A life of Leisure

I've been trying to figure out why I lost so much weight in a mere 2 weeks in Australia, and why all my previous efforts before we left amounted to nil. Also, how I can continue this wonderful trend and not fall back into any old habits...

I've come to the conclusion that it's a number of factors:

1. I was off coffee for nearly 3 weeks, bar the one good cup from a Very Expensive coffee machine in the hallway at my dad's church. Besides a cut in caffiene (which EVERYONE knows is bad stuff and holds onto fat in the body), I also cut out the vast amounts of creamer I add to a rather large cup each day. Major cut in fat intake!

2. I walked just about everywhere. The parent's house is on 3 levels. Simply going to the toilet is exercise. The driveway is an experiment in fitting a car around a sharp bend on a steep decline to get it into the garage. The church is either reached with a 10-minute drive or via a walk into a gorge and up the other side. As were many interviews etc... I walked Sydney/Manly flat. I walked the mall flat, and SeaWorld, and many many other places. We kayaked and gardened. When we DID go by car, I got a load of exercise clinging white-knuckled to the door handle as dad sped us here and there... :)

3. I ate properly. Mom believes in many things on one plate, not many things in one pot. We ate veggies. We ate fruit. We drank fruit juice and milk and lots of water - there was always a bottle or two in the car. I didn't snack between meals, and I'm still struggling through the single large bar of Cadbury Gold dark choc I bought. I had to share out the RockLea Road I got for Mother's Day, or that would still be hanging around too.

4. I lived differently. There was no temptation to become a couch potato (other than after 7pm when all the good stuff got onto the telly). I was out and about instead of in and without. Places to go, things to see, people to meet and all that.

Now I'm back home and I realize just how sit-still our life here is. Simply because everything is either within strolling distance or you take the car. There's not much to do on campus (other than walking the mountain) that requires effort. The walk to work is brief, and it's too cold/dark/early to get up at 5:30 and re-walk the block for just exercise.

But I am trying actively to change our habits. To eat right, to drink water, to seek physical activity instead of sitting on the butt.

Yesterday I got into the garden and worked, HARD, for 2 1/2 hours. It needed it - we were starting to lose dogs in the lawn. I dug and planted, I cut and mowed, I pulled and weeded. And it felt wonderful. But there's not enough to keep me at it every day. One can only mow grass so many times before reaching root-level.

Then there's my son - he's fallen back into the bad habits of lying around all day and refusing veggies, talking back and demanding slave-service.

And there's the coffee machine - but strangely I seem to have gone off coffee!

I like how I feel now that I'm back. I feel lighter, as if my muscles don't have to work so hard to keep me upright/moving any more. And they don't. 5kg makes a difference to what your legs have to bear. I also feel more confident - and that's got very little to do with weight loss. I've seen a different perspective, I've seen that I can be more and do more and don't have to stay in the rut that's kept me treading a mundane wheel for years. I know more about who I am and what I want, and that's energized me.

I feel new, and I want it to last. But it's really hard to keep active when your job requires an entire day of butt-sitting, and your house doesn't give much opportunity for exercise.