Life Circle - The Wheel of Life

Are you ready? Off we go. It's going to be one hell of a ride! I hope this week's task was thought-provoking and useful to you. What you have probably found is that one area you're particularly unhappy with can have knock-on effects on other areas of your life, and also, that this exercise provides a focus for your thinking about what you want to change. You already know these things about yourself but they are there in the background. Most of the time, this exercise brings those issues into the foreground and they give a clearer indication of what it is that needs to change first that will have a huge effect on other areas of your life - what they call a quick win, although some solutions are not so quick, I'll admit.

Anyway, here's my Wheel of Life and some comments about the scores I want to talk about. One of my self-imposed rules on this blog is not to talk about my relationship, so I will skip talking about that on here. As I have said before, only share with your blog readers and other Life Circlers what you feel comfortable sharing. Excuse the hamfisted drawing but I wanted to use the same image! The exact scores I've given are below.

Fun and Recreation - 6. I'm generally happy with this area of my life; blogging events seem to provide plenty of opportunities to do things for me. What limits us as a family is money, so I'm sure I'd be happier if we had more disposable income and felt we could treat ourselves every now and then. When your "treat" is a coffee out, you know that you're limited in cash.

Career - 6. I started a business doing VA and business support work about 6 months ago and I've been building up working with one particular client. These last few months have taught me two things: 1) that I love doing it and want to do more but 2) I need to earn more money for the sake of our finances. I need to do more work for my existing client and find some new ones as well. I'd like to use some of the skills I learned in my 22 years in the IT sector, partly because I know that will pay more than the VA work but also to keep my knowledge current. For most of my working life, I loved working in IT - it just became quite family unfriendly when I had the children and with my husband working shifts, childcare would be quite complicated to arrange unless it was fully flexible.

Health - 7. Good but room for improvement. I'm much fitter than I was this time last year, thanks to regular exercise classes. But my goal is to fit into my pre-pregnancy clothes (which are size 12) and I'm still a size 14.  I don't know how to attack this - I seem stuck but I excuse it by saying I'm having a life and not doing faddy crash diets.

Personal Development - 9. I'm actually happy with this area of my life, mainly because I feel like I learn something new every day, whether it be about my work, blogging, or parenting. I don't feel the need to go and get any more qualifications (and anyway, I couldn't afford to take on a course) and I just feel that I have a learning mentality so I will always be looking to learn new things.

Friends and Family - 7.5 I have a good set of friends. I sometimes wish I had a few more friends locally that I could meet up with more regularly for coffee and I feel I am in transition from one set of friends to another with the move to school. I have the odd issue with family that I wouldn't dream of discussing here but they are mostly outside of my control so there is no point working on it.

Environment - 6. I love our home, I've lived here for 12 years and have good neighbours. It needs a few things doing to it, but once again we are back to putting it off for lack of money. Over the next few years, we'll need to decide what we want to do about secondary schools which may involve moving. I'm not saying we will - but most of the children's schoolmates live within the catchment of a different secondary school to us. But I'm well aware things can change in the 4 years before we have to decide what to do. And I would just like the house to be less cluttered and tidier, we're overrun with toys.

Money - 4. For me, this is the key area. I've managed to spin my redundancy money out from 2009 but it's fast running out. I'm good with money so I try to budget but I know our outgoings are bigger than our income. I have everything compared to down to the cheapest going - it's not that we are excessively spending, it's just that it all adds up. I know that we cannot live on my husband's salary alone and the money has given us a breathing space until now. We still have a bit but I have one eye on it and watching my balance drop alarmingly is terrifying, for me anyway. Apart from the mortgage, I have no major debts but that could easily change if I don't start earning more money. I don't ask for much - I don't want to be a millionaire, but I feel much more comfortable when I don't have to think about every single purchase I make, which is what I'm having to do now. I'd like us to be able to go on holiday yearly, but I can't see that happening next year at the moment. And as you can see from the other scores, it's impacting on  Environment, Career (which are interchangeable really - to resolve the money issue, I need to do more work), and Fun & Recreation.

It's obvious that there's lots of things I'd like to improve but they are all in balance and I'm reasonably happy with them, but the money situation is impacting some of them and that area is what I need to focus on first and foremost to see the biggest improvements in in the short to medium term, in conjunction with developing my career and business.

So, now it's your turn. If you haven't done already, then complete your Wheel of Life, write what you've learned from the exercise, include the badge so others can find the rest of the posts in the Life Circle, publish your post then link it up below so others can have a read and offer their support. I'm hoping the Linky will stay open as long as possible so please feel free to come back to join in at any time. Don't feel obliged to leave a comment after linking up but obviously, I would welcome feedback from the rest of the Life Circle. (By the way, where it says your name, feel free to use your blog title rather than your actual name!)

If you are joining in with Life Circle, please do read some of the other posts if you can. It doesn't have to be all of them - 2 or 3 will do - but you might want to visit more for this week, in order to introduce yourself to other people joining in with the Life Circle and to get to know them. Life Circle isn't about getting traffic, it's about mutual support, so please try not to just visit the bloggers linking up first. I will endeavour to read as many posts and comment on them as possible but I may be restricted for time. The badge code, by the way, is here, but I'm hoping to place it on a page on this blog soon.

My Fitness Story... - Penny

My guest post contributor today is Penny, who describes herself as "writer, blogger, vlogger, mother, wife and arts practitioner in residence at AlexanderResidence. My background is in teaching drama and film. My blog is a creative filing cabinet to reflect on the ups and downs of life with small children, and where life permits, life beyond them." Penny promised to write me her story. It's not a tale of a huge loss, but it's familiar to many - the story of an amount of weight that seems to creep back again and again. Here, she tells how she tackled and finally got to trips with it, thanks to something that has been creating a bit of a stir in the blogging world for a few months, the Slimpod. 

Enough of me, here's Penny's post which she has chosen to call:

Review: Wii Zumba­® Fitness

If you've been near a gym or a sports centre in the last two years, you can't fail to have heard of Zumba. If you don't know what it is, it's a fitness class based on the Latin American dances of salsa, merenge, cumbia and so on.

When I rejoined the gym towards the end of last year, I discovered that Zumba classes were almost taking over the old favourites of Body Pump, Body Combat and Body Attack. Having heard various good reports from friends, I decided to give it a go.

Halfway along the road

I was the fat girl at school. Actually, that's not fair as I suspect I was merely overweight, but sadly, I saw myself as fat. The first time I dealt with my weight, I was away at University. I lost weight but I took it way too far. At one stage, I was 8st7 - and I'm 5 ft 8  tall. I did it by eating very little, but also by doing running (which I hate). And when I started eating normally again, I put weight back on.

I think I struggled with my weight after that point until 2002. I had been various different sizes but at that point, I felt bigger than I had done in a long time and even my fat clothes were getting tight. Something clicked in my head, I ate carefully, neither too little nor too much, and exercised regularly. I really got into doing classes and got down to a size 12 from roughly a size 18. Don't ask me how much I lost as I don’t generally weigh myself but I reckon on 3-4 stone. I weighed myself once when I was a size 12 and was 10st 4.

After that, I maintained for 2 years - and then I got pregnant. I exercised regularly during Monkey's pregnancy - I was even at class 5 days overdue! Once he was born, I knew things would change and they did. I did go back after a few months but I got pregnant again quickly. I struggled much more this time so had to stop.

Since Missy Woo landed, I have fallen off so many wagons that I have lost count. I don't think I was actually all that big after she was born, but the weight never came off - if anything, it has piled. I tried several times to get going again and I've either been thwarted by childcare or injury. I kept getting muscle injuries in my back, neck or shoulder - seemingly caused by having two pregnancies close together. Every time something happened, I would be advised to rest for a couple of weeks and that would turn into 4 or 8 or even 12 before I started again.

I hated it, and hated myself. Last year was the worst. We went away early in the year and I avoided having my photo taken where possible. I also have pictures of me at a family wedding last July and I think I look hideous. There is no picture of me without a small child in front of me for protection. I wore a last minute desperation purchase dress that I could get it on but the fit was appalling.

I started my weight loss journey this time in February 2010. Again, something in my head just clicked and I know I can do it. It is still hard - trying to fit it all around children , feeding them etc. It's taking longer - I know I was not quite as big was I was in 2002, I'm 6 months in and I'm still not where I'd like to be - but then my life is very different to how it was back then. I view slip ups very differently now  - I just get straight back on track whereas before one slip up could turn into ten very easily.

The other day, I was getting a bit fed up because I am not yet a size 12, so I took a photo of myself. I've compared it to the "before" pictures – from the holiday and the wedding - and I think there is a difference. I am a size 14 now but an unfortunate side effect of two pregnancies for me seems to be that someone thinks I should have Dolly Parton sized proportions in the chest department. They don't seem to be shrinking as fast as the rest of me so I may never get to wear my lovely size 12 tops again. *sob*

Being the self-critical sort that I am, I have cringingly shown these pictures to a few people for unbiased opinions and the reaction has mostly been "Wow!" which I'm taking to be a good sign. I'm putting them here as a record of my progress, and to remind me to keep going at weaker moments. Looking at the pictures, I think "not bad" but also that I have a way to go. There might have been a bit of stomach sucking going on and dark tops do hide a multitude of sins. I have seen other pictures of me from only a few months back and I think I look huge, but then I am never going to be a stick thin lollipop.

January 2009

July 2009

August 2010

So here I am. Halfway along the road, maybe a little bit more, who knows? I don't want to go back to how I was last year so I am proud of how far I've come. I am not about to start to think that I've done the job, and I have got to keep going. I am determined to be healthy and happy, both on the outside and from within. And yes, I do still eat cake, just not every day. Life is too short not to have the occasional treat. It keeps you sane, and I find that complete denial just does not work for me.

Onwards and upwards, huh? 

Back on the wagon

Since February, I've been trying to lose weight and have been fairly successful so far. My strategy is twofold - I track my food on FoodFocus and keep it under enough to aim for about 1lb loss per week, and exercise using  EA Sports Active on the Wii.

Of late, the latter has been more successful than the former. I've now completed the 30 day challenge 3 times - once on the medium setting and twice on the hard setting and I've just started another. However, being away so much in the last month, the food side of things has definitely slid. Now, generally, I've been carefulish about what I'm eating but I know if I don't start being more contained, I will slide back into not caring and then put it back on. If I do what I perceive to be over-eating, I tend to avoid logging my food. And that's bad too. When I was away at the NCT conference last week, I got photographed several times and I realised that I still have a way to go, I still look larger than I want to even though my clothes are looser. The fact is, they aren't quite as loose as they were. This has got to stop. All my mad weekends are over now, so there is no longer anything that allows me to procrastinate any further.

So, I started again this week. As it turned out, some of my days have not been that good eating wise - partly due to bad planning on my part and being out at things over mealtimes. However, I have forced myself to log as much as I can. And really, you know, I've been pleasantly surprised. I've only gone over my allowance on one day by maybe 100 calories. And even today, where I was at a kids party at lunchtime, I am under and still room for perhaps a little treat later.

Maybe the logging of food is restraining me. Maybe trying to keep myself in blissful ignorance means I give myself permission to overeat so really, the answer IS to log everything and build it in. It is too early to see results, but I'm feeling better about it already.

I will get where I want to be - and I have a very clear image of what that is, and it doesn't involve me being stick thin - because this is the one thing I am doing, just for me. Me, and no-one else. This wagon is made for one, and right now, it feels very good to be on it.