Alive and (kinda) well

Well, I haven't been active on dA in about a month! I'm still around. I check my messages but that's about the extent of my activity lately. I guess life just got busy for me, and life is obviously more important so naturally dA took a back seat. I'm sure I'll continue to be busy for a while still as well.

A variety of things have been keeping me busy. Work, projects and a lifestyle change. At the beginning of last week I started a new journey of losing some weight and improving my fitness. Last year I went through a stressful period and lost a bit of weight, but within a year I put it all back on and then some x2. I ended up gaining about 20kg/44lbs and ended up weighing my most ever, well into the range of being "overweight". As someone who is in a family (immediate and extended) that has a problem with weight and health issues, it's something that I felt I needed to get on top of before it got to a point that was hard to reverse.

So last week, I started a calorie deficit. Counting calories isn't the easiest thing and as someone who likes to eat, and eat a lot of junk, it was a struggle to get it started. But once in a day or two, I found it's pretty easy as long as I track the calories as carefully as I can. I'm also finally reaching some of the nutrient intakes I was always struggling with (iron and protein mostly) and the saturated fat going into my body has dropped. I'm actually eating more now, but just eating better foods. I don't eat chocolate hardly at all now, which is pretty amazing coming from someone who ate at least a twin Snickers daily.

Is it working out for me? HELL YEAH! In about 2 weeks I've managed to lose 1.3kg (3lbs) and I've also lost almost 2 inches off my waist, and an inch or so off of most of my other measurements. Unfortunately, on Sunday I got sick, sore throat etc so haven't been able to exercise quite as much as I would like to. I was better on Wednesday and then got sick again yesterday with what I'm pretty sure is a chest infection. Having read up about it though, respiratory infections are common when people initially start to exercise more and especially when trying to lose weight. So hopefully after this week it will be back to normal. Having said that though, I have been around a lot of sickies, which is unavoidable in my job (boarding school - and I also clean the health clinic. Talk about being in the perfect place to pick up stuff). The flu, cold and also whooping cough (YEEEEEEK!) has been going around so I'm pretty sure I got it from there (my mum and boss both had suspected whooping cough, though came back negative in their tests phew). I'm feeling a bit better today though.

So yes, it has been a bit up and down for me lately... but as they say, onwards and upwards! I'm keeping a record over at my new blog (oh yeah, did I mention I have a new blog? I guess I am mentioning it now!). It's a mixed blog.. just a place to share my thoughts about various things. I haven't yet got quite into the swing of it but I have some posts lined up for it that is away from my health stuff.

Now I'm just rambling. But I am alive... and those that have been expecting a reply from me will now know I've been busy!