let's go a little deeper. The Yang aspect of the Yang Metal Tiger brings out the masculine qualities of the Tiger and the Metal aspect adds steely resolve and determination. All our hard work in 2009 will help prepare us for the unpredictablity of 2010, a time to challenge the establishment. A good use for the Yang Metal Tiger energy is to examine stagnant parts in your life and get things moving, but it's just as important to stay grounded and take care to keep your core beliefs in sight, choose your battles carefully and act with maturity and wisdom. So get ready to move quickly and pounce on opportunities, remembering that “fortune favours the brave...”


I had my last day of work today and I leave tomorrow morning for Canada, USA and Mexico for 3 months. I have to admit that I am more nervous than I thought I would be, change can be hard, but I know I made the right decision. Right?


Now I better go and eliminate half of what I have packed in my suitcase to make room for all the shopping! 

Cold Feet

Wow. I have been super busy over the past few weeks packing up my house and moving everything into storage, cleaning the house and planning my trip. I moved into a hotel in South Yarra on Friday night while I finished cleaning the house out and I have been loving being back in the city. I thought I hated living out in the suburbs, but now I know just how much I really did hate it after spending a few days eating and drinking in the bars here, catching up with friends, window shopping and walking in the parks of this gorgeous city. I am having so much fun that I almost don't want to leave. Almost.

I am torn between being unbelievably stressed about work and having moments of clarity when I realise I am leaving in 3 days and there isn't much more I can do now. It is so weird to think that I made this job my life for the past 2 and a half years and now I am leaving and the world will keep turning. It's somewhat easier to walk away when I remember they aren't paying me out my $6500 bonus that I am owed...

I am getting cold feet a little bit now. The idea of having no job, no house and no money is slightly scary. I am also nervous about being away from home for so long, I have never been away for more than a month at a time and my mum and gran are both sick and I feel awful leaving them when they don't have anyone else around to look after them. My gran is in a nursing home, but if I don't visit her, no one else will and I hate that thought. Then the other day I overheard another patient at the nursing home saying something awful to her because they think because she has dementia she doesn't understand anything. So that has been breaking my heart in two all week. My mum has pneumonia and is very sick but won't go to hospital because she is stubborn and hates hospitals so I am terrified she is just going to stop breathing and there is no one around to help her. Everyone says that I just need to do something for myself and not let anything hold me back, but the reality isn't quite that easy.

OK, I have to take a deep breath myself and just try and deal with one thing at a time and get excited that I'll be in Vancouver on Friday and in Whistler for the weekend- lucky I bought an awesome winter jacket to keep me looking cute in the snow!

My Body Is A Onderland

I was reading Girl Bandit's blog the other day and she posted that she had hit onderland 'Aussie Style' at 90.6 kilos, which made me realise, that I must be about there too. Obviously I have never used pounds as a weight measurement because we use kilos in Australia and so pounds don't mean much to me, but who am I to miss a reason to celebrate?

I jumped on the scale to see 90.1 kilos and then got out my calculator to do the math and I am now officially in onderland too at 198.2 lbs! I stupidly told AJ and he has been teasing me non-stop for using the word 'onderland', I must read way too many blogs and I forgot that to non-weight loss bloggers, it is kind of an odd thing to say. Just like the time I used the word 'bandit' when referring to having a lap band and he teases mercilessly about that too...

Oh and yes, you may have noticed I have had a 2 kilo drop in weight this week since I weighed in on Monday. I have got to learn to stop being so dramatic when my weight doesn't move and trust that if I am doing the right thing, the scales will move... eventually...

Cleansing

I am moving all my stuff into storage this Saturday in preparation for my big holiday in a couple of weeks. So I have been frantically trying to pack everything up in the evenings after work, but I have been avoiding one particular area... my wardrobe. I have quite a large walk in closet and so it has been easy to avoid making any sense of the mountains of clothes I have that are now mostly either too big or too small.

I spent a few hours sorting all my clothes into piles of too big, fits now, will fit soon, too small, clothes I have borrowed that I need to give back and clothes that are worn out and have to be chucked. My bedroom looked like a clothes bomb had gone off in it, which is distressing enough for a neat freak like me, but sorting these clothes was the truly distressing part.

After a few hours I felt drained and I went into the lounge room and decided I needed a break and would watch one of the shows taped on my IQ planner and for some reason clicked on an episode of Ruby I had saved. I couldn't believe it when it was the episode where she decides to clean out her wardrobe after losing hundreds of pounds. I sat there watching her go through all the emotions I was feeling, but didn't want to admit to because I didn't understand why I was feeling this way. Shouldn't I be happy that I have lost enough weight so that I no longer need my size 24 and 26 clothes?

I've mentioned that in the past when I have lost weight I couldn't be happier to toss aside my fat clothes and start wearing smaller sizes, but this time I feel differently. I have so much fear and anxiety about regaining the weight and also about losing the person I used to be. I thought I hated the person I was at 130 kilos, but that person is still me and I feel like I am leaving a piece of myself behind if I move on.

My bigger clothes felt like my friends and they got me through so many tough times, that top I wore to every social event for the last 6 months... the trusty black pants I wore to work every day... my comfortable old bra that is now grey instead of white... the dress that made me feel beautiful... I know I have to move on but I need a little time to grieve as well. Maybe a shopping trip will help the grieving process!

March Weigh In

There is probably a rule (or there should be) that you don't blog when you're in a bad mood (just like you shouldn't text or facebook when you're drunk), but it is my monthly weigh day and so I want to record my results-- good or bad.

March 1st Weigh In: 92.2 kilos (202.8 lbs)
Weight Lost In February: 1.9 kilos (4 lbs)
Total Weight Lost: 37.5 kilos (82.5 lbs)

I was hoping to lose 4 kilos this month, but I only manged to lose 1.9 kilos and it means that I am nowhere near my weight loss goals for my trip this month. I was at least a kilo lighter a couple of weeks ago, but that loss seems to have disappeared.

I worked harder than I ever have this month to lose weight because I was crazy busy at work. So that meant squeezing in my work outs late at night or very early in the morning and often the only time I wasn't at work, was when I was at the gym. Unfortunately, I also ate at least half my meals out due to work committments, which means that even though I made good choices, it was still higher in fat, calories and carbs than I would prepare at home. I ate so much freaking grilled fish at fancy restaurants this month that if I see another piece of grilled fish I'll vomit.

Oh well, that is life and that is one of the reasons I have made changes in my life so that I won't have to work hours like this anymore or have to eat out so often. I just need to remember that I'll be on a beach in Mexico soon!

I did also go and see my lap band doctor today to have a little bit of fill removed from my band to make it more comfortable when I travel this month. I had 5.2 mls and they took it back to 4.8 mls (my band hold 6-8 mls) so that I still have some restriction, but I won't necessarily have so many problems with food getting stuck. The last thing I want on my holiday is to take an unscheduled tour of the public bathrooms in Canada, USA and Mexico!