Regarding my diet,  I eat fewer calories during the day and consume most of them at night.  I have to do this or by the time 9pm comes around, I have intense food cravings.     Although I’m more hungry than usual tonight because I’ve cut my calories down to cut and today was my day off from the gym.

My caloric intake today was 1700 calories.  

Meal 1:  
Protein shake

Meal 2:  
Protein shake, hard boiled egg

Meal 3:  
one rice cake with organic peanut butter and honey, kiwifruit

Meal 4:  
Luna Bar, one cube of cheddar cheese

Meal 5:  
Nice Green leafy salad with sesame seeds, Garbanzo Beans and Apricot stirfry, homemade chocolate amaranth Power Pudding  

Macro breakdown:  
40/30/30 works best for me.  I use calorieking software to track my calories, and I weigh all my food.

Protein: 111g
Fat:  57g
Carb:  207g

Regarding my body fat, I started using one of those bodyfat scales.  I find them to be more accurate than the caliper.  As I weigh myself at the same time of day, I’ve been getting a consistant reading of 20%, which is where I’m at now.  I must question my prior testing with the calipers.    So at present, I’m 57 kilos at 20% bodyfat.  I had a mild set back with gluten, but I haven’t lost an ounce of motivation.  Back to the drawing board!

MY cardio sessions are starting to get more intense.  I take one day a week to do a long run and do HITTS the other two days.  If I don’t lose any bodyfat, I’m going to incorporate another HITT rather than reduce calories.

When I stepped on the scale this morning, I gained one kilo.   I’ve been faithful to my diet, so I was easily able to ascertain the culprit:  I’ve introduced gluten back into my diet.  When I saw one serving wasn’t causing me any problems, I started to take an additional serving of wheat germ.  Two days later, I became constipated.  Gluten is definitely problematic for me, so I stopped the wheat germ and my bloating went down.   This all led to a discussion with my friend  as to how easy it is to gain weight when we avoid problems in our diet.  Oftentimes, we don’t step on the scale because we don’t want to see our weight gain.  It’s easy to continue to avoid the truth by not weighing ourselves at all.  Problem is that one kilo can easily climb to 10 kilos because of our avoidance to deal with reality.   As I don’t lie to myself anymore, I step on the scale and deal with the consequences of my actions.   By not living in denial,  I’m able to make necessary adjustments to my diet.  These changes are not purely cosmetic.  That would never be enough for me.   By eliminating gluten, I was able to rid myself of IBS.  The moment I thought I beat it and reintroduced gluten to my diet,  my body sent me signals that it was the wrong action for me.  

This lesson applies to other aspects of life as well.  My personal mantra has always been “I won’t stop until I conquer my body and mind.”   The first step is I never live in denial of any action or thought that comes my way.  I deal with it no matter how difficult the remedy may be.  Every action I’ve taken to counter whatever problem I’ve faced has always led to better places and situations.   Having a strong attitude not only helped me drop my weight and give me a better body than even in my early twenties when I was a fitness counselor.  It’s  allowed me to take chances such as getting married after knowing my husband for only a few weeks, having children when I didn’t think I wanted them and moving to New Zealand.  These were huge steps for me and some family and friends attempted to talk me out a some of them.  It took every ounce of my strength and conviction to do what I had to do for myself.   Life is still very challenging and my strength is tested daily.  If there’s one lesson I’ve learned is that there is no such thing as certainty.  We must be flexible because circumstances change.  Our ability to turn them into an opportunity depends on our resilience to see it through the confusion.

Yesterday was beach day.   My husband took our girls on the bus, while me and my friend hiked 7K to get there.  Had my feet not ached from standing to watch the beautiful Auckland City Lights the other night, I would’ve walked back.   Evidently my feet don’t like standing for too long.  Walking, I seem to handle with no problem.  Pretty strange!

Since moving to Auckland, I’ve had to adjust my diet as our flat is pretty small…as is our refrigerator.  There isn’t much room for storage, and I don’t have my lovely custard cups to make my protein custards.  Instead, I’ve been making homemade protein bars using oats and buckwheat flour.  I also make amaranth pudding which I have for dessert each evening.    Other than that, I’m hitting the gym three times a week and doing a three week split.  I don’t record anything anymore.  I simply change my reps and rest time each week and make sure each workout is intense.   Will post again soon.

Even though there’s public transport here, I mostly rely on my legs to get around.  I do so much walking, in fact, that I don’t even need any cardio.    I finally bought a scale and haven’t even put on so much as a kilo.  Considering I’m trying to put on muscle,  I’m not so sure that’s a good thing…although I feel and look more muscular.  I’m going to continue mass building, probably until November.

Grocery shopping here can be pretty expensive, but the Asian grocery stores are reasonably priced.  I actually spend less on groceries here than in the states.  

Auckland has made me feel like a child again.  I’ve joined a barbershop chorus and have even decided to return to college.  So far, it’s a toss up between Speech Language Therapy in Massey University and Early Childhood Education in New Zealand Tertiary College.  Hopefully I’ll figure things out soon because I’ll need to apply for a student visa so my girls can also go to school.

Anyway, back to Auckland.  We’re all settling in well here.  It’s pretty odd to experience winter in August, but I’m getting used to it rather quickly.  As we don’t yet have a car, I walk A LOT.  Yesterday, my husband and I joined a gym and I hit the weights today.  I feel great.  I really don’t know my progress weight wise as I haven’t weighed myself since leaving Florida.  But judging by my new profile pic, my lats are starting to look pretty good.  

That’s all for now.  Will check back soon.

Regarding my fitness training, I joined Parisi’s gym here and have been sticking to my routine.  Luckily, my mother is supportive of my eating habits.  When we first arrived here, on the 2nd of July, she had plenty of kefir and cottage cheese waiting for me.    

We’re leaving NJ on the 6th of August and will touch down in Auckland on the 8th of September.  Can’t wait to see what lies ahead.   Regarding gyms, the apartment hotel we’re staying in has a gym and there’s a YMCA under 2 kilometers away.   I’ll be able to get started right away, so I’m happy about that.  I just need to find the local health food stores next.  

Until then…

Diet wise, I’m back to six meals a day on lifting days, although dinner is still my largest meal.  

Here’s my diet from the other day at 1975 calories

Carbs:  212g
protein:  158g
Fat:  55g

Meal 1
Banana
homemade protein bar

Meal 2
kefir/whey shake
carrots

Meal 3
peanut butter on millet bread with some agave nectar
apple

Meal 4 (post workout)
banana and whey shake

Meal 5
kefir/whey shake
Homemade protein cake

Meal 6 (dinner)
Big bowl of steamed broccoli with olive oil
Roasted pepper hummus  melt
banana amaranth pudding

Workout wise, I’m lifting heavy with few reps, but I’m lifting slow…about a 4:4 count.  I felt some pain in my elbow last week after someone assisted me with flies.  Personally, I don’t like negatives because of a higher risk of injury.  Even with my good form, my elbows didn’t like the fact that I was lifting more weight than I can handle on my own.  Perhaps it’s an age thing.  Regardless, I’ve made excellent progress without negatives, so I’m leaving them out of my workout from this point onward.   When I felt the first shot of pain, I immediately stopped my workout because I didn’t want to make the injury worse.   I read on line that tennis elbow comes from a weakness in the forearms, so I started to do some light weight work and stretches for my forearm.  I did notice a weakness in my right arm, which probably was the catalyst for my injury.  So, today I’m going to take it a little easy at the gym.

Don’t let the name fool you.  Everyone can enjoy these tasty veggie burgers.   I came up with these the other night.    They were soooo good, plus they passed both my daughters’ taste test as well.    I prepared them the night before and placed them in a glass casserole dish.   They held together very well.   Make sure not to fuss with them again until after they’re cooked as they can crumble before they’re done.  However, after they’re cooked, they’re good to go.

Nutritional info:   (based on one of ten patties)

Calories:  142
Fat:  3g
Protein: 6g
Carbs:  24 gr
Fiber:  3g
Calcium:  46 mg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray a pan with cooking spray.  

1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
I onion
3 cloves garlic
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons flax meal
6 oz. quinoa
4 packets organic instant oatmeal (unsweetened, and make sure label reads gluten-free)
1 tsp. basil
1 tsp. oregano
2 tsp. garam masala (optional)
1 tsp.  curry (optional)
salt and pepper to taste

-Cook quinoa in three cups water.

-pulse dry ingredients in food processor

-add cooked quinoa and rest of ingredients.  

-Pulse until all blended and chopped.

-Allow to cool

-Shape and place in pre-sprayed pan.

-Bake for 30 minutes or until light golden brown and firm.

You can serve with or without bread.  I melted some provolone cheese on top.  Next time I’m going to try it with feta.

Allow to cool and shaped into patties.