Live Life Healthy - Weekly Thursday Check In #1

57.6 kg. I thought I would go down to 57.4 or 57.2 but I am still at 57.6 for the past two days. I know it’s because although I have maintained my eating habits, I did not exercise for these past three days. Exercising everyday and getting my metabolism running is what is causing me to lose weight. Eating well, maintains my health and weight.

I did treat myself today for losing a kilo by eating a normal lunch aka heavy lunch. Instead of one paratha, I had two and also had some Guava juice. I felt heavy and stuffy because for the past week I have been eating just one roti per meal and eating home cooked dals and salads and the canteen food did not suit me with all the oil and masala’s.

My resolution this week therefore, is to eat home cooked food. Stick to my smaller portions and exercise! Exercise get’s me the results. I plan to exercise both morning and evening before and after I come from office. I do want to aim at 1.5 kgs for the coming week. Therefore, next Thursday, when I check in, I hope to be 56 KGS, which would be awesome!!

Live Life Healthy - Check In

It’s Tuesday and I am already down to 57.6 KG. Honestly, it’s not been hard to lose the weight at all. I have set myself a healthy weight loss and I am eating, in small portions and I even ate sweets! I made myself some Rasagulla Ice cream dessert and one more is left. I am constantly telling my mind that “I am not starving, I am eating everything, and everything healthy and also treating myself. I am approximately counting my calories but not a fanatic about them. No rice, as honestly, there is none at home and I have atta aka wheat flour so I am making myself chapati’s and dal’s and salads AND of course, I am eating smaller portions. I think eating smaller portions is what is working for me. I have also exercised – boot camp, quick burn or simple jogging and stretching to keep my metabolism up and running. Best of all – I don’t feel deprived!! I find myself healthier and happier.

Getting up early is still a challenge but I know I am going to do it. I think in another week or two, I am going to be an early bird. I hope so and I want to be an early bird not just Mon-Fri, but Sun-Sat. I want this as a permanent lifestyle change.

I do see myself succeeding and may be even achieving my goal before time. The one thing I am concerned about is something called the ‘Plateau’. This is where you reach a point where, even though you are continuing your weight loss program but you won’t lose weight. You go flat. I also know that if you change your program a bit, you can break the plateau. Anyways, let’s see if that happens to me. For me, the simple rules work. If I eat, I gain. If I don’t and work out, I lose weight. I hope the equations stays intact and I reach my goal of 52.5 by end of June!

Live Life Healthy - Take Two

Around the end of February, I had started the live life healthy program which was intended to be a 90-day lose weight, eat well, live healthy initiative of mine to get in shape and ready for Act II. Needless to say, I gave up within 10 days. What bothered me was that I couldn't control my sleeping habits and woke up much later in the day. (My work starts at 11:00 am so I have the luxury to do so). However, the frustration got to me and well, the rest is history.

People who have known you since college meet you and say "What! you have become so fat!", "You have put on!". Honestly, buddy, I am going to scream if someone says that again. There is a certain relative who is definitely fatter than me but always makes sure that is her greeting sentence. Those who live in a glass house nowadays keep no mirrors for themselves! Yes, I get riled up by my old friends. I like new people who never knew how slim and trim I was and who think I am cute and chubby. New friends are platinum!

The above is the emotional and sensitive me and the sensible me knows that I do have to take care of myself, therefore, I am going to start my Live Life Healthy program again! Like whoever said it, "Try and try again until you succeed". My dad always used to quote this when I was young and struggling with studies.

In a previous post, I mentioned that I got a scale and I must say that the scale has motivated me over the past few days. I check my weight at least twice a day. In the morning and evening. I am going to note down my early morning weights each day and have a check-in weight day once a week, to see how much I have lost week-wise.

I don't have a set plan and really set plans don't work for me. I am going to eat, exercise and develop a routine. I know I will fall many times but I will get up again. Take 2,3,4 but just keep going. For take two I want to keep a mid target date 30th June, which is six weeks from now and I hope to lose six kilos. Let's see, a healthy weight loss of one kg a week with seven days of exercise and activity and eating normal healthy food.

I am going to keep Thursday as my check-in day and so today is Thursday and my weight this morning was 58.5 kg. By end of June, I hope to be 52.5 kg which would be awesome!! However, my ideal weight that I aspire to maintain is 48 kg. I hope to have a second version to go from 52.5 kg to 48 kg later. I was 48 kg in college :/.

So yeah, here I go, six weeks, six kilos.

Charity on the road

When you think you have seen it all or heard it all, you just get surprised once again. I was riding my bike to office and on the way and I saw a three ladies a few yards ahead. Two of them had stopped a guy on his bike and the third one was waving at me to stop. She had a disturbing bossy personality. I thought she needed help, the bike would have stopped working. I knew I wouldn't be able to help if there was a problem. They would need to drag the bike another half a kilometer to a repair shop or take an auto and go to the petrol station in case they had run out of fuel. I just stopped my bike to apologize to her that I wouldn't be able to help.

Before I go on, picture this, I stay at the other end of Bangalore, outside the city. It was once a village but now a few societies have come up and sky rise apartments. The area is therefore, still pretty much a village. You would see cars and bikes mostly during the start and end of day when they commute to office. Otherwise, it's mostly a silent, isolated area. This lady stops me in the middle of the road. The other two ladies are busy talking to the guy on the bike. She 'demands' "Kannada?" I said no. "Hindi?" I said yes. This was happening too fast for me to comprehend anything. She then shows me a laminated photo of an orphanage or something and asks me for a donation. I tell her, "Sorry, I am late for office" and rode off.

As I rode ahead, I simply couldn't believe the foolishness of these women. First of all I don't even know if they were genuine 'chanda' seekers. Secondly, if you are out to get charity, do you stop people driving in the middle of the road in to ask them to donate to your orphanage or school? Really woman, really? You scared me, thinking there was an accident or a problem with your bike only to realize that the other two women were probably harassing the other guy.

What can I say? It happens only in India?

A bag, a scale and a car?

This weekend, after many weekends spent at home, bike riding or in office, I spent it with my family. On Saturday I had a birthday lunch at my cousin's followed by an afternoon spent with my best pal from college and his family and today I went around shopping for a Car, a weighing scale and a bag. How unrelated could these three be?

The car was on my agenda and so was buying something from Bangalore Central as I had the gift coupons from office. The scale was a long intended purchase that got purchased today in search of Bangalore Central. I saw 'Stay Fit' and decided, let me just buy it once and for all. It's like you have a tiny nagging voice telling you out of the blue at all odd hours "I have to buy a scale". Done voice, done.

As far as my car shopping goes, I miss the days when India had limited choices for car. Maruti or Ambassador and that was about it. Now there are just so many that I want to tear my hair! My driving skills - none. I do have a license as I took driving classes but I pretty much need to learn all over again. Ask any Indian, which is the entry car, and it's always Alto. Chide me, but I am following the herd. I have heard good reviews about it, my family is an Alto family and I am joining the gang. It's supposed to be a sturdy, good mileage old aunty car with low maintenance. I am choosing it because of price+mileage+reputation+resale value which is the best compared to all the other cars.

The hand bag is some monacco brand and I shelled out a few rupees on top of my gift coupons. It's leather and it looks good. It was not love at first sight but after comparing prices, it was pretty much the closest I was willing to purchase (the bags that you like will always be twice the amount!). It's a big bag - AGAIN - I know, what do I do? I love big bags.

All in all a fun weekend. Next weekend will be spent doing the paperwork. I am doing it, finally, after procrastinating for nearly two years over buying a car, I am just giving up to the nagging voice inside my head. I look forward to writing my adventures down as I start to learn how to drive a car.

The lessons children teach

My house lock has been acting funny sometimes. The lock is such that you have to turn it the left twice to slide the bar lock from inside the house. The bar lock will at times go into infinite turns and loop and the bar won’t move and open the door. The earlier two times it happened, after a few minutes of turning the lock, it would open. However, today I was not lucky. I turned and twisted for ten minutes before finally giving up and realizing I needed help. I never had problems opening it from the outside using my key. I knew if I could get the neighbors’ to use the key and open my door from the outside, I would be freed.

This time though, I decided to go out in my balcony and take the help of the kids who, having summer holidays at present, play cricket and make lot’s noise in the compound. In fact nowadays, I tell to myself before going to bed “Oh I don’t need to set the alarm, the kids will wake me up” and sure as that, they have been this week. I kind of like it. I like waking up to their screams and howls and joyful expressions when they hit a 4 or a 6 (which would be some defined block building in my apartment complex)

I go out in the balcony and say “Hello!”, “Excuse me!” but they are grouped together, sitting on one of the bikes, chatting. “Kids!” and all of them look up. “Can you help me? I am not able to open my door?” Ideally, I would have assumed that one of the kids would have taken the initiative and come up. However, the moment I said that, all of them got up in a flash all excited to help me, the whole group came climbing up to help me. I passed the key through my window to the oldest kid and in a second, he turned in the lock and opened the door. I said thank you with a beaming smile. “Oh Thank God, now I can get going to office.” The kids were a little disappointed. I believe they were looking forward to breaking my door down.

However, today, thanks to them, I had an ‘Aha’ moment. In their innocence and in their ‘Josh’, they ALL came rushing. They were a team. When someone called upon them, they didn’t look at each other and say “Who wants to go and help her?” That is what a work team does. When a task comes in, a work team decides on what is on their plate and then talks on who should go ahead and do it. Is it of course, logical, one has to, because of their schedule and workload, however, the innocence of the children touched me; the enthusiasm and oneness. If we at work do that – “what is this new project?” “Oh this is what it is. I can do that”, another one says,” I can do the other part” and in that oneness, that tasks get’s done. Everyone is in it together. I certainly hope to be one the kids or get my team to be, yet, how? How do we bring back that childlike enthusiasm into our work? I want that. I am looking for that.

Live Life Healthy - Day 9, Tuesday March 6th

Woke up late- 10:00 am although I had slept by 12:00 am but these fluctuating sleep habits is just killing my natural rythme.

Breakfast - Kichri and apple juice
Lunch - Pani puri
Snacks - lots of polo mints
Tea - two cups of tea
Dinner - Grilled chicken, Kichri Kadhi, Sweet, apple/mixed/guava juices (it's getting hot!)

Exercise - nil :( I think I should get any one of these posts to have some exercise. I know two times I succeeded in waking up early, I just need to get started on exercise.