Week 7, Improving !

Many people ask me where I am getting the motivation to keep pushing on. After 7 weeks of no booze, healthy eating and serious training I feel it is only getting easier. Back at the start of my 12WBT I lit the healthy fire in the belly by setting goals and making promises to myself to see this thing out. I told myself that no matter what is happening and how I am feeling I WILL complete all my training sessions and I WONT give in to the desire to splurge on crappy foods. I am an all or nothing kind of guy. Some people say that its a little extreme but thats just who I am and how I work. Losing weight and getting fit is like a very serious maths equation and if you don't do your homework and study you won't get the right answer, especially if your like me who dropped mathematics after year 10. If I was to give advice to anyone thinking about starting something like this I would say "Want it, want it more than you have wanted anything else in the world. Make it the number one focus in your life and let it consume you. Take every training session by the horns and wrestle that bull all the way to the floor. This is your life, live it to its fullest." Phil from Hexey, one of my many motivators on this road to a better me told me about this motivating video he had watched. Its one of the best things I have seen and really got me thinking. Take 5 minutes out of your life to check this out. How bad do you want it?

Another huge part of my motivation is seeing improvements. The feeling of any improvement, wether it be big or small is like a high that no one can take away from you. Its a natural high that can only come from hard work and dedication. Over the last 7 weeks I have watched myself lose fat (7kgs), lift more weight, swim more laps, faster and just in general be able move my body in a more strong, comfortable and controlled direction than I ever have in my life and it feels fantastic. It's a high that money can't buy and you only want more. I said I was going to start to step it up and I feel I have. For example, this week I got to Swim squad 30mins early and swam an extra 300m of Freestyle drills. I haven't got the best stroke in the world and Steve (my swim coach) is doing his best to try and help me adjust it. I figure if he is trying to help me then I owe it to him to try and help myself also.


Another thing I have noticed over the last 4 weeks was my weight loss after eating Hexey. It has almost tripled and my energy levels have gone through the roof. To be honest, right from the start I was doing my very best to follow the 12WBT nutrition plan to the very last spinach leaf but as my training increased and due to warm weather my work got more intense it just became physically impossible. Its not that its hard to do its just that I needed to find the time and I wasn't because I like to fill my day to the fullest. My problems started at about the week 3 mark when I was time poor and replacing what should have been healthy home cooked Mish Bridges meals with take away meals. Over that next 2 weeks I only made weight losses of 0.2 of a kilo. They were still improvements but i knew after all the work I was putting in I could of had more. At the 5 week mark I found Hexey and began trying their food for some lunches and dinners as well as incorporating Mish's home cooked 12WBT meals when I could. In those last 2 weeks I have dropped 0.7kgs each week, averaging about 6 hours sleep at night (with a nana nap during the day if time permits) and feeling bloody fantastic. I really think I have found a winning combination at the moment and its driving me to want to push myself harder and faster for the back end of this challenge.

Hexey's Maple Atlantic Salmon = Amazing

As far as I'm concerned, Saturday is the best of the week. I spend every other day just looking forward to the next one! Most days I wake at 4:15am for work so this Saturday I had a sleep in and didn't get out of bed till 5:30am. I headed down to the beach to take the dog for a walk and wasn't it worth it, Bondi was glowing. I love my Saturday mornings walking the dog, its our time to bond and enjoy the world without all the hustle and bustle of tourists that Bondi is famous for.

Bondi, Saturday 29th October @ 6am = Bliss

After a serious ball throwing and burying session with my 4 legged, fury best mate I headed up to my usual Shift60 Full Throttle session. We had a really good gang up there with Loz from Body Science, Phil from Hexey Foods, my girl friend Jessie-Anne and Chappo from the lifeguards. Its so much fun training with a group of friends in such and electric atmosphere that Shift60 provides. Combine that with serious "get you in the mood music" and "fundamental physical conditioning" you've got yourself an excellent workout.


Half an hour after being home and showered Jessie-Anne and I were packing the car with towels, wetsuits, healthy snacks and a dog. We were headed 1.5 hours North West of Sydney to a beautiful little spot on the Hawksbury River called Wisemans Ferry, home of Sydney Ski School. Sydney Ski School is run by an awesome fella named Bill who has been water skiing these parts since he was knee high to a grass hopper. We arrived to find Bill anchored of the beach, in his "top of the line" Ski Nautique boat ready and waiting for us to get out there and have some fun. The weather was fine, the water was like glass and I am pretty sure we saw 1 other boat on the river. A Water Skiers Dream ! My history is Water Skiing goes back to when I was very young. We had a holiday place on the Hawksbury River for most of my young life, it's where my sisters and I spent most of our childhood weekends playing in the mud and learning to water ski and wake board. My fondest memory up there was going on my dads shoulders while he skied, he could jump the wake with me hanging on for grim death. Sometime's I wouldn't know where to grab on and cover his eyes by accident! 
Today I was really excited for Jessie-Anne coming water skiing with me, it really is so much fun and knowing how athletic she is I had a good feeling she would pick it up quite easily. I was so proud of her. Bill was such a great instructor, fantastic host and just all round good guy. He really ensured we had the time of our lives. Now the only thing with water skiing is because you are having so much fun you don't realise the serious all over body workout you are getting till later. Jessie-Anne and I came off reasonably okay but I put that down to the serious training we have been doing lately, anyone else thinking about taking it on without prior training or physical fitness, just make sure you have a light stretch before and a really good stretch after or your gonna feel it the next day. Either way its well worth it, Jessie-Anne and I have been grinning from ear to ear ever since :) Check out the action below:

Thanks to my beautiful mother Trish, below are some shots of me as a whipper snapper !

Me on Dad's shoulders

Learning the board

Moving on to 2 ski's

Learning to drop a ski

And finally getting onto 1 ski with my big sister

I realised that I forgot to put the stack I had in the first youtube video. After putting so many of Jessie-Annes stacks on here I thought it was only fair that you can laugh at me also.

After a day like that you couldn't think it could get any better, but it did. We arrived back in sunny Sydney at around 5:00pm which meant we still had 3 more hours of day light. Can you think of a better way than to spend a lazy late Saturday afternoon than out on the rocks at North Bondi having a swim in the ocean and getting some vitamin D, I can't ! 

Sundays are meant to be rest day but I find it really hard, how can you sit down and do nothing when the sun is shining and there is so much life to live? Unfortunately its been scientifically proven that your tired and torn muscles need time to rest and repair for them to keep working at 100% so as hard as it is today, I took that advice and had a sleep in followed by a lazy walk with the dog.

After lunch I had to shoot down to Bondi for a photo with a giant moustache that's been built on the beach. Some of us lifeguard boys are helping out with a great cause called MOVEMBER. Its all about raising funds and awareness to Prostate Cancer and Depression, both very serious diseases amongst Australian men and something that touched my life when my dad had to have his prostate removed after doctors found traces of cancer in it when I was in my early teens. Im not sure if anyone has noticed but I have had this thing growing on my top lip for the past 3 weeks, they asked us if we could have one for the photo. I personally don't think it suits me but its all for a great cause and I'm more than happy to help out.

Just like to say a big "Thank You" to everyone thats left comments on my blog so far. I do read them and appreciate the time you take to write them. Much love :)

Hope everyone has a great week.

RIP IN !

Reidy :)